Recognized as one of the “Chicago Seven” architects who challenged modernist orthodoxy in the 1970s and 1980s, Thomas H. Beeby has been selected as the 11th recipient of the Richard H. Driehaus Prize from the University of Notre Dame. The prestigious award honors Beeby’s lifetime contribution to classical and traditional architecture, as he was one of the leading figures who helped bring traditional architecture and urban design back into the public consciousness. For over 40 years, Beeby – the current Chairman Emeritus of HBRA Architects – has spearheaded a wide spectrum of work that has embodied a positive cultural, environmental and artistic impact within the modern world.
“Tom Beeby has had a transformational role in modern architecture’s return to classical and traditional design principles,” says Michael Lykoudis, Dean of the University of Notre Dame School of Architecture. “Beeby’s recent design of the Tuscaloosa courthouse is a great example of how the rigor and richness of classicism can be used to achieve a sense of place and purpose that will be relevant well into the future.”
Read the Jury’s Citation after the break…
The Jury Citation, written by Dr. D. Porphyrios, stated: “Tom Beeby has been named the 2013 Driehaus Laureate for his lifelong contribution to the human city and classical tradition. Tom Beeby has been a prolific architect and a much loved teacher. As Dean of the Yale School of Architecture, between 1985 to 1991, Tom Beeby welcomed the study of history, propriety, character and style in architecture. Indeed, Beeby’s greatest contribution in the world of architecture has been his determination to work and think within the modernist and classical traditions at the same time. As such, he embarked on the journey of reconciling classical humanism with the industrial aesthetic of modernism. In awarding the Driehaus Prize to Tom Beeby, the jury celebrates the work of a dedicated architect and teacher for his lifelong commitment to the search for a common ground between the classical and the modern; the two most powerful architectural ideas of our century.”
Established in 2003 through the University of Notre Dame School of Architecture, the Richard H. Driehaus Prize represents the most significant recognition for classicism in the contemporary built environment. Recipients receive $200,000 and a bronze miniature of the Choregic Monument of Lysikrates. Beeby will be honored during a March 23 ceremony in Chicago.
Past winners include Michael Graves, Léon Krier, Robert A.M. Stern, and more.
The 2013 Jury:
- Adele Chatfield-Taylor (President of the American Academy in Rome)
- Robert Davis (Developer and Founder of Seaside, Florida)
- Paul Goldberger (Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic and writer for Vanity Fair)
- Léon Krier (Inaugural Driehaus Prize Laureate)
- Demetri Porphyrios (2004 Driehaus Prize Laureate and Principal, Porphyrios Associates, London)
- Witold Rybczynski (Meyerson Professor Emeritus of Urbanism at the University of Pennsylvania and former architecture critic for Slate)
