MARTIN HOUSE SELECTS TOSHIKO MORI AS ARCHITECT FOR VISITORS’ CENTER (10/2002) Architectural Competition Yields Designer for New Building Near Site of a Frank Lloyd Wright National Historic Landmark Buffalo, N.Y. ¯ The Martin House Restoration Corporation (MHRC) announced today that it has selected Toshiko Mori of New York City as architect to design a new Visitors’ Center to stand near Frank Lloyd Wright’s Darwin D. Martin House Complex (1903-05), a National Historic Landmark. Mori, an architect based in New York City and chair of the architecture department at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, also serves as a member of the jury that selected the short-list of firms for the design of the World Trade Center site and surrounding areas. “The design challenge presented by the Martin House Visitors’ Center project is profound; the building must be able to respond with equanimity to a number of seeming mutually exclusive expectations,” said Mark Mendell, AIA, MHRC board member, chair of the Visitors’ Center Planning Committee and president of Cannon Design. “It demands a building that is deferential to the Wright masterpiece, that embodies Wrightian design principles, yet is in no way mannered. It must be a project with its own integrity, a robust 21st century achievement of exceptional character.” Accordingly, a unique selection process was devised which involved a limited design competition, with the objective to elicit the response that ultimately led to today’s announcement. “Our goal was to find an emerging architect with high-promise for greatness and whose exceptional talent might begin to match that of Frank Lloyd Wright’s when he was commissioned by Darwin Martin in 1902 to design his residence. Toshiko Mori is indeed that person,” Mendell continued. “The Restoration Corporation desires to handle visitors to the Martin House as responsibly as possible in a neighborhood laid-out by Frederick Law Olmsted in the 19th century,” said Howard Zemsky, MHRC president. “Toshiko Mori’s design was conceived with great sensitivity to the context of the community and represents a discreet yet architecturally distinctive building of high design excellence.” Once completed, visitors arriving at the Martin House site will flow into the Toshiko Mori-designed Visitors’ Center to begin their experience in understanding and touring one of Wright’s most important works. Located immediately adjacent to the historic Martin House, the building will include visitor orientation space together with interpretive galleries, educational spaces as well as ticketing, a museum shop and other necessary visitor amenities. To initiate the selection process, the MHRC empowered a panel of distinguished architects, all of whom have close connections to the Martin House project, to pre-select five firms who were invited to propose a design concept for the new Visitors’ Center. The five were Toshiko Mori Architect, New York; Office dA, Boston; Architectural Research Office, New York; Schwartz Silver Architects, Boston, and; Brian Healy Architects, Boston. This summer, the MHRC’s Visitors’ Center Planning Committee called each firm to the site in Buffalo to present their ideas. After extensive deliberations and review, the committee invited Toshiko Mori and Office dA to develop their ideas further in a second round of the selection process, from which Mori was ultimately chosen. “The Martin House is a Buffalo project that is all about excellence,” said John C. Courtin, executive director of the MHRC. “The best of our past meets the best of the future with the selection of Toshiko Mori.” “My selection as the architect of the Visitors’ Center for the Darwin Martin House has been one of the most intellectually stimulating and challenging experiences of my career,” said Toshiko Mori. “An opportunity like this does not come often in the life of an architect, and it is indeed my pleasure now to be able to work with this Western New York community that has the highest aspiration for its restoration mission and commitment to excellence in architecture.” Mori describes her proposed Visitors’ Center as “a pavilion” and as “a contemplative space in dialogue with the Martin House Complex, preserving the romantic and picturesque quality of the landscape of structures and gardens. Its generative geometry is a projection of the dimension of the pergola; its identity is that of a garden pavilion that participates in the interwoven relationships of buildings and landscape already present on the site.” Recently named chair of the department of architecture, Mori is the Robert P. Hubbard Professor of Practice at the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) where she has taught since 1995. She is the principal of Toshiko Mori Architect, established in 1981, whose work has received numerous awards and been widely published. Her acclaimed work encompasses projects ranging from houses to museums and retail environments. Mori is an advisor to the Montreal Museum for Decorative Arts and the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation. Prior to joining the faculty at the Harvard GSD, she taught at Cooper Union, and was a visiting faculty member at Columbia University and Yale University, where she was the Eero Saarinen Visiting Professor in 1992. Within the next few weeks, Mori will begin work on the master-planning phase in collaboration with the MHRC’s Visitors’ Center Planning Committee and advisors, as well as the neighbors living close to the Martin House. Mori will work closely with Hamilton Houston Lownie Architects, PC who already serve as restoration architects for the Martin House project and who will serve as associate architects for the Visitors’ Center. Mori will also work in concert with Christopher Chadbourne and Associates, Inc., museum planning and exhibition designers of Boston, to develop the interpretive program for the Martin House site. Ribbon-cutting for the Visitors’ Center is scheduled for Spring 2005. Major support for the Martin House Visitors’ Center project was provided by the County of Erie and The John R. Oishei Foundation. The Martin House restoration project encompasses replication of missing art glass windows, furniture and furnishings, as well as the reconstruction of the pergola, conservatory and carriage house that were demolished more than 40 years ago. The gardens, grounds and other site elements at the Martin House will also be reconstructed as Frank Lloyd Wright originally designed them. The Martin House Restoration Corporation, founded in 1992, has a 27-member board of directors. More than $20 million has been raised to date for this $23 million restoration project. Approximately 350 citizens from throughout the region are active Martin House volunteers.