Arabic

Emilio Ambasz

President, Emilio Ambasz & Associates, Inc.

Emilio Ambasz, born in 1943 in Argentina, studied at Princeton University. He completed the undergraduate program in one year and earned a Master's Degree in Architecture from the same institution the next year.
He taught at Princeton University's School of Architecture, was a visiting professor at the Hochschule fur Gestaltung in Ulm, Germany, and has lectured at many important American universities. He served as Curator of Design at The Museum of Modern Art in New York (1970-76), where he directed and installed numerous influential exhibits on architecture and industrial design. Mr. Ambasz was a two-term President of the Architectural League (1981-85).
Mr. Ambasz' large number of prestigious projects include the Mycal Sanda Cultural Center in Japan, the Museum of American Folk Art in New York City, and the innovative design of the Lucille Halsell Conservatory at the San Antonio Botanical Center, Texas.

Among his award winning projects are the Grand Rapids Art Museum in Michigan, winner of the 1976 Progressive Architecture Award, and A House for a Couple, winner of the 1980 Progressive Architecture Award. He was awarded the 1985 Progressive Architecture Award, the 1988 National Glass Association Award for Excellence in Commercial Design and the highly esteemed 1990 Quaternario Award

for high technological achievement in his design of the Lucille Halsell Conservatory at the San Antonio Botanical Center. His interior design for the Banque Bruxelles Lambert in Lausanne, Switzerland, received the 1983 Annual Interiors Award, as well as a Special Commendation from the jury. He won First Prize and a Gold Medal in the closed competition to design the Master Plan for the Universal Exhibition of 1992 in Seville, Spain, celebrating the 500th anniversary of America's discovery. This project was also granted the 1986 Architectural Projects Award from the American Institute of Architects. The headquarters he designed for the Financial Guaranty Insurance Company of New York won the Grand Prize in the 1987 International Interior Design Awards of the United Kingdom, as well as the 1986 IDEA Award from the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA). He won First Prize in the 1986 closed competition for the Urban Plan of the Eschenheimer Tower in Frankfurt, Germany. In 1987 Progressive Architecture magazine and the American Institute of Architects both cited awards for the 1986 Mercedes-Benz Showroom design.
Mr. Ambasz represented America at the 1976 Venice Biennale. He has been the subject of numerous international publications as well as museum and art gallery exhibitions. Principal among these are the Leo Castelli Gallery, the Corcoran Gallery, The Museum of Modern Art