Annabelle Selldorf and Elizabeth Diller Awarded Top Honors by the Municipal Art Society of New York
Last evening at the landmark Seagram Building in Midtown Manhattan, 132-year-old nonprofit organization the Municipal Art Society of New York (MAS) held its 54th annual award celebration, an event that included the presentation of its highest honor, the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Medal. Recognizing individuals whose work has made an “extraordinary contribution” to the quality of life in New York City, past recipients of the medal—established in 1950 as the President’s Medal—have included everyone from Yoko Ono and Patti Smith, Robert DeNiro and Diane von Furstenberg, to Robert A.M. Stern and I.M. Pei.
Last night’s ceremony, however, was unusual in that two architects were presented with the medal simultaneously for the first time: Selldorf Architects principal Annabelle Selldorf and Elizabeth Diller, founding partner of Diller Scofidio + Renfro.
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The ceremony was held at The Grill | The Pool at the Mies van der Rohe–designed Seagram Building in Midtown (1); Selldorf was presented the medal by Axel Rüger, director of the Frick Collection (2); Diller gives remarks (3). Photos by Brendon Cook, courtesy MAS
“In a real estate-driven city like New York, MAS is the city’s conscience. It reminds us that heritage matters, public space matters, not letting it go to the highest bidder matters,” said Diller in her acceptance speech. “The notion of preservation has never meant more than it does now, in all the different ways—preservation of the identity of the city and its civic values.”
The venerable urban planning organization noted Selldorf’s “revelatory” expansion of the Frick Collection, designs for the Neue Galerie, and “innovative solutions for municipal infrastructure” as demonstrating a commitment to “innovative design and livable, sustainable cities.” By that same token MAS praised Diller-led projects such as the dramatic revamp of the Lincoln Center campus, the 2019 expansion of the Museum of Modern Art, and the High Line as having outsized positive impacts on the city and its inhabitants. “Such work embodies MAS’s longstanding principles of ensuring that urban growth is balanced, that public open spaces thrive, and that all New Yorkers are able to share in the richness of city life.”
“Elizabeth Diller and Annabelle Selldorf have transformed the built environment of New York City for the benefit of New Yorkers,” said MAS president Keri Butler in a statement. “By recognizing them together, MAS underscores our ongoing commitment to those visionaries working to enhance the quality of life of all New Yorkers through the municipal arts of architecture, landscape architecture, planning, preservation, and public art.”
The event marked Butler’s first time presiding over the annual award ceremony as MAS president. Butler comes to MAS from the NYC Public Design Commission (PDC), where she most recently served as executive director.
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