Architect Thom Mayne has never been one to take the easy option, and this whistle-stop tour of the buildings he’s created makes you glad for it. These are big ideas cast in material form.

Thom Mayne is an American architect born in 1944. He is based in Los Angeles. Mayne helped found the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) in 1972, where he is a trustee. Since then he has held teaching positions at SCI-Arc, the California State Polytechnic University, Pomona and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He is principal of Morphosis, an architectural firm in Santa Monica, California. Mayne received the Pritzker Architecture Prize in March 2005.

Founded in 1972, Morphosis is an interdisciplinary practice involved in rigorous design and research that yields innovative, iconic buildings and urban environments. With founder Thom Mayne serving as design director, the firm today consists of a group of more than 60 professionals, who remain committed to the practice of architecture as a collaborative enterprise. With projects worldwide, the firm’s work ranges in scale from residential, institutional, and civic buildings to large urban planning projects. Named after the Greek term for ‘to form or be in formation’, Morphosis is a dynamic and evolving practice that responds to the shifting and advancing social, cultural, political and technological conditions of modern life.

Over the past 40 years, Morphosis has received 26 Progressive Architecture awards, over 100 American Institute of Architects (AIA) awards, and numerous other honors and recognitions. Morphosis works have published and exhibited worldwide, and the firm has been the subject of 33 monographs. Recently published monographs include: M:Morphosis (Equalbooks)¸ Combinatory Urbanism (StrayDogCafe), Morphosis (Edilstampa).

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