For the first time in its eleven-year history, the prestigious Biennale Architecture, Venice's International Architecture Exhibition, will present an architectural historian with its Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement.
This unprecedented award will go to James S. Ackerman on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the birth of Andrea Palladio. Ackerman, who helped shape the field of modern architectural history, won international acclaim for his groundbreaking monographs including The Architecture of Michelangelo (1961) and Palladio (1966), which have been translated into Italian, Spanish, French and Japanese. Ackerman, the Arthur Kingsley Porter Professor of Fine Arts Emeritus at Harvard College, will join architect Frank Gehry, who this year will be honored at the Biennale with a Lifetime Achievement award for his innovative and unconventional architecture.
