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Undergraduate Architecture Wallenberg Studio Awards $30,000 in Travel Scholarships to Outstanding Young Architects

Symposium & Award Ceremony April 29, 2009
Backstages, Sideshows & Undergrounds

View the photo gallery of the awards ceremony.

Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning hosted its Wallenberg studio symposium and award ceremony on April 29, 2009, where the college seniors presented final projects from the Raoul Wallenberg Studios. The studio reviews were coordinated by Assistant Professor of Architecture Mireille Roddier. The review galleries, known as the CMYK Gallery, are located on the third floor of the Art and Architecture Building and are open to the public until May 3, 2009.

The themes of the award-winning studio work, as selected by the guest judges on April 23 and 24, were discussed at the April 29th symposium by the guest jurors, including Joan Ockman, Columbia University; Grace La, University of Wisconsin; Robert Levit, University of Toronto; Mitchell Squire, Iowa State; and Brendan Moran, University of Syracuse. The Wallenberg Travel Scholarship was awarded, recognizing student work that illustrated an exceptional understanding of architecture and the humanities. The scholarships were awarded to:

First prize, $15,000: Marc Maxey, SUB_city from Mireille Roddier’s studio: The Detroit Unreal Estate Agency
Second prize, $10,000: Alex Timmer, from Anca Trandafirescu’s studio: Alternateaccess
Third prize, $5,000: Rick Cosgrove Algacultural Catalyst, from Nataly Gattegno’s studio: Recombinant Ecologies: Resilient Interventions in Athens, Greece

Honorable mentions went to Marie Matta, Jakub Szerszen, Lauren Gregoricka, Brooke Goodman and Eva Lynch.

The evening symposium and judging process was moderated by Casey Jones, principal at Bloomfield Hills, Mich.-based architecture firm Jones/Kroloff.

About the Wallenberg Studios

The Wallenberg studios are named after the Michigan alumnus Raoul Wallenberg, B.S.Arch.A.’35, who, in 1944, as First Secretary of the Swedish delegation in Budapest, is credited with saving more than 100,000 Jews from death at the hands of the Nazis.

The Raoul Wallenberg Scholarship fund was established with a generous gift from the Benard L. Maas Foundation. The scholarship acts as a reminder of Wallenberg’s courage and humanitarianism and is aimed at reflecting his ideals. The award gives undergraduate students the opportunity to broaden their study of architecture by including work in distant locations.

Undergraduate students participate in the studio during their last semester. The semester-long competition challenges students to develop proposals that define architecture as a humane and social art, translated into a physical project. The studios are conceived around a common theme to be explored collectively and individually, through the diverse methods, agendas, and interests of the faculty team. The studios are coordinated as a competition to be juried at the completion of the term by a panel of invited guest jurors.

This year, each of the eight studios explored the theme “Backstages, Sideshows & Undergrounds.” While responses will vary from one studio to the next, the aim is to create a framework for lively debate and exchange across all eight studios.