Artist of the day: Artist of the Day, July 20, 2023: Jeanne Gang, an American architect (#1858)

Thursday, July 20, 2023

Artist of the Day, July 20, 2023: Jeanne Gang, an American architect (#1858)

Jeanne Gang (1964) is an American architect and the founder and leader of Studio Gang (established in 1997), an architecture and urban design practice. Gang was first widely recognized for the Aqua Tower, the tallest woman-designed building in the world at the time of its completion. Aqua has since been surpassed by the nearby St. Regis Chicago, also of her design. Surface has called Gang one of Chicago's most prominent architects of her generation, and her projects have been widely awarded.

Raised in Belvidere, Illinois, Gang graduated from Belvidere High School in 1982. She went on to earn her Bachelor of Science in Architecture from the University of Illinois in 1986 and a Master of Architecture with Distinction from the Harvard Graduate School of Design in 1993. In 1989, Gang earned an Ambassadorial Scholarship from the Rotary Foundation to study at ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology). She also studied at the École nationale supérieure d'architecture de Versailles, in Versailles, France. Prior to establishing Studio Gang in 1997, she worked with OMA/Rem Koolhaas in Rotterdam.

A 2011 MacArthur Fellow, Gang and her Studio were awarded the 2013 National Design Award for Architecture from the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. Gang was named the 2016 Woman Architect of the Year by the Architectural Review. In 2017, she was honored with the Louis I. Kahn Memorial Award (Philadelphia Center for Architecture) and Fellowship in the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada and was also elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2018, she was elected an International Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), a lifetime honor.

Currently a Professor in Practice at the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD), Gang has also served as the John Portman Design Critic in Architecture and a visiting critic at the GSD, a visiting studio critic at the Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (2015), the Cullinan Visiting Professor at Rice University School of Architecture (2014), a visiting lecturer at the Princeton University School of Architecture, the Louis I. Kahn Junior Visiting Professor at Yale University School of Architecture, and a studio critic at the Illinois Institute of Technology.

Gang lectures frequently throughout the world. In 2016, she presented at the TED Women conference.

Her studio is currently engaged in projects such as a new United States Embassy in Brasilia, Brazil; high-rise towers in Toronto and Amsterdam; a unified campus for California College of the Arts in San Francisco; the expansion and renovation of the Arkansas Arts Center; and the Center for Arts & Innovation at Spelman College.

The Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation opened to the public on May 4th, 2023. At the time of urgent need for better public understanding of science and greater access to science education, their design for the latest addition to New York's historic American Museum of Natural History forms a fluid landscape that heightens visitors’ sense of discovery and wonder.

Studio Gang's work has been honored, published, and exhibited widely. In 2018, the Studio presented the installation Stone Stories as part of the United States Pavilion exhibition Dimensions of Citizenship at the Venice Architecture Biennale; in 2017, the Studio was selected to design the National Building Museum's Summer Block Party installation; in 2012, the Studio was featured in the solo exhibition Building: Inside Studio Gang Architects at the Art Institute of Chicago; and in 2011, the Studio participated in the Museum of Modern Art exhibition Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream. The Studio's work has also been shown at the Chicago Architecture Biennial (2015 and 2017) and Design Miami (2014).

Gang has authored two books—Reveal (2011), the first publication on the Studio's work and process, and Reverse Effect: Renewing Chicago's Waterways, which imagines a greener future for the Chicago River. She co-edited the Art Institute of Chicago exhibition catalogue Building: Inside Studio Gang Architects in 2012.

On March 27, 2019, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced that the design team led by Gang, Studio ORD, had been selected as the winner of an international design competition for the new $2.2 billion Global Terminal at O'Hare International Airport. The project is scheduled to begin in 2023.

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