Named in honor of James Marston Fitch (1909-2000), the founder of the Historic Preservation program at Columbia University, this prize is awarded annually for a paper or project completed during the first year of studies. Your submission should reflect Preservation Alumni’s mission to advance preservation as a diverse field of public and professional endeavors. The topic explored should be one that is particularly meaningful to you in that it helped to define your understanding of preservation, and the project or paper should demonstrate a thoughtful analysis of a preservation issue. In addition to the paper or project, please also submit:
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a statement of no more than 200 words explaining why your work was impactful to your understanding of preservation. If your project is selected, your statement may be published in the PA monthly newsletter.
The submission should be a paper or project completed by an individual student. One submission per student will be accepted. If you are submitting a group paper or project, please specify what sections you wrote individually. Through the generous contributions of PA members, the prize consists of a $500 award.
Past Winners
2023
Daniella Martinez for Rubber: The Cost of Modernity
2022
Schuyler Daniel for Tangential Histories: Tungsten
2021
Lindsay Papke for The Lasting Effects of the Aramco Compound on the Built Environment of Saudi Arabia
2020
Emily Kahn for Questions of Authenticity: The Restoration & Museification of the Eldridge Street Synagogue
2019
Claire Cancilla for The Didactic Function of Reconstruction: Making the Past Present at Manzanar
2018
Maura Whang for The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum: A Preservation Controversy in Color
2017
Nilika Mistry for Humayun's Tomb – Critical Assessment of the Restoration by Aga Khan Trust for Culture
2016
Allison Semrad for Preservation Decisions at Taliesin East
2015
Alexander Ford and Nicholas Gervasi for A Design Intervention for Terrace on the Park, Flushing Meadows - Corona Park
2014
Angela Wheeler for Kuleana: Heritage Law and Social Justice in 21st Century Hawai'i
2013
Andrea A. Tonc for The Ruins of War: Coventry Cathedral Resurrected
2012
Kate Reggev for Seen but Dismissed, Designed but Disguised: Outhouses at Single-Family Dwellings in the American Mid-Atlantic
2011
Tatum Taylor for Undeniable Conjecture: Placing LGBT Heritage
2010
Kerensa S. Wood for Alvar Aalto's Viipuri Library: Identity Through Restorations
2009
Yiannis Avramides for The Hirshhorn Museum, the Smithsonian Institution Competition of 1939, and the Delayed Actualization of Modernism on the National Mall
2008
Xsusha Carlyann Flandro, Christine Huh, Negin Maleki, Mariana Sarango-Manaças and Jennifer Schork for Progressive Housing in New York City: A Closer Look at Model Tenements and Finnish Cooperatives
2007
Richard Handler for A Brief History of the Transformation of Fifth Avenue and Park Avenue into Luxury Apartments
2006
Christopher Brazee
2005
Jessica Williams for Labor, Silence, Penitence: the New Jersey State Prison at Trenton
2004
Laura Buchner for Ornamental Terra Cotta Along the Harlem River
2003
Andrea Ruedy and Becky Walldorf
2002
Melissa Baldock for The Elliott Houses
2001
Gregory Dietrich for The Austin, Nichols & Company Warehouse
2001
Cindy Chang and Kisa Hooks for Domino Sugar Refinery
2000
Michele A. Boyd for The Mile Square City: Preservation Planning Issues in Hoboken, New Jersey
2000
Lucien Sonder for 7 Bleecker Street
1999
Regan Tuder for The Escuelas Nacionales de Arte and the Search for Cuban Architectural Expression
1998
Nadya Nenadich for Ridgewood Savings Bank
1997
Sarah Ingle for City College Y Building
1997
Barbara Mitchell for An Architectural Study of the Sheffield Farm Stables, Manhattan
1996
Lisanne Renner for From Farm to Factories: The Evolution of Patterson's Urban Form
1995
Katherine Rodway for Maiden Lane: A Survey of the History and Architecture of New York City's First Jewelry District
1994
Kevin Daly
1993
Barbara Mishara for The Bright Lights of Times Square
1992
Josie Fowler and Ken Lustbader
1991
Christopher Neville and Kathleen Randall
1990
Matthew A. Bauer and Vicki S. Weiner
1989
Elizabeth Lee Dassler and Hoanh Viet Tran
1988
Claudia Kavenaugh
1987
Linda Cook