Reiser + Umemoto to Receive Presidential Citation from Cooper Union

JESSE REISER AND NANAKO UMEMOTO OF REISER + UMEMOTO / RUR ARCHITECTURE PC TO RECEIVE PRESIDENTIAL CITATION FROM THE COOPER UNION AT 149TH COMMENCEMENT.
NEW YORK - On May 28th 2008, Jesse Reiser and his partner Nanako Umemoto will receive the Cooper Union Presidential Citation from President George Campbell for outstanding practical and theoretical contributions to the field of architecture.

Shenzhen Airport

Jesse Reiser and Nanako Umemoto graduated from the Cooper Union in 1981 and 1983 respectively and began their partnership in 1985. Their innovative design work, which embraced a range of scales from residential to regional, is widely recognized internationally.

Shenzhen Airport

Reiser + Umemoto gained considerable international attention last year when they were awarded first place honors during the international jury phase of the Shenzhen Airport Competition. Other competing firms included Lord Norman Foster, Foreign Office Architects, Kisho Kurokowa, and Massimiliano Fuksas.  Reiser + Umemoto’s cutting edge concrete shell design, a radical shift away from airport ‘Hi-Tech,’ ultimately proved too challenging to the local Chinese jury, but nevertheless confirmed Reiser + Umemoto’s status as leading practitioners in the field of architecture, thus contributing to the decision for their presidential citation. 

Shenzhen Airport

The firm has also recently won first prize in the International Competition for the design of the Alishan Tourist Infrastructure in Taiwan, People’s Republic of China, which is due to begin construction in the coming year. 

Shenzhen Airport

Currently, Reiser + Umemoto’s ‘Green Tower’ O-14 is under construction in Dubai. The building broke ground in February 2007 and sub-groundwork was completed in September 2007. The first four levels of lacelike concrete exoskeleton is now visible on the Dubai skyline, with the final 22 stories slated for completion in the spring of 2009.
In addition, Reiser + Umemoto are currently producing a prototype wall for the MoMA Home Delivery exhibition, scheduled to open in July 2008.

Shenzhen Airport

A comprehensive monograph of the firm’s architectural design work, Projects and their Consequences, is currently in production and is scheduled for publication by the Spanish publisher Actar in Spring 2009. Their book Atlas of Novel Tectonics was released by Princeton Architectural Press in March 2006 supported by grants from the New York State Council of the Arts as well as from the Graham Foundation.  The book which is now in its fourth printing has consistently been on the Amazon.com Bestseller List for the past two years, and was the recipient of the 2007 Gutenberg Prize from the Bundesamt fur Kultur in Bern.