Update

It has been a busy few days for the architecture kids: our first project is due next Thursday, so we've spent the last several days doing site visits and field sketching at the Campidoglio, Villa Giulia, and a site of our choice (either Piazza Navona, St. Peter's Square, or the Spanish Steps.) Fortunately, the weather here has been amazing: highs in the 60s every day, lots of sun, and the extended forecast looks like it will stay that way. People still have flowers blooming on their balconies here, which makes me feel somewhat guilty that the midwest is currently hovering around 30 and covered by a sheet of ice. Some of the other students have already done a great job of describing some of the sites we've been to, so I will try not to beat a dead horse by repeating them, I'll just post some pictures and some thoughts.


The Campidoglio is an amazing public space that lies just above the Roman Forum and is wedged behind the huge and offensive Victor Emmanuele II monument, or "the wedding cake". Designed by Michelangelo, it is an epic flight of stairs that leads up to a courtyard with an intricate and beautiful elliptical paving design. The courtyard is flanked by buildings on three sides. On the left and right sides are museums holding ancient Roman art, and the building directly across from the stairs with the clocktower holds the offices of the mayor. The Campidoglio also features some great equestrian statues, 2 at the top of the stairs and one at the center of the courtyard.

I don't have any pictures of the front of the Victor Emmanuele Monument yet, but it is basically a prime architectural example of how to turn your back on history and show disrespect to the context of a site. In the picture to the left, it is the taller building behind the museum in the foreground. It is proportionally too massive, it is blindingly white, and it is located in one of the most prominent sites in Rome (at the end of the Via del Corso and the Corso Vittorio Emmanuele), so all the major traffic in the city bends around it. Imagine if at the west end of the National Mall, the Lincoln Memorial were 150 feet high, 300 feet wide and covered in statues of Winged Victory and Abraham Lincoln on horseback holding a sword. This is basically what the VEII Monument does to Capitoline Hill. It wouldn't be quite as bad if it didn't completely overwhelm the beautiful Campidoglio and tower above the Roman Forum, which is just a stone's throw away. The Romans hate it and now that I know more about the history of the area, it seems more and more like a slap in the face. Basically, Michelangelo is spinning in his grave. But enough about that. Basically, the Campidoglio is exactly the opposite of the VEII Monument: it is beautiful, sensitive to its historical surroundings, and was designed with the whole city in mind.

Our next site was the Villa Giulia, a former papal retreat and now a museum of Etruscan artifacts. The facade looks like a "typical" Renaissance villa (which isn't to say that it isn't beautiful, because it is), but the special qualities of this building seem to be more in how the building encloses space rather than the building itself (although the curving arcade is pretty amazing). The facade and the building behind it serve as a gateway to the awesome sequence of garden spaces behind them.

First is a large rectangular garden with gravel paths, framed by the semi-circular arcade.






















Next is the Nympheum, a sunken courtyard with water and caryatids reached by winding stairs.
















There are also side gardens that lead to the gardens behind the Nympheum, with paths delineated by shrubs and flowers, and a reproduced Etruscan temple.