Spring is the season of awards, and we herewith list three nosegays that have lately come our way. They are:

sb A citation for excellence, from a jury of our peers in the Overseas Press Club in Manhattan, for last December's cover story on Nigeria's Prime Minister Sir Abubakar Balewa. It was based on a 30,000-word file from James Bell and written by Edward Hughes, who like Bell has crisscrossed Africa from Cairo to the Cape, and from Abidjan to Zanzibar as a TIME correspondent.

sb The 1961 Award of Merit to TIME and a special citation to Religion Writer Douglas Auchincloss "for objectivity in the reporting of religious news." The citation, from the National Religious Publicity Council, declares: "Always by means of independent research and reporting, TIME has gone behind the headlines to explore the roots of current religious thought. Typical of its thoroughness have been two cover stories, one on Christian missionaries from St. Paul to 1960 (April 18, 1960), another on U.S. Catholics and the State (John Courtney Murray, Dec. 12, 1960). Both are examples of the splendid method in which TIME has sought to bring the wider perspective of history to contemporary religious action and issues."

sb A citation from the American Institute of Architects "for the continuing interest displayed in architecture, both in its stories and its illustrations."

This is TIME'S fourth award from the A.I.A. in five years, others having come to us for past cover stories on Architects Eero Saarinen and Edward D. Stone, both written by Cranston Jones, and honorable mention for excellence of our architectural coverage. TIME prints more stories and more pictures about architecture than any other general magazine, believing in the impact and interest of good design and wishing there was more of it.

Appropriately, this week's cover story, written by Bruce Barton Jr., concerns one of the world's best--as well as one of the most inaccessible--architects, the man who calls himself Corbusier. His well-known testiness inside the trade applies doubly to journalists, and TIME correspondents had to chase him halfway around the world, beginning in India, where he was abruptly unhelpful, and ending in Paris, where he at last consented to be interviewed in French by TIME Correspondent Israel Shenker. By the time their talk was over, Le Corbusier shook hands amiably and on parting said in English, "Hold your shirt on." Shenker looked puzzled. Le Corbusier made another stab at U.S. idiom. "Isn't that right? Well, then, keep your shirt on: Au revoir."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.