Thomas Phifer

The Department of Architecture welcomes Thomas Phifer for his lecture, "Work." Architect Thomas Phifer will present the Glenstone Museum in Potomac, Maryland, the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, Poland, and the Wagner Park Pavilion, a key component of the South Battery Park Resiliency Project in Lower Manhattan.

Located on nearly 300 acres of rolling grassland and woodlands just outside Washington, DC, Glenstone offers a serene, contemplative environment for visitors to experience contemporary art. Glenstone presents post-World War II artworks in a series of indoor and outdoor rooms designed to foster meaningful encounters.

The Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, Poland (MSN Warsaw) is the Museum's first permanent home since its founding in 2005, when it was established as a collecting institution focused on art created since 1989. Defined by a luminous white concrete form and open civic ground floor, the museum brings art, public life, and history into calm, enduring dialogue.

Robert F. Wagner Jr. Park and Pavilion reimagine Battery Park City’s waterfront as a resilient civic landscape. An elevated park conceals flood infrastructure while preserving views, access, and ecology. The Pavilion, designed by Thomas Phifer and Partners, frames harbor vistas and delivers climate-adapted, zero-carbon–targeted performance for year-round dining and community programming.

Since founding his firm in 1997, Thomas Phifer has completed the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, an expansion of the Glenstone Museum in Potomac, Maryland, an expansion of the Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, New York, the United States Courthouse in Salt Lake City, Utah, the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh, North Carolina, the Raymond and Susan Brochstein Pavilion at Rice University in Houston, Texas, the Moody Amphitheater in Austin, Texas, the Wagner Park Pavilion in Lower Manhattan, two campus buildings for Indiana University, and houses across the United States.

Projects under construction include the TR Warszawa Theatre in Warsaw, a laboratory at the Ohio State University, an artists' retreat in Maine, and the Cine Colombia Headquarters in Bogotá, Colombia. Thomas Phifer is also engaged in private residences in Texas and New York.

Since 1997, Thomas Phifer has received more than thirty honor awards from the American Institute of Architects, the Rome Prize in Architecture from the American Academy in Rome, the Medal of Honor and President’s Award from the New York Chapter of the AIA, the Arts and Letters Award in Architecture from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the National Design Award in Architectural Design from the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, and Architectural Record’s inaugural “Architect of RECORD” award. He is a lifetime member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, and serves on the boards of the Architectural League of New York and the New York Review of Architecture.

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