AIA Saint Louis Announces 2024 Winners of National Photography Competition

Third place winner, Ancient Dream, by James Fraerman of Highland Park, Illinois. Photo courtesy AIA St. Louis

Coinciding with the kick off of the 2024 AIA Conference on Architecture & Design in Washington, D.C., the AIA St. Louis chapter has announced the winners of its National Photography Competition.

The annual contest, now in its fourth decade, is open to all registered architects in the United States, AIA associates, and students enrolled at accredited architecture schools. This year’s jury included Emily Grandstaff-Rice, 2023 AIA president and associate principal at Perkins&Will; David Polzin, executive director of design at CannonDesign; and architectural photograper Cory Gaffer. Cash prizes were awarded to the first, second, and third place winners as well as the recipient of the Al Fuller Prize, which recognizes photographic excellence in capturing a subject based in the U.S., and the Student Award.

This year’s first place prize went to Taylor Spruill of Norfolk, Virginia, for his abstract, moody shot of a building in Cape Town. Atlanta-based John Stinson received second prize for his photograph of a young boy admiring a Washington, D.C., building, and James Fraerman of Highland Park, Illinois, came in third place for a dynamic portrait of a Grecian ruin. The Fuller Award was awarded to Christopher Fletcher, a student at the University of Michigan, for his photograph of Eero Saarinen’s St. Louis Arch. Finally, the Student Award went to Delany Ryan of the University of Southern California for a photograph of a sunbasking visitor at Junya Ishigami’s pavilion at the Kanagawa Institute of Technology in Japan.

See below for this year’s competition-winning photographs as well as the jury’s selection of 10 outstanding submissions honored with merit awards. The winning photos will also be on diplay at RECORD’s booth (345) on the expo floor of AIA24. See you there!