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AIA Honors 3 More

AIA Honors 3 More

After announcing three awards last week—the Gold Medal, Firm of the Year, and Topaz Medallion—the AIA is back today with three more.

The 25-Year Award, which honors a building that has stood the test of time, will be given to Faneuil Hall Marketplace, Ben Thompson’s conversion of an 1825 market hall in downtown Boston into a modern shopping destination. The project is generally credited with kick-starting the festival marketplace movement for which Thompson was renowned. (His later New York project, Pier 17, has recently been at the center of a skirmish over plans to redevelop the South Street Seaport.)

Henry Siegel, chair of the AIA Committee on the Environment, said that the building is also a hallmark of sustainable practices well ahead of its time. "These include adaptive reuse, thereby saving tremendous amounts of energy and other resources in demolition, transportation, and construction and creating a high-density urban environment where people can work, shop, play, and enjoy life as pedestrians,” Siegel said in a release.

The 25-Year prize was established in 1969 and first awarded to Rockefeller Center. Other well known winners include the Guggenheim Museum in New York, Dulles International Airport, and the Kimball Art Center. Last year’s winner was Richard Meier’s Atheneum in New Harmony, Indiana.

Meanwhile, Clyde Porter has been named the recipient of this year’s Whitney M. Young Jr. Award, which recognizes an architect or organization that furthers the social goals espoused by the eponymous Urban League leader for which the award is named.

Porter, who has worked in facilities management at the Dallas County Community College District for 21 years, is being honored for his efforts in encouraging minority education and practice in architecture, including the foundation of the Texas chapter of the National Organization of Minority Architects.

And Barbara Nadel, a New York–based architect and building security expert, will receive the Edward C. Kemper Award for Service to the Profession, which recognizes those architects who have made lasting contributions to the AIA.  “Barbara is a proven leader, a dedicated mentor to emerging professionals, and an advocate for the AIA and the issues that are critical to the future of our profession,” George Miller, the AIA president-elect, said in a release.

Nadel has held a number of influential positions at the AIA over the years, including AIA national vice president, AIA New York regional director, and chair of the AIA Academy on Architecture for Justice. She also writes a monthly column on building security for Buildings.com.

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