NEWS RELEASE

AMERICAN ACADEMY OF ARTS AND LETTERS
ANNOUNCES 2005 ARCHITECTURE AWARD WINNERS

Shigeru Ban Wins the Brunner Prize
Gisue Hariri and Mojgan Hariri, Toshiko Mori, and Massimo and Lella Vignelli
Selected to Receive Academy Awards in Architecture

New York, April 5, 2005 -- The American Academy of Arts and Letters announced today the winners of its four awards in architecture for 2005. Candidates for the awards are nominated by Academy members, and the winners were selected by jury members Henry N. Cobb, Peter Eisenman, James Ingo Freed, Michael Graves, Charles Gwathmey, Ada Louise Huxtable, Richard Meier (jury chairman), and Cesar Pelli. The prizes will be given at the Academy's annual award and induction ceremony in May.

Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize in Architecture

Shigeru Ban has won the $5000 Brunner Memorial Prize, which is given ''to an architect of any nationality who has made a significant contribution to architecture as an art.'' Ban was born in Tokyo in 1957 and received his architecture degree from Cooper Union. He opened his Tokyo-based office in 1985, and quickly drew acclaim for his graceful, serene structures often made of modest materials such as cardboard, paper tubes, and bamboo. Following the massive earthquake in Kobe, Japan, in 1995, Ban became the first person in the world to construct buildings out of recycled papers. His ''Paper Church'' and ''Paper Log Houses'' provided temporary meeting areas and shelters for the victims, and were later re-constructed for earthquake sites in Turkey and India. From 1995 to 1999, Ban worked for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to create ''Paper Tube Shelters'' for Rwandan refugees. He received the 2005 Jefferson Medal in Architecture from the University of Virginia for these humanitarian efforts and for ''his innovative use of building materials.''

Shigeru Ban has become well known to residents of New York City. He created a ''Paper Arch'' for the Museum of Modern Art's Sculpture Garden in 2000, and was a member of the THINK group of architects selected in February 2003 as one of the two finalist teams for the design of the World Trade Center site. For the ''Nomadic Museum'' on Pier 54 off the Hudson River, home to the Ashes and Snow exhibition of photographs by Gregory Colbert, Ban has stacked 148 cargo containers to create a striking urban image. The structure, with its roof and columns of paper tubes, and handmade curtain made of one million pressed tea bags, has received accolades for its cathedral-like scale and contemplative atmosphere. Among his many honors, Shigeru Ban was named Time Magazine Innovator of the Year, in 2001, and received the 2002 World Architecture Best House of the Year Award for ''Naked House,'' and the 2004 Grand Medal of the French Academy of Architecture.

Academy Awards in Architecture

Two of the three Academy Awards in Architecture of $7500 are given to American architects whose work is characterized by a strong personal direction. The winners for 2005 are Gisue Hariri and Mojgan Hariri, and Toshiko Mori. Both firms are located in New York City.

Gisue Hariri and Mojgan Hariri are Cornell educated, Iranian-born sisters and partners in Hariri & Hariri-Architecture, established in 1986. Their practice is dedicated to creating projects which integrate digital technology, inventive materials, and a social agenda. Architecture critic Paul Goldberger has praised their ability to . . . ''produce minimalism with a certain majesty.'' Many of their works are research-oriented prototypes exploring technological, cultural and social issues within the dynamic, speed oriented, globally connected contemporary culture, among them the Museum of the 21st Century (2003-07), Epicenter Retail Prototype (2001), Loft of the Future (1999-2000), Cine Experimental Film Center (1999), and The Digital House (1997-98). Hariri & Hariri's built projects include Rockland Center for the Arts, West Nyack (2000-07), Juan Valdez Flagship Store, New York City, (2004), Tui Pranich Miami Showroom (2001), Unified Field Offices, New York City (2001), and JSM Music Studios, New York City (1991). They have designed and completed numerous residential projects including apartments and lofts in New York City, and homes located in The Hague, Holland; Ontario, Canada; East Hampton, NY; Alison Island, Miami, FL; Belmont, CA; Pound Ridge, NY; Greenwich, CT; and New Canaan, CT. They are finalists for the master plan competition, St. Mark's Coptic Canadian Village in Toronto.

Toshiko Mori established her own firm in 1981 after working with Edward Larrabee Barnes and Tod Williams & Associates. The scope of her work is far-reaching, from exhibition design, houses in Florida, Maine, New York City and Israel, museum projects in Maine, and institutional projects in New York, Maine, and Georgia. Most recently, she was a finalist in the competition to design the forthcoming Museum of Contemporary Arts and Design in New York City, and she won the competition to design the new Visitors' Center for Frank Lloyd Wright's Darwin D. Martin House in Buffalo, New York.

Toshiko Mori's specific area of interest is in materials and fabrication methods for architecture and she is continually exploring new and traditional materials and techniques to achieve the integration of architecture with light and landscape. Jury member Charles Gwathmey calls Mori . . . ''a poetic architect, whose work possesses a subtle and refined sensibility in its content, materiality and detailing.'' Ms. Mori has won Cooper Union's inaugural John Hedjuk Award (2003), a New York City AIA Design Award for Cohen House (2000), two Interior Design magazine awards (1999), and three New York City AIA Interior Architecture Design Awards (1998, 1989, 1988). Toshiko Mori is the Robert P. Hubbard Professor in the Practice of Architecture at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design and currently serves as chair of the department.

Massimo Vignelli and Lella Vignelli will receive the third Academy Award in Architecture of $7500, which goes to American designers who explore ideas in architecture through any medium of expression. The Vignelli Office of Design and Architecture was established in Milan in 1960. The designers moved to New York City to open Vignelli Associates in 1971. The firm has set the standard for what they term ''total design'' by providing clients such as Knoll, American Airlines, Xerox, Steuben, Artemide, and Bloomingdales with graphic design, corporate identity programs, publications, environmental graphics, exhibitions, interiors, furniture and consumer products. Among their most recognized projects is the 1966 New York City subway map, where a simple grid and color-coded bars achieved a bold, easily readable graphic statement.

The work of Vignelli Associates has been published and exhibited throughout the world and is in the permanent collections of several museums; notably, the Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Brooklyn Museum, Cooper-Hewitt Museum, Musee des Arts Decoratifs in Montreal; and Die Neue Sammlung in Munich. Among Massimo and Lella Vignelli's many awards are Gran Premio Triennale di Milano (1964), Compasso d'Oro, awarded by the Italian Association for Industrial Design (ADI), 1964 and 1998; Industrial Arts Medal of the AIA (1973), Art Directors Club Hall of Fame (1982), American Insitute of Graphic Artists Gold Medal (1983) ,the first Presidential Design Award (1985), Interior Design Hall of Fame (1988), National Arts Club Gold Medal for Design (1991), and the Brooklyn Museum Design Award for Lifetime Achievement (1995).

Exhibition

The work of award winners Shigeru Ban, Hariri & Hariri, Toshiko Mori, and Massimo and Lella Vignelli will be included in the upcoming Exhibition of Work by Newly Elected Members and Recipients of Honors and Awards, from May 19 through June 19, 2005, at the Academy's galleries located on Audubon Terrace, Broadway between 155 and 156 Street. Gallery hours are Thursday through Sunday, 1 to 4 p.m., and admission is free. The galleries will be closed for Memorial Day on Sunday, May 29, 2005.