Skip to main content
Close
Vilcek Foundation
  • About
    • About

      The Vilcek Foundation raises awareness of immigrant contributions in the United States and fosters appreciation of the arts and sciences.

    • Our Mission
    • Board & Staff
    • Press Center
    • Contact
  • Prizes
    • Prizes

      The Vilcek Foundation Prizes are awarded to foreign-born individuals for extraordinary achievement in the arts and sciences.

    • About the Prizes

      Learn more about the Vilcek Foundation Prizes and the prizewinners.

    • Vilcek Prizes

      Awarded to immigrants with a legacy of major accomplishments.

    • Vilcek Prizes for Creative Promise

      Awarded to young immigrant professionals who have demonstrated outstanding achievement early in their careers.

    • Vilcek Prize for Excellence

      Awarded to immigrants who have had a significant impact on American society, or to individuals who are dedicated champions of immigrant causes.

    • Prize Recipients
    • Grants for Organizations
  • Art
  • Events
  • News
Sign Up Search
Home > News > Postmodern pioneer: Manga biography celebrates Denise Scott Brown

Postmodern pioneer: Manga biography celebrates Denise Scott Brown

News | January 27, 2021
Download PDF
Tags
architect architecture manga urban planning urbanism zambia
Share this page
Twitter Facebook LinkedIn

The Vilcek Foundation has partnered with artist and illustrator Hiroki Otsuka to create a series of manga – graphic comics in the Japanese tradition – about our prizewinners. The first manga centers the life and work of Denise Scott Brown, recipient of the 2007 Vilcek Prize in Architecture. “Denise Scott Brown is one of the most influential American architects of the twentieth century. A pioneer of postmodernist thinking, her designs are rooted in a highly theoretical framework,” says Vilcek Foundation President Rick Kinsel. “We are delighted with the way Hiroki captured these elements of Denise’s life and work for this manga.”

Download the Manga

Hiroki’s mastery of manga as a tool for storytelling is evident. In this manga, he translates abstract concepts into images and text, illuminating the approaches to study and design that make Denise Scott Brown an icon of modern architecture and urban planning.

Present day: Denise sits on her balcony with a hot beverage in-hand reminiscing about her upbringing in South Africa.

Denise in her youth as she goes from photographing South African architecture to moving overseas to expand her knowledge of urban-planning.

Denise remembers her days in Las Vegas and the skyline that inspired her book, "Learning from Las Vegas."

A youthful Denise in the ring of a circus riding two horses with one foot on each horse.

Denise reflects on the infrastructure she designed all over the world.

At Dartmouth College, Denise consulted on the plan for a new mathematics building. She looks at the figures of a gladiator, a handmaiden, and a magician as her analogy about math “comes to life.”

Denise reminisces about her career and receiving the Vilcek Prize from Vilcek Foundation president, Rick Kinsel.

 

Denise Scott Brown

Born in Zambia and raised in South Africa, Denise rose to acclaim in the 1960s and 1970s for her approach to modern architecture and urban planning. She is fascinated by the way individuals interact with space, and the ways in which these interactions can be used to develop buildings and spaces that are functional and responsive to people’s needs.

 

Hiroki Otsuka

Hiroki’s work has appeared in major Japanese publications and in galleries and art fairs in New York, Tokyo, and Basel. Born in Japan, he has been a professional manga artist since 1994. In 2007, he was one of 33 Japanese contemporary artists featured in the Japan Society’s centennial exhibition, Making a Home; and in 2010, he served as the Japan Society’s first-ever manga artist-in-residence during the exhibition Graphic Heroes, Magic Monsters.


Transcript

Denise Scott Brown
2007 Vilcek Prize in Architecture

This is my Peaceable Kingdom. That’s what I call my house. The buildings, books, essays on urban space—they all took shape here. It’s been my home for more than forty years.

Johannesburg, South Africa

I grew up in South Africa. When I was a toddler, my mother started teaching me about modernism. Architecture was my destiny, I guess you’d say.

I had to experience European buildings through photos. For me, photography became a critical way to understand architecture…

…a new way of seeing. It’s a tool I still use today!

I knew my calling. I left Africa to train in urban planning and architecture. But that was the 1960s and I quickly found…

…it was a challenge to be recognized in a field dominated by men.

I decided the way forward was to create bold, interesting work… and to always be learning!

The book that made Bob Venturi and me famous—or is it infamous?—is Learning from Las Vegas. We argued that America’s wild, flashing jungle of neon held many important lessons for a fresh approach to architecture.

The city was so vital we needed new concepts and theories to handle it.

We brought thirteen of our Yale students along to help.

We rode the buses, studied the tourist maps, measured the signs and land use maps. We went to the gala opening of the Circus Circus casino…

As I think about it, the circus is a pretty good way to describe my life’s work. I have been a circus horse rider most of my life—a woman who works with a foot on two horses at once.

Architecture & Urbanism

South Africa & The United States

History & Innovation

Traditional Architecture & The Vernacular

Provincial Capitol Building, Toulouse, France

Sainsbury Wing, National Gallery, London, United Kingdom

Nikko Kirifuri Resort, Nikko, Japan

People started to come to Bob and me with all sorts of wonderful problems… we designed museums and fire departments and hotels and monuments… and we helped plan the flow of universities and city centers.

Sometimes clients would be surprised by my approach!

Dartmouth

Dartmouth College consulted me on developing a campus plan. They asked me where their new mathematics building should go.“Well how do you think about math?” I asked.

“Is it the shock troops of computer programming?”

“The handmaiden of the sciences?”

“Inspired, fun puzzle-solving?”

You’ve got to wrap your head around these questions and a hundred more… before you can think about laying a brick.

In 2007 I received the Vilcek Prize in Architecture.The Vilcek Foundation specifically recognizes immigrants in the arts and sciences.

I’ve won a number of awards in my time. In 1992, Bob and I were awarded the National Medal of Arts… we also received the American Institute of Architects’ highest honor—the AIA Gold Medal.

But the Vilcek Prize is a special recognition because it acknowledges my whole life experience as well as my accomplishments.

Tags
architect architecture manga urban planning urbanism zambia
Share this page
Twitter Facebook LinkedIn

Related News

May 4, 2021

Vilcek Foundation receives 2021 AIA Interior Architecture Award

The Vilcek Foundation headquarters, designed by ARO, are honored for outstanding interior architecture and design.
The first floor gallery space within the Vilcek Foundation NYC headquarters.
August 24, 2022

Sample culture and the imaginative world: New Manga on Blitz Bazawule

The third in our series of visual stories celebrating the lives and work of Vilcek Foundation prizewinners honors artist Samuel “Blitz” Bazawule.
A color animation of Samuel
November 3, 2021

Worlds Inside: Manga Explores the Work of Biochemist Mohamed Abou Donia

The second in our manga series honoring Vilcek Foundation Prizewinners, developed in partnership with Hiroki Otsuka.

You may also be interested in

Denise Scott Brown

Denise Scott Brown receives the Vilcek Prize in Architecture for integrating ideas of pluralism and multiculturalism, social justice, and contemporary influences into the field of architecture.
Portrait of Denise Scott Brown

Jing Liu

Jing Liu receives the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Architecture for her innovative interdisciplinary work and for developing new approaches to urban housing.
Portrait of Jing Liu

Teddy Cruz

Teddy Cruz receives the Vilcek Prize in Architecture for creating designs and concepts that make border communities more inclusive and equitable.
Portrait of Teddy Cruz

Join our mailing list

Sign Up
Vilcek Foundation
21 East 70th Street
New York, New York 10021

Phone: 212.472.2500

Email: info@vilcek.org

  • About
    • Our Mission
    • Board and Staff
    • Press Center
    • Contact
  • Prizes
    • Vilcek Prizes
    • Vilcek Prizes for Creative Promise
    • Vilcek Prize for Excellence
    • Prize Recipients
    • Grants for Organizations
  • Art
  • Events
  • News
  • Careers
Connect with us
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Youtube
  • Vimeo
  • Privacy Policy
  • Accessibility Statement
© 2023   Vilcek Foundation