Smith Taylor Win Arthur Ross Award in New York

Our congratulations to Jonathan Taylor and Timothy Smith who have been selected as winners of the Education category of the ICAA’s prestigious Arthur Ross Awards, to be presented at a dinner to be held at McKim, Mead & White’s University Club in New York in May. They were nominated by Mark Ferguson, founding partner of New York firm Ferguson & Shamamian and Dean at CUA, and the award recognises over ten years of Smith Taylor teaching the only professional classical design studio in the UK or Europe for many decades (and Europe, as far as we know).

The awards are typically lifetime achievement awards and Smith Taylor are considerably younger than past winners. An education award is not made every year - this is the 11th such award since 1982.

 The Department of Architecture at Kingston has welcomed and supported our approach since Daniel Rosbottom allowed them to teach the classical orders in the design studio in 2011. The visit of Prof Hans Kolhoff to the school as part of the Register programme in 2016 allowed the development of a critical reading of the education and its research agendas. In addition to receiving goodwill and support from the classical scene, notable non-classical architects like Stephen Taylor, Hans Van Der Heijden, Hugh Strange and Alistair Hall, among many others, have been supportive community informing its thinking.

Tim and Jonathan don’t aim to convert students into classicists but to offer the knowledge, principles, skills and insight as one part of their course which they feel are hugely valuable and give students great confidence, and of which classicism is a powerful carrier.

More here