Toshiko Mori: Cesar Pelli Lecture

Toshiko Mori, FAIA

Cesar Pelli Lecture

Toshiko Mori, FAIA

Toshiko Mori is the founding principal of Toshiko Mori Architect PLLC, and the Robert P. Hubbard Professor in the Practice of Architecture at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD), where she served as chair of the Department of Architecture from 2002 to 2008. She was inducted to the Academy of Arts and Letters in 2020 and has been a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 2016.

Mori’s recent awards and honors include the Louis Auchincloss Prize from the Museum of the City of New York in 2020; the Tau Sigma Delta National Honor Society Gold Medal in 2016; Architectural Record’s Women in Design Leader Award in 2019; and the AIA/ASCA Topaz Medallion for Excellence in Architectural Education in 2019. Nikkei Business recently listed Mori as one of 50 Japanese People Changing the World, and Newsweek Japan listed her as one of 100 Japanese People the World Respects. Her project “Thread: Artists’ Residency and Cultural Center” was awarded the AIA 2017 Institute Honor Award for Architecture and was one of the winners of the inaugural FIBRA Award for Contemporary Plant Fiber-based Architecture in 2019. This year, she published two new monographs, one with a+u magazine for their February 2020 issue and another with ArchiTangle titled “Toshiko Mori Architect: Observations.” In May 2020, her project “Fass School and Teachers’ Residence” was featured by The Guardian as one of the world’s top 10 new architecture projects.

Portrait by Ralph Gibson