Louis Kahn Memorial Award 2016
Bjarke Ingels has been announced as the winner of the Louis Kahn Memorial Award 2016. The award has been Philadelphia’s signature event honoring an individual who has made significant contributions to the field of architecture since 1983. It also raises funds to help support the Charter High School for Architecture + Design (CHAD), founded in 1999 by the Philadelphia Chapter of the American Institute of Architects.
Bjarke Ingels started BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group) in 2005 after co-founding PLOT Architects in 2001 and working at OMA in Rotterdam. Through a series of award-winning design projects and buildings, Bjarke has developed a reputation for designing buildings that are as programmatically and technically innovative as they are cost and resource conscious.
During the awards ceremony, Ingels shed the light on the work of BIG, from the ski slope on top of a power plant in Denmark to the Two World Trade Center tower in New York. He also spoke about the design process of the 1200 Intrepid, his first project in Philadelphia that’s expected to finish construction later this month.
The 1200 Intrepid at the Navy yard – Renderings by BIG
“I wouldn’t say that my work is linear of Louis’,” Ingels said, “but I think that he rediscovered symbolism and designed super-functional architecture that’s been lost and has been re-created by pragmatism.” Ingels, the Danish architect who has offices in Copenhagen and New York, has described his approach to architecture as “pragmatic utopianism.”
Ingels has received numerous awards and honors, including the Danish Crown Prince’s Culture Prize in 2011, the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale in 2004, and the ULI Award for Excellence in 2009. Alongside his architectural practice, Bjarke taught at Harvard University, Yale University, Columbia University, and Rice University and is an honorary professor at the Royal Academy of Arts, School of Architecture in Copenhagen.
