The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) recently announced a broad-ranging program of new grants that totaled $31.5 million and were awarded to 226 projects across the United States.

Included in the list are a few architectural organizations and historically significant institutions that were identified by the NEH as helping to “preserve, examine, and share the country’s rich and expansive history and culture.”

One of the biggest winners was the New York-based Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation, which received a total of $100,000 outright for their exploratory podcast series titled “New Angle: Voice — Pioneering Women of American Architecture,” wherein the impact of five great women architects are explored by executive director Cynthia Phifer Kracauer in information-rich half-hour segments that garnered some 40,000 listeners by the end of the first season. The series is sponsored by Knoll and SOM and produced by award-winning director Brandi Howell. Their Media Projects Production grant will be put towards developing content for the second season of the podcast, which premiers in October with an episode focused on the life of enigmatic industrial designer Ray Eames. 

Another significant recipient is Arizona’s Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, which was awarded a $290,000 Sustaining Cultural Heritage Collections grant for implementing “sustainable improvements to the building envelope and environmental management systems” of the Collections Building at Taliesin West.

Other grantee projects include archival technology upgrades at the Nakashima Foundation for Peace in New Hope, PA, an expansion of collections storage facilities at the Henry Hobson Richardson-designed Glessner House Museum in Chicago, and a preservation and space-use assessment for the nearby Winnetka School Public School District 36 archives, which works to “document progressive education and transformational school architecture in the twentieth century.”

“[The] NEH is proud to support the many scholars, curators, storytellers, filmmakers, and teachers who are helping preserve, examine, and share the country’s rich and expansive history and culture,” NEH Chair Shelly C. Lowe said in a statement. “From books and documentaries to the preservation of cultural heritage materials, these 226 exceptional projects will foster the exchange of ideas and increase access to humanities knowledge, resources, and experiences.”