Çelik Wins Prestigious Tamayouz Award for Middle East Research

Zeynep Çelik, a distinguished professor in the NJIT Hillier College of Architecture and Design, won this year's Tamayouz Women in Architecture and Construction award for her research and writing about the Middle East and North Africa.

The award series, named for the Arabic word meaning excellence, began in 2012. Çelik picked up the Woman of Outstanding Achievement prize.

"I am honored to receive this award, which acknowledges the contribution my scholarship made to the architectural and urban history of the Middle East and North Africa. I am particularly pleased that the Tamayouz Award is issued from the region in question. Furthermore, the award is significant as it puts in the forefront women's accomplishments," Çelik said.

"It is intriguing that the jury gave the award to a scholar rather than a practicing architect. This is an unusual acknowledgement that values writing on architecture as important as designing buildings," she added.

Çelik said she's currently keeping busy with three projects. She's collaborating on an exhibition titled Eyes on Palestine to open in spring 2020 at the Ramallah-based Qattan Foundation; she is writing a book tentatively titled Middle Eastern Cities between Ottoman Modernity and the British and French Mandates; and she is editing an anthology of Ottoman critiques of European Orientalismto be published in Turkish in 2020 with an English version also planned.

The award is Çelik's second this year. She won the UCLA Giorgio Levi Della Vida Award in Islamic Studies earlier this year. Her paper for the related symposium will be published in a book soon.

Tamayouz organizers also presented the Rising Star award to architect Dana AlAmri of Watad Studio in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, along with a Woman of Outstanding Achievement commendation to independent architect Shahira Fahmy based in Cairo.