Marcus Prize Enhances the University’s Role in World Architecture
Stephen Marcus, chairman and chief executive officer of the Marcus Corporation, has been interested in architecture since he was a boy, and once even thought he’d grow up to design buildings – “I’m a closet architect,” he says with a smile. At the same time, the Marcus family has had a longstanding relationship with UWM, collaborating on projects to benefit the community, says Greg Marcus, senior vice president of corporate development for the Marcus Corporation and a director of the Marcus Corporation Foundation.
That interest in architecture and commitment to the Milwaukee community were the key factors behind the Marcus Corporation Foundation’s decision to establish a $100,000 international prize to honor emerging architects, say Steve and Greg Marcus. The UWM School of Architecture and Urban Planning (SARUP) is administering the prize, which has been compared in stature to architecture’s Pritzker Prize. That prize, however, tends to honor long-established architects. Helping young architects and the community
“We wanted to do something that would help young architects and at the same time would help the community,” says Steve Marcus.
Marcus says he’s been impressed by how nearby Chicago “has become a fabulous city architecturally.” And, a trip to Prague nine years ago further opened his eyes to how architecture can help shape a city’s character – and even help preserve it. Prague was spared some devastation during wars and conflicts, says Steve, simply because it was such a beautiful city.
Good architecture, adds Greg, “gives a city psychological benefits beyond the structure itself.” For example, he notes, every time Milwaukeeans open a national magazine to see an ad for a high-end product with the Calatrava addition to the Art Museum in the background, they feel good about the city.The decision to work with UWM in establishing the prize was easy, Greg says. “Our relationship with UWM goes back a long way.”
The prize, which will be presented every two years, is $50,000 to the architecture firm, and $50,000 to the School of Architecture and Urban Planning for administering the competition and prize.
The Marcus Corporation Foundation is the philanthropic arm of The Marcus Corporation, which owns and operates movie theaters, resorts and hotels throughout the United States. The foundation has said it intends to award three Marcus Prizes over six years.
The Marcus Prize, says Robert Greenstreet, dean of SARUP, is a milestone for UWM, enhancing its role in world architecture. “We are helping predict who the world’s next great architects will be.” That’s an area usually occupied by national and international architecture academics and firms, he says. “It’s quite remarkable for UWM.” Greenstreet, who is also Milwaukee city planner, served on the prize jury along with Stephen Marcus and several internationally renowned architects and theorists.
Winners to work with UWM
Twelve prominent members of the international architecture community nominated 22 outstanding candidates from 12 countries for the first prize. In May 2005, the prize jury chose MVRDV of the Netherlands as the winner. Members of MVRDV’s three-person architectural team will lead a design studio on the UWM campus in the spring semester, and will be involved in projects in Milwaukee.
MVRDV architects (from left) Jacob van Rijs, Nathalie de Vries and Winy Maas. Photo courtesy MVRDV.
MVRDV, which is made up of Winy Maas, 46; Jacob van Rijs, 41; and Nathalie de Vries, 40, is heavily influenced by Dutch-born architect Rem Koolhaas, with whom Maas and van Rijs studied, according to an article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “Like Koolhaas, they embrace hard-edged industrial materials, including corrugated metal and raw concrete, and celebrate the jangle and chaos of urban life,” wrote the paper’s architecture critic, Whitney Gould.
A lot of potential
MVRDV team members will travel to Milwaukee during the fall semester to receive the award and begin to craft the projects they’ll be working on with UWM students and faculty in the spring semester, says Greenstreet. Grace La, SARUP faculty member and partner in the La Dallman architecture firm, will be the UWM faculty lead on the project. SARUP also is planning a UWinteriM course that would give students the opportunity to travel to the Netherlands to work with the architects and see some of MVRDV’s work.
Among the European projects MVDRV has worked on is the Dutch Pavilion for the World Exhibition 2000 in Hanover, Germany, and the Silodam housing complex, a multi-colored cluster of buildings raised on stilts above Amsterdam’s IJ River.
MVRDV also designed the VPRO Broadcasting Company headquarters in the Dutch city of Hiversum, which features a vegetative roof, glass-curtain walls and exposed glass tubing. Maas told the Journal Sentinel that the glass tubing was inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright’s S.C.Johnson & SonAdministrationBuilding in Racine.
“The sites that MVRDV has dealt with in postindustrial cities with waterfronts are very similar to locations in Milwaukee,” Greenstreet told Architectural Record. “There will be a lot of potential for the firm to engage with the building community here in Milwaukee.”
MVRDV building photos
The Dutch firm MVRDV is the winner of the first Marcus Prize for emerging architects. The buildings shown below are examples of its work.
Architectural photos courtesy MVRDV
