What do Edward Durell Stone, Ada Louise Huxtable and Andy Warhol have in common? All have a red oval cultural medallion marker on the site they called home in New York City. On April 26, I.M. Pei’s house on Sutton Place will join the ranks. Pei spent a good part of his 102 years in the house, an 1899 Victorian townhouse he kept as a shell while transforming the interior with a pure modernist aesthetic.

There will be a virtual cultural medallion dedication marking the occasion with guest speakers from the family—Sandi, Didi, Liane and Anna Pei; structural engineer and professor Guy Nordenson and New York Times critic Michael Kimmelman.

April 26
RSVP to: info@nyclandmarks50.org for details and time

More than 15 years ago, the not-for-profit Historic Landmarks Preservation Center (HLPC), under the leadership of its chair, Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel, created the Cultural Medallion program. It was initiated to create a sense of pride in history and of place among New Yorkers and visitors, to document significant individuals, and notable occurrences related to the City’s cultural, economic, political, and social history.

Cultural Medallions are placed on buildings associated with distinguished New Yorkers involved in the arts, sciences, the law, business, education, sports and politics. The distinctive oval plaques recognize that history is about more than bricks and mortar, but what people accomplished under the city’s roofs that truly matters. “Not only do they help bring history alive,” Diamonstein-Spielvogel says of the medallions, “they’re meant to remind people of how New York became as rich and vital, as energetic and dynamic as it is.”

The HLPC commissioned award-winning designer Massimo Vignelli to design the medallion along with the Historic District Street signs and the Historic District markers you see around the city’s boroughs.

For more information on the Cultural Medallion program