Leonardo da Vinci World Award of Arts 2022
Field of Work: Architecture
Date: 29-30 November 2022
Place of Ceremony: Great Hall of Acts, “Sala dos Capelos”
Host Institution: University of Coimbra
Host Country: Portugal
Architect and educator J. Meejin Yoon, the Gale and Ira Drukier Dean of the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning at Cornell University, USA, has been selected as the winner of the 2022 Leonardo da Vinci World Award of Arts.
Members of the World Cultural Council recognized Yoon as an extraordinary leader in design practice, research, and education, particularly for her commitment to social justice and equity, environmental sustainability, and technological innovation deployed for the betterment of society.
The “Leonardo da Vinci” World Award of Arts prize was granted for Yoon’s leadership roles in higher education, achievements in academia, and for her unique contribution to the architecture discipline. In particular, the jury recognizes Yoon’s innovative and thoughtful design of public memorials, installations, and structures, which are informed by a profound sense of historical and cultural context as well as the need to inspire and bring communities together by providing places of remembrance and reflection that inspire hope.
Yoon is co-founding principal of Höweler + Yoon, an architecture and design studio that has received numerous awards and honours for projects that range in scale and kind, from buildings and public spaces to memorials and installations. Yoon’s work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, and the National Art Center in Tokyo, among other national and international venues, and featured in publications such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal, among others.
Her recent contributions to the architecture discipline include the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers at the University of Virginia, a collaborative project recognized for creating a place for public gathering, contemplation, and acknowledgment of the painful history of enslaved people who built the university; and the Collier Memorial, a vaulted, covered space on the MIT campus commemorating a fallen police officer and the Boston community that came together following the tragedy. Both projects entailed the thoughtful use of materials, community-design processes, and innovative uses of technology for design and construction.
Yoon’s commitment to design education and practice is defined by both rigor and humanity. She was recently elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, an honour reserved for the country’s leading architects, artists, composers, and writers.
