2022
Tod Williams and Billie Tsien
©Taylor Jewell / Courtesy Natural Stone Institute
Tod Williams and Billie Tsien founded their New York City based firm Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects | Partners in 1986. Their practice is committed to refl ecting the values of non-profit, cultural, and academic institutions toward an architecture of enduring vision. A sense of place defined by light, texture, detail, and most of all, experience, is at the heart of their designs.
Some of their notable projects include the Asia Society Hong Kong, Lefrak Center at Lakeside in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, and the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia.
Their current work includes the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City, the renovation of David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center, New York, and the Obama Presidential Center in Jackson Park, Chicago.
Over the past three decades, their dedication to this work has been recognized by numerous national and international citations including the National Medal of the Arts from President Obama, the 2013 Firm of the Year Award from the American Institute of Architects, and the 2019 Praemium Imperiale presented by the Japan Art Association.
In parallel to their practice, both teach at Yale University as the Charles Gwathmey Professors in Practice, and are devoted participants in the broader cultural community. Williams is a trustee of the Cranbrook Educational Community and the American Academy in Rome. In 2021 Tsien was appointed by President Biden to the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, serving as the first Asian-American and woman to be Chair. As educators and practitioners they are deeply committed to creating a better world through architecture.
The Bybee Prize is named in honor of the late James Daniel Bybee, a respected past president of the former Building Stone Institute and of Bybee Stone Company. It is awarded to an individual architect or landscape architect, for a body of work executed over time, and distinguished by outstanding use of natural stone in building or landscape applications.