Ongoing

The December 2011 conference entitled "Paradigm and Progeny: Roman Imperial Architecture and its Legacy" concluded with an installment of the Academy series Conversations That Matter, moderated by American Academy in Rome Director Christopher S. Celenza, FAAR’94, and John Pinto. Participants included Laurie Olin, FAAR'74, RAAR'90,'08, landscape architect and partner at OLIN in Philadelphia; Frederick Fisher, FAAR'08, architect and partner at Frederick Fisher and Partners in Los Angeles; and Stephen Kieran, FAAR'81, architect and partner at KieranTimberlake in Philadelphia. The Conversation focused on how contemporary architects and designers have been inspired by the classical past and how that inspiration is reflected in their work.

You can view the full Conversation below:

On April 28 and 29, 2011, a public of over 100 saw the cortile of the McKim, Mead and White Building at the American Academy in Rome transformed by a collaborative installation entitled X LOCUS.

X LOCUS featured environmental media by Founders Rome Prize Fellows in Architecture Ersela Kripa and Stephen Mueller, sound by Elliott Carter Rome Prize Fellow in Musical Composition Paul Rudy, and lyrics by Andrew W. Mellon Post-Doctoral Rome Prize Fellow in Modern Italian Studies Jennifer Scappettone. The installation, a creation of four 2010-2011 AAR Fellows, was on display in the cortile of the McKim, Mead & White building over the course of two evenings, April 28-29, 2011.

A conversation-poem on national, cultural, linguistic and psychological dislocation created by Jennifer Scappettone—installed in the gravelly space inside a moat of liquid loggia projections and sculpted ambient fountain/fowl for X Locus, a collaboration between Scappettone, Paul Rudy, and Stephen Mueller and Ersela Kripa (AGENCY Architecture), held at the courtyard of the American Academy in Rome on April 27-28, 2011.

The sound poem is constructed of interweaving movements approaching the history and actuality of this courtyard, shaped by Columbian Exposition architects McKim, Mead, & White in 1913, lined with playfully pastiched funerary inscriptions within an Academy of national designation on the Janiculum Hill, just inside the Aurelian Walls of historical Rome, traversed below by Trajan’s Aqueduct.

In this hybrid neighborhood contoured by the Wall and a sequence of raucous gates, the designations “American” and “Italian” are both housed and continually recast as a looping sequence of never quite arrived-at aspirations, disappointments, researches and desires.

Thanks to the voices of the AAR community—chefs, scholars, architects, composers, poets, baristas, a singer, a sculptor, a painter and installation artist, a filmmaker, a doctor, and various others eluding definition—for the sought and found material of their cherished voices.

The American Academy's Casa Rustica (in the present Bass Garden) occupies the precise site where, on Thursday 14 April 1611, Galileo made his first demonstration to a learned audience in Rome of his new invention, named on this occasion as the "telescope". To mark the 400th anniversary of this historic achievement, the Academy staged a Conversation on science and faith moderated by Director Christopher S. Celenza (7 April 2011), an exhibition of astronomical instruments from the collection of the Specola Vaticana (7-15 April), and a multimedia "Galileo Cabaret" on the significant date (Thursday 14 April 2011). Finmeccanica generously provided financial support for all of these events. Vittorio Ferrara produced this highlights video.

On Tuesday 27 July 2010 the American Academy in Rome and NPR (National Public Radio) co-hosted a public program on “The Future of News in the Digital World.” Academy Director Christopher Celenza (FAAR’94) moderated a discussion between Vivian Schiller, President and CEO of NPR, and Sylvia Poggioli, NPR Senior European Correspondent.

The event was live streamed Tuesday 27 July at 6 PM Rome time, with an email forum for questions, that allowed for participation from audiences globally. The program runs for approximately 72 minutes.