Society of Architectural Historians names 2024 IDEAS Research Fellows

The Society of Architectural Historians has awarded three emerging scholars with the 2024 SAH IDEAS Research Fellowship. The award seeks to “support research that challenges the existing paradigms and represents under-recognized directions for architectural history.”

In addition to $1,000 in funding, the fellowship also includes one year of close mentorship with a senior colleague from the SAH community as well as “guided lateral interaction across the cohort to engage peer support.”

New York/Washington DC-based architect Maria Alejandra Linares Trelles has been awarded a fellowship for her work across design, research, and curatorial practices. “Her work examines the sociopolitical forces shaping the built environment with a focus on architecture’s complicit role in constructing landscapes of extraction,” SAH notes, citing Trelles’ current focus on disputed infrastructure projects in northwestern Peru.

India-based architect and historian Saman Quraishi has been awarded a fellowship for her “creative, integrative, and transversal use of archives.” Quraishi’s current research explores how architectural archives shape themselves and become entry points for negotiating the complexities of architectural histories. “Her research aims to develop a pedagogical framework through which expansive and diverse visual resources, specifically architectural archives, can be used as active bodies of knowledge and allow for critical thinking and learning,” SAH explains.

Boston-based activist-scholar Hongyan Yang has been awarded a fellowship for her work spanning placemaking through art and architecture, ethnic food landscapes in America, the architecture of Chinatown, and community-engaged oral history. “Building primarily on artifactual evidence, spatial ethnographies, and archival research, her work uncovers the often-unknown lived experiences of Asian immigrants and Asian Americans dating back to the late nineteenth century, exploring how their racial consciousness, cultural sensibilities, and shifting positionalities invest new meanings into the cultural landscapes of the United States,” SAH adds.

The SAH IDEAS Fellowship is one of several funding opportunities our editorial has reported on in recent months. In November, we covered UT Austin’s launching of a fellowship for emerging architecture and design academics, while in October, we covered Ohio State’s search for the next Howard E. LeFevre ‘29 Emerging Practitioner Fellow. In August, MoMA PS1 opened applications for their Program Production Fellow, while in July, the University of Detroit Mercy’s Detroit Collaborative Design Center opened applications for a public interest design fellowship.