Priorities and Criteria
For individuals, our priorities are to:
- Provide opportunities to create, develop, and communicate a project about architecture and the designed environment that will contribute to their creative, intellectual, and professional growth at crucial or potentially transformative stages in their careers.
- Support their efforts to take positions, develop new forms of expression, and engage debate.
- Help them communicate their work in the public realm and reach new and wider audiences.
- Support new voices by giving priority to first-time applicants.
Overall we are most interested in opportunities which enable us to provide critical support at key points in the development of a project or career.
Criteria for Evaluation
Given our priorities, we believe projects of the greatest potential should fulfill the following criteria:
- Originality: the project demonstrates an innovative and challenging idea; critical, independent thinking; advanced scholarship; a new or experimental approach
- Potential for impact: the project makes a meaningful contribution to discourse and/or to the field; expands knowledge; is a catalyst for future inquiry; raises awareness of an understudied issue; promotes diversity in subject matter, participants, and audience
- Feasibility: the project has clear and realistic goals, timeframe, work plan, and budget
- Capacity: applicant possesses strong qualifications and/or knowledge; demonstrates ability to carry out the project successfully; has access to necessary resources outside of the grant request
Eligibility
Our grantmaking focuses on individuals in the United States, however, we do make a small percentage of international grants. Please note we require that final projects be disseminated in English.
Grants to Individuals:
- Individuals are eligible to apply for Production and Presentation Grants and Research and Development Grants.
- Collaborative projects by individuals are eligible for funding. A collaborator is defined as a co-author of the project. A collaborator is not a participant who is providing contracted services for the project.
- Individuals may only apply for one grant per year.
- Applicants who have received prior Graham Foundation support must have satisfied all grant requirements before applying again.
- Individuals working on independent projects who are required by their organizations to apply for and receive funding under the aegis of the organization (e.g., a faculty member of an academic institution) may use a fiscal agent.
Mission
Founded in 1956, the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts fosters the development and exchange of diverse and challenging ideas about architecture and its role in the arts, culture, and society. The Graham realizes this vision through making project-based grants to individuals and organizations and producing exhibitions, events, and publications.
Grantmaking Focus
Architecture and related spatial practices engage a wide range of cultural, social, political, technological, environmental, and aesthetic issues. We are interested in projects that investigate the contemporary condition, expand historical perspectives, or explore the future of architecture and the designed environment.
We support innovative, thought-provoking investigations in architecture; architectural history, theory, and criticism; design; engineering; landscape architecture; urban planning; urban studies; visual arts; and related fields of inquiry. Our interest also extends to work being done in the fine arts, humanities, and sciences that expands the boundaries of thinking about architecture and space. In an effort to bridge communities and different fields of knowledge, we support a wide range of practitioners (such as architects, scholars, critics, writers, artists, curators, and educators) and organizations (such as non-profit galleries, colleges and universities, publishers, and museums).
Open discourse is essential to advance study and understanding, therefore our grantmaking focuses on the public dissemination of ideas. With our support, the work of individuals and organizations reaches new audiences, from specialized to general, and creates opportunities for critical dialogue between various publics.
