The George Matsumoto Prize is North Carolina's highest honor exclusively for Modernist residential architecture. NCModernist created the Matsumoto Prize in 2012 in 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. This is the 15th year of the Prize. This year you can vote for both NEW and RENOVATED houses. Prizes will be given for first, second, and third for each category.
How to vote: click on a photo or house name. Then click the VOTE button at the top of that house's page. It will bring up your email program. Just click send and you are done. If the vote button does not function, send an email with the word Vote and the name of the house in the subject to george@ncmodernist.org. You are limited to one vote per e-mail address per category. However, if you want to vote more than once, say from a home email and a work email, that's fine. Email addresses that are or appear to be machine-generated or fraudulent will not be counted. NCModernist's decisions on vote eligibility are final. VOTING ENDS TUESDAY JUNE 30, 5pm ET.
The 2026 awards ceremony, Thirst4Architecture Happy Hour, and preview for the quarterly Modernist auction is Wednesday, July 22, at Leland Little Auctions, 620 Cornerstone Court, Hillsborough NC, 6pm. Free, registration required.
