The AIA Seattle Medal, the highest award that AIA Seattle can confer on one of its own Members, recognizes distinguished lifetime achievement in architecture including design and professional practice and service to the profession, the community, education, and the arts, or any combination of these. When first given in 1984, its originators (including then-AIA Seattle President Arne Bystrom FAIA), hoped that their successors would give the Medal "with great consideration and care – even reluctance – only to those architects who have made singularly distinguished contributions to design, to the profession, and to the Chapter; to [those] who over the years have given us glimpses and insight into the broader possibilities of architecture; those who have provided us the opportunity to observe that most important element of creative lives: commitment; and to those who by their talents and accomplishments have demonstrated that architecture, practiced this way, becomes much more than a profession."

AIA Seattle first gave the Medal in 1984 to Paul Hayden Kirk FAIA and Paul Thiry FAIA. Then and since, it recognizes architects who have had a substantial influence in shaping and advancing the architecture of the Northwest as it grows in national and international importance.

Jack Sproule designed the original Medal (pictured below, right). In 1996, Norman Johnston FAIA prepared a new edition. Annually (typically in February), the AIA Seattle Honors Nominating Committee invites AIA Seattle Members to bring forward the names of candidates for this award for the Committee's recommendation to the AIA Seattle Board of Directors. Each year in the weeks following the AIA Convention, AIA Seattle presents the Medal and other AIA Seattle Honors, and celebrates AIA national recognition, at the AIA Seattle Honors Gala.

2012:  James Cutler FAIA

2011: Ed Weinstein FAIA

2010:  David Miller FAIA and Robert Hull FAIA

2009: George Suyama FAIA

2008: Jim Jonassen FAIA

2007: Jim Olson FAIA

2006: Johnpaul Jones FAIA

2005: David Hewitt FAIA

2004: John F. Nesholm FAIA

2003: Thomas L. Bosworth FAIA

2002: David Hoedemaker FAIA

2001: Carolyn D. Geise FAIA

2000: Lee G. Copeland FAIA

1999: David McKinley FAIA

1998: Arne Bystrom FAIA
Note: Arne Bystrom's remarks on receiving the Medal include his story of the origins of the AIA Seattle Medal, around the time of his term as AIA Seattle President, in 1984.

1997: William J. Bain Jr., FAIA

1996: John Morse FAIA

1995: L. Jane Hastings FAIA
       Henry Klein FAIA

1994: Phillip L. Jacobson FAIA

1993: Wendell Lovett FAIA

1992: not given

1991: Roland Terry FAIA

1990: Norman J. Johnston FAIA

1989: Ibsen Nelsen FAIA

1988: Fred Bassetti FAIA
       Anthony Callison AIA (posthumous)

1987: A. O. Bumgardner FAIA

1986: not given

1985: Robert L. Durham FAIA

1984: Paul Hayden Kirk FAIA
       Paul Thiry FAIA