Special thanks to Dell Mitchell Architects

No matter where you are, the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art (ICAA) offers courses, lectures, articles, and more, available at any time at classicist.org.

Classicism at Home offers a weekly opportunity to turn your thoughts to things both historic and contemporary, academic and entertaining, and aesthetic and rigorous through the ICAA's ongoing online content.

On Tuesday, December 2nd, the ICAA hosted the 2020 Stanford White Awards for Excellence in Classical and New Traditional Design. For the first time ever, the awards were presented digitally, allowing them to be experienced by viewers from around the world. The ICAA was honored to invite Mitchell Owens, decorative arts editor at Architectural Digest, as host of the 2020 awards, and we are pleased to make the presentation permanently available.

The Stanford White Awards recognize achievement in individual projects in architecture, interiors, landscape, urbanism, and building craftsmanship & artisanship throughout New York, New Jersey, and Fairfield County, Connecticut. The awards program is named in honor of Stanford White (1853-1906), of the distinguished New York firm McKim, Mead & White, whose legacy of design excellence and creativity in architecture and the related arts continues to serve as a source of inspiration and delight.

As part of the ICAA's unique digital presentation of the 2020 Stanford White Awards, a special pre-event reception offered an exclusive lecture on Stanford White, which was given by White’s great grandson, architect Samuel G. White. Drawing on his latest book, Stanford White in Detail (The Monacelli Press), Mr. White explored the innovative and intricate decorative web of carved wood and marble, metalwork, mosaic, and tile that was his ancestor’s signature.

Join architect and ICAA Board Member Ankie Barnes, as he continues touring his neighborhood of Georgetown, exploring its rich and complex history.

Georgetown's famous architectural heritage is not limited to the grand estates of Tudor Place and Dumbarton Oaks, though Ankie notes that visitors can enjoy fantastic strolls in the gardens. The neighborhood tour features a sobering visit to the Mount Zion and Female Union Band Society Cemetery, a burying ground established by a Black women's society for slaves, freedmen, and Black citizens, and which holds a secret vault that sheltered slave refugees in their flight on the Underground Railroad. Finally, the tour concludes at Dumbarton Bridge, which connects Georgetown to D.C. via Q Street, and which monumentalizes Black design and Native iconography in a structure that Ankie calls "a truly American bridge."

On Thursday, December 10, the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art is honored to present a special live exploration of the Roman Forum in Rome, Italy, led by internationally renowned archaeologist, professor, and host of PBS's Ancient Invisible Cities, Darius Arya.

There is so much history in Rome and no place is more historical than the Roman forum. Nestled in between the Capitoline and Palatine hills, the forum was a rich, layered area that we will examine from its initial start as meeting place in the seventh century BC and development and evolution from Republic to imperial showcase center as a key social, political, and religious epicenter of the entire empire. We'll examine its places of worship, offices of magistrates, law courts, and how the forum was used by the various constituencies of the Roman empire. Through the structures we will trace the rise of the area, its eventual transformation into a Christian center, eventual demise, abandonment, rediscovery, and finally its ongoing preservation today.

A Panel Discussion: The Golden City –

First published in 1959, The Golden City is a seminal, critical document that developed one of the earliest and most compelling arguments against the then-dominant hegemony of modernism by reawakening interest in the value of our country’s built patrimony, particularly with respect to its notable classical architecture, classical sculpture, and ornament in the built environment. The book’s argument remains valuable today.

The Golden City can be credited with building the constituency for the preservation movement in the United States in general, and in New York City in particular. That constituency coalesced around Reed’s powerful polemic, eventually contributing to the formulation in 1965 of New York City’s groundbreaking Landmark Law, one of the most important milestones in the preservation movement in the United States.

On Monday, December 14, join the ICAA Philadelphia and Rocky Mountain Chapters for a panel discussion including contributors to the new edition of The Golden City, architect Alvin Holm and writer and critic Catesby Leigh, along with architectural historian Francis Morrone.

Order the Special 60th Anniversary Edition of Henry Hope Reed’s The Golden City​ in time for the holidays!

This holiday season, give the gift of classicism with an all-new edition of one of the 20th century's definitive architectural tomes, presented in a beautiful new format. ICAA members are entitled to a 30% discount (with free shipping) when purchasing The Golden City through the Monacelli Press website. Please email ICAA Membership Manager Casey Cunningham at ccunningham@classicist.org for the discount code.

The Institute of Classical Architecture & Art gratefully acknowledges the J&AR Foundation for its leading sponsorship of The Golden City 60th Anniversary Edition. Additional thanks to the Philadelphia Chapter of the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art and Seth Joseph Weine for their generosity.

The Architecture of Place is an educational series hosted in collaboration with INTBAU and The Prince's Foundation that introduces new speakers and explores topics of critical importance to the designers of today and the future, such as building healthy and sustainable communities, creating missing middle housing, and planning for rapid urbanization.

Additional thanks to INTBAU's supporters for this series, Fairfax & Sammons, ADAM Architecture, and Size Group.

The Institute of Classical Architecture & Art (ICAA) is now accepting submissions for the Bunny Mellon Landscape Design Prize, which recognizes the excellence and creativity of projects from emerging landscape or architectural design professionals whose work is inspired by classical or traditional design, holistically considers the symbiosis between outdoor environments and physical structures, and interweaves garden and architectural elements within their design.

Submissions are due by December 15, 2020, and are open to entrants who were 35 years old or younger on 31st December, 2019 or are within the first seven years of their relevant design career.

The ICAA is very grateful to the Gerard B. Lambert Foundation for its generous support of this program, along with the Curricula's Lead Co-Sponsor Edmund D. Hollander Landscape Architecture Design, Bunny Mellon Landscape Design Prize Co-Sponsor Harrison Design, and Garden Symposium Co-Sponsor Kathryn M. and Ronald J. Herman Charitable Foundation.

If your membership is due for renewal, or if you would like to join and support the ICAA, you can do so on our website.

Utah Chapter

Philadelphia Chapter

Southern California Chapter

There is so much more available online at classicist.org: filmed lectures and public programs, panel discussions, and numerous online articles provide an opportunity to stay connected with the ICAA.