courtesy The Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis. Photo: Eric P. Mumford From the 2021 individual grant to Shantel Blakely for "Charles E. Fleming, Architect"

Each year, the Chicago-based Graham Foundation selects a number of individuals and organizations from around the world to receive grants that support arts and architecture projects. This year, the foundation has announced $585,000 to fund individuals to “realize ideas that have the power to change the field of architecture,” said Graham Foundation director Sarah Herda in a Graham Foundation press release.

John Lin, "The Seasonal House," 2019. From the 2021 individual grant to John Lin for "Renovation Toolbox: A guided tour of innovative houses by self-builders in rural China"
Rural Urban Framework John Lin, "The Seasonal House," 2019. From the 2021 individual grant to John Lin for "Renovation Toolbox: A guided tour of innovative houses by self-builders in rural China"

The foundation funded 71 different projects, ranging from historian Shantel Blakely’s research on the legacy of underrecognized Black architect Charles E. Fleming and his prolific practice to support for an exhibition at Cooper Union on the climate crisis through space and form and architecture’s role in the form of “carbon modernity.” The ideas being funded are wide in scope: technology and computational design; migration due to the climate crisis; Black cultural, civic and political equity; indigenous peoples and placemaking, just to name a few. This year’s grantees will join the network of more than 4,800 previous recipients from the past 65 years.

A selection of the grantees can be found below, and a full list of this year’s recipients can be found on the Graham Foundation website.

Learn more about the Graham Foundation's 2020 grant recipients, here.

This post has been updated since publication.