Billie Tsien and Tod Williams
2004 President's Medal honorees
January 28, 2004
2004 President’s Medal Billie Tsien and Tod Williams
On January 28, 2004, The Architectural League of New York presented its President’s Medal to Billie Tsien and Tod Williams. The President’s Medal is the Architectural League’s highest honor and is bestowed, at the discretion of the League’s President and Board of Directors, on individuals to recognize an extraordinary body of work in architecture, urbanism, or design.
Recent recipients of the President’s Medal include Robert A.M. Stern, and Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown.
In presenting the award, Architectural League President Wendy Evans Joseph remarked:
What is it that we admire about Tod and Billie? Certainly the beauty of their architecture, which manages to be both immediately alluring at first glance and profoundly satisfying after considerable study. Their innovative use of materials, old and new, their sensitive use of light, the sculptural quality of their forms, the simplicity yet boldness of palette and gesture, the integrity of each detail, and the ultimate constructability of their designs. We admire their generosity to the profession and the larger community of architecture-users everywhere…Mostly we admire something that Tod and Billie exude to anyone who has been lucky enough to spend even just a little time with them: That architecture is not a job for them as much as it is a way of life.