Tod Williams and Billie Tsien have been selected of the recipients of the 2017 LongHouse Award for their ?for their outstanding body of work in architecture.?

The Barnes Foundation / Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects. Image © The Barnes Foundation

Tod Williams and Billie Tsien have been selected of the recipients of the 2017 LongHouse Award for their ?for their outstanding body of work in architecture.?At Wednesday evening?s ceremony, the husband-wife team opened up about the conceptual ideas driving their yet-to-be-revealed design for the Obama Presidential Library. In a lively discussion with Vanity Fair architecture critic Paul Goldberger, the architects revealed the nature of their working relationship with the President and First Lady, and how their upcoming library may draw from what TWBT learned in designing the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia.
Tod Williams and Billie Tsien in discussion with Paul Goldberger. Image © Sean Zanni, Patrick McMullan Company

Completed in 2012, the Barnes Foundation on Benjamin Franklin Parkway was designed as the new home of the world-class art collection that previously occupied a beaux-arts villa in the nearby Merion, Pennsylvania. Speaking about the logic behind the design of the Barnes, Williams explained how the Obama Presidential Library may be inspired by similar motivations:?In the Barnes in Merion, you were either in the building or in the garden. We decided to bring these two together... What...