Spitzer School Professor Jerome Haferd earns major honors from United States Artists with a fellowship and a commission for the Venice Biennale.
Professor and architect Jerome Haferd of The City College of New York’s Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture is the recipient of two honors, a fellowship from United States Artists and selection by the 2025 U.S. Pavilion to participate in the upcoming Venice Biennale.
Fifty artists and collectives make up the 2025 USA Fellow cohort. The national award chose awardees based on their groundbreaking artistic visions and unique perspectives within their field. The fellowship is awarded through a year-long peer-led selection process in the disciplines of Architecture & Design, Craft, Dance, Film, Media, Music, Theater & Performance, Traditional Arts, Visual Art, and Writing. Each awardee will receive a $50,000 unrestricted cash award. Additionally, the Fellows will receive access to a variety of professional services and field resources allowing for a deepened impact on their practice and supporting their essential roles in society.
Artists were chosen from 21 states, spanning the most nascent to mature stages of careers. Deeply rooted in notions of origin and belonging, the 2025 cohort examines a breadth of lived experiences and cultural histories, engaging their communities in dialogues both past and present while charting paths for their collective futures.
Haferd is founder of Jerome Haferd Studio, an award-winning Harlem-based architecture and design office. In addition to Haferd’s fellowship, his studio will be one of 52 selected to participate in the 2025 U.S. Pavilion at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia. The theme of this year’s U.S. pavilion is “Porch: An Architecture of Generosity” which complements the Biennale’s theme “Intelligens: Natural. Artificial. Collective. American finalists, individuals and practices from around the country, will install a "window" of a giant porch-like installation around the pavilion in the Giardini at the Biennale.
Faculty adjunct member Pedro Cruz Cruz, current BArch student Gabriel Moyer Perez, and BArch alumni Violet Greenberg assisted in the Venice installation, which includes a series of interviews and a physical installation for the porch “window.”
Haferd’s community-driven practice designs projects nationwide including public artworks and cultural infrastructure. Haferd is one of only 2% of Black licensed architects in the U.S. and currently co-directs the Harlem Place, Memory & Culture Incubator at the Spitzer School of Architecture. The exhibit “Generative Histories Harlem” is recently showcased at the Spitzer School and is up through April 10.
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Thea Klapwald
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tklapwald@ccny.cuny.edu