The Year's Best

After sifting through plans and photographs of buildings from all over the U.S., the American Institute of Architects last week picked this year's winners of "first honor" awards for architectural excellence. The year's best: the Connecticut General Life Insurance Co. home office building near Hartford by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill Partner Gordon Bunshaft (TIME COLOR PAGES, Sept. 16); the Stuart Co. pharmaceutical plant at Pasadena by Architect Edward D. Stone (TIME COVER, March 31); two glass-fac,aded California school buildings by San Francisco's Mario J. Ciampi; a highly patterned tile-and-glass-fac,aded Palm Springs specialty shop by Los Angeles Architects William Pereira and Charles Luckman. In addition, Pereira & Luckman lengthened their list of honors with an Award of Merit for Beckman Instruments' Helipot Division plant at Newport Beach, Calif., and Ed Stone picked up a similar award for his U.S. Pavilion in Brussels. Winner of the A.I.A. Gold Medal, reserved as an accolade for a lifetime's accomplishment: a leading Chicago architect and modern pioneer, John Wellborn Root, 70, whose glass-fac,aded A. O. Smith Engineering Building in Milwaukee, designed in 1928, was 25 years ahead of the field.

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