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Grace La (United States, 1970; Korean: 나은영; Korean pronunciation: Na Eun Young) is a first generation, Korean Americans designer, Chair of the Department of Architecture and Professor of Architecture at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD), and Principal of LA DALLMAN. Co-founded with James Dallman, LA DALLMAN is a design firm recognized for the multidisciplinary integration of architecture, infrastructure, and landscape, with offices in Boston, Massachusetts and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. La previously served as the Chair of the Harvard GSD's Practice Platform and served as GSD's Director of the Master of Architecture Programs (2014–17).
La received her professional degree of Master of Architecture from Harvard University Graduate School of Design; her thesis was granted the honor of distinction and her project won the Clifford Wong Housing Prize. In college, she was a recipient of the Elizabeth Cary Agassiz Award and the John Harvard Scholarship (reserved for the top 5% of students based on GPA), graduating A.B. magna cum laude from Harvard College in Visual and Environmental Studies.
As noted in La's 2014 One Harvard address, La is the middle of three siblings, all educated at Harvard University. La's parents, Dr. and Mrs. Jea Min La of Long Island, NY, were scholars who immigration to the United States in the 1950s. La is the younger sister of Elinor L. Hoover (Harvard Business School, ‘94), Global Co-Head of Consumer Products and Vice Chairman of Capital Markets Origination at Citigroup.In 2014, 2015, and 2016, Hoover was named multiple times in the list of the 25 Most Powerful Women in Finance (American Banker). Hoover is Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. La is the older sister of Daniel La, an organic chemist who is Vice President and Head of Medicinal Chemistry at TRIANA Biomedicines and a former Postdoctoral Fellow of the renowned David Evans Lab at Harvard University.
LA DALLMAN, her practice with partner James Dallman, is engaged in the transformation of site through spatial and material investigations ranging in type and scale. Noted for their unusual ability in the design and execution of complex projects by the Architectural Record, the firm has received numerous professional honors and exhibited and published widely.
Grace La co-edited Skycar City with Winy Maas, co-founded and edited UWM's Calibrations, and was a member of the design editorial board of the Journal of Architectural Education for two terms. Her past research and teaching at UWM were funded by the international furniture manufacturer, KI, and resulted in numerous designed objects and prototypes, including a mass-customized public seating prototype exhibited at Discovery World. This work was featured in the Design Innovations Panel of the Metropolis Conference at ICFF in 2010.
As Director of the GSD's M.Arch Programs, La was responsible for both the M.Arch I and M.Arch II architecture degree programs, the largest department constituency at the GSD. During this period, she re-tooled the architecture department's admissions process, resulting in the highest admissions yield in the history of the school. As Chair of the Practice Platform, La oversees curriculum development and programs in the area of design practice and is the host of Talking Practice, Harvard GSD's inaugural podcast series launched in October 2018. Exploring matters and methods of practice, La has engaged podcast interviews with renowned designers such as Shohei Shigematsu, Jeanne Gang, Reinier de Graaf, Anna Heringer, Paul Nakazawa, Gary Hilderbrand, Preston Scott Cohen, and others.
In September 2019- January 2020, La co-curated with Jeremy Ficca and Amy Kulper, an exhibition entitled, "Drawing Attention," at the Roca London Gallery. The exhibition, gathering more than seventy five exemplary contemporary architectural drawings, opened during the London Design Festival. The exhibit was reviewed by the Royal Institute of British Architects among others, and was noted as a top exhibit to see in November 2019 by London's Guardian. Together with Ficca and Kulper, La was also the Co-Chair of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture's 107th Annual Conference, entitled " Black Box: Articulating Architecture's Core in the Post-Digital Era" in 2019, leading the national debate on questions of design pedagogy. According to the ACSA, the conference generated more than four hundred submissions, the largest quantity of responses in the last decade.
La's award-winning practice, LA DALLMAN, is honored with a 2021 Progressive Architecture Award, nine Design Awards from the American Institute of Architects Wisconsin, three Boston Society of Architects Unbuilt Design Awards, and multiple international design competition awards. LA DALLMAN was named a 2010 Emerging Voice by the Architectural League of New York and received the Bruner Award for Urban Excellence Silver Medal. The firm received the international Spotlight: The Rice Design Alliance Prize in 2011, honoring "exceptionally gifted architects in the early phase of their career." Grace La and James Dallman are the first North American practitioners to receive the prize, which was previously awarded to architects Antón García-Abril of Spain and Sou Fujimoto of Japan.
In March 2021, LA DALLMAN's transformation of the Teweles & Brandeis Granary in Sturgeon Bay Wisconsin was celebrated as the cover image of Architect Magazine, the Journal of the American Institute of Architects. LA DALLMAN's work is featured in publications by Spain's a+t, Architect Magazine, Architectural Record, Azure, Praxis, Princeton Architectural Press, Routledge, and Topos. They had exhibitions at the 2025 Chicago Architecture Biennial, the Carnegie Museum of Art Heinz Architectural Center and the Danish Architecture Centre in Copenhagen, Denmark. LA DALLMAN has given lectures in numerous symposia and esteemed institutions such as the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, the National Building Museum in Washington D.C., and the New Museum in New York City.
Among others, La's completed projects co-authored with partner, James Dallman, include the Miller Brewing Company Meeting Center (headquarters originally designed by mid-century architect, Ulrich Franzen), permanent science exhibition for Discovery World, the Marsupial Bridge and Media Garden, the Kilbourn Tower, the UWM Hillel Student Center, and several prominent residences including the Levy House and the Pavilion House in Wisconsin. At the time of its completion in 2005, Kilbourn Tower was the tallest residential building in Wisconsin and ranks as the 14th tallest building designed by a woman. Known for expertise of mid-century modern buildings, LA DALLMAN was shortlisted in 2018 for the renovation of the American Repertory Theater, originally designed by Hugh Stubbins. LA DALLMAN completed the renovation of Marcus Center and a new river entrance at the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts, originally designed by Harry Weese.
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