Chicago’s Maddox, DAAP alum honored with 2011 Legend Award

Eva Maddox, DAAP alum and 2011 Legend Award receipient.
Photo credited to Contract Magazine.

Congratulations to Chicago alum and UC Foundation Trustee Eva Maddox, who recently won the 2011 Legend Award by Contract Magazine! This award pays tribute to Eva’s significant career accomplishments rooted in her UC education and her impact on the field of interior design. Among those accomplishments, Contract boasts:

“Maddox has designed millions of square feet of office, showroom, healthcare, museum, and institutional space nationally and internationally; has garnered more than 100 awards for her work; and has founded an innovative design graduate school in inner city Chicago that serves as a model for community and social development.”

And that’s just the introduction! Eva’s deep connection with UC played a prominent role in her success story.

“Maddox’s design journey began in Viola, Tenn., where her mother, who was a high school advisor at the time, assessed her daughter’s talents and inclinations and urged her to attend the University of Cincinnati. Maddox and her mother could see that it’s top-rated College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning program, which emphasized both theory and practice, would enable her to leverage her problem-solving and math skills with her creative interests, while giving her the experience she needed to thrive in the workplace. Maddox says her mother told her: “When you graduate, you will have a job.” The wisdom of her mother’s guidance continues to affect the designer to this day.”

Though the university has changed dramatically since Eva’s graduation, the cornerstones of her education still ring true today.

“Maddox sees the University’s interdisciplinary education program as the pivotal starting point for the adaptive and integrative approach she uses to solve programs in her current practice. And since she graduated in 1966, a relationship of reciprocal loyalty and respect has emerged between the designer and her alma mater, which over the years has enlisted her to design the entrance hall and exhibition space of a significant new building on its campus (Richard E. Lindner Hall in Varsity Village), invited her to join its foundation board of trustees, and awarded her with an honorary doctorate of fine arts degree.”

Be sure to congratulate your fellow Bearcat on this tremendous honor by commenting below. And check out the full article here!