By Radhika Mohan
March 28, 2011

The Mayors’ Institute on City Design (MICD) is pleased to announce that Thom Mayne, Principal and Founder of renowned design firm, Morphosis, will be a keynote speaker at the National Mayors Summit on City Design. Since starting Morphosis in 1972, Mayne has received countless awards including the 2005 Pritzker Architecture Prize, the 2006 National Design Award from the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, and the 2009 Centennial Medal from the American Academy in Rome. In addition, he serves on the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities, co-founded of the Southern California Institute of Architecture, and is a Distinguished Professor at the UCLA School of Arts and Architecture.

At Morphosis, Mayne has provided the leadership and vision for projects that support holistic, complete communities, a main principle for MICD. Projects like the San Francisco Federal Building, 41 Cooper Square at Cooper Union in New York, the Phare Tower in Paris, and the FLOAT house prototype in New Orleans each showcase how architecture and design can stimulate the creation of vibrant urban environments.

Mayne is currently leading Culture Now, a year-long research and design initiative through UCLA that focuses on the intersection of public policy, culture, and urban design. Culture Now has been inspired by the National Endowment for the Arts efforts to connect local leaders with arts organizations, philanthropic groups, and federal agencies to develop and energize communities through a more collaborative, inter-disciplinary holistically designed approach.

The National Mayors Summit on City Design will take place in Chicago, April 27 – 29. The summit will bring together more than one hundred mayors from across the country to:

• discover and share the latest in urban design thinking

• discuss solutions that design offers for urban problems

• celebrate twenty-five years of MICD,

• honor Mayor Richard M. Daley’s design legacy

The summit will provide opportunities for mayoral alumni of MICD, as well as mayors who have not yet participated in MICD, to interact with the leaders of the design field, including past MICD resource team members, government officials and many other thought leaders in urban design.

For more information, including registration, visit the website www.micd.org. Contact Story Bellows at 202-463-1390 or send e-mail to sbellows@micd.org for information on the program. Contact Carol Edwards 202-861-6747 or send e-mail to cedwards@usmayors.org for information regarding the hotel and registration.