Antoine Predock, founder and principal of New Mexico–based Antoine Predock Architect, has made two major gifts to the University of New Mexico (UNM).

He has gifted his former home and professional center in Albuquerque to be refurbished for the UNM School of Architecture and Planning. The building will be turned into the Predock Center for Design and Research, a design studio with workshop and gallery spaces.

The architect also gifted his entire archives, including works in both two- and three-dimensional formats. Selections from the extensive collection will be displayed at the Predock Center through rotating exhibitions. The archives will be housed at UNM Libraries’ Center for Southwest Research.

Initially, the Predock Center will serve as a master studio for graduating senior architecture students, but its long-term fate has been left open ended. “Deciding how to use the entire space to best honor Predock’s legacy and the legacy of the school will be a work in progress,” said Geraldine Forbes Isais, the Dean of UNM’s School of Architecture and Planning.

Predock, who has offices in both Albuquerque and Taipei, has practiced architecture at his current studio for 50 years. Over this time, he has pioneered a Southwestern-influenced modernism through a hefty portfolio of large–scale commissions, including museums, offices, art and entertainment centers, sports, educational and research facilities .

Some of his best–known works include the Southern Branch of the National Palace Museum in Taibao City, Taiwan, the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg, Canada, and the new stadium of the San Diego Padres. He also designed the main building for UNM’s School of Architecture and Planning. In 2016, Predock was awarded the AIA Gold Medal, an honor previously given to Louis Kahn and Frank Lloyd Wright, and the 2007 Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt Lifetime Achievement Award.

“New Mexico is my spiritual home,” Predock said in the press release announcing the gift. “Everything I learned here taught me how to pay attention to what I call site specificity. New Mexico taught me how to be an architect.”