1989
Master of Architecture
Annie Chu
Annie Chu traveled to Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, and Peru.
Annie Chu
Columbia University
Jury
James Bodnar
Adele Freedman
Frank O. Gehry
Lars Lerup
Ellen Posner
Impact of the Award
June 20, 1996
For the record, I believe that the research trip sponsored by the SOM Foundation played a pivotal role in my own development as an architect. The brilliant use of materials in the Inca and Mayan works, the internal relationship between buildings and landscape, as well as the morphology and sculptural language of the Inca artifacts confirmed my own inclination prior to applying for the SOM Foundation Traveling Fellowship in 1989.
The work in which I have participated in Los Angeles [in the office of Frank Israel] since the trip became an outgrowth of this confirmation. In all my public lectures, I have always attributed the development of work from 1990 on to my observations from the SOM Foundation trip. The most notable project bearing witness to this is the schematic design for the Fine Arts Building in UC Riverside in 1994. It is evident that the works studied on the SOM Foundation trip are now in my blood.
Hong Kong Peak competition. © Annie Chu.
Annie Chu
Columbia University
Annie Chu
is an architect, interior designer, educator, and a founding principal of the award-winning Chu & Gooding in Los Angeles. In her four decades in practice, Chu has worked extensively with world-renowned museums, cultural and arts-related facilities, and educational institutions, including MOCA, Hammer Museum, The Huntington, Autry Museum of the American West, Studio Museum in Harlem, Southern California Public Radio, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association. After relocating to the US from Hong Kong at the age of sixteen, Chu earned her Bachelor of Architecture at the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) and her Master of Science in Advanced Building Design from Columbia University. She also conducted months-long research focused on Mayan and Incan architecture in Central and South America as the recipient of the prestigious post-graduate SOM Foundation Travel Fellowship. Leveraging her design reputation, Chu champions interior architecture as a distinct and emerging discipline, advancing design excellence through teaching, public speaking, and her leadership in the civic and professional realms, including her role on the City of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Commission, the Mayor’s Design Advisory Panel, the National AIA Interior Architecture Advisory Group, Contract Magazine’s Editorial Advisory Board, and Architecture California (arcCA). Chu served as a Vice President of the IIDA International Board of Directors from 2017–18 as well as on numerous design juries, such as the AIA COTE Top Ten Awards, AIA Honor Awards in Architecture and Interior Architecture, and the Prix de Rome in Architecture and Design.