How Sweet It Is: A Gingerbread McKim, Mead & White AAR Building is Constructed in Rome

The American Academy in Rome building on the Gianicolo hill (1912-1914) is one of just a handful of  structures outside of the United States designed by the architectural firm of McKim, Mead & White—by any reckoning the most prominent designers of the Gilded Age. As it happens, firm partner Charles Follen McKim (1847-1909) was among the founders of the Academy and President of the AAR when the building was first conceived. The building has a clear Renaissance inspiration (which it shares with the MM&W north and south wings of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC), with a five-bay facade, a ‘piano nobile’, and an interior courtyard with a Paul Manship (FAAR’12) fountain in its center. It also contains most of the living and working quarters for the Rome Prize Fellows, the Library, a gallery and administrative offices, plus public rooms for many of the Academy’s events.

And now, thanks to the efforts of current Fellows Kiel Moe, Jon Calame, and a host of helping hands, the Academy’s MM&W building has been realized for the 2009 holiday season in gingerbread and gumdrops. It’s something approaching 1:100 scale, carefully constructed from the original plans. The universal reaction so far from Academy alums and friends: “Don’t eat it!”. Here’s a photo essay on how this sugary architectural wonder—all dedicated to the Academy’s Kitchen staff—came to be. Photo thanks throughout: Jon Calame and Pamela Keech (FAAR’82).

At the Academy in Rome, Opening Up Off-Limits Italy

AAR Fellow Matthew Bronski investigates burial niches (columbaria) underground in Rome’s Doria Pamphili park. Photo: Diana Mellon

AAR Arts and Humanities Intern Diana Mellon writes:

In his first few months at the Academy, current Fellow Matthew Bronski has already gained access to scaffolding on the colonnade of St. Peter’s, consolidation works on the Palazzo Braschi, and restricted areas in Herculaneum. “If one is to do this type of work, binoculars just don’t suffice,” he says. “You really have to be hands-on. You have to be right there, have your face in the materials and be able to even poke and prod a little bit and see what’s happening.” Matthew’s historic preservation project aims to understand the physical strengths and weaknesses of ageing buildings of all time periods through up-close observation. “That’s really one of the most essential parts of my project. It’s really, in my case, the primary research,” he says.

In Rome, ‘Performing Voices’ and the Week that Followed

At the Academy’s Villa Aurelia, soprano Anna Caterina Antonacci and pianist Donald Sulzen receive a standing ovation from “Performing Voices” participants

It’s been quite a month at the American Academy in Rome—and it’s not much more than half over. Following hard on the heels of the Academy’s much-praised 2 December Cabaret in NYC, came a blockbuster conference in Rome, co-sponsored by the AAR and the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin. Entitled “Performing Voices: Between Embodiment and Mediation”, this ambitious conference ran for three days (Friday 4 December-Sunday 6 December) at the Academy’s Villa Aurelia. Co-facilitating were Martin Brody (RAAR’02), Heiskell Arts Director at the AAR, and Julia Kursell and Andreas Mayer, Research Scholars at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science.

The aim of the conference was to foster a new understanding of the paradox of the singing voice, by bringing together singers, scientists, historians, philosophers, and musicologists. Carmela Vircillo Franklin (FAAR’85, RAAR’02), AAR Director, and Hans-Jörg Rheinberger, Director of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, jointly introduced the proceedings. A thrilling centerpiece of the conference was a recital at the Villa Aurelia, Echi della Belle Époque, by soprano Anna Caterina Antonacci and pianist Donald Sulzen.

In Rome, ‘Flying Soles’ Showcases the Work of NY Designer Lincoln Brown

In Rome, the American Academy unveils this week a long-anticipated  exhibition of the work of fashion designer Lincoln Brown, curated by Ester Coen and Lexi Eberspacher.

 The show opens Thursday 10 December from 18.00 to 21.00, and remains on view by appointment through 14 January 2010. Founder of Lincoln’s NY, Lincoln Brown is a noted designer of shoes and accessories. His work has won over style-conscious celebrities such as the artist Enzo Cucchi, the designer Anna Sui, the actress Halle Berry, and the musician Mary J. Blige—to name just a few.

The exhibition “Flying Soles” features Lincoln’s NY’s one-of-a-kind, dazzling and hand-made shoes.  

Plus the event aims to cross over the threshold of the American Academy, and reach into the center of Rome.

Looking back, a week of November events at the American Academy in Rome

As the American Academy prepares for its Giorno del Ringraziamento (=Thanksgiving) festivities, there’s something to be said for taking stock—if only of events of the days leading up to the holiday.

Those events included two shop talks by current Fellows (filmmaker Abigail Child, typographer Russell Maret), a commemoration of the life of Roman historian Lily Ross Taylor (FAAR’18) by Mellon Professor Corey Brennan, a moonlit “walk and talk” for members of the Academy community along the Tiber (with contributions by Fellows Robert Hammond and Kiel Moe), a fireside chat by Rachel Donadio (Rome Bureau Chief for The New York Times),  a marathon of contemporary music at the Villa Aurelia under the auspices of the Nuova Consonanza artistic circle (with performances by Fellows Lisa Bielawa and Don Byron), and a visit by the newly appointed US Ambassador to the Italian Republic and San Marino, David H. Thorne. All that was over eight—not atypical—days in all. A few glimpses of that week can be found below…

A happy 90th birthday to architectural historian and AAR Trustee Emeritus James S. Ackerman (FAAR’52, RAAR’65, ‘70, ‘75, ‘80)

James Ackerman at the Villa Lante (Rome), October 2009

It can be confidently stated that the leading historian of Renaissance architecture and Italian Renaissance architectural theory is James Sloss Ackerman (FAAR’52, RAAR’65, ‘70, ‘75, ‘80), Trustee of the American Academy in Rome 1967-1984, and now Trustee Emeritus. As it happens, James Ackerman and his wife, artist and professor Jill Slosburg-Ackerman, are spending five weeks at the AAR this fall. During that time, he has delivered a lecture on “Michelangelo, Palladio and Public Magnificence” to a capacity audience in the Academy lecture room, and has participated in a wide range of less formal walks and talks in Rome. Plus, on 8 November, he celebrated his 90th birthday at the Academy.

James Ackerman was educated at Yale; his graduate work was at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, completing his degrees (MA 1947, PhD 1952) following World War II service in the US Army in Italy. From 1949 through 1952, he was a Fellow at the American Academy in Rome. Ackerman taught at Berkeley and from 1960 at Harvard as Arthur Kingsley Porter Professor of Fine Arts until his retirement in 1990. In an in-depth interview, AAR Arts and Humanities Intern Diana Mellon asks James Ackerman about his formative experiences in Italy, his fellowship years at the AAR, his perceptions of changes at the American Academy over the decades, and of larger developments in the field of architectural history. And following the interview is appended Ackerman’s own current “must see” list for Rome and Venice.

Three Exhibitions and a Monograph for Richard Barnes FAAR’06

From the cover of Richard Barnes’ new book (Princeton Architectural Press, 2009)

The work of New York-based photographer Richard Barnes, FAAR’06, is the subject of three exhibitions and a new monograph.

The University of Michigan Art Museum in Ann Arbor has just opened a Barnes solo show titled (Un)natural History: The Museum Unveiled. And an exhibition titled Past Perfect/Future Tense features all new work and is located at the Institute for the Humanities at the University of Michigan where Richard Barnes is the 2009 Sidman Fellow for the Arts. Included in this show is a full scale cast of a primitive whale species hung from the ceiling of the gallery.

At the AAR: Celebrating Nancy A. Winter, Honoring Antonio Martina

On Tuesday 20 October 2009 the American Academy in Rome celebrated the publication of Symbols of Wealth and Power: Architectural Terracotta Decoration in Etruria and Central Italy, 640-510 B.C. by Nancy A. Winter. It is the latest installment, the 9th, in the Supplements to the Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome, published by the University of Michigan Press, and the most significant contribution to Etruscan architectural history in the last 70 years.

Nancy Winter presented on her new monumental book—some 728 pages—with Ingrid E.M. Edlund-Berry (FAAR’84) of the University of Texas at Austin as commentator. The audience included many of the leading ancient terracotta experts in the world, gathered in Rome for the conference Deliciae Fictiles IV at the Dutch Academy, as well as members of the AAR community. 

At the AAR Gallery, Meteor Stream: Recital in Four Dominions, by Terry Adkins After John Brown

Terry Adkins, Professor of Fine Arts at the University of Pennsylvania, is the current Jesse Howard, Jr./Jacob H. Lazarus-Metropolitan Museum of Art Rome Prize Fellow in Visual Arts at the American Academy in Rome. On Friday 16 October 2009 his show Meteor Stream: Recital in Four Dominions opened in the Gallery of the American Academy, to a large and responsive audience from the AAR and the Roman public. Read a synopsis and interview with Adkins (in Italian, by Giovanna Sarno) here.

Meteor Stream is the latest incarnation of Terry Adkins’ ongoing cycle of site-inspired recitals on the abolitionist John Brown that began in 1999 at the John Brown House and sheep farm in Akron, Ohio. Commemorating the 150th anniversary of his Harper’s Ferry, Virginia campaign, the opening of Meteor Stream coincided with the inception of Brown’s 16 October 1859 raid on a U.S. armory to his execution by hanging on that December 2nd at Charlestown.

Book launch at the AAR: Oretta Zanini De Vita’s Encyclopedia of Pasta

Credit: Annie Schlechter

An audience of more than one hundred packed the American Academy in Rome on Saturday morning 10 October 2009 for the launch of the English translation of Oretta Zanini De Vita’s Encyclopedia of Pasta (2009). The book is a carefully researched compendium of historical and geographical information on this staple of the Italian diet, and is the latest installment in the California Studies in Food and Culture series of the University of California Press.

Rachel Donadio in the 14 October 2009 New York Times profiled Zanini De Vita’s Encyclopedia, terming it “a social history disguised as a food book”.  The New York Times article also highlighted the warm reception Oretta Zanini De Vita has received at the Academy. “’I think of her as a kind of Julia Child,’ said Mona Talbott, the executive chef at the American Academy in Rome and coordinator of its Rome Sustainable Food Project, founded by Alice Waters. ‘Julia Child demystified French food. Oretta demystifies pasta.’” You can read eyewitness accounts of the 10 October AAR event by current Fellow Matthew Bronski here (“Week Five”) and by Fellow Traveler (and food expert) Amy Campion here.