Neil Denari is principal of NMDA, Neil M. Denari Architects Inc., and Professor of Architecture and Interim Chair of the AUD at UCLA. He received his BArch from the University of Houston in 1980 and an MArch from Harvard in 1982. After graduate school, Denari interned at Aerospatiale’ Helicoptres in Paris and later moved to New York, where from 1983‐86, he worked for James Stewart Polshek and Partners. While in New York, he exhibited his own research work at the Cooper Hewitt, Storefront, P.S. 1, and the Architectural League. In 1986, he began his teaching career at Columbia University. In 1988, he moved to Los Angeles where his office is based today.
In 2015, he was elected to The College of Fellows of AIA. He is the recipient of the Los Angeles AIA Gold Medal in 2011 and in 2010, Denari was inducted into the Interior Design Hall of Fame. In 2009, he was given the California Community Foundation Fellowship from the United States Artists organization and in 2008 he received an Architecture Award from the American Academy of Arts & Letters. His work has been included in many exhibitions, including the solo shows “Fast Forward” in 2008 at the Museum of the City of New York, “Architects’ Work: HL23” in 2009 @ Syracuse University, and “The Artless Drawing” in 2010 @ Ace Gallery Los Angeles, and in 2013, he was included in the New Sculpturalism show at MOCA Los Angeles. His work is permanently held by eight major museums around the world. With NMDA, Denari works on building projects in North America, Europe and Asia. In 2012, NMDA won first prize in the New Keelung Harbor Service Building competition.
The Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan is a leader in interdisciplinary education and research with a focus on creating a more beautiful, inclusive and better built environment. The college and its alumni are committed to pushing the boundaries of architectural practice, advancing global engagement, and significantly enhancing diversity in the profession. The college offers the following degrees: Bachelor of Science in Architecture, Master of Architecture (currently ranked #6 nationally; ranked #1 in 2010 by Design Intelligence Report), Master of Science in Architecture, Master of Urban Planning, Master of Urban Design, and PhD programs.
Denari lectures worldwide and has been a Visiting Professor at Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, and UC Berkeley among other schools and was the Director of SCI‐Arc from 1997‐2002. He is the author of Interrupted Projections (1996), Gyroscopic Horizons (1999), and Mass X, an 850 page multigraph forthcoming in 2016.
