Innovation and influence aren’t just associated with edgy contemporary buildings. Classicism impacts the world too, as was addressed at last week’s presentation of the 34th annual Arthur Ross Awards by the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art .
Ostensibly a “celebration of the classical tradition,” in the words of the ICAA, the awards aren’t all about pediments and pilasters. Which explains why Elizabeth Moule of California’s Moule & Polyzoides architecture and urban design studio stepped to the podium with partner Stefanos Polyzoides and admitted to being a bit puzzled at their inclusion in the awards ceremony and dinner, which was held on May 4 at Manhattan’s University Club , an 1899 masterwork by McKim, Mead & White.
“We don’t think we’re an obvious choice,” Moule said, picking up an award in the category of Community Design/Civic Design/City Planning. As she explained, the partners’ firm, located in Pasadena, is dedicated to creating “a powerful cohesion of community, addressing environmental degradation and the imminent catastrophe of climate change, and, finally, making places that are enduring and beautiful for generations to come.”
In many ways, Moule’s comments underscored a theme of the evening: classicism’s breadth and its promise, even in this age of cutting-edge starchiteture. As several speakers observed, the best examples of classicism utilize the movement’s tenets to sympathetically address and improve the human condition. Honorees also stressed the importance of integrating those lessons into the wider world rather than deploying them too narrowly on private residential projects that few people ever see.
Accepting the Board of Directors’ Honor, Luxembourg-born architect, urban planner, and theorist Léon Krier challenged his peers by forcefully declaring, “We cannot be happy with just designing beautiful and comfortable homes.” The statement sparked a round of applause as he held his award, a statuette replica of sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens’s famous 1893 copper Diana. Instead, continued Krier—best known for his long association with the Prince of Wales and the creation of the New Urbanist village of Poundbury in Dorset, England—public buildings should be embraced as worthy projects for any classicist. Those structures, the noted firebrand said, are “the motors for building a civil society, giving meaning and substance to the public realm, and allowing human rivalries to be played out in constructive, urbane, and civilized manners.”
The night’s other award-winners included Elizabeth and Samuel G. White, the husband-and-wife team behind widely admired volumes about America’s Gilded Age architecture. (Sam White, a partner at New York’s PBDW Architects , is a great-grandson of McKim, Mead & White’s Stanford White.) Film producer James Ivory of Merchant Ivory Productions was recognized with a fine-arts award for what the ICAA described as “films in which the settings are as essential as the characters.” The final recipient was Adam Architecture , a distinguished British firm hailed for inventively traditional private and public commissions.
For more information about the Arthur Ross Awards and the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art, visit classicisrg .
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