Recognizing Excellence in North Carolina Modernist Residential Design
Sponsored in 2024 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
Mina Chow, Steven Ehrlich, Fred Bernstein, Myron Goldfinger, Angie Brooks, Inga
Saffron, 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 2024 George Matsumoto Prize Jury:
Shannon Battison
2024 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, 2019. 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.
Owners and builders may submit as well as architects.
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: First, second, and third. 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.
7.
Houses may not be submitted anonymously without an address and owner.
8. 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.
2024 Matsumoto Prize Submission Requirements
Submissions due by 5pm ET Monday, April 29, 2024.
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,
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 1/1/2019.
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
submit photo credits, or your photographers will not be happy. Images may
include text but be sure 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 2024 George Matsumoto Prize Awards will held at Leland LIttle Auctions in Hillsborough NC. Wednesday, July 24, 6pm.