Olympic Sculpture Park for the Seattle Art Museum

downloadable press release • right-click to download print-ready photo

The Dallas Architecture Forum has announced its 13th season of lectures opening with New York architects Marion WEISS and Michael MANFREDI on Wednesday, Oct. 15 at 7 p.m. at the Magnolia Theatre, 3699 McKinney Ave. in Uptown Dallas. Single tickets, available at the door only, are $20 for general admission and $5 for students with I.D. Dallas Architecture Forum members are admitted for free. The reception begins at 6 p.m. For more information, call 214-764-2406 or visit www.dallasarchitectureforum.org. Images are available upon request via Lisa Taylor at Taylor-Made Press, 214-943-1099 or lisatmp@swbell.net.

Marion WEISS + Michael MANFREDI
Architects, New York
Wednesday, 15 October 2008

Marion Weiss and Michael Manfredi are partners in the New York based firm Weiss/Manfredi, a practice committed to the dynamic integration of architecture, art, infrastructure, and landscape design. They received the 2004 Academy Award in Architecture, an award given annually by the American Academy of Arts and Letters acknowledging the unique vision of the firm. They were also named one of North America’s “Emerging Voices” by the Architectural League of New York and in 2007 their firm won the New York City AIA Gold Medal of Honor.

Their recent Olympic Sculpture Park for the Seattle Art Museum was a winner of an international competition and was recently recognized as Best in Category by the I.D. Magazine Environments Design Awards. The project won a Progressive Architecture Award, multiple AIA Awards, an ASLA Honor Award, the EDRA Places Award, and was the first North American project to be awarded Harvard University’s International Veronica Green Prize in Urban Design.

Current projects include the Barnard College Nexus,a multi-use arts center, and winner of an invited competition and a 2008 Progressive Architecture Award; the Brooklyn Botanic Garden Visitor Center, which will achieve LEED Gold certification; the University of Virginia’s new Arts Gateway Building, which includes a museum and outdoor sculpture
terrace; and the Krishna P. Singh Center Nanoscale Research Facility at the University of Pennsylvania. The firm’s built works include the competition winning Women’s Memorial and Education Center at Arlington National Cemetery, winner of a federal design award, and the Olympia Fields Park and Cultural Center in Illinois, winner of an international competition. Both projects won state and national AIA honor awards and ID Magazine Environments awards.
Weiss/Manfredi’s urban design projects include the NYC 2012 Olympics fl atwater and whitewater rowing venues, featured in both the Sao Paolo International Biennial and Van Alen’s Open exhibition.

Urban planning studies include the redesign of New York City’s Columbus Circle, commissioned by the Municipal Arts Society, development strategies for lower Manhattan areas affected by the events ofSeptember 11th commissioned by the LMDC and a design of the elevated pedestrian crossings in lower Manhattan, winner of the international “Bridging the Gaps” competition.

Publications featuring their work include Architecture, Metropolis, Architectural Record, Architectural
Review, A+T, Space, Landscape World, Topos, Detail, Domus, L’Arca, Costruire, C-3 Korea, GA Document, Praxis, Landscape Architecture, I.D. Magazine, Time, the Chicago Tribune, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times. Their work has also been presented in numerous books including The Sex of Architecture, Art Spaces, Living Systems, Architecture & Design, The Fractured Metropolis, Value in Art, and Design Culture Now.

They have taught at the University of Pennsylvania,Yale University, Cornell University, and Princeton University and have lectured at those institutions as well as at Harvard University, Rice University, CCAC San Francisco, the Architectural League, Essen, Germany’s Design Center, the Louvre Museum, and the Smithsonian Institution. Marion Weiss is the Graham Chair Professor of Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania where she has taught
since 1991. Michael Manfredi is a board member for the Van Alen Institute where he was the founding Chair and is also a board member of the Storefront for Art and Architecture.

Weiss/Manfredi’s work has been exhibited internationally including the recent “Groundswell” show at the Museum of Modern Art. Their work has also been exhibited at the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, the National Building Museum, Max Protetch Gallery, Harvard University, Yale University, University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University, the Van Alen
Institute, the Architectural League of New York, Storefront for Art and Architecture, The Essen, Germany Design Center, the Sao Paolo International Biennial, the European Landscape Biennial, and the Venice Architecture Biennale.

The new monograph Surface/Subsurface, published in January 2008, features their cross-disciplinary projects in architecture, landscape and urban design.

Web: weissmanfredi.com