MAS to Award 23rd Brendan Gill Prize to Brooklyn Bridge Park Landscape Architect
January 18th, 2011, 11:55 am
Landscape architect Michael Van Valkenburgh will receive this year’s Brendan Gill Prize for his visionary design of Brooklyn Bridge Park in DUMBO. The park, where MAS held last year’s Annual Meeting, opened in March 2010 and has already become a vital urban amenity, providing space for a wide variety of activities and programming for all members of the community. Van Valkenburgh led the reclaiming of the former shipping piers under the Brooklyn Bridge, transforming the once desolate waterfront into a regional park.
The Brendan Gill Prize, dedicated to the renowned New Yorker theater critic and former MAS president, was established in 1986 by MAS board members Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Helen S. Tucker and Margot Wellington. The cash prize is funded by a permanent endowment and is awarded annually to a work of art or design produced in the previous year which best embodies the spirit of New York City and Brendan Gill. Past prize recipients include musician Sufjan Stevens, artists Mike and Doug Starn, actress Sarah Jones, and artists Jeanne-Claude and Christo.
“We are so pleased to award the 23rd Brendan Gill Prize to Michael Van Valkenburgh,” said MAS President Vin Cipolla. “Michael’s dynamic design for Brooklyn Bridge Park has succeeded in reconnecting thousands of city dwellers and visitors to the majesty of New York’s harbor. His careful attention to the site’s rich history and its extraordinary built and natural features has ensured that this transformation will create an urban destination for generations to come.”
Van Valkenburgh will receive the Gill Prize at a private ceremony later this month hosted by MAS at The Park Avenue Armory.
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Comment from martin schneider
Extremely well deserved, to say the least.
Unfortunately, the prize award not ignore the inappropriate placement of the totally irrelevant and sadly obtrusive post-design building housing a carousel on the north side of the Bridge. Now, as of Dec 19, there is another obtrusive large scale metal eyesore implanted weirdly and meaninglessly on the great lawn entrance area just South of the Bridge.
Still to come is an inadequately judged design competition for a major addition on the upland side of the great park to be dedicated to a hotel and residential development. The judges, self-appointed, are all part of the official bureaucracy which runs the park or answers solely to the Mayor.. No objective or qualified judges are in view. This portends another dark blot on the prize-winning park.
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