Striking, innovative, and dramatically sited, the twenty-nine projects in Tom Kundig: Working Title reveal the hand of a master of contextually astute, richly detailed architecture.
As Kundig's work has increased in scale and variety, in diverse locations from his native Seattle to Hawaii and Rio de Janeiro, it continues to exhibit his signature sensitivity to material and locale and to feature his fascinating kinetic "gizmos."
Projects range from inviting homes that integrate nature to large-scale commercial and public buildings: wineries, high-performance mixed-use skyscrapers, a Visitor Center for Tillamook Creamery, the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, and the Wagner Education Center of the Center for Wooden Boats, among others.
Tom Kundig: Working Title includes lush photography, sketches, and a dialogue between Tom Kundig and Michael Chaiken, curator of the Kundig-designed Bob Dylan Archive at the Helmerich Center for American Research.
About Tom Kundig
Tom Kundig is an owner and design principal of Olson Kundig. Tom has received some of the world’s highest design honors, including a National Design Award in Architecture from the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, an Academy Award in Architecture from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and an election to the National Academy as an Academician in Architecture. Most recently, Tom was awarded the AIA Seattle Medal of Honor as well as a Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Washington.
In addition to receiving scores of design awards—including ten National Honor Awards, ten National Housing Awards, and a COTE Top Ten Award from the American Institute of Architects—Tom’s work has appeared in hundreds of publications worldwide and on the covers of The New York Times magazine, ARCHITECT, Architectural Record, Architectural Digest and The Plan. Tom regularly lectures and serves on design juries around the world, and is named in The Wallpaper* 150 as a key individual who has influenced, inspired and improved the way we live, work and travel. Across his diverse body of work in locations around the world, Tom is known for his elemental approach to design where rugged materials are left in raw or natural states to evolve over time with exposure to the elements – and to human touch.
Tom Kundig’s diverse body of work champions the formal and technical, yet makes a genuine connection with the people who inhabit it. From a tiny, elevated cabin in eastern Washington to a 15-story commercial headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Tom’s work draws heavily on context and place, whether urban or rural. Today, Tom’s work can be found on five continents, in locations ranging from Costa Rica and Brazil to New Zealand, China, Mexico, Sweden, Austria and Switzerland.
Tom’s longstanding interest in the ways people interact with their environments, both built and natural, was honed throughout his extensive career designing private residences, but it is just as present in his larger scale work. His institutional buildings, art and natural history museums, hotels and commercial headquarters exhibit a keen sensitivity to scale and detail, resulting in highly approachable architecture that emphasizes quiet moments of human connection. In this way, Tom’s design practice is an ongoing exploration of architecture’s elemental qualities: materiality, texture and detail in dialogue with the human cultural condition.
Tom Kundig is one of the most recognized architects in North America. To date, his work has been awarded over 60 local, regional and national AIA awards, including ten National Honor Awards, ten National Housing Awards, and a COTE Top Ten Award. In total, his work has received more than 200 awards. In 2017, Shinsegae International received the World Architecture News Tall Buildings Award, and in 2010 The Pierre was named the World Architecture News House of the Year. Architectural Record has chosen three of Tom’s projects for Record Houses: Rolling Huts, Delta Shelter and Meg Home.
