AIA Long Beach South Bay

General Advancement of the Art

The Institute also forwards the profession through a series of honors and awards. The highest honor the Institute can bestow is the Gold Medal, awarded by the Board of Directors in recognition of distinguished service to the architecture profession or to the Institute. It was first awarded in 1907, the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the AIA, to an Englishman, Sir Aston Webb.

American sculptor A. A. Weinman designed the Gold Medal in 1906. On the obverse of the medal appear three heads borrowed from the Greek Parthenon-from left to right, Ictinus, an architect; Phidias, a sculptor; and Polygnotos, a painter. A triangle, compass, and brushes represent their tools. The legend, "Presented by The American Institute of Architects, Organized MDCCCLVII," also appears. The reverse bears an eagle and an olive branch, along with the initials "AIA," the sculptor's name, and 1907, the date the medal was first presented.

The most elaborate of all Gold Medal ceremonies was held in 1923 at the Lincoln Memorial. It honored Henry Bacon, architect of the memorial. AIA members, dressed in colorful robes, carried banners and standards. They marched down the Reflecting Pool accompanied by architecture students, who manned a series of ropes to pull Bacon, seated on a "royal" barge, down the pool's length. Bacon sat under a golden wooden statue of a boy with a laurel wreath that represented a crown. As the barge made its way, trumpeters from the Marine Band played a "joyous processional," Walter's "Prize Song" from Der Meistersinger. William Howard Taft, chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court and former president of the United States, met Bacon at the bottom of the steps and presented him to President Warren G. Harding, who bestowed the Gold Medal. After the ceremony, the participants dined al fresco on the grounds of the Lincoln Memorial.

Bacon Gold Medal Ceremony