The Rotch Travelling Scholarship provides one emerging professional with $25,000 to travel the world for a minimum of three months to study architecture.
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Founded in 1883, the Rotch Travelling Scholarship—the oldest of its kind in the United States—has been awarded to many of the country’s most distinguished architects: Henry Bacon, Ralph Walker, Wallace Harrison, Louis Skidmore, Edward D. Stone, Gordon Bunshaft, Victor Lundy and many others.
Image courtesy Lindsey Krug, 2024 Rotch Scholarship Winner
2026 Theme: "Layering"
Historic cities reveal the continuous interplay of technology, economy, and culture through their layered fabric—each era leaving traces of evolving materials, standards, and social frameworks. Within this context, innovation in architecture is not a rupture but a negotiation: bridging new ecological imperatives with established traditions.
The 2026 Rotch Traveling Scholarship challenges participants to confront the urgent question of circularity in construction and its architectural implications. The theme, Layering, calls for design proposals that advance decarbonization strategies while remaining attentive to existing conditions, changing uses, and cultural expression.
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2026 Theme: "Layering"Historic cities reveal the continuous interplay of technology, economy, and culture through their layered fabric—each era leaving traces of evolving materials, standards, and social frameworks. Within this context, innovation in architecture is not a rupture but a negotiation: bridging new ecological imperatives with established traditions.The 2026 Rotch Traveling Scholarship challenges participants to confront the urgent question of circularity in construction and its architectural implications. The theme, Layering, calls for design proposals that advance decarbonization strategies while remaining attentive to existing conditions, changing uses, and cultural expression.
Key Dates:
Benjamin Smith Rotch of Milton, Massachusetts studied painting in Paris in 1847 and cultivated an early appreciation for the value of foreign travel in stimulating young architects’ imagination through contact with great buildings of the past. One of his sons, Arthur Rotch, studied architecture at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris from 1874 to 1879 and further cemented this belief, as well as the Rotchs’ active patronage to fellow artists.
Upon the senior Rotch’s death in 1882, Arthur and his siblings—Abbot Lawrence, Edith, Aimee (Mrs. Winthrop Sargent) and Annie Lawrence (Mrs. Horatio Appleton Lamb)—established the Rotch Travelling Scholarship on October 1, 1883.
Today, the Rotch Travelling Scholarship provides one emerging professional—an architecture graduate of the past 10 years, with one year of experience in a Massachusetts firm or a degree from a Massachusetts institution—with a stiped to cover a minimum of six months of travel and architecture study abroad.
In 2002, the Rotch Trustees expanded upon the mission of architectural education through foreign travel with the establishment of the Rotch Travelling Studio grant.
2024—Rotch Scholar: Lindsey Krug
2023—Rotch Scholar: Stephanie Lloyd
2022—Rotch Scholar: William Smith
2021—Rotch Scholar: Kyle Barker
2020—Rotch Scholar: David Costanza
2018—Rotch Scholar: Elle Gerdeman
Session hosted June 15, 2021
When the Rotch family executed an indenture of trust on December 29, 1883 for “the advancement of education in architecture,” the stipend was set at $1,000 per year for two years of travel abroad. In 1912, the stipend amount began to increase gradually until 1936, when the Rotch Trustees and Scholarship Committee substantially increased the sum and reduced the required travel time. Today, the Rotch Scholar receives $40,000 or more for at least six months of travel.
In 1980, the Rotch Trustees requested that the Boston Society of Architects appoint a Rotch Scholarship Committee to advise and “develop a scheme of examinations.”
From the start, applicants were expected to be proficient in a variety of topics, including knowledge of architectural history, construction, French and drawings from the cast. In 1892, a two-stage system of design examinations was established. The preliminary jury would select several drawings that displayed evidence of “architectural potential” from which the final jury would select the Rotch Scholar. In 1959, the Rotch Scholarship Committee moved from this type of preliminary competition toward a “search for imaginative capacity” in future Rotch Scholars. Today, that search is conducted through a two-stage design competition.
If you have any questions about the competition, please contact us at [email protected].
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