SENATE MEMORIAL 44

47th legislature - STATE OF NEW MEXICO - second session, 2006

INTRODUCED BY

Sue Wilson Beffort

A MEMORIAL

PROCLAIMING FEBRUARY 13, 2006 "ANTOINE PREDOCK DAY" AT THE SENATE.

     WHEREAS, on December 8, 2005, the board of directors of the American institute of architects announced that Antoine Predock of Albuquerque was the recipient of the institute's 2006 gold medal; and

     WHEREAS, the gold medal, given annually, is the highest honor the institute confers on an architect to honor the body of work of that architect; and

     WHEREAS, Antoine Predock will be presented this award February 10, 2006 at the national building museum in Washington, D.C.; and

     WHEREAS, Antoine Predock said, upon notification of his winning the award, "I am deeply honored. In some ways I feel like my career is just starting; this is the ultimate."; and

     WHEREAS, Antoine Predock is in select company, following other winners such as Thomas Jefferson, Frank Lloyd Wright, Louis Kahn and I.M. Pei; and

     WHEREAS, in nominating Antoine Predock for the award, Thomas S. Howorth, chair of the institute's gold medal committee, explained, "Arguably, more than any American architect of any time, Antoine Predock has asserted a personal and place-inspired vision of architecture with such passion and conviction that his buildings have been universally embraced."; and

     WHEREAS, Antoine Predock's designs grow out of their unique landscapes and are born out of his geographic surroundings, New Mexico and the American West; and

     WHEREAS, his work includes the famed Turtle Creek house, built in 1993 for bird enthusiasts along a prehistoric trail in Texas, the ballpark for the San Diego Padres baseball team, which reinvents the concept of a stadium as a "garden" rather than a sports complex; and

     WHEREAS, he also designed the national palace museum in Taiwan; buildings at Stanford and Rice universities; and award-winning buildings such as the Pima community college learning center in Green Valley, Arizona, the federal courthouse in El Paso, Texas, the shadow house in Santa Fe, the Robert Hoag Rawlings public library in Pueblo, Colorado, and the Spencer theater for the performing arts in Alto, New Mexico; and

     WHEREAS, he attended architecture school at the university of New Mexico and Columbia university; and

     WHEREAS, he approaches design challenges by "listening to the land, building with environmental sensitivity and embracing all facets of a site's culture; and

     WHEREAS, his spiritual connection to his work is credited as the reason that he has been a legendary American architect;

     NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE SENATE OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO that Antoine Predock be congratulated and recognized by proclaiming February 13, 2006 as "Antoine Predock Day" at the senate; and

     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that copies of this memorial be transmitted to Antoine Predock and to the American institute of architects.

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