Mónica Ponce de León facts for kids

Mónica Ponce de León is a talented architect and educator. She is currently the dean of the Princeton University School of Architecture. She is known for using robotic technology in building design and in teaching architecture.

Mónica Ponce de León has won a National Design Award. Her design company, MPdL Studio, has offices in New York City, Boston, Princeton, New Jersey, and Ann Arbor, Michigan. Before starting her own company in 2011, she was a dean at the A. Alfred Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan from 2008 to 2015. She also taught as a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Design at Harvard University from 1996 to 2008. She was a co-founder of the award-winning firm Office dA with Nader Tehrani.

Early Life and Education

Mónica Ponce de León moved to Miami, Florida, with her family after finishing high school. She took English classes and worked in a shop that made wooden building parts. She then went to the University of Miami, where she earned her architecture degree in 1989. In 1991, she received a Master of Architecture degree in Urban Design from the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

Career Highlights

After graduating from Harvard, Mónica Ponce de León taught at several universities. These included Harvard University, Southern California Institute of Architecture, and Rhode Island School of Design. During this time, she also helped start her first company, Office dA.

Teaching at Harvard University

From 1996 to 2008, Mónica Ponce de León was a professor of architecture at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. She also directed the digital lab there. At Harvard, she created the first lab in a US architecture school that used robots for building. She also gave many lectures and talks about her work.

Leading at the University of Michigan

Mónica Ponce de León served as the Dean of the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan from 2008 to 2015. At Michigan, she focused on new ways of teaching that encouraged students to experiment. She opened the Liberty Annex, a special place for teachers to work on creative projects.

She also developed the largest robotic fabrication facility in any architecture school in the United States. This facility allowed both students and teachers to learn, teach, and do research. This model has become a standard for other architecture schools. At Michigan, she also helped start a program for high school students in Detroit. This program offered design classes and gave students high school credit in math and art. By December 2016, nearly 200 students had completed the program.

After Office dA closed in 2010, Mónica Ponce de León started her own company, MPdL Studio. It has offices in New York City, Boston, and Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Dean at Princeton University

In 2015, Mónica Ponce de León announced she would leave Michigan. She became the new Dean of the Princeton University School of Architecture.

In 2016, she helped organize an important exhibition. This exhibition was for the Venice Biennale of Architecture in Venice, Italy. The show, called "The Architectural Imagination," focused on specific places in Detroit. It featured projects from 12 teams of architects from across the United States.

Notable Projects

Mónica Ponce de León has worked on many interesting projects. These include the Helios House in Los Angeles and the Macallen Building in Boston. She also designed the RISD Fleet Library in 2006.

The Helios House in Los Angeles is one of Mónica Ponce de León's projects.

One of her early projects was "Fabricating Coincidences" in 1998. This was an art installation at the Museum of Modern Art. It showed how digital tools could be used to create architecture. A reviewer from New York Times described it as a "canopy of cascading metal" that looked like a staircase but was not meant for climbing. He noted how the metal could change from solid to see-through depending on the light. He called it an "inventive appetizer" and said these were "architects to watch."

Another project was the Dining Services at 200 West in Lower Manhattan. A reviewer from The New Yorker called the cafeteria "spectacular." He praised its "swooping white plaster ceiling and columns," describing it as a modern take on the style of architect Antoni Gaudí.

Awards and Recognition

Mónica Ponce de León has received many awards for her work. In 1997, she and Nader Tehrani received the Young Architects Award. In 2003, they received the Emerging Voices Award from the Architectural League of New York. In 2002, she won an Academy Award in Architecture. In 2008, she was named a United States Artist fellow.

In 2007, Mónica Ponce de León received the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award in Architecture. She was the first Hispanic architect to receive this special honor.

Her projects have also won many awards. These include several Progressive Architecture awards and the Harleston Parker Medal in 2002. She also received awards from the American Institute of Architects and the Boston Society of Architects. In 2008, the Macallen Building was named one of the Top Ten Green Projects by the American Institute of Architects Committee on the Environment.

In 2016, Mónica Ponce de León was chosen to be part of the National Academy of Design. In 2020, the Carnegie Corporation of New York honored her with the Great Immigrants Award.