With her 2018 book “Eugenics in the Garden: Transatlantic Architecture and the Crafting of Modernity,” Fabiola López-Durán was the first scholar to link eugenics — the movement that sought the improvement or “whitening” of the human race — with architecture.
This month, the Rice associate professor of art history’s book won the 2019 Robert Motherwell Book Award. This annual prize from the Dedalus Foundation, along with a check for $10,000, is awarded to the author of an outstanding publication on the history and criticism of modernism in the arts. López-Durán shared this honor with Carol Armstrong, professor of art history at Yale University, who was recognized for her book “Cezanne’s Gravity.”