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Newseum architect James Polshek wins 2018 AIA Gold Medal

Other designs completed by this architect include Philadelphia’s National Museum of American Jewish History and New York’s Carnegie Hall restoration and renovation

By Michelle Goldchain
The Newseum is one of the many designs completed by James Stewart Polshek.
Photo via Jeff Goldberg/Esto, courtesy of the American Institute of Architects

Joining the ranks of visionaries like Frank Lloyd Wright, I.M. Pei, and Le Corbusier is James Stewart Polshek. The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has awarded the coveted 2018 AIA Gold Medal to Polshek for leaving a lasting influence on the theory and practice of architecture, thanks to his many designs as well as his work as Dean at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation from 1972 to 1987.

Some of the most famous designs completed by this Ohio-born architect are Washington, D.C.’s 645,000-square-foot Newseum/Freedom Forum Headquarters, Philadelphia’s National Museum of American Jewish History, and New York’s Carnegie Hall restoration and renovation.

After earning a Master of Architecture degree from Yale in 1955, Polshek started his first architecture firm in 1963 before settling in 2010 on Ennead Architects. Since he began, he and his firm have earned over 200 design awards, the 1992 AIA Architecture Firm Award, and 15 National Honor Awards for Architecture.

James Stewart Polshek.
Photo via Aislinn Weidele, courtesy of the American Institute of Architects

Polshek is the 74th recipient of the AIA’s Gold Medal, according to the announcement.

The recently announced winner of the AIA’s Architecture Firm Award is Minneapolis-based Snow Kreilich Architects.

• 2018 AIA Gold Medal awarded to James Stewart Polshek [AIA]

• 2018 AIA Gold Medal goes to James Stewart Polshek [Curbed]