Four members of the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) community are among the 31 winners of the 2024–25 Rome Prize. Awarded annually by the American Academy in Rome (AAR), this prestigious fellowship includes a stipend, workspace, and room and board for up to ten months at the Academy’s campus, located on the Janiculum Hill in Rome, where recipients undertake advanced independent work and research in the arts and humanities.
Michelle Jaja Chang MArch ’09, current Assistant Professor of Architecture at the GSD, is the winner of the Arnold W. Brunner/Frances Barker Tracey/Katherine Edwards Gordon Rome Prize in Architecture. Chang focuses on the techniques and histories of architectural representation. Her project, to be explored during her time at the Academy, is titled Material Resistance to Symbolic Form.
Anthony Acciavatti MArch ’09, Diana Balmori Assistant Professor at the School of Architecture at Yale University and principal of Somatic Collaborative in New York City, is the recipient of the Gilmore D. Clarke and Michael Rapuano/Kate Lancaster Brewster Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture. Acciavatti works at the intersection of architecture, landscape, and the history of science and technology. His AAR project is titled Groundwater Earth: The World before and after the Tubewell.
Dan Spiegel MArch ’08 and Megumi Aihara MLA ’07 are the joint recipients of the Garden Club Prize of America/Prince Charitable Trusts Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture. The two are principals of the Spiegel Aihara Workshop (SAW), a San Francisco–based a design firm that operates at the intersection of architecture, landscape, and urban design. In addition, Spiegel is a Continuing Lecturer at the College of Environmental Design at the University of California, Berkeley. Spiegel and Aihara’s project at AAR is titled Landscapes of Fire.
“The Rome Prize is one of the most storied fellowship programs in the United States,” said AAR President Peter N. Miller, as quoted in the AAR’s recent announcement. “Over a thousand people compete for the chance to live and work in Rome, inspired by the city and one another. The Rome Prize winners represent a bridge between the United States and Italy, but also between a present of potential and a future of achievement.” This year’s Rome Prize recipients were selected from 1,106 applications (a record number), for an acceptance rate of 2.9 percent.
Updated May 8, 2024