Steven Holl receives Praemium Imperiale International Arts medal for architecture

Acclaimed architect Steven Holl received the Praemium Imperiale International Arts Award medal for architecture in a ceremony in Tokyo today. Japan's Prince Hitachi, honorary patron of the Japan Art Association, formally presented the awards to each of the 2014 laureates.

Created in 1988, the prestigious Praemium Imperiale recognizes lifetime achievement in the arts in categories that aren't covered by the Nobel Prize. The Award was created to also commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Japan Art Assocation and honor the late Prince Takamatsu, who served as honorary patron for 58 years.

Holl was announced as this year's architecture laureate this past July.

The 2014 laureates also include: South African playwright Athol Fugard, Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, French painter Martial Raysse, and Italian sculptor Giuseppe Penone. The 2014 Grant for Young Artists (5 million yen, or US$50,000) was given to the Zinsou Foundation in Benin, West Africa. 

Each recipient was presented with a specially designed gold medal, a testimonial letter from Prince Hitachi, and a cash prize of 15 milion yen (approx. US$150,000).

Further details below.

"Steven Holl, who won the 2012 AIA Gold Medal, the 2010 RIBA Jencks Award and the 2009 BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award, works all over the world. The New York City portfolio of his firm, Steven Holl Architects, includes Columbia University’s Campbell Sports Center, the Storefront for Art and Architecture, the newest Editions de Parfums Frederic Malle store, Pratt Institute’s Higgins Hall (new wing), New York University’s Department of Philosophy (interior) and the Hunters Point Community Library in Long Island City (in development)."

"Notable projects elsewhere in the US include the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art Bloch Building Addition (Kansas City, MO), named “#1 Architectural Marvel of 2007” by Time Magazine, and the Chapel of St Ignatius at Seattle University (Seattle, WA). Current American commissions include the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Expansion (Washington, DC) and new facilities for the Museum of Fine Arts Houston (Houston, TX), the Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University (Richmond, VA), and the Visual Arts Building at the University of Iowa (Iowa City, IA). 

Among Mr. Holl’s commissions abroad are the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art in Helsinki (Finland) and the Vanke Center in Shenzhen (China). Projects are in development in China, Colombia, Denmark and the United Kingdom."

"The 2014 winners join a group of 129 artists comprising many of the greatest cultural visionaries of the 20th and 21st centuries. They include Ingmar Bergman, Leonard Bernstein, Peter Brook, Anthony Caro, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Norman Foster, Frank Gehry, Jean-Luc Godard, David Hockney, Willem de Kooning, Akira Kurosawa, Renzo Piano, Robert Rauschenberg, Mstislav Rostropovich and Ravi Shankar.

The international advisory panel includes William Luers, a former president of the United Nations Association of America and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and a retired American ambassador and diplomat; Lamberto Dini, a former Italian prime minister; Christopher Patten, Chancellor of the University of Oxford and former Chairman of the BBC Trust; Klaus-Dieter Lehmann, President of Germany’s Goethe-Institut; former French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin; and Yasuhiro Nakasone, a former Prime Minister of Japan.

Honorary advisors are Jacques Chirac, the former President of France; philanthropist David Rockefeller, the former CEO of Chase Manhattan Bank; David Rockefeller, Jr., a philanthropist and environmentalist; former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt; Richard von Weizsäcker, former President of the Federal Republic of Germany; and François Pinault, founder of Kering, the French retail conglomerate."