MIT Architecture alumnus Dr. Samuel Dubois, who earned his PhD through the History, Theory and Criticism group in 2026, was awarded the 2025 Martin Eli Weil Prize from the Society for the Study of Architecture in Canada, recognizing the best student essay in Canadian architectural history. Presented at the Society’s annual conference in Ottawa during June 2025, the prize honors outstanding scholarship by emerging researchers in the field of architectural history.
Dubois received the award for his essay, titled “‘How to Build an Igloo’: Deconstructing Architectural Myths in Canadian Visual Culture,” which examines how the iglu has become an ubiquitous yet often misunderstood symbol in Canadian visual culture. Drawing on architectural history, film studies, and Indigenous theories, the multidisciplinary essay explores the ways Inuit architecture has been represented, appropriated, and reimagined by non-Inuit audiences and designers. The jury praised the work for its rigorous research and its contribution to a more nuanced understanding of Indigenous architecture in Canada.
The essay is adapted from a section of Dubois’s doctoral dissertation, “Arctic Modernities: Architecture and Transcultural Heritage in Inuit Nunangat (Arctic Canada), ca. 1851–1960,” which he successfully defended in April 2025.
The full essay is available in open access through the Érudit platform: https://www.erudit.org/en/journals/jssac/2025-v50-n1-2-jssac010827/1125452ar/
