American Architects Pick the 11 Best Buildings of the Year

There's no better complimentand no more blistering insultthan one from your peers, especially when it comes to professions that trade in super-specialized knowledge like architecture. So when your peers talk, you listen.

That's definitely the case with the American Institute of Architects's annual honors, which is one of the most telling awards out there; 11 buildings built within the past five years, chosen by a jury of nine prominent American architects. We cover the awards every year because it's fascinating to see what working architects consider as the state of the art of their professionwhether a cathedral to bourbon or a carefully-engineered hall for physics research. Check out a few highlights from the latest crop below, followed by all the winners.

Maybe you think of college regrets when you hear the name Wild Turkey, maybe you think of your great grandpa. But Wild Turkey is in the midst of a self-led comeback, and a new visitor center at its distillery near the Kentucky River is part of that mission.

Louisville shop De Leon & Primmer Architecture Workshop built the so-called "cathedral to bourbon," which is clad in stained woodincluding cedar, ash, fir, and pineand has moveable sunshades to lessen solar gain.

In New York, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux are without a doubt most famous for designing Central Park. But the pair designed Prospect Park, across the East River, and it's just asif not moreloved than its older sister. This year, Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects opened a 75,000-square-foot skating rink and community center to the 1867 park. It's an ice skating rink in winter and a roller rink in summerand perhaps as a nod to Olmstead's preferences for artfully reconstructed nature, Tsien and Williams have covered it all in a cobalt "sky" of twinkling lights and silver streams.

When Shakespeare wrote Hamlet, he sited it at Kronberg Castle Elsinore, Denmark, a castle that was built in the 16th century to protect the crucial gap between Denmark and Sweden. Today, Kronberg is a protected landmarkso when Bjarke Ingels Group accepted a commission to build a huge maritime museum within viewing distance of the castle, they knew they'd need a clever way to conceal it.

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American Architects Pick the 11 Best Buildings of the Year