Ann Webster Smith Awardee, US/ICOMOS Fellows, and Murtagh-Graham Prize Winners also Named
At ceremonies on November 30, US/ICOMOS awarded a number of its most significant honors. These included:
- Irina Bokova, 10th Director-General of UNESCO- US/ICOMOS Award for International Cultural Heritage Leadership
- Gustavo F. Araoz, President, ICOMOS- The Ann Webster Smith Award for International Cultural Heritage Leadership
- Jan C.K. Anderson, FAPI, Immediate Past Chair, US/ICOMOS and President RESTORE- Fellow of US/ICOMOS
- Patricia M. O’Donnell, FASLA, AICP, founder, Heritage Landscapes LLC- Fellow of US/ICOMOS
- Vishal Joshi, Murtagh-Graham Prize First Place Winner
- Santanna Cowan, Murtagh-Graham Prize Second Place Winner
The Ann Webster Smith Award
US/ICOMOS’s Ann Webster Smith Award for International Heritage Achievement honors an American individual, group of persons or institution, in the public or private sector, for extraordinary and sustained achievement in perpetuating Ann Webster Smith’s quest to make the United States a respected partner and trustworthy pillar to support the conservation of the cultural heritage in all parts of the world.
US/ICOMOS Fellows
US/ICOMOS established the Fellows honor program on November 24, 1982 to recognize and honor American scholars, professionals and civic volunteers who have worked to advance international preservation standards and programs. Outstanding accomplishments are recognized in one or more areas of activity, including but not limited to architecture, architectural history, conservation, history landscape architecture and urban planning. The Fellow honor is bestowed for life. Those honored are entitled to use the designation, “Fellow, US/ICOMOS” or “F.US/ICOMOS.” Since its inception, US/ICOMOS has conferred the honor of Fellow on 47 individuals whose singular contributions to international cultural heritage and historic preservation span over one hundred years.
The Murtagh/Graham Prize
On the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of the founding of US/ICOMOS and to honor the contributions and leadership of 2015 Ann Webster Smith Award winners William R. Murtagh and Roy Eugene Graham to preservation education and cultural heritage stewardship, US/ICOMOS has established the Murtagh/Graham Prize for outstanding student scholarship in the area of historic preservation technologies. Funding support for this award has been provided by a generous grant from the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training of the National Park Service.
Vishal Joshi, an emerging preservation architect who recently graduated from the Historic Preservation program at the University of Texas at Austin was selected as the 2017 Murtagh|Graham Prize recipient for his paper titled Rescue, Rehabilitation and the Aftermath of the April 2015 Gorkha Earthquake on Nepalese Heritage. In recognizing his scholarship, one member of the prize committee acknowledged the valuable analysis of the response during the “fog of disaster” and innovative ways to assess damage in earthquake prone areas. The runner-up in the competition is Santana Cowan of the Savannah College of Art and Design.
More details on the accomplishments of the major award winners will be posted on the US/ICOMOS website in the near future.