Today I will be speaking with Principals Marlon and Meryati Blackwell of Marlon Blackwell Architects. Despite operating in a region where architecture can be overlooked, the Blackwells’ firm has amassed an important and impressive body of work across a wide range of project types. The firm is ready to tackle any project that serves the common good, regardless of scale and budget while applying the highest standard of design.
Marlon Blackwell, FAIA, is a practicing architect in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and serves as the E. Fay Jones Distinguished Professor at the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design at the University of Arkansas.
Blackwell is a lifetime member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters are the recipient of the 2020 AIA Gold Medal, the Institute’s highest honor, which recognizes those whose work has had an enduring impact on the theory and practice of architecture.
He was a 2019 William A. Bernoudy Architect in Residence at the American Academy in Rome, inducted into the 2018 National Academy of Design, and selected as a 2014 United States Artists Ford Fellow. He received the E. Fay Jones Gold Medal from the Arkansas AIA in 2017 and the 2012 Architecture Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Work produced in his professional office, Marlon Blackwell Architects (MBA), has received national and international recognition with significant publication in books, architectural journals, and magazines, and more than 140 domestic and international awards. MBA received the 2016 Cooper Hewitt National Design Award in Architecture and ranked #1 in Design as part of the 2016 Architect 50. A monograph of Marlon’s early work, “An Architecture of the Ozarks: The Works of Marlon Blackwell”, was published in 2005 by Princeton Architectural Press, which will also publish a new monograph titled “Radical Practice” to be released in 2022.
In today’s episode we will be discussing:
- The Practice’s recent book Radical Practice https://www.marlonblackwell.com/radical-practice/
- Why Arkansas proved to be such a successful place for an architecture practice
- Working as a husband and wife team
To learn more about Marlon and Meryati visit their:
Website: https://www.marlonblackwell.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/marlonblackwellarchitect
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marlonblackwellarchitects/
