Praemium Imperiale Honors American Architects Williams & Tsien
The Praemium Imperiale, one of the world’s two highest honors for design, is awarded this year to architects Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, who maintain a distinguished international practice in New York. Sponsored by the Japan Art Association, the prize was bestowed in Tokyo on October 16. Unlike the comparable Pritzker Prize for architecture, which went this year to Arata Isozaki of Japan (officeinsight, March 18), the Praemium Imperiale is bestowed annually on creative figures in five areas of the arts: painting, sculpture, architecture, music and theater/film. It was established in 1988 to be an arts equivalent to the Nobel prizes in the sciences and literature. Williams and Tsien are one of the many married couples who have long figured prominently in the world of design. (Think 20th-century designers Charles.and Ray Eames, architect-planners Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, and currently prominent architects Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio.) This year’s …
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