Our Washington, D.C., office celebrated receiving the 2023 John Russell Pope Award for Ecclesiastical Design from the Mid Atlantic chapter of the Institute of Classical Art & Architecture (ICAA) at a gala and ceremony on April 28^th.  The award honored our renovation of Thomas Aquinas College’s Our Mother of Perpetual Help Chapel in Northfield, Mass. The project was led by Nicolas Charbonneau, Harrison Design principal and director of the Sacred Studio, and his team in D.C., along with architects from the Sacred Studio in our Santa Barbara office.

“This project was tremendously rewarding for all of us who worked on it,” said Charbonneau. “We conducted a lot of research on the architectural history of the neo-Gothic chapel as well as the traditions of Catholic Europe. Both factored heavily in the final design that also pays homage to the College’s sister chapel in Santa Paula, California. It was exciting to see the interior transformed into such a resplendent and inspiring sanctuary, and we are very grateful to the College as well as all the craftsman and artisans who made this project possible.”

Harrison Design president Greg Palmer and principal Bulent Baydar joined Nic and Mark Hughes, principal architect of the D.C. office, and staff of the D.C. office at the event which was held in the Beaux-Arts Sulgrave Club and attended by 140 winners, guests and ICAA members.

This is the second ICAA award for the chapel, as it received the ICAA New England chapter’s Bulfinch Award in 2022. The John Russell Pope Awards are held biennially for work that contributes to the legacy of classical and traditional design in the Washington Mid-Atlantic region.