Recognition


HDB’s work has been award-winning since 1891, when Ralph Adams Cram and Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue produced the acclaimed design for All Saints Church in Ashmont, MA, which became the leading template for the village church in America.  In addition, in 1904 the two founders garnered significant recognition by winning the international design competition for the Military Academy at West Point, New York, with the jury including the pioneering American architect Cass Gilbert.  In fact, many early commissions were won in competitions, including the Nashua Hunt Memorial Library in 1902, the 1911 commission to design the Cathedral of St John the Divine, Phillips Church in Exeter, New Hampshire, and the 1894 competition to design the Cathedral of Dallas.

However, the office earned honors beyond competitions, winning the coveted Harleston Parker Medal for the Most Beautiful Building of the Year in 1939, for the Monastery Church at the Cowley Fathers monastery in Cambridge, and again in 1950 for the Headquarters Building for the John Hancock Insurance Company in Boston. In addition, both buildings have become treasured city landmarks.

Recognition from outside the architectural community came from the academic world, which bestowed Cram with honorary degrees from Harvard and Notre Dame, among others, including a doctorate from Princeton University in 1909. By the time of his death in 1942, Cram was a national personality, even becoming Time Magazine’s Man of the Year in 1926. His firm, then called HDB/Cram, Goodhue and Ferguson, enjoyed a national reputation in planning and design of academic campuses and buildings, and today fifty firm designs are on the National Historic Register, and the list continues to grow. 

More recently, this tradition of excellence has been continued with Ethan Anthony’s 1993 award from the Institute for Religious Art and Architecture for his Memorial Garden/Cathedral-in-the-Woods project in Sudbury, Massachusetts, located near Cram’s personal chapel, the 1995 commission to design the Office of the Future for MCI Telecommunications, and Michelle Szwarc’s 1999 win of the international blind competition to design a new Tan Lane window for the original Phillips Church. Also, HDB/Cram and Ferguson's project Our Lady of Walsingham Roman Catholic Church won an Honor Award from the Associated Masonry Contractors of Houston Texas at their Award Banquet in May, 2004, and our entry for the “Project South: Cities of Stone,” an international exhibition of the 10th Venice Biennale, was chosen for publication. In November of 2007 Ethan Anthony traveled to Andalusia, Spain to accept the honor 'Premio al Arquitecto' (Award to the Architect) from the MACAEL Awards, in recognition of his use of stone native to the region on the Syon Abbey and Private Mausoleum projects.

 

  • 2007    Award to the Architect, 23rd Annual MACAEL Awards,
    Marble Association of Andalusia, Spain
  • 2006   Venice Biennale
    10th International Architecture Exhibition
    Cities of Stone: Project South Catalogue
    September 10 to November 19, 2006
    Venice, Italy  

  • 2004    Golden Trowel Award
    Houston Masonry Contractors Association
  • 1993    Honor Award “Cathedral in the Woods” project. 
    Institute for Religion, Art and Architecture.
  • 1949    Harleston Parker Medal, Boston Society of Architects.
    Most beautiful building of the year
    John Hancock Building, Boston, Massachusetts.
  • 1938    Harleston Parker Medal, Boston Society of Architects.
    Most Beautiful Building of the year
    Cowley Fathers Monastery Cambridge, Massachusetts.
  • 1932     American Society of Army Engineers
    Most Beautiful Bridge of 1932
    Bourne and Sagamore Bridges, Cape Cod Canal, MA
  • 1904    Winning Competition for design
    American Military Academy at West Point

1939Medal