The American Institute for Architects is celebrating its 150th anniversary celebration with a walk back through time. Tomorrow evening Mayor Bloomberg will dedicate a plaque at 111 Broadway — where the AIA was founded — and lead actors dressed in 19th century period costume in a procession to Delmonico’s Restaurant, where the organization’s founders went in 1857 to celebrate their charter’s ratification.

When the AIA began, all it took to be an architect was a self-declaration. There were no professional schools then, and masons, carpenters, and bricklayers called themselves “architects.” The AIA brought licensing and standards to the profession. The organization now advocates on behalf of good design principles and seeks to educate the community about architecture. The headquarters moved from New York to Washington DC in 1898.

The AIA 150+ Timeline exhibit now at the Center for Architecture catalogues the history of ideas in New York architecture to their realization in the built environment from the implementation of the city’s first grid plan to recent plans to rebuild Ground Zero.

The curator of the AIA 150+ Timeline exhibit, Diane Lewis, said “Architecture can do a lot for society. We’ve forgotten about that in talking about real estate and development all the time. New York is a laboratory for a vision. We have to keep dreaming.”

Another exhibit on display for the anniversary, “New Housing New York,” showcases an affordable housing development in the Bronx rising out of a former Brownfield site. The project is a part of the AIA’s Blueprint for America, which awards grants in honor of the sesquicentennial for projects across the country that address the needs of local communities. Dattner Architects and Grimshaw won the competition to build the site, the first juried competition for sustainable affordable housing in New York.