Arthur Ross Awards Categories & Criteria
Award Categories
Each year, the Arthur Ross Jury selects five recipients for awards from among the following categories:
- Architecture
- Artisanship/Craftsmanship
- Community Design/Civic Design/City Planning
- Education
- History/Journalism/Criticism/Writing/Editing/Publishing
- Landscape Design/Gardening
- Patronage (for the support of a new project, collection, or body of work)
- Fine Arts: Painting/Mural Design
- Rendering
- Sculpture
- Stewardship: Good Manners, a.k.a. Historic Preservation for the upkeep and maintenance of an existing entity
- Graphics/Photography/Illustration
Please note that awards are not given in every category every year, however, in exceptional circumstances, more than one award may be given in a given category. By tradition, an award in the architecture category is made each year.
In addition, the jury can in any cycle opt to nominate an individual, whose accomplishments transcend categories. This “Board of Directors Honor” is decided ultimately by the trustees directly.
Award Criteria
The Arthur Ross Awards jury considers several factors in selecting each year’s recipients:
- The Arthur Ross Awards are not given for individual projects, but rather for a career or body of work by the nominee. Although the recipient need not be at the end of their career, the Awards honor a body of work. The exceptions are for the categories of “Patronage” and “Stewardship: Good Manners,” where single works are honored.
- Awards are given to practitioners or advocates of the classical tradition who are deserving because their work represents excellence in their field, or they have been working without national exposure over the course of their career because of their geographical location or lack of media exposure, or because they are rising practitioners whose work the jury hopes will be encouraged by the Award.
- In the domain of Fine Arts, the body of work should have a public character, or have been created in association with architectural projects, or be related to design and placemaking, or the depiction of the built environment.