The architect Denise Scott Brown has been announced as the recipient of the 2018 Soane Medal and Soane Annual Lecturer. Awarded by Sir John Soane’s Museum in London, the yearly medal recognizes influential architects that have significantly contributed to the field through their built work, education, history, and theory. Last year, Rafael Moneo received the inaugural medal and was the first to present the Soane Annual Lecture.
The Sir John Soane's Museum organizes a conference that recognizes architects, writers or artists who have been recognized in the field of architecture to explain the public in the influence of architecture in our environment. She will be recognized during an evening event at London's National Gallery on October 17, which will include a presentation of her hour-long lecture that was pre-recorded in her home in Philadelphia, accompanied by rarely seen photographs.
The Sir John Soane's Museum organizes a conference that recognizes architects, writers or artists who have been recognized in the field of architecture to explain the public in the influence of architecture in our environment. She will be recognized during an evening event at London's National Gallery on October 17, which will include a presentation of her hour-long lecture that was pre-recorded in her home in Philadelphia, accompanied by rarely seen photographs.
A lecture pre-recorded by Denise Scott Brown at her home in Philadelphia, with a live response by Sir David Chipperfield.
About Denise Scott Brown
Denise Scott Brown’s ideas and work as architect, planner, urbanist, theorist, writer and educator have had a global influence, transforming thinking about architecture and cities.
She was born in what was then Northern Rhodesia in 1931. She attended the University of Witwatersrand, South Africa, and the Architectural Association, London, before receiving a master’s degree in architecture and city planning from the University of Pennsylvania, beginning a long association with the university and the city of Philadelphia, where she now lives.
As an academic and educator, Scott Brown has led countless research projects, notably Learning from Las Vegas, which became a seminal book (1972; revised edition 1977, with Robert Venturi and Steven Izenour). Both the ideas and the techniques employed in this and other studies have proved highly influential on the subsequent direction of architectural research. Scott Brown’s other books include The View from the Campidoglio (1984 with Robert Venturi), Architecture as Signs and Systems for a Mannerist Time (2004 with Robert Venturi) and Having Words (2009).
As principal of Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates, Scott Brown has been responsible for numerous urban plans and masterplans, and been instrumental in the design of buildings such as the Département de la Haute-Garonne provincial capitol building in Toulouse, France (1999); the Mielparque resort in Kirifuri National Park, Japan (1997); and the Sainsbury Wing of the National Gallery, London (1991), recently awarded Grade 1 listing.
