2011 Driehaus Prize Winner Announced

by Paul Gunther, ICA&CA President

Robert A. M. Stern

Everyone at the Institute of Classical Architecture & Classical America heralds the selection of Robert A.M. Stern as winner of the 2011 Richard H. Driehaus Prize awarded annually by the School of Architecture at the University of Notre Dame thanks to the magnificent support of the prize’s generous namesake. Dean Stern has long been an ICA&CA stalwart now serving on our Council of Advisors. His example has long inspired and nurtured many in our ranks.

He has quite simply had more impact on the future course of contemporary classicism than anyone working today. All previous winners are inevitably tied to him as global avatar and prolific author and polemicist. That’s what the Board of Directors here honored him five years ago with its eponymous special distinction as conceived by that year’s Arthur Ross jury chair, Bunny Williams.

Trustee Adele Chatfield-Taylor, who serves on the Driehaus Prize jury says it best as one of those in charge of bestowing it, “This is a wonderful year for Robert A.M. Stern to be winning the Driehaus Prize. He is known and admired around the world, and will bring attention not only to contemporary classicism, but also to historic preservation, urban design, and quality in the public realm in all its dimensions. And above all, this will bring recognition to his inspired deanship at Yale. What could matter more than an engaged educator? Congratulations to Bob for this long deserved honor and long may he wave.”

15 Central Park West (Peter Aaron/Esto)

Nashville Public Library (Peter Aaron/Esto)

Henry Hope Reed Winner, Bob Peck

The ceremony takes place in Chicago over the weekend of March 25 and 26. Mr. Stern will be saluted there along with this year’s winner of the Henry Hope Reed Award, Robert A. Peck, who currently serves as the Director of Public Buildings for the General Services Administration at its Washington DC headquarters. He upholds ideally Henry’s exemplary determination to safeguard the built expression of collective civic well-being. We are glad that Mr. Reed very much remains our scholar-in-residence and I feel certain that he will agree as soon as Notre Dame informs him officially. Any correspondence to him by the way can be transmitted via the Institute to his nearby New York residence.

Our board chairman, former Stern student, and still devoted acolyte, Peter Pennoyer, added, “The Driehaus jury—Adele among them—has recognized an architect, who as much as any of his generation, has reconnected our profession with the lessons of the past. Dean Stern’s practice has proven that classicism can unleash the imagination of the well-prepared and skilled designer to create exciting, innovative structures and interiors.”

In sum, we’re duly chuffed across the board.