It's almost the middle of February... the weeks are flying by quicker than I can ever imagine. It is so hard to believe that I have been in Roma now for over a month. I've mastered the art of ordering a coffee, made friends with a few cafe owners and bar tenders, and successfully completed our first project for studio. It's a strange feeling right about now. I absolutely love it here but there are sure things that I miss from home. The big thing being hot showers, that is one thing that will take more than a month to get used too. And these pesky ants... I cannot begin to tell you how many bottles of any spray we have gone through already. But other then that, I really can't complain.
I keep going back to the quote we heard when we first started our trip here in Rome; "Don't let school get in the way of your learning." School has been very unique here. We don't really have "class" in Rome. We have class but not the normal idea of class. It's a totally different way of learning. We are out of the classroom and experiencing architecture hands on. This experience is helping to tune my passion for architecture. We are immersed in it. Even when we are not "in class", we are in class.
This past weekend, a few of us took a day trip to Assisi. Assisi is a town in the region of Umbria in Northern Italy. It is the birthplace of St. Francis, the founder of the Franciscan Order and St. Clare, the founder of the Poor Sisters. I knew only a little about the town of Assisi but I learned so much more after visiting it. Not only was this a travel day to get out and explore different areas of Italy but it was a day to study architecture. We have been told countless times, if a church door is open, always go in because you never know if it will be open at a time convenient to you again. We took full advantage of that this weekend. Assisi is filled with numerous churches, the Basilica of San Francesco, the Cathedral of San Rufino, Basilica of Santa Chiara, Chiesa Nuova, and Santo Stephano (one of the oldest churches on Assisi). Each one has a unique characteristic. Some had clear floor tiles that allowed you to look through the floor at what once stood where that church stands today and others started at ground level and brought you down two addtional levels. As we descended down at the Basilica San Francesco, you have to move slowly to take it all in. As you continued down, it brought you to the tomb of St. Francis which is buried under the main Basilica. It was beautiful. A solid stone structure, intended to be unseen was uncovered slightly and exposed for viewers to see the casket of St. Francis. There were many people praying and kneeling at the tomb. As I looked around the small chapel that was formed around the tomb, there was a silence and splendor in the faces of those in observation.
It is architecture that allows this to happen. It is the architecture that describes the feeling and mood in the space. It is the architecture that allows such a way of celebrating St. Francis. Architecture affects more than one may realize. I think we tend to take it for granted sometime, or at least I know I do. We live, eat, sleep, and work in architecture everyday. When you truly think about it, it affects us more than we tend to think. What would happen if architecture did not respond to our lives and our environment? Imagine how different life would be...As we made our way to the very top of Assisi, we climbed even higher into a centuries old castle. The views were remarkable. You looked out upon the vastness of the Italian landscape and it was beautiful. To see the landscape and the slope of the hills, the surrounding mountains is something we do not see too often at home. The question now is how does architecture respond to this landscape? Or any landscape in which it serves? We will have to see if I can come to that conclusion with more exploration and time spent drawing here in Italia!
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