American sculptor Richard Serra has won the the Architectural League of New York’s 2014 President’s Medal. The award is the League’s highest honor and is bestowed, at the discretion of the organization’s President and Board of Directors, on individuals to recognize an extraordinary body of work in architecture, urbanism, art, or design. Recent recipients of the award have included Renzo Piano, Richard Meier, Ada Louise Huxtable, and Tod Williams and Billie Tsien.
Serra is best-known for his large-scale steel sculptures that explore the physical and visual relationships that exist between the viewer, the site, and the work. He has produced a number of site-specific sculptures that engage with a particular architectural, urban, or landscape setting. Serra’s latest work, “East-West/West-East,” is a set of four standing steel plates placed in the middle of the western Qatari desert. It is his second public commission in Qatar.
Serra, who is the first visual artist to win the Architectural League’s President’s Medal, will be given the award on May 6 in New York City.
