NEH Grants Awarded in Architectural History

In December, the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) announced the awarding of $12.8 million to support 253 humanities projects across the nation.  Over the years, NEH has awarded SAH five matching grants to support development of more than 25 Buildings of the United States (BUS) volumes, and three matching grants to develop SAH Archipedia, the media-rich online edition of BUS. To date, SAH has raised more than $6.0 million to support BUS and SAH Archipedia from NEH and numerous foundations and individual donors. 

Current NEH-funded projects in the field of architectural history are listed below and received support totaling $223,190 in the form of Humanities Access Grants, Digital Humanities Advancement Grants, and fellowships. A full list of grants by geographic location is available here.

Two of the recipients below are SAH members: D. Fairchild Ruggles, who currently serves on the SAH Board, and Baylor University, an Institutional member of SAH.  More information on grant opportunities and the NEH’s work to support the humanities is available at neh.gov.

University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (Urbana, IL)
Project Director: D. Fairchild Ruggles
Project Title: Tree of Pearls: The Extraordinary Architectural Patronage of the 13th-Century Egyptian Slave-Queen Shajar al-Durr
Project Description: Preparation of a book-length study on the influential architectural patronage of the Mamluk queen Shajar al-Durr in mid-13th-century Cairo.
Outright: $50,400

Baylor University (Waco, TX)
Project Director: Elise King
Project Title: Digital Floor Plan Database: A New Method for Analyzing Architecture
Project Description: The continued development of a prototype of an analytical tool and database to allow humanities scholars and students to comparatively study architectural floor plans. The test case would be a collection of floor plans by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright from the Alexander Architectural Archives at the University of Texas, Austin.
Outright: $72,390

University of Nebraska, Lincoln (Lincoln, NE)
Project Director: Philip Sapirstein
Project Title: The Ancient Greek Temple of Hera at Olympia: A Digital Architectural History
Project Description: Preparation of a digital publication on the architectural history and development of the Doric style at the Temple of Hera at Olympia (ca. 600 BCE).
Outright: $50,400

Chicago Architecture Foundation (Chicago, IL)
Project Title: Open House Chicago Teen Ambassadors
Project Description: A program to involve 32 teens from minority and low-income groups in the study of the architectural history of Chicago's neighborhoods.
Match: $50,000