"Cathedral" model John Hejduk, 1997	Eden Roc Hotel Morris Lapidus, 1956 Miami, Florida	Walt Disney Concert Hall Frank Gehry, under construction Los Angeles, California

New awards program honors top architects, designers

(CNN) -- The Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum honored three renowned architects and designers this week for their contributions to building and landscape design.

The Cooper-Hewitt also recognized several other prominent architects, including Frank Gehry and Morris Lapidus, for their lifetime achievements.

Ralph Appelbaum, the National Design Award winner for Communications Design, heads an interpretive museum design firm noted for its work on the United States Holocaust Museum in Washington

At a ceremony Wednesday night in New York, the museum recognized landscape designer Lawrence Halprin of San Francisco; inventor and designer Paul MacCready of Monrovia, California; and interpretive designer Ralph Appelbaum.

Halprin, described as the father of modern American landscape design for urban areas, received the award for environmental design. His projects include Ghirardelli Square and Levi's Plaza in San Francisco, the Lovejoy Fountain Plaza in Portland, Oregon, and the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial in Washington, D.C. His parks and fountains also have served as a model for projects across the country.

MacCready received the award for product design for his efforts to design environmentally sensitive, human- and solar-powered air and land vehicles.

Appelbaum, best known for his work on the United States Holocaust Museum in Washington and the American Museum of Natural History in New York, won the National Design Award for communications. He is recognized for his pioneering efforts in interpretive exhibition design.

	RESOURCES
Frank Gehry (Great Buildings Online) Morris Lapidus resurrects career at 97 Ralph Appelbaum Associates The Lawrence Halprin Collection Paul MacCready home page

The museum honored cited other prominent designers for a lifetime of work.

Architect Gehry received the first National Design Award for such buildings as the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, and the Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

The Cooper-Hewitt also lauded two other designers as "American Originals." They included Lapidus, of Miami, Florida, whose lavish buildings include the Fontainebleau and Eden Roc hotels in Miami Beach, and the late John Hejduk of New York, who was dean of the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture at Cooper Union.

Apple Computer Inc. was recognized for its long-standing contributions to design awareness.

The National Design Awards program was initiated this year to raise public awareness of achievement in American design. Winners were chosen from among hundreds of designers nominated from a 400-member committee made up of architects, educators, journalists and others.

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Guggenheim Bilbao
Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum
U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
The Lawrence Halprin Collection
Frank Gehry - Great Buildings Online
American Museum of Natural History
Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture
Ralph Appelbaum Associates

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