The National Endowment for the Arts awarded grants to several design-related organizations for 2004. The NEA funds projects that have national, regional, or field-wise significance; that tour in several states; or that provide an unusual or especially valuable contribution because of geographic location. This includes local projects that can have significant effects within communities or that are likely to serve as models for a field. The size or type of applicant organization is not a determining factor.

This year, the organization awarded grants in 15 different categories, including design, folk and traditional arts, local arts agencies, multidisciplinary, museums, and visual arts. Architecture-related awards include:

• Artists Space, Inc., New York City, to support the Architecture and Design Project Series. The exhibitions provide a venue for emerging and recognized architects and will introduce current architectural debates to a design, visual-arts, and general audience.
• Los Angeles Forum for Architecture, Los Angeles, to support a traveling exhibition and catalogue on community and civic design projects by area architecture schools. The more than 50 design-build projects include day-care facilities, educational training centers, battered-women shelters, community centers, and urban gardens.
• Museum of Modern Art, New York City, to support the design and production of a site-specific architectural installation at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center. The project will create a public venue and provide critical exposure to emerging architects/designers.
• Nashville Cultural Arts Project, Nashville, to support a lecture series. Nationally recognized designers will make public presentations on cross-disciplinary projects in the arts, architecture, and urban development.
• National Building Museum, Washington, D.C., to support an architectural exhibit, symposium, and lectures on a collection of architectural drawings. Envisioning Architecture: Drawings From the Museum of Modern Art has toured in Europe and will appear in no other U.S. venue.
• Ohio State University Research Foundation, Columbus, to support a symposium and workshop on the use of contemporary digital technologies by women architects and artists. The architects will present their work to a professional and general audience with special outreach to local high school students.
• openhousenewyork inc., New York City, to support a site map, interpretive handouts, and Web site guide for a New York architecture tour. The weekend event tours all five boroughs and provides access to buildings and facilities not typically open to the public.
• Philadelphia Art Alliance, Philadelphia, to support an exhibition and catalogue on the Olin Partnership. The exhibition will be the first retrospective of the landscape architecture firm whose work includes the Cactus Garden Promontory at the J. Paul Getty Center and restoration of New York City’s Bryant Park.
• Praxis Inc., Cambridge, Mass., to support Praxis, an architectural journal. Thematic volumes will be produced to inform the architectural writer, builder, academic, and professional by exploring the balance between theory and practice.
• Williams College, Williamstown, Mass., to support the traveling exhibition Screening Architecture, with accompanying educational programming and catalogue. The exhibition will focus on recent work by international artists exploring architectural issues in video and digital animation

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