Santa Monica, Calif. ? Thomas Mayne, the bad boy of architecture for years before reaping international acclaim in his mid-50s, was named Sunday as the winner of the Pritzker Prize, the field’s most prestigious honor.

Mayne, 61, is the first American to win the Pritzker in 14 years and only the eighth U.S. architect to win in the 27-year history of the contest.

The new Caltrans District 7 headquarters, designed by architect Thomas Mayne and his design firm, is in downtown Los Angeles. Mayne on Sunday was named winner of the Pritzker Prize, architecture's most prestigious honor.

The jury cited Mayne for creating a bold architectural style that reflects the “unique, somewhat rootless, culture of Southern California” through angular lines and an unfinished, open-ended feel.

“Thom Mayne is a product of the turbulent ’60s who has carried that rebellious attitude and fervent desire for change into his practice, the fruits of which are only now becoming visible,” the jury wrote.

Mayne will be awarded a $100,000 grant and a bronze medallion on May 31 during a ceremony at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Chicago’s Millennium Park. Past winners of the Pritzker Prize, sponsored by the family that developed the Hyatt Hotel chain, include I.M. Pei, Frank Gehry, Renzo Piano and Rem Koolhaas.

For two decades, Mayne worked in relative obscurity on local houses, restaurants and office buildings and a handful of overseas projects. Then, in the mid-1990s, a series of convention-bending designs won Mayne his first major international praise.

He has since won competitions and commissions for an array of major public projects, including the new Alaska state capitol, a new academic building for The Cooper Union in New York, and New York’s 2012 Olympic Village, which will be built even if the city doesn’t get the games for that year.