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$600,000 Mellon grant will help public programs for the Paul Revere Williams Architecture Archive at USC

2024-08-07T12:27:00-04:00

A $600,000 Humanities in Place grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation will help bolster Paul Revere Williams’ archive at his alma mater, the University of Southern California. The trove of important documents that had for a long time mired unattended in storage in Los Angeles was since recovered thanks to the efforts of USC faculty members (incl. former School of Architecture Dean Milton S.F. Curry) and Williams’ granddaughter.

Curry will join fellow USC faculty Valéry Augustin and Amy L. Murphy in leading the administration of the public-facing grant. Activities to be funded reportedly include future exhibitions at the USC Fisher Museum, two faculty research fellowships, a biennial publication, an annual memorial lecture series, a symposium, and other community events.

Now housed at the Getty Center, the archive, which was jointly acquired by USC and the Getty Research Institute in 2020, includes: "Over 37,000 plans, including 10,000 drawings, blueprints, project diazo types, ...

Mellon Foundation bestows $1.5 million to Storefront for Art and Architecture

2024-03-20T14:18:00-04:00

A new grant worth a total of $1.5 million has been awarded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to New York’s Storefront for Art and Architecture. The 42-year-old space in Manhattan's Nolita district will use the funding to expand its programming over three years while supporting the organization's pursuit of new hires.

Speaking in a press release, Storefront's Chief Curator José Esparza Chong Cuy stated: "Storefront has been devoted to public life and to chronicling the changes in diverse built environments through critical artistic practice for over forty years, and this funding will enable us to expand its grassroots legacy by creating even more opportunities for engagement and collaboration on many scales."

Esparza Chong Cuy has been serving in the role since the departure of Eva Franch i Gilabert in October 2018.

Storefront has recently unveiled Swamplands, a three-artist exhibition and research series focused on the politics of water use and the Gulf of Mexico. The premiere exh...

The Mellon Foundation's Monuments Project expands with $500 million commitment

2023-11-28T14:27:00-05:00

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s influential Monuments Project is about to expand its reach thanks to a newly-announced commitment of $500 million to the now three-year-old initiative that has to date provided 80 projects worth a total of $170 million nationwide.

The amount effectively doubles the available resources from the original $250 million pool that was established at the outset. Reformers targeting America’s “commemorative landscape” have to date provided superlative examples of how to best repair the nation’s psychic wounds, including the forthcoming Memorial to the 1871 Chinese Massacre in Los Angeles and the recent Beyond Granite exhibition for the National Mall in Washington.

The money represents the Mellon Foundation’s largest-ever financial commitment and will be put towards further recognition of the contributions different marginalized groups have made to the United States from the Colonial era on.

Related on Archinect: The Mellon Foundation's Monuments Project aw...

LACMA and Snapchat unveil third Monumental Perspectives AR collection across Los Angeles

2023-09-09T08:00:00-04:00

The third collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)’s ongoing Augmented Reality Monumental Perspectives series has been unveiled to the public, featuring works of five artists that offer insights into the histories of their own unique pockets of LA’s patchwork mosaic of communities.

The series’ final trove includes Victoria Fu, Yassi Mazandi, Rashaad Newsome, Rubén Ortiz Torres, and Alison Saar. Each is accessible through Snapchat’s Lens Explorer tab. The initiative is being funded as part of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s larger $250 million The Monuments Project project. LACMA President Michael Govan says each work “challenges us to examine the individual and communal legacies we are leaving today and how we are shaping the future of Los Angeles.”

Rubén Ortiz Torres, Dead Heads (2023). Image courtesy Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Yassi Mazandi, The Thirty Birds (2023). Image courtesy Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Fu will offer a virtual take on a subject,...

CCNY’s Spitzer School of Architecture receives $1.5 million Mellon Foundation grant for new center

2023-08-25T12:38:00-04:00

The City College of New York has been awarded a three-year $1.5 million grant from the Mellon Foundation. The funding will be used to support the new multidisciplinary Place, Memory and Culture Incubator (PMCI) to be housed within the Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture.

The new center will focus on community-based partnerships and projects in Harlem that engage with the design of the built environment alongside attention to the humanities through a social justice lens. CCNY also sees the center as providing a space for the college community to “engage with one another in the production of more representative and authentic histories.”

Archinect Feature: "Decolonization Is a Gift"—CCNY's Lesley Lokko on Questioning Architecture's Inherited Futures

“This latest project recognizes the historic positioning of the Spitzer School of Architecture in the Harlem community as well as our commitment, in the architectural field and elsewhere in the college, to acknowledging, preservi...

See photos from Harlem Grown and Jerome Haferd / BRANDT : HAFERD's newly-opened 'Sankofa' installation

2023-07-24T17:53:00-04:00

New York-based artists collective Harlem Grown, in collaboration with Jerome Haferd of BRANDT : HAFERD, has shared photos of the new ‘Sankofa’ installation in Harlem’s historic Marcus Garvey Park just months after the announcement of a two-year community-led commission aimed at creating an artistic public gathering space for residents of the area.

Image courtesy Anna Dave

The installation is part of the Mellon Foundation’s Culture, Creativity, & Care Initiative focused on Marcus Garvey Park and the cultural traditions of the community that it serves.

Image courtesy Anna Dave

Harlem Grown shares: "The project involved planning and collaboration with local artists and makers across various artistic styles and media. Despite its bespoke appearance, the installation is based on a modular system and uses sturdy, reusable materials that can be reconfigured for a number of future uses or sites."

Image courtesy Anna Dave

The design of the circular 32-foot canopied struc...

The Mellon Foundation's Monuments Project awards $25 million worth of grant funding to 9 municipalities

2023-06-19T10:00:00-04:00

A total of nine local municipalities have received funding in the amount of $25 million from the Mellon Foundation as part of its ongoing Monuments Project, which to date has provided $151.9 million worth of grants since its inception in 2020.

The latest round of funding includes projects such as Los Angeles’ forthcoming memorial to victims of the 1871 Chinese Massacre, and the Portland, Oregon, effort to replace five of its toppled monuments that were destroyed in the wake of the George Floyd protests three summers ago.

Read more about the nine grant recipients and their funded projects:

Asheville, North Carolina – "The City of Asheville will receive funding to reshape Pack Square Plaza through commemorative projects, storytelling and oral history initiatives, and redesigning portions of the plaza to better represent the multicultural histories of Asheville and cultivate a more welcoming space for all. This includes support for construction of Boosting the Block, an effort to estab...

The Black Reconstruction Collective honors cultural practitioners Tonika Lewis Johnson and Ife Salema Vanable in inaugural prize

2022-07-28T18:51:00-04:00

Continuing with its mission to support and acknowledge Black cultural agents of change within the community, the Black Reconstruction Collective (BRC) has announced the winners of its inaugural Black Reconstruction Collective Prize. Made possible with support from the Mellon Foundation, the BRC recognizes Chicago-based photographer/social justice artist Tonika Lewis Johnson and Bronx-based architect, historian, and theorist Ife Salema Vanable as this year's winners.

"This prize was created by the founders of the Black Reconstruction Collective as a way to launch the organization as a funder and support system for Black creatives," shares the BRC. Both will receive an unrestricted monetary prize of $5,000, allowing them to use the funds to carry out their design pursuits as they see fit. Newly appointed BRC Collaborative Manager Michelle Lisa Polissaint writes, "Ife and Tonika exemplify the mission of the Black Reconstructive Collective & I'm so excited to spend the next year working...

Lesley Lokko's African Futures Institute receives a $150,000 Mellon Foundation grant

2022-06-21T17:36:00-04:00

The African Futures Institute (AFI) has announced that it has received a grant totalling $150,000 from the Mellon Foundation.

As stated on the Foundation’s website, the funding will be used “to support program planning and activities for the establishment of an independent graduate school of architecture and public events platform in Accra, Ghana.”

View this post on Instagram A post shared by African Futures Institute (@african_futures_institute)

Founded and directed by Lesley Lokko, the AFI aims to create a world-class teaching and research institute, in Accra, that will merge a wide range of built environment disciplines, from architecture to urban design, all through the lens of the African continent and the Diaspora. The AFI will offer a number of Masters-level programs, along with short courses and workshops for practicing architects. AFI’s first Masters-level program will be in architectural writing and criticism and is set to begin in 2024.

Previously on A...

New arts initiative by SITU and Design Trust for Public Space builds architectural kit-of-parts for public cultural venues

2022-05-26T16:12:00-04:00

Brooklyn-based architectural design practice SITU and the Design Trust for Public Space have announced the launch of Turnout NYC, a community-oriented initiative that aims to transform underutilized spaces into vibrant and accessible venues for arts and culture, while highlighting underrepresented New York City-based artists.

The venture, supported by a $2 million grant from the Mellon Foundation, sets out to assist small arts organizations produce public programming despite the ongoing impacts of the pandemic. It will establish flexible and semi-permanent outdoor performance venues, one in each borough, in collaboration with cultural partners within each community. Set to launch this summer, Turnout NYC will host 150-200 events, featuring up to 1,500 artists throughout the season.

“Prior to the pandemic, people living in vulnerable areas already had limited access to cultural opportunities. Today, those scarce opportunities are at a higher risk of disappearing,” said Design Trust f...

Justin Garrett Moore to join Mellon Foundation to "widen the range of complex public storytelling"

2020-12-03T14:01:00-05:00

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation today announced Justin Garrett Moore as the inaugural program officer for its new Humanities in Place program area. He will join the Foundation on December 16, 2020.

According to the Foundation, the Humanities in Place program "seeks to bring a variety of histories and voices into public, media, museum, and memorial spaces, widening the range of complex public storytelling." Moore will lead the effort, also partnering with the Foundation's president to shape and lead the Foundation's Monuments Project, which is a five year, $250 million commitment to reshape the US's commemorative landscape.

"Justin’s design and planning work is generous, creative, and geared toward impact. His work has resulted in truly transformative public spaces," said Mellon Foundation President Elizabeth Alexander in a statement. "He is an innovative, collaborative designer and educator who prioritizes the power of public design to help solve major challenges. I look forward to...

Mellon Foundation announces $250M "Monuments Project" to reimagine the way history is told in the U.S.

2020-10-05T16:51:00-04:00

Today, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation announced a new five-year, $250 million grant effort called the "Monuments Project," which will "transform the way our country's histories are told in public spaces." Grants made under the new initiative will fall under three areas of activity:

Funding new monuments, memorials, or historic storytelling spaces
Contextualizing existing monuments or memorials through installations, research, and education
Relocating existing monuments or memorials

Created in response to the national outcry on racial and social injustice, the Foundation intends to "recalibrate the assumed center of our national narratives to include those who have often been denied historical recognition."

"Monuments, memorials, and other commemorative spaces convey both individual narratives and national values,” said Mellon Foundation President Elizabeth Alexander in a statement. “They shape the histories of who we are and influence ongoing discussion about which people in our socie...

Taubman receives $1.3M grant to fund research program on urban architecture

2014-02-04T12:15:00-05:00

The Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning received a $1.3m grant Monday from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The gift will fund architecture and humanities research on metropolitan issues in cities like Detroit, Mexico City and Rio de Janeiro for the next four-and-half years. The Mellon Foundation delivered the “Architecture, Urbanism, and the Humanities” grant to the University, which supports scholarship and higher education at the intersection of architecture and the humanities.