This brings us to the firm Venturi Scott Brown & Associates, and more specifically the awarding of the 1991 Pritzker Prize to Robert Venturi. The exclusion of his longtime partner and spouse, Denise Scott Brown, was immediately controversial. Brown did not attend the award ceremony in protest. The reason given at the time indicated that the award only honored indivual architects. This is a particularly weak argument, given the 1988 joint recognition of Oscar Niemeyer and Gordon Bunshaft.
Over two decades later, a couple of Harvard Graduate School of Design students, Arielle Assouline-Lichten and Caroline James, launched an online petition demanding that the Brown be retroactively acknowledged for her contributions. It’s worth noting, the petition was to recognize Brown’s contributions, not to retroactively award the prize to Denise Scott Brown.
Last Friday, the Pritzker Architecture Prize Committee delivered its official response to the petition. The already notable outrcy from the architectural community, including the signatures of nine past laureates, has only gotten louder. The nuances of the response are calculated, and Lord Peter Palumbo appears to have tried valiantly to diffuse the situation without giving into the demands of the petition.