Twenty-five Year Award

The Twenty-five Year Award is an architecture prize awarded each year by the American Institute of Architects (AIA) to "a building that has set a precedent for the last 25 to 35 years and continues to set standards of excellence for its architectural design and significance". The Twenty-five Year Award was first presented in 1969, and has been handed out every year from 1971 onward, with the exception of 2018. In 2021, the prize was awarded to the Burton Barr Central Library in Phoenix by Will Bruder.

The project receiving the award can be located anywhere in the world, but must be designed by an architect licensed in the United States. Only five buildings outside of the United States have received the award, one each in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia; Barcelona, Spain; and Paris, France; and two in London, England. New York City has the most awards at five, while Washington, D.C. is second with three awards. Boston, Chicago, and New Haven, all have two awards each.

Buildings to which Finnish American architect Eero Saarinen has contributed have received six awards, tied with the architectural firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. Louis I. Kahn has been honored five times. Buildings by Frank Lloyd Wright have received this award four times, and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and the firm Pei Cobb Freed & Partners have each had three of their buildings honored. Of the 49 projects that have received this award, only three, the Eames House, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, and the Sainsbury Wing at the National Gallery, had women as contributing architects.

Eligibility

The Twenty-five Year Award can be awarded to any type of architectural project and may be either a single structure or a group of structures that compose a larger whole. Winners have included monuments, such as the Gateway Arch and Vietnam Veterans Memorial, and groupings of buildings, such as the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and Haystack Mountain School of Crafts. Most buildings nominated for this award are new structures but one winner, Faneuil Hall Marketplace, was a substantial renovation of warehouses into a festival marketplace.

For a project to be eligible to win the Twenty-five Year Award, it must have been built between 25 and 35 years before the year of the award. It must also have been designed by "an architect licensed in the United States at the time of the project’s completion". This means that the award candidate can be anywhere in the world, but must have been designed by a licensed American architect, such as the Fundació Joan Miró in Spain.

To be nominated the project must be in a "substantially completed form" as well as "in good condition". Potential candidates must not have been altered substantially since they were built. Change of use is allowed by the rules, but the "original intent" of the structure must still be intact. These changes of use include reorganization of interior space. This was taken into account with the Price Tower, which when built was a mix of offices and apartments, but when awarded, had only one apartment remaining.AIA honors Wright tower
''Milwaukee Journal''. May 8, 1983. p. 5. Retrieved July 1, 2011 The award is presented at the AIA National Convention each year.John Hancock Tower in Boston selected to receive AIA Twenty-five Year Award
Archinnovations. January 19, 2011. Retrieved April 9, 2011

Nomination procedure

"Any AIA member, group of members, component, or Knowledge Community" is allowed to nominate a project for the Twenty-five Year Award. A project may be nominated multiple times, as long as it still complies with the eligibility requirements. Nominees are judged by today's architectural standards in their function, execution, and creativity. The project and its site are judged together, with any changes in context taken into account.

Award recipients

The "Year" column, which indicates when the building won the award, links to an article about the year's significant architectural events.

See also

* Stirling Prize

References

;General

;Specific

External links

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Architecture awards
American awards
Awards established in 1969
1969 establishments in the United States