Jeanne Gang

Gang is recognized as one of the most prominent architects of her generation and is known for an interdisciplinary design process that foregrounds relationships between individuals, communities, and environments. Raised in Belvidere, IL, Gang earned her Bachelor of Science in Architecture from the University of Illinois in 1986 and a Master of Architecture with Distinction from the Harvard Graduate School of Design in 1993. In 1989, she was an International Rotary Fellow and studied at the ETH Swiss Federal University of Technical Studies in Zurich, Switzerland. She also studied at the École nationale supérieure d'architecture de Versailles -ENSAV-, in Versailles, France. Prior to establishing Studio Gang in 1997, she worked with OMA/Rem Koolhaas in Rotterdam.

A 2011 MacArthur Fellow, Gang and her Studio were awarded the 2013 National Design Award for Architecture from the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. Gang was named the 2016 Woman Architect of the Year by the Architectural Review. In 2017, she was honored with the Louis I. Kahn Memorial Award (Philadelphia Center for Architecture) and Fellowship in the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada and was also elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2018, she was elected an International Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), a lifetime honor.

Currently a Professor in Practice at the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD), Gang has also served as the John Portman Design Critic in Architecture and a visiting critic at the GSD (2017 and 2011), a visiting studio critic at the Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (2015), the Cullinan Visiting Professor at Rice University School of Architecture (2014), a visiting lecturer at the Princeton University School of Architecture (2007), the Louis I. Kahn Junior Visiting Professor at Yale University School of Architecture (2005), and a studio critic at the Illinois Institute of Technology. Her studios have explored how design can help create beneficial connections between people and their environments, with a focus on cities, ecologies materials and other technologies of the 21st century.

Gang lectures frequently throughout the world. In 2016, she presented at the TEDWomen conference.

Work

Gang's built work in the Chicago area includes the University of Chicago Campus North Residential Commons, Writers Theatre, City Hyde Park, the WMS Boathouse at Clark Park and Eleanor Boathouse at Park 571 on the Chicago River, Northerly Island, Aqua Tower, the Nature Boardwalk at Lincoln Park Zoo, the Columbia College Chicago Media Production Center, and the SOS Children's Villages Lavezzorio Community Center, among others. In 2014, Gang and her Studio completed the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership at Kalamazoo College. Her current projects under construction include 40 Tenth Avenue in New York's Meatpacking District and Rescue Company 2 for the New York City Fire Department, as well as Vista Tower and Solstice on the Park in Chicago. Her Studio is currently engaged in projects such as the Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation at the American Museum of Natural History; a new United States Embassy in Brasilia, Brazil; high-rise towers in Toronto and Amsterdam; a unified campus for California College of the Arts in San Francisco; the expansion and renovation of the Arkansas Arts Center; and the Center for Arts & Innovation at Spelman College.

Studio Gang's work has been honored, published, and exhibited widely. In 2018, the Studio presented the installation Stone Stories as part of the United States Pavilion exhibition Dimensions of Citizenship at the Venice Architecture Biennale; in 2017, the Studio was selected to design the National Building Museum's Summer Block Party installation; in 2012, the Studio was featured in the solo exhibition Building: Inside Studio Gang Architects at the Art Institute of Chicago; and in 2011, the Studio participated in the Museum of Modern Art exhibition Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream. The Studio's work has also been shown at the Chicago Architecture Biennial (2015 and 2017) and Design Miami (2014).

Gang has authored two books—Reveal (2011), the first publication on the Studio's work and process, and Reverse Effect: Renewing Chicago's Waterways (2011), which imagines a greener future for the Chicago River. She co-edited the Art Institute of Chicago exhibition catalogue Building: Inside Studio Gang Architects in 2012.

In 2018, Gang unveiled designs for the Arkansas Art Center, a $70 million art museum and nature conservatory in Little Rock, Arkansas. The project has been described as a "museum in a forest."

On March 27, 2019, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced that the design team led by Ms. Gang, Studio ORD, had been selected as the winner of an international design competition for the new $2.2 billion Global Terminal at O'Hare International Airport. The project is scheduled to begin in 2023.

Text (Biography, Works) taken from Wikipedia on 20 May 2019 (CC-BY-SA 3.0).