The Twenty-five Year Award is an architectural prize awarded each year by the American Institute of Architects (AIA) to "a building that has set a precedent for the last 25 to 35 years and continues to set standards of excellence for its architectural design and significance" and which was designed by an architect licensed in the United States. The Twenty-five Year Award was first presented in 1969, and has been handed out every year from 1971 onward, with the exceptions of 2018 and 2025. In 2026, the prize was awarded to the Philip Merrill Environmental Center in Annapolis, Maryland by SmithGroup.
Five buildings in New York City have received the award, the most of any city. Washington, D.C., is second with three, while Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and New Haven each have two. Only seven buildings outside of the United States have received the award: two in London, England, and one each in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia; Barcelona, Spain; Bilbao, Spain; Paris, France; and Tokyo, Japan.
Finnish American architect Eero Saarinen designed or contributed to six buildings so honored, tied with the architectural firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. Louis I. Kahn and Frank Lloyd Wright each have five buildings that have been honored that were designed or contributed to by them; Frank Lloyd Wright has 4, and there are three apiece by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and the firm Pei Cobb Freed & Partners. Of the 53 projects that received this award through 2022, only three had women as contributing architects: the Eames House, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, and the Sainsbury Wing at the National Gallery.
Eligibility The Twenty-five Year Award can be awarded to any type of architectural project and may be either a single structure or a group of structures that compose a larger whole. Winners have included monuments, such as the Gateway Arch and Vietnam Veterans Memorial, and groupings of buildings, such as the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and Haystack Mountain School of Crafts. Most buildings nominated for this award are new structures but one winner, Faneuil Hall Marketplace, was a substantial renovation of warehouses into a festival marketplace.Campbell, Robert. Two urban drawing cards are now in limbo. The Boston Globe. December 21, 2008. Retrieved July 1, 2011.
For a project to be eligible to win the Twenty-five Year Award, it must have been built between 25 and 35 years before the year of the award. It must also have been designed by "an architect licensed in the United States at the time of the project's completion". This means that the award candidate can be anywhere in the world, but must have been designed by a licensed American architect, such as the Fundació Joan Miró in Spain.
To be nominated the project must be in a "substantially completed form" as well as "in good condition". Potential candidates must not have been altered substantially since they were built. Change of use is allowed by the rules, but the "original intent" of the structure must still be intact. These changes of use include reorganization of interior space. This was taken into account with the Price Tower, which when built was a mix of offices and apartments, but when awarded, had only one apartment remaining.AIA honors Wright tower. Milwaukee Journal. May 8, 1983. p. 5. Retrieved July 1, 2011 The award is presented at the AIA National Convention each year.. Archinnovations. January 19, 2011. Retrieved April 9, 2011
Nomination procedure
"Any AIA member, group of members, component, or Knowledge Community" is allowed to nominate a project for the Twenty-five Year Award. A project may be nominated multiple times, as long as it still complies with the eligibility requirements. Nominees are judged by today's architectural standards in their function, execution, and creativity. The project and its site are judged together, with any changes in context taken into account.
Award recipients The "Year" column, which indicates when the building won the award, links to an article about the year's significant architectural events.
Year Building(s) city Image Architect(s) 1969 Rockefeller Center New York City, New York Reinhard & Hofmeister; Corbett, Harrison & MacMurray 1971 Crow Island School Winnetka, Illinois Perkins, Wheeler & Will; Eliel & Eero Saarinen 1972 Baldwin Hills Village Los Angeles, California 1973 Taliesin West Paradise Valley, Arizona 1974 Johnson and Son Administration Building Racine, Wisconsin 1975 Philip Johnson's Residence ("The Glass House") New Canaan, Connecticut 1976 860–880 North Lakeshore Drive Apartments Chicago, Illinois 1977 Christ Lutheran Church Minneapolis, Minnesota 1978 Eames House Pacific Palisades, California 1979 Yale University Art Gallery New Haven, Connecticut 1980 Lever House New York City, New York Skidmore, Owings & Merrill 1981 Farnsworth House Plano, Illinois 1982 Equitable Savings and Loan Building Portland, Oregon 1983 Price Tower Bartlesville, Oklahoma 1984 Seagram Building New York City, New York 1985 General Motors Technical Center Warren, Michigan 1986 Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum New York City, New York 1987 Bavinger House Norman, Oklahoma 1988 Washington Dulles International Airport Terminal Building Chantilly, Virginia 1989 Vanna Venturi House Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania 1990 Gateway Arch St. Louis, Missouri 1991 Sea Ranch Condominium One Sea Ranch, California 1992 Salk Institute for Biological Studies La Jolla, California 1993 Deere & Company Administrative Center Moline, Illinois 1994 Haystack Mountain School of Crafts Deer Isle, Maine — 1995 Ford Foundation Headquarters New York City, New York 1996 United States Air Force Academy Cadet Chapel Colorado Springs, Colorado Skidmore, Owings & Merrill 1997 Phillips Exeter Academy Library Exeter, New Hampshire 1998 Kimbell Art Museum Fort Worth, Texas 1999 John Hancock Center Chicago, Illinois Skidmore, Owings & Merrill 2000 Darien, Connecticut — 2001 Weyerhaeuser Corporate Headquarters Federal Way, Washington Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP, Fazlur Rahman Khan 2002 Fundació Joan Miró Barcelona, Spain 2003 Design Research Headquarters Building Cambridge, Massachusetts 2004 East Building, National Gallery of Art Washington, D.C. 2005 Yale Center for British Art New Haven, Connecticut 2006 Thorncrown Chapel Eureka Springs, Arkansas 2007 Vietnam Veterans Memorial Washington, D.C. 2008 New Harmony, Indiana 2009 Faneuil Hall Marketplace Boston, Massachusetts 2010 Jeddah, Saudi Arabia Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP 2011 John Hancock Tower Boston, Massachusetts 2012 Gehry Residence Santa Monica, California LLP 2013 Menil Collection Houston, Texas LLP 2014 Washington Metro Washington, D.C. 2015 Exchange House, Broadgate London, England Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP 2016 Monterey Bay Aquarium Monterey, California 2017 Grand Louvre – Phase 1 Paris, rance Pei Cobb Freed & Partners2018 No award2019Sainsbury Wing at the National Gallery London, EnglandVenturi, Scott Brown and Associates2020Conjunctive Points-The New City Culver City, CaliforniaEric Owen Moss Architects2021Burton Barr Central Library Phoenix, ArizonaWill Bruder2022Chapel of St. Ignatius Seattle, WashingtonSteven Holl Architects2023Guggenheim Museum Bilbao Bilbao, SpainGehry Partners2024Tokyo International Forum Tokyo, JapanRafael Viñoly Architects2025 No award2026Philip Merrill Environmental Center Annapolis, MarylandSmithGroup
See also Stirling Prize
References General – for award recipients between 1970 and 2005
Specific
External links