Michelle Tianhui Chen, a Master's candidate at the Yale School of Architecture, has won Robert A.M. Stern Architects' $10,000 RAMSA Travel Fellowship. With the award, Chen will travel to India where she will study the architectural shift from a diverse fabric of expressive design languages to a politically and ethnically neutral vocabulary.
"In our world of increasingly ubiquitous gleaming towers, clean in form but cleansed of details, looking to centuries-old traditions might be a means toward reestablishing human attachment to our everyday surroundings," says Ms. Chen. Her proposal promises to "culminate in a book of drawings and text that attempts to chart a path to a more balanced architecture—one which does not forsake cultural expression for a shallow conception of political order."
"Ms. Chen's very strong portfolio shows a clear point of view, and her proposed line of inquiry relates closely to the work she's been doing. It is easy to imagine how her study will help advance her growth as an architect," said the jury. "It was the creativity and poetics of Ms. Chen's proposal that tipped the balance."
News via Robert A.M. Stern Architects
