The Society of Architectural Historians Reveal 2014 Traveling Fellowship Recipient

The Society of Architectural Historians announced the winner of the 2014 H. Allen Brooks Traveling Fellowship earlier this week.

The SAH awarded the $50,000 fellowship to architectural historian, Patricia Blessing. The program allows the recent graduate or emerging scholar to travel for one year to see and experience architecture and landscapes throughout a nine country tour.

Blessing will begin her travels at the start of summer 2015 where she will visit a variety of cities and sites in Turkey, Greece, Bosnia, Albania, Croatia, Italy, Spain, Morocco and Tunisia. "The H. Allen Brooks Traveling Fellowship gives me the unique opportunity to travel in different regions to get to know new sites that I have not yet had the privilege of visiting, and to revisit others," stated Blessing.

As Blessing travels from country to country, she will document her experience through photographs and journal entries that will be uploaded to the SAH blog every month.

Blessing has focused her research on architecture and material culture in the fifteenth-century Ottoman Empire, and, more specifically, on the relationship between textiles and monumental decoration in medieval Spain. She plans to pay tribute to medieval and early modern monuments while also exploring buildings from other periods. Undoubtedly, the experience will further serve her in broadening a perspective that will contribute to her teachings.

The 2014 recipient is currently working at the Stanford Humanities Center while teaching courses on Islamic art and medieval history at Stanford University. She received her education from Princeton University in 2012 and graduated with a Ph.D. degree in art and archaeology.

The Society of Architectural Historians is a nonprofit membership organization that promotes the study, interpretation and conservation of architecture, design, landscapes and urbanism worldwide. The noted scholar and architectural historian, H. Allen Brooks, wished to establish a fellowship that would provide emerging scholars with the opportunity to study through travel and contemplation.

In 2010, the program was created to encourage its participants to further their knowledge on a professional level through observing, photographing, writing and sketching.

The 2015 applications award cycle will open April 1, 2015, and for more information on how to apply, visit here.