UNM SA+P Professor Lauren McQuistion and Colleagues 2026 Receive Graham Foundation Grant
August 3, 2026
University of New Mexico Assistant Professor of Architecture Lauren McQuistion and two colleagues have been awarded a funding grant from the highly competitive Graham Foundation Grants to Individuals to support the research project, “Skyline: Rereading an Architectural Tabloid.”
McQuistion is collaborating with Alex Maymind at the University of Minnesota and David Turturo at Texas Tech University to revisit Skyline, an influential but understudied architectural newspaper published in the late 1970s and early 1980s by the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies. Through archival research, oral histories, and analysis of the publication’s editorial strategies, visual culture, and production methods, the team is examining how architectural ideas circulated through emerging forms of media during a period of significant disciplinary and cultural transformation.
McQuistion described the project as asking how architecture becomes public. “We’re interested in the publications, conversations, and media that shape how architectural ideas circulate. Skyline is especially interesting because it created a space where criticism, debate, professional culture, and public engagement all overlapped. Looking at a publication like this helps us understand architecture not just as something that gets built, but as something that gets negotiated and made visible through media.”
“Lauren and her colleagues receiving a Graham Grant is exciting recognition for a project that explores a topic somewhat outside more conventional architectural histories,” said Robert A. Gonzalez, dean of the UNM School of Architecture + Planning. “Their focus is underscoring the broader aspects of architecture research.”
Graham Foundation Grants to Individuals is a nationally recognized initiative that advances innovative research and projects in architecture and the built environment. McQuistion’s project is one of 54 projects funded during the 2026 cycle, the award acknowledges work that expands public and disciplinary conversations about architecture through research, publications, exhibitions, and other forms of cultural production.
“It feels validating to see research built around collaboration, archives, and media gain this kind of support,” McQuistion said. “The award gives us the opportunity to deepen our research and create space for a project that brings architectural history into conversation with questions of publishing, public discourse, and cultural production.”
The grant funds the team’s next phase of work on archival research and oral histories. They are spending time in New York this summer to work through collections related to the publication and meet with people connected to Skyline to better understand how it was edited, produced, and circulated. Bringing together archival material with firsthand accounts will help them reconstruct the publication as well as the broader networks and conversations that surrounded it.
Through this project, McQuistion and her colleagues hope to show that researching these topics in the architecture field brings understanding of not just what gets built, but how ideas gain influence and how architecture shapes everyday life.
“Some of the most important architectural questions happen far beyond the walls of a building,” she said.
