The highest award the College of Design can bestow on an individual was presented this year to John Rice, “an architect of significance.”

Rice, an adjunct associate professor of architecture, was the 1996 recipient of the Christian Petersen Design Award. The award recognizes people who have been important to the College of Design, said Roger Baer, assistant dean of the College of Design.

“He is an architect of significance,” Baer said. “He has touched more people in this state than any other faculty member we’ve had.”

Rice graduated from Iowa State in 1948 with a B.S. in architectural science and has been teaching at the university since 1956, when he started as an informal visiting lecturer.

Baer said the college was impressed by Rice’s many years on the faculty, during which he has taught many of the architects in Iowa.

“People all over the country know John Rice,” Baer said. “He’s an amazing guy.”

When Baer comes into contact with former students and alumni, he said John Rice is one of the people they always ask about. “He has meant so much to those students,” Baer said. “They still remember their class with John Rice many years later.”

Rice was recognized for the award at an all-university ceremony at the end of September although the College of Design originally presented it to him in May.

Rice said the exact nature of his interest in architecture is uncertain.

“I don’t really know. I suspect that it may have been tweaked when I was eight or nine years old and we put an addition on our home,” Rice said, who was born and raised in Ames. But Rice admits “…that is more suspect than it is for real.”

One of his favorite aspects of architecture is design. “I’ve been active in design for a long, long time, and I’m pretty good at it,” Rice said. “It’s what the world is made of.”

Rice said he hopes he has been able to help many of the students he has worked with in the classroom.

“What I get out of it is the students. They keep my head screwed on straight.”

Rice has also been honored with 15 American Institute of Architects (AIA) Iowa design awards, two AIA Iowa citations and one Progressive Architecture award.

The Christian Petersen Design Award recognizes contributions to the advancement of design through personal aesthetic achievement, exceptional support or extraordinary encouragement and service.

Christian Petersen pioneered as a working and teaching sculptor. He was an artist-in-residence at Iowa State from 1934-1955, and his first project for ISU was the relief sculptures for the Dairy Industry courtyard. Today, 33 of his works can be seen on the ISU campus, one of Petersen’s more famous works is the Fountain of the Four Seasons, 1941, north of the Memorial Union.