RODNEY MIMS COOK

Rodney Mims Cook, Jr. is a graduate of Washington and Lee University. He is a scholar of the American Academy in Rome. He is a former United States Commissioner of Fine Arts and served as its Vice-Chairman in 2021. At the age of 15, he initiated the campaign to successfully save the 5000+ seat Fox Theatre. He served as a White House intern. He established PolitesCook Architects which designed the Newington Cropsey Museum, NY, 1995, housing the largest collection of Hudson River School paintings (Arthur Ross Award to founder). He is a Founding Trustee of The Prince of Wales’s Foundation for Architecture and organized the design and construction of the 1996 Princes’ Olympic Games Monument in Atlanta with Anton Glikine, et al. He is a charter signer of the Congress for the New Urbanism. Cook is currently choreographing the design for a memorial library in Washington, D.C. to Presidents John and John Quincy Adams and their wives. Cook’s design proposal with co-designer Michael Franck won a 2011 prize for the National Civic Art Society Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial, also for Washington, D.C. This resulted in Cook testifying before Congress, 2012. He was a keynote speaker at the “Master Plan for 21st Century Havana” Conference, 2015, which for the first time allowed Cuban citizens and international scholars and urbanists to collaborate to develop a comprehensive holistic vision for the entire city. He was a delegate to the Novus Summit in the United Nations General Assembly Room. Cook was a keynote speaker showcasing his virtual reality technology at the Museum of the XXI Century and New Media Technologies: Limits of Freedom Conference at the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, 2017.  He established the Millennium Candler Peace, Justice, and Millennium Gate Prizes Denmark Commission. He gave a keynote address at Burning Man 2019 on “CNU Cities and the Future of Global Urbanism on Land and Sea.” Cook is the president of the National Monuments Foundation, headquartered at the Millennium Gate Museum/Atlanta, of which Cook is CEO. The National Monuments foundation was formerly the American Urban Design Foundation. Cook is on the boards of directors of the Hearst Castle Preservation Foundation (California), the Massachusetts Historical Society/Adams Papers, the American University of Integrative Sciences, Fox Theatre Incorporated, the Institute of Classical Architecture and Art, New York, the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), both emeritus. He has lectured at various universities, the Scott Room at the United States Senate, The Forbes yacht, Highlander, various waters, Hearst Castle, the Kremlin Armory, Moscow, Tolstoy estate Yasnaya Polyana, Open Society Institute, Soros Foundation, Moscow, the Palm Beach Preservation Society Gruss Master Architect Lecture Series, National Building Museum, Washington DC, the Russian Embassy, Washington and Spaso House, Moscow. Mr. Cook’s design work has been published in Architectural Digest, Time Magazine, The New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Financial Times of London, Pravda, Izvestia, The New Yorker, The Weekly Standard, Forbes and USA Today.