The National Building Museum has announced that Paul Goldberger is the 14th winner of its Vincent Scully Prize. The museum will host an award ceremony where the honoree will speak on Nov. 15.
Goldberger, a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, recently left one of the highest perches in architectural criticism to take a broader look at buildings and design and to focus on a biography of Frank Gehry. In leaving The New Yorker, the Pulitzer Prize–winning critic led The New York Observer to ponder whether there is still a place in journalism for architectural criticism—or whether the critics are destined to become generalists.
If his contributions at Vanity Fair to date are any indication, architectural criticism is going to be fine. His recent writings include a defense of the Bertrand Goldberg–designed Prentice Women’s Hospital in Chicago, a tribute to retired architect Robert Venturi, FAIA, and a survey of the battle over the design of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial.
For these and many other writings, the jury tapped by the National Building Musem—including David Schwarz, AIA; Deborah Berke, FAIA; Gary Haney, AIA; Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, FAIA; and ARCHITECT editor-in-chief Ned Cramer, Assoc. AIA—recognized Goldberger with the fourteenth Vincent Scully Prize. Past recipients include critic Witold Rybczynski, urbanist Jane Jacobs, and His Royal Highness the Aga Khan.