The Modernism in America Awards is the first national program of its kind to celebrate the projects and the people working to sensitively preserve and rehabilitate significant mid-century modern buildings for continued productive use and to raise public awareness of the ongoing threats to modern architecture and design.

 

The program seeks to acknowledge the substantial economic and cultural impact such projects had and continue to have on our local communities and to set a standard for how preserving modern architecture can be accomplished. Through the awards program, Docomomo US seeks to bring attention to the many successful local, regional and national projects and thereby elevate an appreciation for the value of modern architecture to our cultural and architectural history. Theodore Prudon, FAIA, president of Docomomo US states, “The quality and variety of the nominated projects submitted for the inaugural year of the Docomomo US Modernism in America Awards is inspiring and speaks to the increasing interest in the cultural value mid-century modern architecture brings to the United States.”

 

Docomomo US is pleased to announce the winners of the inaugural Modernism in America Awards. The juried Awards celebrate the documentation, preservation and re-use of modern buildings, structures and landscapes built in the United States or on U.S. territory. One Award of Excellence was given in each of the three categories: Design, Inventory/Survey, and Advocacy. Five Citations of Merit were selected. Modernism in America prizes will be awarded during the Docomomo US National Symposium March 13-15, 2014 in Houston, Texas. 

2014 Modernism in America Jury

 

The 2014 Modernism in America Awards was chaired by James Polshek, FAIA. The founding partner of Polshek Partnership Architects, he was formerly the Dean of the Columbia University School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation and his distinguished career includes numerous awards for design excellence, including National AIA Honor Awards as well as local and regional awards. His design and rehabilitation work includes the William Jefferson Clinton Presidential Center in Little Rock, Arkansas; the Rose Center for Earth and Space at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City; and the rehabilitation of the Yale University Art Gallery (Louis Kahn, 1953) in New Haven, Connecticut.

 

Four renowned modern architecture authors, educators and speakers joined Polshek on the jury:

 

Alice Friedman is the author of such books as “American Glamour and the Evolution of Modern Architecture” and "Women and the Making of the Modern House." She is the Grace Slack McNeil Professor of the History of American Art at Wellesley College, where she researches and teaches classes on such topics as mid-century modern architecture and the social and cultural history of architecture in Europe and the United States from the eighteenth century onward. Friedman is the founding director of the Architecture Program at Wellesley College.

 

Joseph Heathcott is a writer, curator and educator based in New York. Heathcott teaches urban studies and design at The New School and he recently held the U.S. Fulbright Distinguished Chair for the United Kingdom as well as a Senior Fellowship at the London School of Economics. Heathcott has served as a visiting scholar and critic at numerous institutions, including the Yale School of Architecture, University of Amsterdam, Art Institute of Chicago, MIT, and the University of Vienna.

 

Donna Robertson, FAIA is a partner and co-founder of macro design (formerly Robertson McAnulty Architects) located in Chicago, Illinois. She is a professor of architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology, where she was Dean of the College of Architecture from June 1996 to August 2012. Robertson served as Dean of the Tulane University School of Architecture from 1992 to 1996. President of the National Architectural Accrediting Board in 2003, Robertson is the current President of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture, a forum for educators.

 

Marc Treib is Professor Emeritus of Architecture at the University of California- Berkeley. He is the co-author of “Garrett Eckbo: Modern Landscapes for Living,” and author of the forthcoming “Landscapes of Modern Architecture: Wright, Mies, Neutra, Aalto, Barragán.”

Advocacy Jury

 

The advocacy jury was chaired by Jack Pyburn, FAIA, partner of Lord Aeck Sargent and adjunct professor at Georgia Institute of Technology’s College of Architecture. The Docomomo US Board of Directors completed the jury.

 

Winners will be recognized at the DOCOMOMO US National Symposium in March 2014 in Houston, Texas.