The Mary Ellen Hale Lovett Travel Fellowship, through the generous support of Mr. H. Malcolm Lovett, provides students with the unique opportunity to enhance their educational experience at Rice by traveling to significant sites to conduct field research in art history and architectural history.
As the 2021-22 Lovett Travel Fellow, Andi Rubero details her summer travel plans in Italy and how this fellowship will support her architectural research in "spolia":
"As a senior double majoring in Architecture and Art History, I have developed a deep interest in materiality in the context of adaptive-reuse throughout my studies. As an architect, I often pose this question to herself: "How can I generate less waste and harm to the environment when building?" Therefore, my research proposal with the Lovett Fellowship is to revisit the remains of Roman architecture that employ “spolia" (referring to any material inserted into a setting culturally or chronologically distinct from that of its creation) and catalog its deployments -- producing a type of material library -- to study both their aesthetic implications as well as their economic and environmental prospects. It will also be vital for me to consider the symbolic meaning of the reuse of certain materials or artifacts, rather than others; and to situate the political context of each spoliation. I will begin my journey in Rome to set a solid foundation of the most quintessential “spolia" case studies. Then, I will conduct a parallel study by visiting sites of material extraction/production --noticeably the marble quarries in Carrara-- and the cities that are most emblematically influenced by said industry. This will give me a better understanding of the time, effort, and cost involved in quarrying versus reusing existing materials to acknowledge the architectural practice of “spolia" and argue for its positive influence on our field today."