This has been an incredible year for the SPQR Fellowship and for me personally. First, me. In February, just as I was coordinating the final funding of SPQR 2015 with the University, I had a heart attack, followed by quintuple bypass heart surgery. I am fine now. I might even say I am glad it happened. I won't explain that here. You can read about it in my memoir.
That it happened just as I was coordinating the SPQR Fellowship, made me think about community and how I hope we can make this project perpetual. Is that realistic? Since 1986, twenty students have received a travel stipend from the SPQR Prize/Fellowship. Funding comes from them. Some give more, some give less.
2015 is the thirtieth year since the founding of SPQR and the fourth year the Fellowship has helped a student participate in the University of Minnesota's School of Architecture Spring Semester Study Abroad to Rome and Istanbul program overseen by professor Ozayr Saloojee. It is a terrific program and unique opportunity for any architecture student. Below is a link to their website. Don't sign up to follow their blog posts if you are the least bit envious.
Of the ten architecture design students students who went to Europe, nine applied for the SPQR Fellowship. This was exceptional. Preparing an application and portfolio is extra work and time consuming when you have regular classwork to complete. I credit Ben Dose SPQR 2014 for doing a great job of promotion.
In December, Yun Koo was selected as the 2015 Fellow. I talked via Skype with Yun before she left to Rome. She is from South Korea and has been speaking English for only two years since she arrived in Minnesota for school. I was impressed that she was not deterred about mastering English but just forges full speed ahead in her efforts. Her confidence and determination is impressive. It became clear to me that she her hard work and talent made a strong impression on the selection committee.
I asked Ozayr Saloojee for his assessment. He wrote:
“Yun was, undoubtedly, the strongest design student in our 2015 Rome-Istanbul cohort. Her Junior status notwithstanding, she was easily the most engaged, the most rigorous, the most committed and the most serious about her studies in Rome. Her SPQR submission drawings were evocative and ethereal, demonstrating the curiosity and thoughtfulness in all of her subsequent work. English is not her first language, but this is no hindrance; her drawing skills speak far louder than the most eloquent speech. Her work is articulate, expressive, searching. What SPQR allowed us to do - with Satavee Kijsanayotin, with Ben Dose, and now with Yun Koo - is to help us draw out (pun fully intended) those students whose creativity and inventiveness can be seen and felt (as beautiful drawings can do) in lines and shading on a page.”
Drawing is the primary emphasis for the students in exploring Rome. Below are a few photos & notes from her Rome Mapping Project final presentation.
"By the time we were going to leave Rome, I became an expert in our area, not only the physical way that what’s in there, but also our interpretation of the site. We started to list all the building by the timeline order. Date of restoration, when the obelisks were moved or built, Christianization, deconstruction or work ceased."
"Frank and I got assigned the site with the Pantheon in the center, Basilica di Santa Maria sopra Minerva, San Eustachio, Palazzo Montecitorio, Piazza di San Silvestro, Fontana di piazza colonna and the Travi fountain around."
"The Pantheon is the oldest, stand still on the site for a long time, so we concluded it is a sort of the focal point of our site. Based on that, other buildings were built in different times. When we start to looking into the details of the buildings, us two and everyone knows Pantheon has a role as a destination or guiding point on the site, however, Pantheon itself has a very unexpected truth."
Pantheon
"When people step into the building, in the center of the big dome, oculus brings the outside light into that giant space. Not only that, there is very ordered great coffering on the dome in scientific reason. It is totally different experience when you see it from the massive exterior."
Pantheon and obelisk
"The other surprising thing is the Minerva church. The church is right next to the Pantheon’s back corner. It seems like it is almost covered by the very famous monument Pantheon. Tourists can easily skip this church because when you passed the pantheon, the only noticeable thing that you can see from the Minerva church site is the elephant obelisk, since its façade is way simple compared to the surrounding building. I personally really like the façade in terms of giving a break among those all ornamental churches, however the real thing is happening from its interior. Compared to the plain façade, the church’s main structure is gothic style."
Trajan Column
"Like always, it was good to be done, but I wish we have more days that I can do more. Honestly, even the last day, I was trying to produce the new drawing in the big scale. But I believe that’s the thing I learned for sure. From this mapping experience, like what the map do, connect everywhere, guide us to the certain destination, I believe all of us get something from drawings, and the final map guides us to the certain point as understanding Rome."
I did meet Yun for dinner when I was in Minneapolis in June. It was the day after she had returned from Europe. In the three weeks after Istanbul, she had gone to Expo Milano 2015, the Le Corbusier exhibit at the Pompidou Centre in Paris, Porto, Portugal and Barcelona. The day after we met she went left for an architecture student conference in Kansas City. She then went to Los Angeles for a summer internship in the studio of a USC architecture professor. She turned down an internship in Shanghai.
Since she was in LA, I wrote to SPQR Fellow 1992 Scott Natvig and asked if he could find time to see her. From what I understand, their meeting worked out very well. Scott was nearing the deadline for a mixed use project in San Diego. Would Yun be interested in working through the weekend for him and his team? She was excited to do it and Scott wrote me:
She was wonderful! Thanks for the introduction. She helped us out with some 3d renderings in Rhino and she has a really nice aesthetic style, so I offered to connect her with some of my old firms in MN. My associates who are former Gehry-ites really liked her skills as well....to the point of offering a job until they realized the logistic issues. I am sure she will go far. Thanks again.
It pleased me a great deal to see the SPQR Fellowship work as a community. Two weeks earlier, Ben Dose SPQR 2014 wrote me that he had been hired at SALA full time while he prepares for graduate school. He said that Dale Mulfinger and the others who interviewed him made note of his SPQR Fellowship affiliation.
Let's keep the SPQR Fellowship going. The Rome/Istanbul program is exceptional. As you know, this is a time in their lives these students will always remember.
The School of Archicture development office should be sending out a Donation Letter soon. If you are comfortable donating online, you can go to the university’s giving page, and check the box for Special Instructions. If you simply add “SPQR Fund” in the text box, your gift will go to the right place.
Grazie, Kenneth Smith - SPQR Fellowship founder
Below are a few more of Yun's drawings from the rest of her time in Europe.
Below are some of my favorite links about the U of MN program in Rome.
Credits:
Yun Koo, Ozayr Saloojee