HBRA Architects received a national architecture award last week for their work on the Edgar Shannon Library at the University of Virginia. Traditional Building magazine honored the firm with its 2025 Palladio Award in the category of Commercial – New Design & Construction – more than 30,000 square feet.
Since 2002, the Palladio Awards annually honor “outstanding achievement in traditional design,” according to Traditional Building’s website. Named for Italian architect Andrea Palladio, author of the seminal 1570 work “The Four Books on Architecture,” the awards celebrate projects that use “creative interpretation or adaptation of design principles [to] honor techniques developed through 2,500 years of Western architectural tradition.”
The Shannon Library renovation project, designed by HBRA Architects in partnership with Clark Nexsen, began with a 100,000-square-foot renovation of the original, 1938 Alderman Library structure. The renovation also included the demolition of the Old and New Stacks, which were replaced with a 130,000-square-foot, five-story addition (with one additional basement level below grade) on the north side of the building.
A major goal of the renovation was to create a light-filled, easily accessible study space for library users, while bringing the library up to current standards of safety and service. At the same time, the Office of the Architect of the University and Facilities Management took great care to maintain the characteristics of the existing historic interior features, as the original 1938 Alderman Library, a Public Works Administration project, was a treasured landmark at UVA.
The library reopened to the public in January 2024 and celebrated with a grand opening in April that year. It is the most heavily used library at UVA and was declared “the new place to be on Grounds” by the Cavalier Daily. The building is known not only for its beauty and accessibility but for its visible and invisible sustainability choices made during its construction; earlier this spring Shannon Library was awarded LEED Gold status by the U.S. Green Building Council.
Shannon Library, HBRA Architects, and the other Palladio Award winners will be featured in Traditional Building’s July issue.
To read more about the Shannon Library renovation project, visit the “Renovation” section of our blog.