Masonry Magazine April 1976 Page. 15
Excellence In Masonry 75
Four Chicago-area architects were honored for their award-winning designs at the EXCELLENCE IN MASONRY 75 Awards Presentation Banquet, held in the Hyatt Regency O'Hare Ballroom. Sponsored by Metropolitan Chicago Masonry Council EXCELLENCE IN MASONRY 75 gives recognition to outstanding design that incorporates masonry, and encourages architects to continue to accomplish creative design in masonry.
To insure fairness and a high quality of professional evaluation, judging was carried out in Washington, D.C. by three distinguished AIA Fellows: Chloethiel Woodard Smith, FAIA; M. Elliott Carroll, FAIA; and William L. Ensign, FAIA. From forty-eight projects entered by Chicago architects, the judging team established their own criteria of merit and selected four winning designs.
A Gold Medal Award for the outstanding project of the competition went to the Mutual Trust Life Building in Oak Brook, II., designed by Perkins & Will Group, Inc., Chicago. Clad in warm brown brick, this building provides a functionally simple yet architecturally elegant response to its function as corporate headquarters of the oldest and largest Illinois mutual life insurance company. The mason contractor was Crouch Walker Corporation, Chicago.
The 2800 Building at Clark and Broadway Avenues in Chicago is a creative showcase for the art of redeveloping old buildings. Architect Burton Samuels of the Samuels Group, Inc., AIA Northbrook, was given this assignment: visually unify two adjacent structures and maximize their commercial potential. In addition, two critical factors had to be considered in the design-a pie-shaped building site, and insistence that two commercial operations continue.
Guest presentors at the Metropolitan Chicago Excellence in Masonry Awards Banquet are (1. to r.): H. Thurber Stowell, President Chicago Chapter of AIA: C. K. Davis, President of National Assoc. of Brick Distributors: Robert Ebeling, President, Mason Contractors Association of America and Thomas F. Murphy, President, IUBAC.