Princeton University has announced a $1.96 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to lead an interdisciplinary project on urbanism in the Americas.

The grant will support the university's Princeton-Mellon Architecture, Urbanism and Humanities Initiative, a collaborative effort of the university's undergraduate and graduate urban studies programs, its School of Architecture and Program in Latin American Studies, and its Program in American Studies to study the architectures, policies, and cultures of cities and urban centers across the Americas. Beginning in the fall of 2014, a central feature of the program will be a six-semester research forum for faculty and students designed to promote discussion and support new work, with new leaders and themes each semester.

Through the program, one senior and two junior fellows a year will join the initiative to teach and work on projects outside their traditional fields. The program will be led by Stan Allen, the George Dutton '27 Professor of Architecture, and Alison Isenberg, a professor of history and co-director of the Program in Urban Studies.

"[The initiative] represents a major step forward in engaging the university community, and in particular Princeton's resources, in the humanities," said Allen, who is also director of the Center for Architecture, Urbanism, and Infrastructure and a former dean of the architecture school. "When we first started looking at the potential faculty resources in urbanism, it was remarkable to find such a diverse group of faculty from so many different fields — from English to history, to engineering, sociology, American studies or Latin American studies — who had an interest in cities. We are never going to solve the technical, design, or policy issues facing cities today if we don’t have a larger understanding of the city as a cultural object: cities are, in a way, mankind's largest collective works of art."