PJR Portfolio

The Memorial of Bravery and Courage

Drew MISSISSIPPI

Emmett Till’s upbringing in the southside of Chicago left him naïve to the ways of the Jim Crow South. His joyful and innocent presence disturbed the landscape of his motherland and threatened its status quo to such a point that it felt justified to destroy him. His unjust death would illuminate the reality “behind the cotton curtain,” as Myrlie Evers would say, and move the hearts of people around the country and globe. Even in his last moments of life, he would transform the life of an 18-yearold kid.

In Emmett’s story, the barn represents the apex of gruesome racial violence, but that same site is also the apex of incredible bravery. Emmett Till and Willie Reed did not know each other in life but were two young Black men, descendants of Mississippi, who became intrinsically linked on August 28, 1955.

Bestselling author and researcher, Dr. Brene Brown, affirms that all journeys of bravery require courage. She claims, “true courage comes [as a consequence of vulnerability] when we decide to take a risk without knowing the outcome. It means showing up and letting yourself be seen, despite the risk.” Willie Reed modeled Brown’s principals of bravery in those coming days and weeks as he journeyed through the Mississippi Delta before leaving his home for Emmett’s hometown of Chicago.

Brown says the opposite of true belonging is “fitting in.” As one who knew how to conform to the segregation systems in place for his and his family’s “safety,” Willie claimed in an interview that he did not feel the threat of lynching because he “know what he was supposed to do.” The first

room of the memorial leads the visitor through a tight matrix of looming sound absorbing blocks to emphasis the silence expected of society to protect the white supremacy which was thought to be inherent in the Jim Crow South. Periodic stops provide more didactical information about its history, laws, and practices.

Despite the warnings to stay quiet by his own grandfather and guardian, Willie exemplified what Brown calls the willingness to betray others in order to be true to oneself. That road is often solitary and full of physical and emotional exposure. In room two, one journeys around the columns of light, ominous in a different way than the first room, that ends outside the building in a glass box exposing the visitor to the barn for the first time.

Brown’s mantra regarding bravery is the daily practice of choosing courage over comfort. Willie endured the suffering he heard and precariousness he sensed to hold a transformative testimony that could not save a life but could illuminate the truth. The barn is cut through with a bridge to be experienced, but not stomped over. To metaphorically accompany and hold Emmett’s pain as well as one’s own grief.

As a result of choosing courage over comfort, Willie was embraced and protected by the community of Mound Bayou just before and immediately following Emmett’s trial. In her leadership books Brown explains, “courage is contagious. A critical mass of brave leaders is the foundation of an intentionally courageous culture.” The fourth room in the memorial is

an ode to the prosperous, joyful, self-determining all-Back town that nurtured great civil rights leaders, was named “the jewel of the Delta” by Teddy Roosevelt, and housed and provided armed escorts to Mamie Till-Mobley, the witnesses and Black press that covered the trial. His court appearances for both the murder and kidnapping of Emmett Till brought Willie into the arena of justice. Dr. Brown often quotes Teddy Roosevelt’s 1910 Paris speech, “Citizenship in a Republic,” which reads,

It is not the critic who counts... The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood… who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.

Though Emmett’s death has sadly not been the last life lost to racial discrimination, Willie’s bravery has also been repeated by those of other young people like then 17-year-old Darnella Frazier who chose to take out her phone on the way to the corner store, stand on a curb for nine minutes, and upload a video in the summer of 2020 that showed the truth to the world. Through that traumatic life changing experience, a year later she was able to reflect, “my video didn’t save George Floyd, but it put his murderer away and off the streets.”

Folks like Willie and Darnella are like all of us, flawed and imperfect. And yet they entered the arena. They risked vulnerability to be brave. They chose courage over comfort. And they modeled citizenship through their witness and testimony, which in turn sparked movements for greater social justice and racial reconciliation.

Since 1955 nearly all the surrounding houses have been torn down. It is nearly a miracle, that unintentionally the barn where Emmett Till was murdered survives and still stands. And it is an oxymoron that where such cruelty for humanity took place, great bravery hallowed those grounds. To break through the barn allows visitors to hold the pain and spirit of young Emmett as if at a gravesite.

If were not for the Black press during the Emmett Till trial, the truth and a proper investigation of the case would not have taken place. Following in the footsteps of these documentarians of history, the Emmett Till Interpretive Center’s Young Filmmaker Program will be able to host screenings of the aspiring high school student’s work. The theater will be contained in the fifth room representing Sumner and the act of testifying in public.

Thickening Resiliency

Patricia J Rangel Portman Studio Spring 2022

Thickening Memory | Thickening Resiliency: Civil Rights Heritage in Meyersville

In the 1960s, Fannie Lou Hamer traveled up and down the Mississippi River, organizing for the civil rights movement. Along with SNCC she organized the Mississippi Freedom Summer of 1964. The three main tenants of that summer was voter registration, building community centers for Black people because they had no other place to gather other than churches, and establishing Freedom School to educate the community.

What she was trying to advocate for was freedom and self-reliance. However, through her method she utilized cooperatives to achieve her goal. The relationship between sovereignty and interdependence is an ironic one.

In the 1960s, Fannie Lou Hamer traveled up and down the Mississippi River, organizing for the civil rights movement. Along with SNCC she organized the Mississippi Freedom Summer of 1964. The three main tenants of that summer was voter registration, building community centers for Black people because they had no other place to gather other than churches, and establishing Freedom School to educate the community. What she was trying to advocate for was freedom and self-reliance. However, through her method she utilized cooperatives to achieve her goal. The relationship between sovereignty and interdependence is an ironic one.

Veronica Darton Garland, a young farmer in Mayersville told us she had not experienced floods until 2011. In the very room we sat, she had witnessed her community come together like never before. The proposal provided is an ecological, cultural, and economic stance on the community of Mayersville. By creating a buffering zone through secondary levees and a reforesting of the area between the primary levee and the community, nature will assist the citizens to absorb the seepage water that they have been experiencing.

Veronica Darton Garland, a young farmer in Mayersville told us she had not experienced floods until 2011. In the very room we sat, she had witnessed her community come together like never before. The proposal provided is an ecological, cultural, and economic stance on the community of Mayersville. By creating a buffering zone through secondary levees and a reforesting of the area between the primary levee and the community, nature will assist the citizens to absorb the seepage water that they have been experiencing.

The town’s population continues to decrease. In the 2020 censure they had less than 500 people. The largest population that is growing in the area are Latino from a rise of 0.3% to 24% of the total population. The proposed community center connects the past to the present and reminds the town of the significant role their land has held for thousands of years.

The town’s population continues to decrease. In the 2020 censure they had less than 500 people. The largest population that is growing in the area are Latino from a rise of 0.3% to 24% of the total population. The proposed community center connects the past to the present and reminds the town of the significant role their land has held for thousands of years.

To increase economic prosperity this Memory Trail highlighting the earth mounds and the Mississippi Freedom Trail has the potential of bringing back dignitaries and interested tourist. The small commercial space in each will provide community members to have a small commercial business for trade within the town, but also a small commercial enterprise for when tourist arrive.

To increase economic prosperity this Memory Trail highlighting the earth mounds and the Mississippi Freedom Trail has the potential of bringing back dignitaries and interested tourist. The small commercial space in each will provide community members to have a small commercial business for trade within the town, but also a small commercial enterprise for when tourist arrive.

Choreographing Flows of Home + Community: Housing

in Vine City

The Vine City Phoenix community will be an apparatus of choreographing socioecological flows within the site and beyond. Ecologically the structures will be grounded above water ways that both prevent damage to the CLT structures as well as cleans, carries, and transforms contaminants of led and pollution off site or into its rain garden. Its water usage will be a be based on a flow of capture, collect, and reuse maximizing the gable roof angles and inverted gable roofs on the amenities structures to harvest rainwater for compostable toilets and laundry facilities and distribute grey water on the site for the landscaping. The orientation of the buildings and strategic placement and angle of the photovoltaic panels will capture the thermal energy accessible to the site. The gable roof system will also orchestrate a flow of light and shadow by providing a prefabricated canopy to bring down the heat index of the site as well as a screened porch climate skin panel to modulate sun intake. The use of CLT panels, aside from having a tremendous strength to weight ratio, will be able to assist in a strong airtight envelope that will increase the efficiency of each unit,

reduce the time and waste on site in the construction process and over its lifetime naturally sequester carbon. Wind will dance through the site by creating lower and higher-pressure areas through dogtrots and elevated structures that complement the primary southwest direction of gusty winds. Sociologically, creating a sense of community will be prioritized through inviting the eye to engage with neighbors across the street, across smaller facing pathways within the site, and providing view sheds connecting residents with the wider city. The infrastructure, through amenities, bring people together through a laundry mat, hearth, and rain garden. Economically, individuals and families that fall within 3050% AMI will be given priority as residents. Local businesses will be offered space to rent to bring greater commercial wealth to the heart of Vine City, including a childcare center shared with the church. In this ever changing region of the city, Vine City Phoenix will embody the movement of people and the elements while maintaining the tenor of its historical legacy of resilience and hope.

1st through locities vessel ing age over crease ious well 2nd sis, design Varying health fertility ing Map 1st through The the able The vegetation. on low-pressure placement with 2nd formation sun’s natural movement entation wind ing ventilation Map 1st tial ed-liability proximity empty ables 2nd land graphics city-owned ing legacy center Map 1st the Joseph MARTA land rimeters.

MAP

01. Direct the Gaze to the Interior + Exterior of the Site

01.

02.

03.

05.

04.

02. Situate Water and Wind on Site as Source of Energy Amelioration

05. Organize Units + Aggregations to Facilitate Flows of Beneficial Light/ Shadow Phenomena

04. Construct Movement System on Site to Build Neighborly Relations

03. Mitigate Thermal Loading Conditions between Site and Surrounding Context

Open Ends of the Module

Open Ends of the Module

Open Ends of the Module

One Side Re ective Glass

One Side Re ective Glass

One Side Re ective Glass

Two Sides Re ective Glass

Two Sides Re ective Glass

Two Sides Re ective Glass

The Bake and Build: Feeding the BeltLine and the Community Entrepreneurship

The “Bake & Build” Project is an employment and training center located in the English Avenue neighborhood on the Westside of Atlanta. Nestled within a historically Black neighborhood of Atlanta, the emerging Atlanta Beltline has stirred up much interest and attention from various developers and real estate professionals. As gentrification and changing city demographics will most likely change the westside’s future configuration, legacy residents who have nurtured that community for decades still have opportunities to nurture their roots and grow their legacy within the community. As a revenue source, the “Bake & Build” will feature a café adjacent to the beltline, but on the neighborhood side, an entire ecosystem will emerge. Apprentices within the bakery and fabrication will feed each other through food and energy. Their respective trades will bring in income that will be reinvested in their schools and businesses as well as the legacy residents.

THE CONTEXT: Within the triangular block of Echo ad . Within a two-block radius there are three churches, a dollar store, a convenience store, a strip club, and eleven bus stops. It will soon be adjacent to a multi-use complex called Echo Commons launched by a Dallas-based development company alongside the west section of the

in English Avenue

Atlanta Beltline. As gentrification is very plausible in that area, a site of “permanent culture” is appropriate to honor the legacy residents of the westside neighborhoods and their lasting and evolving contribution to their community.

THE PROGRAM: Rather than building a traditional community center, the vision of the space is to create a multi-faceted machine of employment, education, and political organizing. The original 1910 building in the 1920s had two side wings built on either side of the structure. The idea of “Bake and Build,” is to designate those two wings to two different, but interconnecting purposes. The north being a culinary school and small business bakery and the south end being a fabrication lab and training center on concrete and solar energy. Connecting these two wings is a grand hall. Reminiscent of a Kehinde Wiley painting, depicting heroic portraits in contemporary culture, this hall of renaissance will be the bud of the ballots, books, and bucks tenants of this program. Offices offering research, political, and financial literacy will unite the workers on either end of the building that create, knead, and nurture the existence of this collective space.

English Avenue School: The Bricks of Ancestors, Ushers, and Heralders

There is an abondoned English Tudor elementary school on Atlanta’s west side, quickly crumbling, but also home to untod histories and narratives. Closed in 1995 by Atlanta Public Schools, sold in 2010 to a local non-profit, and then conveyed in 2017 to a development company, its initial programmatic charge was to meet the demand of educating the children of white working-class families, English Avenue School is arguably, from its inception, always been connected to African American history. Completing a Historical American Building Survey submission, the research indicated a building fighting to tell its story, despite its deterioration, and reveal all that it has witnessed because of local, state, and federal racist policy. Whether through its namesake’s use of free enslaved labor in the convict leasing system to build his fortune or in its conversion to an “equalization school” to prolong racial integration in Atlanta’s public school system or its bombing in

1960 by segregationist forces attempting to halt the civil rights movement, the centuryold building carries a legacy of resilience. Its very bricks the symbols of ancestors. Its detonated bricks the ushers of school integration within the city. And now, its aged bricks the heralders of a past almost forgotten and future nearly repeating itself. The structure serves as an example and possibility of monuments already living amongst us representing the joy and pain of the Black experience within the United States. The building’s revitalization is critical in infusing the community with a reminder of where they came from and to stake a claim as gentrification broaches the neighborhood. The presentation will entail an overview of the building’s history, the local leadership advocating and campaigning for its adaptive reuse as a community center, the story of its National Registry status, and its challenges from accelerating decay to obstacles within the city zoning commission.

EXTENTS OF 1911 STRUCTURE

2

CLASSROOM INTERIOR - NORTH WALL

CLASSROOM INTERIOR - WEST WALL

1/2” = 1’-0”

1/2” = 1’-0”

1

2 CLASSROOM INTERIOR - EAST WALL CLASSROOM INTERIOR 1/2” = 1’-0” 1/2” = 1’-0”

4 3 CLASSROOM INTERIOR - WEST WALL

CLASSROOM INTERIOR -SOUTH WALL 1/2” = 1’-0” 1/2” = 1’-0”

2

4

CLASSROOM INTERIOR - NORTH WALL

1/2” = 1’-0” 1/2” = 1’-0”

STANDING STEADILY

The Cultural Evolution of English Avenue, its Patrons, its Future.

In 1891 a twenty-four-year-old James English Jr., the son of former Atlanta mayor and President of the Chattahoochee Brick Company, purchased and developed a large enough piece of land to create the English Avenue neighborhood. Its target audience was middle-class white families working in nearby factories and mills. Despite its origins, English Avenue has been intrinsically connected to African American history. Through generational wealth and nepotism, English Jr. amassed a fortune due to his father’s ownership of half the enslaved labor in Georgia’s convict leasing system. The English family would be the namesake of the main arterial running through the center of the neighborhood as well as the elementary school occupying the largest lot in the area. Since the late 19th century, the evolution of English Avenue has been dramatic, both socio-economically and demographically. English Avenue School, as the hub of various social movements in the surrounding area, including child labor laws, women’s suffrage, and the civil rights movement, is emblematic of the entire neighborhood’s development. Since its emergence in the 1970s, BIM (Building Information Modeling) has advanced the pairing of digital representation with quantitative data for the generation of new buildings and management of existing ones. Yet, the untapped potential remains in its implementation for heritage preservation to collect, organize, and augment the quantitative with qualitative and archival knowledge of a site over time. Using emerging BIM approach to historic preservation, a 3D digital model for the neighborhood of English Avenue integrates urban form derived from historic Sanborn maps with collected social narratives, photography, and ongoing digital (LiDAR and UAVs) and analog documentation of withstanding buildings to foster an understanding of while contributing to the ongoing revitalization of the neighborhood to preserve its historic legacy of activism, resiliency, and agency.

Institute of Technology School of

listkey=documents/ Heat map of the west gable wall showing the degree to which the masonry is out of plumb. In January 2020, LAS a maximum

By July 2021, a 7-station 3D Scan by Georgia Tech revealed that the outermost walls of the west facade (including the northwest bay, which has not collapsed) had up The central entry bay threshold same bay’s upper wall had up to a 4“ provided by Lord Aeck Sargent’s 2020 Conditions Assessment Report on English Avenue School.

listkey=documents/ compromisedbrick

In October 2019

LAS created a biological growth and compromised brick legend for the entirety of the building.

In July 2021, a small Georgia Tech team documented observed changes in vegetation and biological discoloration as well as additional evidence of brick collapse.

listkey=photographs/droneaerial Aerial drone photography sequence of dilapidation under a two year period.

In a class taught by Professor Julie Kim called “Flourishing Communities,” a group of three students partook in scanning and documenting three existing properties in the English Avenue neighborhood of Atlanta to the standards of the National Parks Historic American Building Survey (HABS) standards. The three students used a FARO 3D Scanner in addition to hand measurements throughout the perrimeter of the three stuctures.

Scale: 1/4’’ = 1’ - 0’’

479 James P Brawley

491 Paines Avenue

Scale: 1/4’’ = 1’ - 0’’

Scale: 1/4’’ = 1’ - 0’’

849 Cameron Madison Alexander

architectural history

ACCelerate Festival: Walking in the Footsteps of History

In April 2022, Georgia Institute of echnology selected two exhibitions to represent the university in the annual ACCelerate Festival, this year hosted at the Smithsonian National American History Museum. Out of the School of Architecture, the exhibit was prepared by an independent studies class of undergraduate and graduate students, led by Professors Danielle Willkens and Auburn’s Junshan Liu. It featured the voyage of the Selma-Montgomery march of 1965, the cities, buildings, and local people that influenced the march that brought about the Voting Rights Act signed by Lyndon B Johnson. Though the heroes most associated with the march are well-known courageous national leaders, the exhibit focused on local community organizers whose sacrifices lasted beyond March of that year. And though the story concentrates around a bridge named after a Ku Klux Klan Grand Dragon, this exhibit visually demonstrated the grander built environment that contributed to the

movement and sacred land that changed significantly American history that is in a deteriorating condition. The presentation entailed an overview of the exhibition’s preparation, the cities of Marion, Selma, and Montgomery, Alabama that were instrumental to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In addition, it featured the residents and structures that offered themselves to the movement and felt the backlash of white supremacy thereafter. This exhibit turned architecture students into educators, and impapcted multi-generations of the 30,000 visitors to the museum that weekend. Visualizing history through archives and technology can enrichen people’s experience of the past and motivate their involvement in modern social events. The culmination of the class’s work earned them the “People’s Choice Award” decided by the puplic’s vote of the Smithsonian visitors during the exhibit’s three-day display.

Library at the Baths of Trajan

Just north of the Colosseum in the southern section of Parco del Colle Oppio on the Oppian Hill, the café, skate park, basketball courts, and yoga communities, conceal what was the largest public bath complex of its time. Today, Viale del Monte Oppio runs through the middle of the bath houses Roman Emperor Trajan commissioned in 104 AD to his Syrian architect, Apollodorus of Damascus. The modern road and the smaller Via Degli Orti di Malabarba bifurcate the sole ruins of the one standing library with the location of the theater and second library of the original site plan. Trees occupy most of the square meters the bathes and social spaces occupied of Trajan’s gift to the citizens of Rome.

In some ways like one of his predecessors, Trajan took advantage of a fire in 104 AD to further give back to the people what Emperor Nero had taken opportunistically after the 64 AD blaze that scorched Rome. Nero’s Domus Aurea (Golden House) overtook a significant portion of the eastern block of the city which had previously been private residencies. When the Domus Aurea caught fire in 104 AD, Trajan chose to build the Baths over merely a one wing of Nero’s house. And yet still it was the most massive baths any Emperor had given the city. This act, along with his diplomacy and military prowess, placed this immigrant ruler of Rome in the highest regard by the Senate, military, and citizens.

In 109 AD, when the Baths of Trajan were open to the public they were unprecedented for their size, multi-functional programming, and gender inclusivity. Men and women of all social and economic stratification could get access to the structure at an affordable price. Certain days were even open at no cost. Trajan was the first to include libraries at the bath complex. Nero, Titus, and Agrippa’s baths did not include an intellectual component. The public space, therefore, became an essential part of the Roman societal structure. It was a place to relax, talk politics, and further

your study.

From historical drawings, maps and the existing ruins, the structure would be characterized as a semi-circular cylinder base with a dome coffered roof. Evidence of the coffered dome can be seen in the northeast corner of the park with one of the structures connected directly to the baths. Columns would flank the front entrance rising an entablature that would be mounted by marble figures. The open entry left scrolls and resources easily accessible within their niches. The height of the cylinder contained two floors with eleven niches each. The second floor may have also included statues or pieces of art. The brick wood on the interior suggests that arch-like protrusions covered and protected the literature or artwork. Currently three rows of steps exist in front of the first-floor niches, however the brick is not ancient and city workers were in the process of renovating the floor with new tiles. Accessibility to the second may have occurred through some sort of latter or hint of a staircase on the northern exterior wall was spotted at over forty meters away.

The northwest library would occupy less than 1/100th of the total square meters of the original campus structure. But its inclusion, along with its southeast twin, set a precedent for further baths in Imperial Rome. The incorporation of libraries would be included in the Baths of Caracalla (212-216 AD) and Diocletian (298-306 AD). The site plan of Trajan’s Baths is remarkably similar to those of the Baths of Diocletian, nearly two hundred years later (see Figures XX). The baths on Oppian Hill did not survive to the same extend as Trajan’s successors. By the early fifth century much of the complex had been demolished. The surviving elements that mark the spot of this meaningful public space are identified primarily through the semi-circular structures that protruded off the rectangular site plan.

The Baths of Trajan - Trajan’s Library Cont.

Utilizing the technological resources of the Georgia Institute of Technology’s Greece + Italy Summer Abroad program, the library within the Baths of Trajan was captured using a FARO 3D scanner and processed through the photogrammetry software Autodesk ReCap on June 12th, 2022. The scan was converted into a point cloud that provided accurate measurements of the space. Within the Autodesk ReCap software, the distances between each point were able to be recorded and, with the help of photographs and additional research, were then utilized to produce the plan and elevation drawings of the ruin as it stands today.

As of 2022, the ruins were in the process of being restored which required

the 3D scanning to take place in front of a fence. This hindered the ability to capture the bottom portion of the ruins. The widths of the 5 bottom niches on either side of the library were determined to be the same widths of the niches on the upper level through photographic references. The heights were captured using cross referenced points within the point cloud.

Existing Structure Plan

The Baths of TrajanThe Butler Street YMCA

Architect:

Operated: 109 CE - early 5th Century AD

Rome, Italy

Trajan, the Emperor of Rome from 98 - 117 CE, was a successor to Nero Claudius, known for his tyrannical rule and debauchery. Trajan continued to give back to the people what Nero had stolen from them by constructing a 330 meter by 340 meter bath complex with cultural and intellectual programming included. The complex was built directly on top of the ruins of Nero's house and provided the

foundation for individuals to nourish the mind, body, and soul with access to lecture halls, libraries, meeting rooms, auditoria, exedrae, athletic spaces, and religious shrines. The libraries at the Baths of Trajan are in the East and West Exedra of the complex. Focusing on the Western library, the structure housed scrolls of the time, as well as locations to read and discuss.

The Hungry Club at the Butler Street YMCA

Architect: Hentz, Reid, and Adler

Builder: Alexander D. Hamilton

Operated: 1920 -2012

Atlanta, Georgia

Built in 1920 and in operation until 2012, the Butler Street YMCA served as the center of social life and recreation for the Black community in Atlanta. The Butler Street YMCA building shown above provided a location for the Black community to gather during a time of segregation. With amenities such as dormitories, classrooms, and a swimming pool, the building was pivotal during the civil rights movement in the United States. Like the Baths of Trajan, the emphasis of the Butler Street ‘Y’ was on a community space that provided its users with a space to pursue spiritual, intellectual, and

physical endeavors. Of the many programs conducted at this YMCA, the “Hungry Club Forum” was one of the most influential to the political life of the city. With the club motto: “Food for taste and food for thought for those who hunger for information and association”, the “Hungry Club” became an extremely popular forum between Black and white leaders during the civil rights movement in Atlanta and beyond. Responding to the oppression against African Americans in the country, the “Hungry Club” became one of the first spaces for racial integration, thoughtful discussion, and community building.

The Libraries at the Baths of Trajan

Apollodorus of Damascus

1. Pool 2. Gymnasium 3. Dormitories 4. Lounging Room 5. Game Room 6. Classroom 7. Assembly Room 8. Offices 9. Cafe

West Exedra Library

The Baths of Trajan - Trajan’s Library Cont.

Possible Reconstructed Plan of the Library

inclusion, along with its southeast twin, set precedent for further baths in Imperial Rome. The incorporation of libraries would be included in the Baths of Caracalla (212-216

Library

Portico

The reconstructed plan of the library at the Baths of Trajan are based on the photogrammetry data, photographs, and the work of Lora Lee Johnson From historical drawings, maps and the existing ruins, the library would be characterized as a semi-

Modern site plan with the plans of the bath’s overlaid

The following paper will discuss an elementary school closed in 1995 by Atlanta Public Schools, sold in 2010 to a local non-profit, and then conveyed in 2017 to a development company. Despite its initial programmatic charge to meet the demand of educating the children of white working-class families, English Avenue School on the west side of Atlanta is arguably, from its inception, always been connected to African American history. Completing a Historical American Building Survey submission, the research indicated a building fighting to tell its story, despite its deterioration, and reveal all that it has witnessed because of local, state, and federal racist policy. Whether through its namesake’s use of free enslaved labor in the convict leasing system to build his fortune or in its conversion to an “equalization school” to prolong racial integration in Atlanta’s public school system or its bombing in 1960 by segregationist forces attempting to halt the civil rights movement, the century-old building carries a legacy of resilience. Its very bricks the symbols of ancestors. Its detonated bricks the ushers of school integration within the city. And now, its aged bricks the heralders of a past almost forgotten and future nearly repeating itself. The structure serves as an example and possibility of monuments already living amongst us representing the joy and pain of the Black experience within the United States. The building’s revitalization is critical in infusing the community with a reminder of where they came from and to stake a claim as gentrification broaches the neighborhood. The presentation will entail an overview of the building’s history, the local leadership advocating and campaigning for its adaptive reuse as a community center, the story of its National Registry status, and its challenges from accelerating decay to obstacles within the city zoning commission.

English Avenue School: 627 English Avenue NW, Atlanta GA 30318

Figure 2. West elevation of English Avenue School, facing English Avenue NW. In 2020, the structure obtained National Registry status.

Photo by author, February 11, 2021.

Figure 1. The purple outline represents the west side of Atlanta. The red marker indicates the location of English Avenue School. Photo provided by Google Map, August 9, 2021.

The bricks of ancestors, ushers, and heralders

The following paper will discuss an exhibition hosted at the Smithsonian National American History Museum through the ACCelerate Festival featuring the voyage of the Selma-Montgomery march of 1965, the cities, buildings, and local people that influenced the march that brought about the Voting Rights Act signed by Lyndon B Johnson. The exhibit was prepared by an independent studies class of undergraduate and graduate students from the Georgia Institute of Technology in the Spring of 2022. Though the heroes most associated with the march are wellknown courageous national leaders, the exhibit focused on local community organizers whose sacrifices lasted beyond March of that year. And though the story concentrates around a bridge named after a Ku Klux Klan Grand Dragon, this exhibit visually demonstrated the grander built environment that contributed to the movement and sacred land that changed significantly American history that is in a deteriorating condition. The presentation will entail an overview of the exhibition’s preparation, the cities of Marion, Selma, and Montgomery, Alabama that were instrumental to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In addition, it will feature the residents and structures that offered themselves to the movement and felt the backlash of white supremacy thereafter. Finally, the presentation will discuss the impact of trained architecture students as educators, and if and how visualizing history through archives and technology can enrichen people’s experience of the past and motivate their involvement in modern social events. The culmination of the class’s work led to the granting of the People’s Choice Award decided by the thousands of visitors to the Smithsonian during the exhibit’s three-day display.

Exhibiting Voting Rights Marches

& Ancient Antiquities: Disrupting Hisorical Myths and Offering Reconstructions as Educational Tools

Patricia J. Rangel

M.Arch ‘23, Georgia Tech SESAH Conference ‘22 Memphis, TN

The GOAT Farm at Ponce City Market: A Multifaceted Program Exisiting within Metro Atlanta

The program for this location consisted of a market hall that covered 160 feet by 160 feet, two active spaces that included a climbing wall and indoor achery, arts and crafts factory involving a CNC furniture fabrication and weaving labs, as well as an urban farm highlighting goats. The goats would be one of the primary features of the Farm at Ponce City Market. They would be rented out for landscaping local resident’s homes, they would serve as a composting center for all the local farmers selling at the market hall. Their by-products would also be featured in the market in the form of goat milk, goat cheese, as well as soaps and lotions. Local farmers would also be able to trade in their food scraps for pints of manure for fertilizer. The market would be a unique feature to the Atlanta metropolitan area.

The inspiration of this project was inspired by analysing Sir David Adjaye’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC and the public works of Christo and Jean-Claude, who passed away in 2020 and 2009 respectively. The common characteristic in both Adjaye and Christo and Jean-Claude’s work is wrapping. Whether with metal panels or fabric, the designer and artists created innovative works that dazzled the imagination. Therefore a bubble like form was scripted to unify all aspects of the Farm at Ponce City giving the structure an organic shape and cohesion. In iterations fabric, wire, and rice paper were used as templated to experiment with the wrapping. The goal being to find an organic substance that was decompostable over time.

Right: An assemblage of Sir David Adjaye’s Smithsonian’s National African American Museum of History and Culture as well as Louis Kahn’s Phillips Exeter Academy Library. Opposite Page: A diagram of the wrapping effect of rice paper on a wood medallion model.

Wrapping:

Wrapping:

Wrapping:

Inspired by Sir David Adjaye’s National Museum of African American History and Cultural in Washington, DC and the public works of Christo & Jean-Claude, who passed away in 2020 and 2009, this piece uses rice paper to create a skin

Inspired by Sir David Adjaye’s National Museum of African American and Cultural in Washington, DC and the public works of Christo & Jean-Claude, who passed away in 2020 and 2009, this piece uses rice paper to create

Inspired by Sir David Adjaye’s National Museum of African and Cultural in Washington, DC and the public works of Christo who passed away in 2020 and 2009, this piece uses rice

Furniture Fabrication Lab

Wrapping: Museum of African American History works of Christo & Jean-Claude, uses rice paper to create a skin elevated by medallions of wood.

Production Place: The CNC Weaving Production and Furniture Fabrication would have an on-site factory to design and construct large scale projects for both the market and for contractual work.

Lab

The Web of Life: The CNC Weaving Company will work on site and build large-scale projects to be sold at market and throughout the city, but will also o er small scale demonstrations featuring hair as a source of the tapestries created.

The GOAT Market

Goat Soap Making

special GOAT yoga events, the changing room will be available to transition from sports activities to being seen in the market. In addition lockers will be provided to store yoga mats and personal equipment for the respective sports.

Goat Milk, Yogurt, Cheese, Butter

Composting Feeding

Goat Milking Station

Goat Landscaping

Fine Hair: Under their more course hair lies a layer of cashmere. This more delicate material can be incorporated into the weaving production of the CNC Weaving Lab or sold as yarn or smaller items within the market.

Archery

Hay Storage: As a means to store all the hay that the goats eat, it will be stacked behind the archery targets on the range. In addition, the grass across the 200 feet of land will be grazed and maintained by the goats.

The GOAT of the Market: The underpinnings of this market will be the goat. Its hair, meat, milk, stomachs, anatomy, and skills will be utilized for the market’s success. Considering that each goat drinks up to three gallons of water per day, their home will be close to a natural water source.

CNC Weaving

J. Balvin’s Colombian Home:

In the Secluded Mountains of the Coffee Region

Jose Alvaro Osorio Balvin is known across the world as J. Balvin, a Colombian reggeton artist born to a middle-class family in Medellin.He was accumilated over 50 million Instagram followers, 35 million records, and is one of the bestselling Latin artists globally. His public person is varied in style, color, and pattern. Yet in his personal life, he lives in a very quiet aesthetic. His actual home close to Medellin has a strong Japanese minimalist style. This design was meant to compliment his private life and growing family offering a studio space as well as larger outdoor eating area adjacent to the kitchen for large family gatherings in the tropical coffee region of Colombia. The outdoor spaces was also cognizant of

the pandemic and offered a refuge with fresh and healthy circulation. The interior spaces had a large living room with a grand piano to also entertain substantial groups of people. Balvin has established himself as a leader in the Latin American music industry supporting up and coming artists throughout South America, the Caribbean, and Spain. His has broken out internationally despite having lyrics exclusively in Spanish. He has partnered with multiple Latin Aamerican musicians as well as international icons such as Beyonce, Jennifer Lopez, Cardi B, and France’s Willy William. This home was intended to be a secluded space to host family and friends and share the holidays and fond memories.

The 1909 Le Port d’hiver by George Braque was the initial inspiration of the Musician’s house. Converting the painting into a 2D drawing and then a relief were the foundational steps of moving into a 3D structure. Elements of that cubist painting became the model of the landscape. Combined with an urban corner park

Section Facing East 1/8” = 1’-0”

West Elevation 1/8” = 1’-0”

Site Plan Llanogrande, Colombia

Steel Poles (6” diameter)

Concrete Benches (1’-8” height)

Steel Poles (6” diameter)

Steel Wire Mesh (in grey & gold)

Concrete Benches (1’-8” height)

Steel Wire Mesh (in grey & gold)

Conditions

Writer's Retreat at Lake Rabun

Research Sources:

Climate Conditions: https://www.weatherwx.com/hazardoutlook/ga/lake+rabun.html

ASHRAE ACH: https://smartairfilters.com/en/blog/ashrae-air-changes-per-hour-office-residential/

Geothermal Systems: http://www.millpondmech.net/how-it-works.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PI45yUhUWgk

https://www.energysage.com/about-clean-energy/geothermal/pros-cons-geothermal-energy/

https://www.greenmatch.co.uk/blog/2014/04/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-geothermal-energy

Ventilation

Wind flow

Daylighting

Canopy

Evaporative cooling

Proximity to Lake, hydrothermal features

Kyle Barber, Colin Finnigan, Ian Morey, Patricia Rangel Fall 2021, Integrated Building Systems 1

34'46'07N 83'25'59'W

Total Loads = 56,310.42 BTU/hr

Total System Capacity = 2835 BTU/hr

COP = 3.87

Integrated Building Systems II

Case Study Building : Phase I Assignment

In New York’s West Chelsea neighborhood, Neil Denari’s HL23, located at 515 West 23rd Street, nudges itself center court onto the converted rail line park known as the High Line. Finished in 2011, HL23 marked Denari’s first go at a freestanding building. High Line 23 LLC, under the care of developer, Alf Naman, hired the former Director of the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) and renowned Los Angeles Principal of NMDA, for his use of advanced technology to shift, bend, fold, and unfold structures in unconventional yet beautiful geometry. On a forty by ninety-nine-foot lot, Denari maximizes the real estate opportunity and provides Chelsea one of its first luxury condominium buildings. The reverse tapered fourteen-story, 39,200 squarefeet tower narrows on the third floor and gradually bulges to its maximium width on the fourteenth floor. “To capture the most floor area possible, they adjusted the silhouette of the building to contract and expand according to the site constraints and zoning regulations.”1 The tower holds eleven residences that range from 1,900-3,600 square-feet and cost between $2.65M to $15.5M each. It enjoys south oriented views of the Husdon River and peaks of the High Line towards the east in its living spaces. On the ground level, a commercial space, currently used as a gallery, supports a section of the High Line on its roof. Its westward neighbor is Highline 519 designed by Linda Roy. Made of a steel superstructure, concrete substructure, and a curtain wall of glass and embossed stainless steel megapanels, HL23 defines itself as a sculptural piece of architecture within the arts community of Chelsea. The building’s components were manufactured offsite enabling its complexity to erect from a complicated and challenging site.

Sitting on a small floor plate, HL23 is bounded by the elevated structure of the High Line and an adjacent building to the north. The unique site restrictions in combination with strict zoning regulations of New York City (NYC) require unique design solutions that give residents an unprecedented living experience. The first of those experiences is an uninterrupted floor plate. Structural members are pushed to the perimeter leaving a column free living space. Adding to the difficulties of a column free floor plate, the design of HL23 calls for a cantilevered portion that extends over the High Line on the upper floors. In order to achieve this the structural team proposed diagonally braced steel columns at the perimeter of the building that are tied back to a moment frame running along a parti wall on the West side of the building. Together these hold the structure in net tension under gravity loading.

Lateral forces of the building are resisted using a steel plate shear wall (SPSW). SPSW are not typically used in NYC but were efficient and cost-effective given site restrictions. A main component of SPSW are shear plates that attach inside a steel frame to prevent lateral forces. These are hidden inside the walls that surround the building core, stairs, elevator, and mechanical shafts. In addition to the efficiency and cost, using plates in leu of typical crossed braced wide-flanges, property owners gain an extra few feet of usable squarefootage. The SPSW system was one of the prefabricated components, brought to the site in modular sections where they were raised, spliced, and welded into place.

At the base, the building is lowered seven feet below grade and sits on a three-foot concrete foundation. Around the perimeter of the foundation are soldier piles spaced six-feet apart that are driven fifteen-feet into sand below. A one-foot-thick concrete retaining wall encloses a cellar that houses all service rooms and resident storage. To pour the retaining wall along the existing partiwall to the west, underpinning was required to stabilize the adjacent buildings grade beam.

General Description

In that same fashion the team of architects and engineers developed a thoughtful approach to the exterior envelope. The south facade is constructed of curtain wall units that are ganged together into megapanels which also were delivered to the site, hoisted into position, and attached to the primary structure. Spread beams tracing the perimeter of the building, just outboard of the columns and floor beams, act as the supports from which the megapanels are hung. These spread beams are laterally braced back to the edge of each floor plate through slotted angles that allow for deflection between floors. An embedded clip, referenced in the drawings as halfen anchor channels, receives these slotted angles. The structural drawings will reveal how frequently the connections are occurring and with what precision. Discrepancies between the construction set drawings and actual construction photographs produce speculation of the direction the curtain wall manufacturers took with the actual installation.

Construction photographs indicate that there are specially designed embed plates poured concurrently with the floor slabs and that the spread beam is designed into the curtain wall megapanel with locations for a crane to raise the panel. The spread beam is designed with milled connection points that slide into the embed plates along the floor slab. These embed plates align to each panel end to accept the mega panel connection points.

Building Structure (Foundation & Superstructure)

The south elevation facing West 23rd Street is a spandrel free curtain wall. Its silhouette exemplifies the reverse tapered tower approach that cantilevers over the High Line’s elevated rail bed. The tower soars to a height of 176 feet. The second floor has an elevation mark of 11’-7”, floors two and three are separated by ten feet, floors four through eleven differentiate by eleven feet, and the penthouse duplexes on the twelfth and thirteenth floor span 11’-8 ¼” and 13’-6¾” respectively. In elevation, the southern façade width varies, being most narrow on the third floor at a 30’3¼” and widest on the fourteenth floor at 46’-5” extending beyond the property line due to a special zoning permit.

The superstructure’s steel zebroid-bracing runs the height of fourteen floors and is visible through the curtain wall which traces the structure with a ceramic frit pattern. The south façade contains the largest mega panels ever used in residential high-rise construction. The megapanels are made of double-glazed fritted glass and run six feet in width and over eleven feet in height. They connect directly to the superstructure leaving a clean exterior façade.

The entirety of the building sits on a grade of land that slopes seven inches upward toward the northwest. The façade serves as the main entrance of both the residential and commercial section of the structure. At the ground level, the design team has chosen a precast concrete base to give the allusion of a uniform ground line despite the change in grade.

In between the entrances to the residence and commercial space, the service entrance/ emergency exit is located. A wall hydrant gas vent lies behind a stainless-steel door panel. Exposed and not covered by the panel is the Siamese. Above the panel is a louvered door to cover the gas regulator vent with a one-inch diameter. An intercom is placed on the return panel to the left of that louvered door. On the intercom is a camera at the height of 5’-2 7/8 from the ground, a loudspeaker, digital display, and call button. Above the commercial space, in between the second and third floors, the structure begins to set back behind a parapet that provides a pigeon net.

There are twenty-four operable windows on the south elevation, two on each floor beginning at the second floor. Sixteen intermittent stabilization anchors (I.S.A) are located across the curtain wall. The twelve ISAs closest to the ground floor are placed in front of the top structural steel beam of each of the zebroid bracing systems. The ISAs are used for window washer to scale the elevation without damaging the façade with platforms banging against the glass.

Building Enclosure: Elevation

Kevin Miller

Aparna Reghukumar

Patricia Rangel

Jayita Shetty

A section cut through HL23 reveals a clear understanding of the unique relationship of HL23 to the High Line, a corner stone of NYC lifestyle running 3 miles from 14th street to 34th street through the southern viaduct system of the abandoned Ney York Central Railroad. The structure even shares part of the original railroad that supports the roof of the retail. The following description focuses on the highlighted areas. (right)

On the ground floor a two-story lobby welcomes tenants’ home. The entrance to the lobby becomes a portico, set back 1’-2” from the face of the building. The setback defines this area as the entrance. The top of the portico is expressed on the exterior of the building as a metal panel soffit and mechanically fastened back to the door header. Above the portico the two-story atrium space inside continues. Rather than a spandrel, a valance inside the lobby encloses the primary structural floor beam and all mechanical/ electrical/fire-suppression/plumbing equipment inside the ceiling at 18’-7” above finished floor. The valance is a cold-formed metal frame soffit that is braced back to the floor above. The condition here establishes a language that continues to the floors above. Setting this valance back inside each unit, the curtain wall can be a continuous, uniform, transparent building enclosure. Inside each unit you see a continuous border at the perimeter of the building above you. The architect slopes the valence 45degrees toward the curtain wall proabably with the intention to visually extend the size of each unit beyond the enclosure. The detail narrative that follows goes into further depth to explain this portion of the wall section.

Between the curtain wall and the floor slab are 1-½ hour rated smoke and fire seals represesnted with the symbol Tpy. for typical. These seals prevent the transfer of smoke and fire from one floor to the next. At 1/8th scale these sections are missing a few notes but clearly represent components with graphic line wieghts. Vertical dashed lines indicate columns that are in the distance, a heavy oval line indicates the diagonal HSS Tubes that are being cut in section, and the heavy cut lines at the floor are labeled 1-1/2HR floor assembly. Floors three through ten maintain a consistent detail until the curtain wall adjusts back into the building in a diagonal direction for the top four units with integrated fireplaces. The diagonal terminates as a parapet that serves two functions; the guardrail for the accessable terrace and temporary cover for the davit base plate and arm.

5

Building Enclosure: Wall Section

in the 300 series. A gathering of these details together will develop a proper wall section.

Building Enclosure: Building Detail

The Building Enclosure has two layers of structural systems. The primary structure of the building is supported with circular columns and I-section beams. A secondary structure is installed to support the curtain wall to each floor slab. The detail below explains that connection. The curtain wall is double-glazed, one layer of glass that is ceramic fritted, an argon gas insulator, and another layer of glass inside. A plastic spacer seperates the two layers of glass.

The cassette aluminum clamp and extrusion hold the glass that are pinned to the steel plate and welded steel angles. This entire assembly makes for the support structure of the curtain wall unit. These curtain wall units are arranged to make megapanels using a spreader beam to anchor them to the facia of the structural slab.

The section explains the edge detail of the curtain wall panels attaching to the reinforced floor slab. The spreader beam is welded and pinned to the anchor channel of the reinforced floor slab, with the latter being supported with fireproofed I-section beams. The section beam is welded to the steel framing that becomes the secondary support to the structure. The detail also explains the strategic placements of smoke seals at the steel angles between the reinforcement of the concrete slab and the spreader beam. There is also fire compression in the gap between the curtain wall and the face of the structural floor slab to stop the spread of smoke across the floors.

All these structural members are concealed within a framed gypsum board ceiling soffit. The soffit terminates as a shluter strip creating a ½ inch reveal before the custom shaped shade box. The custom shade box has an angled profile to open the volume towards the edge of the room and is angles obtusely from the interior of the curtain wall.

There is a ½ inch reveal provided between the stainlesssteel closure above the steel plate on the edge near the curtain wall and the finished floor slab. A floor-mounted heating system is installed that runs along the perimeter of the floor slab.

The strange dotted graphic outside the glass represents intermittent stabilization anchors (I.S.A) which are used for the window washing platform.

ARCH 8873: INTEGRATED BUILDING SYSTEMS III

INSTRUCTORS:

RUSSEL GENTRY MICHAEL GAMBLE HOWARD WERTHEIMER TODD MOWINSKI

PHASE II 10.14.2022

TEAM 10

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS

DRAWN BY MACKENZIE SHINNICK PATRICIA RANGEL ERIC TROLLINGER ARCHI SHAH KISHORE KANDASAMY

SHEET TITLE TRANSVERSE BUILDING SECTION

SHEET NUMBER A201

ARCH 8873: INTEGRATED BUILDING SYSTEMS III

SHEET TITLE

LONGITUDINAL BUILDING SECTION

DRAWN BY MACKENZIE SHINNICK PATRICIA RANGEL ERIC TROLLINGER ARCHI SHAH KISHORE KANDASAMY

SHEET NUMBER

RUSSEL GENTRY MICHAEL GAMBLE HOWARD WERTHEIMER TODD MOWINSKI

ARCH 8873: INTEGRATED BUILDING SYSTEMS III

INSTRUCTORS: PHASE II 10.14.2022

TEAM 10

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS

DETAILS

SHEET NUMBER A602

SHEET TITLE

DRAWN BY MACKENZIE SHINNICK PATRICIA RANGEL ERIC TROLLINGER ARCHI SHAH KISHORE KANDASAMY

RUSSEL GENTRY MICHAEL GAMBLE HOWARD WERTHEIMER TODD MOWINSKI

TABULATION OF COLUMN LOADS

SUPPLEMENTAL DEAD LOAD (SDL):

ONE-WAY JOIST SYSTEM - REINFORCED CONCRETE

slab span / 20

concrete unit weight x slab depth

beam span/ 16 beam depth - slab depth) x beam width x concrete unit weight (18”-5”/12”) x 1.33’ x 150 lbf/ft

3 x (width + length)

3 x (60’ + 150’)

total beam length x beam weight

630’ x 216.125 lbf/ft

total beam weight / (length x width)

136,158.75 lbf / (150’ x 60’)

slab weight + areal weight of beams

62.5 lbf/ft + 15.12 lbf/ft

floor self weight + SDL + LL) x beam tributary width lbf/ft + 20 lbf/ft + 80 lbf/ft) x

80 lbf/ft

20 lbf/ft

150 lbf/ft 250 lbf/ft

EXTERIOR COLUMN (1D):

COLUMN LOAD: tributary width: tributary length: tributary area:

Pcol: floor self weight x tributary area x 3 / 1,000 (170.66 lbf/ft x 513.6’ x 3) / 1,000

ARCH 8873: INTEGRATED BUILDING SYSTEMS III

INSTRUCTORS:

PHASE II

10.14.2022

INTERIOR COLUMN (2G):

COLUMN LOAD: tributary width: tributary length: tributary area:

Pcol: floor self weight x tributary area x 3 / 1,000 (170.66 lbf/ft x 513.6’ x 3) / 1,000

TEAM 10

CORNER COLUMN (3I):

COLUMN LOAD: tributary width: tributary length: tributary area:

Pcol: floor self weight x tributary area x 3 / 1,000 (170.66 lbf/ft x 513.6’ x 3) / 1,000

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS

DRAWN BY MACKENZIE SHINNICK PATRICIA RANGEL ERIC TROLLINGER ARCHI

SHEET TITLE

TABULATION OF COLUMN LOADS

SHEET NUMBER S601

SHAH KISHORE KANDASAMY

RUSSEL GENTRY MICHAEL GAMBLE HOWARD WERTHEIMER TODD MOWINSKI

Prada Building Tokyo: Creating a Plaza Where No Square Meter was Unoccupied

The 2003 Prada Building in Aoyama, Tokyo was a defining project for the Herzog & de Meuron team. A thorough analysis of the ratios, scales, forms, diagrids, facades, elevations and street grid were done to determine the method used by the original architecture firm in designing the building by a team of three graduate students. A formula was constructed after determining the dimensions of a rhomboid unit to develop the floor plan of the building. The base of the massing is the floor plan that strategically begins with a dot on the ground that sits in the corner of an alley and a sidewalk in Toyko, Japan. From that point, architects Herzog & de Meuron

make a deliberate move that slightly shifts two equal distant parallel lines. The vertex of those lines then determine the length and angle of the corresponding walls that become the main entrance and plaza of the Prada Aoyama building. The second most important piece of the massing is the roof line that connects all the vertex heights to one of its two ends. The unit of measurement of the rhomboid was determined to be 200mm in height and 3200mm in length. A sectional study also revealed repetitive ratios of 2:5 within the wall area, verrtical walls, and catilevered floors of the structure.

EAST SECTION Scale 1 : 250

When examining the two full oors of the building there is a 2:5 ratio in terms of the diamond height of the 2nd and 5th oor. The light blue shaded area represent the sections of the east-facing wall that contains a ceiling height of two diamonds. As a portion of the total area of the wall, the quantity of oor space that contains two diamond height ceilings is approximately 40% or a 2:5 ratio.

The vertical wall ratios have a strong 2: 5 ratio on the section facing east. When the mullions at the ceiling points are extruded down to their opposite wall, a clear 2:5 ratio is seen on the oor and along the northern and southern walls of the structure.

The pattern of the cantilevered oors from a vertical perspective terms of diamond height dimension. In terms of a horizontal against the eastern wall the sequence follows a 3-5-3-3 length falling across a span of six diamonds as opposed cantilevered oors.

CANTILEVERED FLOORS Ratios

perspective goes 2-4-2-4 in horizontal diamond length 3-5-3-3 pattern. With the nal opposed to seven in the rst three

EAST SECTION

WEST SECTION

As is seen by these diagrams of the east and west elevation and sections, in the entirety of the building, only the second oor is able to maximizes the entire surface area of the building’s footprint. The fourth oor because of the third tunnel is cantilevered on the east wall, though it appears complete on the west wall. The fth oor, although not cantilevered, takes up a smaller footprint due to the angle of the roof. Therefore the 2:5 ratio exhibits itself once again by by establishing a center of stability on the second of seven levels.

Unit of Measurement

The base of the massing is the oor plan of this building. And the oor plan strategically begins with a dot on the ground that sits in the corner of an alley and a sidewalk in Tokyo, Japan. From that point, architects Herzog & de Meuron make a deliberate move that slightly shifts two equal-distant parallel lines. The vertex of those lines then determine the length and angle of the corresponding walls that became the main entrance and plaza of the Prada Aoyama building. The second most important piece of the massing is the roof line that connects all the vertex heights to one of its two ends.

Begin with a dot at the plan-SW.

3 + 5 rhomboid lengths variable walls

WALL A (PLAN- NE)

Begin with a dot at the plan-SW.

Procedure by drawing a line at zero degrees, four rhomboid lengths along the site boundary at plan-S.

Draw a line that is seven rhomboid lengths plan-north and reorient it to be 98 degrees from original line.

Then, draw a parallel line to the original line at a length of four rhomboid lengths.

At the plan-N and plan-S vertices, draw two circles, one with a radius of three rhomboid lengths, one with a radius of ve rhomboid lengths.

Connect the vertices to the intersection of these two circles closest to plan-E. The lines connecting these points will form the nal two walls of the building,

Connecting all the lines will create the oor plan of the Prada Ayoama building in Tokyo, Japan.

5 + 8 rhomboid lengths variable walls

8 + 5 rhomboid lengths variable walls

7 + 4 rhomboid lengths variable walls

6 + 11 rhomboid lengths variable walls

3 + 5 rhomboid lengths variable walls

9 + 6 rhomboid lengths variable walls

5 + 3 rhomboid lengths variable walls

4 + 7 rhomboid lengths variable walls

9 + 3 rhomboid lengths variable walls

The Twin Kouroi in Delphi

The Twin Kouroi in Delphi were excavated from the Temple of Apollo in 1893 and 1894. French archeologist discovered the two statues. Kouros A was found in 1893 in nearly perfect condition while Kouros B emerged in 1894 with parts of his upper limbs missing.

Unearthening Kouros A, 1893, sanctuary of Apollo, Delphi, Greece. Image provided by Smarthistory.

French archeologist excavating Kleobis in 1894. Image provided by Smarthistory.

It was a rare find to to unearth two nearly identical kouroi. Unlike their predecessors, these kouroi have a few distinguishing characteristics. For one, their arms are not completely straight by their sides. There is a slight bend in their elbows which were not sculpted previously in the archaic period. Secondly, the statues were not completely nude which was nearly the definitely of a kouros, a naked male youth, especially of noble rank. A thin pair of boots can be detected just above the ankles leading down to their toes. These were two of the traits that set them apart from previous iterations. Monica Bulger argues that several details make these statues unique and mark a change in the archaic style. She points out that “they are bulkier than the other kouroi, with especially broad chests and thick limbs.”

By observation can you detect any distinctions between the kouroi previous to 580BC as opposed to after on the next page?

References

Boardman, John. The Archaeology of Nostalgia: How the Greeks Re-created Their Mythical Past. London: Thames and Hudson, 2002.

Boardman, John. Greek Sculpture: the Archaic Period: a Handbook New York: Oxford University Press, 1978.

Bulger, Maria. “The Kouri of Kleobis and Biton.” smarthistory: The Center for Public Art History. Accessed April 29, 2022. https:// smarthistory.org/kleobis-and-biton/.

Karo, George. Greek Personality in Archaic Sculpture. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1970.

Nagy, Gregory. 2015.03.20. “On the Festival of the Goddess Hera at the Heraion Overlooking the Plain of Argos,” Classical Inquiries. http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.eresource: Classical_Inquiries.

Kleobis and Biton

Medium: Parian marble

Dimensions: Height- 1.97 meters/6.46 feet

Date: 580 BCE

Creator: Polymedes of Argos

Provence: Argos, Peloponnesian Peninsula

Current Location: Delphi Archeological Museum

Temple of Apollo (with reconstructed columns), Sanctuary of Apollo. Image provided by Steven Zucker.

They are the oldest monumental votive offering recoverred at Delphi, estimating being made in 580 BCE. Since their excavation they have been housed in the Delphi Archeological Museum.

Nagy, Gregory. 2016.03.16. “Where It Al Comes Togerther for Me: a Sacred Space of the Goddess Hera,” Classical Inquiries. http://nrs. harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.eresource: Classical_Inquiries.

Palagia, Olga ed. Greek Sculpture: Function, Materials, and Techniques in the Archaic and Classical Periods. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2008.

Sismondo Ridgway, Brunilde. The Archaic Style in Greek Sculpture Chicago, Ares, 1993.

The Archaic Style

The Archaic period in Greece is couched between the Greek Dark Ages and the Classical period. It covers the span of 800 BC to the second Persian invasion of the country in 480BC. Archaic sculpture in Greece applies to Archaic statues of naked youth, meaning a beardless man. In the Archaic Style in Greek Sculpture, the kouroi statues are characterized as “standing with one leg forward, feet flat on ground parallel to each other, and arms along the sides.” We can see the family of kouroi that the twin brothers derive from. Starting back in 630 BC with the Bronze Kouros from Delphi was fully erect, feet together similar to Egyptian influences. In the following years the Kouros from Attica in 600 BC, from Sounion in 590 BC, and the twins contemporary Kouros from Orchomenos in 580 BC all follow the stance John Boardman describes in Greek Sculpture: Function, Materials, and Techniques in Archaic and Classical Periods’ “Sources and

Materials” chapter. He describes the common feature of the young men’s stance as one foot slightly advanced. He explains, it “lends stability since the back-to-front depth of the plinth is thus at least doubled.” He goes on to state that the rational of the left foot being the advancing foot is because “we normally step off on the left foot.” Unlike most kouroi, the twins are not entirely nude. Upon further examination of their feet, thin boots can be detected as being worn and would have been more obvious when they were painted. Just after the end of the Archaic period, the ancient Greek historian, Heredotus published Histories in 430 BC. In that publication he told a tale of twin brothers that yoked themselves to their mother’s cart to deliver her to the festival of the goddess Hera. Herodotus’ story recounts how the young men’s mother, a priestess of Hera, asked the goddess to grant the highest blessing to her sons for their devotion to bring her

to the festival from the city of Argos when their ox were missing. When the two brothers fell asleep that night in the temple they did not wake again. This peaceful death in their prime was the highest honor and would immortalize them in the eyes of the Argive people.. Monica Bulger arguing on behalf of that story points out that the twins “burly bodies seem to recall the deed that made them famous by clearly demonstrating their strength and even visually relating them to the oxen.” They become amongst the first kouroi to have a bend in their elbows suggesting movement as if they were pulling a cart. Though they have a similar engraved line on their chest suggesting musculature, their size and form by comparision to the previous kouroi are much greater. The insinuation of their muscles seems to inspire a further maturation of the abdominal six-packs of future kouroi, in particular the Anavyssos and Aristodikos Kouroi that follow.

Though most believe the twin statues are the actual ‘Twins’ of Argos from Herdotodus’ tale in the 430 BC Histories, some scholars argued that the two Archaic Greek Kouroi maybe the half-twin brothers in Greek mythology, known as Dioscuri, the sons of Zeus named Castor and Pollux. These two brothers were the patrons of sailors and known for their horsemanship. However, there is much more evidence to support the brothers of Argos are the same as recorded in Herodotus’ publications. Ridgway, Brunilde, and Sismondo suggest in The Archaic Style in Greek Sculpture, that the style of these two statues as opposed to others before and after had a localized style supported by their Daedalic features. John Boardman describes in Greek Sculpture: The Archaric Period, mentions their “extremely thick set bodies and tough flexed arms with the traces of the boots their wore recall the purpose of the dedication commemorating their strength.” And in George Karo’s Greek Personality in Archaic Sculpture, he suggests those well fitted boots appropriate “for the long tramp across the Argive plain, may be meant to recall hooves” of the ox that the young men substituted for when they brought their mother to the festival. Bulger also cites recent scientific analysis of the plinth’s inscription, “[---]medes the Argive made it,” suggests the creator came from Argos, which reinfoces the theory that they were votive offereings of Kleobis and Biton.

Bronze kouros from Delphi

c. 630 BCE

Kouros from Attica aka The New York Kouros

c. 600-590 BCE

Kouros from Sounion c. 590-80 BCE

Kouros from Orchomenos

c. 580-70 BCE

Anavyssos Kouros

c. 530 BCE

Aristodikos Kouros

c. 500-490 BCE

Kristios Boy

c. 480 BCE Kleobis

Question of the Day:

Pick one artifact sculpture or vase painting- in the archaeological museum and analyze it based on what you learned from your fellow students’ presentations.

Emma Thomes presented on the Phrasikleia Kore at the National Archeological Museum. The 540 BCE statue would be a contemporary of the Twin Kouroi located in Delphi. Remnants of her colorful facade uniquely still remained traced in her figure. Though she stands erect, the gesture of Phrasikleia’s arm taking her skirt and holding the lotus blossom in front of her further exemplifies the progression of movement in the Archaic sculptures. The Twins bent arms also initiated that trend forty years earlier. What was surprising about learning its history was the role of the kore and kourous as grave markers used by the rich and representing wealth and prestige. After visiting the mound with Thanos and Myrsini on our first evening, the value of community in Ancient Greece and erecting a built environment that served the society seemed to trump individual showmanship. Regardless of what clan she came from, Phrasikleia still came from a ruling clan. In contrast the Twins did not necessarily came from a ruling class as much as were revered because they had been honored by the goddess with their early deaths. Perhaps the fact that these statues were buried with the deceased is evidence that the core value of community and humility were still intact.

Athens, 16

Greece

May 2022

Question

of the Day:

Describe the key characteristics of the Mycenaean megaron. Illustrate the parts of the megaron with your own diagrams (plans, sections), annotated photos, and other material from your research.

The key characteristics of the Mycenaen Megaron are the formal entry or porch, the vestibule, and the hall itself containing a large circular hearth. The formal entry consists of dressed stones that appear flat and where no mortar is used. The formal entry has the Greek stylos which also means column as well as the instrument we use to write with. The Greek etymology of the stylos is ‘column’ or ‘pillar.’ The hearth was the heart and most important landmark. A hole was established for smoke to go up. It consisted of four columns to allow a lantern for light to come and go. The hearth was typically circular and measured approximately over three meters in diameter. The megaron also consisted a throne where the King resided. In Mycenaen, the king’s throne was located on the south side of the complex. The key characteristics of the Mycenaen Megaron are the formal entry or porch, the vestibule, and the hall itself containing a large circular hearth. The formal entry consists of dressed stones that appear flat and where no mortar is used. The formal entry has the Greek stylos which also means column as well as the instrument we use to write with. The Greek etymology of the stylos is ‘column’ or ‘pillar.’ The hearth was the heart and most important landmark. A hole was established for smoke to go up. It consisted of four columns to allow a lantern for light to come and go. The hearth was typically circular and measured approximately over three meters in diameter. The megaron also consisted a throne where the King resided. In Mycenaen, the king’s throne was located on the south side of the complex.

Greece

May 2022 Mycenae, 17

How can we understand the evolution of the temple form with respect to its site, at both the immediate scale and the larger scale of the landscape?

The evolution of the temple from its inception was about its orientation. With the intention of welcoming the morning with the eastern light to honor the gods. The priority on orienting the structure toward the morning light obscured front entries and/or resulted in the temples not being orthogonal to the landscape. The more obscure front entries, made the approach to these sacred spaces more ceremonial and mysterious. Once on site, the layers of the temple itself followed a similar structural sequence. On the exterior were Columns of the Doric Order that offered structural support. But then there were more columns surrounding the cella, an even deeper sacred space where the oracle dwelled.

The general landscape also played a major factor in selecting the site for such temples. In regard to the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, Mount Paranassos emitted vapors that produced hallucinations consumed by the oracle to give access to another world. The sanctuaries remoteness from major cities made the place more sacred and reinforced Apollo’s ability to be a neutral god. Since temples were constructed based on a communal fund, this neutrality must have enabled good will to give.

Question of the Day:

Delphi, 18

Greece

May 2022

Question of the Day:

What is the relationship between the temple and color; how can we understand this in relation to both site context and aesthetic decoration?

The stark neutral temples that sprinkle the landscape of Greece today are such a misnomer of what they looked like in their era. Today a small flower seems like a stark visual contrast to the bare and muted temples. The relationship between temple and color are a bit reminiscent of Ruskin’s Seven Lamps of Memory. In Seven Lamps, Ruskin advocates for buildings to be built for at least 100 years. The architects and artists of ancient Greece were building things to last hundreds if not thousands of years. And with that awareness, chose a garish color palette knowing that they would fade over time and would need to be seen from very long distances. Very few would near, let alone enter the temples. So, the color scheme was almost an act of service to the vast majority that would never be close. The Greeks saw their gods in living color. Only after the British pillaging of Ancient Greece and excavation that found the temples and statues faded, did archeologist convince the world of the whiteness of antiquity. In more recent times a German archeologist named Vinzenz Brinkmann created “full-scale plaster or marble copies hand-painted in the same mineral and organic pigments used by the ancients.” The work of scholars like Brinkmann are rectifying our understanding of the precedents held dear by architecture.

Aegina, 19

Greece

May 2022

Question of the Day:

How is the Altis (a temenos) defined at Olympia? Explore the form in plan and section, with special attention to both built forms and the landscape.

Altis was the sacred grove of Zeus at Olympia. It was a plain between two rivers on the north slope of the Alfeios Valley. It was the site of the first Olympics. The games were established to encourage peace. It was a place you could win honor without having to partake in brutality against others. There is a component of humility necessary to participate in the games. The Altis consisted of the Temples of Zeus and Hera, alters, votive offerings, small treasuries, and administrative buildings. The Tempe of Zeus was built in approximately 470-456 BC. It was a Doric Hexastyle Temple with six columns in front, built right before the Parthenon. In this temple lay people could approach it and go to the upper level to visit the huge statue of Zeus. Like other temples it was sponsored by city states. The Temple of Hera was built in around 590 BC in the Archaic times. It is one of the oldest Doric Temples in Greece and the oldest within the Altis. Outside of the sacred space that was lined with olive trees was the stadium, the hippodrome, baths, gymnasium, palestra, and other accommodations for visitors.

Greece

May

Question of the Day:

How do you describe the system of civic representation in the Athenian agora, and how can you compare it with the American Democratic Republic?

The system of civic representation in the Athenian agora known as democracy took place between 460 to 320 BCE. Under this system any man, born of Athenian heads of households were considered a citizen. Eventually it would be all males born of both Athenian mothers and fathers. However, salves, women, and foreigners were never citizens and therefore would not be participants in this famed democracy. All those that did meet the criteria had equal political rights, freedom of speech, and opportunity to participate directly in the political arena of the assembly or ekklesia. The assembly met at least once a month on the Pnyx Hill which could accommodate 6000 citizens. The assemblies would be organized by a smaller council called the boule. The boule consisted of 500 citizens, fifty from each tribe, chosen by lot, and with term limits of two, one-year terms max. Within the boule, there was another executive committee which contained fifty members of one tribe of the ten. They were elected to office on rotation, so a different tribe held power each year. This group had a different chairman every day and met in the Bouleuterion in the Athenian agora. Because people were chosen at random and were constrained for how long they could serve in office, no one individual or small group could dominate or influence strictly the decision-making process directly or indirectly. In contrast to the modern American Democratic Republic, there are no safeguards to prevent certain individuals to stay in office and unduly influence and manipulate the democratic process.

Athens, 23

Greece

May 2022

Question of the Day:

How is the space within the pediment resolved to receive sculpture; how has this changed over time?

The composition of the figures is the primary way in which the sculptures fit within the tympanum; the space enclosed by the pediment. “Their posture varies in order to accommodate the slope of the pediment that originally framed them.” (Khan Academy, https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ap-art-history/ ancient-mediterranean-ap/greece-etruria-rome/a/the-parthenon) Aside from their postures there is clear compositional symmetry that balances the pediment with the most important figures in the center looming largest in the overall frame of the pediment. The use of drapery to illustrate the sculptures’ bodies enables the artist to configure the sculptures into the recesses of the corner of the pediments. Since the pediments were so high off the ground, some elements of optical refinement were incorporated into the figures for that vantage point. More depth was required to fit all the elements on the pediment, therefore the tympanum was recessed from the edge of the lintel it sat upon. In the Parthenon, because it was a temple to the gods and Athena in particular, no expense was sparred to have the sculptures be as detailed from the back view as it was from the front even though it would not be seen by the public. Phidias, the architect and sculptor, was clear on that mandate and value of honoring the goddess. Over time in Europe and during the Renaissance and neo-classical eras, some pediments turn into arches and in other cases rather than sculptural figures, texts or clocks are used to fill in the space.

Athens, 24

Greece

May 2022

Question of the Day:

What makes a Greek city? What types of buildings are needed?

Aside from domestic houses as referred to by Vitruvius, the buildings and structures that make up a Greek city consisted of 1. An Acropolis- located on an upper part of a city often on a hill and chosen for purposes of defense. It often contained 2. Temples that are often the best-known Greek typology. Often associated with temples were 3. Treasuries, housing the wealth and/or votive offerings of city states, as opposed to wealthy individuals. They were smaller versions of temples with thick fortified walls and iron gates outside of the city walls in hard-tofind places. As a center aspect of city living were 4. Agoras- the marketplace or plaza where the daily business and sharing of news took place and where the main roads of the city led to. Bordering these agoras were always 5. Stoas, offering covering above, entry between any of its columns, and at times stalls to shop from against the back wall. Also particular to a Greek city was the presence of 6. Palestras/Gymnasiums and Stadiums. Not only did these spaces offer physical exertion to the men of the city but were intertwined with intellectual pursuits and contained libraries and philosophers that engaged the men in scholarly interrogation. They were sites for education and physical and intellectual training. As part of the cultural landscape 7. Theaters were found in Greek cities, with the first being built between 525-470 BCE at Thorikos (https://www.thoughtco. com/greek-architecture-basics-4138303). The rich tradition of the Greek’s engagement with plays and acting led to these formal structures.

Athens, 25

Greece

May 2022

Question of the Day:

Summarize the optical refinements at the Parthenon; discuss these in relationship to appearance and construction.

The Parthenon was a celebration of mathematics and geometry as they were considered pathways to the divine. Around the perimeter of the temple, each column narrows at the top, widens toward the middle, and leans inward. Collectively, the columns are not equidistant. The corner columns are slightly bigger and closer together. The devices used to connect the spandrel of the columns was made of iron clamps and wood. It allowed the pieces to be centered on top of each other and once all the pieces were in place the fluting could be carved out. The ceiling was all level, but the floor was not. A band was placed around the floor to make it look level. Along the long side, the corners of the floor are eleven centimeters higher than the middle of that edge. And on the short side, the corners are five centimeters higher than the middle of that edge. There is debate if the bowing of the floor for aesthetic purposes or for drainage issues. The irregularities of the structure, however, were intentional knowing that the optical illusions of the eye on such a large structure would actually be needed so that the building would look rectilinear. Not a single piece of the Parthenon has the same dimensions and no building had such a rich program.

Athens, 26

Greece

May 2022

Question of the Day:

Analyze the theater in relation to Vitruvius’s writing (Book V, translated by Morgan).

In Book V of Vitruvius’, The Ten Books on Architecture, translated by Dr. Morris Hicky Morgan, he goes into some detail about the Greek theatres. He explains the configuration of the orchestra and the geometry within it to determine the aisles and the position of the proscenium. He concludes that “the Greeks have a roomier orchestra” and a shallower stage [152]. However, with further examination of the Theatre at Epidaurus, the proscenium or stage do not follow Vitruvius’ rule. In fact, the orchestra is even “roomier” than he described and the stage shallower. Since the Greeks used the entire orchestra and the logeion, or high stage for actors to perform, perhaps the lower stage’s depth was not as necessary. Vitruvius also addresses the heights of the hyposkenion columns that hold up the portico or logeion. He claims that they should be between ten and twelve feet tall. Finally, a topic he discusses regarding both Roman and Greek theaters is the issue of acoustics. Site selection for sun orientation, but also for “where the voice has a gentle fall” [153]. At the Theatre at Epidaurus, the slope of the seats served as a seal that effected the sound. If the theater was too full, the acoustics were not as good because there had developed some dependence on the sound bouncing back off the empty seats.

Greece

May 2022

Through Death to Heaven

The cieling of the Chigi Chapel is a dome inspired by St. Peter’s and the Pantheon. contains eight frescos. Eight symbolizing the number of eternal life. Agogostino was a strong beleiver of astrology and Raphael complied his patron with a strong mix of pagan and Christian symbolism.

The sculpture of Jonah (above) and Elijah were made by Lorenzetto based off of sketches from Raphael.

Paganism + Christianity

To understand the symbolism within the Chigi Chapel is to know Agostino Chigi, the initial funder of the chapel and patron of Raphael. Agostino was a devote Catholic, friendly with popes and cardinals and manager of the church’s accounts. He was also a devote student of astronomy and believer in the fortune of the stars. Therefore, the dome ceiling of the Chigi Chapel, reminiscent of a smaller St. Peter’s Basilica uniquely contains both Christian and pagan symbolism. Based on sketches from Raphael in the center of the oculus, stands God in the act of creation. And in the eight mosaics surrounding him representation of the known planets and zodiac symbols. The octagon chapel repeats sets of eight, the number of eternal life, throughout its contents.

References

ARoadRetraveled. “Angels and Demons Tour: EARTH (St. Maria del Popolo) part 2. June 22, 2009. Accessed May 1, 2022. https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=CZJDf_UiMqA&t=23s.

Buer, Linda. “Bernini’s Organ- Case for S. Maria del Popolo.” Volume 62, p 115-123. New York: Taylor a& Francis, 1980.

Dickerson, Claude Douglas III, Anthony Sigel and Ian Wardropper. Bernini: Sculpting in Clay. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2012.

CHIGI CHAPEL

S. Maria del Popolo

Rome, Italy

1507-1661

Raphael and Gian Lorenzo Bernini

The floor of the Chigi Chapel is centered around a winged skeleton holding the family crest of the Chigi family. This floor was completed by Bernini and embodies the chapel’s theme of resurrection with its Latin inscription “through death to heaven.”

DiFuria, Arthur Nagel and Ian Verstegen. Space, Image, and Reform in Early Modern Art: the Influence of Marcia Hall. Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2021.

Shearman, John. “The Chigi Chapel in S. Maria del Popolo.” Volume 24. London: The Warburg Institute, 1961.

The sculpture of the Prophet Habakkuk and the Angel was completed by Bernini.

The Patrons + The Architects: The Chigi Family’s Road to the Chapel

Agosotino Chigi, Italian banker, patron of the arts, scholarship, and literature bought the chapel in 1507. He was known as “Il Magnifico.”

Inspired by the Basilica of St. Peter and the Pantheon, Raphael composes a dome fitted with an oculus containing God himself in the act of creation. The blue skies throughout the mosaics alluding to the skies above. And a row of windows under the golden ring bringing light into the interior.

The Dome of St. Peter’s (above) and the oculus of the Pantheon (right).

Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, Raphael, dies at 37 days before his patron. A painter and architect, Chigi was his only reiligious building.

It all started in 1507 when Pope Julius II, who named himself after Julius Caesar, granted permission to Agostino Chigi, a close friend, to buy the second chapel to the left of the nave in the Basilica of S. Maria del Popolo. Chigi then commissioned the famous Raphael, who had created his Villa Farnesina, to design the architect’s first religious building. Within fifteen years Raphael’s octagon floor plan of 1512 revealed the basis of the chapel that would then not open to the public permanently until 1661. Designed as a chapel devoted to the Virgin of Loreto and a mausoleum for the Chigi family, it is intertwined with both Christian and pagan symbolism. Its obvert iconography a novel for a Catholic Church, but true to its original patron.

Fabio Chigi, great-grandson of Sigismondo Chigi (Agosotino’s younger brother) was Bernini’s patron. He later becomes Pope Alexander VII.

Gian Lorenzo Bernini, known for his life-like sculptures, was also a revered architect who would take on Chigi Chapel nearly 100 years after it was commenced by Raphael.

Raphael’s 1512 floor plan of the Chigi Chapel. Both patron and architect would die in April 1520, leaving the completion of the project to Bernini, under the commissioning of Fabio Chigi, Agostino’s great-grand nephew.

Rome,

Question of the Day:

Following on the precedent of Pliny the Younger, consider how you might both preserve and share your own experience of Pompeii. Write a one-page letter to someone at home (i.e. a relative, partner, or friend) about a space or artifact in Pompeii that you don’t want to forget. Describe the setting in enough detail for them to reconstruct its most important features in their imagination. Also explain why this space or artifact was preserved, when so much else from the Classical world was lost. Finally, explain how this thing made you feel; what was your aesthetic experience?

My dearest Cole,

Yesterday (on Memorial Day) we went as a group to visit the city of Pompeii. Do you know much about it or its history? must admit arrived feeling very naïve and unprepared for what was about to see. In Danielle’s class two year ago I know we must have covered it, but my memory was vague.

Cole, remember the aftermath of the volcanic avalanche we saw in Colombia when we were kids. And the line left on the trees where he lava had passed was above our heads and barely above papi’s?

Imagine that about ten times more dramatic- where the line of the lava was high above the coffee factory we were touring. My Cole, an entire city was wiped out and ironically enough, preserved better than just about anything on this earth. Our professor said something interesting on the bus yesterday on our way to the site. He said something along the lines that we influence buildings and they in turn influence us. The more study architecture, am not sure if my interest is the individual building as it is the systems of the buildings. Some of the individual temples and villas at the location really helped your imagination fill in the blanks of not only what it would have looked like, but how people would have moved through the streets, ate their food, taken care of their needs. And I even dare sa the emotions they would have experienced.

Cole, mother nature is an amazing entity. Her strength and potency is nothing to play with . Toward the end of our tour we hurriedly rushed by these glass cases- this is after we walked into a room and encircled one glass case of what looked like a somewhat unrefined statue of a female figure lying on her belly with her right forearm covering her forehead. The position of her lower legs, with her knees off the ground, but her feet slightly hovering over the earth that she was not resting. That she had fallen or been attacked because her dress was pulled up to the middle of her back and she was naked for the exception of a bet around her waist.

My Cole, we learned that the lava not only wiped the built environment down but wiped out approximately 2000 people. But when saw wiped out- that included not just knocking them over but creating a charcoal cast around them. Therefore, archaeologist since 1748 AD have been able to fill those charcoal casts with some sort of plaster or gesso to capture the final moments of these lives. At the point we were rushing past some of the others what I am calling “live molds,” I froze.

There appeared to be a little boy, knocked down, limp but attempting to get into a protective stance. Why his body took me immediately to Uvalde, Texas. Is that what those 19 little bodies looked like when they were gunned down? Would they be in motion to protect themselves against something more forceful, violent, and powerful than themselves? I didn’t dare take a photograph as my mind and heart kept playing catch up between the little boy in front of me the victims of the school shooting. We often do not get to see someone’s agony. We clean things up so quickly and proceed to move on. Film and art probably do the best job of evoking those sensibilities within ourselves or toward others. But alas they are often very personal and intimae moments. I wonder if those tiny figures encapsulated in prayer, in protection, in helplessness would give comfort to the Uvalde parents or community over time. A reminder of the fragility of their child and of life? Would seeing the physical resistance to death move or motivate some policy makers to promote “free law-abiding citizens” to take measures to protect the most vulnerable amongst us? Those figures evoked a continuum of memory and emotion. They upped the value of life, the awareness of its fragility, and the sense of responsibility to care for one another. Therefore, maybe it was a very apropos paseo for Memorial Day. To remember those that have fallen and reflect on how those who are left standing want to live.

Question of the Day:

Today you used parts of your body (hands, fingers, arms, feet, etc.) as comparative measures against which to document different artifacts. Choose one to revisit for your question of the day. Create a drawing, photograph or written account of the artifact that captures the experience of measuring in this way as well as the result. Then reflect in writing for a few paragraphs on the following questions: Did this way of measuring reveal something about the artifact or, on the other hand, something about you? Did the artifact “fit” with your body or not? How so? What does this way of measuring help you understand about the aesthetic effect of the artifact? Furthermore, what does it suggest about the significance of human scale and other scales in use during the time of Classical Rome?

Using our bodies to measure objects in some ways personalizes them. A connection is formed between one’s muscle memory and the object. Drawing is often an intimate experience because our hand and eye are constantly calibrating length, perspective, and proportion looking intensely at the object for an extended period of time. The item I chose to measure was a piece of a cornice located at the forum. Hayri was kind enough to act as my model. The rhythm of the dentals on the edge of the cornice to my surprise fit precisely in the palm and length of his hand. Two of his fingers fit snuggly in the alternative space between the dentals. In some church traditions there is an act of placing hands on someone to pray over them. Seeing Hayri’s hand on an object that is typically out of reach changed my perspective of the purpose or meaning of the cornice. Not only is it a thickening element to a roof line, but like in church they could represent hands praying over us and protecting us in our places of shelter. Classical Rome was latent with symbolism and intentionality as seen in all the imagery around the built environment. Its consciousness of human scale perhaps set the precedent of would be the cradle of the Renaissance that put the human at the center of all things.

May 2022

Question of the Day:

What should count as data about Classical Rome? Today, you are to make a data collection that consists of all the variations of columns at the sites we visit. Develop your own way of documenting these columns. Your approach can be highly structured or not. It can rely on numbers, geometry, textures, photographs, or words. It can include whatever information or context you think is appropriate. Consider how these data might express some interest of your own. In your written response to the question, present your data collection as you see fit and write a short explanation of your motivating interest, process, and the resulting collection. Also reflect on any tensions that came up and what your collection leaves out about columns and their context.

Trajan’s Market Today /Trajan’s Market Original

0 20-front entrance

0 16- main square entrance

3 32- porticos

1 16- exedera

0 8- basilica entrance

20 130- basilica

0 32- library

0 20- entrance to temple

1 1-Column of Trajan

I chose to do a comparison of what was and what still stands in Trajan’s Market. Opened in 110 AD, nearly 2000 years later, it is remarkable that there are any remains left of this site in such a busy cosmopolitan city. From site plans located on the internet, I did a column count of the how many columns were in the various spaces surrounding the market. Then through photographs and google earth, counted how many still stand. For the exception of Trajan’s Column, none stand in their full form. Items within the site also seemed to have been moved, thus affecting the count. This analysis does not examine the difference between the columns, for example if they are structural versus decorative, size or dimensions of each. They are simply indicative of location.

Italy

Rome, Italy

June 2022 1

Question of the Day:

How is “nature” framed by Classical and Renaissance villas?

Use drawing, photography, or descriptive writing or some combination (i.e. comics) to capture three or more sequential views that present nature in the context of each villa. “Nature” is—to put it crudely—the non-human. Nature is presented in the way a view to the mountains is set up by a doorway; in the way the sun is made to light a space; in an anthropomorphized artistic or spiritual representation; or in a creative manipulation of the elements, such as a fountain. At the end of the day, represent these sequences in your journal using the media of your choice. Compare how nature is presented in each villa, as well as the implied function of the villas as interfaces to nature. Then reflect on what is concealed in these views about the relationship between art, architecture, and nature.

Hadrian’s Villa- Within this villa, I was most intrigued by the Maritime Theatre. The concept of this curious emperor who sought out feedback from scholars and dignitaries to rule his empire, and yet built a structure to retreat to within his villa enclosed by water was fascinating. Hadrian’s villa had large bodies of water sparsely distributed amongst the site. But central to the site plan was this exclusively place of refuge protected by nature to offer respite to its leader. It is said that still waters run deep. Hadrian’s Villa was full of still water, perhaps reflective of how this illustrious emperor became known as on of the best Rome had seen.

Villa d’Este- Within this estate, water was inescapable. Its vision, sound, feel was all around you and occupied your senses from every angle. The patrons of this estate were playful by nature and the gardens reflected as such. At Villa d’Este water danced and was accessible to the touch as well as grandiose in its presentation. The topography of the location facilitated the fountain-like nature of the space. Water could rise and fall with apparent ease in several directions and offer both large and small tantalizing experiences in its nooks and crannies.

June 2022

Question of the Day:

You can use separate sheets of scratch paper (or personal notebooks) to take notes. Then draw your final map on one large format sheet of paper (provided). Use as much of the paper as possible. Start at the center of the city, the intersection of the cardo and decumanus. Then work your way out. Note: Consider how your map might be later superimposed on those of other groups. Measurements can be approximated (work in meters). Complete your maps as best you can in the given time and devise a meaningful way of folding them (smaller than 8”x8”) so as to best show the different parts of your city image. Then reflect on the appropriateness of your given conceptual element for describing the city. What does it reveal? What does it obscure? Did you notice any important features of the city that would not fit well into this five-dimensional classification system?

In examining the conceptual element of “districts” in Ostia Antica, our map did a fine job of orienting you and helping you locate the program or place that you were seeking. However, it did not necessarily address the materiality of the site and the implications different materials would have on the distinct districts and/or how they related to one another or contributed to the function of the district space. Closed in the 9th century, the nature of the map did not give any sense of why the city shut down and moved locations and still was so well preserved. One category that is not included in this five-dimensional classification rubric provided by Kevin Lynch is a social mapping of both user experience then and now. The week following this trip, I met a young man from this area of Italy who spoke of how much appreciation he had for Ostia Antica as a social space. He and his friends would take food and play soccer around the site often. Social perception seems like a significant part of an “image of a city.”

Italy

June 2022

Question of the Day:

Johanna Drucker argues that humanists need more interpretive and relational forms of representation in order to depict human experiences of “temporality,” as opposed to abstract, linear, and disembodied notions of “time.” Respond to Drucker’s challenge by making your own interpretive plan or section drawing of a building that illustrates its chronology as you experienced it. You can choose any one of the temporally nuanced buildings we visited today: S.Clemente, S.Sabina, S.Maria in Trastevere. Then reflect on what this building offers in terms of a materially-grounded experience of Rome’s chronology. What did you learn from it that you couldn’t get from an abstract timeline of the city?

San Clemente evolved over the first, fourth, and twelfth century. Layers rise from underground to the top of the basilica to expose the various centuries of history and materiality contained within the structure. The church offered a few port holes that allowed vantages of the materiality of all three time periods to be seen. The stone and the affect of time superimposed on them distinguish them from one another. Also, the artwork throughout the floors reveals through their aesthetic styles and genres an evolution of the city both spiritually and artistically. Those spots within the building that align across time periods almost seem like metaphysical portholes that allow you to exist in three different times at once. So perhaps Johanna Drucker’s statement could be given a twist with quantum physics, to consider that time is not temporary, but rather existing simultaneously at once.

Question of the Day:

Perspective drawing—particularly when combined with printmaking—is a powerful simulation technology. William Ivans argues that it can make any reality, even the unreal, seem believable and universal. However, all perspectives present reality from one standpoint. Construct a one-point perspective drawing at one of the sites we visit today: Bramante’s Cloister, the Tempietto, Piazza del Popolo, or one of the two churches. How does your perspective illustrate an intended (or unintended) standpoint? Reflect on the significance of this standpoint in prior eras and today.

Rome,

Question of the Day:

Rafael Moneo defines “type” as “a concept which describes a group of objects characterized by the same formal structure.” Theories of type can help us compare groups of buildings that we visit, even if they are designed by different architects, for varying functions, and constructed across disparate time periods. But type is not a template or model for design. Rather, it might be characterized as the basis for formal innovations applied in different places. In Moneo’s words, type is a “frame within which change operates.” Today, we will look at how the concept of type can help us analyze and compare Renaissance facades. For at least two (2) facades that we see today, make a drawing or written description that identifies shared formal structures and how they are adapted to each context. Reflect on the benefits and limitations of type as a means of understanding the relationship between architecture and place.

Perspective drawing causes you to become an editor and an archivist simultaneously. The literal place where you choose to stand, determines what is in the frame and what is excluded from view. In the Cloister of Bramante, the corner where I stood did not give a full grasp of the courtyard and art installation on the ground floor during our visit. However, the ability to use drawing in a while to capture big picture and small details is a powerful tool. During our studies, it was perhaps best illuminated for me by the perspectives and prints of Piranesi. While going on site to study the Library at the Baths of Trajan, the ruins left limited information of what the corner of the large complex looked like. The roof structure was gone. However, in reviewing Piranesi 1756 Views of Rome, an inclusion of the library can be seen in his perspective of the baths at that time. His drawings reveal more of the roof structure than what exists now and can help piece more details together. This documented chronology is invaluable for understanding the past and informing lesson to the future.

Both the Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne by Baldassare Peruzzi and the Palazzo Farnese by Michelangelo can by described as symmetrical. A characteristic typical and in line with the philosophy of the Renaissance. Since those in the Renaissance were humanist, the features of the human body being in symmetry was inspiration for much of the architectural design. The use of circles and squares also characterize the work of Renaissance artist since there was so much value placed on mathematics and geometry. Though the two palazzi sit on very different plots of land, the architects both assured the windows followed a rhythmic sequence with a clear opening. Each row of windows in both structures align on top of one another but hold a different artistic style distinguishing them from the floors below. The planar façade has very little dimensionality aside from at least one course string that establishes the ground level. The buildings also offer some insight between the relationship of the palazzo owner and the wider community. On both front elevations, the patrons choose to convert some of their privately owned facades into public spaces, offering general citizens places to rest in a little bit of shade, due to the overhanging cornice, at the foot of their front door. A trait we do not see now on the properties of the wealthy.

6

Rome, Italy June 2022

Italy

Rome, Italy

June 2022 8

Question of the Day:

How can we recognize creativity in art and architecture? How have manifestations of creativity shaped—and been shaped by—the cultural and material conditions in Rome? Create a series of detail drawings or detailed written descriptions in which you explore formal variations (i.e. iterations, permutations, or asymmetries) within a single work of art or architecture, or within the career of a single creative person. Use these examples to reflect on what creativity looks like.

Creativity has been shaped by cultural and material condition in Rome because the city during the 15th century was the center of the art world, largely due to the rich purse that funded its endeavors. The Catholic church used artwork as a form of propaganda to promote their dogma. True creativity has an authenticity about it. Let’s take the life of Caravaggio. The master painter that manipulated light and shadow to bring 2D canvases to life in an unnerving realism. His upbringing and life circumstance commenced with a great deal of death and was nurtured within the gritter sides of his namesake town. His talent and drive to create was inspired and driven by the imagery he saw daily, the turmoil he placed himself, and the economic prosperity he experienced come from his works. Despite his mood or positioning, he was creatively prolific. And his creative talent, furthered by his work ethic, was sought out, despite his delinquent behavior. In the Contarelli Chapel, the three paintings depicting the life of St Matthew humanize the saint. Rumor has it that with The Death of the Virgin, he did not win his commission in 1606, due to choosing to depict the Virgin Mary with the corpse of a well-known prostitute. But life, arrests, and the will to be redeemed motivated him in 1610 to use his own self portrait as the tortured antagonist in his version of David with the Head of Goliath.

June 2022

Question of the Day:

What is a ritual? One way of thinking about ritual is as “a pattern of behavior that links people in fellowship or commonality.”

(Carey) Rituals are social behaviors. When we are engaged in a ritual, its choreographed activity affirms our own sense of belonging. This might include participating in a religious service, photographing ourselves at a cultural heritage site, walking in our own graduation ceremony, or simply standing in a queue. Observing ritual in action is an important part of understanding the use and meaning of a place, beyond its instrumental function for individuals. For thousands of years, people have visited the site of St.Peter’s Piazza and Basilica to enact rituals that connect them to the site and its history. Your media activity for today is to document people on their way to St. Peter’s Basilica or in the Basilica itself. Identify at least two rituals involving different kinds of connection (i.e. spiritual, civic, touristic, familial, or professional) with a focus on their spatial patterns. Document these rituals through drawings, writing, or a combination of the two. Then reflect on the relationship between ritual and place. How does ritual shape the city of Rome?

Ritual shapes the city of Rome in part by how Rome is laid out and the amenities it offers. A Roman city if known for its order and grid like structure. Guidelines set boundaries for major landmarks and nodes within a city. The Cardo Decumanus centered each city, so it was no surprise to witness the individuals waiting to enter St. Peter’s to use the radial guidelines painted within the square to line up. The swarms that arrived on site needed little instruction on where to go. The grid lines spoke for themselves, and the people followed obediently. From ancient times, the emperors of Rome set up the city to be the receiver of water. The citizens health and well being centered around that resource being available to all through the public baths and later fountains established along the city’s streets. On the way to the Vatican, people can be seen filling up water bottles, placing fingers on spouts to redirect water streams to their mouth, or positioning market booths near said fountains to establish a sink at their place of business. The relationship to water and the ritual of approaching the water fountains comes from both necessity and play. Whereas the rule following of being in line follows the urban plan nature of the former empire, the fountain play reflects the spirit of those that live within the culture.

The dimensions of the new sacristy are like that of the “old” sacristy by Brunelleschi. Whereas the Brunelleschi’s chapel held the remains of the patriarch of the House of Medici, Giovanni, and his wife, the “new” sacristy would be the final resting place of four other members of the family. The floor plan was a square structure, the walls a grey blue sandstone, but Michelangelo elevated the structure, included a higher lantern on the dome ceiling, and shaped the coffer ceiling, like the Pantheon, to give the illusion of extra height. Mid project, due to political differences and loyalties, Michelangelo hid in a secret room under the chapel for two weeks “doodling” on the walls (see image below) when the Medici regained power after the second republican revolution in Florence.

References

Buonarroti, Casa. Michelangelo architetto a San Lorenzo: quattro problem aperti/a cura di Pietro Ruschi. Firenze: Mandragora, 2007.

Elam, Caroline. “Tuscan Dispositions: Michelangelo’s Florentine Architectural Vocabulary and its Reception.” Renaissance Studies, Vol. 19, p. 46-82. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing, Ltd, 2005.

Harris, Beth and Steven Zucker, “Michelangelo, Medici Chapel (New Sacristy),” in Smarthistory, October 8, 2016, accessed May 22, 2022, https://smarthistory.org/new-sacristy/.

Gatson, Robert W. and Louis A Waldman, eds. San Lorenzo: a Florentine Church. Washington DC: Dunbarton Oaks Publications, 2017.

Neufelt, Gunther. “Michelangelo’s Times of Day: A Study of Their Genesis.” The Art Bulletin, Vol 48, p. 273-284. New York: College Art Association of American, 1966. http://doi.org/10.2307/3048386.

Ruggiero, “Michelangelo and the Medici Popes Weekend All-Day Lecture/Seminar,” August 28, 2021. Accessed May 22, 2022. https:// smithsonianassociates.org/ticketing/tickets/michelangelo-andmedici-popes.

Michelangelo’s Sculptural Program of the New Sacristy at San Lorenzo

Medium: Marble from Seravezza

Sculptures: Four Allegories, Two Dukes, One Madonna & Child

Date: 1519-1534

Creator: Michelangelo (1475-1564)

Current Location: Basilica of San Lorenzo, Florence

Bacchus, 1497 Pieta, 1498-99 David, 1501-04

Moses, 1513-15

Madonna of Burges, 1504 Dying Slave, 1513-16

Giuliano de Medici, Duke of Nemours, one of the sons of Lorenzo il Magnifico and brother to Pope Leo X, in his effigy represents the contemplative life. Michelangelo spent an enormous amount of time sculpting the Duke’s face to be in shadow. Below the Duke on convex volutes are representations of Dusk and Dawn. All four allegories are reprsenting the passing of life and the changing of matter ad spirit.

Lorenzo de Medici, Duke of Urbino, dies at age 26. He is the nephew of Pope Leo X and grandson of Lorenzo il Magnifico. His effigy speaks to the active life and has as representatives personifications of Night and Day. Michelangelo’s poetry is most associated with his depiction of “Night” as recounted by Giorgio Vasari, who completed the project.

Question of the Day:

Medieval cities and towns are often, incorrectly, identified as meandering and unplanned. Draw an annotated and analytical map of Pienza and Siena explaining their guiding logic and arrangement.

Pienza and Siena are not rectilinear in their arrangement, but better described as a spider web of a city. Though a web is not orthogonal, its structure and vibration are felt through its entirety down to its core. The two Tuscan towns share a central core from which its octopus arterials branch out from. Its blocks stretch rigid geometry but are still self-contained with roads connecting to major fairways. In the center of the town are large open spaces exposed to the southern light. The orientation of both towns seems very conscious of the sun. The valleys are developed in the southern section of town and many buildings have open courtyards to allow natural light into their living spaces. The density of the built environment within these two medieval cities are also misnomers of conventional thought about sprawling landscapes during that time. The curvilinear roads may have been an easier pathway for a cart or animal, the transport at that time, to transverse versus turns at ninety degrees.

Italy

June 2022

Florence,

Question of the Day:

What are the major landmarks and nodes of Florence? How are these organizational elements interconnected, and how do they relate to the city’s topography and hydrology? Create an annotated and analytical map to explain your findings.

The major landmarks and nodes of Florence radiate out from the Cardo Decumans on the corner of current day Via degli Speziali and Via Calimala. As opposed the medieval towns of Pienza and Siena, it is clear that Florence was Romanized. Jetting north off the Ponte Vecchio the orthogonal grid that characterizes Rome’s colonizing efforts is evident from an arial view. The three highest points of the terracotta-roofed city reflect three distinct points of the city plan. To the northwest of Ponte Vecchio, just south of the Decumanus, is one of the highest points. Then moving west, just south of the Duomo, is the second. And lastly east around the current Museo Nazionale del Bargello, would be the third highest point of the city. All three locations are at an elevation of sixty-nine to seventy meters. If the three high points were connected, they would point straight to the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore. And above that elevated arrow is an irregular pediment of streets that at its north point sits that palace and home church of the family that would unofficially rule Florence for nearly 300 years, the Medici. Their positioning within the city gave them a great vantage point to be in the center of action, yet in the corner observing everything.

June 2022

Pienza & Siena, 13 Italy

Question of the Day:

How can we understand the integration of human proportion into the works of Brunelleschi at San Lorenzo and the Pazzi Chapel? How are these proportions related to the whole composition of the interior spaces?

To understand the human proportions in Brunelleschi’s work first requires knowing that he comes from the Renaissance. And the characteristic of a person from the Renaissance is that they are a humanist. Therefore, human beings are the center of life versus a deity or emperor. There was reverence for mathematics and astronomy. San Lorenzo is the signature Renaissance Church that has the integration of different art forms. Its use of circles and squares, considered a divine shape, made the work through the nave of San Lorenzo harmonious and voluminous. Brunelleschi’s decision to elevate the entablatures in the center nave offered soaring windows to flood the center of the church with light. And though the side aisle ceilings are lowered in portion to the smaller floor space below it. The arches above also sit on a slight entablature allowing the pillared walkway to be taller than in most churches and produce beautiful light for the churchgoer. The value of symmetry as it related to the human body’s symmetry is deemed quite important in both San Lorenzo and Pazzi Chapel. In the smaller spaces, such as the old Sacristy, incorporation of astronomical topics is woven in the religious themes of the sanctuary. The simplicity of palette allows for the person seeking a spiritual experience to be calm and focus internally rather than be distracted by imposing imagery and perhaps like DaVinci’s Vitruvius Man can see him/herself in the heavenly circle and squares contained in all the negative spaces of the church and chapel.

Italy

Florence, Italy

June 2022 15

Question of the Day:

From Roman times to medieval, and medieval to midcentury, how can we understand Verona’s approach to historical layers through carefully designed intersections? Draw your findings.

From Roman times to medieval, and medieval to midcentury, Verona’s approach to historical layering could best be described as a Christina Tosi naked cake featured in her boutique bakery milkbar as seen in the Netflix show “Chef’s Table.” A Tosi cake does not have an outside coating of frosting. It is fully exposed so one can view the complexity and texture of each layer she stacks on top of one another. She is known for using simple, very americana ingredients. Verona has a parallel approach. Throughout the city, the medievalist set a precedent of how they handled the Ancient Roman works. They did not destroy or cover up or bury the previous building. Rather they developed a dual-purpose way to layer the slice of time next to each other. New walls act like a rainscreen, protecting and providing breathing room for the old without making them disappear, but rather sit next to each other in harmony. Similar to how Tosi can pair a cup of corn flakes to pecans, chocolate malt frosting, and a coconut filling to upgrade your typical German chocolate cake at first sight, Scarpa’s interventions in Castelvecchio are amongst the most dignified and complimentary examples of adaptive reuse. He creates a dance within this supposedly static building where the medieval castle stands equal in a seductive tension with modern materials and techniques framing it.

June 2022

Question of the Day:

Please reflect on Florence as a Renaissance center of art and innovation, in a relatively small physical area. Create a cognitive map of the sites (and ideas) we’ve explored this week.

On a college campus, when entering an art school or architecture program, students’ individual studio space is relatively small, if even provided. But the designated area for creation is always very clear. Between all the pieces seen this week and the thought of the Duomo unfinished for centuries, it seems like the city of Florence in some ways was a living art studio. Art and being a creative were the sport of the day. Competitions bruised egos, motivated people to leave for Rome to lick their wounds, and there were owners (aka patrons) that funded the sport. To consider Florence as a hub of intellect and creative innovation cannot be addressed without talking of the Medici, whose purse supported and nurtured some of the greatest artist geniuses known to date. And with their political power had the opportunity to shape the culture of the region that prioritized and valued education, craftmanship, and the arts. Iron strengthens iron, so once the culture was established the city’s reputation was its marketing tool to attract even more talent.

Italy

June

Question of the Day:

In a Renaissance composition, what is the relationship between the figural object (i.e., Palazzo, church) and the piazza? How can we understand framing and the urban approach?

In the Renaissance the highest priority was creating the ideal living conditions for humanity. Geometry reigned king as the spatial tool that organized the built environment. Where the Greeks revered building for the community rather than edifices celebrating individuals, the Italians sought an integration of the two principles. Palazzi and churches were the Renaissance version of how wealthy patrons showed their power, prosperity, and influence. But because people were considered, a palazzo would have façades that turned into benches with shade due to the large overhang roof. The piazza during the Renaissance became an urban theatre. Staged flat, wide, and uncovered, all of humanity was on display and given room to express the vastness of the human experience. Piazzas were often located directly in front of palazzi and churches. The Italian piazza witnessed everything from bloody violence to festive celebrations. Their positioning in relationship to the figural object, allowed those in the palazzi and churches to be front row audience members to the theatrics. Thus, making the patrons perhaps both benevolent and opportunistic of the views.

Question of the Day:

What are the forms, nodes, and typologies of a covered pathway? What are the key vocabulary terms we can use to describe these conditions; what are the explanatory diagrams?

Portico- is a porch leading to the entrance of a building with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls.

Loggia- covered exterior gallery or corridor, usually on an upper level, but sometimes on the ground level of a building. Outer wall is open to the elements, usually supported by a series of columns or arches.

Arcade- succession of contiguous arches, with each arch supported by a colonnade of columns or piers. Exterior arcades are designed to provide a sheltered walkway for pedestrians. Colonnade- long sequence of columns joined by their entablature, often free-standing, or a part of a building.

Cloister- covered walkway, open gallery, or open arcade running along the walls of buildings and forming a quadrangle.

Stoa- covered walkway, commonly for public use. Early stoas were open at the entrance with columns, lining the sided of a building.

Peristyle- a peristyle is a continuous porch formed by a row of a columns surrounding the perimeter of a building or a courtyard

Bologna,

Italy

Question of the Day:

What are the spatial characteristics of spaces of contemplation, for the individual and for the collective? Use San Marco and the Laurentian Library as case studies

The spatial characteristics of a space of contemplation requires solitude, even when in the midst of many. There is a tension between tight simplistic volumes with vast open spaces. In both San Marco and the Laurentian library, this tension is evident. The aisle of benches with entry only on one side could potentially cause claustrophobia for the scholar not really interested in rigor of the literature. Because of the confines between the person, the bench, and the book there is plenty of empty air space within the volume of this structure. Likewise at San Marco, the monks stayed in rooms that averaged between twelve-by-twelve feet. Tiny portholes in their windows offered long views to the courtyard and upon leaving their rooms, exposed trusses revealed a much greater spacious area to their residence. Perhaps it is symbolic for the place in which a contemplative lives requires a going deep within themselves and knowing that are connected to something much greater than themselves. The other common characteristic these two spaces hold in common is the presence of meditative artwork. Whether it is the mandala of the Laurentian tiled floor, or the frescos painted by Fra. Angelica in each room, the power and provocation of art can transport a person to another realm.

Italy

Florence, Italy

June 2022 22

Question of the Day: Explore the composition of the Italian Renaissance palazzo: what are the key elements, how does the facade relate to the street (and scale of the pedestrian), and how does the courtyard relate to the whole volume?

The Italian Renaissance palazzo was an edifice with three parts to it. The ground level contained commercial space that was front facing to the street. On the second level was the piano noble where the main family would hold residence. The top level would be a mix of apartments and where the servants would stay. Unlike the palazzo-inspired Chicago style and skyscraper that would proliferate the United States at the turn of the century, the lack of elevator made the upper floors less desirable during the Renaissance. In some cases, the upper floors were hidden out of view from the street by the protruding cornice on the roof. The façade of the structure was like a sheer cliff with no protruding portico or pediment. The only projection were the course strings around each floor appearing as a belt. In some palazzi the lower level would differentiate itself by being layered with bigger more rustic stones and then transition into more dressed stones on the upper floors. Like most Renaissance structures, symmetry was a common characteristic. Windows and apertures took on a rhythm-like sequence along all the elevations. Many of the patrons chose to give part of their palazzo back to the city by extending the base of the building into public benches. And the central courtyard was the residence to receive most of its natural light and experience the outdoors outside the public eye.

June 2022

Question of the Day:

How does Palladio navigate urban and environmental irregularities to instill an overall sense of symmetry and harmony?

Palladio navigated urban and environmental irregularities instilling overall symmetry and harmony by tapping into the root of his name, Palladius, which in Latin means knowledge or study and is derived from Pallas Athena, the goddess of wisdom. With roots as a stonemason and a builder’s background, his humble beginnings positioned him to understand both the design and construction of buildings thoroughly. In the Basilica Palladiana di Vicenza, his use of the “serliana, a tall central arc flanked by two lower rectangular openings… [allowed Palladio] to use identical arches, while adjusting the dimensions of the side beams to fit the varying dimensions of the bays.” He was known to be a fervent student of Ancient Rome, which also learned a great deal from Ancient Greece, where optical refinement was standard. The Basilica, which was not a church, but rather a government building, was not a rectangle but rather a parallelogram. It serves a prime way Palladio created masterful classical structures with given conditions. His mastery at solving building issues and elegant designs made him the most copied architect in history. The drawings within his I Quattro Libri dell’architettura does not fully reflect all the innovative interventions he implemented in his commissions.