Peter Reyner Banham

The Banham Fellowship in the Department of Architecture is intended to support design work that situates architecture within the general field of socio-cultural and material critique.

Peter Reyner Banham taught at UB from 1976-1980 and left an important legacy in experimental architectural criticism.

The fellowship honors the legacy of Peter Reyner Banham, who taught at UB from 1976-80 and produced a foundational body of scholarship on material/visual culture as a reflection of contemporary social life. Banham spent his time in Buffalo engaged in a scholarly project on the imaginary of American industrial architecture at work in early modernism that took the form of historical research, hands-on engagement and seminar instruction, resulting in his landmark work, A Concrete Atlantis.

In celebration of Banham's legacy of experimental criticism, this fellowship supports the research and creative activity of emerging practitioners. Over the course of a year, fellows teach, deliver a public lecture and prepare an exhibition culminating from their research and creative work at the school.

Peter Reyner Banham Fellowship: 20 years, 21 Banham Fellows (2000-2021)
2/17/21
In celebrating Reyner Banham's 99th birthday and the 20th year anniversary of Banham Fellowship at the University at Buffalo, “20 Years, 21 Banham Fellows” is a symposium organized around themes explored in Banham’s experimental criticism.

2024-25 Banham Fellow: Tiffany Xu

Tiffany Xu, a designer at David Jaehning Architect in San Francisco, carries forward Banham's legacy through research focused on modernity and housing. A graduate from UC Berkeley and Rice Architecture, where she was co-editor of PLAT Journal and received the William D. Darden Thesis Award, her recent work explores modes of depiction in film and architecture.

Tiffany has an enthusiasm for writing, saying "I can make space for inquiry and expression that push the discipline to be more welcoming for bodies that may not have historically occupied it." Learn more about her pursuit to change the narrative in architecture and her sources of inspiration from primaverarch.

A licensed architect in California, Tiffany has been a regular contributor to the New York Review of Architecture since 2021, and taught at Northeastern University at Mills College, CA in 2022. Her focus this year will be centered on exploring construction systems in terms of material and contemporary fiction.

Fun fact: Tiffany drove 8 days across the country, from San Francsico, CA to Buffalo.

Previous Fellows

Introducing Roy Taylor: 2023-24 Banham Fellow – Acclaimed Architectural Designer, Educator, and Community Leader from Toronto, ON
9/20/23
The School of Architecture and Planning is pleased to welcome Kearon Roy Taylor, an architectural designer, educator and organizer from Toronto, ON, as the 2023-24 Peter Reyner Banham Fellow.
Architectural designer and activist Maya Porath announced as 2022-23 Banham Fellow
11/15/22
The School of Architecture and Planning is pleased to welcome Maya Porath, an architectural designer, educator and organizer, as the 2022-23 Peter Reyner Banham Fellow.
2021-22 Banham Fellow Young-Tack Oh to explore the hidden and often-overlooked forces of Buffalo's urban fabric
9/8/21
We're pleased to welcome architectural designer and researcher Young-Tack Oh as our 2021-22 Peter Reyner Banham Fellow. A founding member of the creative collective Archipleasure, he pursues speculative research on the marginal and overlooked occurrences in contemporary urbanism.
Banham Fellow in architecture explores air quality crisis through design
8/24/20
UB's Department of Architecture is pleased to announce designer and researcher Zherui Wang as the 2020-21 Peter Reyner Banham Fellow.
Emily Kutil, designer and activist with We the People Detroit, to serve as 2019-20 Banham Felllow
8/22/19
As this year's Reyner Banham Fellow, Emily Kutil will bring her interdisciplinary approach to an exploration of the history and future of water, land, power, and life in the Great Lakes Watershed.
2018-19 Banham Fellow sets out to design new worlds and challenge old boundaries
10/19/18
Architect, artist and educator Mustafa Faruki is the latest in a line of Peter Reyner Banham Fellows at UB’s School of Architecture and Planning. He is the founding principal of the Lab-lab, a design practice dedicated to exploring unconventional provocations and outputs available to architectural drawing and design.
Banham Fellow wins LafargeHolcim Award
11/1/17
Sarah Gunawan's "Synanthropic Suburbia" proposes a residential design with novel, symbiotic relationships between human resident and animal neighbors. Gunawan is the school's 2017-18 Peter Reyner Banham Fellow.
Ang Li Announced as 2015-16 Banham Fellow
9/11/15
This year's Banham Fellow, architect and writer Ang Li, will lead a yearlong seminar and site-specific installations that explore the role of the industrial monument as a trope in architectural history and practice.