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Frank Gehry is first architect to receive Harvard Arts Medal
United States Architecture News - Feb 08, 2016 - 13:26 4982 views
Architect Frank Gehry is the 23rd recipient of the Harvard Arts Medal, which honors a distinguished Harvard or Radcliffe graduate or faculty member who has achieved excellence in the arts and through them has made a contribution to education or the public good. image courtesy of Harvard Gazette.
Award-winning architect Frank Gehry GSD '57 ArD '00 is the recipient of the 2016 Harvard Arts Medal, which will be awarded by Harvard University President Drew Gilpin Faust at a ceremony on Thursday, April 28, 2016 at 4 pm at Farkas Hall, 10-12 Holyoke St., Cambridge. The ceremony, presented by the Office for the Arts at Harvard and the Board of Overseers of Harvard College, will include a discussion with Gehry moderated by actor John Lithgow ’67 ArD ‘05, Master of the Arts at Harvard and host of the event. This is the official opening event for Arts First, Harvard University’s annual festival showcasing student creativity in the arts, April 28-May 1.
“Frank Gehry is a true original, a visionary artist whose work has revolutionized architecture and place-making in the 21st century,” said John Lithgow. “He’s the first architect to receive the Arts Medal, and Harvard looks forward to celebrating his extraordinary achievements and risk-taking spirit.”
The Harvard Arts Medal honors a distinguished Harvard or Radcliffe graduate or faculty member who has achieved excellence in the arts and has made a contribution through the arts to education or the public good. Previous Medal recipients include former ballet dancer and now arts leader Damian Woetzel MPA ’07; photographer Susan Meiselas EdM ’71; visual artist and essayist Catherine Lord ‘70; saxophonist/composers Joshua Redman ’91 and Fred Ho ’79; composers John Harbison ’60 and John Adams ’69 MA ’72; playwright Christopher Durang ’71; poets John Ashbery ’49 and Maxine Kumin ’41; cellist Yo-Yo Ma ’76; film director Mira Nair ’79; conductor and founder of Les Arts Florissants William Christie ’66; stage director Peter Sellars ’80; National Theatre of the Deaf founder David Hays ’52; authors John Updike ’54 and Margaret Atwood AM ’62 LittD ‘04; songwriter/musicians Bonnie Raitt ’72 and Pete Seeger ’40; and actors Jack Lemmon ’47, Tommy Lee Jones ’69 and Matt Damon ‘92.
One of the most acclaimed architects of the 20th century and known for his use of bold, postmodern shapes and unusual fabrications, Frank Gehry was raised in Toronto, Canada, and moved with his family to Los Angeles in 1947. He received his Bachelor of Architecture degree from the University of Southern California in 1954, and studied City Planning at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Since establishing his practice in Los Angeles in 1962—and then forming his partnership, Gehry Partners, LLP, in 2001—Gehry has built an architectural career that has spanned over five decades and produced public and private buildings in America, Europe and Asia. He has served as a professor of architecture at Columbia University, Yale University and the University of Southern California, and also served as a board member at USC's School of Architecture.
> via www.gsd.harvard.edu