American Academy in Rome Announces 2023–2024 Rome Prize Winners

historic american academy in rome campus as seen from above

View of the American Academy in Rome's campus, including its McKim, Mead & White–designed main building, on Janiculum Hill, western Rome. Photo courtesy AAR

A fresh cohort of 36 artists and academics have joined the distinguished ranks of American creatives to be named as Rome Prize fellows by the American Academy in Rome (AAR), a United States Congress-incorporated nonprofit first established in 1894 under the leadership of architect Charles McKim that continues to serve today as America’s oldest independent overseas research institution for the arts and humanities.

Beginning in September 2023, the newest group of Rome Prize awardees will descend on the AAR’s historic 11-acre campus at Janiculum Hill, each fellow bestowed with the “time and space to think and work” in the Eternal City via independent workspace, room and board, and stipends granted to them by the AAR as part of the highly competitive program. This cycle, the competition attracted a total of 998 applicants spanning a wide range of disciplines—11 in total—including architecture, landscape architecture, design, and historic preservation and conservation.

Past Rome Prize in Architecture winners include Frederick Fisher (2008), Kiel Moe (2010), Ersela Kripa and Stephen Mueller of AGENCY Architecture (2011), Germane Barnes (2022), Michael Meredith and Hilary Sample of MOS Architects (2023), and Jennifer Newsom and Tom Carruthers of Dream the Combine (2023).

Per the AAR, the latest Rome Prize competition—with an acceptance rate of just 3.6 percent—yielded one on the most diverse group of winners in the history of prize with roughly 50 percent of awardees identifying as a person color. In addition to the latest Rome Prize recipients, the AAR also announced its 2023–2024 Italian Fellows, a concurrent program that invites three Italian artists and scholars to join their American counterparts for the duration of the fellowship cycle. Also revealed is the winner of the Terra Foundation Affiliated Fellowship, which went to Lan Tuazon, associate professor in the Department of Sculpture at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Jurors included, among others, Justin Garrett Moore, program officer of Humanities in Place at the Mellon Foundation; Quilian Riano, interim dean of the Pratt Institute School of Architecture; and Sharon Johnston, founding partner of Los Angeles–based architecture studio Johnston Marklee and a 2017 AAR Resident.

In addition to announcing the 2023–2024 Rome Prize winners and Italian Fellows, on April 20 the AAR opened a new exhibition featuring the work of the late Harlem-born poet and activist June Jordan (a 1970 Rome Prize winner) focused on her contributions to the fields of urbanism and design, including collaborations with Buckminster Fuller among others. Entitled June Jordan, The Poetry of Design, the show runs through June 11 at the AAR Gallery in Rome.

Below are the 2023-2024 Rome Prize winners, listed with their respective projects that they’ll be working on in Rome, in the disciplines of architecture, landscape architecture, design, and historic preservation. You can view the full list of the AAR’s latest fellows, including those working in the visual arts, literature, ancient studies, and more, here.

2023–2024 Rome Prize in Architecture

César A. Lopez

Assistant professor, School of Architecture and Planning, University of New Mexico | Citizenry Actions | Arnold W. Brunner/Frances Barker Tracy/ Katherine Edwards Gordon Rome Prize

Ajay Manthripragada

Design critic, Department of Architecture, Harvard Graduate School of Design | Imbrex and Tegula | Lily Auchincloss Rome Prize)

2023–2024 Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture

Miranda E. Mote

Visiting assistant professor, School of Architecture, Pratt Institute; lecturer, Program in Architecture, College of Arts and Sciences, University of Pennsylvania | Botanography and Botanic Gardens: The Italian Art of Nature Printing and Its Influence on Early American Gardens and Botanical Language | Garden Club of America/Prince Charitable Trusts Rome Prize

Lauren Stimson

Partner, STIMSON, Princeton, Massachusetts | Seeing Rural: Embracing Art, Craft, and Slowness in the Italian Landscape | Gilmore D. Clarke and Michael Rapuano/Kate Lancaster Brewster Rome Prize

2023–2024 Rome Prize in Design

David Weeks

David Weeks Design, Brooklyn | Movable Beasts | Rolland Rome Prize

Elizabeth Whelan

Principal, Elizabeth Whelan Design, Brooklin, Maine | Silk in the Alchemy of History | Cynthia Hazen Polsky and Leon Polsky Rome Prize

2023–2024 Rome Prize in Preservation and Historic Conservation

Aaron Cayer

Assistant professor, Department of Architecture, University of New Mexico | Building Legitimacy: Designing, Disseminating, and Preserving a New Religion | Adele Chatfield-Taylor Rome Prize

Emily B. Frank

Objects conservator and PhD candidate, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University | Object Agency and Intervention in Roman Art | Suzanne Deal Booth Rome Prize

Matt Hickman is Senior News/Digital Editor at Architectural Record. Previously, he served as Senior Editor at The Architect’s Newspaper and has over a decade of experience as a freelance writer and editor specializing in historic preservation, public space, and the intersection of the natural world and built environment. A native of the Pacific Northwest, Matt holds an MFA in creative nonfiction writing from The New School.