Machado and Silvetti Associates is an architecture and urban design firm known for distinctive spaces and unique works of architecture in the United States and abroad. Their designs are the result of careful integration of the client´s aspirations, the project's programmatic requirements, and the nature and character of the place for which a proposal is designed. The work does not espouse any signature style, but strives to find that which is unique and important within a given project, and to express that urbanistically and architecturally. The projects are distinctive for their conceptual clarity and visual intensity.
Machado and Silvetti Associates became incorporated in 1985, although principals Rodolfo Machado and Jorge Silvetti have been in association since 1974. The firm's projects have been of diverse size and nature, having developed special expertise in Art Museums, educational institutions, and urban design and planning worldwide for Berlin, Beirut, Buenos Aires, Sicily, Frankfurt, San Juan, Pamplona, Rome, Seoul, Singapore, Tenerife, Venice, Vienna, and in the United States for major cities throughout New England, in New York, Texas, California, Utah, Wisconsin, North Carolina, and Arkansas among others.
In 1991, the firm was given the first ever Award in Architecture by the American Academy of Arts and Letters for twenty years of "boldly conceived and brilliantly executed urban projects" and the designs were commended for being "uncompromisingly dedicated to envisioning a meaningful architecture of the public realm." Since that time, the office has received three National Honor Awards from the American Institute of Architects as well as the AIA Brick in Architecture Award, ten Progressive Architecture awards and citations, twelve design awards from the New England AIA chapter, seventeen Boston Society of Architects awards, including the 2003 Harleston Parker Medal, and the prestigious International Award for Architecture in Stone.
The firm's designs have been published in all major international professional magazines and displayed in numerous exhibitions in the United States, Europe, and Latin America, most notably at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, at the Biennale di Venezia, at the National Building Museum in Washington D.C., the 1984 I.B.A. Exhibition in Berlin, and at the XVII Triennale di Milano. Three monographs have been produced on the office, Rodolfo Machado and Jorge Silvetti: Buildings for Cities (1990), Casas 40: Rodolfo Machado & Jorge Silvetti (1995), and Unprecedented Realism: The Architecture of Machado and Silvetti (1995).
Chazen Museum of Art Expansion Under Construction
May 7, 2009
The Chazen Museum of Art on the University of Wisconsin’s Madison campus held it’s groundbreaking ceremony on Friday, May 1st. The design by Machado and Silvetti Associates will add 81,000 square feet to the museum, nearly doubling the gallery space for the permanent collection and temporary exhibits. The expansion is scheduled for completion in the fall of 2011. See the article featured in The Daily Cardinal on May 4, 2009 for more information.
Community Service Award
January 11, 2009
Construction Communications has awarded Harvard University a Community Service Award for Machado and Silvetti Associates’ graduate student housing project at One Western Avenue in Allston, Massachusetts. The award recognizes the building as important for aiding in local and state economic development efforts over the past decade.
Silver Spring Town Square and Civic Center Under Construction
January 11, 2009
The Machado and Silvetti Associates town square and civic center in Silver Spring, Maryland, is under construction as of October 1st, 2008. Anticipated completion of the project is March 2010.
Silverchips article by Fran Djoukeng on Silver Spring Town Square.
AIA New England Design Awards Winner
November 6, 2008
Renovation and Expansion of the Bowdoin College Museum of Art, in Brunswick, Maine, wins an Honor Award from the AIA New England’s 2008 Design Awards program. The project is featured in the October 2008 issue of Maine Home + Design Magazine.”
American Architecture Award Winner
November 6, 2008
The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design has awarded the Bowdoin College Museum of Art