June 9, 2017 Architecture Student Researching Around the World

Dillon Dunn, a fifth-year Architecture student, was recently awarded a prestigious scholarship that will fund a summer-long journey to study architecture in four countries across Europe and Asia.

Dunn earned the 2017 Aydelott Travel Award for a study proposal titled “Architecture and Pilgrimage: Movement Through Time.”

Now in its second year, the Aydelott Travel Award was established by the late Alfred Lewis Aydelott, FAIA, and his wife, Hope Galloway Aydelott, to enable students of architecture to engage in firsthand observation and research of any four architecturally significant structures across the world.

Dunn’s winning proposal outlines plans to analyze four religious structures in as many countries, including the Padre Pio Pilgrimage Church in San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy; the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, Israel; Loro Jonggrang and Prambanan Temple Compound in Central Java, Indonesia; and the Itsukushima Shrine in Hiroshima, Japan.

“Religious architecture is one of the greatest indicators of culture, and studying it would facilitate my understanding of the specific structures within their distinct cultural contexts while abroad,” Dunn said.

Specifically, Dunn hopes his travels will allow him to better understand how architecture embodies movement.

“From a pedestrian traversing the block to an aircraft on an international voyage, I am interested in architecture’s intervention across multiple scales of travel. For these reasons, I have elected to study religious architecture through the theme of pilgrimage,” Dunn said.

Aydelott and his wife hoped the endowment would encourage students of architecture in the Southeast to hone their architectural analysis skills while also expanding their worldviews.

Each year, the endowment provides over $100,000 to four students currently enrolled in professional architecture degree programs at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville; Auburn University; Mississippi State University; and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

Dunn’s travels will begin in June in Israel and end in Japan in August.  In 2016, Catherine Dozier was selected as UT’s inaugural Aydelott Award recipient.

For more information about the UT School of Architecture, visit archdesign.utk.edu/architecture.