Assistant Professor Lindsey Krug has been awarded the 2024 Rotch Traveling Scholarship. This honor is the oldest scholarship of its kind in the U.S., awarded annually through a rigorous two-stage design competition organized by the Boston Society of Architects, a chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA).
Each year, one Rotch Scholar is selected to receive a $40,000 award for up to six months of international travel, joining a legacy that includes prominent architects like Henry Bacon, Ralph Walker, Wallace Harrison, Louis Skidmore, Edward D. Stone, Gordon Bunshaft, Victor Lundy, and many others.
This year’s competition theme, “Pardon Our Appearance,” challenged participants to explore the role of maintenance and care in shaping the built environment. In the first round, which lasted three days, entrants submitted designs anonymously for review. Krug’s project, “New Corner on the Block,” was selected as one of four finalists. She then participated in the second round—a 10-day design challenge—culminating in a presentation of her final proposal, “Monumental Maintenance: an Archipelago of Care.”
The jury ultimately selected Krug’s proposal as the winning entry for 2024.
Krug’s project addresses maintenance and care as foundational yet often overlooked elements of architecture. Her winning proposal envisions a “maintenance district” for Boston, where the often-invisible work of public upkeep is honored through a series of monuments and public spaces. Her design reclaims and reimagines Boston’s Public Works site as a place of education and engagement, transforming maintenance into a visible and celebrated aspect of urban life that plays a central role in sustaining and nurturing the built environment.
With the scholarship funds, Krug plans to travel during the coming year, exploring the ways privacy has been architecturally constructed in different cultural and climatic contexts, and throughout history, from first societies to contemporary metropolises. Building on her ongoing analysis of the social and cultural impacts of architecture on the bodies that occupy built space, Krug’s international research travel will bring new insights to her work and teaching.
For more details on the Rotch Traveling Scholarship, visit Rotch.org and see the official announcement on the Boston Society of Architects website.
