ROMÁN MEYER FALCÓN RECOGNIZED WITH INAUGURAL HONOR
CHICAGO, IL (5 December 2024) – At its first Conference on Critical Practice, held at S. R. Crown Hall, the Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize (MCHAP) celebrated two attendees whose dynamic advocacy has catalyzed architectural excellence. Phyllis Lambert, founder of the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) and Illinois Institute of Technology alumna, was named an MCHAP Luminary. In turn, MCHAP named Román Meyer Falcón the first-ever recipient of the Phyllis Lambert Agent of Excellence Award, which acknowledges an exceptional individual, group, or organization whose actions have directly raised the quality of contemporary architecture.
Meyer Falcón, a trained architect, most recently served as Secretary of Agrarian, Territorial, and Urban Development (SEDATU) in the cabinet of the administration of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and President of the UN-Habitat Assembly. At SEDATU, he oversaw a wide range of architectural and urban commissions through the Programa de Mejoramiento Urbano (PMU). From its establishment in 2018 to 2023 PMU worked with architects and local governments to realize more than 1,000 projects across Mexico, representing more than $2 billion in investment. The architectural works—many of which are MCHAP-nominated—are just one visible expression of the agency’s multi-scale, locally engaged approach to town planning.
The decision to name the prize after Lambert recognizes not only her singular role as a patron and custodian of architecture, through projects like the Seagram Building and the CCA, but also the way she has continually raised standards for architecture’s role in the public sphere for eight decades. “Phyllis Lambert is family. She has always been a guiding light and a partner, stewarding Mies’s legacy and advancing the College of Architecture and IIT. She has been with us at MCHAP since the beginning—we launched MCHAP at the CCA, and she was here to award the first prize—and we have benefited immensely from her conviction that learning from what is happening in architecture in the Americas is an essential commitment, and belongs in Crown Hall in Chicago,” said MCHAP Director Dirk Denison. “We are thrilled to formally recognize her incomparable influence.”
“Just as Phyllis’s critical and insightful voice has continually demanded that architecture meet the needs of our time, Román has worked tirelessly and dynamically to create opportunities and conditions for excellent architecture to improve lives,” Denison added.
Since the prize’s founding, MCHAP has recognized the essential role of clients and commissioning bodies in making architectural excellence happen. These individuals and organizations are key partners in sparking the ambition of a work, forging its identity, and seeing through its vision until it becomes reality. These “agents of excellence” navigate dynamic social, economic, and political forces and persevere in the face of complexity. In bringing to light the activities of these individuals and groups, MCHAP aims to enrich our understanding of how architecture can benefit cities and communities in the Americas and beyond.
The Phyllis Lambert Agent of Excellence Award is granted by MCHAP on a periodic basis to underline approaches with proven impact, embodied in MCHAP-nominated and MCHAP-winning projects. “This award is an additional way for us to point to excellence in architecture and learn from how it originates and is delivered. Highlighting the influence of ‘agents of excellence’ helps tell a richer story of architecture and hopefully inspires and empowers new agents who understand that excellent architecture gives back many times over,” Denison said.
Phyllis Lambert: “The creation of the Agent of Excellence Award in my name by the Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize brings me a profound sense of fulfillment in relation to my life’s work. With great pleasure I have watched MCHAP deepen and broaden since it was announced on February 10, 2014, at the CCA, which I had founded twenty-five years earlier in Montréal. MCHAP has enhanced its program and the impact of a prize for an individual building by adding an educational component first involving students at IIT and now extending internationally to students throughout the Americas. The next step has been to provide sponsored research for the laureates, followed by publishing books through which the work and its context reach a wider public. And closest to my purpose, as well as my heart and mind, MCHAP has enlarged its focus from a single manifestation of social benefit to architecture’s role in communities and the far-reaching levels of discussion that attend it.”
Roman Meyer: “I want to thank MCHAP for inviting me to share some of the experience we have building public spaces, and I particularly feel very honored to have received the Phyllis Lambert Agent of Excellence Award. Receiving it from her own hands, with all the work she has done to improve the built environment, was an honor. This award is a collective achievement, so I also want to thank each member of the team for their effort, dedication and commitment.”
Extended bios
Phyllis Lambert, architect, is founding director emeritus of the Canadian Centre for Architecture, a Montreal-based cultural institution founded in 1979 with the conviction that architecture is a public concern. The CCA is the leading international center for advancing both scholarly research and contemporary design practice. She is also responsible for initiating significant projects of urban heritage and conservation, particularly in Montreal and Los Angeles. Among many other awards, her work has been recognized with the Twenty-Five Year Award from the American Institute of Architects (AIA; Seagram Building, 1984); the Massey Medal of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC; 1970, Saidye Bronfman Centre); multiple AIA Honor Awards; the RAIC Gold Medal (1991); the Hadrian Award of the World Monuments Fund (1997); the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 14th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale (2014); the Wolf Prize in Arts (2016); and the Center for Architecture Award (2019).
Román Meyer Falcón
Román Meyer Falcón is a Mexican architect and the current Secretary of Agrarian, Territorial, and Urban Development in Mexico. In his cabinet position, Falcón has been integral in putting forth policies to promote affordable housing, land rights, and sustainable urban growth, with the goal of
equitable and inclusive urban development in Mexico. He shares a similar vision for the UN Habitat Assembly, of which he is the president. As an architect, Falcón is committed to public service through “social architecture,” where designers work directly with their communities to facilitate a greater
sense of identity and belonging through their creations.
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ABOUT MCHAP
The Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize (MCHAP) is a biennial prize that acknowledges the best built works of architecture in the Americas. MCHAP was conceived by Illinois Institute of Technology College of Architecture in 2013. Visit http://www.mchap.co/aboutfor more information.
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