On April 27, 1967, Liebes received the AIA Medal for Distinguished Service, honoring her decades of collaboration with architects and impact on modern interior design.
On April 27, 1967, Dorothy Liebes was awarded the Medal for Distinguished Service by the American Institute of Architects (AIA), one of the highest honors the organization bestows on individuals outside the architectural profession who have made significant contributions to the built environment and design culture.
This award recognized Liebes's decades-long collaborative relationships with some of the most prominent American architects of the twentieth century, including her early work with Timothy Pflueger and her later contributions to institutional projects such as the United Nations Headquarters. It affirmed the degree to which her textile work had become inseparable from the broader narrative of American modernist architecture—her fabrics were not mere decorative accents but integral components of total design environments.
Receiving this honor from the AIA, an organization dominated by architects rather than textile designers or craftspeople, was a notable recognition for a woman working in a field often marginalized as "decorative art" rather than serious design practice. It underscored Liebes's unique position as a bridge figure between the worlds of craft, industrial design, and architecture, and remains one of the most significant institutional honors of her career, coming just five years before her death in 1972.