(October 28, 2025. Sacramento, CA)— Michael Maltzan, FAIA, who through a sense of lightness and optimism, realizes projects that harness inventive forms and materials to create generous spaces that foster community, is the 2025 Maybeck Award recipient.
Named for Bernard Ralph Maybeck, the California architect who has influenced designers for over a century, the Maybeck Award recognizes outstanding achievement in architectural design as expressed in a body of work produced by an individual architect over a period of at least 10 years.
“Michael Maltzan is a serious architect who takes on important projects. He elevates communities with each,” noted the Jury in awarding Maltzan the highest design award the AIA California bestows on an individual architect.
“There is a consistent level of excellence achieved across the entire body of work. His commitment to innovation, an open design process, rigor, and constant refinement is evident and well-exhibited, and his work in affordable housing is the highlight of a career largely committed to public-facing work,” the Jury observed. “He is a starchitect that does supportive housing.”
Maltzan’s peers, too, heralded both the rigor of Maltzan’s architecture and its span.
“His trajectory is marked by a steady intensity, where ideas are rigorously tested through form, material, and engagement with the built environment as well as contemporary politics, cultures, and society,” said Pritzker Prize laureate Thom Mayne, FAIA, in a letter endorsing Maltzan for the award.
“He works at an intimate scale and at a civic scale,” noted Billie Tsien, FAIA, in her letter. Observing Maltzan’s Sixth Street Viaduct, she said, “[It] reimagines infrastructure as a way to make places rather than (as they have so often been in the past) a way to erase. Projects such as these are city changers. And as city changers they are also country changers.”
“He stands as one of the most important and award-winning contemporary practitioners in America,” said AIA Gold Medal Recipient Lawrence Scarpa, FAIA. “Michael has consistently delivered the highest quality of architecture.”
In accepting the 2025 Maybeck Award, Maltzan said, “Architecture has a powerful capability to be at the center of connecting individuals to communities, and communities and institutions to the larger culture around them. This recognition affirms my belief in architecture’s enduring role creating spaces where those connections can continue to evolve and strengthen.”
Decided at the same time as AIA California Design Awards, the 2025 Maybeck Award jury was comprised of:
About the American Institute of Architects California (AIA California)
AIA California is dedicated to serving its members, and uniting all architecture professionals in the design of a more just, equitable, and resilient future through advocacy, education, and political action. It celebrates more than 75 years of service and, today, is composed of more than 11,000 members across the state.
