Thomas Phifer

Architect Thomas Phifer will present the Glenstone Museum. Located on nearly 300 acres of rolling grass pasture and woodlands just outside of Washington, DC, the Glenstone Foundation offers a serene and contemplative environment for visitors to experience contemporary art. Guided by the personal vision of its founders, Emily and Mitchell Rales, Glenstone assembles post-World War II artworks that trace the greatest historical shifts in the way we experience and understand art of the 20th and 21st centuries. These works are presented in a series of indoor and outdoor rooms designed to foster meaningful encounters. Glenstone offers 150,000 square feet of art exhibition space that features changing exhibitions and rooms dedicated to single-artist installations. Mr. Phifer's lecture will conclude with an update on the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw. The new 213,000 square foot contemporary art institution is under construction and is scheduled to be completed in October.

Projects under construction include the Museum of Modern Art and TR Warszawa Theatre in Warsaw, an artists' retreat in Maine, and the Wagner Park Pavilion, a key component of the South Battery Park City Resiliency Project in Lower Manhattan. Thomas Phifer is also engaged in private residences in Texas, Maine, and New York.

Since 1997, Thomas Phifer and Partners has received more than thirty honor awards from the American Institute of Architects. He received the prestigious Rome Prize in Architecture from the American Academy in Rome in 1995 and was awarded the Medal of Honor from the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects in 2004. He was elected as an Academician of the National Academy of Design in 2011. In 2013, Mr. Phifer received the Arts and Letters Award in Architecture from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2016, he was honored by the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects with the President’s Award and by the Sir John Soane’s Museum Foundation. He also gave the 2016 keynote lecture at the Royal Institute of British Architects in London. In 2019, he was awarded the National Design Award in Architectural Design from the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum. In 2022, he was elected as a lifetime member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Mr. Phifer is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects.