Martha Thorne
Architecture Prizes and Competitions: What Are We Really Rewarding?
Martha Thorne
Martha Thorne is dean of IE School of Architecture and Design, one of five schools at an innovative, private university in Madrid and Segovia, Spain. Herr main interests center on cities and how to make them more responsive and sustainable and how to expand the roles of architects and designers for the challenges of the 21st century. She recently stepped down as executive director of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, a position she held since 2005. She continues to work with institutions and private clients to design architect selection processes to seek the best teams for the commissions at hand.
From 1996 to 2005, she worked as a curator at the Department of Architecture at The Art Institute of Chicago. In her curatorial role, she undertook research, exhibition production and collection development.
She is the author or co-author of several books and has written numerous articles for specialized journals, newspapers, and encyclopedias. She was a member of the jury for the international prize, ArcVision-Women and Architecture Award and the board of the International Archive of Women in Architecture.
Thorne holds a Master of City Planning from the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Urban Affairs from the State University of New York at Buffalo. She undertook additional studies at the London School of Economics.