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02/11/04
A USC lecturer wins the Gabriel Prize, which funds a three-month study of architecture and landscape in France.
USC School of Architecture lecturer Victor Agran is the recipient of the 15th annual Gabriel Prize awarded by the Western European Architecture Foundation.

Agran will receive a $15,000 grant for a three-month study of classical architecture and landscape in France beginning May 1.

His intended area of study is the Paris Musée National and the Jardin des Plantes, founded in 1630, which he finds “richly atmospheric” and ignored by all but historians.

During his stay in France, Agran must keep a traveling sketchbook and prepare three large colored drawings under the supervision of the European representative.

The Gabriel Prize was named in honor of Ange-Jacques Gabriel, one of France’s most famous architects. Gabriel was responsible for such Gallic locales as Place de la Concorde, the Petit Trianon, L’Ecole Militaire and Le Chateau de Compiegne.

The late Francophile George Parker Jr. established the Western European Architecture Foundation in 1989. Its primary project is the Gabriel Prize competition, which Parker established due to a concern for students’ lack of knowledge of historic precedents and the erosion of their ability to draw by hand.

The foundation also is concerned with the preservation and restoration of French classical architecture.

Agran joined the USC School of Architecture in 2002. He earned a bachelor’s degree in architecture at UC Berkeley and a master’s degree at Yale.