Elizabeth Diller

Elizabeth Diller, also known as Liz Diller,[1] is an American architect and partner in Diller Scofidio + Renfro, which she co-founded in 1979.[2] She is also an architecture professor at Princeton University.[3]

Elizabeth Diller (left), Diller Scofidio + Renfro: Architecture After Images book launch

Life

Elizabeth Diller was born in 1954 in Łódź, Poland, to Jewish parents. The family emigrated to the United States in 1960 when she was six years old.[4]

Diller earned her B.Arch in 1979 from the Cooper Union School of Architecture.[1] She met Ricardo Scofidio during her studies; he was her teacher then her tutor. After earning her degree, they later married in the 1980s. Since the 2000s, she has become well-known for her work with conceptual architecture, museums and other cultural institutions.[4][5]

Awards and Honors

Diller is considered among the most influential designers of cultural spaces[6] and in 1999 received the first MacArthur Foundation fellowship in architecture.[7] In 2002, Diller designed the Blur Building for the Swiss Expo with this money.[8]

In 2000 she was awarded the James Beard Award for Outstanding Restaurant Design.[9]

The studio that Diller co-founded was awarded the Wall Street Journal Magazine's 2017 Architecture Innovator of the Year Award. It also received the Smithsonian Institution National Design Award.[10]

In 2018 she was named to the Time Magazine most-influential list for the second time, and was the only architect on that list.[11][3]

In 2019, Diller became the winner of the Jane Drew Prize, and the eighth winner of the annual Women in Architecture award.[12]

Works

• According to Architectural Digest, Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio, since 2002, have created many projects including the Blur in Switzerland; the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; the High Line on the west side of Manhattan; a series of renovations to Lincoln Center; a film museum in Berkeley, California; buildings at Brown University and Stanford University; and the Broad Museum in Los Angeles.[13]
• They have been continuously working on several projects: Vagelos Center at Columbia Medical School; a new business-school building for Columbia University; the London Centre for Music at the Barbican;[14] and a cinema museum in Rio de Janeiro.[13]
• She has written books including: Lincoln Center Inside Out: An Architectural Account in 2012, and has been interviewed in other works such as Bodybuilding: Architecture and Performance in 2019.

Further reading

• Architecture Is a Technology That Has Not Yet Discovered Its Agency, by Elizabeth Diller and Anthony Vidler addresses the underlying reliance modern architects have on technology and the effects of this technology on architecture itself. In this work she explains the problems associated with technology and its use in architecture, yet also defines architecture as a certain type of technology that applies various systems in the world as a whole.[15]
• Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio: “The city is a public resource” was written by London architect and designer Edwin Heathcote in May 2019. Heathcote interviewed Diller and Scofidio about some of their larger works, projects before they became known in the architectural sphere, and explains their experimental process when designing buildings-specifically in New York City and Manhattan.[16]

References

1. Wainwright, Oliver (2017-10-20). "Meet Liz Diller, the rebel architect behind MoMA, the High Line and now a home for Simon Rattle". The Guardian. Retrieved 3 December 2018.
2. "The 6 Architects Who Have Won MacArthur "Genius" Grants". ArchDaily. 2016-09-22. Retrieved 2019-12-13.
3. "Edinburgh International Culture Summit". Retrieved 3 December 2018.
4. Nast, Condé. "How Elizabeth Diller's Polish Heritage Shaped Her Career". Architectural Digest. Retrieved 2019-12-13.
5. Farago, Jason. "An interview with Elizabeth Diller". Even Magazine. Retrieved 3 December 2018.
6. Heathcote, Edwin (2017-09-15). "Elizabeth Diller: one of architecture's most articulate voices". Financial Times. Retrieved 3 December 2018.
7. "Elizabeth Diller - Architect - Class of 1999". MacArthur Foundation. Retrieved 3 December 2018.
8. "The 6 Architects Who Have Won MacArthur "Genius" Grants".
9. "Restaurant Design Award Winner Archive | James Beard Foundation". www.jamesbeard.org. Retrieved 2019-12-13.
10. "Elizabeth Diller | Princeton University School of Architecture". soa.princeton.edu. Retrieved 2019-03-15.
11. Gibson, Eleanor (2018-04-20). "Elizabeth Diller named world's most influential architect by Time magazine". Dezeen. Retrieved 3 December 2018.
12. January, 28; Jessel, 2019By Ella. "Liz Diller wins 2019 Jane Drew Prize". Architects Journal. Retrieved 2019-12-13.CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
13. Nast, Condé. "How Elizabeth Diller's Polish Heritage Shaped Her Career". Architectural Digest. Retrieved 2019-03-14.
14. "Diller Scofidio + Renfro unveils twisting tower for London Centre for Music". Dezeen. 2019-01-21. Retrieved 2019-12-13.
15. Diller, Elizabeth; VIDLER, ANTHONY (2013). "Architecture is a technology that has not yet discovered its agency". Log (28): 21–26. ISSN 1547-4690. JSTOR 43630864.
16. "Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio: "The city is a public resource" | Blog | Royal Academy of Arts". www.royalacademy.org.uk. Retrieved 2019-12-13.