Lecture date: 2009-12-08
Two intersecting preoccupations form the genitive material of current work. Firstly, combinatory organisational strategies explore the characteristics of coherency while amplifying and enhancing differentiation, responding to the rapidly increasing demands of scale and complexity; and secondly, the ability to articulate new hybridised models and find potential in the territory between typology and morphology, nature and the man-made.
Thom Mayne founded Morphosis as an interdisciplinary and collective practice involved in experimental design and research. As design director, Mayne provides overall vision, project leadership and direction to the firm which maintains permanent offices in LA and New York City and site offices in Paris and Shanghai.
Mayne has been the recipient of countless distinguished honours including the 2000 American Institute of Architects/Los Angeles Gold Medal in Architecture and the Pritzker Prize in 2005. Under Mayne’s direction, the firm has been the subject of group and solo exhibitions throughout the world, including a solo exhibition at the Centre Pompidou in Paris in 2006 and a major retrospective at the Netherlands Architectural Institute in 1999. Morphosis buildings and projects have been published extensively.
