About the Participants
The Fabric Workshop and Museum thanks Tim Kearney and Claudia Cueto for organizing this event to celebrate Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown. Below, you will find the bios provided by Kearney about each speaker in order of the presentation.
Host
Claudia S. Cueto is a principal of CuetoKEARNEYdesign Architects in Swarthmore where she oversees project management, interior architecture, furniture and textile design. She is the co-curator of the current FWM exhibit, Venturi, Scott Brown and Grandmother: Patterns for Production. Claudia was the Director of Interiors at VSBA for 10 years where she worked closely with Denise and Bob on color, materials, custom furniture and textile design. Her work at CKd includes furniture, fixtures, and equipment for the New World Symphony in Miami Beach, designed by Frank Gehry, and the recently completed Cheyney University Science Center.
About the Presenters
David Dashiell is a photographer from Pittsfield, Massachusetts who was hired at Venturi, Rauch and Scott Brown as the first official archivist for the firm in 1985, and later transitioned into a Marketing Coordinator for VSBA. Dave was in the office at a very busy time and had a wonderful perch from which to get his particular view of life in the office.
Nancy Rogo Trainer, the Associate Vice-President of Planning, Design and Project Administration at Drexel University, spent 26 years at VSBA, becoming a principal in the firm when Denise and Bob stepped back from the day to day running of the office. At VSBA, Nancy provided planning and design services for academic and cultural institutions and her projects include campus plans, museums, student centers and libraries—design that helps build community by integrating social, strategic and physical goals. Nancy is a member of the Philadelphia City Planning Commission and continues to teach at Drexel University.
Don Jones is an architect, educator, illustrator and musician who has a long association with the Venturi Scott Brown office. In addition to his time as an associate working on the Philadelphia Orchestra Hall and other projects, he has produced countless presentation drawings for the office over the years. His professional work at EwingCole includes Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, MetLife Stadium for the Giants and Jets and multiple museum projects for the Smithsonian. He has taught design studios at Drexel for the past 25 years and has been playing music professionally since his college days at U.Va.
Peter Exley is an architect, designer and advocate for interactive public environments, committed to construction of new paradigms in pedagogy, play and participatory experience. Based in Chicago, he is the design principal of Architecture is Fun, a fellow of the AIA, a past president of AIA Chicago, an alumnus of VSBA and an old hand at PechaKucha. Hailing from Yorkshire, he spent two years of finishing school at the office before going on to found Architecture is Fun on April Fools’ Day of 1995.
Mary Anne Friel is an Assistant Professor of Textiles at Rhode Island School of Design. She served as Project Coordinator and Master Printer at The Fabric Workshop and Museum from 1983 – 2011 where she was responsible for developing and producing new works of contemporary art and related exhibitions with visiting Artists-in-Residence. She has realized projects for Ed Ruscha, Carrie Mae Weems, Chris Burden, Viola Frey, Teresita Fernandez and Doug Aitken, among many others. In her early years at FWM she work on VSBA’s Grandmother, overseeing screen printing and rotary production of the pattern on textile.
Tim Kearney is an architect, educator, the mayor of Swarthmore, PA and a longtime member of the Board of Directors at The Fabric Workshop and Museum. He and his wife, Claudia Cueto, are principals in the Swarthmore-based CuetoKEARNEYdesign Architects, where their practice focuses on college and university work that includes the new Cheyney University Science Center, Metropolitan Hall at Widener University and renovations for the Department of Art at Swarthmore College. Tim spent 16 years at VSBA where he began his association with Kippy Stroud and FWM through projects and exhibitions at the various homes of the Workshop and the Acadia Summer Arts Program in Maine.
Jeremy Tenenbaum has been with Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates since 2000. In addition to directing the firm’s marketing and public relations, Jeremy has led and contributed to graphic projects for museum, academic, and institutional clients. His work includes a permanent mixed-media digital storefront for The Fabric Workshop and Museum and an interpretive signage system for historic sites throughout New Jersey’s Cumberland County. Jeremy has performed and exhibited extensively as a visual and literary artist.
Erin Mulrooney has long appreciated the many works of Bob and Denise, and learned a great deal from Denise in particular when she worked as a consultant to VSBA in the late 1980s into the early 1990s. During this time, she led a variety of special projects including creating a database for archives of works written about VSBA and its members, and organizing their summer picnics and holiday parties. Erin worked with VSBA alum Steve Wiesenthal at Penn in the 1990s and now again for the past 6 years at the University of Chicago, where she is involved in their current capital program expanding the campus. In her spare time, Erin sings the blues in her new home, Chicago.