Milka Bliznakov Research Prize

The 2024 call for submissions can be found here

Contact Paola Zellner Bassett with questions about the 2024 prize.

black and white portrait of Milka Bliznakov, 1927-2010
Milka Bliznakov:
In Memoriam
pdf | html

The Milka Bliznakov Research Prize was established in 2001 to honor IAWA founder and advisor emerita, Dr. Milka Bliznakov (1927-2010). The IAWA Center invites architects, scholars, professionals, students, and researchers to contribute research on women in architecture and related design fields. This research, in concert with the preservation efforts of the IAWA, will help fill the current void in historical knowledge about the achievements and  work of women who shaped the built environment. The IAWA Center Board of Advisors presents this annual prize for research completed in the IAWA collections. 

Past Milka Bliznakov Award and Research Prize Winners (2001-2023)

See the Milka Bliznakov Prize Records for more information

  • 2025, Caitlin Charlet, "Drawing the Unseen: Architectural Narratives of Women Who Shaped Space."
  • 2025 Emerging Scholar: Lilla Kammermann, "Kitchen Debate – 100 Years of the Modern Kitchen in Sight of Feminist and Emancipatory Planning Practices."
  • 2024, Fabio Marino, "Liane Zimbler’s Architectural Journey: Questioning the Interior Decorator Cliché from Vienna to California."
  • 2023, Lori Brown, FAIA, and Karen Burns, "Organizing Women Architects and Global Solidarity, 1963-1988: The International Union of Women Architects and the Cold War Divide."
  • 2023 Emerging Scholar: James Heard, "Zelma Wilson and the Third Generation."
  • 2022, Daniela Núñez Ruiz, "Decolonizing the Archive: Mapping the IAWA's Global South Female Architects."
  • 2021 Canceled due to pandemic
  • 2020 Canceled due to pandemic
  • 2019, Eva Alvarez and Carlos Gomez, "Pluralism and Diversity in the Profession - Women Architects Speaking Spanish at the IAWA," and Daniela Urazán (Student Prize), "The Architecture of Care: Women Architects and Places in Need."
  • 2018, Alex Bala, "Hanna Adamczewska-Wejchert, a lead designer of the industrial city of Tychy."
  • 2017, Dr. Rixt Hoekstra, "Regarding De Stijl through a Gender Perspective: The Work and Life of Han Schröder (1918 -1992)" and Kirat Kaur Pandher (Student Prize), "Indian Architects: A Proposal for Directed Expansion."
  • 2016, Dr. Ines Moisset, "Women Architects on the Web" and Dr. Tanja Poppelreuter, "Refugee and émigré female architects before 1940."
  • 2015, Claire Bonney Brüllman, "The Work and Life of Adrienne Gorska" and Sarah Rafson, "CARY (Chicks in Architecture Refuse to Yield)." View Brüllman's updated presentation on Gorska here.
  • 2014, Meredith Sattler, "Early Technological Innovation in the Systems Approach to Environmental Design: Situating Beverly Willis and Associates’ CARLA platform [Computerized Approach to Residential Land Analysis] within the developmental trajectory of Geographic Information Systems (GIS)."
  • 2013, Robert Holton, "Natalie De Blois - The role and contribution in the design of three pivotal SOM projects completed in New York City between 1950-1960: the Lever House, the Pepsi-Cola building and the Union Carbide."
  • 2012, Andrea J. Merrett, "Feminism in American Architecture: Organizing 1972-1975."
  • 2011, Lindsay Nencheck, "Organizing Voices: Examining the 1974 Women in Architecture Symposium at Washington University in St. Louis."
  • 2010, Inge Schaefer Horton, "Early Women Architects of the San Francisco Bay Area."
  • 2009, Patrick Lee Lucas, "Sarah Hunter Kelly: Designing the House of Good Taste."
  • 2008, Martha Alonso, Sonia Bevilacqua, and Graciela Brandariz, "Odilia Suárez: The Exemplary Trajectory of an Architect and Urbanist in Latin America."
  • 2008, Despina Stratigakos, "A Woman’s Berlin."
  • 2008, Milka Bliznakov Prize, Commendation, Lori Brown, feminist practices [exhibition].
  • 2007, No prize awarded.
  • 2006, Milka Bliznakov Prize, Commendation, Eran Ben-Joseph, Holly D. Ben-Joseph and Anne C. Dodge"Against All Odds: MIT's Pioneering Women of Landscape Architecture."
  • 2005, Carmen Alonso Espegel, "Heroines of the Space."
  • 2005, Isabel Bauer, "Architekturstudentinnen der Weimarer Republik."
  • 2005, Bobbye Tigerman, "'I Am Not a Decorator' Florence Knoll, the Knoll Planning Unit, and the Making of the Modern Office."
  • 2005, Milka Bliznakov Honorarium, Joseph Chuo Wang.
  • 2004, Dorrita Hannah, "un-housing performance: The Heart of PQ."
  • 2004, Janet Stoyel, "Sonicloth."
  • 2003, Barbara Nadel,"Security Design: Achieving Transparency in Civic Architecture."
  • 2003, Ozlem Erkarslan, "Turkish Women Architects in the Late Ottoman and Early Republican Era 1908-1960."
  • 2002, Elizabeth Birmingham, "Searching for Marion Mahony: Gender, Erasure, and the Discourse of Architectural Studies."
  • 2001, Claire Bonney, "The Work and Life of Adrienne Gorska." View final report here.