250 Years of American Style Winner

CityCenterDC Announces Winner of “250 Years of American Style” National Art Competition

Houston-based artist and architectural designerTung Nguyen’s “Urban Living Rooms” explores the shared landscape of American identity through immersive domestic spaces; installation to debut in Palmer Alley this June.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (May 2026) – CityCenterDC today announced the winner of its national juried art competition, 250 Years of American Style. Selected from more than 100 submissions, Vietnamese American artist and architect Tung Nguyen was chosen for his concept, Urban Living Rooms—a site-specific installation that explores American style through the lens of the living room as both a personal and collective space.

Positioned at the intersection of art, architecture, and cultural storytelling, Urban Living Rooms reimagines the domestic interior as a reflection of identity, memory, and self-expression. Nguyen’s winning concept will be realized as a multi-block suspended installation, transforming Palmer Alley into an immersive public experience debuting in June 2026, in advance of citywide America 250 celebrations.

A distinguished jury of cultural leaders—including Robin Givhan, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist; Jeffrey Wilkins, vice president of visual merchandising for Americas, Gucci; and Melissa Chiu, a renowned museum director, curator and author—selected Nguyen’s proposal for its thoughtful interpretation of the cultural power and evolution of American style.

“Tung’s concept reflects a nuanced and deeply personal perspective on the American experience—one that feels both intimate and universally resonant” said Timothy Lowery, Managing Director – Retail and Mixed-Use at Hines, who also served as a judge for the competition. “CityCenterDC has long been a platform for public art and cultural expression, and we are honored to give Tung’s artistic voice a home in Palmer Alley.”

Nguyen moved to Houston in 2011 from Vietnam to attend Texas A&M University. He earned a Bachelor of Environmental Design at the university, before moving to New York City to attend Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. His public art projects include Softy at Lincoln Center in New York City and Field of History at Glass City Metropark in Toledo, Ohio, developed as part of his work with Bryony Roberts Studio. Nguyen is currently a lecturer at the Rice School of Architecture.

“As both an artist and architectural designer, I’ve long been drawn to domestic space as a site of expression,” said Nguyen of his winning artistic concept, which will showcase more than a dozen suspended interpretations of a living room. “The living room, in particular, exists at the threshold between private and public life—it’s where we gather, host, and tell stories about who we are. With Urban Living Rooms, I wanted to explore how these spaces are created and shared for moments of connection across cultures and communities.”

The installation will feature a series of suspended, individual living room environments, each offering a unique interpretation of how identity is shaped and expressed within the home.

Nguyen will receive a $10,000 honorarium, with up to $100,000 in production support provided by CityCenterDC to bring the installation to life.

“Urban Living Rooms” will fit into CityCenterDC’s broader public art program, which also includes this summer’s Wild Race Against Time installation and DeNovo Gallery’s “The Window Project.”

Sketches of Nguyen’s winning entry, along with his headshot, can be found HERE.

The “250 Years of American Style” jury also selected three honorable mentions:

Pluribus, Julian Lang: American style is friction. The restless collision of ideas borrowed, worn down, and made new. That exchange is not a side effect of American culture. It is the engine, and Pluribus makes it visible. Three hundred thirty-nine convex traffic mirrors hang in a precise diagrid above Palmer Alley, forming a canopy of infinite refraction.

Unity in Diversity, Maxim Mirnov: Unity in Diversity is a vibrant, kaleidoscopic forest of names. Each name – from Basquiat to Ralph Lauren – is crafted in its own unique, complex palette: electric orange, deep emerald, vivid chartreuse. This explosion of color represents the raw energy and diverse backgrounds of the individuals who built the American aesthetic. It’s a celebration of the ‘Melting Pot’ – different characters, different roots, one shared influence.

Between the Stripes, Mackenzie Zendt: Between the Stripes reimagines Betsy Ross’s thirteen-striped American flag as a field of suspended fabric stretched across Palmer Alley. Rather than presenting the flag as a fixed symbol, the installation separates its stripes into thirteen individual banners, each composed of multiple threads in subtly shifting shades. This act of separation invites a closer examination of the ideals the flag represents. The United States has never been singular or uniform, but a composition of cultural and ideological differences. The deconstructed flag reflects this condition: within a single stripe, variations in tone and texture emerge, suggesting that unity is not sameness, but assembly.

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ABOUT CITYCENTERDC
CITYCENTERDC (www.citycenterdc.com) is a unique, pedestrian-friendly, 10-acre mixed-use development located in the heart of downtown Washington, D.C. Developed by Hines and Qatari Diar, the project is home to more than 221,000 square feet of retail space, 520,000 square feet of prime office space, 458 rental apartment units and 216 condominium units, a 360 room hotel, a 1,550-space parking garage, a public park, a central plaza, and pedestrian-oriented streets and alleyways.