AIA Gold Medalist Predock to lecture at Texas A&M April 16

AIA Gold Medalist Antoine Predock, one of the world’s premier architects, will discuss his work 5:45 p.m. Monday, April 16, 2018 in Langford C 105 on the Texas A&M campus.

Predock’s appearance is part of a lecture series hosted by the university’s Department of Architecture.

“Arguably, more than any American architect of any time, Antoine Predock has asserted a personal and place-inspired vision of architecture with such passion and conviction that his buildings have been universally embraced,” said Thomas S. Howorth, chairman of an American Institute of Architects’ committee that presented Predock in 2006 with the AIA’s [Gold Medal] (http://www.predock.com/AIAGoldMedal/aiagoldmetal.html) . The coveted prize honors an individual whose body of work has had a lasting influence on the theory and practice of architecture.

Predock’s building designs range in scale from the famed [Turtle Creek House] (http://www.predock.com/TurtleCreek/turtle.html) , built in 1993 for bird enthusiasts on a prehistoric trail in Texas, to Petco Park, a $285 million [ballpark] (http://www.predock.com/Padres/Padres.html) for the San Diego Padres. His design reinvents the concept of a stadium with numerous features not ordinarily found in sports complexes such as exterior surfaces that mirror the city’s physical features and a public park.

His celebrated designs also include numerous civic, educational and performing arts structures.

“Predock’s buildings grow out of their unique landscapes, creating, at the same time, symbols that are fearlessly expressive and sincere, simultaneously complex and guileless,” said Howorth.

The AIA [medal] (https://www.aia.org/awards/7046-gold-medal) lifted Predock’s work alongside his field’s most accomplished practitioners, including Thomas Jefferson, Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, Louis Khan, and I.M. Pei.

The lengthy list of prestigious awards Predock has earned, and the designs that merited them, includes: the American Architecture Award, [Pima Community College Learning Center] (http://www.predock.com/GreenValley/GV.html) , Green Valley, Ariz.; GSA Design Award, [U. S. Federal Courthouse] (http://www.predock.com/ElPaso/el%20paso.html) , El Paso, Texas; the Tucker Architectural Awards, [Shadow House] (http://www.predock.com/ShadowHouse/shadow%20house.html) , Santa Fe, N.M.; the AIA Western Mountain Region Honor Award, [Robert Hoag Rawlings Public Library] (http://www.predock.com/RobertHoag/RobertHoag.html) , Pueblo, Colo., and the [Spencer Theater for the Performing Arts] (http://www.predock.com/Spencer/spencer.html) , Alto, N.M.

Born in 1936 in Lebanon, Missouri, he became entranced with the landscape of the American Southwest as a design student at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.

“New Mexico has formed my experience in an all-pervasive sense,” he said. “I don't think of it as a region. I think of it as a force that has entered my system, a force that is composed of many things.”

Design lessons learned in the Southwest apply anywhere in the world, he said. “My regionalism is portable.”

Predock, who earned a Bachelor of Architecture at Columbia University in 1962, founded a firm, Albuquerque-based Antoine Predock Architect, in 1967. The firm also maintains studios in Los Angeles and Taiwan.

Richard Nira
rnira@arch.tamu.edu