Awards Season at the Institute

A message from our President, Paul Gunther

I am pleased to call attention to the upcoming Stanford White Awards inaugurated as a regional design and artisanship prize for New York, New Jersey, and Fairfield County, Connecticut. Please note that eligibility is tied to local construction or realization and is thus open to all who fit the bill in accordance with the submission guidelines. Event sponsorship is a present priority and any interested should be in touch ASAP.

We are grateful to the Stanford White family and in particular his great-grandsons, Samuel G. White and Daniel W. White, for allowing us to deploy Mr. White’s iconic name as a timeless personification of classicism as a force for contemporary study and application. Thanks too to trustee Anne Fairfax for her catalytic project seed support and persistent encouragement.

The new Stanford White Award follows the example of the chapter-driven regional and project specific offerings first launched six years ago by the Southeast Chapter with its seminal Philip Trammell Shutze Awards and as now enlivened in New England with the Charles Bulfinch Awards, in Texas with the John Staub Awards, and in Florida with its upcoming, inaugural Addison Mizner Awards. And I can now announce, with great pleasure and excitement, the Rocky Mountain Chapter’s Judith & Robert Newman Awards, currently slated for the fall of 2013 and led so ably from Denver. The chapter will also be awarding The Rocky Mountain Medal to honor an overall body of work that reflects the rich heritage of the traditional arts in the region.

While each varies slightly in its applicable criteria, all the Awards stand together as cogent measure of present-date excellence alongside the enduring career achievement afforded by the Arthur Ross Awards for Excellence in the Classical Tradition slated in its 32nd year for Monday, May 6, 2013. The jury chairman in this next cycle is designer Barbara Eberlein, who also serves as the president of the pioneer Philadelphia Chapter.

Apply soon and often. Help spread the word. Taken together, these programs of recognition assure that those at the modern forefront of tradition now receive the attention and praise they deserve despite being prejudicially overlooked by so many others.

Meanwhile we all look forward to the impending fall semester and all it has to offer across the country. We will miss Nora Reilly, Education Programs Administrator & Archivist, whose spirited daily contributions have done so much to assure recent success. It is she who created the ICAA Library that, while always a work-in-progress, now serves as a ready resource for all members and instructors relying on its unique scope, even at this time of global digital databases.  We wish her well in completing her Masters Degree in Library Science.

The Classicist No. 10 is now at the printer and due by year’s end to mark the tenth anniversary of the ICAA conglomeration. All those engaged at the Dual membership level and above can look forward to receiving a copy as edited in peer-reviewed format by Dr. Richard John at the University of Miami.

Enjoy summer’s final days. The heat and drought characterizing it will not be missed.