UPDATE: This year's jury for the Wheelwright Prize will be: Mohsen Mostafavi, Iñaki Ábalos, Sílvia Benedito, Pedro Gadanho, K. Michael Hays, Linda Pollak, Shohei Shigematsu, and Jorge Silvetti.
Harvard GSD has announced the second edition of the Wheelwright Prize, a $100,000 traveling fellowship open to talented early-career architects - practicing anywhere in the world - proposing exceptional itineraries for research and discovery. More info, after the break...
General Information
The Wheelwright Prize is a $100,000 travel-based research grant that is awarded annually to early-career architects who have demonstrated exceptional design talent, produced work of scholarly and professional merit, and who show promise for continued creative work.
Now open to applicants from all over the world—no affiliation to Harvard GSD required—the prize aims to foster new forms of research informed by cross-cultural engagement. "The idea is not just about travel—the act of going and seeing the world—but it is about binding the idea of geography to themes and issues that hold great potential relevance to contemporary practice," says Harvard GSD Dean Mohsen Mostafavi.
The winner will be selected via an open call for proposals and a rigorous review process. The winner of the Wheelwright Prize will receive:
$100,000 cash prize to support travel and research-related costs invitation to lecture at Harvard GSD possibility to publish research in a Harvard GSD publication
The Wheelwright Prize organizing committee includes Harvard GSD Dean Mohsen Mostafavi, Professors K. Michael Hays and Jorge Silvetti, and Assistant Dean Benjamin Prosky.
Eligibility
Applicant must have graduated from a professionally accredited architecture degree program in the past 15 years. Applicants need not be registered or licensed. Applicants may not have received the Arthur Wheelwright Traveling Fellowship previously. Winners of the Wheelwright Prize may not hold other fellowships concurrently. The Wheelwright Prize is available to individual entrants only; teams or firms will not be considered. Winners are expected to spend a minimum of 6 months (cumulative) outside of their countries of residence in order to conduct their proposed research. Additionally, proposed research itineraries must not include sites in the United States. Research and travel must commence within 12 months of receiving the Wheelwright Prize and must be completed within two years of receiving the prize. The Wheelwright Prize is intended for independent study and may not be applied to university tuition. However, the grant may be applied to fees for workshops and conferences.
Application
The application process will be entirely online. No submissions will be accepted by mail. The online application platform will begin receiving entries for 2014 Wheelwright Prize on January 20, 2014. Deadline for submissions is March 4, 2014.
Applicants will be asked to submit:
Current CV. Portfolio (maximum of 10 jpegs); each image must be dated and captioned, and applicant’s contribution to shown work (particularly if generated by a firm) must be precisely identified (for example, chief architect, project manager, draftsperson, etc). The portfolio may be supplemented by published articles or research papers written by applicant. Authored works should appear in their original format, with publication name and date clearly indicated (maximum 3, each clipping to be saved as a separate PDF). If the clipping exceeds 15 pages, please create a compact PDF (no more than 10 pages) with cover, sample pages, and summary in English. If article is not in English, please attach English-language summary (maximum 500 words) as an addendum to each PDF. A written description of proposed research project (maximum 6,000 characters). Applicants should articulate the relevance of their project to contemporary practice, the need for direct or hands-on research (i.e., justification for travel), and the benefits they anticipate for their personal and professional development. Applicant will also be asked to write a short summary (maximum 700 characters) of their proposal. A travel itinerary, including list of sites to visit, contacts, and other resources that support the proposed research agenda. Itineraries may include multiple destinations, in multiple countries, excluding the United States. A budget is not required. List of three professional references (full name, affiliation, and contact information only). Letters are not required at this time.
Jury
This year's jury for the Wheelwright Prize will be: Mohsen Mostafavi, Iñaki Ábalos, Sílvia Benedito, Pedro Gadanho, K. Michael Hays, Linda Pollak, Shohei Shigematsu, and Jorge Silvetti. They will select a winner based on the quality of the applicant’s portfolio, scholarly accomplishments, originality or persuasiveness of the research proposal, evidence of ability to fulfill the proposed project, and the potential for the Wheelwright Prize to impact his or her future development.
• Mohsen Mostafavi is an architect, educator, and dean of Harvard University GSD. Heserves on the steering committee of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture and theboard of the Van Alen Institute, and consults on numerous international design andurban projects. His publications include Landscape Urbanism: A Manual for theMachinic Landscape (Architectural Association Publications, 2004); EcologicalUrbanism (Lars Müller Publishers, 2010).
• Iñaki Ábalos is chair of the Department of Architecture at Harvard GSD and foundingmember of Ábalos + Sentkiewicz Arquitectos (since 2007) and Ábalos and Herreros(1984–2007). His firm’s interdisciplinary design work focuses on the interaction ofarchitecture, technology, landscape, and culture. In addition to leading hisinternationally recognized practice, Ábalos has written extensively on architecture inpublications such as The Good Life (2000) and Picturesque Atlas (2005–07), and co-authored with Juan Herreros, Le Corbusier Skyscrapers (1988), Tower and Office (2003)and Natural-Artificial.
• Sílvia Benedito is an assistant professor of landscape architecture at Harvard GSD and serves as the co-chair of the Sensory Media Platform. Benedito received degrees in music and architecture from Coimbra’s Conservatory of Music and Coimbra University, respectively, before earning a post-professional degree in urban design from Harvard GSD. She worked as a senior associate at James Corner Field Operations where she led many public and private urban design projects and small-scale public spaces. Benedito is the co-principal of OFICINAA, an award-winning architecture, landscape and urban design practice based in Cambridge (USA) and Ingolstadt (Germany).
• Pedro Gadanho is the curator of contemporary architecture in the Department of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Since he joined MoMA in 2012, he curated the exhibitions9+1 Ways of Being Political(2012–13), andCut’n’Paste(2013–14), and he is responsible for the MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program. Previously, he divided his activity between architecture, teaching, writing, and curating.
• K. Michael Hays is Eliot Noyes Professor of Architectural Theory and associate dean of Academic Affairs at Harvard GSD. Hays was the founder of the scholarly journalAssemblageand the first adjunct curator of architecture at the Whitney Museum of American Art (2000 to 2009). His research and scholarship focus on European modernism and critical theory. He is a member of the Wheelwright Prize organizing committee.
• Linda Pollak is a principal of Marpillero Pollak Architects (MPA), an award-winning firm based in New York. A graduate of the GSD, Pollak was the recipient of the Arthur C. Wheelwright Traveling Fellowship in 1987–88 and taught at GSD from 1992 to 2004. She is coauthor ofInside Outside: Between Architecture and Landscape(2003) and essayist in several books. She has received grants and fellowships from American Academy in Rome, National Endowment for the Arts, NYS Council on the Arts, NY Foundation for the Arts, and Graham Foundation. She serves on the board of directors of the Storefront for Art and Architecture, the advisory board of the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation, and is a consulting editor forPlaces and Lotus International.
• Shohei Shigematsu joined OMA in 1998 and became a partner in 2008. He has led the OMA office in New York since 2006 and is responsible for OMA's operations in North America. Under his direction, the New York office has overseen the completion of Milstein Hall at Cornell University as well as the construction of the Quebec National Beaux Arts museum and the Faena Arts Center in Miami Beach. He has also led numerous direct collaborations with artists, including Kanye West, Marina Abramovic, and Cai Guo Qiang. He is currently a design critic at Harvard GSD.
• Jorge Silvetti is a principal of Machado Silvetti and the recipient of numerous awards, including ten Progressive Architecture Awards, and his writings have appeared inOppositions, Daidalos, and Assemblage.He has been teaching at Harvard GSD since 1975; he was named the Nelson Robinson, Jr. Professor of Architecture in 1990, and served as chair of the Department of Architecture from 1995 to 2002. He is a member of the Wheelwright Prize organizing committee.
For more information about the Wheelwright Prize (as well as info on last year's winner) check out wheelwrightprize.org or email info@wheelwrightprize.org
