The firm of Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects—a husband-wife team acclaimed for their elegant modernism, sensitivity to context and innovative use of materials—designed the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts. The New York-based firm is among the most celebrated and critically-acclaimed firms in the world of contemporary architecture. Recently elected as fellows to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, their projects include the American Folk Art Museum in New York City, Johns Hopkins University’s Mattin Student Art Center in Baltimore, the Neurosciences Institute in La Jolla, California, Skirkanich Hall at the University of Pennsylvania, and the Cranbrook Natatorium in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. In 2002, the American Folk Art Museum received the Arup World Architecture Award for “Best Building in the World.” In a feature about their work in Architectural Record, Clifford A. Pearson writes, “They have developed a practice known for its lyrical designs that bring out the humanity in institutional buildings and highlights the poetic in residential ones.”

Tod Williams received his undergraduate degree from Princeton University in 1965. He studied Architecture at Cambridge University in 1966 and received his Master’s of Fine Arts and Architecture from Princeton in 1967. He taught at the Cooper Union from 1974 to 1989, and has held a number of visiting professorships at schools of architecture. In 1982 he received an Advanced Fellowship from the American Academy in Rome. Williams held the Ruth Carter Stevenson Chair at the University of Texas Chair in Austin in 1995, the Eliel Saarinen Chair at the University of Michigan in 2002, the Louis I. Kahn Chair at Yale in 2003 and 2005, and the Thomas Jefferson Chair in 2004 at the University of Virginia. In 1992, he was made a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects. Williams started his career by working for Richard Meier from 1967 to 1973 and has been registered since 1972. He has been principal of his own firm since 1977 and formed the partnership of Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects in 1986.

Billie Tsien received her undergraduate degree in Fine Arts from Yale in 1971 and her Master in Architecture from UCLA in 1977. She has taught at Parsons, Yale, Harvard Graduate School of Design, the University of Texas at Austin, and the University of Pennsylvania. She shares with Tod Williams the Louis I. Kahn chair at Yale University. Tsien serves on the advisory panel for the Wexner Prize and on the boards of the Public Art Fund, the Architectural League, and the American Academy in Rome. She is the recipient with Tod Williams of the Brunner Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Medal of Honor from the American Institute of Architects New York City chapter, the Chrysler Award for Design Innovation, the Cooper Hewitt national Design Award in Architecture, and the President’s Medal from the Architect League.

An anchor to the vibrant hub of south campus activity, the site for the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts is along the south and western edge of Frederick Law Olmstead’s Midway Plaisance, at 60th Street and Ingleside Avenue.

Just west of the Mies van der Rohe-designed School of Social Service Administration (1965), the new South Campus Residence Hall and Dining Commons (2009), and the Law School designed by Eero Saarinen (1959), the Tod Williams and Billie Tsien designed arts center will be next to the historic home and studios of sculptor Lorado Taft. Midway Studios was the personal studio and residence of Taft from 1906 until his death in 1936, and additions were made in later years to create studio and classroom space for students in the University’s Department of Visual Arts. The original house and barn are, collectively, considered a landmark by the Commission of Chicago Landmarks and the National Register of Historic Places. 

In spring 2006, the University commenced a competition to select an architect to design the new art center to be located near some of the campus’s most architecturally significant venues. The building at 60th Street and Ingleside Avenue, alongside Fredrick Law Olmsted’s Midway Plaisance, will be just one block west of Mies van der Rohe’s School of Social Science Administration and two blocks west of the Eero Saarinen-designed Laird Bell Law Quadrangle. More than 60 internationally acclaimed architecture firms with demonstrated success in the areas of performing arts centers, academic arts buildings, or similar facilities were considered. A committee narrowed the list to a group of twenty-six firms, which all received requests for qualifications.

The design competition attracted proposals from the world’s leading firms. Other finalists in the design competition were Hans Hollein of Vienna, Austria, Thom Mayne’s firm Morphosis of Santa Monica, Fumihiko Maki and Associates of Tokyo, and Daniel Libeskind of New York. The final process involved “immersion” visits with students and staff, as well as presentations of design studies.

One year later, in spring of 2007, the Board of Trustees announced the selection of Tod Williams and Billie Tsien—the critically-acclaimed husband-and-wife team known for their award-winning vibrant art spaces — as the architects who would design the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts.