—A celebration to present the award will be held on Friday, October 4, 2024—
WASHINGTON, D.C.—September 4, 2024—Today the National Building Museum announced that Walter Hood, pre-eminent American landscape designer is the 26th recipient of the Museum’s annual Vincent Scully Prize. Established in 1999, the Scully Prize recognizes excellence in practice, scholarship, or criticism in architecture, historic preservation, and urban design. He joins esteemed past recipients, including Theaster Gates, Dolores Hayden, Mabel O. Wilson, and Elizabeth Meyer.
A public celebration to present the award to Hood will be held on Friday, October 4, 2024 from 6 to 9 pm at the National Building Museum. The evening includes an award presentation, laureate remarks and a public conversation with jury members, including 2012 laureate Paul Goldberger, followed by a reception.
Best known for his work in the public realm and urban environments, Walter Hood has a storied career as a designer, artist, academic administrator, and educator. He creates ecologically sustainable spaces that connect with urban communities and help empower marginalized communities. Hood is the creative director and founder of Hood Design Studio, a social art and design practice based in Oakland, California which he founded in 1992. The studio’s practice includes art and fabrication, design and landscape, and research urbanism. Responding to each place’s unique scale and context with an approach adaptive to the specifics of a space, Hood’s work seeks to uncover and strengthen layers of meaning present in all landscapes – ecological, cultural, contemporary and historic. Notable projects include the large-scale garden designs of the International African American Museum (IAAM) in Charleston, South Carolina, the Oakland Museum of California, the M. H. de Young Museum in San Francisco, and the recently opened Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing Park in Jacksonville, Florida.
Hood currently serves as chair of UC Berkeley’s Department of Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning (LAEP). Among his numerous accolades, Hood received the MacArthur ‘Genius’ Grant and the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize, both in 2019, the Architectural League’s President’s Medal in 2021 and the Wall Street Journal’s Innovator Award for Design in 2023.
“Walter Hood’s Illustrious career embodies the affirmative spirit of Vincent Scully’s perspective; that of melding art, history, landscape, and urbanism,” said Aileen Fuchs, president and executive director of the National Building Museum. “He has forged a path for landscapes architects with provocative designs that have helped instigate social change”
The Vincent Scully Prize recipient is selected by a jury, including members Esther da Costa Meyer, Nancy Levinson, Stephen Luoni, Toshiko Mori, and led by chair Paul Goldberger.
The Prize Jury remarks that, “Hood focuses particularly on urban public space, and unlike many of his peers in landscape design, he makes a point of working at both the scale of large, public projects such as the De Young Museum in San Francisco and the Broad Museum in Los Angeles, and the intimate scale of community-based neighborhood projects. His recent work at the International African American Museum in Charleston, South Carolina, has been particularly admired. We were mindful of Vincent Scully’s own history as a scholar who took pride in being an activist on social and political issues.”
IMAGES: Images are available HERE.
MEDIA CONTACT: Karen Baratz, karen@baratzpr.com, 240.497.1811
ABOUT WALTER HOOD
Walter Hood is the creative director and founder of Hood Design Studio in Oakland, CA. He is also a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and lectures on professional and theoretical projects nationally and internationally. He is a recipient of the 2017 Academy of Arts and Letters Architecture Award, 2019 Knight Public Spaces Fellowship, 2019 MacArthur Fellowship, 2019 Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize, and the 2021 recipient of the Architectural League’s President’s Medal award.
ABOUT THE VINCENT SCULLY PRIZE
The Vincent Scully Prize, established in 1999, recognizes exemplary practice, scholarship or criticism in architecture, historic preservation and urban design. It is named for the esteemed professor, and the award’s first recipient, who inspired generations across the building disciplines. Scully was the Sterling Professor Emeritus of the History of Art at Yale University and Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Miami. For more than four decades his teaching and scholarship have profoundly influenced prominent architects, urban planners, and others.
PREVIOUS VINCENT SCULLY PRIZE RECIPIENTS
2023: Theaster Gates
2022: Dolores Hayden
2021: Mabel O. Wilson
2019: Elizabeth Meyer, FASLA
2018: Robert Campbell and Inga Saffron
2017: Laurie Olin, FASLA
2013: Joshua David and Robert Hammond
2012: Paul Goldberger
2011: William K. Reilly
2010: Adele Chatfield-Taylor
2009: Christopher Alexander
2008: Robert A. M. Stern
2007: Richard Moe
2007: Witold Rybczynski
2006: Phyllis Lambert
2005: His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales
2005: His Highness the Aga Kahn
2002: Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown
2001: Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk and Andres Duany
2000: Jane Jacobs
1999: Vincent Scully
ABOUT THE NATIONAL BUILDING MUSEUM
The National Building Museum inspires curiosity about the world we design and build. We believe that understanding the impact of architecture, engineering, landscape architecture, construction, planning, and design is important for everyone. Through exhibitions, educational programs, and special events, we welcome visitors of all ages to experience stories about the built world and its power to shape our lives, our communities, and our futures. Public inquiries: 202.272.2448, info@nbm.org, or visit www.nbm.org. Connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, and X.