Modernism in America Awards

Attend the Awards Ceremony

Buffalo's Willert Park Courts to receive Modernism in America Advocacy Award of Excellence


Willert Park Courts, the first housing complex for African Americans in Buffalo and an early example of International Style design, will receive the Docomomo US 2020 Modernism in America Advocacy Award of Excellence. The organization's top advocacy prize honors the work of Preservation Buffalo Niagara and the Michigan Street Preservation Corporation, who for over 15 years have maintained their stance that the complex is “one of the single most historic places in the City of Buffalo.” The organizations have dedicated countless hours and resources to the preservation battle for this culturally, socially and architecturally significant resource. 

Group of children in front of Willert Park Courts. Date and photographer unknown.

Credit:

Western New York Heritage, Inc.

Willert Park Courts in the foreground, with new housing in the background.

Credit:

Buffalo Rising

Bas-relief sculpture on the Willert Park Courts complex by Robert Cronbach and Harold Ambellan.

Credit:

Buffalo Rising

Mark your calendars

Join us for the 2020 Modernism in America Awards Ceremony

 

 

For the first time ever, the awards will be free to attend and will be presented during a live virtual ceremony on Thursday November 12, 2020 at 8 pm EDT. Along with Willert Park Courts, all of the 2020 Modernism in America Award winners will be announced during the live ceremony. The ceremony is free to attend but registration is required. 

Sponsorship

Support the work of Docomomo US and celebrate our Awardees by becoming a sponsor of the 2020 Modernism in America Awards. 

SPONSORSHIP PROSPECTUS (PDF)

Lead Sponsor

Design Within Reach

Design Within Reach makes authentic modern design accessible. When the company was founded in 1998, the classics were very difficult to find. DWR changed that, making innovative works by iconic designers accessible for the first time and continuing to offer the best in modern design – past, present and future – ever since.

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Googie

Beyer Blinder Belle

Beyer Blinder Belle was founded in 1968, in the wake of the urban renewal movement in the United States, when the social fabric of cities, communities, and buildings was compromised by the prevailing attitudes about planning and architecture. We pioneered and defined a different approach to the design of the built environment that focused on architecture empowering people — their interaction with each other on streets and in neighborhoods, their pleasure in moving through the city, and their connections to the surrounding physical fabric.

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Late Modernist

AM Liles Architect

A M Liles Architect LLC is a firm that focuses on custom commercial and residential projects.  Based in New Orleans, Louisiana, AMLllc infuses each project with regional relevance and a high degree of creativity. Where possible, AMLllc injects each project with an intent of sustainability.  This term is interpreted broadly and manifests itself from reuse of existing materials to simply harvesting daylight.  AMLllc makes sustainability far from intimidating, and strives to prove that the client’s desired result can look the same sustainable as is would if not.

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Pines Modern

Among the many unique facets of Fire Island Pines is its unmatched mid-century modern architecture, a legacy of its status as a “safe space” and a premier resort for tastemakers in the 1960’s and 70’s. AIDS took a terrible toll on the population here, which in turn led to a “dark age” in which so much history and culture was lost. Pines Modern is a non-profit endeavor dedicated to the rediscovery of all that the Pines has created, particularly its mid-century architectural and cultural heritage. These are assets that, properly nourished, will ensure that the Pines remains a meaningful and relevant destination for generations to come. We cannot bring back a lost generation, but we can preserve their most salient artifacts and the environment in which they flourished.

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2020 Jury


The Modernism in America Awards jury is chaired by Kim Yao, AIA, Principal of Architecture Research Office (ARO), a New York City firm dedicated to architecture that unites strategy and intelligence with beauty and form.

Kim Yao

Kim Yao, AIA, is Principal of Architecture Research Office (ARO), a New York City firm dedicated to architecture that unites strategy and intelligence with beauty and form. ARO’s diverse body of work has earned the firm over a hundred design awards including the 2020 National AIA Architecture Firm Award, AIA New York State Firm of the Year Award, and the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award. Kim holds an undergraduate degree in architecture from Columbia College: Columbia University and a Master of Architecture from Princeton University. Kim is Adjunct Assistant Professor of Architecture at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, and has also taught at the School of Constructed Environments, Parsons, the New School for Design and Barnard College (2001-2011). She is on the Executive Committee and Board for AIA New York and the Center for Architecture as the 2020 President of AIA New York.

Hazel R. Edwards

Hazel R. Edwards has been Professor and Chair of the Department of Architecture, College of Engineering and Architecture at Howard University since July 2016. Dr. Edwards’ unique career has combined place-based research with planning and urban design practice. Her research interests in livability are framed within urban design contexts while focused primarily on historic campus environments. Of note is a planning study that culminated in a book that she co-authored entitled, The Long Walk: The Placemaking Legacy of Howard University (Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, 1996), which traced the 127-year history of the physical development of the campus.  That project has led to funded research and published work on placemaking at other historically black colleges and universities in the United States. She holds the Bachelor of Architecture from Howard University, the Master of Architecture in Urban Design from Harvard University, and the Ph.D. in regional planning from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is a certified planner with the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) and was elected to their College of Fellows (FAICP). She has been a member of several American Institute of Architects and American Planning Association volunteer teams focused on developing alternatives to complex urban design (UDAT), planning (PAT), community planning (CPAT), and sustainable design assessment (SDAT) challenges. Prior to joining Howard University, she taught in the graduate architecture and city planning programs at Morgan State University's Institute of Architecture (1999 to 2007) and at The Catholic University of America's School of Architecture and Planning (2007 to 2016), where she served as director of the Master of City and Regional Planning program.

Alan Hess

Alan Hess is an architect and historian and the author of twenty books on Modern architecture and urbanism in the twentieth century; his subjects include John Lautner, Oscar Niemeyer, Frank Lloyd Wright, the Ranch House, Googie architecture, Las Vegas, and Palm Springs. He is a Commissioner on the California State Historical Resources Commission, and serves on the boards of Preserve Orange County and Palm Springs Modernism Week. He has been the architecture critic of the San Jose Mercury News, a contributor to The Architect's Newspaper, grant recipient from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts and the Clarence Stein Foundation, and a National Arts Journalism Fellow. Buildings from the Modern era which he has helped to conserve or landmark include CBS Television City (Pereira & Luckman, architect), Bullock’s Pasadena (Wurdeman & Becket, architect), and the oldest remaining McDonald's stand (Stanley Meston, architect.) Awards for his work conserving Modern architecture include the Honor Award from the National Trust for Historic Preservation, a Docomomo US Award of Excellence, and the President’s Award from the Los Angeles Conservancy. He is currently writing a history of Modern Architecture in California.

Robert Hruby

Robert Hruby has shared leadership and design direction with Kevin Campion at Campion Hruby Landscape Architects since 2011. His extensive experience in the profession spans 25 years, working at national and regional firms. As a Senior Associate at Oehme, Van Sweden & Associates, Robert managed the overall design and implementation projects that ranged in type and scale from private residences and mixed-use communities to retail centers and botanic gardens. His award winning residential designs range from large estates to intimate urban gardens. Robert’s projects have been recognized as being in scale and proportion to their surrounding context, elegantly detailed and ecologically grounded. Robert’s interest in private garden design is both practical and scholarly. During graduate school at the University of Massachusetts he was a research assistant for the James Rose Landscape Research Center, where he documented Rose’s groundbreaking residential works. He is a recipient of many residential design awards, including a 2008 National Honor Award in Residential Design from the American Society of Landscape Architects and several from the Maryland and Potomac Chapters of the ASLA. Robert earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Architecture from the University of Maryland, and a Master of Landscape Architecture degree from the University of Massachusetts. He is a registered landscape architect in the state of Maryland and an active member of the American Society of Landscape Architects.

Emily Rauh Pulitzer

Emily Rauh Pulitzer is the Chair of the Pulitzer Arts Foundation. She grew up in Cincinnati in a 1938 house designed by John Becker and, more recently, oversaw its renovation from a totally dilapidated state.  It won a Docomomo US Award of Excellence for its restoration in 2016. Preceding that undertaking she had commissioned Tadao Ando to design the building which houses the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, whose Board she chairs.  Pulitzer is now working to develop a long block of housing in the Grand Center neighborhood of St. Louis. The architects involved are led by Tatiana Bilbao and include Productora, Macias and Pereda, and MOS. Pulitzer has a B.A. with Honors from Bryn Mawr College and an M.A. from Harvard.  Previously a Curator at the Fogg Art Museum and the Saint Louis Art Museum, she has served on their boards, that of MoMA, as well as others.  She received the National Medal of Arts and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. 

About


The Modernism in America Awards is the only national program that celebrates the people and projects working to preserve, restore and rehabilitate our modern heritage sensitively and productively. The program seeks to advance those preservation efforts; to increase appreciation for the period and to raise awareness of the on-going threats against modern architecture and design while acknowledging the substantial contribution preservation in general and the postwar heritage in particular makes to the economic and cultural life of our communities.

 

Past Modernism in America Award Winners

2019 Award Winners

2018 Award Winners

2017 Award Winners

2016 Award Winners

2015 Award Winners

2014 Award Winners

Award Winners in the news