The Institute of Classical Architecture & Art (ICAA) Announces Winners of the 2023 Arthur Ross Awards for Excellence in the Classical Tradition

    NEW YORK, NY, March 09, 2023 /24-7PressRelease/ -- The Institute of Classical Architecture & Art (ICAA) announces the winners of the 2023 Arthur Ross Awards for Excellence in the Classical Tradition. This year's winners—an illustrious roster of architects, designers, artists, educators, writers, and urbanists—include Khoury Vogt Architects, Cullman & Kravis Associates, Wirtz International nv, Wendy Artin, Witold Rybczynski, and Michael Dennis.

In a dinner to be held on Monday, May 8th at the University Club of New York, the following will be honored, by category:

ARCHITECTURE | Khoury Vogt Architects, Alys Beach, FL

Khoury Vogt Architects was formed in 2001 in Miami by Erik Vogt and Marieanne Khoury as a practice in architecture, urban design, and town planning. Vogt received his Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Miami and Master of Architecture from Yale University. Khoury received a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Wisconsin after studying for 3 years at L'Ecole Spéciale d'Architecture in Paris, France, and has a Master of Architecture and Master of Urban Planning from the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee. Both are licensed architects in Florida.

The practice, currently based in Alys Beach, Florida, engages projects in a variety of scales, programs, and locales. Each is strongly rooted in enduring types and forms that have developed over time to serve both the individual inhabitant at the scale of the building and shape the individual building at the scale of the city. This grounding in typological tradition allows for an exploration of architectural character and language that, while deploying the principles of classical composition, offers a synthesis of modern and vernacular styles, often inflected by the influence of the tropics and Mediterranean. In all cases, the work strives to partake in equal parts both tradition and invention and to instill in the inhabitant a sense of comfort and delight.

Their work has received numerous regional and national awards as well as publication in multiple books and magazines.

INTERIOR DESIGN | Cullman & Kravis, New York, NY

Ellie Cullman is an iconic member of the interior design community. She founded her award-winning interior design firm, Cullman & Kravis, in 1984 with her late partner, Hedi Kravis. Cullman and her team have since become known for redefining the traditional interior with a modern perspective.

Ellie has been included in the AD100 every year since 2000, and in 2018 was named to the AD Hall of Fame. She has also been consistently featured on the Elle Décor A-List and became an Elle Décor Titan in 2021. Ellie was the recipient of the 2016 New York School of Interior Design's Albert Hadley Lifetime Achievement Award, and has received the NYC D&D Building's Stars of Design award. She has co-authored three books, Decorating Master Class: The Cullman Kravis Way, (Harry Abrams, 2008), The Detailed Interior: Decorating Up Close with Cullman & Kravis, (The Monacelli Press, 2013), and From Classic to Contemporary: Decorating with Cullman & Kravis, (The Monacelli Press, 2017). She is currently working on her fourth book.

A strong proponent of the arts, Ellie currently sits on the board of Film at Lincoln Center, and is a founding board member of Friends of Florence. She also sits on the board of the Kips Bay Boy's and Girl's Club and is a member of the Museum of Modern Art's Contemporary Council.

LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE | Wirtz International nv, Schoten, BE

Wirtz International nv is a family-owned landscape architecture studio, originally founded by the renowned designer Jacques Wirtz in 1956, and is today located in Schoten, to the north of Antwerp. The studio has earned a reputation for conjuring sculptural landscapes that sensitively respond to unique site and architectural characteristics, with a body of work that has received great acclaim. Since 2011, Jacques' sons Martin and Peter have headed two companies: Wirtz International nv, which is focused on design, and Wirtz Landscape Architecture nv, which is focused on construction. In 2008 Wirtz Inc. was founded in New York to serve the needs of the American market, and in 2021 Wirtz International Deutschland GmbH was established in Hamburg to meet growing demand in Germany.

Peter Wirtz studied music at Antwerp Conservatory (Belgium) and landscape architecture at Cornell University (Ithaca, NY, USA), and started working for Wirtz International nv in 1989. He was raised in the family nursery, where he familiarized himself at a very early age with orchids, Mediterranean plants, roses, Japanese cherries, hydrangeas, fruit trees and vegetables. Later, he developed a personal passion for heaths and salt-resistant plants from the Chilean West coast, California, Florida, the Mediterranean coastal regions and the Atlantic West coast of Europe. He focuses on projects abroad in Europe and the USA.

Martin Wirtz studied landscape architecture in Ghent, Belgium, and started working for Wirtz International nv and Wirtz Landscape Architecture nv in 1986. Growing up in a family of landscape architects and plant growers, he developed a wide interest for plant material, the use of it and also for the application of the plant in all its aspects. His focus is on projects in the Benelux, Switzerland and some in the USA, and he oversees the construction of the firm's Belgian projects.

FINE ARTS | Wendy Artin, Rome, IT

Wendy Artin is an American painter who works primarily in watercolor and charcoal. Artin has sought inspiration from the classical world ever since a childhood spent drawing in museums. Her large monochromatic watercolors of the Parthenon frieze have been displayed in Rome and Boston, and were included in a 2015 retrospective exhibit at the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology in Michigan. In 2012, she was invited to create a series of watercolor paintings from Greek and Roman statues of mythological figures to accompany Nobel laureate poet Seamus Heaney's classically themed poems in the letterpress book Stone from Delphi.

Wendy Artin, who currently serves as an Artistic Advisor at the American Academy of Rome, completed her undergraduate studies with honors in Painting and French Literature at the University of Pennsylvania, and received her MFA at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University. Her artwork is exhibited in museums and private collections, including the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Kelsey Museum in Michigan, and in the Prints and Drawings Collection of the Boston Public Library.

Wendy Artin has exhibited in New York, Boston, Rome, Milan and Paris. Her work has been featured in Pratique Des Arts, American Artist, The New York Observer, Vanity Fair, Gourmet, Elle Decor, Cote Sud, French Vogue, Elle, Carnet, and The Boston Globe, among other publications. She has been featured on Bravo TV's Arts & Minds.

PUBLISHING | Witold Rybczynski, Philadelphia, PA

Witold Rybczynski, architect and writer, is Meyerson Professor emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of more than twenty books, including A Clearing in the Distance, a prize-winning biography of Frederick Law Olmsted. His latest is The Story of Architecture, which The New York Times called "an expansive account traces the influence of social, technological, and economic shifts on architecture across centuries." He has written widely on architecture, planning, and design, and was the architecture critic for Wigwag and Slate. In 2007 he received the Vincent J. Scully Prize, and in 2014 the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award.

EDUCATION | Michael Dennis, Boston, MA

Michael Dennis is an architect and founder of Michael Dennis & Associates in Boston, Massachusetts. The firm's award-winning work in architecture, campus planning, and urban design has been published nationally and internationally.

Michael is the author of Court & Garden: From the French Hôtel to the City of Modern Architecture (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1986), Architecture & the City: Selected Essays (Boston: Beacon Street Studio, 2020), Temples & Towns: A Study of the Form, Elements and Principles of Planned Towns (ORO Editions, 2022), and the forthcoming The Venetian Facade and Carnegie Mellon University: Campus Planning & Architectural Design.

He is Professor of Architecture Emeritus at MIT, where he was the Director of the post-professional Architecture and Urbanism Program and taught Urban Design and Urban Design Theory. Previously, he taught at Cornell, Kentucky, Princeton, Rice, Harvard, and Columbia universities. He has been the Thomas Jefferson Professor of Architecture at the University of Virginia, the Eero Saarinen Professor of Architecture at Yale University, the Charles Moore Professor of Architecture at the University of Michigan, and the visiting professor at Notre Dame. In 2011 he was awarded the CNU Athena Medal for contributions to urbanism.

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The 2023 Arthur Ross Award winners were selected by a jury that included Michael Lykoudis (Chair), Andrew Cogar, Melissa DelVecchio, Ed Hollander, Ashleigh Walton, and Elizabeth White. The event Chairs of this year's Arthur Ross Awards are Suzanne Tucker and Bunny Williams, and the Co-Chairs are Elizabeth Graziolo, Thomas L. Lloyd, and Steele Marcoux. Janet C. Ross and Suzanne Santry are Honorary Chairs.

Established in 1982 by Arthur Ross and Henry Hope Reed, the Awards recognize the achievements and contributions of architects, painters, sculptors, artisans, interior designers, landscape designers, educators, publishers, patrons, and others dedicated to preserving and advancing the classical tradition.

ICAA President Peter Lyden had this to say: "This year's Arthur Ross Award winners represent a remarkable collection of talent, and their work speaks to the adaptability of classical and traditional architectural and design languages across the globe. They have employed timeless principles of scale, proportion, and ornamentation, and have invoked historical precedent and local context to create lasting and beautiful new buildings, towns, interiors, landscapes, and art, and have spearheaded educational initiatives and published rigorous scholarly works that speak to the enduring humanistic values inherent in classicism and traditional architecture, art, and design. At the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art, we are honored to recognize the towering contributions of this year's winners, and celebrate the enormous impact that their contemporary projects have each had on today's built environment."

The 2023 Arthur Ross Awards celebration at The University Club on May 8th will commence with cocktails at 7 PM. The Awards dinner and ceremony will follow at 8 PM. The dress code for the event is black tie (floor length or cocktail dresses for ladies).

For further inquiries, please contact [email protected].

The Institute of Classical Architecture & Art (ICAA) is a nonprofit membership organization with a mission to advance the appreciation and practice of the principles of traditional architecture and its allied arts by engaging educators, professionals, students, and enthusiasts. The ICAA is headquartered in New York City with regional Chapters across the United States. It offers a wide array of programs that are designed to promote the appreciation and practice of classical and traditional design, including classes, travel, lectures, awards, and conferences. It publishes an academic journal called the Classicist, an acclaimed book series called the Classical America Series in Art and Architecture, and an original documentary film series, Design in Mind. The ICAA's weekly content series, Classicism at Home, offers articles, short films, online courses and lectures, an original podcast series, and much more.

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