Marion Weiss & Michael Manfredi | WEISS/MANFREDI

DRIFTING SYMMETRIES: PROJECTS AND PROVOCATIONS

In an era when the dual challenges of climate change and social isolation loom large, Weiss/Manfredi’s projects have focused on architecture’s role in shaping a sustainable and connected future. Their work presented in the lecture transcends the boundaries between landscape, infrastructure, and architecture by reinventing sites in response to environmental and social challenges. Also discussed in this lecture is Weiss/Manfredi’s newest book, Drifting Symmetries, which explores their built work alongside parallel research. Beyond showcasing their projects and historical precedents, Drifting Symmetries demonstrates a multidisciplinary approach that invents new settings for public life by exploring the gradient between nature and architecture. It is a manual for expanding the terrain of contemporary architecture to construct more resilient settings for contemporary life. 

ABOUT WEISS/MANFREDI

WEISS/MANFREDI Architecture/Landscape/Urbanism is a multidisciplinary design practice based in New York City. Founded by Marion Weiss and Michael Manfredi, the firm is known for the dynamic integration of architecture, art, infrastructure, and landscape design. The firm is well known for the Seattle Art Museum’s celebrated Olympic Sculpture Park, the Women’s Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden Visitor Center and Overlook, and Hunter’s Point South Waterfront Park. Current projects include the United States Embassy in New Delhi, India, the La Brea Tar Pits and museum in Los Angeles, the Tampa Museum of Art expansion, the revitalization of Lincoln Center’s Western Edge, and, most recently, the international competition-winning design for the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City. 

Marion Weiss and Michael Manfredi are recipients of the 2024 Louis I. Kahn Award in Architecture, the 2020 Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medal in Architecture, the Cooper Hewitt National Design Award for Architecture, the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Architecture, and the Architectural League of New York’s "Emerging Voices" award. The firm has also been honored with the New York AIA Gold Medal and the Tau Sigma Delta Gold Medal, awarded to one individual or firm in the world each year. 

The firm's projects have been featured in exhibitions at the Venice Architectural Biennale, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the São Paulo Biennale of International Architecture and Design, the Shanghai Biennale, the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Museum, the National Building Museum, Harvard University, the Landscape Architecture Biennale in Barcelona, the Design Centre in Essen, Germany, and the Guggenheim Museum. Weiss and Manfredi’s work is in the permanent collection of MoMA, the Seattle Art Museum, the Library of Congress, and the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Museum. Princeton Architectural Press has published three monographs on their work including their most recent book, PUBLIC NATURES. Park Books published their fifth monograph DRIFTING SYMMETRIES in winter 2025.