The seventh AIA Illinois Gold Medal has been presented to Carol Ross Barney of Ross Barney Architects. Barney’s career spans 40 years of practice in Chicago, in which her firm has taken on civic, social, and cultural projects across the country.
Known as a champion for the public’s right to design excellence her work often is designed for the public realm. Outside of her practice, Barney is the founder and first president of the Chicago Women in Architecture. Barney is also the first woman to win AIA Illinois’ Gold Medal.
Most recently in Chicago, Ross Barney Architects has received praise for its design of the newest portion of the Chicago River Walk. Just to the south, a new elevated public train station of her design has also recently opened. A new central chiller on the south campus of OSU highlights Barney’s commitment to high design even when it comes to infrastructural projects. Remarking on her way with mixing civic, social, and public design, Mike Waldinger, executive vice president of AIA Illinois remarked, “it’s as if Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs had a secret child.”
Along with the Gold Medal, Ross Barney Architects received the AIA Illinois Daniel Burnham Honor Award for the Master Plan of the 606, a new linear park recently finished on the northwest side of Chicago.
