Frank Gehry, the Pritzker Prize-winning architect, and his wife, Berta, have donated $100,000 to the Southern California Institute of Architecture.
The funds will be used by SCI-Arc to establish the Gehry Prize, which will be awarded annually during the school's Graduate Thesis Weekend to the best thesis projects as determined by critics and jurors.
Also read: Oscar Museum Selects Architects Renzo Piano, Zoltan Pali
The first Gehry Prize will be awarded at the 2012 graduation ceremony on Sept. 9.
Gehry has been a trustee of SCI-Arc, located in downtown Los Angeles, since 1990. His many projects around the world include the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain (above), the Panama Puente De Vida Museo in Panama City, and the Facebook campus in Menlo Park, Calif.
In addition to receiving the Pritzker, architecture's highest honor, Gehry has received the National Medal of Arts, the American Institute of Architects Gold Medal and the Royal Institute of British Architects Gold Medal.
“The entire school community, including students, faculty, staff, administration and board, is extremely appreciative of this extraordinary gift to SCI-Arc,” Director Eric Owen Moss said in a statement. “Thanks to this contribution, we can warranty that SCI-Arc’s advocacy for architecture as a rousing, speculative adventure will endure.”