ATLANTA, April 30, 2025 - The Society of Architectural Historians is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2025 SAH Publication Awards and SAH Award for Film and Video. The awards recognize distinguished publications in architectural history, urban history, landscape history, preservation, and architectural exhibition catalogues; an outstanding JSAH article written by an emerging scholar; and the most distinguished work of film or video on the history of the built environment. The Society announced the winners during a ceremony at its 78th Annual International Conference in Atlanta.

The 2025 winners are:

Alice Davis Hitchcock Book Award

The Alice Davis Hitchcock Book Award was established in 1949 to recognize annually the most distinguished work of scholarship in the history of architecture published by a North American scholar.

Swati Chattopadhyay
Small Spaces: Recasting the Architecture of Empire
Bloomsbury Academic, 2023

SAH Exhibition Catalogue Award

Architectural history exhibitions address historical and critical questions in special ways, through the presentation of both documentation and artifacts to a diversified audience. Exhibition catalogues have become distinctive vehicles for the expression of scholarship in architectural history. They remain as the substantial and enduring contribution after the life of the exhibition is spent. The SAH Exhibition Catalogue Award recognizes excellence in this form of scholarship and publication.

Susan Brown and Alexa Griffith Winton
A Dark, A Light, A Bright: The Designs of Dorothy Liebes
Yale University Press, 2023

Spiro Kostof Book Award

This award was established in 1993 in recognition of Spiro Kostof's extraordinarily productive and inspiring career. In the spirit of Kostof's writings, the award recognizes interdisciplinary studies of urban history that make the greatest contribution to our understanding of the growth and development of cities.

Christina E. Crawford
Spatial Revolution: Architecture and Planning in the Early Soviet Union
Cornell University Press, 2022

Elisabeth Blair MacDougall Book Award

The Elisabeth Blair MacDougall Book Award was established in 2005 to recognize annually the most distinguished work of scholarship in the history of landscape architecture or garden design. Named for SAH past president and landscape historian Elisabeth MacDougall, the award honors the late historian's role in developing this field of study.

Yvonne Elet
Urban Landscape in the Third Rome: Raphael's Villa and Mussolini's Forum
Edifir-Edizioni Firenze, 2023

Founders' JSAH Article Award

Established in 1970, the Founders' Award recognizes an article published by an emerging scholar in the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (JSAH) that exhibits excellence of scholarship and presentation.

Isabel Rousset
"Down-to-Earth Types: Brick Buildings and the Bounds of Propriety in Berlin and Hamburg, 1904-14"
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 83 No. 1, March 2024

Historic Interiors Article Award

This award was conceived by the SAH Historic Interiors Affiliate Group in 2022 and is focused on fostering new approaches to the history of the interiors as both an independent line of scholarly inquiry and as an important aspect of the expanded study of the built environment. This award recognizes excellence in research of a scholarly article from an English-language publication that has made a significant contribution to the study of historic interiors.

2025 Winner:
Kristina Borrman
“Choose Coziness, Clutter, and Color: June Jordan’s Instructions for Children in Public Housing”, Winterthur Portfolio, 2023

2025 Honorable Mention:
Benoit Beaulieu
“Sensitive Design: Robert de Montesquiou’s Sensorial Installations and Their Condemnation” in Potvin, Marchand and Beaulieu, eds., The Senses in Interior Design, Manchester University Press, 2023

SAH Award for Film and Video

The SAH Award for Film and Video recognizes the most distinguished work of film or video on the history of the built environment. The most important criterion for award recognition is the work's contribution to the understanding of the built environment, defined either as deepening that understanding or as bringing understanding to new audiences.

is this an architectural documentary?
Sumedha Kelegama, Irushi Tennekoon, and Sumudu Athukorala, Directors
Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Sri Lanka, Producers
Year Completed: 2023

Honorable mention:

Bruno Zevi: architettura come profezia / Architecture as a Prophecy
Luca Guido, DirectorBruno Zevi Foundation, Producer

Antoinette Forrester Downing Book Award

Named for Antoinette Forrester Downing, this award recognizes excellence in a published work devoted to historical topics in preservation and honors her scholarship and recognition of the value of local inventories and surveys.

No award given.

Nominations for the 2026 award cycle will open in June 2025.

About the Society of Architectural Historians

Founded in 1940, the Society of Architectural Historians is an international nonprofit membership organizations promoting the study, interpretation and conservation of architecture, design, landscapes and urbanism worldwide. SAH serves a network of local, national and international institutions and individuals who, by vocation or avocation, focus on the built environment and its role in shaping contemporary life. SAH promotes meaningful public engagement with the history of the built environment through advocacy efforts, print and online publications, and local, national and international programs. Learn more at sah.org.

Media Contact: Olivia Archer, Communications Manager, oarcher@sah.org