Recognizing Excellence in North Carolina Modernist Residential Design
Sponsored in 2025 by
The George Matsumoto Prize is North Carolina's highest honor exclusively for Modernist residential architecture. NCModernist created the Matsumoto Prize in 2012 honor of George Matsumoto, one of the founding faculty members of North Carolina State University's College of Design. Matsumoto created some of North Carolina's most well-known and well-loved Modernist houses.The Matsumoto Prize encourages architects, designers, and prospective clients to continue the Modernist movement in houses so important to North Carolina's design heritage. The Prize meaningfully and powerfully engages the public with the architecture they love and showcases exceptional Modernist architects and designers in North Carolina. This is the 14th year of the Prize.
2025 jurors include: Dominyka Voelkle; Lissa So; Ed Niles; Charles McAfee; Bart Prince; James Biber; Julia Gamolina.
2025 George Matsumoto Prize Rules, Terms, and Conditions
1. The Prize is open to anyone with primary design responsibility for a completely built, from-the-ground-up, single-family Modernist house of at least 800 heated sf with a CO on or after January 1, 2020.
No ADU's. The house must be in North Carolina; the designer/architect can be from anywhere. Renovations, additions, multi-family, or any house that won a past Matsumoto Prize Jury or People's Choice award are ineligible. Past submissions that did not win either Jury or People's Choice awards may be resubmitted.
Owners and builders may submit as well as architects.
2. There are no educational or licensure requirements for submission. Your design stands for itself. You may submit more than one house but you cannot win more than one prize per category. If you have a disagreement with another person or firm concerning credit for a house design, get it worked out or consider submitting jointly.
3. Jury Awards: First, second, and third. None of the Jury or their firms or employees may submit. There will only be one Jury Prize awarded per firm/designer/architect.
4. There are three People's Choice awards selected by the public through online voting, limited to one vote per e-mail address. Addresses that are or appear to be machine-generated or fraudulent will not be counted. However, if people want to vote more than once, say from a home email and a work email, that's fine. NCModernist's decisions on vote eligibility are final. Vote counts will not be released; only the recipients of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place.
5. Contacting any of the named Jury is strictly prohibited; however, submitters are actively encouraged to publicize their participation in the Matsumoto Prize through email and social media, including asking friends, family, clients, prospects, and the public to vote.
6. NCModernist reserves the exclusive right to accept, edit, or reject any information, image, video, or other submission component for accuracy, appropriateness, style, size, or length; or for compliance with these rules, terms and conditions. If a submission is rejected, payment will be refunded.
7. By paying the entry fee, you agree to all the terms and conditions on this page; you have secured permission from the homeowners to submit their house; and you agree that descriptions, information, images, and video may appear at NCModernist's website, social media, and any promotional materials regarding the Matsumoto Prize.
2025 Matsumoto Prize Submission Requirements
Submission deadline 5pm EST,
April 29, 2025.
The 2025 George Matsumoto Prize Awards will be held
at Leland Little in
Hillsborough NC, July 23, 6-8pm.
By submitting, you agree to all the terms and conditions; you've secured homeowner permission to submit the house; and that any images, information, descriptions, and video may appear on NCModernist.org and any promotional materials for the Matsumoto Prize, including social media. For specific questions about submission, contact Leslie Kingery at leslieakingery@gmail.com.
Here are the
submission steps.
1. Donate $149 at www.usmodernist.org/donate as
the submission fee.
2. Gather images.
3. Film a video of to 2 minutes about the house, the client, the process to meet their needs, and anything else about the house. Submit video to your firm’s Vimeo channel (preferred) or your firm’s YouTube channel. Submissions without a video will not be considered. Don't freak out about this. Simple is better; filming with a cell phone or tablet is fine. People just want to hear your design journey with the house and the client.
4. Complete the requested information below and send an
email to leslieakingery@gmail.com and george@usmodernist.org with
the subject 2025 Matsumoto Submission.
__________________________________
Project Architect
Name:
Firm Name:
Firm Website:
Firm Instagram:
Architect Email:
Architect Phone:
Submitter Name:
Submitter Email:
Submitter Phone:
Working Name of
the House (aka Crenshaw House, River House):
House Address:
Builder and their
website or Instagram:
Landscape
Architect, if any, and their website or Instagram:
Structural
Engineer, if any, and their website or Instagram:
Interior
Designer, if any, and
their website or Instagram:
Year Completed:
Photographer and
their website or Instagram:
Video URL at
Vimeo or YouTube: