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Nina Tiêu’s (MLA 2027) essay on the radical counter-pedagogy of the École Thăng Long in colonial Vietnam wins second-place Avery Review prize | Columbia GSAPP

Aug 11, 2026

“A vision for society will be implemented in Phúc Xá and the League of Light shall realize it everywhere.” A perspective drawing of the Phúc Xá settlement designed by Hội Ánh Sáng / Ligue pour l'Habitation salubre. Published in the newsprint Ngày Nay, no. 109 (1938). — “A vision for society will be implemented in Phúc Xá and the League of Light shall realize it everywhere.” A perspective drawing of the Phúc Xá settlement designed by Hội Ánh Sáng / Ligue pour l’Habitation salubre. Published in the newsprint Ngày Nay, no. 109 (1938).

Nina Tiêu’s (MLA 2027) essay “Lessons from a Liberated Colony: How Architects Armed the Decolonization of Vietnam” wins second-place Avery Review Essay Prize from Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation. They write, “The intertwined relationship between architecture and political decolonization in a former colony like Vietnam reveals the necessity for architectural designers to establish practices and associations grounded in values beyond mere resource extraction and profit accumulation. As demonstrated by the aforementioned Vietnamese architects of the twentieth century, there are many ways to fight: as an intermediary, a designer, an academic, a political organizer, a student, an educator, a dissident, and beyond. Architecture as resistance is neither fantastical nor obsolete. École Thăng Long became nationalized in 1954 and continues to operate today as an elementary school. The building continues as my own living ancestor.”