by Cara Battaglini
AIA Media Relations Specialist

The AIA Board of Directors voted on December 8 to award the 2006 AIA Gold Medal to Antoine Predock, FAIA, master of the American Southwest vernacular.

The AIA Gold Medal, awarded annually, is the highest honor the AIA confers on an architect. The Gold Medal honors an individual whose significant body of work has had a lasting influence on the theory and practice of architecture. The award will be presented at the American Architectural Foundation Accent on Architecture Gala, February 10, 2006, at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C.

“I am so deeply honored. With some new competitions I feel things are breaking loose, and my career is jumpstarting in new ways,” said Predock when notified by AIA President Douglas L Steidl, FAIA, MRAIC, that he had been selected for the award. Predock said he was particularly honored that the nomination came from the AIA Committee on Design. “This is an absolutely fantastic catalyst. I’ll put the pedal to the metal now. This is the ultimate.”

“Personal and place-inspired vision”
In nominating Predock for the award, Thomas S. Howorth, FAIA, chair of the AIA Committee on Design Gold Medal Committee explained: “Arguably, more than any American architect of any time, Antoine Predock has asserted a personal and place-inspired vision of architecture with such passion and conviction that his buildings have been universally embraced. Antoine Predock designs buildings that grow out of their unique landscapes, creating, at the same time, symbols that are fearlessly expressive and sincere, simultaneously complex and guileless.”

Predock’s design springs from his geographic surroundings, the American West, an open desert full of history and expansive space. The scale of his work ranges from the famed Turtle Creek house, built in 1993 for bird enthusiasts along a prehistoric trail in Texas, to a $285 million ballpark for the San Diego Padres that reinvents the concept of a stadium as a “garden” rather than a sports complex. His influence also reaches international sites, namely the new National Palace Museum in Taiwan. Additionally, his masterful integration of contemporary work in historical context, a skill for which he is well-known, is apparent in his buildings at Stanford and Rice Universities.

Physical interaction with the land plays a vital role in his design process, and he is known for making the voices of his clients ring clearly throughout the entire project. It has been said that Predock’s work joins the “mind” of architecture with the “body,” and embeds both with a sense of spirituality that connects the land, the space, the client, and society together seamlessly.

Predock’s concentration of award-winning projects in the American West and throughout the U.S. testify to his unique ability to design highly contextual works. His list of national awards includes:

• American Architecture Award, Pima Community College Learning Center, Green Valley, Ariz. (2005)
• GSA Design Award, U. S. Federal Courthouse, El Paso (2004)
• Tucker Architectural Awards, Shadow House, Santa Fe (2004)
• AIA Western Mountain Region Honor Award, Robert Hoag Rawlings Public Library, Pueblo, Colo. (2004)
• USITT, Spencer Theater for the Performing Arts, Alto, N.Mex. (2004)
• AIA/New Mexico Honor Award, Shadow House, Santa Fe (2004).

A spiritual connection
Predock attended the University of New Mexico architecture school and graduated from Columbia University. Rather than trends or reactions, Predock’s approaches to design—listening to the land, building with environmental sensitivity, and embracing all facets of a site’s culture—have shaped his philosophy from the beginning of his career. His spiritual connection to his work is credited as the reason that he has been and continues to be a legendary American architect. He currently practices from his home base just off historic Route 66.

Predock becomes the 62nd AIA Gold Medalist, joining the ranks of such visionaries as Thomas Jefferson (1993), Frank Lloyd Wright (1949), Louis Sullivan (1944), LeCorbusier (1961), Louis Kahn (1971), I.M. Pei (1979), Cesar Pelli (1995), and last year’s recipient, Santiago Calatrava. In recognition of his legacy to architecture, Predock’s name will be chiseled into the granite Gold Medal Wall of Honor located in the lobby of the AIA headquarters in Washington, D.C.

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