Nearly 500 mayors have participated in Institute sessions, more than half of whom are still in office. In this year's competition, four juries selected 35 projects to receive Federal Design Achievement Awards. A second jury, chaired by well-known architectural historian Vincent Scully, selected nine of these projects to receive a Presidential Award for Design Excellence in addition to the first award. In its citation, the jury observed that the Mayors' Institute has had a direct impact on cities across America. It shows mayors how to analyze a project in terms of its long-range impact, both fiscally and visually.
Mayors come away from a workshop with greater confidence in their own innate design sense.
At the end of the day, the Institute affects how America's cities and towns get built by educating the builders. The Mayors' Institute on City Design, with offices in Washington, D.C., was established by the National Endowment for the Arts in 1986 with the goal of improving the livability and design of America's cities. Under this partnership, the USCM and the AAF co-administer the program. Several times a year, the Mayors' Institute on City Design hosts a series of symposia on city design. Each symposium, organized around presentations and roundtable discussions, lasts two and a half days.