participatory exercise

our itinerary is coming together for our final two weeks after our program is done-zo. if anyone has any useful or useless information, facts, comments, opinions, rumors about any of the following places, please post a comment or email one of us ASAP. information relevant to saving money is encouraged. topics may include, but are not limited to: methods of transportation, potent potables, beadbug-free accomodations, tasty restaurants, delicious beaches, meats that start with "P".

destinations, perhaps in sequential order:

cinque terra, italia
siena, italia (tuscany region)
pompeii/pestum/sorrento, italia

barcelona, espana
sevilla, espana
bilbao/san sebastian, espana


if anyone would like to look up the locations of these towns+cities, i would say that google maps is the best.

true dat.

double true.

sweat causes head acne

the rome portion of our journey is wrapping up. tomorrow, friday, is our last day. our last day to cram in all the diagramming for analysis, our last day to scrap together pretty pictures for the other class. we are exhausted from the heat and the work, and we're looking forward to our due date on saturday. being insightful is so draining.

the past couple days, colleen and i have drawn the hell out of the oratorio di pamphili (adjacent+connected to chiesa nuova) by borromini, the spanish steps and piazza espagnolo, and palazzo (not villa) borghese. we marched up trastevere to find the tempietto closed a couple days ago. apparently the little temple needs a day off once a week (there are no employees nor attendants at the tempietto. just a gate at a spanish academy, which was open, though the fence was not). i did get to see the money shot that we see in the text books, albeit behind the iron fence; but considering we're not allowed to climb around on it, i think i saw it all.

in a more hands on journey, today took advantage of the cooler temps and made it to the collosseum. we walked around with an audioguide so that we had the option of pushing pause and taking a nap in the upper deck. the breeze felt like the ocean. only it was a 2000 year old slaughter house sporting theater 80 feet in the air. we learned that teenage german tourists try to punk you by yelling "fire" when you seem asleep, and that the "thumbs up" sign was actually a "no thumb" sign, and that the "thumbs up" was a gesture invented by hollywood and/or russel crowe.

i hear the east coast has been traumatized by rains, and i feel like the only one complaining of the dry heat.

and by the way, spain was so screwed. boo france, boo zinadine zidane, and boo french fries. well, yay french fries, but boo flan.

graffiti in rome

in line at the vatican. if you've read angel's and demons, you may appreciate this one. colleen got shushed out of a church when she forgot she was wearing an open back tank top, though she got shushed out by an old church lady who was wearing a tank top of her own. oh, the inequity.



these two are teasers for a big one i hope to capture later...

Wedding Weekend and Pigeon Poo

Some more pigeon and wedding stories although I promise no horrible pictures of myself (thanks a lot jon!)

1. Pigeons take no prisoners.
2. Pigeons do not like watercolors.
3. Pigeons like the Campidoglio (see below for information)
4. Italians like to be married at the Campidoglio.
5. Expect 7-9 weddings every Saturday and Sunday.
6. Expect rice to be thrown on bride and groom as they exit the church (and have their first kiss which is strange to me)
7. Pigeons like to eat rice.
8. Pigeons poop when they eat too much rice.
9. Beware sitting/sketching/ watercoloring .... or this may happen to you (picture to be inserted here but it is too late right now)
Note* This is abnormal pigeon doo. Jon believes that it was possible a "fling poo monkey bird"

Campidoglio - located at the top of the Palatine hill, this piazza backs up to the forum. The Campidoglio was retrofitted by Big Mikey to create a "unified" composition. We drew the facades of the Campidoglio on Tuesday (attempt 1 at our assignment), Wednesday (for watercolor - see above pictures for visual), on Thursday (to diagram the piazza), and on Saturday (to finish the assignment). I never want to see it again.

Watercolor Wednesday-
First attempt at watercolor seemed somewhat successful. I enjoyed it much more than our other pencil and charcoal assignments. for some reason I have patience with watercolor that I just cannot force myself to exercise with charcoal so I am looking forward to more of those assignments next week.

I have been reading up on the families that made Rome, the Farnese Family in particular (jons fav.). We sat on the bench outside of their Palazzo (aka Mansion) one day this week and I read the history of the place, interior, fountains aloud to jon until he fell asleep...which was at the second page. I have a few more family histories to get through before the week ends and we leave Rome. Not to mention that I am 1/3 through Angels and Demons (Precursor to the Davinci Code) ...and I will continue reading it as long as SOMEONE does not keep telling what is going to happen!

This weekend left no time for rest. We left at 8 am on Saturday and didn't return until 9 pm. Same deal for today.;. We drew two churches and a facade today although it was somewhat anti-productive as a result of the Italian June Wedding Phenomenon. .. we wandered into one today in a beautiful circular chapel and somehow could not leave....because it is circular every person can see your every move...great to see the bride and groom...not great to hide from italians giving you dirty looks.... Italian weddings are moved in and out of churches like court cases...one florist rolls out the other rolls in...today we tried to fit in by snagging an abandoned baggie of rice ... and they totally threw us off by throwing confetti! Its a hard transition to another culture, but we are trying.

Tomorrow we venture to the Tempietto - a must for any architect - it is a small temple within a courtyard ( I know it sounds like all the stuff we draw) The tempietto is one of the few things in Rome that I had the opportunity to sketch last time I was here (Steve, Cross the Border Mix?) So I am anxious to see if I have improved when I draw it tomorrow - Lets hope so!

Lastly, I appologize for no pictures on this posting, it is late and Jon assures me that the reason he took so long using the computer was loading the picture files.... I am convinced it was because he was watching Redsocks updates on Espn. Either way I got to read Angels and Demons in peace. Long day, I will try to post pictures tomorrow... (especially the now notorious picture of Carl being pooed on while watercoloring)

sweat-free digital images

san' ivo alla sapienza; borromini; very slick; "plasticity" + crazy plan and section
















papal key bonanza. free shots of holy water at the vatican if you show your tourist i.d.















from inside the palazzo massimo. not many people have the opportunity to take this picture or sketch some really bad diagrams of it. also captivating was a moment of primal carnage between a cat and two pigeons. i think the increase in pigeon references recently indicates the growing degree of overload/burnout here. anyways, there are sweet rectangular openings that cut right through the sweet poche of the loggia's barrel vault. sweet.








speaking of poche, these steps are in the wall of san carlo alla quattro fontane, leading down to some sort of recently renovated secret crypt not making an appearance in angel's and demons (which i read in three days here).











this is my favorite spigot in rome: the head of the wolf. located at the campidoglio. delicious. best in rome.















the forum. view from the campidoglio. a must see vista.












a wedding. this photo is either abstract and awesome, or ill-timed and dumb.














spolia church, mentioned in previous blog entry. spolia = old found marble junk.










i forget which bridge this is, but imagine those sunglasses on colleen. hysterical.











pretty picture from the river towards st. peter's. at dusk.











santa Cooooh stanza (seinfeld episode, george's catch phrase name...)















captions are wrapping up here.
















we ate here.






















colleen is alive, well, and chatty. and very pretty.





















look it up. hint: borromini.


















this dog has a mohawk. colleen wanted to a.) steal it, or b.) throw it in the trevi fountain.

it is so stupidly hot here.. constantly... i'm sweating right now at 1030 at night

first of all, to get some things out of the way:

1. carl has an antagonistic relationship with pigeons. hopefully, documentation will be provided later.
2. david beckham scored an amazing goal, but not as amazing as argentina's in the first period of overtime against mexico. beckham actually bent one in. finally, david beckham has a girl's voice. and he puked during the game, on the field, maybe more than once. stud.
3. the red sox are fantastic.

our study trip continues to be much better than working at home. however, class work has overwhelmed the novelty of being in a foreign country. the work load here has gotten heavy. it has definitely not been a light romantic beret-wearing sketching stroll through the ruins. colleen and i cant remember what we did this past week, but we do remember that its been hot as (insert explative of choice), we've been walking and drawing for about 100 hours straight, and its been hot as ( " " ). final requirements right now are looking nearly impossible, yet frustratingly doable. fortunately, the only way to break up the constant onslaught of assignments is to drink aperol sodas, wine, or peach vodka in slightly more than appropriate amounts. that, or arm wrestle the heat over gelato on a cone.

this weekend we saw one million weddings. everyone throws rice at the end, which explains a lot regarding carl and pigeons. we watched a wedding in a church made almost entirely out of pieces of the forum's ruins (i.e. spolia). we got trapped in a wedding at santa costanza, a round church built from a roman mausoleum, which has nothing to do with seinfeld and everything to do with being way too far from where are apartment is. we got kicked out for a wedding a couple of times, but those instances were more annoying than entertaining. for any nerds out there who are keeping tally of the sweet spots we have drawn in person: we got kicked out of santa costanza after the church caretaker noticed my blue seersucker shortsleeve button down/khaki shorts/flipflops; and we got kicked out of bernini's santa andrea delle quirinale as the florists were preparing- whatever, we didnt want to stay anyways. but then we went back.

we also had dinner at ristorante costanza, which was way too expensive and having nothing to do with the church.

we spent three days straight at michelangelo's campidoglio, a place my parents have never seen. they also have never seen the pantheon. or piazza navona. what they did see, i'll never know.

finally, there has been a break down in the property rights structure related to cheap sunglasses here in the apartment. as a result, colleen has worn some pretty goofy looking "facial rims" out in public, thinking that she looked sassy and/or cool. unfortunately, no pictures yet.

big shout out to karet dickstein for tending to the A.P.T., and providing excellent coverage of rent and rotting bags of garbage issues. i would highly recommend their services for anyone's rotting bags of garbage needs. karet, you deserve a kielbasa.

Hot Chocolate

A few mornings ago while walking to class, Jon decided he wanted to stop and get a quick pastry. As coffee here is almost always too strong for both of us I assumed that the stop did not include any morning drinks. Somehow I missed that we had slipped into a Chocolate Eatery at 8:15 in the morning..... The woman asks Jon what type of pastry he would like, Chocolate (perfect Italian), and then he asks her about hot chocolate...many places in Italy do not serve hot chocolate because coffee is so popular and it was 80 degrees outside already however this place laid a menu on the counter with 32 types of hot chocolate to choose from.... Jon orders one from the first few pages and the woman looked at him like he was nuts, rightly so because she later gave him a huge cup full of thick pure nutella chocolate. Sugar high. He finished it all.

A small trick that our professors disclosed.. if you look up at the cornice lines of a building it will be easier to understand the ground floor plan geometry. This is a photograph shows the oval created by the buldings across from the Church of San Lorenzo.

Colleen sketching near Palazzo Spada among the motorcycles.

These flowers, Jasmine we think, are one of the first scents that I noticed in Italy and I am smuggling a plant home with me. They are everywhere!

Last week we visited the town of Caprarolla near Viterbo. The town was originally a midieval settlement and sat on a rolling hillside. Then the Farnese family came to town. They bulldozed a road right down the middle cutting and filling the land as they went to form this ridge through the middle of the town. The steep slope off of the ridge is taken up by bridges, drops, and winding staircases... another good calf workout. At the top is the Villa Farnese which is not shown in the picture below because that would have made too much sense.
Professor Vann came to visit us from southern Italy on this day. As Villa Madama is very difficult to get into this was his first time seeing the site. This structure, originially designed to be two or three times its current size. The arched windows connect the garden with large circular niches inside the room. Villa Madama is also significant because its column capital is one with the cornice line of the room. Architecture speak for, its old, big, and beautifully preserved.

The columns supporting the main arch of the room were treated differently than most other groin vaults that we have seen so far on the trip. The columns are treated in a splayed out V plan shape creating small seating benches perfect for sitting and sketching.

Last architecture thing of the day... This window, seen from a small courtyard, looks into a room that is off center with the courtyard. However, the architect wanted the room to appear to be centered. As a solution, he centered the windows to the room and then fake centered them on the courtyard by painting in a fake window. This was done all througout Italy and fake doors with painted wood panneling, and fake windows are really very common.

End of week 3

This building, Girasol, built in the 1950s is one of the first modern buldings that we have studied as of yet on this trip. Not surprisingly the group loved it! This bulding, which was revolutionary in its detailing for its time is still in great condition. The tiles have been recently replaced however wooden screens on the front facade have since been replaced by metal ones.

Jon says that Girasol is ****ing awesome and that anyone who cares to learn more about it should check out Venturi s Complexity and Contradition (page 28).

My favorite part of this building is the small recess niche that terminates the edge of the entry vestible. The building is designed for function as most modern buildings are however there must be no janitors closet because this small detailed niche is intead used for storing the mops. Just goes to show that despite best intentions, people will use a building however it is most convenient.




Week 3 is offically almost coming to an end which marks the mid-point of the class related portion of our program. This week was comprised mostly of Villa excursions. We have found out a few things about Villas in Itlay.
1. The wealthy love to look out over the little people. As a result every villa begins with an extreme calf workout.

2. Villas are all accompained by a garden. However garden size does not necessarily relate to Villa size. All gardens must have waterfalls and fountains. At least one of these fountains must be spraying water from some unnatural looking body part.

3. The section is always the most important drawing for showing how the garden works. They used the basics. Water flows downward. Could be because of gravity.

4. Villa police do not smile and it is best to not touch the walls, statues, grass, or ground.

5. There are a lot of villas all around Rome most importantly Villa Farnese in Caparolla, Villa Madama (very hard to get into as it is used for visiting foreign dignitaries), Villa Giulia, and Villa Lante. They were all used as a piece of propoganda for exerting influence and showing off the power of the family that constructed the Villa. As a result, they are lavish, beautiful, and were designed by some of the most well known architects of that time.

This church (the name of which escapes my recollection right now) wins the award so far for tackiest church. The walls are covered in marble and pho-marble decoration in a rorschach test pattern. As we could not use a flash in this church you are left to see only the muted colors however so far this trip it is still my winner.

* Despite the marble decoration, the church did house a very nice Caravaggio painting which has inspired a possible trip to see one of Caravaggios other paintings in a private collection.

Caravaggio, known for his paintings which depict everyday subjects on the streets, lived a very rowdy life himself. He had to flee from Rome because he killed an opponent over a tennis match. (points for anyone who can scratch that question off our list, we would love to know)

italia rocks

hadrian's villa with jan. seems so long ago already. ambrose's pointed out the ghosts of buildings past and present, even the ghosts of architectural future. by the end of our tour, new inventions of the modern and contemporary age were pointed to among the ruins: kahn's kimbel art museum, even zaha hadid's newest twists and folds. it seemed, at one level, the nature of one's inspiration depended on whether you reconstructed in your mind the vaulted baths and sweeping gardens, or accepted the forms as they exist now, with their crazy forms valuable in their implication of layered/textured/ambiguous volumes. ambrose O.D., i know. above, hidden behind a dome, is a playfully lit alcove which inspired rauchamp.

these are small baths. at hadrian's villa. gotta love the excess. this guy had a lover who died young, so the emperor commissioned 1,000 statues in his honor, and founded cities in his name. see, tyrants can be sensitive, too.


villa madama. all architecture, it has been suggested, is just a game of morphology. and morphology is a cool sounding word.

when you've been past over for pope, in favor of your arch rival, who then banishes you to the italian-papal-hinterlands where you can rot among the peasants and their thatched roofed cottages while piously, diligently, and ego-lessly continuing to worship god, you gotta take the lemons and make limoncello. this is one of approximately a gagillian fountains that this dimwit built to ice his bruised esteem. the enormous garden's construction required the authority of new london-suppored emminent domain, as it disposed about 50,000 thatched roof cottage residences in order to build this bishop pleasure palace with interesting cross-axial interplay reorienting the sectional & sequential experience both towards a mountain top and st. peter's dome. it also had a sweet grotto. (villa d'este, by the way. great place to go read a book.)

again, sectional sublimeness. this guy must've maintained great calf muscles. or at least his battallion of gardeners did.

(sigh) another fountain, looking out longingly for those papal keys.

another garden. brian kelly's leading this trip, afterall. again, sectionally interesting, interesting sequences, blah x3. this was the big finish for mr. gambara (which is literally italian for shrimp or crawfish) when he had guests over for his hunting parties. it was nice. colleen thought we should show a picture. the guy's name, though, is mr. shrimp.

colleen made a stupendous minestrone soup last night. she bought the vegetables (pre-chopped and mixed) from the fresh market, boiled the water and oil all herself, and added broth cubes and salt. plus some crazy squiggly noodles, and we had an awesome meal, despite all the vegetables. i was impressed, and so were our guests. note: the bottles making an appearance in this picture have been blurred to protect the innocent. we did not imbibe 'four roses bourbon' with our minestrone. we saved imbibing for the spanish steps with the only 15 euro bottle of wine in all of rome.

i've allowed carl the right to use this photo for the cover of his faculty application portfolio in two years. though he looks thoughtful and attemptive, he's actually posing for the paparrazzi, as ambrose ensures no photographers penetrate the bush, and kelly tries to get his fingers untangled.

monday rome blorg ps

1. if anyone has any idea how, when, or why one uses a bide, please post an explanation or email me directly. some point up, others down-ish... i just don't understand. directions would be appreciated, preferably without images. diagrams may be ok. i remember various mechanical experiments with jwall in madrid '96, but apparently the apparati has changed dramatically. that is, the water doesn't blast a hole in the ceiling, nor smell like chewing tobacco.

2. i acknowledge that my family is in seattle, and that it has been my mother's birthday recently, and that my father asked me to reply to his office email account. i also acknowledge that rocky is potentially in a kennel right now, and that no matter how much anyone tries to convince me how much he 'loves' it, i remind all relavent parties that the dog better be alive when i get back.

Tartufa

We had to turn in our sketchbooks today for the first time since class began...I am not too concerned seeing as we have already filled up an entire sketchbook...something that usually requires a semesters worth of work ...

Jon and I made a makeshift lunch today of mozerella, tomatoes, a loaf of wheat bread (hard to find in Italy) and cucumbers .... we hear that the best place for gelato that is truffle flavored is near Piazza Navona and it is called Tartufa ... that is the next stop.

bread and pictures

since we've been in rome for almost two weeks now, it's time to share some venetian/florentine photos. (don't think the digital delay here isn't driving me nuts, too)

san lorenzo after the typical mid-day torrential downpour. inside this pile of bricks are hidden away three treasures of the architectural history post-1300 world: brunolleschi's old sacchristy, michelangelo's new sacchristy, and michelangelo's laurentian library. all this adds up to more potent prayers- god loves fancy architecture.

the typical 'venice is so beautiful' picture. fairly dull. best one i have. more importantly, i know where to buy the best pizza and the freshest fruit, and i could show you the location of the old brothel, pointing out the peep holes in the ceiling which no longer exist.

piazza san marco_venice; the only piazza in venice, all the rest are just campos


pozzi chapel, i think one of my mom's favorites. again, happy birthday, and again, yes we are alive, and no, i don't have the phone card.


demonstration of work. we do a lot of it. pay no attention to the police tape.


award-winning professional photoshopping. dcp,md. not italy. they don't have mac-daddy screens like that over here. they have screens bolted to walls. and spanish/french keyboards with hidden possessive apostrophe keys ' ' ' ' ' ' ' .