 | Vincent J. Scully |
Vincent J. Scully, Sterling Professor Emeritus of the History of Art, has received a National Medal of Arts, the United States' highest honor for artists and arts patrons.
The longtime Yale faculty member was one of eight individuals who were awarded the medal by President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush on Nov. 17 at a White House ceremony.
The Medal of Arts, established by Congress in 1984, recognizes individuals who have made extraordinary contributions to the creation, growth and support of the arts in the United States. Each year, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) seeks nominations from individuals and organizations across the country. The National Council on the Arts, the NEA's presidentially-appointed and Senate-confirmed advisory body, reviews the nominations and provides recommendations to the president, who selects the recipients.
The NEA citation describes Scully as "one of the nation's foremost architectural historians," who "has taught generations of architects, planners, art historians and politicians" and whose books "have made remarkable contributions to the history of modern architecture."
Scully was born in New Haven and attended Hillhouse High School, on the site of what would later become Morse College, where he served as master 1969-1975. He entered Yale College at age 16 and went on to earn B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. degrees here.
As a member of the Yale faculty since 1947, Scully has educated hundreds of students over the years and, at age 84, he continues to teach during the fall semester and at the University of Miami in the spring. His Yale classes were so popular, they had to be held in the 500-seat Law School auditorium and were often standing-room-only. A strong believer in the power of images to make lasting impressions, Scully would urge his students to sit in the darkened classroom absorbing the slides he used, not to just jot down every word of his lecture.
Scully has defined architecture as a "continuing dialogue between generations that creates an environment across time.'' Observing early in his teaching career that urban development during the 1950s tended to destroy neighborhoods by the imposition of freeways and superblocks, Scully argued that the principles of modernism are incompatible with communal values. Several of his students have gone on to become important American architects, who have been responsible for the design of many urban and suburban sites throughout the nation.
New Yorker critic Paul Goldberger, who once studied under Scully, has said: "His thinking has always been based on the notion that architecture is not purely aesthetics, and that the real meaning [of architecture] is how it can be used to make better places. He has taught the social value of architecture not just to architects, but to lawyers, real estate developers and others who have made the world a better place." (see related story)
Scully has published many articles and more than a dozen books which span a wide spectrum of subject matter -- from the American Shingle Style, to Louis Sullivan's humanism, Frank Lloyd Wright's symbolism, and the iconographic power of the landscape from Classical Greece to the pre-Colonial American Southwest. (see related story)
Two endowed professorships at Yale have been established in honor of the scholar. In 1998, the Archimedes Associates, a group of Yale alumni, established a chair to be awarded to an individual in any field of study who best exemplifies his "excellence in teaching in Yale College" and "rigorous scholarship." In 2003, the Vincent Scully Visiting Professorship in architectural history was created at the School of Architecture.
In 1999 the National Building Museum in Washington established the Vincent Scully Prize to honor individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the built environment through scholarship, research, writing or professional practice; the first prize was awarded to Scully. In 1995 Scully was honored as the Jefferson Lecturer of the National Endowment for the Humanities and in 2003 was awarded the J.C. Nichols Prize by the Urban Land Institute.
The National Medal of Arts was also awarded this year to the Andrew Mellon Foundation for its patronage of the arts, and to author Ray Bradbury, opera composer Carlisle Floyd, the late sculptor Frederick "Rick" Hart, the late poet Anthony Hecht, wildlife artist John Ruthven and dancer and choreographer Twyla Tharp.
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