Carol Ross Barney, a Chicago-based architect who specializes in making public places approachable and welcoming, received the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Gold Medal—the first woman to receive it while she is still alive and without sharing it with a partner. Julia Morgan received the award decades after her death; Denise Scott Brown in 2016 and Angela Brooks in 2022 each won with their partners.

AIA Gold Medal recipients are recognized for producing a “significant body of work that has had a lasting influence on the theory and practice of architecture.” Barney designed the first federal building in the U.S. lead-designed by a woman—the Oklahoma City Federal Building, which she designed after the 1995 bombing destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.