2025 Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Medal Celebration

Elizabeth Diller is a founding partner of Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R). Founded in 1981, DS+R is a design studio whose practice spans the fields of architecture, urban design, installation art, multi-media performance, digital media, and print. With a focus on cultural and civic projects, DS+R’s work addresses the changing role of institutions and the future of cities. Diller led the completion of several significant cultural projects in New York City: The Shed, a start-up for innovation in the performing and visual arts that can expand its footprint on demand, for which she was both progenitor and architect; the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts transformation; the High Line, which has become a model for sustainable revitalization replicated in more than sixty cities around the world; and the renovation and expansion of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). Diller also co- created, -directed and -produced The Mile-Long Opera, an immersive choral work staged on the High Line.

DS+R’s built institutional works include the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, The Broad in Los Angeles, and the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. Their design for the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Museum has been heralded as one of the most accessible museums in the world. DS+R has also built academic spaces for some of the most prestigious educational institutions including Stanford University, the University of Chicago, and Brown University.

Diller’s international projects include the completed 35-acre Zaryadye Park in Moscow, and the Tianjin Juilliard School, a world leading performing arts conservatory in Tianjin, China. Most recently, DS+R completed Al-Mujadilah in Doha, the first purpose-built, contemporary women’s mosque in the Islamic world, as well as the V&A East Storehouse in London, a home for the V&A’s collection of 250,000 objects, 350,000 books and 1,000 archives. Currently, Diller is currently developing the Pina Bausch Center in Wuppertal, Germany; Renazca, a new public space in Madrid’s Azca business district; and the design of a public park in Milan’s Porto Romana district, which will host the Olympic Village in 2026.

Alongside co-founding partner, the late Ricardo Scofidio, Diller’s cross-genre work has been distinguished with inclusion in the 2018 TIME100 and the first MacArthur Foundation fellowship in the field of architecture. She has also received the Wolf Prize in architecture. Diller is a member of the UN Council on Urban Initiatives and Professor of Architectural Design at Princeton University.

Annabelle Selldorf is the Principal of Selldorf Architects, a 65-person architectural design practice she founded in New York City in 1988. The firm creates public and private spaces that manifest a clear and modern sensibility with enduring impact. At every scale and for every condition, Selldorf Architects designs for the individual experience. As a result, its work is brought to life—and made complete—by those who use it.

The firm has particular expertise in the complex requirements of cultural projects, having completed numerous museums, galleries, exhibition spaces, study centers and artists’ studios. Cultural clients include The Frick Collection, National Gallery London, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, Art Gallery of Ontario, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Dumbarton Oaks Research Library & Collection, and Neue Galerie New York. Recent commissions also include the renovations of the Wallace Collection in London and the Musée Yves Saint Laurent in Paris, the Clark Art Institute’s new Aso O. Tavitian Wing, and a new winery for Château Haut Brion in Bordeaux.

Alongside cultural clients the firm works on major public and civic projects including Sunset Park Material Recovery Facility on the Brooklyn waterfront and two wastewater management buildings for the New York City Department of Environmental Protection on the Gowanus Canal. Residential architecture, both at the scale of private homes and multi-family dwellings, has also been a foundational part of the firm’s portfolio. This includes One Domino Square, Selldorf Architects’ first residential skyscraper, which spans 700,000 square feet across two towers connected by a podium.

Born and raised in Cologne, Germany, Selldorf received a Bachelor of Architecture from Pratt Institute and a Master of Architecture from Syracuse University. She is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects and serves on the Board the Chinati Foundation, the Architectural League of New York, the World Monuments Fund, and the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College. In 2016, Selldorf received the AIA New York Medal of Honor in 2016. In 2025 Selldorf was named one of TIME 100 most influential people and received an Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts from Pratt Institute.