Service to Humanity: Martha Thorne on the Pritzker Prize, Architectural Education, and Affecting Change
By Julia Gamolina
Martha Thorne is Dean of IE School of Architecture & Design, part of the innovative IE University in Madrid and Segovia, Spain. She also is Executive Director of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, a position she has held since 2005. Her main interests center on two broad themes: the contemporary city and how architecture, design, and urbanism can contribute to sustainability and resilience; and how architecture and design education can evolve in both content and pedagogy to be more relevant for today’s challenges.
From 1995 to 2005, she worked as curator in Department of Architecture at The Art Institute of Chicago. She has written numerous articles for books and journals on contemporary architecture and the city. She served on the Board of Directors of the International Archive of Women in Architecture and the Graham Foundation for Fine Arts. She has participated on juries for the new National Museum of Chinese Art, Zaryadye Park in Moscow and the international jury for ArcVision – Women and Architecture Prize. Ms. Thorne received a Master of City Planning degree from the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Urban Affairs from the State University of New York at Buffalo. She undertook additional studies at the London School of Economics.
In her interview with Julia, Martha talks about her international experiences, her role in academia, and the role of the Pritzker Prize, advising young architects to always question what are considered “truths”.
JG: How did your interest in architecture first develop? What did you learn about yourself in studying it?
MT: I became interested in architecture through, what we can call, the side door. My undergraduate and graduate degrees related to the city and urban planning. Because I moved to Madrid after graduation I found that urban planning was undertaken by either architects or civil engineers and, as luck would have it, I was able to work with architects much more than with civil engineers.
In those early experiences, I saw that architecture approached many issues holistically and with creativity, looking for new or perhaps unexpected ways of tackling challenges. To me, this was very interesting. I also recall that I realized that architecture is a field that requires constant research, constant learning, and a search for information on new methods, new tools, and that all of this is done with great optimism.
Martha meeting with IE Alumni.
Martha on a Roca Madrid Gallery panel.
How did you get your start in the field?
Some of my first jobs in Spain were related to publishing, and generally communicating architecture and design. I also was able to work for a Ministry that had a public gallery space devoted to architecture and design. Understanding how to communicate the built environment to a broad public was the main focus of my work. It was also a time that Spain was opening up to Europe and the world and there was great interest in connecting cultural initiatives from other places and also sharing the ideas and advances of this country as it developed in consolidating its young democracy.
That’s a really interesting time. What did you do next?
An important step in my career came when I moved to Chicago to work at the Art Institute. I recall the first months, if not years, when I truly felt like an outsider because I was unable to interpret cultural clues. I didn't share many of the common experiences of movies or events with my colleagues and friends. However, I believe I learned two lessons that are still really important to me. One is the appreciation of the people who trusted in me and trusted that in the long run, I would be a valuable colleague and professional at the museum in Chicago. And the second lesson was to not be afraid to venture outside one's comfort zone.
“...architecture is a field that requires constant research, constant learning, and a search for information on new methods, new tools, and that all of this is done with great optimism.”
You then moved back to Madrid. Tell me about that.
Prior to moving back to Madrid, I was able to facilitate several architect selection processes for public and private clients. Then I moved back, and continued to do this from Madrid until I had secured an academic position at IE School of Architecture and Design.
Throughout all of this, what have been the biggest challenges? The biggest highlights?
If I look at the challenges and highlights in my career it's amazing how similar they are. The highlights are the ability to live in different places and feel a part of different communities. The highlights have to do with the people I met and how they touched my life. I have been so fortunate to travel all over the world and can count people from numerous countries as my good friends. The challenges have been related to finding my own path and not always knowing exactly where it will lead. Living in different places tests your ability to observe and understand different contexts.
Sometimes this can be lonely. When I look at my life, I say that in many ways it was non-traditional and even unexpected. This can lead to doubt or perplexing situations and that is when inner strength has to come in, to continue on one's path.
Martha Thorne as editor and article author.
Martha at the 2008 Pritzker Prize ceremony.
Where are you in your career today?
Today, I am committed to strengthening and growing the IE School of Architecture and Design. I am the dean of this twelve-year-old international and innovative school, and academia is a particularly rewarding position to be in at this time. Architecture and design have always looked for alternative ways and modern pedagogies for teaching and learning. The outbreak of Covid-19 has pushed us more quickly down a path that we were just beginning to embark upon. We are at a crossroads for architecture and design education not only at the university level, but also thinking about lifelong learning. We have challenges to find ways to make architecture and design more relevant for contemporary society. It's not just a matter of doing good, it's a matter of using the tools of the discipline effectively to have an impact or to affect change. It's a broadening of outdated concepts and expanding definitions. Traditionally speaking, if you're a designer, you're an architect. However, if you undertake other roles in the field, then you are not considered a full-fledged architect or designer. This is clearly not the case, especially as we move more and more toward collaborative models and as we see the processes of design and construction as nonlinear.
The other part of education that I would like to affect are the roles of others who affect the built environment, such as those in the construction industry, real estate, public policy, and clients who engage architects or designers. I believe that we need to increase the communication and understanding of the roles of the many agents who affect our built environment to be able to effectively establish common goals and achieve the highest quality, most sustainable built environments possible.
“...always question what are considered “truths”. We need to challenge assumptions in order to find new and better ways of doing things. ”
In a few months, March of 2021, you are completing your tenure as Executive Director of the Pritzker Prize. Tell me about that - the role of the Pritzker, your role in it, etc.
The great step forward with the Pritzker came with the internet. What this meant was that I was able to reach out to people in remote parts of the world. It was much easier to be international and to reach out to a more diverse group of people for ideas and nominations for the Pritzker. I think that made it easier to get information for the jury that was international, and not only international, but inclusive of people thinking about architecture in different ways.
My feeling in recent years is that the jury citations have also evolved. We try much more to send a message. The first years of the Pritzker, for a number of reasons, were much more like the Olympics - so-and-so from this country wins the prize. They didn’t have a deeper message. The evolution recently has been the emphasis on the message - what does the architecture of this person, or these people, mean? How does it relate to a broader public? It’s not easy because it’s not easy to communicate architecture in a press release, and it’s also not easy because the press that covers the prize have limited space, they have to have a certain headline. But I do think the media has helped us in recent years.
So, I would say the Pritzker has evolved in three ways during my tenure - with the internet to allow the recipients to be more diverse, more focus on a message beyond the nationality of the winner, and the prize in really having two goals: excellence in architecture as seen through built work, and a consistent service to humanity. There is more of a balance now between those two goals than there was perhaps in the beginning.
What is your personal relationship with the Pritzker based on the position you’ve held? What did you try to infuse into what it means to win the Pritzker?
My role was always in the background, and it was really to, in the ways that I could, try to make sure that the jury understands what the public is thinking. Since I processed the nominations from all around the world, I always tried to understand what the public was saying, why the people submitting the nominations that they were, were doing so, and conveying that to the jury.
The other element would be to make sure that women were put forward to be jurors. In terms of the jury, it’s just making sure that women candidates and from among them, the brilliant women around the world, were seriously considered. I think we see the results today, with three women on the permanent jury.
Martha Thorne, author of one article in book.
Martha at the Roca Madrid Gallery
We certainly see the results today, but also because the Pritzker laureates of 2020 were Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara of Grafton Architects! This couldn't have been more exciting for me, for my community of readers, for women in the profession in general. Could you speak to that a little bit? What did this mean for you, and for the Pritzker, and for the world?
I was absolutely thrilled. I know Shelley and Yvonne consider themselves first and foremost architects. However, when they were Directors of the Biennale, they didn’t have this frontal expression of, “Here are the women in architecture,” but they did do things in a really smart way - they included team members, so that it was never just one name on anything, and nine times out of ten, those team members were women, or were heavily women. They undoubtedly and absolutely support women.
When they won, I was elated because, on a personal level, I think the Pritzker needs to lead. Sometimes prizes lead and sometimes they follow, and it was time for the Pritzker to say, “We are leading.” These are two women who work together - they’re not married to each other, they are colleagues, they have a professional relationship, and they collaborate, and they’ve been doing so for decades. They also have a very collaborative office. They received many of their commissions, at least in the first decades, through competitions, which is not easy. I think they are fantastic architects - I was privileged to visit many of their buildings, and no matter when they were built, their buildings have a very human quality of serving the people who are in the building.
They also have a really good message, which is that even if you have realistic parameters, you can be extremely creative and poetic even with constraints. There are some other architects, and I won’t name them, but some that equate bigger budgets with quality, and we know that that’s absolutely not true. Shelley and Yvonne show us what quality in architecture is, and they do it over and over and over again.
“...on a personal level, I think the Pritzker needs to lead. Sometimes prizes lead and sometimes they follow, and it was time for the Pritzker to say, “We are leading.””
Who else are you admiring right now and why?
I admire many people in many different professions and roles, especially women who have opened doors for me in my career and generously paved the way for other women. We will not go back to old models, but we still need to improve the present and future so that women have choices and are able to change throughout their career.
Right now I am looking forward to the transition of stepping down from my role as Executive Director of the Pritzker. The experience, the knowledge, the opportunities that the Prize has afforded me are immensely great, and now I would like to be able to take some of that experience and express my opinions more clearly and try to influence our field more directly.
Speaking of influence, what is the impact you’d like to have in the world? What is your core mission?
I am not too concerned about measuring my impact on the world. What we do day by day, and how we do it is, where we should place our attention. I think a lot about cities and livability. I worry about the increasing divide in cities in terms of income, education, and equal opportunities. The effects of global warming increasingly impact our cities and cities contribute to climate change. Architects build only a small percentage of our cities and most of our buildings have the direct influence of developers, construction companies, and those who finance the buildings. So I will continue to be involved in education, understanding, and communication about the importance of our cities to our future and livelihood. I hope to do this in many ways and in collaboration with others.
Finally, what advice do you have for those starting their career? Would your advice be any different for women?
For those starting their career, I would say it's really important to be flexible, agile, and be able to adjust quickly to unexpected situations. This may seem obvious, but it's not so easy to do. I would also say to always question what are considered “truths". We need to challenge assumptions in order to find new and better ways of doing things.
I would especially encourage women to be extremely observant of any context in which they find themselves. Today, inequality and unfair practices come in different formats and they are often difficult to perceive. Individual behaviors, unconscious attitudes, and old structures resistant to change are but some of the barriers to allowing women to take their place and attain their full capacity. I have seen the women's movement go through many stages from anger to trying to replicate men's behavior to promises of collaboration and touting the value of women's input for increased profits. I think we need to be vigilant and generous with our colleagues who are women, and courageous to raise our voices when we see injustices or potentially unfair situations. I also think that women professionals should not be afraid to reach out to each other for information, support, and when necessary, action. The goal should be a more humane and fair society for all.