Heather Wilson
AIA Oregon EVP/CEO
While cleaning the AIA Oregon office / AIA Portland Center for Architecture, I had the opportunity to go through many of the chapter’s archives, which gave me a unique “history at a glance” perspective. In the process of deciding how to deal with the chapters’ sensitive materials and records, archives, and member produced materials, I decided to call the Oregon Historical Society to help discern items that could be best displayed in the state archives for state history purposes.
I’m happy to report that a great deal of material was donated. Most of the chapter archives of meetings, minutes, elections, and leadership were taken, along with other significant items that linked our chapter to architect Pietro Belluschi or to the development of planning and development materials in master planning efforts of downtown Portland. Did you know that the Whitney Young speech delivered in Portland to the AIA also started the AIA Communities by Design Committee and the AIA’s RUDAT / SDAT program? We placed some of that information in the archive as well. Your donation lives under the file number RL2021-101 for now, and is being sorted by the archivists for collections to consider. I’ll be glad to see what impact that may have.
I was, however, a bit disappointed that the historians did not want to take the archives of our design awards. Here I had found what I though was a treasure – an archive of awards jury members, member volunteer committee members, entrants, winners, event invitations and guests – neatly bound into 4 unremarkable black binders with hand-lettered call outs: “DESIGN AWARDS ARCHIVE.” These 4 (VERY HEAVY) books contain correspondence, invitations, notes, and more spanning the years 1956-1997. I have spent a great deal of time poring over these books to learn about this chapter, your architectural heritage, and what matters most as we turn ourselves toward this year’s call for entries.
First, I want to note that our awards are not just design awards, but PROFESSIONAL ACHIEVEMENT awards as well, and all will be presented on the same evening. While we are celebrating design excellence, we’ll also be celebrating the professional achievements of nominees put forward for our President’s Award, Young Architect Award, and Emerging Professional Award, so please take a look and nominate yourself or a worthy member you know. This is how we support, elevate, and promote not only each other, but the profession over time.
Next, I’ll draw your attention to the People’s Choice Awards (PCAs) going on in our sections and we are looking forward to recognizing the results that we have in by then to also celebrate our sections’ hard work. We hope to see your faces as we gather back in person for presentation.
This year, we’ll celebrate at the Portland Art Museum, a venue we used in 1965 when we combined our night with a gallery exhibition of the Northwest Printmakers 36th International Exhibition, Organized by the Seattle Art Museum for the then Portland Art Association. We held our awards entries in exhibition alongside the Printmakers and the Artists of Oregon Paintings and Sculpture of 1965. It was then the 9th annual event, so if my math is correct that makes this our 66th annual outing and I am looking forward to making a big deal out of it.
Please join in the excitement by entering your work today! The Call for Entries is open for OAAs, several PCAs and the PAAs. You can find links to all the programs here. Firms must be members to enter, and all members can enter projects as individuals. If you are unsure of your Emerging Professional / Young Architect status, please let us help you, we can do that quickly. If you have questions about entry eligibility or your firms’ membership status, please contact us so we can get you squared away ahead of the September 4 deadline for entry submission.
Our esteemed panel of jurors featured in this weeks’ T@3 article will give you more insight into the amazing professionals that your President has invited to participate in this year’s program. You can also visit the recording our recent program, “Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Design Awards (But Were too Afraid to Ask)” where I take the time to give some helpful information for creating your best entries for submittal.
Best of luck, and I look forward to seeing the work we put forward to represent our state’s design excellence for 2022.
