Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects
Encyclopedia
Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects (aka Tod Williams Billie Tsien and Associates) are a husband-and-wife architectural firm founded in 1974, based in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

.

Tod Williams (born 1943, New York) studied architecture at Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....

, New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...

 after graduating from the Cranbrook School
Cranbrook Schools
Cranbrook Schools is a private, PK–12 school located on a campus in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. The schools comprise a co-educational elementary school, a middle school with separate schools for boys and girls, and a co-educational high school with boarding facilities...

 in Bloomfield Hills. He is also a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome
American Academy in Rome
The American Academy in Rome is a research and arts institution located on the Gianicolo in Rome.- History :In 1893, a group of American architects, painters and sculptors met regularly while planning the fine arts section of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition...

, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

. Previous to founding the office Williams worked for six years for architect Richard Meier
Richard Meier
Richard Meier is an American architect, whose rationalist buildings make prominent use of the color white.- Biography :Meier is Jewish and was born in Newark, New Jersey...

.

Williams is the father of Tod Williams
Tod Williams (filmmaker)
Tod Culpan "Kip" Williams is an American director, producer and screenwriter.-Life and career:Williams was born and raised in New York City, the son of architect Tod Williams and a mother who was a dancer...

 and Rachel Williams
Rachel Williams
Rachel Williams is an American model, actress, and TV presenter now living in the United Kingdom.- Biography :Her father Tod Williams and stepmother Billie Tsien are architects in the Manhattan firm Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects, well known for their American Folk Art Museum, which many...

.

Billie Tsien (born 1949, Ithaca
Ithaca
Ithaca or Ithaka is an island located in the Ionian Sea, in Greece, with an area of and a little more than three thousand inhabitants. It is also a separate regional unit of the Ionian Islands region, and the only municipality of the regional unit. It lies off the northeast coast of Kefalonia and...

, New York). Tsien has taught at Parsons School of Design, SCI-ARC
Southern California Institute of Architecture
The Southern California Institute of Architecture in Los Angeles , California, is an independent, nonprofit school offering undergraduate and graduate degrees in architecture. It offers community design and outreach programs, and free public access to frequent exhibitions and lectures by leading...

, Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

, Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

, University of Texas at Austin
University of Texas at Austin
The University of Texas at Austin is a state research university located in Austin, Texas, USA, and is the flagship institution of the The University of Texas System. Founded in 1883, its campus is located approximately from the Texas State Capitol in Austin...

 and the University of Virginia
University of Virginia
The University of Virginia is a public research university located in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States, founded by Thomas Jefferson...

. Tsien is on the boards of the Architectural League of New York
Architectural League of New York
The Architectural League of New York is a non-profit organization "for creative and intellectual work in architecture, urbanism, and related disciplines"....

, the Public Art Fund
Public Art Fund
The Public Art Fund is a non-profit organization founded in 1977 by Doris Freedman , a Director of New York City's Department of Cultural Affairs, and the President of the Municipal Art Society. They have organized highly visible artists' projects, new commissions, installations and exhibitions in...

, and is a vice president of the Municipal Art Society in New York City.

Williams and Tsien shared the Jane and Bruce Graham Chair in Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...

 in 1998, as well as the Eliel Saarinen Chair at the University of Michigan
Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning
The A. Alfred Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning is an undergraduate and graduate institution for the built environment at the University of Michigan. Formerly known as the College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Taubman College gained the namesake of real estate developer and...

 in 2001 and 2002.

A selection of works

  • Hereford College
    Hereford College
    Hereford College is a self-governed residential college at the University of Virginia that houses 500 students, mostly in single-occupancy rooms...

    , University of Virginia
    University of Virginia
    The University of Virginia is a public research university located in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States, founded by Thomas Jefferson...

     (1992)
  • The Neurosciences Institute
    The Neurosciences Institute
    The Neurosciences Institute is a non-profit, scientific research organization dedicated to learning about the brain. Under the leadership of Nobel Laureate Gerald M...

    , La Jolla (1995)
  • Long Island Residence, New York (1999)
  • Cranbrook Schools
    Cranbrook Schools
    Cranbrook Schools is a private, PK–12 school located on a campus in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. The schools comprise a co-educational elementary school, a middle school with separate schools for boys and girls, and a co-educational high school with boarding facilities...

     Natatorium, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan
    Michigan
    Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....

     (1999)
  • American Folk Art Museum
    American Folk Art Museum
    The American Folk Art Museum is a museum devoted to American folk art, as well as the work of international self-taught artists. It has branches at 45 West 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, in Midtown Manhattan .In May 2011 the Museum of Modern Art bought its 53rd Street location...

    , New York (2001)
  • Skirkanich Hall, University of Pennsylvania
    University of Pennsylvania
    The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...

     (2006)
  • Phoenix Art Museum
    Phoenix art museum
    The Phoenix Art Museum is the Southwest United States' largest art museum for visual art. Located in Phoenix, Arizona, the museum is . It displays international exhibitions alongside its comprehensive collection of more than 18,000 works of American, Asian, European, Latin American, Western...

     expansion, Phoenix, Arizona
    Phoenix, Arizona
    Phoenix is the capital, and largest city, of the U.S. state of Arizona, as well as the sixth most populated city in the United States. Phoenix is home to 1,445,632 people according to the official 2010 U.S. Census Bureau data...

     (2006)
  • Barnes Foundation - announced in September 2007 selected to design new location

Sources

  • Tod Williams, "Ascension", in Archipelago: Essays on Architecture, edited by P. MacKeith, Helsinki, Rakennustieto, 2006
  • Billie Tsien, "The cuts through the heart", in Archipelago: Essays on Architecture.
  • Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, The 1998 Charles and Ray Eames Lecture, Michigan Architecture Papers, University of Michigan Press, 1999.
  • Douglas Heller, Tod Williams Billie Tsien and Associates: An Annotated Bibliography, Council of Planning Librarians, 1993.
  • Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, Work/Life, New York, Monacelli Press, 2000.
  • Kester Rattenbury, Robert Bevan, and Kieran Long, Architects Today, New York, Laurence King Publishing, 2006.
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