NEWS RELEASE

AMERICAN ACADEMY OF ARTS AND LETTERS
ANNOUNCES 2006 ARCHITECTURE AWARD WINNERS

New York, April 27, 2006 -- The American Academy of Arts and Letters announced today the winners of its four awards in architecture for 2006. Candidates for the awards are nominated by Academy members, and the winners were selected by jury members Henry N. Cobb, Peter Eisenman, Michael Graves, Steven Holl, Ada Louise Huxtable, Richard Meier (jury chairman), Cesar Pelli, and James Stewart Polshek. The prizes will be given at the Academy's annual award and induction ceremony in May.

Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize

Jean Nouvel 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.'' Nouvel was born in Fumel, France in 1945 and received his architecture degree from the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. He established Ateliers Jean Nouvel in 1994 and has drawn international attention for his projects throughout the world. He won a 1981 competition for a series of ''great projects'' requested by Francois Mitterrand, the President of France.

In 1991 Nouvel became the vice-president of the Institut Francais d'Architecure, and since 1993 has been an Honorary Fellow of the American Institute of Architects. He has received the Equerre d'Argent for both his Institut de Monde Arabe (1987) in Paris, and the Lyon Opera House (1993), the medal of Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Arts et Lettres (1983), the silver medal of the Academie d'Architecture (1983), the Grand Prix d'Architecture (1987) and Special Mention for the Aga Khan Prize (1987).

Academy Awards in Architecture

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 2006 are Marwan Al-Sayed, Yung Ho Chang, and Jeanne Gang.

Marwan Al-Sayed studied Architecture and Art History at Vassar College before completing a Masters in Architecture at Columbia University, New York. In 1997 he started his own firm after practicing in New York for twelve years. The Architectural League of New York presented him an award in 1995 for a Fifth Avenue penthouse renovation, and his work was featured in the Smithsonian/Cooper Hewitt Museum Design Culture Now 2000 exhibition.

Yung Ho Chang completed his Masters in Architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1984. In 1993 he returned to China, where he was born, and started China's first private architectural firm, Atelier FCJZ. He has received many awards, including the 2000 UNESCO Prize for Promotion of the Arts. In 1999 he founded the Graduate Center of Architecture at Peking University, which he still heads today. In 2002 and 2003, he held the Kenzo Tange Chair at Harvard Graduate School of Design, and since 2005 he has been Professor and Head of the Architecture department at MIT.

Jeanne Gang studied Architecture at University of Illinois, Urbana/Champaign, before receiving her Masters in Architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design. She worked with OMA/Rem Koolhaas in Rotterdam and Booth/Hansen Associates before founding Studio Gang Architects in 1997. Her Marble Curtain project for the Masonry Variations Exhibition in Washington DC received the Prism Award and her work has been featured in the International Venice Biennale. She was Visiting Professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Design in 2004 and held the Louis Kahn Visiting Professor Chair at the Yale College of Architecture in 2005. Since 1998 she has been Adjunct Associate Professor at the Illinois Institute of Technology College of Architecture.