The Society of Architectural Historians announces three new grants totaling $16,000 as part of the Winter 2024-25 funding cycle. Receiving grants are: Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research, the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, and Taliesin Preservation, Inc. Read below how each recipient will connect with learners.
These grants help fund awe-inspiring design education programs for youth and docent-led architecture and landscape tours administered by nonprofit organizations. Since its inception, the program has supported architectural and cultural heritage organizations, house museums, creative placemaking sites, summer workshops focusing on architecture and design, schools of architecture with youth outreach programs, and arts and architecture high schools.
SAH established the Field Trip program in 2015 through an anonymous gift from a generous SAH member. The goal of the grant program is to share the wonders of architecture and landscapes with students whose educational interests in the arts and humanities have been underserved due to racial, social, or economic inequity.
Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research - Awarded $6,000
Location: Bloomfield Hills, Michigan
Program Title: Summer 2025 Architecture Elective for Horizons-Upward Bound Students
Program Leaders: Cranbrook Center Director Gregory Wittkopp, Cranbrook Center Curator Kevin Adkisson, Head Archivist Deborah Rice, and Collections Interpreters Matthew Horn, Elena Ivanova, Diane VanderBeke Mager, and Lynette
Mayman
Dates: June-August 2025
Program Description:
The Cranbrook Center Summer 2025 Architecture Elective for Horizons-Upward Bound (HUB) Students will include different activities curated for HUB students during their 2025 six-week residential component on Cranbrook’s campus, including on/offsite field trips, tours, activities, and an architecture lecture. Students will receive a broad introduction to architecture and an opportunity to explore architecture as a profession.
This higher educational level course made up of eight, ninety-minute sessions will merge lecture content with related field trips on and off the Cranbrook campus. Field trip destinations within Cranbrook Educational Community will include Cranbrook’s Albert Kahn-designed Cranbrook House, Eliel Saarinen-designed Saarinen House, and Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Smith House, as well as the Cranbrook Archives and Cranbrook Academy of Art Architecture studios. Additionally, students will be able to experience a field trip to Downtown Detroit, including a visit to at least one notable architecture firm.
Overall, more than 130 HUB students participate in the six-week Summer HUB Residential component and, if scheduling permits, the Cranbrook Center will provide opportunities for all students to experience an architecture field trip on the Cranbrook campus.
The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation - Awarded $5,000
Location: Scottsdale, Arizona
Program Title: Architectural Field Trips at Taliesin West
Program Directors: Abbie Wilson, Youth and Family Programs Manager, and Susan Silcox, Senior Museum Educator
Dates: January 1-May 15, 2025
Program Description:
This grant supports a new educational partnership between the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation and the Cartwright School District 83 in the greater Phoenix area. Cartwright District is an entirely Title One District, meaning at least 40% of students are from low-income households. During the Spring 2025 semester, the entire 6th grade class — 1,500 students— will visit Taliesin West free of charge.
Cartwright students will participate in a one-hour guided tour of the primary buildings of Taliesin West, including Frank Lloyd Wright’s residence, architectural studio, communal dining, office, and entertainment spaces, all built between 1938-59. They will also visit buildings designed by his apprentices. Then, they will engage in a 45-minute hands-on STEAM-based activity, “History and Art of Blueprints,” wherein they will learn the history of photography/blueprint making – an essential element of the architectural process. They will have the chance to sketch a basic floor plan and turn that sketch into a cyanotype print to take home. The creative sketching and art-making bring a wonderfully tactile element into this hands-on field trip concept. Research shows that art-making helps participants process emotions, focus deeply, and imagine a more positive future. The benefits of field trips are even greater for students from less-advantaged backgrounds.
The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation hopes 2025 will prove the beginning of a long and successful partnership with the Cartwright School District.
Taliesin Preservation, Inc. - Awarded $5,000
Location: Spring Green, Wisconsin
Program Title: Immersive Taliesin Field Trips
Program Director: Caroline Hamblen, Director of Programs and Maria Kopecky, Programs Manager
Dates: May 1-October 31, 2025
Program Description:
Taliesin Preservation’s immersive field trips are centered on the Hillside School & Drafting Studio on the Taliesin estate, a complex of buildings from across Wright’s career. Students will engage with multiple spaces at Hillside including: The Hillside Assembly Hall (1903), the “abstract forest” Drafting Studio (1932), Hillside Theater (1955), the Taliesin Fellowship dining hall (1955).
Students will participate in hands-on activities designed to increase their understanding of Wright’s concept of organic architecture as an integrated system between nature, people, and the built environment. All activities are facilitated by Taliesin program staff and aligned with the Wisconsin Standards for Art and Design Education.
Example activities include:
- Nature Art Design: Students examine natural materials such as leaves, pinecones, shells, and rocks and observe properties such as texture, color, shape, pattern, and structure. Each student selects natural materials to create their own temporary work of art.
- Space Planning with Blocks: Students use Froebel blocks to explore how space planning can influence human behavior, including concepts such as open vs. segregated spaces, sprawl vs. density, positive vs. negative space, and the flow of space.
Prior to the on-site visit, we offer an optional 45-minute virtual session in which Taliesin staff broadcast to classrooms live from the estate. If they choose, teachers can receive additional background information and classroom activities to use before their visit.
For more information about a specific field trip program, please contact the organizations directly.
Cover image: High school students participate in a Cranbrook Center curator-led tour of the Melvyn Maxwell and Sara Stein Smith House (Wright, 1949).
