Announcing the winners of the 2022
Modernism in America Awards

 

Docomomo US is pleased to announce the twelve recipients of the 2022 Modernism in America Awards. These projects highlight the best in preservation practice by today’s architects, designers, preservation professionals and advocates. This year’s awards recognize preservation efforts ranging from the transformation of large-scale projects into beacons of sustainability to modest home revitalizations, many of which have been years, or even decades, in the making. The results are a testament to the dedication and foresight of those who recognize the value of preserving our modern heritage for everyone.

Now in its ninth year, the Modernism in America Awards, led by jury chair Henry Moss, AIA and a distinguished panel of experts, showcases projects that represent the best of modern preservation, documentation, and advocacy work. As in past years, the jury continues to value holistic approaches in all categories. In the Design category, projects were applauded for accomplishing highly successful restorations while maintaining a light touch and respect for the original design intent, at times with relatively small budgets.

This year’s Awards include several highly anticipated projects that reached completion, all that were aided by prior advocacy efforts. The Hotel Marcel, Marcel Breuer’s iconic New Haven landmark vacant since the late 1990s, has undergone a sustainability-focused rebirth thanks to the vision of architect and developer Becker + Becker. M. Paul Friedberg’s Peavey Plaza, the “living room” of Minneapolis, was considered for demolition in the early 2010’s and its preservation was the focus of a coalition of activists. Now it is an accessible centerpiece of downtown life. Six years ago, the Washington, D.C. Public Library embarked on an initiative to reinvigorate its aging infrastructure, an effort which was capped off by the recent completion of the stunningly reimagined Martin Luther King Jr. Library.


In the Residential category, the jury took note of projects that practiced restraint and eschewed trendy design pitfalls in favor of original design intent. Homes are very personal, and it is evident that the owners of this year’s winning projects were engaged in true passion projects. The Walter & Sylvia Stockmayer House, a rare Usonian design by Allan J. Gelbin, has been completely restored yet looks like it just stepped out of the 1960s. Clauss Haus II at Little Switzerland, in Knoxville, TN, designed by Alfred & Jane West Clauss, received a thorough restoration with a particular focus on its woodwork. Gagarin II, a Marcel Breuer-designed home in Litchfield, CT, received a highly practical restoration that involved fixing necessary “behind the scenes” systems, and preserved the original, modest footprint of the home, a rarity today.

The UMassBRUT campaign stood out in the Inventory/Survey category for its all-hands-on-deck approach to rallying large educational institutions around better stewardship of their modern resources. Following a two-day symposium, they have made great strides in educating and warming their community towards Brutalism.

This year the Docomomo US Board of Directors is pleased to announce two Advocacy Awards of Excellence, to the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation for the Pioneering Women in American Architecture project, and to Seattle-based advocate Eugenia Woo. Both Advocacy Award winners exemplify women’s contributions to our built environment and the lack of acknowledgement and broad understanding of their efforts. Each, through their own work and through the projects and people they seek to highlight, offer unique examples of creativity and determination to recognize and amplify the lesser told stories and women who are champions and designers of our built heritage.

Speaking on the projects recognized and the impact of the Awards program, Docomomo US Board Member and Awards Committee Chair Meredith Arms Bzdak noted, “This year’s Modernism in America Awards honor a full range of truly incredible preservation efforts being undertaken across the country, introducing us to fascinating pieces of our modern heritage and highlighting innovative ways that we can use that heritage to educate, inform, and inspire.” Docomomo US Executive Director Liz Waytkus added, “this year’s award winners demonstrate that doing the ‘impossible’ is possible. These projects represent what we should all be looking for in preservation outcomes: holistic, sustainable and inclusive design that benefits us all.”

The winners will be honored at an in-person Awards Ceremony on November 3rd at the Design Within Reach Third Avenue Showroom in New York City. Individual tickets and sponsorship opportunities are now available.

Mark your calendars

Save the date for the 2022 Modernism in America Awards Ceremony

 


The Awards Ceremony will take place in-person November 3, 2022 from 6:30-9:00 pm ET in New York City.

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2022 Jury

The Modernism in America Awards jury is chaired by Henry Moss, AIA principal of Bruner/Cott & Associates, a Boston, Massachusetts architecture firm dedicated to enhancing quality of life, economic vigor, and sense of community through thoughtful and sustainable design.

Angel Ayón, AIA, LEED AP, NCARB, NOMA

Angel Ayón is the Principal of AYON Studio Architecture • Preservation, P.C. (AYON Studio) in New York City, which provides integrated professional services in the fields of Architecture and Historic Preservation. He has more than twenty five years of experience working with historic buildings. Trained in his native Havana, Cuba, Washington, D.C., and New York City, his expertise ranges from building-envelope evaluation and repair to full-scale rehabilitation and adaptive reuse of historic properties. His experience with Modern architecture includes the rehabilitation and exterior enhancement of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, for which he was the project architect between 2004 and 2008 (prior to founding AYON Studio). In 2015, he was awarded the James Marston Fitch Mid-Career Fellowship to undertake research on interventions on Modern glazed enclosures. This research led to the publication of Reglazing Modernism - Intervention Strategies for 20th-Century Icons, published by Birkhäuser in 2019. The book was the recipient of the 2021 Lee Nelson Book Award bestowed by the Association for Preservation Technology International (APT) to "the most outstanding and influential book-length work on preservation technology." Mr. Ayón currently serves as Vice-President of Save Harlem Now! in NYC. He is a member of the Advisory Board of the Historic Districts Council, the Historic Preservation Committee of The Municipal Art Society of New York (MAS), Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Preservation League of the NY State, and member of the Board of Directors of the James Marston Fitch Charitable Foundation. He is also an active member of Columbia University Preservation Alumni, as well as the AIA, NCARB, nycoba/NOMA, USGBC, APTi, APT Northeast, US/ICOMOS, Docomomo US and Docomomo US/New York Tri-State. Mr. Ayón holds a professional degree as an Architect and a M.Sc. in Conservation and Rehabilitation of the Built Heritage from the Higher Polytechnic Institute “José Antonio Echeverría” in his native Havana, Cuba, and a Post-Graduate Certificate in Conservation of Historic Buildings and Archaeological Sites from Columbia University in New York.

Glenn LaRue Smith, FASLA

Glenn LaRue Smith, FASLA is Co-Founder and Principal of PUSH studio in Washington, DC.   He has built an urbanism-centered career inspired by the intersection of landscape and architecture for forty years.  As managing creative partner at PUSH studio, he leads design efforts based on the philosophy of revealing the intrinsic value of sites, inspiring creative team collaboration, and shaping sculptural landscape environments.  The firm is actively engaged in cultural landscape, urban design, monument / memorial design, and landscape design projects. Smith has served as Chairman of graduate landscape architecture programs at Morgan State University and Florida A&M University (HBCUs) as well as teaching positions at City College of New York, University of Michigan, Columbia University, and Rutgers University.  He is founder and former President of the Black Landscape Architects Network (BlackLAN), a nonprofit organization established to provide support to Black students and professionals.  He is a past recipient of the 2020 ASLA Distinguished Service Award and is the 2022 Distinguished Fellow of Landscape Architecture - Mississippi State University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Smith holds an MLA degree from The University of Michigan and a BLA degree from Mississippi State University. He is also a Loeb Fellow, ’97 - Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD).  Currently Smith is a spring 2022 Mellon Fellow in Urban Landscape Studies at Dumbarton Oaks.

2022 Awards Committee

The Awards Committee helps shape the annual program by reviewing nomination and eligibility guidelines, selecting jury members, and providing guidance on submissions on a case by case basis. A sincere thank you to this year's committee, Theodore Prudon, Meredith Bzdak, Hannah Simonson, and Gary Wolf.

Nominations for the 2022 Awards are closed.

Nominations for 2023 will open in March. Sign up for our email list to be alerted when nominations open.


Award Categories

Design

This juried award recognizes informed, thoughtful and creative design efforts to preserve, restore or adapt a modern building, structure or landscape of local, regional or national significance, securing its presence for future generations. Design Awards are recognized in the following subcategories:

  • Residential
  • Commercial
  • Institutional/Civic

 

Inventory/Survey

This juried award recognizes exceptional efforts to document, inventory and/or create a preservation plan for one or more modern buildings, structures or landscapes of local, regional or national significance. Nominations may be submitted in the form of a website, book, publication, or exhibition.

Advocacy

Presented by the Docomomo US Board of Directors, this award recognizes outstanding efforts to preserve and advocate for threatened modern buildings, structures or landscapes of local, regional or national significance through advocacy efforts. This award seeks to recognize preservation and advocacy organizations and other groups (including Docomomo US chapters) who have gone above and beyond to work collectively and collaboratively to advocate for a modern site or structure.

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