Twenty-five Year Award
The Twenty-five Year Award is an architecture prize awarded each year by the American Institute of Architects 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". The Twenty-five Year Award was first presented in 1969, and has been handed out every year from 1971 onward, with the exception of 2018. In 2019, the prize was awarded to the Sainsbury Wing at the National Gallery in London by Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates.
The project receiving the award can be located anywhere in the world, but must be designed by an architect licensed in the United States. Only five buildings outside of the United States have received the award, one each in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia; Barcelona, Spain; and Paris, France; and two in London, England. New York City has the most awards at five, while Boston, Chicago, New Haven, and Washington, D.C., are all tied in second with two awards each.
Buildings to which Finnish American architect Eero Saarinen has contributed have received six awards, tied with the architectural firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. Louis I. Kahn has been honored five times. Buildings by Frank Lloyd Wright have received this award four times, and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe the firm Pei Cobb Freed & Partners have each had three of their buildings honored. Of the 49 projects that have received this award, only three, the Eames House, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, and the Sainsbury Wing at the National Gallery, had women as contributing architects.
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.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. The award is presented at the AIA National Convention each year.
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 city | Image | Architect |
| 1969 | Rockefeller Center New York City | Reinhard & Hofmeister; Corbett, Harrison & MacMurray | |
| 1971 | Crow Island School Winnetka, Illinois | Perkins, Wheeler & Will; Eliel & Eero Saarinen | |
| 1972 | Baldwin Hills Village Los Angeles | ||
| 1973 | Taliesin West Paradise Valley, Arizona | ||
| 1974 | Johnson and Son Administration Building Racine, Wisconsin | ||
| 1975 | Philip Johnson's Residence New Canaan, Connecticut | ||
| 1976 | 860-880 North Lakeshore Drive Apartments Chicago | ||
| 1977 | Christ Lutheran Church Minneapolis | ||
| 1978 | Eames House Pacific Palisades, California | ||
| 1979 | Yale University Art Gallery New Haven, Connecticut | ||
| 1980 | Lever House New York City | 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 | ||
| 1985 | General Motors Technical Center Warren, Michigan | ||
| 1986 | Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum New York City | ||
| 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 | ||
| 1991 | Sea Ranch Condominium One The 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 | ||
| 1996 | United States Air Force Academy Cadet Chapel Colorado Springs | Skidmore, Owings & Merrill | |
| 1997 | Phillips Exeter Academy Library Exeter, New Hampshire | ||
| 1998 | Kimbell Art Museum Fort Worth | ||
| 1999 | John Hancock Center Chicago | Skidmore, Owings & Merrill | |
| 2000 | Darien, Connecticut | — | |
| 2001 | Weyerhaeuser 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 | ||
| 2010 | Jeddah, Saudi Arabia | Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP | |
| 2011 | John Hancock Tower Boston | ||
| 2012 | Gehry Residence Santa Monica | LLP | |
| 2013 | Menil Collection Houston | LLP | |
| 2014 | Washington Metro Washington, D.C. | ||
| 2015 | Broadgate Exchange House London | Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP | |
| 2016 | Monterey Bay Aquarium Monterey, California | ||
| 2017 | Grand Louvre – Phase 1 Paris | Pei Cobb Freed & Partners | |
| 2018 | No award | - | - |
| 2019 | Sainsbury Wing at the National Gallery London | Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates |