Australian-born architectural historian and writer Emma Letizia Jones has been announced as one of the six winners of the prestigious Harvard Graduate School of Design‘s 2020 Richard Rogers Fellowship.
Jones attended the University of Sydney and the Architectural Association in London, later obtaining a PhD at the University of Zurich with a thesis on the drawing practice of German architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel. Jones teaches architectural history at the GTA Institute at ETH Zurich. She is a founding member of TEN, an association of young architects. Her writing has appeared in AA Files, San Rocco, Architectural Histories, and the Architectural Review. Currently, she teaches the history and theory of architecture at the GTA Institute, ETH Zurich.
Jones’s proposal for the fellowship is the research for a book titled Built by the Book: The Global Impact of the Building Manual and Trade Catalogue in Nineteenth Century London. The book will examine the building manuals and trade catalogues that were published in mid-nineteenth-century London. Jones will conduct research at the Victoria and Albert Museum National Art Library and other London archives. The research will also form part of a broader research program supported by the University of Technology Sydney and the Swiss National Science Foundation. The fellowship includes a three-month residency in the Wimbledon House, travel expenses and a US$10,000 cash prize.
From 2020 to 2022, Jones has been awarded a Swiss National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship, hosted by the Victoria and Albert Museum and UCL Bartlett. For her current research project Built by the Book: The Global Impact of the Building Manual and Trade Catalogue in Nineteenth Century London. Jones is also co-curator of the upcoming exhibition ‘Das Gesims/The Cornice’ at the Graphische Sammlung/gta exhibitions in Zurich in 2021.
Jones conceived of and now leads the Re:public: Books and Buildings Summer School in Venice, taught in collaboration with Maarten Delbeke and TEN.
