Germany's Central Institute for Art History in Munich awards the Theodor Fischer Prize annually for outstanding early career research in the field of the history of architecture. This year, SAH Member David Sadighian received the prize for his doctoral dissertation (PhD, History of Art and Architecture, Harvard University), "The World is a Composition: Beaux-Arts Design and Internationalism in the Age of Empire, 1867–1914."
Sadighian’s dissertation examines how methods of architectural composition codified at the Paris École des Beaux-Arts contributed to the rise of international order during the height of European colonial expansion. The project follows the circulation of “universal” Beaux-Arts design principles across geopolitical, social, and cultural borders, investigating their role in imagining new institutions and structures of world governance – while also generating new local frictions and modes of resistance.
Sadighian is currently Assistant Professor of Architecture at Yale University. He first joined SAH in 2019 as a student member and subsequently delivered papers at the 2020, 2023, and 2025 annual conferences.
