The Wheelwright Architecture Prize (formerly known as the Arthur C. Wheelwright Traveling Fellowship) is an international architecture traveling fellowship presented annually to "talented early-career architects worldwide proposing exceptional itineraries for research and discovery." Founded in 1935 by the Harvard Graduate School of Design, the prize is entirely funded by the same institution.
History
The Wheelwright Prize was established in 1935 as the «Arthur C. Wheelwright Traveling Fellowship», and was originally open only to alumni of the Harvard Graduate School of Design.
Arthur C. Wheelwright graduated from Harvard College in the class of 1887. After graduation, he spent a year working in his father's cotton commission house in Boston. However, Wheelwright then pursued a two-year study of architecture in Boston, as Harvard did not yet offer architecture courses. He went on to study art in Paris for three years, faced a period of illness, and ultimately settled into the life of a farmer and part-time artist in Westwood, Massachusetts. Three years after his death in 1932, his widow, Edith F. Wheelwright, honored his life by establishing a fellowship for "travel and study outside the United States."
The core idea of the prize was to provide a Grand Tour experience to graduates at a time when international travel was uncommon.
In 2013, the grant was renamed and reformatted to become an international competition for early-career architects who have graduated from an professionally accredited architectural program within the last 15 years.
Eligibility
The Wheelwright Prize is open to early-career architects based anywhere in the world who have graduated from a professionally accredited architecture degree program in the past 15 years. The fellowship must be granted to individual entrants, and those winners based in the United States, their research must be partially undertaken outside the country.
The recipient receives US$100,000 for travel and research-related expenses, which are expected to be spent throughout two years from its announcement. Along with the money, the recipient is invited to lecture at the school and given the opportunity to appear in a research publication of the same institution.
The 2024 jury cycle comprised Noura Alsayeh, Mira Henry, Mark Lee, Jacob Riedel, Enrique Walker, and Harvard GSD dean Sarah M. Whiting. Two years later, the jury comprised Whiting again, alongside Mariana Ibañez, Marina Otero, and Charles Waldheim.
Laureates
Since 2013, non-GSD alumni have been allowed to apply, provided they graduated from a professionally accredited architectural program within the last 15 years. The 1968-1969 laureate, Adèle Naudé Santos, is the first female prize winner.
1936-1940
1936-1937: Newton Ellis Griffith, Paul Marvin Rudolph, Walter Egan Trevett, R. Prentice Bradley
1937-1938: Constantine A. Pertzoff
1938-1939: Walter H.Kilham Jr.
1939-1940: Eliot Fette Noyes
1940-1949
1940-1941: Leonard James Currie
1941-1942: Phillip Emile Joseph
1942-1943: Albert Evans Simonson, William W. Wurster
1943-1944: Christopher Tunnard
1944-1945: Robert William Blachnik, Alvaro Ortega, Theodore Jan Prichard, Helge Westermann
1945-1946: William Lindus Cody Wheaton, Kurt Augustus Mumm, Ira Rakatansky, Stanley Salzman
1946-1947: Jean Paul Carlhian, Noel Buckland Dant, Martin Daniel Meyerson
1947-1948: Joseph Douglas Carroll Jr.
1948-1949: Vaughn Papworth Call
1950-1959
1949-1950: Henry Louis Horowitz, Jean Claude Mazet, Edward Chase Weren, George Elliot Rafferty
1950-1951:I. M. Pei, Jacek von Henneberg, Jerry Neal Leibman
1951-1952: Frederick D. Holister, Donald Emanuel Olsen
1952-1953: William J. Conklin, Gottfied Paul Csala, Helmut Jacoby, and Edward Stutt
