Overview: In 1988 Harold Schiff, an engineer and founding partner of the Chicago-based Schal Associates, established an award to support the professional development of outstanding young architects in Chicago. The Schiff Foundation Fellowship was first awarded in May 1989 and is now an established component of the architecture programs at the Illinois Institute of Technology, University of Illinois at Chicago, and School of the Art Institute of Chicago—and one of the most important grants of its kind in the United States. Each year an independent jury of distinguished architects, critics, and educators selects one exceptional project for the award, which enters the permanent collection of the Department of Architecture and Design at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Martin Lockwood-Bean. Villa in the Sky, 1989. Gift of Martin Lockwood-Bean, 1989.230.1.

The Schiff Fellowship has allowed talented young architects to complete graduate degrees, pursue internships at architectural firms around the world, and found professional practices. As a tribute to the important educational mandate of the award, many winners of the fellowship have gone on to distinguished careers as professors of architecture and design. This selection of drawings from winning projects also illustrates the large range of trends and goals that have shaped architectural education in the last two decades, from conceptual, visionary work to projects that address specific sites and contemporary problems. Most dramatically, the rise of digital technology in the architectural profession has changed the design process and greatly expanded the kinds of questions posed about society and the built environment.