TOSHIKO MORI
Robert P. Hubbard Professor in the Practice of Architecture
Toshiko Mori is the Robert P. Hubbard Professor in the Practice of Architecture at Harvard University Graduate School of Design and was chair of the Department of Architecture from 2002 to 2008. She is the principal of Toshiko Mori Architect, which she established in 1981 in New York City. Professor Mori taught at the Cooper Union School of Architecture from 1983, until joining the Harvard GSD faculty with tenure in 1995. She has been a visiting faculty member at Columbia University and Yale University, where she was the Eero Saarinen Visiting Professor in 1992. She has taught courses on the tectonics of textiles, materials and fabrication methods in architecture, structural innovations, and the role of architects as agents of change in a global context. She is also the founder of VisionArc, a think-tank promoting global dialogue for a sustainable future and one of the founders of Paracoustica, a non-profit that promotes music in underserved communities.
Her firm’s recent work includes: Master plans for the Brooklyn Public Library Central Branch and the Buffalo Botanical Gardens; Thread, a cultural center and artists’ residences in rural Senegal; Fass School and Teachers’ Residence also in Senegal; and new canopy for the #7 subway line for the Hudson Park and Boulevard in New York City. The firm was also recently selected to design Brown University’s expansion for the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs. Their projects have been internationally exhibited, which includes at the 2012 and 2014 Venice Architecture Biennales, the 2017 Chicago Architecture Biennial and at the Louisiana Museum in Copenhagen in 2015. Architectural Digest listed her amongst their biennial AD100 in 2014, 2016, 2017 and 2018.
Professor Mori’s strong research-based approach to design has been commended in invitations to lectures and conferences around the world, such as giving the keynote speech for the 2017 Finnish Architecture Day (Alvar Aalto’s birthday) in Helsinki where she was also elected as the chair of the Alvar Aalto Medal jury (its 50th anniversary.) As a member and former-chair of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Design, she has participated in sessions to discuss scarcity-driven design, the future of cities and urban information systems, design related to olfactory sensation and experience, and the role of the arts in improving communities. Professor Mori has participated in international symposia and conferences, including panels held at the MoMA, Guggenheim Museum, and the G1 Summit in Japan, and she has lectured at universities across the country and around the world.
Professor Mori has been honored with: numerous AIA Awards; the Academy Award in Architecture, from the American Academy of Arts and Letters; the American Institute of Architects New York Chapter Medal of Honor; the 2016 Tau Sigma Delta National Honor Society Gold Medal; and in 2016 was inducted as a member into the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Her project in Senegal won the Plan 2016 award in Culture, two Architizer 2016 A+ awards, the AIA 2017 Institute Honor Award and recently the Certificate of Excellence at the Africa Architecture 2017 Awards. Her renovation of the Peter Freeman Gallery was also awarded an Architizer 2016 A+ award in the Gallery category. The firm’s Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research was awarded Higher Education/Research Best Project by ENR New England and the Center for Maine Contemporary Art in Rockland, Maine was awarded Best New Museum by the Boston Globe.