Photos: David Malosh. All rights reserved.
On April 9, 2012, The Architectural League of New York presented its President’s Medal to Amanda Burden, Chair of the New York City Planning Commission and Director of the Department of City Planning. 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 Massimo and Lella Vignelli, Hugh Hardy, Richard Meier, Ada Louise Huxtable, Robert A.M. Stern, Kenneth Frampton, Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, and Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown.
In presenting the award, Architectural League President Annabelle Selldorf read the following citation:
Amanda Burden’s New York is a world of intense and sociable street life—and of the solitary pleasures of places designed for contemplation and respite. Amanda Burden’s New York vibrates with the dynamism of a world capital—and offers direct connection to the natural world of plants and weather and water. Her vision encompasses the largest scale and the most intimate: she is leading the reimagining of the city’s 520-mile-long waterfront, and she knows that how the edge of a bench touches the back of a knee can determine the success of a public space. Amanda Burden has creatively and effectively used zoning as a tool to shape the city’s future and to protect the valued essence of its past and present.
For her deep commitment to the public realm; for her passion for design and architecture; for her remarkable accomplishments in raising both the quality of design in our city and our expectations about design and city life; for her love of New York in all its variety and complexity: the Architectural League presents its President’s Medal to Amanda M. Burden. As a planner and as a public servant, she has made a profound and lasting contribution to making New York a more vibrant, more humane, more beautiful city.
About Amanda Burden
Amanda Burden, FAICP, Hon. AIA, received her Master’s Degree in Urban Planning from Columbia University. She was appointed by Mayor Bloomberg in 2002 as Director of the Department of City Planning and Chair of the New York City Planning Commission. She also served as a member of the Commission from 1990-2002. From 1983 to 1990, she was Vice President for Planning and Design of the Battery Park City Authority, and from 1997 to 2000 was Director of Planning for the Center for Court Innovation. Amanda Burden served on the Architectural League’s Board of Directors from 1983 to 2002.
Proceeds from the dinner help support the programs of The Architectural League.