Italy Part 4 -- Roma!

Parco della Musica by Renzo Piano

February 28, 2012 -- 4:56PM

The last destination of our giro d'italia was Rome. We stayed in Rome for 3 nights. The weather finally started to get tolerable and almost warm at times, which made it that much better. Our hotel was right next to Piazza di Fiore which is really close to Piazza Navona and the Pantheon. My room was on the top floor and opened right out onto our roof terrace where we spent most mornings and nights hanging out eating and drinking beer & wine. We arrived sort of later in the evening so we had a little time to roam (no pun-intended) over towards the Pantheon and see it with the sun down. It was incredible. Such a beautiful structure that was built 120AD. It's amazing it still stands today. I believe we had group dinner that night and then a couple of us decided to walk up to St. Peter's which is absolutely gigantic! We got asked to leave around 11pm when they were closing down the area for the night so we walked over to the Spanish steps and enjoyed those for a little while. My knee started acting up a lot from all the walking from the week, especially on cobblestone. We called it a night.

View from our roof top terrace just outside of our hotel room

We had an early morning to tour the city as a studio. We first went to Piazza Navona to see Bernini's Four Rivers sculpture and Borromini's Church. We then went over to the Pantheon for a bit. It was awesome to see light pour through the completely open oculus. We then went to see some more Bernini vs. Borromini; Chisea di Sant Andrea al Quirinale by Bernini &
San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane by Borromini. Both churches on the same block with ovular domes. Frankly, I think Borromini's was better than Bernini's in this instance, but typically I prefer Bernini work over Borromini. We then went to see Bernini's Ecstasy of St. Teresa sculpture in the Cornaro Chapel.

Piazza Navona

The Pantheon

Chisea di Sant Andrea al Quirinale by Bernini

San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane by Borromini

Bernini's Ecstasy of St. Teresa sculpture in the Cornaro Chapel

Paola cut us loose for Lunch and the afternoon so Jess, Erik, Blake, Sam, and I went towards the Coliseum and the Roman Forum (aka the ruins). The line was pretty long to get inside the Coliseum so we just walked through the ruins instead. That night I went to dinner with a smaller group of people and we were actually able to eat out on the street which was awesome. We drank on the roof terrace that night and I met some kids who are studying in Florence from MICA, which was pretty cool.

Coliseum

The Ruins

The next day, Saturday, we decided to walk up to the Vatican City and try to get into St. Peter's basilica. What we didn't know was that the Pope would be inducting a bunch of Cardinals that morning. So we weren't able to get in but we were able to watch the Pope speak (in Latin) for a little bit on the screens in front of St. Peter's. Blake, Erik, Jess, and I then walked up the hill towards Il Tempietto di San Pietro in Montorio and got a pretty sweet view of Rome from a little higher up. We then had to meet with the group to head North towards the Olympic Park, Maxxi, and the Parco della Musica. I was kind of disappointed with Maxxi by Zaha Hadid. The form was cool and the stairs and walkways were awesome but the galleries kind of sucked. Parco della Musica by Renzo Piano was absolutely gorgeous. It was so inspiring and really nice to finally see some architecture from the 21st century. After seeing this complex, it has really inspired me to really consider getting into concert hall, auditorium, and acoustic design. We were able to see a Jazz Orchestra concert in one of the concert halls that evening which was absolutely incredible. I really miss being able to play music.

St. Peter's Basilica

Bernini's St. Peter's Square

Il Tempietto di San Pietro in Montorio

Piazza del Popolo

Maxxi by Zaha Hadid

Parco della Musica by Renzo Piano

Italy Part 3 -- Florence (Firenze) + Siena

At the peak of the Duomo in Firenze

February 26, 2012 -- 9:38PM

Next stop on our Giro d'Italia (Tour of Italy) was Firenze (Florence). Florence (as well as Rome) have a lot of exchange/international education so pretty much everyone I met in Florence spoke at least a little bit of English, which was kind of disappointing. I was finally starting to feel somewhat comfortable with attempting to speak italian. The city is absolutely beautiful and is filled with some amazing history. We kicked off the trip with a visit to the Duomo, aka the tallest dome/church in the city. The dome was built by Brunelleschi. I couldn't believe the mass of the building. The dome and bell tower are really tall but the basilica in general is just massive. It looks so out of place when looking at the full city's landscape. We climbed up through the skinny and narrow corridors to arrive at the peak of the dome. I'm not the biggest fan of heights but it was pretty incredible, not to mention how old the structure is and it is sturdier than anything else in that city.

The second day in Florence we went to a bunch of former Medici owned buildings. The library we visited had a dome built by Michelangelo. We had lunch at Za-Za's a pizza place picked out by Jess, since she formerly studied in Florence. It was delicious. We went to Santa Croce which was by far one of my favorite churches to enter. Many famous people were buried there such as Michelangelo, Galileo, Machiavelli, Donatello, and Dante. That night a couple of us, lead by Jess, climbed a near by hill/mountain to get an awesome view over Florence at night. It also brought us to one of Michelangelo's "David" sculptures.

Michelangelo's dome

Michelangelo's tomb in Santa Croce

Santa Croce (alter was under-construction unfortunately)

We left Florence the next morning and made a pit stop by the Chisea dell'Autostrada del Sole, a less traditional church with a very free form and interesting structural system. On our way to Rome we stopped for a couple hours in Siena to see the Campo, basically a city center plaza, and then the Duomo di Siena, which was littered with statues and sculptures on its facade and interior.

Chisea dell'Autostrada del Sole

Duomo di Siena

Italy Part 2 -- Brion + Verona

Tomba Brion

February 26, 2012 -- 7:48PM

Our second day in Vicenza we took a coach bus just out of the city to Carlo Scarpa's Cemetery at Brion (Tomba Brion). Scarpa was a pretty influential architect and had a very distinct style when it came to the question of joinery, corners, and use of material. He is also buried in this small cemetery. After spending a couple hours sketching and photographing we convinced the coach driver to take us to Verona, a nearby town with more Scarpa work. He did a renovation of Castelvecchio to add a museum of art, sculptures, and armor.

One of the tomb designs, mimicking a Venice bridge

Skylight in the chapel

Voids in the chapel

A beautiful stair in Castelvecchio

Italy Part 1 -- Venice + Vicenza

Tuesday, February 21, 2012 -- 12:23PM

Here is the beginning of many posts of our 8 day travel through Italy. I'll start with the first two days involving Venice and Vicenza. Venice was extremely cold and windy. It actually snowed for part of the time we were there which is apparently not too common. It was the beginning of carnival so there was a lot of activity and a lot of people dressed in crazy costumes/masks. Our hotel was just over the Calatrava Bridge from the train station, and if I might add, the bridge looks cool but it is kind of an awkward bridge to cross. The stair sizes were very weird and kinda hard to be able to see when there were landings and when there were stairs. We basically just made it our goal to break up into groups and get lost in the city. You can only go so far because it's an island so it was a lot of fun. Whenever we had a destination, we would end up getting lost because you kind of have to make it up as you go since all the canals make it difficult to navigate. It was a lot of fun. We saw Tadao Ando's renovation of Punta della Dogana and a couple churches. We also saw the Olivetti Typewriter Showroom done by Carlo Scarpa. I had the absolute best seafood pasta ever as the first course of our dinner. We stayed in a hotel that used to be a monastery and I got placed in a single room which was a former monk cell. For some reason it creeped me out a lot and I had a really hard time sleeping. Luckily we were only there for one night.

Calatrava Bridge

Tadao Ando's Punta della Dogana -- I had to sneak this picture since photography wasn't allowed in the gallery. His stairs and concrete treatment are absolutely amazing.

Piazza San Marco con Carnivale

My monk cell

Santa Maria della Salute

A couple people in our group got lost in the city the morning we were leaving to go to Vicenza and they made a mad dash from the hotel to the train station and barely caught the train. It was pretty incredible the amount of distance they covered with all of their luggage. They had to pry a door open to jump on the train. It makes for a pretty good story. Luckily, I wasn't one of the ones sprinting to the train. Vicenza is a much less dense city which was a nice change in pace from Venice. It was still extremely cold though. We saw Teatro Olimpico by Palladio which was made in the 1580. It was a beautiful theater. Once again we had an amazing dinner. We stayed in a much newer hotel which was much more comforting than the Venice monastery.

Teatro Olimpico wood seats & steps

Stage ornamentation

Colonnade in the rear of the auditorium

City center also done by Palladio. Beautiful sky at dusk.

Daily Life -- Meals

January 10, 2012 -- 6:03PM

I figured since there has been some time between blog posts, I would document some of our daily life in the villa, starting with the meals. The meals are split into two shifts. The second shift, which I am in, is mostly architects with a couple of the honors students. Lunch is always a salad buffet followed by some sort of pasta or rice/risotto dish. We always have tons of bread and butter to go around. Dinner typically starts with a soup, sometimes random biscuit or panini things. The entree varies, but normally it is some sort of meat and vegetables, sometimes also with pasta. We eat a TON of potatoes, it's great. Then we have a dessert which is normally some sort of fruity cake or gelato or something along those lines. I would say about 95% of the dishes I have had so far have been absolutely amazing! We are very lucky to have our wonderful cooks, Luigi and Gaetano, even if they just look like angry Italiano men all the time.

Salad from lunch. Full of veggies

Dinner the other night. Chicken, potatoes, & onions.

To the windows, to the VALS!

Saturday, February 4, 2012 -- 1:22PM

On Thursday we took our first over-night trip to Vals, Switzerland. Vals is the home of Peter Zumthor's Thermal Baths/Spa. It was an adventurous, snowy drive through the Alps with plenty of stunning views and plenty of narrow and slick roads carving up and down the mountains. A couple of us went skiing/snowboarding, a couple went hiking up and sledding down, and a couple went straight to the baths. Snowboarding was incredible. We made it all the way to the peak which was over 3000m The first 1/4 of the mountain was a gondola ride. The rest were J-bars which are real difficult to operate on a snowboard. But, I only fell once on those and just hung on tight until it dragged me to the top. It was really cold, but I was well prepared. It was around -10*F at the peak.

That evening we were able to get to the baths before dinner. Peter Zumthor is a genius. This building is so beautiful and the atmosphere can only be experienced. Unfortunately, pictures aren't allowed in the baths and there was too much snow to get pictures from the outside of the building. But I think I'm okay with that because it makes it such a rare thing to experience. Dinner was a 4 course meal, and was absolutely fantastic. Then we had a night soak in the baths which is required to be silent. It was really nice to just wonder around alone and just be silent to your thoughts. It's amazing how so many people struggle to stay silent for an hour.

Friday we were able to get a couple more hours in the baths. We had a nice brunch and then hit the road to Sumvitg. We hiked in the freezing cold about a mile up to Zumthor's St. Benedict's chapel. Though the hike was pretty rough, the chapel is also an architectural gem. The structure is absolutely beautifully done. The ride home was a little less eventful which was nice. The thermostat on Patty Partner (our nickname for our Peugeot Partner) read single digit degrees the whole way home.

Enough with the words, onto the pictures!