AIA bestows highest honors

The board of directors of the American Institute of Architects, Washington, D.C., has voted to award its highest honors for an individual, firm and educator. The award winners will be honored at the AIA National Convention and Design Exposition, held in Miami in June. Gold Medal: The 2010 AIA Gold Medal will go to Peter Bolin, FAIA. The architect and founder of Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, Wilkes-Barre, Pa., is renowned for his versatile, contextual use of materials. “I’m so pleased and I’m surprised,” said Bohlin. “We all believe in architecture. It is our life to a great extent. Like athletes, we all know that it’s hard work to make it look easy, and we’re all constantly striving to do that.” Over the course of his long career, Bohlin has designed superlative rural houses, nature centers as well as excellent urban buildings. The key to success for both building types is their contextual use of materials. “He moves from the log cabin to the glass box with the same unassailable ethic that has for hundreds of years defined and shaped an architectural tradition rooted in the exercise of knowledge and made unique only by the personal will, character and imagination of its creator,” wrote Mack Scogin, FAIA, of Mack Scogin Merrill Elam Architects, Atlanta, in a recommendation letter. Bohlin included metal in his work on the Seattle City Hall; its varied curtain wall facades of steel and glass uniquely reflect the solar orientation and urban fabric of each face.
Firm Award: Pugh + Scarpa Architects, Santa Monica, Calif., will receive the 2010 AIA Architecture Firm Award. The distinction is based on its 35 years of consistent excellent work, including its seamless blending of architecture, art and craft; community involvement; attention to sustainable design; and nurturing of in-house talent. Founding partners Gwynne Pugh, AIA, and Lawrence Scarpa, AIA, and Angela Brooks, AIA, who became a partner in 2001, are known for forging a broad, inclusive, experimental approach to socially and environmentally sensitive urban planning and design. “We’re thrilled,” said Lawrence Scarpa, AIA. “It was a surprise just to be nominated. It’s just stunning to win.”
“Pugh + Scarpa’s practice is known for both design and its commitment to running a socially and environmentally responsive practice,” writes Thom Mayne, FAIA, in support of the nomination. “Comfortable with aesthetic, practical, political, and functional issues, they have mapped an architectural path that is as didactic as it is successful.”
Topaz Medallion: The Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture, Washington, D.C., along with the AIA board, named Michael Graves, FAIA, as 2010 recipient of the Topaz Medallion for Excellence in Architectural Education. Graves, Princeton University’s Robert Schirmer Professor of Architecture, Emeritus, has been teaching architectural design and theory for over four decades. His teaching career evidences great breadth and influence. During his 39 years in Princeton’s School of Architecture, from 1962 to 2001, Graves taught thousands of undergraduate and graduate architecture students and undergraduates in other disciplines, thereby influencing a wide range of students. In addition, he has served as a visiting professor, given lectures, and/or participated in design juries at numerous other schools of architecture in the U.S. Graves has given over a thousand public lectures, thereby extending his influence to a yet wider range of students as well as members of the profession and the public. “Michael’s influence was pervasive and positive. He provided for all the students the first and foremost template of a life that is centered on design issues, history and culture-at-large,” said Paul Segal, FAIA, of Paul Segal Associates in New York City in his nomination letter. “I also know of no one more deserving of this award, as one of the truly great educators in architecture in the past 50 years.”