Visa and sketchbook in hand, a 2012 University of Cincinnati architecture alumnus will go on an all-expense-paid tour of some of the world's most impressive architecture.

Oct. 5, 2012

by John Bach

Pavlo Kryvozub, DAAP '12, won this year's $50,000 fellowship from the SOM Foundation, which means the firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill will be picking up the tab for his seven-city tour.

"I was extremely happy to receive a call from the SOM office informing me of my win," says Kryvozub, who applied for the prize with drawings and writings focused around his desire to document prominent cultural centers around the world where the arts and architecture intersect. "It was unexpected, unbelievable and an extremely pleasant surprise."

Limiting his documentation methods to the traditional mediums of drawings and watercolor paintings, Kryvozub plans to embark on a mission early next spring to Paris, Rome, Venice, Barcelona, Istanbul, Moscow and Saint Petersburg to research the interdependency of architecture and art. Ultimately, he desires to restore a bond between contemporary art and architecture that he argues has been lost to a large extent with the industrialization of architecture.

"It is going to be an exploration of an old formal, symbolic language of architecture that has been branded excessive and formalistic by modernist architecture," he says. "I am hoping to make a series of drawings depicting the most influential structures of the past and some contemporary buildings that bear a trace of artistry and creativity."

Kryvozub credits UC's School of Architecture and Interior Design faculty — particularly Terry Boling, James Postell and Michael McInturf— along with his classmates "for their immense help and feedback."

He attended UC as a Fulbright Scholar from Ukraine, received second prize in the prestigious Lyceum Fellowship Competition and the distinguished building design award for his thesis project. He received his undergraduate education in Ukraine studying graphic design and later earning a bachelors from the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture in Kyiv.

Future plans for Kryvozub include joining a creative architectural practice to gain practical experience and eventually establishing his own practice where he can pursue architecture in which, “essential artistic qualities will be harmonized and synthesized with contemporary engineering and technology.”