Recognizing Excellence in North Carolina Modernist Residential Design

Sponsored in 2023 by

The George Matsumoto Prize is North Carolina's highest honor exclusively for Modernist residential architecture. NCModernist created the Matsumoto Prize in 2012 honor of George Matsumoto, one of the founding faculty members of North Carolina State University's College of Design. Matsumoto created some of North Carolina's most well-known and well-loved Modernist houses.The Matsumoto Prize encourages architects, designers, and prospective clients to continue the Modernist movement in houses so important to North Carolina's design heritage. The Prize meaningfully and powerfully engages the public with the architecture they love and showcases exceptional Modernist architects and designers in North Carolina.

Past jurors include Gisue Hariri, Myron Goldfinger, Danita Brown, Marianne McKenna, Bob Ivy, Max Strang, Cathleen McGuigan, Marica McKeel, Jim Jennings, Michela Abrams, Martin Voelkel, Hilary Lewis, Barry Bergdoll, Takashi Yanai, Toshiko Mori, Alan Hess, Stella Betts, Harry Wolf, Paul Goldberger, Annabelle Selldorf, Jane Frederick, Tom Phifer, Edward Lalonde, Kristen Ring Murray, Michelle Addington, Deborah Berke, Alexandra Lange, Carl Abbott, Ron Radziner, Tom Kundig, Frank Harmon, Robert Miller, Jeanne Gang, Eric Gartner, Joshua Prince-Ramus, Alison Brooks, Nathan Crowley, Marlon Blackwell, Larry Scarpa, David Jameson, Harry Bates, Helena Arahuete, Maryann Thompson, Brion Jeannette, Peter Gluck, Bev Thorne, and Ray Kappe.

The 2023 George Matsumoto Prize Jury: 

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Angie Brooks FAIA / Mina Chow FAIA / Inga Saffron / Fred Bernstein / Myron Goldfinger FAIA / Steven Ehrlich FAIA

 2023 George Matsumoto Prize Rules, Terms, and Conditions

1. The Prize is open to anyone with primary design responsibility for a completely built, from-the-ground-up, single-family Modernist house of at least 800 heated sf with a CO on or after January 1, 2018. The house must be in North Carolina; the designer/architect can be from anywhere. Renovations, additions, multi-family, or any house that won a past Matsumoto Prize Jury or People's Choice award are ineligible. Past submissions that did not win either Jury or People's Choice awards may be resubmitted.

2. There are no educational or licensure requirements for submission. Your design stands for itself. You may submit more than one house but you cannot win more than one prize per category. If you have a disagreement with another person or firm concerning credit for a house design, get it worked out or consider submitting jointly.

3. Jury Awards: $300 first place, $200 second place, $100 third place, plus a special trophy for each. The Jury, named above, will choose one house per cash Prize honor. There will be no ties. None of the Jury or their firms or employees may submit. There will only be one Jury Prize awarded per firm/designer/architect.

4. There are three People's Choice awards selected by the public through online voting, limited to one vote per e-mail address. Addresses that are or appear to be machine-generated or fraudulent will not be counted. However, if people want to vote more than once, say from a home email and a work email, that's fine. NCModernist's decisions on vote eligibility are final. Vote counts will not be released; only the recipients of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place.

5. Contacting any of the named Jury is strictly prohibited; however, submitters are actively encouraged to publicize their participation in the Matsumoto Prize through email and social media, including asking friends, family, clients, prospects, and the public to vote.

6. NCModernist reserves the exclusive right to accept, edit, or reject any information, image, video, or other submission component for accuracy, appropriateness, style, size, or length; or for compliance with these rules, terms and conditions. If a submission is rejected, payment will be refunded. Houses may not be submitted anonymously without an address and owner.

7. By paying the entry fee, you agree to all the terms and conditions on this page; you have secured rights to use any submitted images, video, or audio; you have secured permission from the homeowners to submit their house; and you agree that images and video may appear at NCModernist's website and social media.

2023 Matsumoto Prize Submission Requirements

Submissions due by 5pm ET Monday, April 24, 2023.

a. Submit a non-refundable entry fee of $139 per house via PayPal to george@usmodernist.org or mail payment to NCModernist, 5409 Pelham Road, Durham NC 27713.

b. Via email to leslieakingery@gmail.com and george@ncmodernist.org, submit the working name of the house, client's name and project address, architect/designer contact info, builder contact info; a headshot JPG of the architect/designer, and a PDF of the Certificate of Occupancy verifying house completion on or after 1/1/2018.

c. Via www.wetransfer.com, send to leslieakingery@gmail.com, up to 15 images/photos, in JPG format only, 1500-2000 pixels wide. Please do not use Dropbox or any other service. Do not submit PDF or any other format. Images must include:

1. at least one site plan, with a north arrow
2. photo elevations from all sides if possible (not renderings)
3. a floor plan
4. at least five interior photos
5. at least five exterior photos

Hint: if you don't submit all of the above images, the Jury will not be happy. Please also submit photo credits, or your photographers will not be happy.  Images may include text but be sure the text can be read easily on a tablet/Ipad; members of the Jury and the public will likely use these devices.  Please check that your images are clear on a mobile device. To check, upload to your website and then view from your phone. Hint: images that are between 1500 and 2000 pixels wide resize most easily for all formats including mobile devices.

d. Submit a two-minute or less video about the house, the client, their needs, the process to meet those needs, you, your firm, or any combination of these elements.

Upload the video to your firm's Vimeo or YouTube page then email the video link to leslieakingery@gmail.com. Submissions without a video will not be considered.  Don't freak out about this; simple is better; filming with a cell phone or tablet will be fine. People just want to hear your design journey with the house and the client.

 

The 2023 George Matsumoto Prize Awards will held at 630pm Thursday, July 27, 2023, at Leland LIttle Auctions in Hillsborough NC.