Five months to be away, four of them in Rome. This has become a point of certain distinction within the way I both perceive the world and the places within it. My ideas on making architecture were shaped through learning in Philadelphia. It is interesting that where you learn architecture actually affects the way you work. Now, being in Rome, I enjoy that my understanding of it has grown with a different outlook.
Upon investigating Piazza del Popolo for the past few weeks I have learned to see a space that is very foreign in Philadelphia, a large open space that is actually used. This place of congregation is for the public and it’s a great place to
people watch. To see Romans and watch interactions between people brought perspective to everyday life in a new place. The painstaking symmetry in Piazza del Popolo becomes an unnoticed backdrop to everyone else passing by, but to me it became a place to better understand why spaces like this work. The large obelisk to act as a landmark near and far, the colliding arterial streets of Via del Corso, Bambuino, Ripetta, and even Cola de Rienzo to the West become expansive boulevards that the obelisk can be viewed from at miles away. Being at Piazza Venezia or Piazza Risorgimento you can look up the street and Piazza del Popolo still gives off its presence. A presence from afar also begins to show through in my second studio project along the Tiber. The idea to make a taller element within the site to create opportunities to view out and away in Rome but for the city to also back to a space develops due to this.
Seeing what ideas work in reality is a good way to test and compare your own notions on architecture. At our age this can also be very humbling. I was reminded of this upon visiting Peter Zumthor’s Thermal Baths at Vals this semester. Architecturally, this was my most influential visit outside of Rome. The ingeniously designed play between materials, light, and water made me appreciate that I still have much to learn from the long history of great architects in our profession. While floating in the heated pools watching thick steam float off the water and into the stars of the frigid night sky, aside from simply relaxing and letting my mind drift, I enjoyed the fact that even though we develop our own thoughts on designing, we will always be moved and sometimes heavily influenced by another architect’s compelling work. By seeing this place I have thoroughly pushed my perceptions on thinking about and building space.
Studying in Rome has also reminded me that you must be mindful of not just what’s new, but also to learn from the ideas of the architects of the past, not just the recent past, but far back. From seeing Bernini’s Fountain of the Four Rivers or Bramante’s Tempietto in person I believe I can better understand the differences between drawing in theory and building in actuality. I can see how later architects like Scarpa and Horta learned from Roman architecture to push their own ideas. This long tradition of building and primarily learning from the past will be Rome’s lasting impression on me.
A prime example of this change occurs during our second project. The earlier iterations are pieces of programs each designed specifically for itself with all of these components floating around the edges of the site. Although I prefer edge conditions to contort the periphery of my designs upon thinking more critically
about The Tempietto and The Therme I began to create a more simple and inward looking scheme that creates its own context and will become the context to newer projects around it. At the same time it still relates to the context without formally doing so. It becomes more about what the edge conditions can do instead of how they are shaped.
This idea of travel, not where we travel, but why has kept reminding me to stop and assess what I am doing. I realize I have come to enjoy the energy of seeing places up close and for long enough to actually get into its essence. You can only do this in person because pictures and writings never give the full atmosphere and they are always run through the filter of another person before you get your chance to assess it. Seeing places in the flesh changes us and this is very intriguing. Being somewhere else for this long allows us enough time to see places at different times, seasons, and moods. Also there is no better feeling than to stop and say, “im in Rome, for the next four months” or “I’ve lived in Rome for over three months now” Stopping to say things like these have reminding to get out and see as much as I can for as long as I can.
Without this much time in Rome I would not have noticed details that actually have really helped me to see more objectively. For example only after seeing St. Peter’s Square for months can you realize how big that space really is. When seeing the square only once it feels small due to the fact that the scale of the church and the colonnades are exaggerated. The doors to St. Peter’s seem small from the square, but once you actually get up there and walk through them you can see just how immense they are. Upon two, three, and twenty visits, from walking across it end to end, from being there on Palm Sunday and seeing just how many people can fit in that square you understand. The fact that on Palm Sunday they do not fill the square with bouquets of palms, but entire palm and olive trees gives you a sense of the huge volume this space holds. In an hour long visit one may quickly see that the columns are taller than normal or that the doors are too, but after months of visits you notice the clocks are as well, and so are the lampposts. Even the gates, the steps, and the cobblestones are all bigger to keep the whole composition in proportion. This way of looking, really looking and not assuming I learned in both my own personal Roman experiences but also through Rome Sketchbook as seen in the ink wash drawings of my special place.
I look forward to the next month of continued travel to further develop my thoughts on the way to perceive and partake in culture.
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