Martha Thorne, an associate curator at the Art Institute of Chicago has been named executive director of the Pritzker Prize for architecture. “Thorne’s ascent to the paid, part-time Pritzker post marks the first time since the award was established in 1979 that it will be administered from Chicago, the hometown of the prize’s sponsor, the billionaire Pritzker family. Previous executive directors — including the late Brendan Gill, the New Yorker magazine’s architecture critic, and the immediate past executive director, Bill Lacy, former president of Purchase College — have been from the New York area.”