Annabelle Selldorf, Iwan Baan, Robert M. Rubin win AIANY 2016 honor awards

Every year, the AIA New York Chapter bestows their highest honors to architects, philanthropists, public servants, and organizations who have shown longtime dedication to improving communities through exceptional design and exemplify the notion that design matters. There's no doubt that this year's honor winners have made a significant impact in the architecture and design world in their own means — and perhaps you might've encountered their work without realizing it.

Recently, the AIANY announced Annabelle Selldorf as the 2016 Medalist of Honor, along with Iwan Baan as the Stephen A. Kliment Oculus Awardee, and Robert M. Rubin for the Award of Merit.

The recipients will be presented with their awards during the Honors and Awards Luncheon at Cipriani Wall Street on April 15.

Read on for more about the recipients.

2016 Medal of Honor: Annabelle Selldorf, Principal of Selldorf Architects
Regarded as the highest honor of distinction in the profession, the Medal of Honor is presented to an architect or architecture firm for distinguished work and high professional standing.

"Annabelle Selldorf is Principal of Selldorf Architects, a 65-person architectural design practice founded in New York City in 1988. The firm has worked on public and private projects at scales encompassing large new construction, historic renovations, and exhibition design. Selldorf Architects’ clients include cultural institutions and universities such as Neue Galerie New York, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, and Brown University. In addition, the firm has created galleries for Hauser & Wirth and Gladstone Gallery, among others, and designed exhibitions for Frieze Masters and the 2013 Venice Art Biennale.

Selldorf is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects and a Board Member of the Architectural League of New York and the Chinati Foundation. In 2014, she was the recipient of the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ prestigious Award in Architecture. Born and raised in Germany, she received a Bachelor of Architecture degree from Pratt Institute and a Master of Architecture degree from Syracuse University in Florence, Italy."

Stephen A. Kliment Oculus Award: Iwan Baan, photographer

This award honors a person’s influence on architectural practice and on helping those in the profession by promoting and elevating its standards. The award is named after Stephen A. Kliment for his long-lasting contributions to multiple publications.

"After his studies in photography at the Royal Academy of Arts in The Hague, Iwan Baan followed his interest in documentary photography before narrowing his focus to record the various ways in which individuals, communities, and societies create and interact with their built environment. With his combined passion for documentary and space, Baan’s photographs reveal our innate ability to re-appropriate objects and materials to find places we can call our own. This can be seen in his work on informal communities where vernacular architecture and placemaking serve as examples of human ingenuity, such as his images of the Torre David in Caracas, a series that won Baan the Golden Lion for Best Installation at the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale.

With no formal training in architecture, his perspective mirrors that of everyday individuals who give meaning and context to the architecture and spaces that surround us. This artistic approach gives architecture an approachable and accessible voice."

Award of Merit: Robert M. Rubin

This award is presented to a non-professional for contributions as a client, public servant, critic, or layperson in any appropriate field related to the profession

"Robert Rubin began his adult life as a commodity and currency trader. During his 25 years on Wall Street, he served on the New York Federal Reserve's Foreign Exchange Committee, as well as on President Clinton's Commission on Capital Budgeting.

At the turn of the millennium, he cashed in his chips and enrolled in the Theory and History of Architecture PhD program at Columbia University, where he's ABD. He writes on such diverse subjects as Alexander Calder and Rayner Banham and curates exhibitions on art, architecture, and cinema... He and his wife Stéphane donated the Tropical House to the Centre Pompidou in 2002. In 2005, they acquired Chareau's Maison de Verre in Paris, which they open on a regular basis to architects and architecture schools. Rubin also restored the largest of Buckminster Fuller's three Fly's Eye Dome prototypes...As a patron of new architecture, Rubin, with architect Roger Ferris, built a golf clubhouse on Long Island that stood the conservative typology on its ear with its openness and informality... With architect Gordon Kipping, he recently completed a golf learning center with state-of-the-art simulators in a community space in Harlem, where at-risk youth go for academic tutoring and golf instruction."