Insights
Insights
06.22.18

Hancher awarded nation’s highest, most prestigious design award

The Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies has awarded Hancher at the University of Iowa with a 2018 American Architectural Award.

Now in its 24th year, the American Architectural Awards are the nation’s highest and most prestigious distinguished building awards program. The annual program, organized by both the Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies, honors new and cutting-edge design in the United States.

Designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli, New Haven, Conn., and OPN Architects, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Hancher was one of 340 projects shortlisted from a record number of projects submitted. A jury of New York architects and educators selected approximately 100 projects designed by American-based firms from around the globe. A full list of projects is available at www.americanarchitectureawards.com.

Recipients were honored on June 20 at a banquet and ceremony in New York. All awarded projects will be published in Global Design + Urbanism XVIII.

The $132-million performing arts center opened in 2016 as a replacement to the original iconic Hancher, which was flooded in 2008. A building without a backside, Hancher’s seamless sinewy lines respond to the adjacent Iowa River and is orientated so that all public areas offer a visual connection to the University of Iowa campus. Parallel forms cantilever at the south end of the building, creating overhangs for the lobby and a second-level terrace. Floor-to-ceiling glass walls below the cantilevers offer views to the campus and the river and can be seen from Hancher bridge and points south.