Practicing ArchitectureAwards

2010 HONORARY MEMBERSHIP

Gail G. Thomas, PhD, Hon. AIA has spent her life dedicated to improving cities. She has been a driving force for the recognition and coordination of the humanities into the process of design and has made it her life work to study and transform cities through intellectual and educational means.

After teaching at the University of Dallas, where she directed the Center for Civic Leadership, she founded the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture in 1980 and served as its Director for seventeen years. She continues as Director of their Center for the City. In 1982, at the Center for the City, she began a series of conferences called “What Makes a City?”. These conferences have been attended by architects, city planners, artists, scientists, poets, teachers, business and civic leaders and have had a profound effect within the city of Dallas, as well as in Montreal, Portland, New Orleans, Santa Fe, Denver, and Devon, England, where she has organized similar efforts that have proven to be a catalyst for change in the inner city. A study of the participants and topics of these symposiums demonstrates the import and the significance that have been achieved through these events.

A prolific author, her books include Healing Pandora: The Restoration of Hope and Abundance; Stirrings of Culture; Imagining Dallas; and Pegasus: The Spirit of Cities.

In Dallas, her efforts have been instrumental in the creation of Pegasus Plaza, the first new park in the central city in nearly a generation. She was also the Chair of the Dallas Millennium Project that restored the Flying Red Horse landmark sign atop a downtown building, which has become an icon for the city. She enabled a five-year urban design study that served as the formulation for a program entitled Dallas Visions. This has evolved, through her leadership, to the “Balanced Vision Plan for the Trinity River Corridor” that winds through the City of Dallas. This plan, as prepared by Chan Krieger Sieniewicz, received an Institute Honor Award for Regional and Urban Design in 2007. Gail currently serves as President and CEO of The Trinity Trust Foundation as it endeavors to implement this far-reaching plan. The mission of the trust is to raise private funds for the implementation of the ‘Balanced Vision Plan’ and to coordinate with the City of Dallas and the Trinity Commons Foundation in the effort to build public support, secure public funding, and build the projects.

Active as well within the AIA community, her effective leadership qualities have also been utilized by AIA Dallas, the Dallas Architectural Foundation, and the Texas Society of Architects (TSA) where she just completed a two year term as the public member on its Board of Directors. In this latter role she provided inspirational, creative, and, at times, provocative commentary about architects’ and architecture’s importance, once noting that ‘architecture is the materialization of the human spirit’. David Lancaster, Hon. AIA, the Executive Vice President of the TSA calls Dr. Thomas “a person of influence and vision who is helping the future of Dallas, Texas, and the nation through her leadership as founder/CEO of the Trinity Trust Foundation seeking to make the Trinity River Corridor the centerpiece of a revitalized, vibrant Dallas urban core.”

It is clear that Dr. Thomas is passionate about architecture and its effect on the human condition. Perhaps it is best expressed in a story she often shares about her participation on an AIA awards jury along with James Freed, FAIA, whose U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum was under construction at the time. He had offered to take the jury on a tour of the building if they appropriately completed their jury work on time. After the jury adjourned they went to the museum where they were met by the construction superintendent. As word of their presence spread throughout the facility, all of the construction workers on site made their way to the lobby where they all proceeded to give Mr. Freed a standing ovation and a deep and profound show of respect, and all wanted to shake his hand. She says that this is the type of impact that can be earned by architecture done with humanity and humility.

Willis C. Winters, FAIA, assistant director with the Dallas Park and Recreation Department, enthusiastically lauded Gail’s contributions in his letter of support, “Few people have had a greater impact on the heart and soul of a major American city than Gail has had on Dallas. She has nurtured our city to become a place where spirit, inspiration, and imagination thrive.”

Gail G. Thomas, PhD, Hon. AIA

2010 JURY FOR HONORARY MEMBERS

James H. Eley, FAIA
(Chair)
Eley Associates Architect
Jackson, Miss.

Mary Fitch, Hon. AIA
AIA Washington DC
Washington, D.C.

Leslie J. Thomas, AIA
Thomas Bracy Architects,
PLLC
Concord, N.H.