Architectural

Frank Costantino has practiced architectural illustration for fifty years, and his firm has collaborated with preeminent architectural, design, and development firms throughout the United States, Canada, Europe and Japan.  His commissions – for a stellar and consistent clientele – include AIA Gold Medalists Cesar Pelli, Moshe Safdie, I.M. Pei, Peter Bohlin, Joseph Esherick, Benjamin Thompson, and Jose Luis Sert; and also eighteen AIA Firm Award winners, and many other notable national firms. Frank has produced illustrations for many other notable national and local firms, whose projects span a diverse range – including skyscrapers, office buildings, museums, concert halls and aquariums, among others.  He has also designed five postcards for the US Postal Service’s Historic Preservation series, and been commissioned by private and civic institutions to create unique watercolor artworks.

His diverse output of illustrations has been exhibited nationally and internationally, most notably at The Art Institute of Chicago, New York’s Urban Center, the Octagon Museum in Washington, D.C., in many venues of home-town Boston, as well as in Toronto, Tokyo, Seoul, Brisbane, Sydney, Berlin, and Lisbon.  Over 300 representative drawings and sketches are included in the permanent collections of The Art Institute of Chicago, Washington’s Library of Congress, the Skirball Cultural Center in LA, and the Tchoban Foundation Museum in Berlin. Hundreds of additional selected works have also been reserved for the Boston Athenaeum and the Boston Architectural Center. Some illustrations are also held in private collections.

Frank is a recipient of the world’s most prestigious award for architectural illustration – the Hugh Ferriss Memorial Prize – as well as many other awards from the American Society of Architectural Illustrators (ASAI). Also as a recipient of the Arthur Ross Award from New York’s Institute of Classical Art and Architecture, he shares the distinction with one colleague as the only illustrators in the world to receive both the Ferriss and the Ross Awards. Since 1987, his drawings or paintings have been accepted into ASAI’s annual juried exhibitions, and artworks from his career have been published in more than sixty books or catalogs.

As one of the Co-Founders of the American Society of Architectural Illustrators (ASAI), he established an international network of delineators across the US, Canada, Japan, Australia, Korea, England, Europe, and other countries. On behalf of the Society and with his Co-Founders, Mr. Costantino received Institute Honors from the American Institute of Architects in 1995. 

Frank He has also received an Honorary AIA Fellowship (FAIA) sponsored by the Boston Society of Architects (BSA). He is also an Honorary Life Member of the Japan Architectural Renderers Association (JARA), Tokyo, a Fellow of Society of Architectural Illustrators (FSAI), Great Britain, and Honorary Member of New York’s Society of Illustrators (SI). Mr. Costantino is a Founding Director and Vice-President of the American Society of Illustrators Partnership (ASIP), a consortium of national illustration groups that advocate for the collective rights, royalties and business issues for thousands of US artists from varied illustration disciplines and professional practices.

He has taught at the Boston Architectural College (BAC), the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) and Massachusetts College of Art and Design (MassArt), as well as guest-lectured at numerous institutions and conferences across the United States, North America and overseas. As a member of the Advisory Council to the School of Architecture at Lawrence Technological University in Michigan, he assisted in the development of the country’s first degree-granting program in architectural illustration.

During the decades of his busy practice, Frank also conducted – under BSA auspices – seminars in watercolor and perspective to architects and artists; and also offered independent courses in watercolor painting for all levels of experience, with workshops and field sketching programs at locations and institutions around the country. As a Signature Member of both the New England Watercolor Society and an elected member of the Salmagundi Club of New York, two of America’s oldest such societies, as well as other regional and local associations, his fine art watercolors have been accepted into national shows and featured in many publications, with numerous commissioned or acquired paintings in private collections.

Mr. Costantino has contributed to professional publications, including essays on perspective methods, media techniques and professional business practices. He has also reviewed and edited books, articles, and essays on the subject for various authors.  He continues to assist, in various capacities, with the many affairs of ASAI, including its highly acclaimed annual exhibition and catalog, Architecture In Perspective. In recognition of continuing contributions to ASAI since 1986, the Society awarded its first Lifetime Achievement Award to Frank for his dedicated commitment to its many activities and his profession. Mr. Costantino is regarded as one of the world’s most respected practitioners in, and vigorous proponents for, the field of architectural illustration.