Conversations/Conversazioni: Rome as City and Concept

The Rome Faculty Working Group in the School of Arts and Sciences at Penn, in partnership with the Office of the Dean at PennDesign, presents a discussion of architecture and landscape architecture by three leaders in the field. In this 90-minute forum, they focus on the ways in which Rome as city and concept has influenced their work over time. Introduced by PennDesign Dean and Paley Professor Fritz Steiner.

Speakers
Mary Margaret Jones, Senior Principal, Hargreaves Associates: “Large Landscapes and Their Axes”
Craig Dykers, Founding Partner, Snøhetta: “Real and Unreal Visits to Rome” 
Elaine Molinar, Managing Partner, Snøhetta: “Two months in Rome, or, how I re-discovered my hands”

Organized by: C. Brian Rose, James B. Pritchard Professor of Mediterranean Archeology, and Peter C. Ferry Curator-in-Charge, Mediterranean Section, Penn Museum; and Joe Farrell, Mark K. and Esther W. Watkins Professor in the Humanities.

Craig Dykers is a Founding Partner of the international design practice Snøhetta with offices in New York City and Oslo. In recent years the company has established additional studios in Stockholm, Innsbruck, Adelaide, Paris, and San Francisco. After establishing the Oslo studio with his colleagues, he now manages the practice with his partners in both the U.S. and Norway. Residing in New York City, Dykers has a strong interest in design as a promoter of social and physical well-being and continues to work with a wide range of people across numerous cultural, economic and intellectual backgrounds. The work of Snøhetta is focused on the visible and invisible conditions that interact with the objects and the places we create. The work also considers the consequences in time for people and their environments in relation to their proposals and constructions. Design never exists in isolation, nor does it exist without the narrative of the author. Dykers’s general attitude toward life is filled with empathy and storytelling.
 
Mary Margaret Jones is Senior Principal and President of Hargreaves Associates and oversees the three offices in San Francisco, CA; Cambridge, MA; and Hargreaves Jones in New York City. The firm is a leader in the fields of landscape architecture and planning, has received over 100 national and international awards and is the recipient of the 2016 Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Museum National Design Award. Jones is the Prince Charitable Trust Fellow in Landscape Architecture of the American Academy in Rome and current Chair of the Board of Trustees. She is a past Visiting Critic in Landscape Architecture at the Harvard Design School and a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects and is currently leading the firm’s work on the 70-acre park that will link downtown to the river in Oklahoma City, a new open space for MIT that will be the centerpiece of 1m sf of new development, and the recently completed 35-acre Zaryadye Park in the heart of Moscow, adjacent to Red Square on the Moscow River. In Philadelphia, she is leading work on the 12 acre park that will cap over I-95 and connect to the Delaware River at Penn’s Landing, and the redesign for Love Park.

Elaine Molinar is an architect and Managing Partner of Snøhetta’s New York office.  Since starting her career as a designer of the Library of Alexandria in Egypt, she has held key positions in many of Snohetta’s notable works, including the Norwegian National Opera, the National September 11th Memorial Museum Pavilion, the Wolfe Center for the Arts, and the James B. Hunt Library at North Carolina State University. Molinar’s commitment to the issues of social and physical well-being influence her work not only as a design leader but also as an employer and cultivator of Snøhetta’s growing practice. Her early training in classical dance and performance brings an insightful understanding of ergonomics, perception, and comfort to the environments we design and inhabit. Her experience in the design of theaters, libraries, and the workplace has given Molinar an in-depth understanding of complex programmatic issues and has positioned her well to champion design from the user’s point of view. She is a member of the American Institute of Architects and is a LEED accredited professional and serves on the board of the Van Alen Institute.