Rona G. Rothenberg Joins 2023 Forge Prize Jury
CHICAGO – The American Institute of Steel Construction is pleased to announce that Rona G. Rothenberg, FAIA, DBIA, will serve on the 2023 Forge Prize Jury.
She is currently serving as the president of AIA California and brings decades of expertise from more than 200 government, industry, health care, and higher education projects. In 2020, she received AIA’s Thomas Jefferson Award for Public Architecture.
“So many of us see Rona Rothenberg as a true treasure in our national architecture leadership,” said Alex Morales, Associate AIA, EDAC, LEED Green Assoc., AISC’s senior structural steel specialist for the Houston market, who leads the Forge Prize program. “Rona is passionate about mentoring the next generation of architects and will inspire our three finalists to do their very best. I’m thrilled that she’ll be with us on this journey!”
Rothenberg has devoted her career to service as an architect in government and industry. She has been a program and project management leader within public and private sector institutions for the past 35 years, including two decades in California state and local government. She has provided executive level leadership in master planning, design and construction delivery of over 200 institutional projects in multiple programs in government, industry, health care and higher education. Over her career, she has contributed to AIA national, state and local Board and committee leadership in justice and community-based projects as a city planning commissioner and in government and nonprofit board appointments. She is a devoted mentor, serving as a Distinguished Visiting Fellow of the College of Environmental Design of UC Berkeley and in local public school STEAM programs in Oakland, Calif., as well as through AIACA and national pipeline programs.
The Forge Prize, established in 2018, identifies creative emerging architects with visionary designs that embrace steel as a primary structural component and capitalize on steel’s ability to increase a project’s speed. Entries are due November 30.
It’s a unique opportunity to experiment with a conceptual design, with no limits on scope or complexity, and the stakes are high. Three finalists will each win $5,000 and work with a steel fabricator to further develop their ideas. The winner will receive the $10,000 grand prize and an invitation to present before an audience of the industry’s best minds at the Architecture in Steel conference, April 12-14, 2023, in Charlotte, N.C.
About the American Institute of Steel Construction
The American Institute of Steel Construction, headquartered in Chicago, is a non-partisan, not-for-profit technical institute and trade association established in 1921 to serve the structural steel design community and construction industry. AISC’s mission is to make structural steel the material of choice by being the leader in structural steel-related technical and market-building activities, including specification and code development, research, education, technical assistance, quality certification, standardization, market development, and advocacy. AISC has a long tradition of service to the steel construction industry of providing timely and reliable information.
