The Alexander Thomson Scholarship 2021
The Alexander Thomson Scholarship 2021
The 2021 Alexander Thomson Scholarship was awarded following a competition where entrants were asked to visualise and write a narrative illustrating architecture’s relationships with humans and how it could alleviate the effects of the pandemic, in a physical or psychological sense.
RESULTS
Winner
Zoë Victoria Gibson “Light and Man”
Commendation
Jordan Byrne “Narratives of Isolation”
After much deliberation the entry titled ‘Light and Man’ by Zoë Victoria Gibson was chosen by the judges to be the winner and the recipient of the Alexander Thomson Scholarship 2021 and the £1000.00 prize.
GIA Guest Judge Ruta Turcinaviciute commented that the narrative showed “a poetic yet rigorous approach on how we reflect upon, re-discover and re-inhabit our own personal space when experiencing grief” and that “the tapestry-like drawings explore the deepest yet least talked about emotion whilst providing a sensitive architectural resolution”.
GIA President Phil Zoechbauer revealed "As has been the case in previous years of the Alexander Thomson Scholarship, submissions were again of a high standard. Navigating this year’s open-ended brief, the winning piece by Zoe Gibson is an honest reflection on one’s personal environment during a deeply difficult time. It carefully balances architectural rigor with raw emotion to explore the inhabitation of the space around oneself, illustrated across multiple mediums."
The Alexander Thomson Scholarship was established upon the Architect’s death in 1875 “for the purpose of providing a travelling scholarship for the furtherance of the study of ancient classic architecture”. In 1890 the winner was a 22 year old architecture student called Charles Rennie Mackintosh, who used his scholarship on a sketching tour of Europe.
A gallery of this years entrants work can be viewed below:
