Bernard Tschumi

Profile

Bernard Tschumi is an architect and educator. First known as a theorist, he exhibited and published The Manhattan Transcripts (1981) and wrote Architecture and Disjunction, a series of theoretical essays (MIT Press, 1994). In 1983, he won the prestigious competition to design the Parc de la Villette, a 125-acre, 300-million dollar public park containing dramatic buildings, walkways, bridges, and gardens at the northeast edge of Paris. Tschumi established his Paris office in 1983, followed by the New York office in 1988.

Today, projects that ar completed or under construction include Le Fresnoy National Studio for Contemporary Arts in Tourcoing, France (1997); Columbia University's Lerner Hall Student Center (1999); Marne La Vallée School of Architecture, Paris (1999); the Interface Flon, a bus, train, and subway station and pedestrian bridge in Lausanne, Switzerland (2001); a 8,000- person/70,000-square-foot Florida International University School of Architecture in Miami, Florida.

He was one of the three international finalists selected by The Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1997 to design its new expansion. He is currently designing the Museum for African Art in New York, the New Acropolis Museum in Athens, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sao Paolo, which were alle winning entries to international competitions, as well as building in Cincinnati and Geneva, Switzerland.

A permanent US resident who holds both French and Swiss nationlities, Bernard Tshcumi came to the United States in 1976. Tschumi studied in Paris and at the Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, Switzerland, from which he received his degree in 1969. He taught at the Architectural Association in London (1970-79), the Institute for Architecture and Urband Studies in New York (1976), Princeton University (1976 and 1980) and the Cooper Union (1981-3). He has been Dean of the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia University in New York from 1988 to 2003.

Tschumi is a member of the Collège International de Philosophie in France and the recipient of many distinguished honors, including the Légion d'Honneur, and the Ordre des Arts et Lettres. He was awarded france's Grand Prix National d'Architecture in 1996, as well as awards from the American Institute of Architects and the National Endowment for the Arts.