ROBERT IVY, FAIA
A Life
In Design
An acknowledged leader in defining architectural excellence, in mass communications, and in creating organizations with integrity.
A Life
In Design
Key Professional Achievements
Honors &
Affiliations
Architectural Record received magazine publishing’s highest honor, the National Magazine Award for General Excellence, an award to Ivy, its editor-in-chief, and a rare tribute for a trade publication. Additionally, from 1998-2010, the publication received dozens of Jesse Neal awards for business journalism awarded by the American Business Press. Among Ivy’s most significant awards are the following:
2025 Distinguished Alumni Award, Tulane School of Architecture and the Built Environment, the first recipient of this newly established honor.
2020 National Institute of Building Science, Lifetime Achievement Award.
2018 Mississippi Institute of Arts & Letters, Noel Polk Lifetime Achievement Award, the first architect so awarded.
2017 The University of Arkansas, Dean’s Medal, Fay Jones School of Architecture
2015 Tau Sigma Delta, Silver Medal, honorary architectural achievement in higher education
2010 Master Architect: Alpha Rho Chi, Architectural fraternity, a mentoring role for young architects
2009 Crane Award, lifetime achievement in Business Journalism
2008 Tongji University - School of Architecture & Urban Planning, Shanghai China-First International Advisory Board-member
Space Magazine, Seoul, Korea-Advisory Board Member
2000 Design Futures Council, Fellow. Invitation-only leadership group.
2000 Tulane University School of Architecture-Advisory Board member for several terms, and today (2024)
2005 Rural Studio, Auburn University- Advisory Board member for over a decade and speaker for the 25th anniversary
2003 National Society of Magazine Editors, National Magazine Award, (Architectural Record)
1998 Rembrandt Society- Brooklyn New York Member
1988 Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters- Board of Directors then and today (2024)
1981 Center for Study of Southern Culture- Advisory Board member
1999 Philippine Institute of Architects Honorary Fellow
1998 U.S. General Services Administration- Design Excellence Peer (to present)
1992 George Wittenborn Memorial Book Award for outstanding publications in the visual arts and architecture (Fay Jones: Architecture, 1993)
1991 American Institute of Architects- Fellow
Media, Speaking,
and Outreach
He has been a featured speaker since 1996 for scores of national groups as diverse as the US Conference of Mayors, Chicago’s Art Institute, and the Library of Congress.
Under Ivy’s leadership, Business Week and Architectural Record co- sponsored a design event entitled, “Good Design is Good Business”, which highlighted architecture’s role in commerce and industry—an effort that garnered wide attention in the business community for over 10 years.
As Editor-in-Chief of Architectural Record, Ivy was regularly interviewed by media, including major television networks (CNN, NBC), radio broadcasts (NPR), and online. Additionally, he has served as co-producer for video documentaries
His role as lecturer, panelist, and moderator continues to this day. In 2024, he addressed the Design Committee of the Texas Society of Architects on contemporary French architecture at Chateau LaCoste, near Aix-en-Provence, and the following month he spoke to the AIA national committee on design in Thorncrown Chapel designed by Fay Jones, FAIA.
Ivy has regularly addressed university audiences including, recently, the University of Arkansas and the Recognition Day lecture at the Mississippi State University Department of Art, Architecture, and Design.
PUBLISHED WORKS
Ivy has been a prolific writer and contributor to publications. In addition to monthly editorials and articles throughout his long tenure at Architectural Record, he has contributed introductions, prefaces, forewords, essays, and articles to books about the built environment. His written work on the architect, E. Fay Jones, FAIA, is the standard today, and he continues to write about Jones and his contributions to contemporary architecture. A representative sampling of Ivy’s work is below:
- Mississippi Encyclopedia. University Press of Mississippi, Oxford, MS.
- Architecture section--Author and Contributing Editor.
- Marlon Blackwell. Wiley-Blackwell. Hoboken, NJ, 2021. Contributing Essayist.
- Chateau La Coste: Art and Architecture in Provence, Merrell Publishers, London, 2020. To be updated and reissued in 2024/25
- Shadow Patterns: Reflections on Fay Jones and His Architecture. University of Arkansas Press, Fayetteville, AR, 2017. Introduction.
- Fay Jones: Architect. McGraw-Hill, New York, 1992. Author. 3rd Printing to be issued in 2024/5
- Brooklyn Modern Diana Lind, Rizzoli 2008: Special Essay.
- Byoung Soo Cho: architectural monograph, introductory essay, 2009
Ongoing publication:
- Out There, a compilation of new practices outside of major urban centers, to be published by Merrell publishers, in coordination with colleagues Peter MacKeith and Cathleen McGuigan.
Writing
Beginnings
Throughout his career in Mississippi, Ivy maintained a dual career, as an architect and as a writer. Ivy’s writing experience centered on the work of contemporary architects in the American South, a subject he pioneered. Beginning in 1977, he wrote regularly for a list of publications, including Architecture South, a 10,000-circulation publication he co-founded and edited in 5 states for the Gulf States region of the AIA. Among other roles, he guest edited an issue of a Japanese journal, A+U, and wrote as a contributing editor for over a decade for The AIA Journal and Architecture magazine, all before becoming editor in chief of Architectural Record in 1996.
Juries
Robert Ivy has served as a frequent jury member and chairperson, adjudicating honor awards and selection committees, at the national and international level.
Governance
and Association
Leadership
American Institute of Architects, CEO (2011-2021)
- Rationalized a complex association structure, reducing chapters from 265 to 205, removing an entire layer of organization (“regions” deleted).
- Reduced board size from 56 persons with legacy representation based on regions to a knowledge and skills-based board of 16 persons, including two distinguished outside directors, as well as a larger strategic council with emphasis on future directions and the strategic plan.
- Strengthened relations with association chapters throughout the United States and internationally through intentional outreach, attention to their fiscal and organizational needs, and engagement.
Future External
Workforce and
Equitable Practice
Played a major role in clarifying and democratizing the pipeline to becoming an architect, employing staff members and volunteers from groups like “Equity and the Future of Architecture” Commission.
AIA took strong stands on EDI, formed volunteer-led work groups, and published major research and literature for practitioners (AIA’s Guides for Equitable Practice—a nine-volume work).
Partnered with the newly-formed Architects’ Foundation to promote scholarships and grants for students, women, and emerging professionals.
Entrepreneurialism
Made strategic partnerships with private equity to ensure continual investment and digital advancement in most valuable AIA line of business, contract documents, while retaining significant ownership stake for future.
Developed strong and active partnerships to enhance other critical AIA businesses, including its specification writing intellectual property.
Created a large endowment for the association and its future with significant assets based on a strategic partnership.
Onboarded leading agencies and consultants to rebrand and reposition the AIA organization for contemporary brand identity, public outreach, live conferences, virtual events and campaign execution among others.
Among those engaged: Pentagram, LaPlaca/Cohen, Digital Prism, Kotter International, 360 Live Media, GSD&M.
EXECUTIVE
COMMUNICATIONS
Informed and influenced an audience of members--approximately 95,000 top-tier professionals—and global public audiences via high-touch communications.
Developed a national campaign to influence future architectural consumers, including mayors, influential citizens, other design professionals, including paid advertising (“Blueprint for Better”), social media, and a film challenge to attract young filmmakers and architects to produce films celebrating architecture’s power.
Speaker, panelist, moderator, host, or keynote at local, national, or international events with audiences ranging from 600-26,000 attendees, including major venues such as New York’s Radio City Music Hall.
Public Sector
Partnership
Founded the Architects Foundation, a 501c3 supporting underserved and underrepresented communities through a variety of scholarships.
Longtime (over 20 years) Design Excellence Peer for US General Services Administration.
Currently the design peer with the GSA to choose the architect for the new Chattanooga Federal Courthouse.
Participated in advocacy meetings with federal regulators, agency heads, members of Congress (Senate and House), military officials, the Department of Defense, and specific leaders within multiple administrations (the NEA for design, for instance).
CRISIS MANAGEMENT
Led AIA through the COVID-19 Pandemic, pivoting overnight to become a virtual association while maintaining record-high membership and engagement, fiscal strength and policy breadth.
In the hyperbolic, divisive political climate of 2016, Ivy helped the board and the association turn toward its core values, ultimately growing membership and becoming a more values-driven organization.
Collaborated with the board of directors to introduce twin top priorities of climate action and dismantling systemic racism.
Employed former Attorney General Eric Holder from Covington Law Firm and as advisor to address broad societal concern of sexual harassment.
A LEADERS OF LEADERS
Founder of CEO Summit, an active gathering of leading CEOs in the design and construction space devoted to climate action.
Co-Founder of Resilience Coalition, with 53 association members related to design and construction sector dedicated to resilient planning.
INTERNATIONAL OUTREACH
Founded quarterly international CEO forum involving 7 nations (US, UK, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand).
Invited to address to the annual national gathering of German architects at their annual business meeting in 2018.
Fluency in French language—reading and speaking.
RENOVATION AND PRESERVATION
Directed the renovation of 1735 New York Avenue (Washington, DC), designed by The Architects Collaborative in Boston, Massachusetts for the AIA in 1973, for new ways of working and to achieve ambitious goals in equity, sustainability and carbon neutrality, public health, and post-pandemic workforce transformation
Hired Stephen Ayers, FAIA, former Architect of the Capitol, to serve as Project Executive
Hired Quinn Evans Architects to prepare the Basis of Design document and assess the current physical condition of all building systems.
Selected EHDD Architects, a leader in sustainable design, to prepare programmatic and design drawings for future workplace, incorporating carbon neutral and equity goals.
BOARD POSITIONS
U.S. Modernist, advisory board.
National Building Museum: Ex Officio, active board member, advisor donor, (as CEO of AIA*)
1735 Investment Fund, LLC: Chairperson, fiduciary role for AIA’s primary new investment fund - 2020
ACD Corporation:Founding member, corporation managing AIA’s repositioned contract documents business.
Richard Morris Hunt Award:Chairperson and Jury Chair of bi- lateral French/American award
Real Estate Executives Summit:Founding member
Resilience Coalition—Co-Founder
AIA Foundation—twice a board member of philanthropic arm of AIA, first in 1993.
American Institute of Architects—board member, 1993-1996.
ACADEMIC
1981-95 Adjunct Faculty: Mississippi State University- Intermittent Studio Design Teacher: 1-4th year
2000 Yale University- Guest lecturer in professional practice (occasional lecture)
2000-09 Syracuse University Arts Journalism- Distinguished Visiting Faculty in architectural criticism
2022 University of Arkansas Fay Jones Distinguished Practitioner teaching seminar on “A Life in Design”
EDUCATION
M. Arch., Tulane University
B.A. (cum laude) in English, Sewanee: The University of the South
Early Career
Practicing Architect, Robert was a firm principal and partner in Dean/Dale/Dean and Ivy, and later Ivy Architects, managing a successful practice in his hometown in the 1980s-1996.
Local Leadership
Greater Columbus, Inc. Robert co-founded this local leadership organization which, among other accomplishments established the Greater Columbus Learning Center, a remedial reading and writing center for a tri-county area.
Historic District Preservation Review Board: Ivy has served as a board member for the City of Columbus since 2024.
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church: Vestryman, since 2025. Choir member. Search committee member 2024.
Intelligence Officer, US Navy. Lieutenant, US Naval Reserve, on active duty from 1970-1973, and an active reservist through 1977, with primary assignments to the Fleet Intelligence Center, Norfolk, VA and the Fleet Intelligence Center, Pacific, Subic Bay, the Philippines.