The honor comes from the Prix Versailles, a series of architectural competitions announced each year by UNESCO, or the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
The Arlington museum opened in March 2025 and recognizes recipients of the Medal of Honor, the highest military award for valor in the United States. Around 3,500 service members have been honored with the award since it was first given in the 1860s.
The museum is designed by Rafael Viñoly Architects and is defined by “a massive metal-clad block (200 feet square) that hovers some 40 feet above ground, intended as a metaphor for the psychological weight borne by Medal of Honor recipients,” wrote Dallas Morning News Architecture Critic Mark Lamster last year soon after the museum’s opening. “From a distance, it carries an almost sublime force, its metal skin shifting from light to dark with the changing of conditions and the angle from which it is viewed.”
Of the seven museums honored by the Prix Versailles this year, the Arlington one is the only in North America. The others are in China, Japan, Lithuania, Uzbekistan and the United Arab Emirates.