Congratulations to the winner of this year’s Martin Eli Weil Prize, Luiza Santos! Santos is a Master of Science in Architecture candidate at Université Laval. She presented her winning paper, “La clé de voûte de Place Royale : Sous le pavé de l’histoire” (“Place Royale Keystone: Under the Pavement of History”), at a lunchtime ceremony at Théâtre Sainte-Catherine as part of the SSAC’s 2022 annual conference in Montreal. The paper will be published in a future issue of the Journal of the Society for the Study of Architecture in Canada.
Luiza Santos (second from right) with Dustin Valen, SSAC President Candace Iron, and Hilary Grant
The Martin Eli Weil Prize is awarded annually by the SSAC for a student essay on the role played by the built environment in Canadian society.
Past Winners of the Martin Eli Weil Prize
Summary of Jury Comments
This year’s MEW Prize Committee unanimously chose this paper because it demonstrates rigorous historical scholarship, drawing from material evidence and many historic professional reports. It communicates effectively by translating professional archaeological work for a wider audience. The author created a suite of images that powerfully convey the paper’s findings, with clear links between the images and the text. The essay’s clarity of thought and tight structure made it a pleasure to read, even for non-native French readers. Finally, the paper is relevant and speaks to the purpose of the prize and the mandate of the Society.
Header image: Luiza Santos presenting her MEW Prize-winning paper (photo: Magdalena Miłosz)
