J. Meejin Yoon

J. Meejin Yoon is the Gale and Ira Drukier Dean of the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning (AAP) at Cornell University and co-founding partner of Höweler + Yoon. An architect, designer, and educator, Yoon is committed to advancing creative and critical practices and pedagogies, scholarship, and research to address the many urgent environmental and social challenges we face in our cities and communities.

Yoon's design research examines intersections between architecture, urbanism, technology, and the public realm. Yoon's body of work includes cultural and institutional buildings and public spaces such as the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers at the University of Virginia, the Collier Memorial at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Moongate Bridge in the Shanghai Expo Park. Current professional projects include the Institute of Democracy at UVA, the MIT Museum, and the Living Village at the Yale Divinity School.

Yoon directs the Design Across Scales Lab which examines technology and territory broadly to explore the spatial implications and possibilities of architectures and infrastructures on urbanism, the built environment, and public space. 

Yoon's work has been widely exhibited both nationally and internationally at venues such as MoMA, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, the Vitra Design Museum, and the National Art Center in Japan, among others. She is co-author of the recent title Verify in Field: Projects and Conversations Höweler + Yoon (Park Books, 2021) and Public Works: Unsolicited Small Projects for the Big Dig (Map Books, 2009); and author of Absence, an artist book published by Printed Matter and the Whitney Museum of Art in 2003.

Yoon received a Bachelor of Architecture from Cornell University (1995), and a Master of Architecture in Urban Design from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design (1997). Recent honors include the 2022 World Cultural Council Leonardo da Vinci World Award of Arts, and in 2021, Yoon was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in the field of architecture, the highest recognition of artistic merit in the United States.

Academic Research/Specialty Areas

  • Architectural design
  • Design technology

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Awards, Grants, and Fellowships (Selected)

  • World Cultural Council Leonardo da Vinci World Award of Arts (2022)
  • ACADIA Design Excellence Award (2022)
  • Election to the American Academy of Arts and Letters (2021)
  • Mellon Grant (co-PI) for Collaborative Studies in Architecture, Urbanism, and Humanities-phase III (2019)
  • American Academy of Arts and Letters Award (2019)
  • Graham Foundation Grant (2019)
  • New Generation Design Leadership Award from Architectural Record (2015)
  • Audi Urban Futures Award (2012)
  • United States Artist Award in Architecture and Design (2008)
  • Rome Prize Fellowship in Design (2005)
  • Fulbright Fellowship (1997)

Exhibitions and Presentations (Selected)

  • Model Behavior, Cooper Union, 2022
  • Encounters, American Academy in Rome, 2020
  • The Road Ahead: Reimagining Mobility, Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, New York City, 2018
  • Hello Robot, Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein, Germany, 2017
  • Cut 'n' Paste, Museum of Modern Art, New York City, 2013
  • Spontaneous Interventions, Venice Biennale, Venice, 2012
  • Design Life Now: 2006 National Design Triennial, The Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, New York City, 2006
  • Skin and Bones: Parallel Practices in Fashion and Architecture, The Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, 2006

Publications (Selected)

  • Yoon, J. Meejin, and Eric Höweler Verify in Field: Projects and Conversations, Höweler and Yoon Architecture. Park Books, 2021.
  • Yoon, J. Meejin, and Eric Höweler. Expanded Practice: Höweler and Yoon Architecture/My Studio. Princeton Architectural Press, 2009.
  • Yoon, J. Meejin, and Meredith Miller. Public Works: Unsolicited Small Projects for the Big Dig. Map Book Pub, 2008.
  • Yoon, J. Meejin. Absence. Printed Matter and the Whitney Museum of Art, 2003.
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