I'M GOING ON AN ADVENTURE : valentines days edition

Instead of hanging around in the city, and seeing the already enormous amounts of PDA Italy has to offer being doubled because of the holiday, my roommate Rachel and I decided to head out that day with the hope of finding a spot across the fume to sketch and lounge around at most of the day. All of our friends were wither in Rome or Barcelona for the weekend anyways, so it looked like the most fun.

Our first stop before heading out of the center of the city was a small, vintage bookshop just around the corner from our apartment. We had been in there once before and absolutely loved it.

 Even though all of the books are in Italian, we both found ones that we thought we could aspire to one day make it through, giving us a goal to improve our Italian and also getting an awesome souvenir. So we hid them away in one of the shelves for another day. When we went back on Friday, we were luck enough to actually find them again! I ended up buying two books, on a hardback, and both graphic novels for only €5.50 total. I know, I know, you're probably judging me right now because I just bought "comic books", but they are legitimately large enough to be novels, and my thinking is that it will be a great way to learn phrases and conversational words, instead of struggling through a 'mature' novel that I'll never be able to fully understand. Rachel walked out with a hardback book as well for only €5, and no she did not get a graphic novel.

After that we headed over the river via Ponte Vecchio, which we had seen in the distance, but had not yet actually been too as we like to avoid the tourist areas. But since it was our "date" out we decided to be typical tourists for half a second.

After our temporary tourist moment, we decided to actually get across the river and out of tourist country. While walking we were vaguely on the search for some mountain side spot, one of which we didn't actually know, to sit and sketch and read for the rest of the afternoon. We ended up stumbling upon a small asian market and picking up an enormous bottle of soy sauce (it's incredibly expensive here and we really enjoy making stir fry), so our trip was already counted as a success.

 After that we kept on walking until Rachel saw a road that seemed safe enough and looked like it lead up into the hills. It was a bit of a workout to get up the hill, and we were both out of breath, but the view when we turned back around was definitely worth it.

We attempted to climb the wall to get a better picture, but unfortunately neither of us are Spiderman so it was quite impossible. After consulting our map we determined that if we kept walking we'd end up at a large garden complex, and figured that may be a good spot for us to rest for the afternoon.

We were greeted by what looked like a countryside on top of the mountain, which was already a good sign for what we were looking for.

What we had actually found was the Italian version of a National Park, but it was more a National Garden. Needless to say we were incredibly excited and marveled at how gorgeous and empty this area was. 

Rachel looking very gorgeous among the scenery. I'm sneaky with pictures like this.

It was just too quaint with little bridges like this one.

The view on top of the bridge wasn't half bad either.

As we climbed back down form the garden on the mountain, we found more of Narnia lamp posts! We're taking it as a sign, or the fact that the authors of LOTR and Narnia were form Europe and probably saw scenes like these all the time. Whichever scenario you prefer.

We even got to see some more snow-caped mountains waaaaaay in the distance.

We rounded off our time out back in the city by the "babies" where we read for a little bit before we went and ate out at a rather disappointing chinese restaurant. The conclusion from that experience is that it's just better to cook at home, monetarily speaking as well. Since our dinner wasn't that great we made some snacks with our Nutella, strawberries, and bananas. That made up for it a million times over. It's the little things sometimes, and this day had been full of millions of them.

ROMA, GIORNA 4

 The weather in Rome was wonderful until our last day, in which it rained almost the entire day. Unfortunately the tour we took today was all outside, so I don't have as many pictures as usual. It's even more unfortunate because this was a fantastic tour through the baroque period in Italy.

Regardless, our tour guide was amazing, and it was an incredibly informative and all around awesome tour. 

So we met up with our guide at the first stop of our tour, Palazzo Navona (you can see him and and Eugenio above). For those of you new to the Piazza Navona, it's the former stadium of Domitian. Then it basically because the piazza for the Pamphili family to show off their wealth and familial connections to the Pope of the time. Anyways, it turned out to produce a beautiful square, and we got the Fountain of the Four Rivers out of it.

After the Piazza, we headed over to Sant'Ivo all Sapienza, which is a chapel that was built for the University of Rome at essentially the beginning of the Renaissance by Borromini.

You can start to get a sense of how ornamentation is a major thing in the Renaissance, although this one isn't as fully "decorated" as one would think of Renaissance architecture. It's lacking color for one thing, but Borromini meant for this to be paint while as it is, and it's still incredibly stunning.

Even the courtyard is stunningly designed, casually slipping in the patrons coat of arms.

Later in the tour we ended up behind the chapel, allowing us to have a fantastic view of the spiral at the top of the dome. Now that spiral is definitely Renaissance, no doubt about it.

Our next stop, before our coffee break (our guide was cute like that), was the Pantheon. I had been there once before in the week, but this time it was earlier in the day and we were with a guide, so it was a totally different experience. I don't have any good photographs from the outside because of two reasons. The first is that this structure is so large in comparison to the surrounding area that there's no way I can get a remotely good picture of the entire thing. And the second reason is the vastly large amount of tourists everywhere that ruin every shot. Though I shouldn't berrade them too much since I'm one too.

Either way I came out with some great shots of the dome, which is the best part of the Pantheon anyways (in my opinion!). For those who don't know, it's a concrete dome with an open oculus at the top. The oculus not only lets natural light into this very dense space, but it also acts as a sun dial, which you can see in the picture above.

Our next stop was to see the obelisk at Santa Maria Sopra Minerva. This obelisk was originally designed to be hollow between the elephants legs, but the patrons thought that the weight of the obelisk would definitely crush the base, and thus made him create a completely solid base. This incident is probably what really motivated him to create the Fountain of the Four Rivers with such a dramatic opening in the base.

Just for fun, here is the inside of that church (although we didn't really learn about it).

Our next stop, St. Ignatius Church, is possibly one of my favorites from that day. When you walk in you see this roof.

But when you step on a circular stone on the floor this is the view you get. This enormous perspective seen deserves a lot of respect and awe.

The same painter that did the fresco I just showed you, also painted the dome.

Except when you get closer to the dome, you can also see that it is a fake!

This was a laugh out loud moment, especially after all of the amazing domes I've stood under and take pictures of. This one is a flat roof simply painted to look magnificent. I can't even comprehend the skills that it would take to pull something like this off.

After the church, we headed over to the oh-so-famous Trevi fountain. Though spectacularly gorgeous, it was the most tourist-packed place I had been to yet, so I really only got a few good shots for it, and it was hard for our guide to tell us much in such a crowded space.

After whoever wanted to threw their coins in the fountain (a tradition that supposedly will bring you back to Rome again), we headed to our final destination with our guide, the Spanish Steps.

A quick last stop, and it was our lunch break. Yes, we did all of that before lunch.

Our afternoon was a bit less packed. We all met up after lunch and headed to the Ara Pacis Museum.

This museum is quite the controversial one in Rome. It was one of the first modern buildings built in the center of the city since the 30's, and it's quite a large structure to hold just one artifact. But the biggest concern to people is the belief that it doesn't pay attention to its context and so it blocks the views of the neighboring church.

I won't get into whether or not I agree with those statements, because I still have yet to draw a definite conclusion, and I think that it's a serious issue for an architect to face since we spend so much time studying the site, and putting our models into site models and walking around and around them. Regardless, the interior of the building is gorgeous!

Fun fact, I saw this water feature in the stairs and how successful it was and kicked myself a little because I had designed one in my last project, but took it out. It just looks so amazing!

Anyways, let's get back on topic. After the Ara Pacis, our small time to catch our breath, we had to head to the hotel to pick up our luggage and meet the bus so that we could make it to the train station and head home. 

Fortunately we didn't arrive home too late, but unfortunately that means that we arrived home and promptly headed to studio to catch up on the work we successfully (or unsuccessfully depending on how you look at it) avoided while in Rome.

It was an incredibly busy couple of days after that with our final precedent studies due, plus the 7 analytic and in-depth sketches from the Rome trip due right after that. And then I was in charge of 16 other students during our appointment to get our Italian stay-permits. I've finally just gotten a chance to catch my breath and actually sleep, so that you all for bearing with my very delayed updates on Rome and life in general!

ROMA, GIORNA 3

The third day in Rome seemed like it was going to be a bit of a let down since our first stop was the MAXXI Museum that was built by Zaha Hadid. I'll be the first to admit that I was wrong about that. Sure, I don't particularly Hadid designs (I'm a minimalist, what can I say), but in the general sense I think that this building was one that actually was successful in it's uses. Hadid had designed it as the sort of urban liveliness that the neighborhood needed, while also designing one of her abstracted shapes to still fit within the city block structure. That's not the part that I find successful (it's a bit subjective). The first part that I found successful was the courtyard in front of the museum. It's a paved surface, open to the public, and since we were there on a Saturday it was in use! It didn't matter that it was a paved surface, the children were running all over, playing on the outdoor art installations, enjoying the open space. It's probably even better that the space was paved because we saw children riding their scooters and skateboards, which isn't safe for the children to do over here like it is back in the states. It's a rarity that a space like that gets used for its intended purpose, especially since it was fenced it. Needless to say, that left me impressed.  

The second part that I found successful was the interior of the building itsself. It's a very odd configuration with a series of floating staircases and bending walls, but in actuality, and this is purely my opinion, it got me moving throughout the museum. Not only because I'm a curious architecture student, but because it just visually did that. She didn't create complex viewing spaces, but ones that let you roam and then entice you on to the next. But unfortunately we didn't get to see the "best view" out of the large window jutting out of the facade, so we didn't get to see what the hype was about in its entirety.

I was only told after I took this picture that we aren't allowed to take pictures in the actual galleries. Oops. Also, if you decide you want to come to this museum  note that they have a free coat check, and if your bag is deemed too big by their standards (as mine was, grrrr) then you have to put a €1 coin in a locker to keep your bag (you get the €1 back once you're done).

After the Maxxi Museum and lunch we headed just a few blocks over to Music Park Auditorium by Renzo Piano. It was designed with three interior halls and one outdoor theater space. Honestly speaking, the interior music hall look like three beetles, and not the famous band (that's funnier when said out loud). I wasn't too impressed by our tour, mainly because the guide continuously referred to everything as "perfect", such as the sound and shapes and use of materials, but I had no way to verify so I was just in a skeptical mood the whole time.

I did enjoy the way that Renzo created fantastic views to the city from essentially every spot in the complex. I also very much appreciated the use of materials through out, such as the cherry wood for the interior wall paneling and the 2mm thick lead that made up the shells on the 'beetles'. The intense amount of details put into these three buildings is also something to be commended. One of the halls actually was designed so that the seats on the floor level in the center can be moved to accommodate any type of even. Each seat has it's own AC/heating unit (while still being portable), plus the seats were from a company that designed them so that they have the same sound absorbency/reverberation when left empty as when someone is sitting in them, so that the reverberation time for the whole room remains constant continually. Details like this are so important in architecture, yet in schooling we rarely have the time to get down to these details because of the semester time constraints and number of projects to complete. 

Regardless of my skepticism, the whole complex was gorgeous, and I wish I was able to see at least one of the halls in action to verify how "perfect" it's design is.

ROMA, GIORNA 2

Day two of our trip to room started on a very good note, with a free breakfast from the hotel that we stayed at. (Are you starting to see the theme of how happy food makes me?) We made sure to eat a lot and take some fruit with us so that we wouldn't have to buy lunch.

After breakfast we headed out to the Roman Forum, which is located at the center of the city and was the heart of the Roman empire during it's time. It's mainly ruins now, but we had a professor from our school, who is an expert on all things Roman, come and give us a tour around. If you're ever thinking of going to the Forum, I suggest that you either research it quite a bit before you go, go with someone who knows quite a bit about it, or go with a guide. Otherwise it will all just seem like piles of rocks and you'll miss the importance of the ruins.

This is an example of said "pile of rocks". Trying to figure this out would be like trying to finish a 100 piece puzzle with only 25 pieces.

When you first enter you will walk right past this jewel, which was being restored when we went, but it's super fascinating, at least to me. It was a temple at one point, with the open structure and the colonnade surrounding the perimeter, but when the Catholic church became a larger power in Rome a chapel was built within the confines of the temple as a sort of statement.

Old rocks excite me, like these ones, which used to be the dining hall (archaeologist think) of  Nero's enormous villa.

Speaking of old stones, these are the oldest in the Forum in the Hut Village, dating back to the 5th century BC. BC people. That's unimaginably old, and I could have just reached out and touched them. But I didn't. I like to keep what I call a "National Parks" mentality of "Leave only footprints, take only pictures".

Finally for the Forum (alliteration alert) we have one of two triumphal arches. It's hard to see in this picture, but if you look straight down the arch, you can see the Colosseum. And the Colosseum was our next stop.

We walked through the bustling crowds towards the Colosseum, and as soon as our professor Eugenio (whose head is shown here) stopped and we looked up, this was the overwhelming and powerful view we had.

After climbing the steps...correction, the Roman steps (they are incredibly high and I will have buns of steel just from the one visit), we are once again welcomed with a powerful and overwhelming view. A camera can't take in as wide of a frame as we were getting in person. It was  a lot to see, and I'm sure that feeling was just what the designers were going for. But I digress. 

Here is the classic close-up view of the ruins that would have been the staging areas for the animals and gladiators. Fun fact: It also housed the rooms that the trap doors, located all over the battle area floor, lead to. Another fun fact: the wooden floor that covered these rooms was covered itself in sand to absorb all of the blood and sweat from the "games". (I hope none of you are squeamish.)

   

And finally for the Colosseum, this was the gorgeous last view we had before exiting (finding the exit is a bit of a adventure by the way.)

After we were done at the Colosseum, our professor and chaperon gave us the choice of either going on our own because it was our free time, or hanging out with them in a less formal format and having them show us interesting places in Rome and just getting to know each other. So Rachel and I, and a few other girls, took them up on the offer. We learned from Beatrice where to get native Roman food called Tramenzzino, which we absolutely got later, and we headed off to the large national monument. After the monument, which I don't have fond memories of because a pigeon "relieved" its self on my head, we headed over to a square that I had studied in school, the Campidoglio. 

We hung out here and looked around the square for a bit before taking a more scenic route back towards the hotel, where Rachel and I split off in search of our Tramenzinzo. Once that was acquired we were in for the night, and our second day in Rome was essentially over.

ROMA, GIORNA 1

While here in Italy, one of our required courses is called "Reading Cities", and it's basically a course where we meet every Tuesday before a weekend trip, then proceed on said weekend trip to a beautiful Italian city where we get guided tours to all of their beautiful monuments and architectural sites. From there we're supposed to turn in a sketch book of about two sketches dissecting certain buildings we've visited and how they relate into the fabric of the city.

Our first trip was a four-day trip to Rome. This means we got to miss all of our classes on Thursday to take one of the nice high speed trains to Rome. So I'll be breaking this trip up into separate posts from each of the days that we were there, and I'll try to get them up as promptly as possible. Please bear with me as studio work and other class work is picking up, and I'll be writing late at night now, if I get the chance to write at all.
Now that I've made that simple PSA, back to Rome.

When arrived, we went to our hotel to drop off our luggage (because we clearly needed to bring a lot to last us through four days of Italian weather and mishaps), and then headed off to see the neighborhood and get some lunch.

Our hotel was right down the street from Piazza Navona that has the very famous Fountain of the Four Rivers. 

I remember reading about this during class, and I'm in awe that I got to stand in front of it.

We had lunch at a small restaurant, and when I say lunch I really mean that we had delicious pizza. It did come with a coke, so I was pretty excited because I haven't had soda since I've gotten here. It's the little things sometimes.

My lovely lunch pals. Pam and Theresa were there too, just beside me.

After lunch we had our first real tour of the trip, which was of the Vatican Museums. You may remember this name from the post I wrote about our fancy book signing and the free steak. It's the same museums, but we unfortunately did not run into the Father from that night. We did get a pretty neat tour of some of the museums. And I say some because the title is plural, and they mean it. There are loads of buildings in the Vatican complex and most of them are being used now as Museums. But I'll just stick to telling you about the main ones. The two main places we visited were the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter's Basilica. 

We had stunning views while walking from one museum to the next.

Our guide mainly talked about the frescoes on the wall, but I mean, look at this ceiling. That deserves it's time in the sun. Literally. Because it's gorgeous when the sun hits it.

Ahh finally, St. Peters. Get ready for the roof and dome shots. 

But before the dome shots, look at Michelangelo's work. Stunning. 

Ok, here are the dome shots.

And again...

Enough of that. I got to see the Baldacchino! I've studied this in both and art history and an architecture setting, so it's a twice as exciting, right? 

I have plenty of pictures from St. Peter's, but unfortunately none from the Sistine Chapel because photos are forbidden in there. And for that I am really regretful, but I have a fun little surprise for you guys so that you can see the beautiful work done by Michelangelo, just as we did. Click here.

 

As we stepped outside, we were in the most incredible spot to watch the sun set.

But poor Rachel was a little chilly and tired. Can you tell?

So we set off to our hotel room to get off of our feet and work on our studio precedent studies late into the night. Oh the exciting lives we live. Wait, we actually do right now.

LARGO

Largo, in Italian, is a word that its self doesn't quite know the meaning, just like the largo that I am in the process of designing for my studio class. It is mainly just a large space that most would then just classify as a piazza. Except that it's not used as a piazza, or really at all. And thus our task. 

The project we've been assigned for this semester is to re-design the Largo Annigoni and also add (and design) a Gastronomy Center to the piazza. Site analysis for this project was crucial since we know nothing of the culture of the area or how it really works. And the very in-depth (and I'm serious about in-depth, we had to create an entire booklet) made sure that we were well versed with the area and the problems that we would have to find solutions for to make it a workable space.

Site analysis was the first step, and next we are into an in-depth version of precedent studies. Since we are designing two portions to the piazza, both types of projects we are unfamiliar with, we have to find our own successful piazzas and city buildings that can be related to our project constraints and conditions. These individual precedents are also going to give our teachers a sense of our styles and  stylistic eyes, since we're also unfamiliar with each other. 

Even simply the set-up of the studio is unfamiliar to me. Our University implemented inter-disciplinary studios for the architecture and interior design programs during the first year, but those started the year after mine. For the first time with our Florence program, they've also introduced inter-disciplinary studios, one of which I am in.

New city. New language. New studio.

Wish me luck!