10/24/08

 

Contacts: Mark Engelbrecht, College of Design administration, (515) 294-7428, mengelbr@iastate.edu
Heather Sauer, College of Design communications, (515) 294-9289, hsauer@iastate.edu

ISU College of Design dean Mark Engelbrecht receives AIA Iowa Medal of Honor

AMES, Iowa -- Mark C. Engelbrecht, professor of architecture and dean of the Iowa State University College of Design, received the Medal of Honor from the Iowa Chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA Iowa) at its annual convention in Des Moines in September.

The award, which is the highest honor AIA Iowa bestows on an individual member, recognizes distinguished service to the architecture profession.

“Mark has shown a lifelong commitment to Iowa and Iowa architecture,” said Kevin Nordmeyer, a partner in RDG Planning and Design in Des Moines and project architect for the ISU College of Design’s King Pavilion.

“With a national practice and a great design talent, he could have chosen a different path that would have taken him permanently out of Iowa. Instead, he has chosen to live and work in Iowa with service to students, to professionals and to clients.”

Engelbrecht has served as dean of the ISU College of Design for 14 years and has a 45-year career as a practitioner and educator. Under his leadership, the college has achieved national distinction for excellence, as evidenced by the high rankings of its programs in architecture, landscape architecture and interior design, and by the success of its faculty and students, most recently highlighted by national recognition in graphic design and studio arts.

“Mark’s leadership, creativity and collaborative manner have molded the ISU College of Design into a recognized ‘model program’ of comprehensive design study with a remarkable integration of both academic and professional practice thought,” said Bryce Pearsall, chair of the College of Design Advancement Council and managing principal of DLR Group, a multidisciplinary design firm based in Phoenix, Ariz.

“In his passion for the design of the built environment, design education and outstanding professional practice, Mark has linked a lengthy list of distinctive accomplishments to AIA Iowa with the professional success he has achieved, the students he has nurtured, the academia he has strengthened, and the practitioners he has mentored,” Pearsall said.

Engelbrecht advocates for place-based design that engages communities. During his tenure as dean, through a wide variety of programs, College of Design students and faculty have served communities in over 80 percent of Iowa’s 99 counties through applied research, outreach and extension activities.

Also as dean, Engelbrecht has overseen the development of the Core Design Program uniting all first-year students in a common curriculum, and led the establishment of off-site facilities and programs. Since 1991, more than 1,500 students have studied in Rome through the College of Design’s flagship international program -- the only fully licensed study-abroad program in the Iowa regents’ system. In the past three years, he helped found the Center for Town/Craft in Perry, and supported the creation of the ISU Design West Studio in Sioux City.

“Mark is a great mentor and educator. Through his leadership as a faculty member and as dean of the College of Design at Iowa State University, he has shaped the architecture profession in Iowa and throughout the country by teaching the timeless qualities of architecture to thousands of students. Our profession and the built environment in Iowa have benefited by Mark’s steady commitment to the education of architects and other design professionals,” Nordmeyer said.

Engelbrecht earned his bachelor of architecture degree from Iowa State and a master’s degree in architecture from Columbia University. He began work as a designer with John Carl Warnecke and Associates in San Francisco in 1963, and later served as a designer and principal for a number of architectural firms in Des Moines, including the firm he co-founded as Hunter Rice and Engelbrecht in 1969. That firm evolved into Engelbrecht and Griffin Architects, PC, which also has an office in Newburyport, Mass.

Engelbrecht’s professional work has generated more than 30 major design awards, citations and publications. Early in his career, he was one of the first Iowa architects to receive a Progressive Architecture Award for the design of Maucker Union at the University of Northern Iowa. In 2005, as part of AIA Iowa’s centennial celebration, the building was named one of the top 50 examples of 20th-century Iowa architecture.

Engelbrecht was the first recipient of the AIA Iowa Educator Award in 1996, and he was named a fellow of the American Institute of Architects in 1998.

He began teaching at Iowa State in 1969 as a visiting lecturer in the department of architecture and achieved the rank of professor in 1984. He became dean of the College of Design in 1994.

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Note to editors: A print-quality photo of Engelbrecht is available from Heather Sauer, (515) 294-9289, hsauer@iastate.edu.