The National Building Museum has awarded the 15th Vincent Scully Prize to Joshua David and Robert Hammond, the founders of the High Line in New York. In 1999 the pair formed the non-profit organisation Friends of the High Line; this award recognizing their efforts in transforming the abandoned structure is the latest accolade for the internationally celebrated project. David and Hammond were also awarded the Jane Jacobs Medal in 2010.
Read more about the award and the High Line after the break.
As detailed by the National Building Museum's press release, "the High Line has inspired new thinking about the potential to repurpose unused industrial infrastructure into active public space." It has also sparked the redevelopment of Manhattan's West Side, with more than $2 Billion of investments in the neighborhood since the first part of the park opened in 2009.
Over the past few years, the High Line has become an international force in urban design, inspiring numerous projects hoping to emulate the social and economic success which have been seen in the original. Indeed, every few months it seems a new city is releasing details of plans for 'their own version of the High Line'.
Last year, the Vincent Scully prize was awarded to Paul Goldberger for “his lifetime work of encouraging thoughtful discourse and debate about the importance of design”.
Past recipients, listed with their affiliation at the time of their selection:
- Vincent Scully, sterling professor emeritus of the History of Art at Yale University
- Jane Jacobs, urbanist and author of The Nature of Economies
- Andrés Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, founders of Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co
- Robert Venturi, FAIA and Denise Scott Brown, RIBA
- His Highness the Aga Khan
- His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales
- Phyllis Lambert, architect, educator, philanthropist, and activist
- Witold Rybczynski, architectural critic, author and essayist
- Richard Moe, president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation
- Robert A.M. Stern, dean of the Yale School of Architecture
- Christopher Alexander, architect and author
- Adele Chatfield-Taylor, president of the American Academy in Rome
- William K. Reilly, former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency
- Paul Goldberger, architecture critic and contributing editor, Vanity Fair
