Contact: Christie McNeal

STARKVILLE, Miss.—A senior architecture student is the second at Mississippi State University to receive a $20,000 award for travel and research.

Daniel P. Smith, a graduate of Canton Academy and son of Clark and Rai Smith, will use the endowed Aydelott Travel Award to visit and research four late modern buildings this summer. They include: the São Paulo Museum of Art designed by Lina Bo Bardi located in Sao Paulo, Brazil; Neue Nationalgalerie designed by Mies Van der Rohe located in Berlin, Germany; Church of Saint-Pierre designed by Le Corbusier located in Firminy-Vert, France; and the National Assembly Building designed by Louis Kahn located in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

“The quality and rigor of this year’s Aydelott applications made by our undergraduate students conceivably rivals the submissions made at the graduate school level,” said F.L. Crane Professor Michael Berk, director of Mississippi State’s School of Architecture. “Daniel’s focus on ‘urban space’ and its contextual fit to the four selected buildings truly impressed the jury.”

Junior Emily Turner, a graduate of Starkville High School and daughter of Steve and Jenny Turner, was runner-up and received $4,000 to support her research and international travel on modern architecture. The 2017 Paul Grootkerk Travel Award is funded by alumnus Ted T. Porter.

“The Aydelott Travel Award offers a student an opportunity that can and should change the trajectory of their architectural career,” said MSU College of Architecture, Art and Design Dean Jim West.

Smith, who plans to pursue a career as a professor, agreed.

“This award is a great opportunity to kickstart my research career,” he said, adding that he has always been fascinated with how modern architecture came about and how it began to relate to humans and cultures.

“My research will focus on trying to understand how buildings relate on two scales – macro and micro,” he said. “How people move through and use the spaces and how the buildings relate to the city itself.”

The architecture student will return to MSU in the fall to work with his faculty adviser, Assistant Professor Fred Esenwein, to compile his research and observations into a report to be judged against his fellow Aydelott Travel Award recipients.

One student will receive the Aydelott Prize and an additional $5,000.

“This award enables students to research, visit, study and comprehend four visionary pieces of architecture in a way never available to them before. I look forward to observing a true transformation in the recipients of this award,” West said.

The $2.4 million endowment – established by the late Alfred Lewis Aydelott and his wife, Hope Galloway Aydelott – provides an award each year to four architecture students currently enrolled in the professional architecture degree programs at Mississippi State and the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville; Auburn University; and the University of Tennessee.

For more information about the Aydelott Travel Award and other fellowships in the School of Architecture at Mississippi State, visit www.caad.msstate.edu/sarc/fellowshipsandawards.

MSU is Mississippi’s leading university, available online at www.msstate.edu.