2019 Young Architects Award Recipient
Emerging talent deserves recognition. The AIA Young Architects Award honors individuals who have demonstrated exceptional leadership and made significant contributions to the architecture profession early in their careers.
Emerging as one of preservation’s newest leaders, Barton Ross, AIA, has crafted a career marked by service and a commitment to excellence. In his 14 years as an architect specializing in historic preservation and restoration, Ross has made a lasting impact on our cultural landscape by contributing to nearly 1,000 historic projects across several states.
Ross’ interest in the history of the built environment was sparked when he was a child growing up in an 1803 farmhouse on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. During a semester abroad from his studies at Virginia Tech, he photographed and sketched some of Europe’s architectural treasures, which reinforced the idea of preservation as a profession. Ross further pursued his interests through graduate work at the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University.
Ross was recognized with an Innovation Scholarship for Professional Promise from Columbia, and in both Philadelphia and New York worked with noted design firms on a number of high-profile projects. As a project designer and planner for Philadelphia’s Wallace Roberts & Todd, Ross was a team member on the firm’s award-winning Virginia State Capitol and U.S. Capitol Complex projects. He was instrumental in the firm’s winning numerous design competitions and led its development of Google SketchUp 3D as a design tool, in collaboration with its principals. As a project architect for Beyer Blinder Belle in New York, Ross aided the firm’s efforts at the World Trade Center site and its adaptive reuse of the landmark American Bank Note Company Building.
In 2011 Ross founded his own consulting practice, Barton Ross & Partners, LLC Architects, with offices in Maryland and New Jersey. Recognizing that the field has reached a crossroads in the 21st century as talented tradespeople and craftsmen retire, Ross emphasizes the importance of the hands-on workmanship that is being replaced by automation. By focusing his practice on the irreplaceable details of America’s most important buildings, Ross fosters teamwork and shares best practices with his colleagues and the next generation of construction professionals.
An active member of AIA Chesapeake Bay, Ross has served in critical leadership roles on the chapter’s board of directors. He has contributed countless hours to many committees and initiatives at the state and local levels, and as chapter president led the development and implementation of the 50-year-old chapter’s first strategic plan. For the past four years he has chaired the chapter’s design awards, boosting the stature of the annual awards gala and welcoming guest speakers such as Carl Elefante, FAIA, and Robert Ivy, FAIA.
As a steward of history, Ross possesses the vision and knowledge to inspire the next crop of preservationists. By protecting our architectural heritage, he continues to move the profession forward.
