2010 September | Cornell in Rome

Archive for September, 2010

Sep

Gnocchi Night

By ck373 0 Comments

Categories: Uncategorized

Gnocchi is one of the most identifiable Italian dishes. Gnocchi are thick, soft dumplings made from eggs, flour, and potatoes that can be served with a variety of sauces such as a tomato sauce or a pesto sauce. This past Friday, we had gnocchi night at Palazzo Lazzaroni to learn how to make homemade gnocchi and then to eat them.

Anna Rita, our gnocchi expert

The base ingredients: grated potatoes, 2 eggs

First, we started with the base ingredients- cooked potatoes that are grated and two eggs. Next, we slowly incorporated the two eggs into the grated potatoes, gradually adding a little bit of flour into the mixture just until the dough no longer stuck on our hands. After the dough was ready, it needed to be kneaded for about five minutes and formed into a ball. Afterwards, the big ball of dough was subdivided into about 6 smaller balls and each small ball of dough into ropes about ¾ inch thick. Next, the rope of gnocchi was cut into pieces 1 inch thick. All of us crowded around a large table in the main Palazzo room and took turns kneading the dough out into rolls and cutting them into little pieces of gnocchi.
Each piece was then pressed with a finger to create an indent in the center so that sauce can get fully mixed into the pasta.

Jae and Yvonne take a turn at making gnocchi dough

Kim and Jae work on mixing flour into the dough

Gnocchi making

Margaret and Varya make indents in the gnocchi

The final step before eating the gnocchi was… finally cooking it! The gnocchi was thrown into a pot of hot water until they floated to the top of the water. The last step was the most delicious! We set up a long table about 30 feet long in the palazzo to sit down together and enjoy the fresh gnocchi. We ate the gnocchi with three different kinds of sauces- butter with sage, tomato sauce with meat, and a red pepper sauce with pine nuts. My favorite was the red pepper sauce. The color was really vibrant, and it was so delicious! Red peppers are still in season and can be readily found in the local outdoor markets, as well as, the neighborhood grocery stores.

Gnocchi with tomato and meat sauce

Gnocchi with red pepper and pine nut sauce

Gnocchi night was a very relaxing end to a very hectic week- one that included the deadline of our first project. It was also nice to cook all together- like one big, architecture family. Although gnocchi can be seen as a challenging meal to make, now it is more approachable and one that we will hopefully make together again.

Enjoying our homemade gnocchi

Taek Ho Han

Ciao a tutti,
Christine

Sep

Forza Roma !

By nmm39 0 Comments

Categories: Uncategorized

Stadio Olimpico

When AS Roma, currently 19^th seed out of 20 teams, beat Inter Milan, 1^st seed and Roma rival, with a header in the 90^th minute at the Stadio Olimpico the crowd went crazy. Everybody erupted in roars. Flags and scarves were waved and thrown about. Fans hugged anyone they could grasp. The person sitting next to me was so excited and had jumped so high when he saw the goal that he fell over the person in front of him on the seat below. Celebrations went on for several hours afterward as the motorini honked their horns, people partied at nearby bars and groups of fan sang in the streets. It was such an upset, such a dramatic moment and such a perfect ending for the hosting team.

The entire game was full of action which included dozens of shots on goal, many counter attacks and a free kick from fifteen feet out. However, nobody managed to convert a shot and lay the ball into the net until Vucinic powered it in with a header off a great crossing pass. Although a soccer field is large, we had a great overall view from our bleacher seats. Players’ expressions, which are very amusing to watch on tv, were hidden to us seeing how there was no large screen close-ups or replays. There were two immense screens that flanked the field but they only displayed the score, time and substitutions. Soccer refereeing is very subjective to what the referee sees as no replays are allowed, and thus the screens are purely informational. Calls are made on the spot and cannot be argued.

Roma fans, aka us, before kickoff

Before going to the game, my friends and I had gotten some AS Roma apparel to further partake in the atmosphere and spirit. We had been told of the great Rome- Inter Milan rivalry and the chaos that can erupt between fans. Last year, despite a bad start, Rome finished second to Inter Milan in the standings. In the stadium, the one little seating area for Inter fans was surrounded by lines of guards on all sides and separated from the rest of the stadium by 15-foot high glass dividers. Despite having security checkpoints at all entrances, in the opening minutes, a Roma fan managed to shoot a flare into the away section. The flare was bright red and created a lot of smoke. Inter fans quickly dispersed from where the flare landed on their seats and shouted at the Roma fans. Sitting opposite the away section, it appeared as a battlefield with cannons being shot at armies of fans. I had wished for more chaos but it ended there for the most part.

Inter fans flanked by armies of security personnel, fences and no-man zones

Inter fans flanked by armies of security personnel, fences and no-man's zones

Flares in crowd (photo by Kim Faul)

Celebrations after AS Roma goal ! ! ! ! ! (photo by Yeung Shin)

Proud AS Roma flag bearer (photo by Lauren Gluck)

Sep

Field trip to Palestrina (Sanctuary of Fortuna), Tivoli (Villa d’Este) and Villa Adriana

By nmm39 0 Comments

Categories: Uncategorized

Villa Adriana

In one day we visited the Sanctuary of Fortuna in Palestrina, the Villa d’Este in Tivoli and the Villa Adriana. All sites were within a two hour reach from the heart of Rome.

By far, I found the Villa d’Este to be the most impressive, especially its gardens. Although our bus drove more than two hours to get to Tivoli, we didn’t actually visit the villa because of time constraint. However, the gardens were some of the nicest I had ever seen. Although in its plan, the garden design looks rather symmetrical and broken down into similar lots, the experience is entirely different. The sloping of the steep terrain on one corner creates very different conditions in different areas. In some areas, outdoor spaces are close by walls. These spaces focus on elaborate waterfalls and the noise of water echoes within the spaces. Water is really everywhere in the gardens and often accompanies you along the pathways via little canals.

The area is very grown in with tall ancient trees. Although the gardens are very organized and impeccably kept, it feels very wild at the same time due to the vegetation appearing as monumental as the statues and villa. The huge villa sits atop of the gardens but is rarely visible from the gardens below. From the villa’s terraces above, you would think you are overlooking a jungle until you get a glimpse of the geometric pathways and monumental fountains that lay beneath the canopy. The photos below do not do this place justice.

The Sanctuary of Fortuna and the Villa Adriana were very interesting and amazing in their own respects. However, at the end of the day, it was the layout of a villa’s garden that stole the show- for me at least.

Forum and tower of Palestrina

Gardens at Villa d'Este

Pathways in Villa d'Este garden

Reflecting pool in gardens at Villa d'Este

Villa d'Este overlooking vast gardens

Gardens at Villa d'Este

Villa Adriana

Sep

By road, rail and sea to Sicilia; and cards

By nmm39 0 Comments

Categories: Field Trips and Uncategorized

Our last field trip brought us all the way to Sicily. Rome and Sicily are more than 500 kilometers apart, however, most of our time getting to and from was spent asleep. We needed rest from long days of walking tours, beach afternoons and once, heavy rainfalls. We needed to compensate for hours of sleep that we had instead used to explore the cities’ night scenarios or enjoying our hotel’s roof terrace overlooking roman temples.

We boarded a bus that would take us first to Herculaneum and then ultimately to Napoli at 7:00 in the morning in Largo Argentina. In Napoli, we transitioned onto a night train to Palermo. We were divided into sleeping rooms of 4. Overnight, we had traveled to the southern tip of Italy. From the mainland, our train needed to cross a strait of about 7 km to reach the island of Sicilia. There is no bridge in place and no floating tracks- our train’s cars were separated and then engulfed within an enormous ferry.

Train in boat (photo by Yeung Shin)

Wishing Leo was there (photo by Yeung Shin)

We were able to get out of the train car and tour the boat’s deck. Although the strait is very narrow, the process of loading and unloading and the slow pace of the ferry took almost two hours. On the boat, we befriended the captain and crew who welcomed us into the helm. It was a Cornell architecture student, Lauren Gluck, who manned the steering wheel of the ferry as we left Sicilia.

Lauren Gluck clears the harbor (photo by Yeung Shin)

Although our trip was packed with events and hurrying from one site to another, we had spans of down time waiting for trains, buses and rendezvous. During these times, we shared our cultures through card games. We learnt how to play Durak(translates to ‘fool’ in English), a Russian card game, thanks to one of our students who is Russian. We discovered the traditional set of Italian cards that consist of 40 cards and are very colorful and more graphic that the poker cards that most of us are used to. These cards can be used for the Italian regional game of Scopa. A cashier explained the rules to me as I was purchasing a deck. She was more than eager to teach the game (basically involves taking tricks) and she soon opened a new deck and we began to play on the counter with her two friends that worked in the store as well. We later played Scopa on the platform of the station as we waited for our train back home.

Scopa being played waiting at the train station

Traditional italian cards

Sep

Panoramas from South Italy

By nmm39 0 Comments

Categories: Field Trips

Theatre at Sagesta

Anfiteatro Romano in Siracusa

View from Monreale, atop Duomo

View of Cefalu

View inside Church of St. Catherine in Palermo

Sep

Visit to the Vatican Museums

By nmm39 0 Comments

Categories: Field Trips and Photo of the week

To the north of Saint Peter’s Basilica is a complex of buildings that house all the Vatican museums. These two areas differ immensely physically and experientially.

View of upper (and largest) court

Whereas Saint Peter’s Basilica is all about its enormous scale and imposing spaces and surfaces, the museum complex operates on a much smaller scale while devoting more attention to detail. Saint Peter’s decorations consist of marble patterns, isolated monumental statues and architectural details. The Basilica is rather plain especially when compared to churches in Palermo for example, which are decorated with stucco and paintings from floor to ceiling. The museums offer extraordinary spaces in wish you almost feel as if you are in a painter’s atelier, or a sculpture’s workshop, where artwork covers most of the walls. This is especially the case in the beautiful Animal Room that houses a vast collection of sculptures in marble, stone and other materials of many species. Larger ones are positioned in the middle of the floor and must be circumnavigated while others are layered one atop another on heavy decorative shelves. The Bust Room is fascinating in the same sense. Huge busts of emperors surround you as you proceed through two rooms. Highly detailed and brightly colored paintings ornate the ceilings and most available space. One really feels like these rooms belong to the sculptures that (over)populate them.

The Laocoonte sculpture in the Octagonal Courtyard

Papal stair

Egyptian-inspired guard rail to protect a floor mosaic

Seat which served to verify the sexuality of Popes

Seat which served to verify a Pope's gender

Room of the Busts

Room of the Animals

The largest spaces of the museum complex are the three outdoor courtyards. In contrast to Saint Peter’s paved piazza, the series of courtyards negotiate the terrain slope by creating terraces. In addition, the courtyard loggias’ floors slant at an angle similar to the natural sloping of the ground. The corridor of maps is perhaps the most visually extended space. This corridor features large fresco maps that flank the corridor. The ceiling is beautifully painted and brightly lit. The corridor is neither very wide nor tall and thus all emphasis is on the longest axis.

Map corridor

Bramante’s Spiral Staircase (which is actually a ramp) is closed to the public. However, we were able to visit it as a group. It had been initially conceived to allow people to ride their horses to upper floors. Bramante chose to express the hierarchy of column orders as one moves from lower to upper floors. The continuous spiral ramp offers no interruption and consequently order changers are expressed rather awkwardly with one column order right besides another column order. This might be one of the few instances that you might associate Bramante with awkward, as his work is always so harmonious and well composed. All these instances of order changes are placed on the entrance-side of the. So, as one enters, the transitions are unnoticed.

View from below.

Ramp-less spiral ramp, with column order change visible

Guardrail-less spiral ramp, with column order change visible

Jeffrey Blanchard describes the views over the Vatican from the top to the Bramante's stair

The Vatican Museums have an unbelievable amount of famous artifacts and will definitely require additional visits to be able to glance at most of them.

Sep

Wine tasting at Renato and Luisa’s

By ck373 0 Comments

Categories: Events

Hmmm… what can I say about the wine tasting? Amazing.

I can see the beginnings of an addiction to eating and drinking great food and wines at Renato and Luisa’s. How convenient in that it is right across the street from our palazzo!

The wine tasting was a quick preview of the delicious Italian wines – from the different red, white, sparking varieties from all over the country. The beginning of the wine tasting started off with a lesson about how wines are made, kept, stored, served, etc. I learned that in the process of making spumante, the bottle is chilled, so that the yeast inside is frozen. Next, the bottle is opened to remove the ice, and then the bottle is recorked and ready for consumption. While the quick wine lesson yielded a few tid bits about wines that I hadn’t known previously, it was obviously not as enjoyable as actually tasting the wine!

There were three wine and food pairings, fresh bread, and dessert. The first wine we tried was prosecco, which was served in a long fluted glass to keep the carbonated bubbles within the glass. The prosecco was paired with a small antipasto of cheese balls rolled in some sort of oats, which tasted creamy, nutty, and a bit tart. The cheese ball antipasto was topped with thin slices of parmegiano reggiano and served alongside slides of cured meat. The next wine was a white wine called Falanghina, made in the Campania region of Italy. It was paired with fried zucchini flowers and skewers made of pancetta, smoked cheese, and prunes. The food was actually very light and a good match to the crispness of the white wine. The final food and wine pairing was a red wine, Castel de Paolis, made in the Lazio region, which was served with savory crepes stuffed with fresh ricotta and spinach. Lastly, we finished the tasting off with homemade chocolate cake topped with stewed peaches. The peaches are in full season right now, and the peach topping tasted so unbelievably delicious! Sadly, there are no photographs of the crepes and dessert. This is where my mind went into a serious food coma, and my attention shifted away from my camera and towards the food and wine!

Anyhow, the wine tasting was a very enjoyable experience. Looking around, everyone was laughing and talking about their first few weeks living in Rome and about the different things and places that they have seen so far. As I am studying abroad for a year, I have the chance to do another wine tasting next semester, and I am thoroughly looking forward to it!

Ciao a tutti,

Christine

Sep

Ferragosto and Our Trip to Sperlonga

By ck373 1 Comment

Categories: Uncategorized

On the 15th of August, Italians celebrate a holiday called Ferragosto, which originally celebrated the middle of summer and the end of hard labor in the fields, as well as, the cycles of fertility and ripening.

Most business, restaurants, and schools close during the last few weeks of the month as most Romans flee from the hot summer temperatures and head to the beaches to the south. Luckily, this Italian holiday also coincides with the hottest days of the summer. Thus not long after we finally arrived in Rome, we left Rome- happily following the Romans to the waters of the beach town, Sperlonga, approximately a 1-1.5 hour journey from Rome. While there are beaches closer to Rome in Ostia, Sperlonga exceeded all of those we had been previously visited.

Waking up at 7:30 in the morning to meet at the Stazione Termini was entirely worth the enjoyable time we had! The water is unbelievably blue, and the medieval quarters of Sperlonga are oddly reminiscent of Greek islands like Santorini. The houses are stacked one on top of another, connected by a series of winding stairs and alleys. Then, wandering through the maze of houses, you will happen upon an opening and have the most picturesque view of the ocean.

We spent most of the day “prendendo il sole”- taking in the sun and then cooling off in the water. We also had gelato from the main piazza in Sperlonga and some local fruits and vegetables from a vendor. So now you know, if you visit Rome in the latter half of August and find the city empty… all of the Italians and the Cornell architecture students have fled to the beaches of Sperlonga. Now we are tan, relaxed, and ready for the start of the semester!

Ciao a tutti,
Christine

Sep

Changing of the guards at Palazzo del Quirinale

By nmm39 1 Comment

Categories: Daily Life and Events

One of the first things you learn in Rome, especially arriving in August, is that when you make plans, you should always include an alternative plan B and plan C. Opening and closing hours vary immensely depending on where you are in the city, what day it is, what month it is, if renovation is going on, what happens in the place, and sometimes it seems like it just depends on whether they want to be open or not. However, what also happens very frequently is that you find yourself being pulled away from your route as you discover something new and unexpected. So, good planning in Rome should be able to accommodate unexpected detours and you should be able to improvise.

One of the many events I haphazardly witnessed here was the changing of the guards at the Palazzo del Quirinale. Since 1947, it has served as the official residence of the President of the Italian Republic. It had served as a papal residence for more almost three centuries when, in 1871, it became the residence of the Kings of Italy. Italian guards, impeccably dressed in traditional Italian uniforms, heavily defend the palazzo. The Palazzo sits atop the highest of the Seven Hills of Rome and has a beautiful grand entrance way. The piazza in front of the Palazzo del Quirinale offers a great view towards St. Peter’s Basilica.

The changing of the guards, which happens daily at 18:00, is a rather lengthy show. You see different ranks and regiments of soldiers marching; a military band plays during the march and during the switching of the guards. The highlight of this event is when the two guards that flank the entryway into the palazzo are switched for two new guards. The new pair of guards assume the next shift until a new changing of the guards takes place. From some positions, the public can get very close to the soldiers. Most of them kept a straight and focused face as they marched not even ten feet away from me.

My group’s first studio assignment partially deals with the avenue that brings you to the Presidential Palace, and it had not even been more than 5 hours since we had met with our professors in front of the Palazzo del Quirinale for our first ‘desk crit.’

Sep

Beethoven’s symphonies in Renzo Piano’s Parco della Musica

By nmm39 0 Comments

Categories: Architecture and Daily Life

I would find it very hard to believe that anyone of us was prepared to find such a concentration of famous buildings in our new city. An abundance of structures that were heavily discussed in our Analysis and Theory classes are only minutes away, often by foot. Many of us first became aware of Piano’s Parco della Musica after someone undertook the project for their structure’s model. A ten-minute cab ride was enough to see it in person.

Kurt Mazur conducts

On Friday, September 3rd, many of us had the pleasure ofexperiencing Beethoven’s first three symphonies conducted by the famous Kurt Masur (for more than ten years, head of the New York Philharmonic). The evening’s program was part of a complete cycle of all of Beethoven’s symphonies performed by the Orchestra e Coro dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. The concert took place in the Sala Santa Cecilia, the largest of the three impressive concert halls by Renzo Piano that form the complex.

View from behind the orchestra

The most prominent feature of the Sala Santa Cecilia is the ceiling design that employs heavily protruding volumes that create inverted canyons in the ceiling (a design that addresses acoustic requirements). American cherry laminates the entire concert hall. To the dissatisfaction of some, a view of the ceiling is not available from all seats. Seated in the center rear balcony area, one doesn’t get a view of the ceiling’s beautiful design. This is very unfortunate as the spot and diffuse lighting on the wooden protruding volumes account for the entire ambiance of the concert hall.

Ceiling detail

The overall appearance is very orange, as all photographs of this space illustrate. Hundreds of electrical cables and structural members descend from above the orchestra to allow microphones, acoustic panels and lights to be correctly positioned. All cables pierce through the wooden volumes and create constellation of holes in the otherwise very smooth and regular surface. Seeing this, I couldn’t help but imagine the space modeled in Ecotect Analysis (a software partially used to map lighting and acoustics), trying to find the best angle and shape for the acoustic panels while observing the paths of all the primary and secondary sound vectors. Some day, I would like to design a concert hall.

Outdoor 'concert hall' area with one of the three concert halls visible in back

For those who might have missed out on the first concerts, you may still attend the 4th and 5th symphonies on the Thursday, Sept 9th or Friday, Sept. 10th; symphonies n.6 and n.7 on Thursday, Sept. 16th or Friday, Sept. 17th; symphonies n. 8 and n.9 on Thursday, Sept 23rd or Friday, Sept 24th.

M	T	W	T	F	S	S
« Jul				Oct »
		1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21	22	23	24	25	26
27	28	29	30

Cornell in Rome

Archive for September, 2010

Gnocchi Night

Forza Roma !

Field trip to Palestrina (Sanctuary of Fortuna), Tivoli (Villa d’Este) and Villa Adriana

By road, rail and sea to Sicilia; and cards

Panoramas from South Italy

Visit to the Vatican Museums

Wine tasting at Renato and Luisa’s

Ferragosto and Our Trip to Sperlonga

Changing of the guards at Palazzo del Quirinale

Beethoven’s symphonies in Renzo Piano’s Parco della Musica

Categories

Pages

External Links

Archives

Admin