Tod Williams + Billie Tsien, New York Architecture Practice, US Building Projects, NYC Design Office News
Tod Williams + Billie Tsien Architects
Contemporary American Architecture Practice, Manhattan, NY, USA
post updated Apr 8, 2021
Tod Williams + Billie Tsien News
Jul 3, 2016
Obama Presidential Center Building, Chicago, Illinois, USA
Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects To Design The Obama Presidential Library
The Obama Foundation has selected Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects | Partners (TWBTA) to lead the design team for the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago, and Interactive Design Architects (IDEA) to be their partner as they begin this exciting project.
TWBTA stood out in their commitment to explore the best ways of creating an innovative center for action that inspires communities and individuals to take on our biggest challenges. IDEA brings local knowledge and a track record for delivering excellence to large, complex civic projects.
29 Mar 2016
Hood Museum of Art Building Renovation, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA
Date built: 1985
Original Building Design: Charles Moore Architect
New Building Design: Billie Tsien and Tod Williams
image courtesy Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects
Hood Museum of Art Building Renovation
18 Sep 2013
RIBA 2014 International Fellowship
The architects have been awarded a RIBA International Fellowship
RIBA International Fellows 2014 citation:
Tod Williams + Billie Tsien – architects, USA
Matter, light, texture, detail and most of all experience are the essence of Tod Williams + Billie Tsien’s architecture. Parallel to their practice, they maintain active teaching careers and lecture worldwide. As educators and practitioners they are committed to making a better world through architecture.
They began working together in New York in 1977 and nine years later established their practice in the same Central Park South Studio in which they work today. The currently twenty seven person firm works primarily for institutions that value issues of aspiration and meaning, timelessness and beauty, designing buildings that are exquisitely made and useful in ways that speak to both efficiency and the spirit.
The pair’s dynamic work is best experienced on the move – it is not meant to be seen straight on. This may well derive in part from Tod’s keenness on physical activity. A bungee jumper, a rollerblader and a dare-devil cyclist on New York’s dangerous streets, he is a man who, in his own words ‘locates the world with the soles of his feet.’ Billie is happiest curled up with a book, usually fiction, seldom about architecture. She brings the sense of space that characterises their architecture. Tod says that it is Billie’s ‘pauses, the pacing, the understanding of the work, that elevates it into an art.’
Their architecture has long been praised for its Kahnian robust materiality, typified by their 2012 Barnes Foundation Art Museum in Philadelphia, with its timeless sculptural forms that capture the spirit of the original galleries. With its syncopated façade of Israeli limestone framed with five inch deep stainless steel recesses, this is an appropriately monumental building.
Their other major works include Hereford College, University of Virginia (1992); The Neurosciences Institute, La Jolla (1995); Long Island Residence, New York (1999); Cranbrook Schools Natatorium, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan (1999)American Folk Art Museum, New York (2001); Skirkanich Hall, University of Pennsylvania (2006); Phoenix Art Museum expansion, Phoenix, Arizona (2006); East Asian Library, University of California, Berkeley (2007).
Their book The Architecture of the Barnes Foundation is their second published work, their first was Work Life – Williams + Tsien published in 2000. In it they wrote: ‘We see architecture as an act of profound optimism. Its foundation lies in believing that it is possible to make places on earth that can give a sense of grace to life – and in believing that matters. It is what we have to give and it is what we leave behind.’
Major Recent Building by Tod Williams + Billie Tsien
Apr 2, 2012
Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts, Chicago, Illinois, USA
photograph : Tom Rossiter
Logan Center for the Arts Chicago
New arts venue designed by this NYC architecture studio set to open for select programming, classes at the University of Chicago.
A preview period will begin on Monday, March 26 for the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts at the University of Chicago, giving the University community and the public a first look at a facility that represents a milestone for the arts in Chicago.
Tod Williams + Billie Tsien – Key Projects
Featured Buildings by Tod Williams + Billie Tsien Architects, alphabetical:
Andlinger Center, Princeton University, USA
Date built: 2010
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts – Visitor Center, New York, USA
Date built: 2008
Harmony Atrium redevelopment
Museum of Folk Art, Manhattan, USA
Date built: –
The Reva and David Logan Center for Creative and Performing Arts, Chicago, USA
Date built: 2008-
Skirkanich Hall, University of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, USA
Date built: 2008
More projects by contemporary Manhattan architects practice online soon
Location: 222 Central Park South, Manhattan, NY, USA
New York City Architects Practice Information
Tod Williams + Billie Tsien Architects office based in Manhattan, New York, USA
Manhattan Architectural Designs
New York City Architecture Designs – architectural selection below:
Brooklyn Bridge Competition Design
image courtesy of architects
Brooklyn Bridge Design by DXA studio
SAR Academy, Modern Orthodox Jewish Day School, Jesselson Campus, 655 West 254th Street Riverdale, NY 10471, USA
Design: architects Esther Sperber and Hila Stern
image courtesy of architecture studio
SAR Academy, Orthodox Jewish Day School
Buildings / photos for the Tod Williams + Billie Tsien Architects New York City page welcome
Website: www.twbta.com
