Young Architects 19: Support

Documents the important lecture and exhibition series that for more than three decades has introduced creative young architects on a national stage. Shows the breadth of contemporary practices with projects in various typologies. The Architectural League Prize for Young Architects + Designers is an annual competition, series of lectures, exhibition, and publication organised by the Architectural League of New York. For over thirty years, the League Prize has recognised outstanding and provocative work by up-and-coming North American architects and designers. The 2017 competition theme, Support, defines the term as 'an artifice that props architecture up while in turn facilitating new ideas, new forms, and new opportunities for action'. The competition asked entrants to define support's effect on architecture as tangible (how buildings stand up), financial (how buildings are funded), and theoretical (how buildings contribute to architectural discourse). The six competition winners avoided literal definitions in favour of metaphorical, historical, and methodological interpretations that have the potential to generate form. 2017 winners: Architecture Office (Jonathan Louie, Nicole McIntosh), Syracuse, New York; Michelle JaJa Chang, Houston, Texas; KEVIN HIRTH Co. (Kevin Hirth), Denver, Colorado; the Lab-lab for architecture (Mustafa Faruki), New York, New York; LANZA Atelier (Isabel Martinez Abascal, Alessandro Arienzo), Mexico City; SPORTS (Greg Corso & Molly Hunker), Syracuse, New York.

The Architectural League of New York, founded in 1881, nurtures excellence in architecture, design, and urbanism, and stimulates thinking and debate about the critical design and building issues of our time. As a vital, independent forum for architecture and its allied disciplines, the League helps create a more beautiful, vibrant, innovative, and sustainable future. Mark Robbins is president and CEO of the American Academy in Rome. He was previously executive director of the International Center of Photography in New York, dean and professor at Syracuse University School of Architecture, and director of design at the National Endowment for the Arts. Robbins has been a visiting professor at numerous institutions across the United States; has exhibited his work in numerous venues around the world; and is the author and editor of three books and two book series. Anne Rieselbach, program director of the Architectural League, has directed the Architectural League Prize since 1987. She organizes many of the League's lecture series, competitions, and exhibitions, and she was the editor of the recent League publication 30 Years of Emerging Voices: Idea, Form, Resonance.