For AAR Fellows, a Series of Fall Walks and a Collaborative Reading

Tuesday 21 December: dott. Andrea Cappa greets AAR Fellows at Rome’s Biblioteca Casanatense

The American Academy’s fall 2010 series of walks and site visits for Fellows concluded on Tuesday 21 December, with a behind-the-scenes look at Rome’s most elegant public library, the Biblioteca Casanatense on Via S. Ignazio. The Dominicans of the monastery of Santa Maria sopra Minerva founded the Biblioteca in 1701, actualizing an endowment of Cardinal Girolamo Casanata (1620-1700). Since its inception, the Library has been open to the general public; the Ministry of Culture presently supervises its operations. Sabina Fiorenzi hosted the AAR group, and Andrea Cappa led the tour of the Biblioteca.

This fall AAR Fellows, Residents and visitors have had the opportunity to join almost a dozen such programmed walks in Rome and environs; even more will follow in the spring. This past series, organized by AAR Mellon Professor Corey Brennan FAAR’88, benefited significantly from presentations by current Fellows, as well as from the help of many expert outside collaborators.

AAR President Adele Chatfield-Taylor FAAR’84 Receives 12th Vincent Scully Prize

In Washington DC, AAR President Adele Chatfield-Taylor FAAR’84 accepts the 2010 Vincent Scully Prize

The National Building Museum (Washington DC) has selected Adele Chatfield-Taylor FAAR’84, President of the American Academy in Rome, to receive its 2010 Vincent Scully Prize, one of the most significant distinctions in the architecture and design fields. The Prize was awarded “for her notable work encouraging excellence in the design world while ensuring that planning, architecture, and preservation remain relevant and connected to the public”.

In announcing Chatfield-Taylor’s selection for the 12th Vincent Scully Prize, members of the jury—chair David Schwarz, Deborah Berke, Ned Cramer, and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk RAAR’88—noted that through a variety of positions in her career, “Ms. Chatfield-Taylor has consistently promoted excellence in the design world, while ensuring that the planning, architecture, and historic preservation disciplines remain connected to the public”.

Thanks to the Joseph Brodsky Affiliated Fellowship, Visual Artists Ivan Govorkov and Elena Gubanova at the AAR

AAR Joseph Brodsky Affiliated Fellows Elena Gubanova and Ivan Govorkov

Russian visual artists Ivan Govorkov and Elena Gubanova, husband and wife based in St. Petersburg, have been working and exhibiting together since 1990. From 13 September through 11 December of this year they animated the American Academy with their artwork, as holders of the AAR’s Joseph Brodsky Affiliated Fellowship, now in its tenth year.

Govorkov and Gubanova staged two installations—bordering on live performances—in Academy spaces, in the Bass Garden and Cortile of the McKim Mead & White building on Saturday 2 October (“Roman Graffiti”), and in its Cryptoporticus on Thursday 2 December (“Arachne”). They combined the latter event with an open studio, where the media extended to video.