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The Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC) recently announced that Illinois Institute of Technology College of Architecture Professor Michelangelo Sabatino has been named an honorary fellow to the century-old organization. The RAIC, which is the equivalent to the American Institute of Architects, was founded in 1907 to advocate for a better built environment in Canada. Fewer than 150 honorary fellows have been named since the organization’s founding. 

The fellowship—one of the RAIC’s highest honors conferred to non-members—is reserved for those who have achieved international professional eminence or have rendered distinctive service to the profession or to the community at large, be it in Canada or internationally, the RAIC states. Sabatino, born in Toronto, is being recognized for his work as a historian, preservationist and educator, although he has never worked with RAIC professionally. 

“I am honored,” Sabatino says. “RAIC identify leaders in the architecture community, not just Canadians, and they identified me as an advocate, a historian, and a steward of the built environment.” 

Sabatino will accept the 2025 fellowship with Chicago-based architect Kimberly Dowdell, the first Black woman elected President of the American Institute of Architects (in 2024) and principal and director of strategic relationships at HOK; Emily Grandstaff-Rice, former AIA president; Martin Segger, also an architectural historian, preservationist, and professor, particularly in the Pacific Northwest; and His Late Highness, Prince Karim Aga Khan IV, who advocated for architecture as a bridge between tradition and modernity to foster cultural understanding and founded the Aga Khan Award for Architecture. 

Past RAIC honorary fellows include architecture legends Frank Gehry and Chicago’s Jeanne Gang, among other innovative architects and advocates around the world. 

Sabatino will be celebrated at the RAIC’s “Conference on Architecture” on June 3 in Montréal.