The Fashion Institute of Technology’s (FIT) Interior Design program has named Robin Standefer and Stephen Alesch, principals of Roman and Williams Building and Interiors, as the 2013 recipients of the Lawrence Israel Prize. Endowed by architect Lawrence J. Israel, the honor is given to an individual or firm whose ideas and work enrich FIT Interior Design students’ course of study.

Standefer and Alesch will give a talk on the power of beauty and their firm’s pursuits on April 4 at 6 p.m. in the Katie Murphy Amphitheatre at FIT. The pair also will sign copies of their recently published book, Roman and Williams Buildings and Interiors: Things We’ve Made.

Projects by Roman and Williams Building and Interiors in New York City include the Royalton Hotel, Standard Hotel, and Ace Hotel, as well as 211 Elizabeth Street. “More than designers, Robin Standefer and Stephen Alesch are alchemists and choreographers, individuals who possess the magical powers of seduction,” according to the committee who selected the honorees. “With exquisite details and tactile craft, their interiors entwine an imagined past with a future full of potential—essentially Janus portals from our present onto a collective memory.”