Awards + Medals

The Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (JKO) Medal is awarded annually to individuals and organizations that have made an extraordinary impact on the quality of New York’s built environment. The award was established in 1994 to honor Mrs. Kennedy Onassis and her passionate efforts to preserve great architecture in New York City.

The Brendan Gill Prize is given each year to the creator of a specific work—a book, essay, musical composition, play, painting, sculpture, architectural design, film, or choreographic piece—that best captures the spirit and energy of New York City.

The prize was established in 1987 in honor of Brendan Gill by friend and fellow MAS board member Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis along with board members Helen Tucker and Margot Wellington.

The 2020 Brendan Gill Prize recipient will be honored at MAS’s annual awards ceremony, Celebrating the City, which will be announced soon.

Submissions for the 2020 Brendan Gill Prize have now closed.

Selected each year by our esteemed jury, the MASterworks Awards pay tribute to projects that make a significant contribution to New York City’s built environment. From some of the city’s most iconic buildings to inconspicuous local gems, our list of past winners includes the likes of Domino Park, New Lab, the Fulton Center, McCarren Pool, TKTS Booth, the High Bridge, and the Museum at Eldridge Street.

Nominations for the 2020 MASterworks Awards, honoring projects that were substantially completed in 2019, are now closed. Winning projects will be recognized in the following categories at MAS’s annual awards ceremony, Celebrating the City, taking place in spring of 2020:

• Best New Building for outstanding architectural design
• Best Urban Landscape for a new or revitalized open space that contributes to livability and resilience
• Best Restoration for a project that expertly enhances the original qualities of a significant historic building or structure
• Best Adaptive Reuse for a project that demonstrates exceptional creativity in adaptive reuse of an existing building or structure
• Best New Urban Amenity for an addition to the built environment that contributes to a more livable city
• Best New Infrastructure for distinctive design in public service projects

The Jane Jacobs Medal is awarded annually to individuals whose work creates new ways of seeing and understanding New York City, challenges traditional assumptions, and creatively uses the urban environment to make New York City a place of hope and expectation. The Rockefeller Foundation awards the medal. It is administered by MAS through a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. The award was created in 2007.