AIA Chicago Foundation Announces Martin Roche Travel Scholarship Recipient

05.16.2022

Ethan O'Kane: Creative & Political Preservation Practices in Bahrain

Ethan O'Kane, a MArch student at the University of Illinois at Chicago, has been named the 2022 recipient of the AIA Chicago Foundation Martin Roche Travel Scholarship.

O'Kane's research will focus on the Pearling Path, a 3.5m pathway that winds through the old city of Muharraq, Bahrain, and has been undergoing conservation and restoration work since 2011. The work will research how protected sites are carefully renovated, how new buildings incorporate historic typologies or genres, and identify political motivations in emerging preservation practices. You can read more about the his proposal HERE.

In 2012, the site was listed as a UNESCO Heritage Site for its globally significant single-product island economy and social system, becoming the second World Heritage Site of the Kingdom of Bahrain.

Established in 1926 by architect Martin Roche, FAIA, and administered by the AIA Chicago Foundation, the Martin Roche Travel Scholarship gives a student the opportunity to independently study architecture abroad. A grant of $6000 is available to students enrolled in a NAAB accredited architecture program at the University of Illinois at Chicago, the Illinois Institute of Technology or the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Past awards have been granted to students who studied a diverse group of subjects, such as the transformation of brownfield sites in Germany; the relationship between design and crime in Medellin, Colombia; and modernist religious architecture in Italy. Read more about previous winners here.