Harvard Graduate School of Design announces the launch of the Wheelwright Prize, a 100,000 USD traveling fellowship awarded annually to talented early-career architects worldwide proposing exceptional itineraries for research and discovery. With an open application process (deadline February 28, 2013), the Wheelwright Prize recognizes the importance of field research to professional development, and reinforces Harvard GSD’s dedication to fostering investigative approaches to contemporary design.
Since 1935, Harvard GSD has awarded the annual Arthur W. Wheelwright Traveling Fellowship, established in memory of Wheelwright, Class of 1887. Intended to encourage the study of architecture outside the United States, the prize was formerly available only to GSD alumni; past fellows include Paul Rudolph, Eliot Noyes, William Wurster, Christopher Tunnard, I. M. Pei, John Haro, Klaus Herdeg, Farès el-Dahdah, Adele Santos, and Linda Pollak.
Under the leadership of Dean Mohsen Mostafavi, Harvard GSD is pleased to broaden the scope of the competition by inviting architects practicing anywhere in the world to apply, proposing research agendas outside one’s country of residence. An affiliation to the GSD is no longer required. “The GSD is a truly global design school, based at one of the leading research universities in the world,” Dean Mostafavi remarked. “It is clear that today’s fluid movement of people and ideas necessitates new approaches towards the understanding of architecture and urbanization. I am excited that in the coming years the Wheelwright Fellowship will be able to have a significant impact on the intellectual projects of young architects and, in turn, on the future of architecture and the built environment.”
The Wheelwright Prize is unique among architecture prizes with its focus on early-career architects and its sizable purse, 100,000 USD, equivalent to that of the Pritzker Prize, which honors an architect’s lifetime achievements. The Wheelwright Prize is directed at architects who have graduated from a professionally accredited degree program in the past 15 years. (Graduates prior to 1998 are ineligible.)
Applicants will be asked to submit a portfolio as well as a proposal for a research project accompanied by a travel itinerary. The Wheelwright Prize’s organizing committee includes Harvard GSD Dean Mohsen Mostafavi, Professors K. Michael Hays and Jorge Silvetti, and Assistant Dean Benjamin Prosky. An international jury will be announced in January 2013. Applications will be accepted online from January 10 to February 28 at www.wheelwrightprize.org. A winner will be named on May 15, 2013.
For additional details about eligibility and the application process, please see www.wheelwrightprize.org. Or for more information, contact Cathy Lang Ho: [email protected].
*Online application process will open on January 10, 2013. Applicants must register online by February 15. Deadline for submissions is February 28. A winner will be named on May 15.