National Academy of Design Celebrates its Bicentennial with Class of 2025: 10 Architects Take the Spotlight

In a historic moment that blends tradition and innovation, the National Academy of Design in New York has announced its “National Academicians Class of 2025,” coinciding with its celebration of 200 years since its founding. This prominent event not only honors the Academy’s legacy as the nation’s first artist- and architect-led organization but also highlights its continued role in shaping the American creative landscape by electing 27 leading innovators, including 10 distinguished architects.

❖ A Legacy of Excellence: A 200-Year Journey of Promoting the Arts

Founded in 1825 on the initiative of artists and architects themselves, the National Academy of Design aimed to elevate the arts and design in the United States. Over two centuries, the Academy has maintained its status as one of the most prestigious honorary societies in the art world. Election as a new member remains a prestigious honor added to an artist’s or architect’s career, placing the inductee into a “Who’s Who” of American creativity that has included 2,400 significant figures since its inception.

The Academy operates through a selective membership process, where current members nominate and elect new candidates to join this honorary community, which is capped at 500 living members at any time, ensuring the continuity of excellence and distinction.

❖ Prominent Architectural Figures in the Class of 2025: Distinguished Local and Academic Contributions

This year’s list of honored architects includes a group of leading practitioners and educators who have enriched the architectural scene in New York and beyond:

· Susan Rodriguez: A Distinct Mark on Public Space
After a distinguished career as a partner at the renowned firm Ennead, Susan Rodriguez launched her own practice in 2017. Her work is characterized by a high sensitivity towards integrating architecture with its urban context.
· Michael Meredith and Hilary Sample: A Duo of Academic Innovation
This intellectual duo forms the creative force behind MOS Architects, a firm named a Design Vanguard in 2008. Alongside their professional practice, both enrich the academic field; Meredith is a professor of architecture at Princeton University, while Sample teaches at Columbia University. Together, they are recipients of both the American Academy of Arts and Letters Architecture Award and the 2022–23 Rome Prize.
· Architecture Research Office (ARO): Where Research Meets Practice
Partners Stephen Cassell, Kim Yao, and Adam Yarinsky represent another facet of excellence through the Architecture Research Office. The firm combines professional practice with deep architectural research. Kim Yao also holds a position as a professor of architecture at Columbia University. In 2024, Architectural Record highlighted their notable project, the Center for Art and Landscape at Olana in New York’s Hudson Valley.

❖ Parallel Honors: Municipal Art Society’s Medal of Recognition

In parallel with this recognition, the Municipal Art Society (MAS) of New York celebrated by awarding its Medal of Honor to both architect Elizabeth Diller and architect Annabelle Selldorf, acknowledging their roles in transforming the city’s built environment for its residents.

In her speech during the ceremony, presided over by Keri Butler in her first time as MAS president, Diller highlighted the society’s pivotal role, stating: “In a real estate-driven city like New York, MAS is the city’s conscience. It reminds us that heritage matters, public space matters, not letting it go to the highest bidder matters.” She added, emphasizing the value of architectural preservation: “The notion of preservation has never meant more than it does now, in all the different ways—preservation of the identity of the city and its civic values.”

In a statement, Keri Butler said: “Elizabeth Diller and Annabelle Selldorf have transformed the built environment of New York City for the benefit of New Yorkers. By recognizing them together, MAS underscores our ongoing commitment to those visionaries working to enhance the quality of life of all New Yorkers through the municipal arts of architecture, landscape architecture, planning, preservation, and public art.”

✦ Archup Editorial Insight

The article highlights the recognition of a select group of architects within a historic institutional framework, reflecting the continuity of acknowledging individual achievements that enrich the urban landscape. It is noticeable that a significant portion of the honored work, despite its aesthetic and functional value, belongs to similar environmental and programmatic contexts, raising questions about how representative this honor is of the broad spectrum of architectural practices, especially those addressing urgent priorities like spatial justice and climate adaptation on a wider scale. The selective criteria appear to reproduce a specific model of architecture, which may limit opportunities for alternative approaches that challenge traditional frameworks. However, the connection of many honorees to the academic field ensures the continued exchange of knowledge and development of the theoretical thought that nourishes the entire profession.