Archive for the 'Classes' Category

25
Feb

Photo(log): Winter Photo Update

By Jake Rudin 0 Comments
Categories: Architecture, Classes, Daily Life, Events, Field Trips, Photo of the week and Uncategorized

There has been quite the variety of activities going on here in Rome during the past few weeks: history class visits to numerous historical monuments, trips to southern Italy, museum visits to the MAXXI, a wonderful lecture from artist/photographer/filmmaker Giorgio de Finis of Metropoliz, and lots of time to get lost in the city.  Here’s a short photo-style update on what some of these wonderful things have been like.

Sometimes a photo just says it all.  Maybe it’s a simple shot of a landscape.  Maybe it’s a “selfie” of you and a friend at the beach (remember to bend your elbow). And sometimes, the expression says it all.

It’s been a cold couple of weeks around here. Although Rome is relatively mild in the winter, the wind can be killer, especially along the Tiber. But that doesn’t stop us from bundling up and exploring the city. This photo was taken at the top of Castle St. Angelo.  We were all freezing in the wind, but in a history class like Jeffrey Blanchard’s, you can’t stop taking notes (even if your hands are freezing).

In the end, the frozen note-taking is worth it because the professors know some of the best views in the whole city.

This Neapolitan’s take on staying warm — trash bags of piping-hot bread — is a tactic I had never seen before; but I imagine it will soon be popping up in spring fashion catalogs across Europe. Particularly France.

 

Sometimes we get lucky.  One of my favorite feelings is coming out of a ruin to find that the sun has decided to grace us with its warming glow. Our visit to Herculaneum was a particularly nice day.

Calm and stoic Paestum.

Followed by a colorful reenactment of the first Greek Olympiad. Courtesy of Maria Paula and Manuela.

It’s times like these where everyone is happily lounging in the Mediterranean sun, that I wonder what ever possessed me to move to Ithaca.

The contrast of locations in Italy is incredible. Travelling with the program has so far yielded an incredible overview of the different types of geography around the country.

And plenty of walking to boot.

While in Rome we may not have architecture hewn from the living rock, there is always something new to be discovered. And when you discover something new, make sure you take a real hard look, because you may find there is more than meets the eye.

Other times… well there’s not a whole lot to do other than be amazed.

04
Feb

a typical studio: out and about

By Jake Rudin 0 Comments
Categories: Architecture, Classes, Daily Life, Field Trips and Uncategorized

As we begin the studio semester, the architecture students traditionally do a lot of work visiting the site of their newest project.  In that regard, this semester is no different. The site that has been chosen by our professors as the site of Rome’s newest Center for Peace and Religious Studies is a triangular shaped park only a couple of blocks from the Colosseum.

Of course the program is quite interesting, and being so close to the Colosseum is certainly a very interesting challenge, but to me what is really amazing is that the surrounding area has so much history to offer. The Celian hill, of which our site is part, stretches from the Colosseum to the most important church in Rome, San Giovanni Laterano. It was a residential hill with both elite and common citizens during the late ancient and early medieval periods. The military hospital that flanks our site on its eastern side is a reminder of the four military barracks that were once on the hill. To the west of the site sits the remains of the Temple of Claudius which was built in 43 CE. Interestingly enough, the surrounding area is also rich in religious history (a great reason to choose it for the site of a religious studies center), having been home to Persian cults, Imperial cults, Asian Cults, Egyptian cults, the cult of the god Mithra, and early Christianity. Needless to say, exploring our site has been a wonderful way to get to know more about the history of the city.

As architects tend not to stay in one place for too long (especially if that place is our studio desk), our entire studio class also decided to take a trip to the EUR New Congress Centre, henceforth referred to as the “cloud” because of the amorphous figure suspended in the center. The “cloud,” by Italian practice Fuksas Architects, is sited in the southern part of Rome and was quite the trek in respect to our site and other field trips to date which have been within close walking distance.

Visiting the construction site was quite the experience. Upon our arrival, the guard asked for copies of all of our passports (that’s when we knew they were serious). We then passed through the gate and were each given a pair of steel-toed work boots and a hard hat. Seeing 30 architects in white hard hats is a hilarious site, as it is often the only non-black element of the person’s outfit.

We then proceeded to walk into the building, with Davide Marchetti and George Hascup each pointing out their favorite and least favorite parts of the building which I don’t have the space for here. We then took a massive construction elevator up into the steel frame of the “cloud,” which hosts an auditorium for 1,850 people and conference rooms for over 6,000 which will host congresses, exhibitions and events.  All of this will be housed within the organically shaped steel frame covered with a white translucent fabric. We then departed from the site and were treated to an extra long lunch break and the opportunity to explore that part of the city before returning to studio.

One of the best parts of being in Rome is having the chance to escape the “campus” and explore the rich context around it.  I’m certainly looking forward to more classes out and about.

26
Nov

A Show in a Castle

By tsw38@cornell.edu 0 Comments
Categories: Classes and Events

So it seems that the semester is really coming to an end. I mean, we still have 3 weeks left until we have to pack up and board our planes back home, but it’s pretty much right around the corner. It didn’t really hit me until last Sunday when we (art majors) had to set up our final curated show in Genazzano…in a castle! Who get’s to say that they had an art exhibition in a castle on top of a hill in the Italian countryside?


It would be an understatement to say that it was a great experience, because it was way more than that. For a director of a museum to allow college juniors to have an exhibition in his museum, is beyond anything any one of us could have thought possible. And even though many of us have set up shows before, somehow this one was different.

For starters, the spaces that we potentially could have used were incredibly massive; for only 8 people, there was no way that all of us could fill in all that empty space. So Claudio Pisano, the director of the CIAC Museum, made the executive decision to place us all in the same room, and somehow we made it work. The space seemed to fit us all in it perfectly, Sara grabbed a corner, Anastasia, Izzy and Christine each procured a wall, Jacqueline and Joy each claimed the middle of two open spaces, Brooke appropriated the darkest part of the room and I took to one of the two archways in the room.
Christine and her paintings

Tyler Williams and Luana Perilli deciding on where to place a piece. Photo Credit: Sara ChaPhoto Credit for above: Sara Cha

Izzy Greer leveling her piece

Photo Credit for above: Sara Cha

Setting up the show seemed like took a few long hours to accomplish our goal, but at some point during the preparations Luana and Claudio both disappeared and returned bearing food. I don’t know where the time went because it seemed to me that we had only just arrived. By the time we finished the food and went back to work, time seemed to pass entirely too quickly: by the time most of us were putting the finishing touches on our work it was already 5pm. That makes 7 hours to set up 8 works of art..How that happened…I dont know, but I guess it was a bit of stress, decision making, readjustments and panicking.

But after those 7 hours, our semester of living in Rome, going through school and field trips and classes and work and internships, finally seemed finite. We finished with a show in a castle, and we owe that entirely to the help of our professor Luana Perilli and director of the CIAC Claudio Pisano.

-Tyler Williams

28
Aug

La prima settimana

By Jackie Krasnokutskaya Closed
Categories: Architecture and Classes

At the moment I am sitting in the beautiful Palazzo Larzzaroni, that we call studio, and drawing for our first assignment. This building is very different from Milstein Hall, to say the least. Instead of the floor-to-ceiling glass panels that I am so used to, the palazzo has windows with shutters. Instead of a white ceiling with skylights, there is a vaulted ceiling, ornately painted. What concerns me most at the moment, though, is that instead of having an electronic sensor which controls the HVAC system, the palazzo is back-to-basics, which means opening the windows to get some fresh air. Unheard of!

Classes started this week, and yet today is the first time I am actually spending several hours sitting in the palazzo. This may seem a paradox at first glance, but, in reality, it’s pretty typical of classes in Rome. Every one of my classes went on a “site visit” this week around the city. Textbooks are almost unnecessary here because “the city of Rome is our (free) unique textbook that offers the images on a scale of 1:1 and in 3D”, as Jan Gadeyne, one of my history professors, so eloquently stated in his syllabus.

This semester I am taking studio, two history classes (one about ancient Rome, and one about the Renaissance and Baroque), a theory class, and a contemporary Rome seminar. Studio meets twice a week (a welcome change!), on Mondays and Thursdays. This week we started working on our first project, for which we are drawing and analyzing several palazzi and other buildings from the Renaissance and Baroque periods. Thus began a week of walking around in our large group of students, while each professor lectures in situ.

It almost feels similar to walking through Rome with a tour guide, but with several important differences. For one, the walk involves juggling a sketchbook, SLR camera, and water bottle, while avoiding tourists, listening intently, and taking notes. This may seem like an impossible feat, but while there is definitely an art to it, I think I’m getting better. More importantly, the lectures are much more intelligent, relevant, and interesting than what a regular tour could offer, so it’s worth the occasional struggle. Luckily, I haven’t dropped my camera yet.

Excitingly, this semester marks the first time I don’t have class on Fridays. Because studio always meets three times a week in Ithaca, this will also be the only time I get to experience such a luxury. The potential of this is really exciting, because it means I can take short trips on the weekends without feeling as much pressure from my classes. Even without traveling, having a three day weekend allows me to get my work done at a leisurely pace, while still having time to explore Rome.

28
Aug

Photo-Blogging

By Nick Cassab Closed
Categories: Architecture, Classes and Daily Life

PHOTOBLOGGING

Ever since I found out Cornell had hired me as a photoblogger I knew I was going to have to step my game up in the photography department (and in the writing department, but that’s another story).  So I signed up for photo in Rome, bought my first DSLR, and tried to practice as much as I could.  I picked up some tips, and some tools, along the way and I thought I’d share them with you.

Exposure Compensation:

Picked this tip up in the manual of my Canon, basically there’s a tool that lets you bracket the meter on your camera so that you’ll take a series of photos at different exposures.  This is great if the light is really bright in some areas and dark in others, as you can take several shots to test out which exposure might be best.  When paired with continuous shooting, you can take 3 identical shots at different shutter speeds, and I’ve heard that later on you can piece these photos together in an HDR image.

Panoramas:

Panoramas have been very easy to take with my iPhone camera using the app Photosynth, but using a series of 10 MB images taken from a DSLR may not be the best idea, considering your panorama may end up being at least a Gig in size.  But if you feel so inclined, the makers of Photosynth, i.e. a department at Microsoft, have made a desktop version they call I.C.E.  It’s pretty nice in that it let’s you make planar panoramas as well as spherical panoramas.

 

Orthographic Images:

The last tip/tool is something that is still very much a work in progress, but it’s pretty nice that it blends well with taking photos/ studio work/ and history.  Pretty recently Autodesk came out with a free tool called 123d Catch.  It’s a tool that creates a fully textured 3d mesh from a series of photos.  What that means is you can go around and snap a bunch of pictures of anything, and with a little work from this tool, you can produce a 3d representation of whatever you were taking pictures of.  I’ve been using this tool in conjunction with Rhino and Photoshop to make orthographic photos of renaissance facades.  I’m still waiting for one of these things to end up perfect, but hopefully by then I’ll be able to use this to map our site for studio.

 

13
Feb

First Reflections In Rome

By pbg43 0 Comments
Categories: Classes and Daily Life

Guest Blogger Katerina Athanasiou


Suddenly, it’s mid-February. It seems that our time in Rome is already passing by rapidly. Allow me to backtrack a bit. I arrived in Rome on January 5th – a few days before intensive Italian classes began. Arriving with only the most basic knowledge of Italian language — ciao, per favore, arrivederci – I was excited to start! These weeks were a whirlwind. Those enrolled in Italian were in class from 10 till 1 and 2 till 3:30 every day! Though classes were surely taxing, they were also incredibly rewarding. It’s pretty surreal how much we all learned in such a short period of time. Our elementary Italian was supplemented by our everyday attempts to get acquainted with Rome. These were perhaps some of my most rewarding experiences: recognizing the names of vegetables in the grocery store, ordering a loaf of bread in a bakery, asking for directions. After two weeks of learning our way around, all planners, artists, and architects finally arrived in Rome, right before a weekend of orientations (as Becky described) and the official start of classes on January 17th.

From architectural history to photography, our courses are only enhanced by location. Getting to learn in a truly hands-on way is a very distinct experience. For instance, the planning students are all enrolled in the “Rome Workshop,” in which we are all put into groups and assigned neighborhoods. I’ll be studying Garbatella, a part of Rome initially designed to be a “Garden City.” I remember reading Ebenezer Howard’s work on garden cities in The American City just this fall, so getting to experience this first hand is really interesting. After our first week of classes, we had a free weekend during which some students chose to travel. Cornell in Rome took a trip to a very cold Naples last week, which I’ll be recapping about soon!

So far, life in Rome is chaotic but beautiful. I must say that the Rome I dreamt up in my head was much smaller and village-like. On the contrary, Rome is a bustling metropolis that functions as the nation’s capital, home of many Italians, and revolving door for tourists. Unfolding the many layers of Rome — from ruins to modern day functions – provides for a constant adventure. Living in the heart of the historical district, just around the corner from our classes at the Palazzo, is in many ways surreal. Almost daily, while on a casual walk or when wildly lost, one can run into an old fountain or beautiful church, some of which are not even major landmarks in the city. Rome is endlessly striking and engaging.

02
Feb

Our First Weeks in Rome

By Becky Ashby-Colón 0 Comments
Categories: Classes, Daily Life, Events and Field Trips

Our group gathers in Piazza del Campidoglio on Capitoline Hill.

After a whirlwind first two weeks of intensive Italian and neighborhood scoping, all the artists, architects, and planners have finally arrived and settled into Rome. Our new homes are in Trastevere, a beautiful region of Rome west of the Tiber River, a landmark which those of us living in the Dandolo apartments have the pleasure of crossing every morning to get to class. We were extremely relieved to discover that the weather is significantly milder than in Ithaca; while the native Italians hurry past in their winter furs, we bask in the Roman sunlight.

On Saturday, January 20, Academic Coordinator Jeffrey Blanchard led a walking and bus tour for all AAP students and professors that led us from our own Palazzo Lazzaroni to the Colosseum to San Giovanni in Laterno (St. John the Lateran) all the way to the Spanish Steps, with a picnic on the Appian Way in between. To describe it as overwhelming doesn’t quite do our tour justice; the span of our trek through the historical ruins of this renowned city, plus Jeffrey’s exceptional and thorough knowledge of Rome, made for a captivating, if physically exhausting, day. Needless to say, the cameras snapped away maniacally that day. We definitely played the part of eager American tourists, but as our knowledge of the language and of the city increases, we’ll soon be indistinguishable from our Italian peers. You’ll see!

The lovely view of the river at sunset in Trastevere.

28
Oct

Meier’s Jubilee

By Lauren 1 Comment
Categories: Architecture and Classes

This semester abroad I am taking the class Contemporary Art in Rome taught by Professor Shara Wasserman.  Each week as a class we visit different art spaces including museums (like the MAXXI and MACRO), contemporary commercial art galleries, and sometimes contemporary architecture around the city.  However, contemporary architecture is not often found in Rome.

Rome is a very historical city, clearly tied to antiquity, physically built on or over monuments of Rome’s past.  Because of this, it is very hard to do any type of building in the city because new design can be very controversial in relationship to these monuments.  This is a huge challenge for contemporary architects and often means that new building projects are focused to the outskirts of the city, something that has become a theme of the class.

In one of our last classes, students had the pleasure of getting to visit one of the most famous of the few examples of new architecture in Rome: Richard Meier’s Jubilee Church.  This building is no exception to the rule of being built outside of the city center and it is clear that Rome is hesitant to accept the new and powerful forms of the contemporary.

The first striking image of the Jubilee is the distinctive triple arc design.  The white marble building was in great contrast to the sky behind it.

Richard Meier

The “Three Sails” as it is coined is linking itself formally to early Christian language through the imagery of fish, water and proliferation.  Shara told us about the ties of the form to the story of Jonah and the whale.

Jubilee Church

Walking around the exterior of the church we noticed the marble dust glistening on its surface and creating a mystical feel with its lightness. Below, student Jessica Tranquada approaches the structure and must shade her eyes due to the building’s brilliance.

Jessica in front of the Jubilee

When we went inside I fell in love with this structure.  It was so beautiful. Meier did an amazing job mixing the orthogonal elements of the interior with the huge arc-like pieces of the roof.

Richard Meier Interior

Inside was very light and bright with large windows and ample amounts of natural light.  The only dark color in the entire space is the dark iron cross which is highlighted due to its contrast to the white altar behind it.

Jubilee Church Interior

This was my first introduction to a notion of contemporary church design in Italy.  It was wonderful to see something completely different than the other churches in Rome, and is a very successful design.

-Lauren

23
Mar

Planning Studio

By mc458 0 Comments
Categories: Classes

Titled as “The European City”, the City and Regional Planning Studio is the core course for all planning students in Rome. Before starting the class, I had no idea how the course would be.   Now that it has been around two months since classes started, and I think it is high time I briefly talked about the course!

Our very first assignment was the Rioni Project (the word rione in Italian means district).  Students worked  together in groups of two people, and the assignment required that we go to our assigned rioni to study and document the streets. The rione assigned to me was Trevi, where the famous Trevi Fountain is located. Since it is a big tourist area, we calculated the tourist flows and studied the commercial establishments. Using GIS, we also compared our observation with census data like population density and education level. In particular, our findings were to be shared with the architects and artists who were also working on their own rioni. Many of the architect-artist groups found our findings very helpful as our information helped strengthened their choice of location for the fountain they designed, which was their part of the project.

In fact, when compared to our next neighborhood project, the Rioni Project was a piece of cake. Having finished this intial rioni project, we moved on to the neighborhood project. In this project, students were divided into four groups (4 people in each group). Each group was assigned a neighborhood and we had to do a very comprehensive observation and street study. I was lucky enough to study Bullicante, a multi-ethnic neighborhood in which many South Asians and Chinese live (around 4 km east from the Termini). As we had to go to the neighborhood twice a week, we grasped every opportunity to try authentic Indian food, kebab and Chinese food (which were all amazing!).

Geographical Context of Bullicante

Geographical Context of Bullicante

In the study, we documented every single street of the neighborhood, and recorded data like state of repair of streets, number of trees, presence of publicity materials, building typology, land uses, types of establishments, traffic intensity, pedestrian flows, ethnic composition, cleanliness level and human activities, etc. As there were around 40 streets, it took quite a long time for us to record every single detail. To our surprise, there were truly a lot of ethnic establishments (e.g. Chinese church, Indian clothing store, posters written in Hindi). As such, we could hardly feel that Bullicante is part of Rome. I found it very satisfying to learn about a non-traditional neighborhood in Rome (where cobblestones, persiane (window coverings) and tourists!).

Indian Clothing Store in Bullicante

Indian Clothing Store in Bullicante

Right before Spring Break, we had to submit a 9000-word deliverable for our study and observation. To vividly present our thoughts and findings, we incorporated many self-made graphics and GIS maps into the report; all of this, however, is just the beginning of the project! In the coming 2 months, we have to work on a cognitive map exercise (Stage 2) and an analytical account of the neighborhood (Final Stage). Personally, I really like the structure of the project, as the three stages of the project have different focuses, from observations (Deliverable 1) to interviews (Deliverable 2) to desk research (Deliverable 3). I am sure we all are excited about continuing to study our respective beloved neighborhoods- I can’t wait to go back to Bullicante to eat at another ethnic restaurant!

06
Mar

Photography Lecture: Marco Delogu

By mc458 0 Comments
Categories: Classes

Before coming to Rome, I had no experience in photography despite my strong interest in it. As I was first looking at the course list of the Rome program, I was so excited that I would finally get a chance to learn about photography! Having been in the class for 5 weeks, I have really enjoyed taking photos around town, discussing how interesting my classmates’ photos are, and choosing (painfully) the best one out of the 100 photos I have taken. In particular, Liana Miuccio, our instructor, has been very helpful and nice. Undoubtedly, I would say this is my favorite class so far in Rome!

As part of the course, we recently had a special lecture by Mr. Marco Delogu, an Italian photographer who  initiated an international festival of photography in Rome and has exhibited in many cities around the world. It was actually my first time listening to a professional photographer, and I realized that purely listening to how he explained the photos can be very inspiring!

I found it interesting that his interests could change from time to time. For example, He mentioned that at first he was obsessed with taking photos of horses, but later he became more interested in shooting close-ups of people. Interestingly, his latest interest in 2008 was soul. Although most of his photos are in black and white only, I found many of them very strong and vivid (especially the close-ups of old people).

Having seen his photos, I became more motivated to take more good photos for my photography project (the topic is “the non-Italian side of Italy”). By the end of the semester, I really hope that I will have produced a great portfolio of photos that record my experience in Rome!

See Marco Delogu’s work at http://www.marcodelogu.com

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