Glass House Presents

Thom Mayne + Henry Cobb

Glass House Presents is an ongoing series of public programs — including conversations, performances, and gatherings — that sustain the site’s historic role as a meeting place for artists, architects, and other creative minds. At each program, visitors have the opportunity to explore the Glass House campus, view current exhibitions, and enjoy a festive reception.

Join Pritzker Prize winner Thom Mayne and 2015 Architectural League of New York President’s Medal recipient Henry N. Cobb for a conversation about architecture and urbanism.

Thom Mayne founded Morphosis in 1972 as a collective architectural practice engaged in cross-disciplinary research and design.  As Design Director and thought leader of Morphosis, he provides overall vision and project leadership to the firm, which has permanent offices in Los Angeles and New York City. In 1972, he helped to found the Southern California Institute of Architecture. Since then, he has held teaching positions at Columbia, Yale, the Harvard Graduate School of Design, the Berlage Institute in the Netherlands, the Bartlett School of Architecture in London, and many other institutions around the world. He is a tenured Professor at UCLA School of Architecture and Urban Design since 1993 and is currently Executive Director of the Now Institute at UCLA, a research and design initiative focusing on applying strategic urban thinking to real world issues. His distinguished honors include the Pritzker Prize (2005), the AIA Gold Medal (2013), and an appointment to the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities in 2009.

Henry N. Cobb is a founding principal of Pei Cobb Freed & Partners Architects, based in New York City. During the six decades since his firm was established in 1955, his practice has embraced a wide variety of building types in cities across North America and around the world. Throughout his career, he has coupled his professional activity with teaching, most intensively during a five-year term (1980–85) asStudio Professor and Chairman of the Department of Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where he continues to teach occasionally as a visiting lecturer. He is a recipient of the President’s Medal of the Architectural League of New York; the Gold Medal for Architecture, awarded bythe American Academy of Arts and Letters; and the Topaz Medallion for Excellence in Architectural Education, awarded jointly by the American Institute of Architects and the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture.