1989 Master of Architecture
Annie Chu

Impact of the Award

June 20, 1996

For the record, I believe that the research trip sponsored by the SOM Foundation played a pivotal role in my own development as an architect. The brilliant use of materials in the Inca and Mayan works, the internal relationship between buildings and landscape, as well as the morphology and sculptural language of the Inca artifacts confirmed my own inclination prior to applying for the SOM Traveling Fellowship in 1989.

The work in which I have participated in Los Angeles [in the office of Frank Israel] since the trip became an outgrowth of this confirmation. In all my public lectures, I have always attributed the development of work from 1990 on to my observations from the SOM Foundation trip. The most notable project bearing witness to this is the schematic design for the Fine Arts Building in UC Riverside in 1994. It is evident that the works studied on the SOM Foundation trip are now in my blood.