Harvard GSD Announces Winner of Wheelwright Prize 2013
Gia Wolff, Brooklyn-based architect, wins $100,000 travel grant for her proposal Floating City: The Community-Based Architecture of Parade Floats
Mohsen Mostafavi, Dean of Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, is pleased to announce that Gia Wolff, an architect based in Brooklyn, New York, is the winner of the inaugural Wheelwright Prize, a $100,000 traveling fellowship dedicated to fostering new forms of architectural research informed by cross-cultural engagement.
The Wheelwright Prize jury—Mostafavi, Yung Ho Chang, Farès el-Dahdah, K. Michael Hays, Farshid Moussavi, Zoe Ryan, and Jorge Silvetti—selected Gia Wolff from among 231 applicants from 45 countries, including Afghanistan, Brazil, Burkina Faso, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Nigeria, and Spain. Applicants were asked to submit portfolios along with a research proposal and travel itinerary, outlining an extended field investigation and its anticipated benefits for the field of architecture. “The positive response to the Wheelwright Prize has been extraordinary,” said Mostafavi. “It is inspiring to see so many talented architects with clear agendas and visions.”
The jury commended Wolff as an original talent who has developed an innovative, multifaceted architectural practice. The 35-year-old architect has worked for Acconci Studio, LOT-EK, Adjaye Associates, and Architecture Research Office (ARO), where she has been involved in projects that range from libraries to residences, exhibition designs to urban installations. She is presently an assistant professor adjunct at the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture at the Cooper Union and a visiting assistant professor at Pratt Institute. She leads her own practice, which focuses on “performance and its use of space and objects to convey narrative, form, and emotion,” in her words. Recently, she has been collaborating with the Phantom Limb Company on set designs for productions including The Devil You Know (presented at La Mama Experimental Theater, New York, 2010), The Composer Is Dead (Berkeley Repertory Theater, Berkeley, 2010), and 69° South (BAM Next Wave Festival, Brooklyn, 2011). Wolff received a Master of Architecture from Harvard GSD in 2008 and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Parsons School of Design in 2001.
Wolff is the first winner of the new Wheelwright Prize, an update of the Arthur Wheelwright Traveling Fellowship, which was established in 1935 and previously available only to GSD alumni. The original prize was conceived at a time when few architects traveled abroad, and for many early recipients—including Paul Rudolph, Eliot Noyes, William Wurster, and I. M. Pei—the fellowship financed travels that followed the tradition of the Grand European Tour. Under Dean Mostafavi, the GSD opened the prize to architects practicing anywhere in the world, recognizing the increasingly fluid flow of ideas and talent across the globe today, and the necessity of diverse forms of architectural research to developing new modes of practice. “The GSD has always emphasized the relationship between locations, themes, and issues,” says Mostafavi. “We are pleased to be able to make this opportunity available to young architects, who rarely have the freedom or resources to construct a research project that might push them to the next level of their development.”
Wolff’s winning proposal, Floating City: The Community-Based Architecture of Parade Floats, proposes the study of the tradition of parade floats—elaborate temporary and mobile constructions that are realized annually in carnival festivals in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), Goa (India), Nice (France), Santa Cruze de Tenerife (Spain), and Viarreggio (Italy). As Wolff describes in her essay, “The float transforms the city. Its scale makes exterior streets into interior rooms of street theater…. This research ties into contemporary interests in performance and architectural notions of mobility, temporality, spectacle, urban space, and community-based design.”
The jury was enthusiastic about the strong continuity between Wolff’s existing body of work and her proposed area of study. The following comments emerged during the final premiation: “Wolff embodies a new way to think about practice”; “Though her work deals with impermanence, it engages with contemporary architectural concerns with flexibility, modularity, mobility, art”; “With her interest in the community-based creative production of carnival floats, Wolff’s proposal has a social dimension that resonates with the current preoccupation with local fabrication and maker economies”; and “Her research promises to touch on ideas that will help the analysis of the city.”
The $100,000 grant will fund Wolff’s research over the next two years.
Introduction
Harvard GSD is pleased to introduce the Wheelwright Prize, a $100,000 traveling fellowship open to talented early-career architects worldwide proposing exceptional itineraries for research and discovery. Available to architects practicing anywhere in the world, 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.
“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.”
—Harvard GSD Dean Mohsen Mostafavi
About
General Information on the Wheelwright Prize
The Wheelwright Prize is a $100,000 travel-based research grant that will be 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.
Throughout its history, Harvard GSD has had a strong global outlook, attracting deans, faculty, and students from all over the world. Moreover, a mainstay of the GSD curriculum is its traveling studio, which emphasizes the acceptance of ideas and practices with a diversity of origins. The Wheelwright Prize extends the school’s ethos, encouraging a broad-minded approach to architecture that seeks inspiration from unexpected quarters.
The Wheelwright Prize is intended to spur innovative research during the early stage of an architect's professional career. 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.
Background on the Arthur W. Wheelwright Traveling Fellowship
Established in 1935 in memory of Arthur W. Wheelwright, Class of 1887, this traveling fellowship has afforded extraordinary experiences for generations of GSD alumni. The fellowship was conceived at a time when foreign travel was out of reach for many. The prize enabled several early Wheelwright fellows—including Paul Rudolph (1937–38), Eliot Noyes (1939–40), William Wurster (1942–43), and I. M. Pei (1950–51)—to embark on expeditions that largely followed the tradition of the Grand European Tour.
See a full list of past winners of the Arthur W. Wheelwright Traveling Fellowship.
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 in January 2014. There is a $10 service fee (charged by the application platform, not by Harvard GSD).
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.
An international jury 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.
Jury 2013
Yung Ho Chang
Yung Ho Chang is the principal of Atelier Feichang Jianzhu (FCJZ), a Beijing-based architectural practice. He is a professor of architecture at Tongji University and at MIT, where he served as head of the Department of Architecture from 2005 to 2010. A graduate of U.C. Berkeley, Chang has earned numerous awards, including a Progressive Architecture Citation Award in 1996 and the Academy Award in Architecture from American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2006. His books include Yung Ho Chang, Atelier Feichang Jianzhu: A Chinese Practice (MAP Book Publishers, 2003) and Yung Ho Chang: Luce chiara, camera oscura (Postmedia Books, 2005). His work has been displayed at the Venice Architecture Biennale and many other international exhibitions. He has served as a member of the Pritzker Prize jury since 2011.
Farès el-Dahdah
Farès el-Dahdah is a professor of architecture and director of the Humanities Research Center at Rice University. He studied at the Rhode Island School of Design (BFA, ‘86; BArch ‘87) and at Harvard University GSD (MAUD ‘89; DDes ‘92). A former recipient of the Wheelwright Traveling Fellowship, el-Dahdah writes on modern architecture in Brazil as well as on the spatial and social evolution of Rio de Janeiro. In 2011–12, he was the Cisneros Visiting Scholar at the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies and he is currently preparing a book on the 1957 Brasilia Pilot Plan project by Lucio Costa.
Mohsen Mostafavi
Mohsen Mostafavi is an Iranian-American architect and educator. He is the dean of the Harvard University GSD and the Alexander and Victoria Wiley Professor of Design. He was formerly dean of the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning at Cornell University and chair of the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London. He has taught at numerous institutions, including the University of Pennsylvania, Cambridge University, and the Frankfurt Academy of Fine Arts (Städelschule). Mostafavi serves on the steering committee of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture and has served on the design committees of the London Development Agency and the RIBA Gold Medal. His publications include On Weathering (The MIT Press, 1993), Landscape Urbanism: A Manual for the Machinic Landscape (Architectural Association Publications, 2004), and Ecological Urbanism (Lars Müller Publishers, 2010). Mostafavi formed the Wheelwright Prize organizing committee to relaunch the fellowship into an open international competition.
Farshid Moussavi
Farshid Moussavi is the principal of Farshid Moussavi Architecture and a professor of architecture at Harvard GSD. She was previously a principal of the London-based Foreign Office Architects. She has taught at academic institutions worldwide, including the Institute of Architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, Architectural Association, Berlage Institute, Princeton University, and Columbia University. Moussavi has served on numerous advisory panels and design juries, including the Mayor of London’s “Design for London” advisory group, London Development Agency, RIBA Gold, and Stirling Prize. She is a trustee of the Whitechapel Gallery and the London Architecture Foundation, and a member of the steering committee of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture. Her books include The Function of Ornament (Actar, 2006) and The Function of Form (Actar/Harvard GSD, 2009). Her current projects include the Museum of Contemporary Art in Cleveland and the Quran Museum in Tehran.
Zoë Ryan
Zoë Ryan is the John H. Bryan Chair and Curator of Architecture and Design at the Art Institute of Chicago where she is building the museum’s first collection of contemporary design. Taking an interdisciplinary approach to her work, Ryan has organized exhibitions on fashion, architecture, industrial and graphic design. Her exhibitions include Building: Inside Studio Gang Architects (2012), Hyperlinks: Architecture and Design, (2010), and Graphic Thought Facility: Resourceful Design (2008). Previously senior curator at the Van Alen Institute in New York, Ryan organized numerous exhibitions, including The Good Life: New Public Spaces for Recreation (2006). Ryan’s writing has appeared in publications worldwide, and she is the author of Building with Water: Concepts, Typology, Design (Birkhäuser, 2010). She is an adjunct assistant professor at the School of Art and Design at the University of Illinois at Chicago and in the Art History Department at the School of the Art Institute.
Jorge Silvetti
Jorge Silvetti received his diploma in architecture from the University of Buenos Aires and his MArch at U.C. Berkeley, where he also pursued post-graduate work in architectural theory and criticism. His practice Machado and Silvetti Associates has earned numerous awards, including 10 Progressive Architecture awards. His writings have appeared in international publications including Oppositions, Controspazio, Daidalos, Metamorfosi, Harvard Architectural Review, and Assemblage. Silvetti has taught at the U.C. Berkeley, Carnegie-Mellon University, the Polytechnic Institute of Zurich, and Nihon University in Tokyo. He has been teaching at Harvard GSD since 1975; he was named Nelson Robinson, Jr., Professor of Architecture in 1990 and chaired the Department of Architecture from 1995 to 2002. Silvetti has served on the Pritzker Prize jury since 1996, and he became a juror for the Mies van der Rohe Prize for Latin American Architecture in 2000. He is a member of the Wheelwright Prize organizing committee.
K. Michael Hays (Moderator)
K. Michael Hays is Eliot Noyes Professor of Architectural Theory and associate dean of Academic Affairs at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Hays has played a central role in the development of architectural theory. He was the founder of the scholarly journal Assemblage, which was a leading forum of discussion of architectural theory in North America and Europe. In 2000 he was appointed the first adjunct curator of architecture at the Whitney Museum of American Art, a position he held until 2009. His research and scholarship focus on the areas of European modernism and critical theory as well as on theoretical issues in contemporary architectural practice. He is a member of the Wheelwright Prize organizing committee.
Contact
For more information about the Wheelwright Prize or access to high-resolution images for press purposes, please email:
Cathy Lang Ho
CLHoffice
Past Fellows
| 2010-2011 | Elisa Silva MArch '02 |
Interpreting Design Knowledge Through Latin American Slum Upgrading Efforts |
| 2009-2010 | Ying Zhou MArch '07 |
Urban loopholes and pragmatist landscapes: spatial productions and the Shanghai Expo 2010 |
| 2008-2009 | Mason White MArch '01 |
Meltdown: Thawing Geographies in Arctic Russia |
| 2007-2008 | Carlos Arnaiz MArch '03 |
Four Experiments in Urbanism: The Modern University City in Latin America |
| 2006-2007 | Miho Mazereeuw MArch/MLA '02 |
Post-Disaster Architecture and Urbanism: 3 Cities along the Ring of Fire |
| 2005-2006 | Joshua Comaroff MArch/MLA '01 |
The Archaeology of Afro-Modernism |
| 2004-2005 | Cecilia Tham MArch '02 |
The Roundabout Spectacle |
| 2003-2004 | Ker-Shing Ong MArch/MLA '02 |
A City in Miniature |
| 2002-2003 | Jeannie Kim MArch '00 |
Stuck in the Middle Again |
| 2001-2002 | Sze Tsung Leong MArch '98 |
Endangered Spaces: The Casualties of Chinese Modernization |
| 2000-2001 | Farès el-Dahdah MArch '96 |
Utopian Superblocks: The Evolution of Brasilia's 1,200 Housing Slabs since 1960 |
| 1999-2000 | Paolo Bercah MAUD '89 DDES '92 |
Architecture/Celebration |
| 1998-1999 | Nana Last MArch '86 |
Cartesian Grounds: The Extended Planes of Modernism |
| 1996-1997 | James Favaro MArch '82 |
The Influence of Underground Transportation on the Development of Cities |
| 1995-1996 | Raveervarn Choksombatchai MArch '87 |
Seam: Connecting Spatial Fabric |
| 1994-1995 | Edwin Y. Chan MArch'85 |
The Glass Building Revisited |
| 1993-1994 | Richard M. Sommer MArch '88 |
Traces of the Iron Curtain: A Creative Redescription |
| 1992-1993 | Jeffrey A. Murphy MArch '86 |
Housing Courtyards of the Amsterdam School |
| 1991-1992 | Roger Sherman MArch '85 |
The Simulation of Nature: Alvar Aalto and the Architecture of Mis en Scene |
| 1990-1991 | Holly Getch MArch '91 |
Conventions of Representation and Strategies of Urban Space from the 18th to the Early 20th Centuries: Juvarra, Repton, Schinkel, Le Corbusier |
| 1989-1990 | Wellington Reiter MArch '86 |
The Walled City Reconsidered: A Study of Roman Passage Architecture |
| 1988-1989 | Elizabeth A. Williams MArch '85 |
Event, Place, Precedent: The Urban Festival in Western Europe |
| 1987-1988 | Linda Pollak MArch '85 |
The Picturesque Promenade: Temporal Order in the Space of Modernism |
| 1986-1987 | Christopher Doyle MArch '85 |
Sequence and Microsequence: Urban Drama in Baroque Italy |
| Frances Hsu MArch '85 |
Transformation of the Landscape in Modernism: Gardens of Alvar Aalto and Le Corbusier | |
| 1985-1986 | Paul John Grayson MArch '56 |
Housing and Lifecare Facilities Planning and Design for the Elderly in Japan, Israel, Europe |
| 1982-1983 | Joanna Lombard MArch '77 |
American Gardens and the European Precedent: A Design Analysis of Public Space and Cultural Translation |
| 1981-1982 | Hector R. Arce MArch '77 |
The Grid as Underlying Structure: A Study of the Urbanism of Gridded Cities in Latin America |
| 1979-1980 | Nelson K. Chen MArch '78 |
Indigenous Patterns of Housing and Processes of Urban Development in Europe and Southeast Asia |
| 1978-1979 | Susie Kim MAUD, '77 |
Time-Lapse Architecture in Sicily |
| 1976-1977 | Corky Poster MArch '73 |
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| Leon J. Goldberg MArch '72 |
Housing Facilities for the Elderly: A Cross-Cultural Study | |
| 1974-1975 | Alan Chimacoff MArch '68 |
An Investigation of the Relationship between Architecture and Urban Design of Significant European Urban Centers and their Exploration of Formal, Spatial, Geometric, Proportional, and Scalar Characteristics |
| 1973-1974 | Klaus Herdeg MAUD '64 |
Formal Structure of Public Architecture in Persia and Turkestan |
| 1972-1973 | Ozdemir Erginsav MArch '61, MAUD '63 |
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| 1971-1972 | Minoru Takeyama MArch '60 |
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| 1970-1971 | Theodore Liebman MArch '63 |
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| 1969-1970 | Robert Kramer MArch '60 |
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| 1968-1969 | Adele Marie de Souza Santos MAUD '63 |
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| 1967-1968 | William H. Liskamm MArch '56 |
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| 1966-1967 | William Lindemulder MArch '58 |
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| 1965-1966 | Peter Woytok MArch '62 |
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| 1964-1965 | William Morgan MArch '58 |
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| 1963-1964 | Paul Krueger MArch '59 |
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| 1962-1963 | B. Frank Schlesinger MArch '54 |
Water and the Urban Image |
| 1961-1962 | Albert Szabo MArch '52 |
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| 1960-1961 | Donald Craig Freeman MArch '57 |
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| 1959-1960 | John C. Haro MArch '55 |
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| 1958-1959 | Paul Mitarachi MArch '50 |
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| 1957-1958 | Don Hisaka MArch '53 |
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| 1956-1957 | George F. Conley BArch '53 |
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| 1955-1956 | Dolf Hermann Schnebli MArch '54 |
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| 1954-1955 | Ferdinand Frederick Bruck |
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| 1953-1954 | Royal Alfred McClure MArch '47 |
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| 1952-1953 | William J. Conklin MArch '50 |
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| Gottfied Paul Csala BArch '54 |
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| Helmut Jacoby BArch '54 |
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| Edward Stutt MArch '53 |
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| 1951-1952 | Frederick D. Holister MArch '53 |
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| Donald Emanuel Olsen MArch '46 |
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| 1950-1951 | Ieoh Ming Pei MArch '46 |
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| Jacek von Henneberg MArch '51 |
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| Jerry Neal Leibman |
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| 1949-1950 | Henry Louis Horowitz MArch '50 |
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| Jean Claude Mazet MArch '50 |
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| Edward Chase Weren |
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| George Elliot Rafferty MArch '50 |
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| 1948-1949 | Vaughn Papworth Call MRP '49 |
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| 1947-1948 | Joseph Douglas Carroll, Jr. MCP '47 |
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| 1946-1947 | Jean Paul Carlhian MCP '47 |
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| Noel Buckland Dant MRP '48 |
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| Martin Daniel Meyerson MCP '49 |
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| 1945-1946 | William Lindus Cody Wheaton |
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| Kurt Augustus Mumm BCP '46 |
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| Ira Rakatansky MArch '46 |
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| Stanley Salzman MArch '46 |
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| 1944-1945 | Robert William Blachnik MArch '45 |
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| Alvaro Ortega MArch '45 |
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| Theodore Jan Prichard MArch '44 |
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| Helge Westermann MArch '48 |
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| 1943-1944 | Christopher Tunnard |
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| 1942-1943 | Albert Evans Simonson |
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| William W. Wurster |
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| 1941-1942 | Phillip Emile Joseph |
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| 1940-1941 | Leonard James Currie MArch '38 |
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| 1939-1940 | Eliot Fette Noyes MArch '38 |
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| 1938-1939 | Walter H.Kilham, Jr. MArch '28 |
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| 1937-1938 | Constantine A. Pertzoff |
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| 1936-1937 | Newton Ellis Griffith |
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| Paul Marvin Rudolph MArch '47 |
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| Walter Egan Trevett |
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| 1935-1936 | RPrentice Bradley MArch '33 |
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