SAH Award for Film and Video

The SAH Award for Film and Video was established in 2013 to recognize annually the most distinguished work of film or video on the history of the built environment. 

The award is global in scope with no geographic or political boundaries limiting subject matter or production team. The topic of the film or video must be any aspect of the built environment including the history of buildings, interiors, monuments, landscapes, cultural landscapes, urbanism, designers, engineers, clients, preservation, conservation, citizen engagement, or other topics related to the history of the built environment. 

Films and videos representing a wide range of methodologies will be considered including documentaries, critiques, theoretical works and documentary recreations of lost sites. Films and videos by independent directors and producers, including those with a K-12 educational focus, are also welcome.

Films or videos must have an initial release date within the past three years. Honorable Mentions may also be awarded.

Entries for consideration will be submitted, on a DVD or a link to an online viewing site such as Vimeo, to the award committee members and the SAH office by the director, producer, or producer’s distributor.

Nominees will also submit a 150–250-word narrative that addresses the goals of the film/video, the intended audience, where the work has been screened/aired/viewed, and what kind of response the work has received.

The most important criterion is the work’s contribution to the understanding of the built environment, defined either as deepening that understanding or as bringing that understanding to new audiences. A second criterion is a high standard of research and analysis, whether the production was for a scholarly audience, a general audience, or both. A third criterion is excellence in design and production.

The Award will consist of a certificate and citation that will be presented at the Awards Ceremony at the Society’s Annual International Conference. Following the presentation, the film will be shown at the conference. The Award will be announced in the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, the SAH Newsletter, and on the SAH website. The winning film or video will become part of the Society’s permanent archive, housed in the library at the Society’s headquarters, Charnley-Persky House, in Chicago. The recipient will be required to supply two copies of the award-winning film on DVD for the Society’s archive.

Nominations for the 2024 SAH Award for Film and Video have closed. Nominations for the 2025 award cycle will open in June 2024.

2022		Not Just Roads Nitin Bathla and and Klearjos Eduardo Papanicolaou, Directors and Producers, 2020
2021		Uppland Based on research by Killian Doherty and directed by Edward Lawrenson, 2018
2020		The First Line of China Hanwen Zhang, Director Hanwen Zhang, Producer, 2018 Honorable Mentions: City Dreamers, 2018 Director: Joseph Hillel Producer: Ziad Touma Learning from Buffalo, 2018 Filmmaker: Rima Yamazaki
2019		Vilanova Artigas – the Architect and the Light Directed by Laura Artigas and Peter Gorski Olé Produções, 2015
2018		Eero Saarinen: The Architect Who Saw the Future Director: Peter Rosen Peter Rosen Productions, 2016
2017		Talking to My Father Filmmaker: Sé Merry Doyle Loopline Film, 2015
		Honorable Mention: Tower House sixpackfilm, 2013 Filmmaker: Karl-Heinz Klopf A Tropical House sixpackfilm, 2015 Filmmaker:Karl-Heinz Klopf
2016		The New Rijksmuseum Filmmaker: Oeke Hoogendijk First Run Features, 2014
		Honorable Mention: Haus Tugendhat Pandora Film, 2013 Filmmakers: Dieter Reifarth (director) and Filipp Goldscheider (producer)
2015		The Best Planned City in the World: Olmsted, Vaux and the Buffalo Park System Library of American Landscape History in association with Florentine Films/Hott Productions, Inc, 2013
2014		Unfinished Spaces Filmmakers: Alysa Nahmias and Benjamin Murray Bullfrog Films, 2012