Tom Carruthers

Tom Carruthers is an architect, artist, and cofounder of Dream The Combine with Jennifer Newsom in 2013.

Dream The Combine is a collaborative practice that produces site-specific installations exploring metaphor, imaginary environments, and perceptual uncertainties at the boundary between real and illusory space. Their spatial critiques often respond to the literal and socio-political dimensions of sites in order to destabilize our known understanding of the world.

Dream The Combine was named a 2023 Emerging Voice by The Architectural League, 2022–2023 Rome Prize Fellows in Architecture by the American Academy in Rome, 2022 Fellows in Architecture and Design by United States Artists, 2021 Visual Artist Fellows by the McKnight Foundation, 2020–2021 J. Irwin and Xenia S. Miller Prize winners by Landmark Columbus, 2018 MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program winners by The Museum of Modern Art, 2018 Architecture Residents at Art Omi, and 2017 Jerome Foundation/Franconia Sculpture Park Artists-in-Residence.

Their work has been exhibited at the 2023 Venice Biennale Architettura curated by Lesley Lokko, the Graham Foundation for the 2023 Chicago Architecture Biennial curated by The Floating Museum; The Museum of Modern Art; MoMA PS1; MadArt Studio in Seattle; and sites in Rome; Lisbon; Vancouver; Minneapolis; St. Paul, Minnesota; and Columbus, Indiana. Their writing and interviews have appeared in the Journal of Architectural Education, Architectural Design, MasContext, Log, Wallpaper, Metropolis, and Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America. Upcoming exhibitions include artwork at the Metropolitan Museum in Flight Into Egypt: African-American Artists and Egypt from 1867 to Now opening in November 2024.

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Awards, Grants, and Fellowships (Selected)

  • McKnight Fellowship for Visual Artists, McKnight Foundation, Minneapolis, Minnesota (2021)
  • J. Irwin and Xenia S. Miller Prize, Exhibit Columbus, Columbus, Indiana (2020)
  • Young Architects Program, MoMA PS1, New York City (2018)
  • Architect-in-Residence, Art Omi, Ghent, New York (2018)
  • Faculty Design Award, American Collegiate Schools of Architecture (2018)

Exhibitions and Presentations (Selected)

  • Lure, MadArt Studio, Seattle, Washington (2019)
  • Hide & Seek, MoMA PS1, New York City (2018)    
  • Longing, Minneapolis, Minnesota (2015)

Publications (Selected)

  • "Dream The Combine." The Great Northern Podcast (2021)
  • "Architect Sessions Episode 141: A Conversation with Dream The Combine." Archinect (2019)
  • "Conversation with Eric Shiner." University of Minnesota School of Architecture (2019)

Selected Work

  • A metal outdoor canopy in an urban setting.

    Hide & Seek (2018), by Jennifer Newsom and Tom Carruthers in collaboration with Clayton Binkley of ARUP. Commissioned by MoMA PS1 for the 2018 Young Architects Program, curated by The Museum of Modern Art. image / provided

  • A large group of students sitting on bleachers surrounded by concrete walls.

    Hide & Seek (2018), by Jennifer Newsom and Tom Carruthers in collaboration with Clayton Binkley of ARUP. Commissioned by MoMA PS1 for the 2018 Young Architects Program, curated by The Museum of Modern Art. image / provided

  • A blue facade constructed around the the front of a buildings exterior with people walking along a sidewalk next to an orange and yellow tree.

    Lure (2019), MadArt Studio, Seattle, Washington. Commissioned by MadArt Studio, by Jennifer Newsom and Tom Carruthers of Dream The Combine in collaboration with Clayton Binkley. image / provided

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