Marlon Blackwell
Marlon Blackwell, an architect and University of Arkansas professor, has been awarded the the 2020 Gold Medal from the American Institute of Architects, the UA said Friday.
The Gold Medal is the AIA’s highest annual honor, recognizing people whose work has had a lasting influence on the theory and practice of architecture. Blackwell is the second architect practicing and teaching in Arkansas to be awarded the Gold Medal since the program began in 1907.
“Throughout his career, Marlon Blackwell has created inspiring architecture, transforming often limited resources into designs that celebrate each place and heighten all of our horizons,” Robert Ivy, the AIA’s executive vice president and CEO, said in a news release. “Like former AIA Gold Medalist Fay Jones, Marlon Blackwell reminds us that powerful architecture can take place outside the traditional centers of media and fashion.”
Blackwell, a fellow of the American Institute of Architects, holds the E. Fay Jones Chair in Architecture in the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design at the UA, where he has taught since 1992.
Blackwell will receive the award 30 years after Jones received the same honor. Jones, an Arkansas native, was a longtime professor and founding dean of the Fay Jones School as well as a member of the first class of architecture students.
Other Gold Medal winners include Le Corbusier, Frank Gehry, Michael Graves, Moshe Safdie and Frank Lloyd Wright.
Blackwell has won numerous other awards for his work. He was named a Ford Fellow by United States Artists in 2014. His body of work was recognized with the Cooper Hewitt National Design Award in 2016, and he was selected as the William A. Bernoudy Architect in Residence at the American Academy in Rome in 2018. He was inducted into the National Academy of Design in 2018 and received the E. Fay Jones Gold Medal from AIA Arkansas in 2017.
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