Over $500,000 awarded to architectural discourse projects by Graham Foundation | News

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Drawing Architecture Studio, “The Samsara of Building No. 42 on Dirty Street – 2017.04.24” (detail), 2017. Digital drawing. Courtesy Drawing Architecture Studio. From the 2026 grant to Drawing Architecture Studio: Yan Hu, Han Li, and Xintong Zhang for the

The Graham Foundation has announced its recipients of grants for 2026. Over $500,000 was awarded to 54 projects “exploring architecture through exhibitions, films, publications, and research.”

In total, 86 individuals received funding from more than 600 submissions. Among the recipients are emerging architects, artists, curators, designers, filmmakers, historians, scholars, and writers.

In total, more than $46 million has been awarded by the foundation in 70 years, supporting over 5,300 projects. 

The 2026 projects funded are as follows:

Sarah Oppenheimer, “PT_G13,” 2026. Human operator, capacitance sensor systems, copper, glass, PLA, LED, aluminum, electricity, and existing architecture. Variable dimensions and duration. Installation view at V57 and V2_Lab for the Unstable Media, the Netherlands, 2026. Photo: Paul Swagerman. From the 2026 grant to Sarah Oppenheimer for the exhibition “N-06”

Exhibitions

Juan Carlos Espinosa, Carlos A. Segura, and Tania Tovar (San José, Costa Rica and Mexico City, Mexico) for Procesos Salvajes [Wild Processes]Liz Gálvez (Berkeley, CA) for Earthen Comforts: Airing EarthGerard & Kelly: Brennan Gerard and Ryan Kelly (New York, NY and Paris, France) for Saints at a DiscoSuzy Halajian and Noah Simblist (Los Angeles, CA and Richmond, VA) for Cracks in the Edifice: The Fairground as ConstellationNikolaus Hirsch and Jorge Otero-Pailos (Brussels, Belgium and New York, NY) for Becoming MonumentDrawing Architecture Studio: Yan Hu, Han Li, and Xintong Zhang (Beijing, China and New York, NY) for The Death and Life of an Apartment BuildingFuture Firm: Ann Lui and Craig Reschke (Chicago, IL) for The Stork’s StairMOS: Michael Meredith and Hilary Sample (New York, NY) for A StopSarah Oppenheimer (New York, NY and Rotterdam, the Netherlands) for N-06Adriana Salazar Vélez (Mexico City, Mexico) for Weaving Nets for Water WorldsDavid Taylor (Tucson, AZ) for COMPLEXNorman Teague and Bernard Williams (Chicago, IL) for If Architecture Could Dance

Adam James Smith, “A neon-lit street scene in Shenzhen at night during a rainstorm,” 2025. Digital photograph. Courtesy Adam James Smith. From the 2026 grant to Adam James Smith for the film “Nighthawk”

Film and New Media Projects

Jay Cephas (Princeton, NJ) for Brick by Brick: Black Builders and the American LandscapeCrystal Kayiza (New York, NY) for The GardenersAdam James Smith (Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY) for Nighthawk

Iwan Baan, “’Anatomy of a Dhow,’” Bahrain Pavilion, Osaka Expo 2025, Osaka, Japan, 2023–25. Digital photograph. Courtesy Lina Ghotmeh — Architecture. From the 2026 grant to Ilaria Di Carlo and Daria Ricchi for the publication “Sympoietic Architecture. Making With Lina Ghotmeh”

Publications

Jana Ndiaye Berankova (Prague, Czech Republic) for Karel Teige’s Theory and Criticism: Reflections on Architecture, Art, and SocietyMarta Bertazzoni, Elisa C. Cattaneo, Simona Cesana, and Ugo La Pietra (Brescia and Milan, Italy) for Ugo La Pietra. Interior/Exterior: The Unbalancing ExperimentsSantiago Bonilla Hastings, Daniella Camarena, Lucas Hoops, and James O’Brien (Mexico City, Mexico) for Ediciones Eje, Issues 04 and 05Lori A. Brown and Sarah Rafson (Cambridge, MA and Syracuse, NY) for Now What?! A Call for Advocacy, Activism, and Alliances in US ArchitectureArthur J. Clement and Emily G. Makaš (Atlanta, GA and Charlotte, NC) for Philip G. Freelon: Artist, Architect and GriotChristina E. Crawford (Atlanta, GA) for Model Housing: Atlanta and the Foundation of American Public Housing ArchitectureIlaria Di Carlo and Daria Ricchi (London and Oxford, United Kingdom) for Sympoietic Architecture. Making With Lina GhotmehEmilio Distretti, Sandi Hilal, and Alessandro Petti (Beit Sahour, Palestine; London, United Kingdom; and Stockholm, Sweden) for Entity of Decolonization. The Afterlives of Colonial–Fascist ArchitectureSonja Dümpelmann (Munich, Germany) for Knowing Trees: A History of Public HealthYasmina El Chami (Sheffield, United Kingdom) for Collective Colonialism: Missionary Competition and Architectural Contestation in Ottoman LebanonMatthew Gandy (Cambridge, United Kingdom) for Urban refugiaMaría González Pendás (Ithaca, NY) for Holy Modern: Technocratic Fascism, Imperial Architectures, and Opus DeiChristopher Hawthorne (New Haven, CT) for Punch ListOwen Hopkins, Kabage Karanja, Stella Mutegi, and Kathryn Yusoff (London and Newcastle, United Kingdom; and Nairobi, Kenya) for Architecture as an Earth practiceLynne Horiuchi (El Cerrito, CA) for Dislocations: The Architecture, Planning and Building of Prison Cities for Japanese and Japanese Americans during World War IIKate Joyce (Santa Fe, NM) for Watt or FallWilfried Kuehn, Simona Malvezzi, and Hubert Pelletier (Berlin, Germany and Montreal, Canada) for Designing the InsectariumAna María León (Somerville, MA) for Spatial Solidarities: Architecture and Resistance in 1970s ChileAbigail Lucien (New York, NY) for Blood of the EarthAlex Martínez Suárez (Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic) for Concrete under the Sun: Brutalism in the Dominican RepublicCiro Miguel (Zurich, Switzerland) for Brasília in 35mm: The New Capital through the Lens of Photojournalism, 1956–60Guillaume Mojon and Veronika Spierenburg (Zurich, Switzerland) for Flora Ruchat-Roncati: The Mountain is the WallLeandro Villalba (Punta del Este, Uruguay) for The Architecture of Punta del Este 1948-1987

Roberta Dickinson, “My Lai Sculpture (with photographs by Ron Haeberle),” ca 1970. Photographic print mounted on cardboard, 10 5/8 x 10 1/4 in. Courtesy Peace Collection, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA. From the 2026 grant to Adrienne Economos-Miller and M.C. Overholt for the research project “Trans Reconstruction: Roberta Dickinson’s Disobedient Archive”

Research Projects

Olorunfemi Adewuyi (Lagos, Nigeria) for Remembering Memory: (In)formal Architectures of ResistanceShane Ah-Siong (Mauritius and New York, NY) for Military Architectures of Displacement: Documenting Spatial Erasure in the Indian OceanIbiye Camp (London, United Kingdom) for Layt De KamRe’al Christian (New York, NY) for A Study of Two Cities: Seville, Kansas City, and Social Aesthetics Across the African AtlanticAdrienne Economos-Miller and M.C. Overholt (Milwaukee, WI and Philadelphia, PA) for Trans Reconstruction: Roberta Dickinson’s Disobedient ArchiveAlexander Garduño and Veronika Kudriashova (Mexico City, Mexico) for Assembling Wood in MexicoVanessa Grossman (Philadelphia, PA) for Between the Rust Belt and the Amazon: Extraction, Empire, and the Architecture of Vila Serra do NavioJosé Ibarra (State College, PA) for Andean Ecologies, Cosmologies, and Fictions across Chile, Bolivia, and EcuadorDuc Le (London, United Kingdom) for Vietnamese Protean Modernism and the Architecture of Thuận Tiến NguyễnLe’Andra LeSeur (Tulsa, OK) for As the Basic Repository of Inextinguishable DesiresJorge Francisco Liernur and Isabella Moretti (Buenos Aires, Argentina) for Towards the Third Foundation of Buenos Aires: Facsimile Edition of Le Corbusier’s Unpublished Plan (1929–1948)Peter L’Official (New York, NY) for Invisible Plan: W. Joseph Black’s Black Arts MovementAlex Maymind, Lauren McQuistion, and David Turturo (Albuquerque, NM; Minneapolis, MN; and Lubbock, TX) for Skyline: Rereading an Architectural TabloidJeremy Melvin (London, United Kingdom) for Jo Noero: South African Architecture, Politics and Spatial JusticeSharifa Rhodes-Pitts (New York, NY) for The Proper Knowledge / The Proper PurposeArlette Quỳnh-Anh Trần (Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam) for Future Tense – Queering the Third World Architecture

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