5/25 Founding of Rome III

Seated in the Circus Maximus:

Wednesday began with a discussion of theater typologies, public architecture, and their relation to the population as a whole. The three main types of theaters used in the ancient world were:

1. The Circus – entirely a Roman idea resembling a Greek stadium except the Romans used theirs for chariot races. It had its origins in military parades, wherein the standards of war were returned (if they had been previously stolen) and/or paraded around the designated area (if they had been won in battle).

2. The Greek theater – originally conceptualized as a celebration by the cult of Dionysius as he leaves on December 21^st and returns on March 21^st. Elements of these rituals slowly evolved over time into what we conceive of as an actual theater, with spectators, an orchestra, and scenery. While his theory is backed by plenty of evidence, Doug was sure to point out that the evolution of the Greek theater is still very much up for debate, as the written record is not substantial enough for us to piece together a complete and accurate narrative.

3. The Arena – the most notable example of this type is the Colisseum, a term applied to it by a monk living in England around 700 AD named Bede. The proper term for this structure is the Flavian Amphitheater. Originally associated with funerary events, it came to be most recognized for its gladiatorial combats, animal exhibitions, and mock naval battles.

One of the more thought-provoking that was brought up especially in terms of the Colisseum and public architecture was that sporting events did not exist in structures this size from the time that it went into disrepair until the advent of the modern Olympics in Greece in 1896. I find this fact simply fascinating; that society did not have use for large event complexes for the better part of a millennium. Sporting events in the middle ages and Renaissance were simply relegated to smaller scale complexes that did not nearly hold the number of people that the Colisseum could, a figure estimated to be around 50,000 people capacity. We could then further discuss this aspect of society being a microcosm for the complete and utter destruction of large civilizations as a whole. During the middle ages, at least in Western society, the largest institution was the church; large expanses of empires tied together with networks of local rulers and a vast system of supply-chain logistics did not exist at the scale of the height of the Roman Empire. These public buildings were a symbol of Rome’s dominance and capabilities as a society, and as their whole way of life came screeching to a halt, so did the continual use of the Colisseum.

We can look at other public buildings such as the Arch of Constantine, built between 312 – 315 AD, and tell a similar story about the decline of the Roman Empire. Commemorating his victory over Maxentius, this arch was in fact put together by pieces made up of other monuments. This alone could signify a slight decline in power, simply because they had to take from other structures those parts which before would have been carved by the most talented artists and craftsmen in Rome. Underlying the visual impact of the Humpty Dumpty Arch is a sub-level of psychological decline: Constantine was moving the capital to Asia Minor and naming it, aptly, Constantinople. The mental impact of this event cannot be understated. For centuries Rome was at the apex of the civilized world: it had the most wealth of any empire, the grandest structures the world had ever seen, a fully functioning democracy, and the Pax Romana for a time. Both the moving of the capital and the legalization of Christianity, which is ironic because Rome had been persecuting Christians and trying to rid them from gaining a foothold, both occurring under Constantine’s reign dealt a severe blow to Western civilization from which it would not recover.

Gave a presentation in front of the fountains at the Pantheon tonight. These presentations cover a wide range of buildings in each of the cities we visit, and the goal is to get us acclimated to sharing information we learned from researching each building. We went through the typical gamut of its historical timeline, from when it was built, to when it was restored, its subsequent conversion into a Christian church and therefore its survival into the 21^st century, and now its use mainly as a tourist attraction and one of the main photography spots of the city. One thing that I learned during the presentation is that the structure attached to the back of the Pantheon was actually a bath complex that stretched away from the Pantheon, now covered over by modern buildings, shops, and apartments. We couldn’t visit the inside since our presentation started at 7pm and the doors close at 8pm. Nonetheless, we were lectured by Doug on the vast network of supply-chain logistics that the Romans were masters at even in the early years after Christ’s birth. Specifically, the fact that the 8 giant 22-ton columns that hold up its front portico came from Egypt makes you wonder how the Romans were able to coordinate this amount of material and transport it all over the ancient world, from Ireland to modern-day Iraq. As well, the fact that they could erect such large structures puts into your mind a question of how they were able to stand up a large column made of solid marble and place it exactly into place within a few inches without dropping it. Our fascination as a society with erecting large structures fascinates me. I guess if it didn’t, I would not want to pursue a career in architecture. It brings up larger questions about our ego and desire to be the best and most powerful at everything we do. Our collective egos are one main reason why we erect such large structures. “Look what I can do” “Look how powerful our society is” “Don’t mess with us: if we can move 22 ton columns, we can surely wipe out your civilization”

It’s the same way with skyscrapers, I feel. Each country wants to have the title of tallest skyscrapers, yet where does that get us? The Arab Emirates have the title, but I don’t believe that they have solutions to house people in an appropriate way. The Romans built 90’ tall statues to their emperors and gods/goddesses and were extremely excessive in the Imperial period in terms of building unnecessary structures. Not to say this is the reason their empire collapsed, but when a society gets to a point that they build courtyards, forums, and other needless public buildings, a decline cannot be far in the future. Other structures such as the Temple of Mars Ultor, which was simply a piece of public propaganda, did nothing to either alleviate population swelling or create a public environment that would further advance society’s collective knowledge. Yes, it is a temple dedicated to one of their most important gods, and one could consider this ‘architecture’ in the sense that it used a monumental stairway and classically designed columns, entablatures, and portico. However, I consider architecture to be that which has the public in mind and can advance our society as a whole; not simply a piece of propaganda built by a seemingly selfish emperor for his own personal gain.

We can learn many lessons from Rome, as you can see: what to build, what not to build, how to approach urban design, the importance we place on certain public buildings and their influence on our everyday lives. I tend to think of Rome as a giant experiment in architecture in order so that we can learn from the past. Often times, as in the case of Le Corbusier’s plan for Paris, we can’t test these ideas without first proposing to knock down the entire historical center of a major metropolitan city. Yet Rome seems to me to be a place where experimentation has taken place on a grand scale. Most of these structures are not standing today, yet we do have a written record of most of them and can take from them a sense of the appropriateness architecture should embody.

5/24 Founding of Rome II

The forum’s 1000 years of history were the focus of today’s discussions. Taking us into the forum was an experience wherein we were exposed to various threads of history. One thread took us back into the Republican period and demanded that we imagine this space as it were around the birth of Christ and before. The other asked us to consider the buildings within the forum and the forms they took on as Christianity became legal under Constantine. For instance, in the second case the basic shape of the basilica, which had been used for a law court, was converted to a space for Christian worship. The space where the magistrates sat was replaced by an altar with representations of Jesus and his divinity. All of the aspects of the state religion in Rome were, as in the case of a language, slowly evolved into some sort of aspect of Christianity. As Doug has noted in almost all of his lectures so far in Rome, Christianity had an underground influence at the same time as the height of the Roman Empire, and is simply a wonder how it subverted this once dominant civilization and took its place among the foremost cultural practices still in use today.

One of the concepts the he has tried to emphasize with us is the sweeping narrative that covers all the centuries of history which we can both see in the material record and read in the written record. For instance, in the material record we have found places where both inhumation and cremation have been found in the same grave. This can tell us any number of things about the Romans, most notably that they were a conglomerate and mixture of different cultures, from the Sabines, to the Latins, to the Etruscans. Each of these cultures had somewhat of an impact on the conception of the Roman world, and it is this acceptance and melding of different cultures that places this civilization, in the middle of the Italian peninsula, among the most influential to have ever walked the earth.

Among the ruins of the material record, we find evidence of a structure called the House of Vestals, which was both the repository of wills for the Roman people and the place where the sacred fire of Vesta, the symbolic hearth of the united Roman people, was kept and never extinguished. This practice, to me, is a signal of what lengths humans will go to create symbols of civilization and maintain them for long periods of time. If the fire were ever to extinguish, this would possibly signify a character flaw in the Roman people, and would also displease the Gods. Because the Romans entrusted this symbolic act to women shows a shift in thinking between the conceptions of them in the Greek world with the conception of them in the Roman world. In the Greek world, women were not even allowed in public spaces such as the Agora, where in Rome women were allowed into the forum at their leisure. At the same time that women’s rights in Greece were heavily restricted, women in Rome, while they could not hold office, could own property, divorce their husbands, and even own businesses. We have small pieces of evidence such as these that society was evolving into a more accepting, lawful, and progressive state of existence. The Romans were more accepting of the roles of women, the various numbers of religions that were legal to practice, and the importance placed on getting a commodity such as water in and out of the city, something I think our society takes heavily for granted today.

One cannot speak of the role of women in society without discussing the role of men in society, for they are the ones who put in place the overall social structure and its hierarchy of accountability and deference. The Pater Familias was the head of the Roman household. All women and children were in effect in bonded servitude to him and his word was law. He both ran the domestic affairs of his immediate family as well as acting as a patron for any clients who would require his services. As the influence of the head of the household grew, he would eventually retain more clients, gain more respect in society, and his status was ultimately due in large part to this system of favors for favors.

The Romans shared 3 common core values among its male population that were, upon loss of respect and status, inviolable:

1. Fidelity – loyalty to your fellow man and to the state

2. Piety – faithfulness, sacrificing for the good of the whole, and keeping your word as your bond

3. Liberty – the benefit of the 1^st two obligations

It is interesting to ask yourself where these values and moral obligations come from. There are those who believe that morals are divinely inspired; that without these guidelines to stick to coming from some omnipresent, Omni prescient source, the world is simply a series of random chaotic events that have no grounds on which to stand. Although I could be misjudging the Romans’ source for morality, I believe that part of the root cause and derivation of these values comes simply by looking at society and trying to decipher how to conduct yourself in a way that would be mutually beneficial to everyone. The Romans were polytheistic, and thus could not have gained their moral compass from one single source. I do hold the position that since they were one of the first societies to implement a democratic republic as a form of government, they held the belief that reciprocal benefit of each person acting toward the gain of the whole was the best way for such a large empire to operate, flourish, and progress.

We also have from the material record a number of structures remaining in the forum that have survived in part into the modern world. Such structures include: the Altar of Saturn, which is a group of 3 columns with part of an entablature inscribed with the ubiquitous Latin phrase:

S E N A T V U S P O P V L V S Q V E R O M A N V S

Translated as “The Senate and People of Rome”, this phrase appears on a variety of surfaces from souvenirs, manhole covers, buildings, t-shirts, bumper stickers, etc. The ubiquitousness of this phrase in Rome and throughout the extent of the Roman Empire is but one of many vehicles the Romans used to tie their vast empire together. It was important for the Romans to be able to have consistency when establishing themselves throughout Europe, the Mediterranean, and parts of North Africa and the Middle East. One of the other methods they used was the process of town creation they used when either conquering an existing civilization or establishing a city from nothing. A more detailed description of this process can be found in the Ostia entry, but it was important for me to understand this process first in the Roman forum so I could then follow their logic when they applied it to other cities, such as Ostia.

Further along in the material record we find other structures such as the Arch of Septimus Severus, built in 200 AD eponymously commemorating the emperor’s victory over the Parthians; the Arch of Augustus, a smaller version of the one dedicated to Severus; the Curia Julia, the Senate house built by Julius Cesar and rebuilt by Diocletian; the Forum Necropolis, dedicated to the emperor Antoninus Pius’ wife Faustina; the Basilica of Maxentius, an enormous structure completed by Constantine whose 3 remaining side aisle vaults still dwarf many of the other remaining ruins in the forum; and the Arch of Titus, which bears the record of the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. In addition to the formal qualities that these structures represent, they usually all have some story attached to them via actual carvings attached to facades, mosaic tile work, statues, etc. Compare this typology of classical architecture to modern architecture and we find a strikingly similar conception of the use of architectural elements. Classical architecture featured a plethora of cornice details, entablature decorations, pediment presentations, and capital styles all designed to be able to be used in any part of the world and for a variety of reasons. Modern architecture, similarly, exhibits these same qualities of portability and universal applicability but in an entirely new skin. The International Style, made famous by architects such as Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, and Walter Gropius was trying to reconceptualize the notion of universal transferability. It seems to be true that the more things change, the more they stay the same. We have here two completely different visual aesthetics in terms of decoration vs. sparseness, yet are confronted internally with the same reliance on exquisite detailing, classical proportions, and natural inspiration.

5/23 Founding of Rome I

Today’s lesson, class: orientation to the city, the founding of Rome, and the function of its government. Walking through the initial part of our tour, I couldn’t help but notice that all of the buildings had Hebrew inscribed on them. Found out that this was the old Jewish quarter of Rome, complete with Kosher delicatessens and all. We then came upon an ancient gate/entryway arch and Doug remarked on the different types of stone used in its construction, which could lead you to decipher from which period in Rome’s history this building can be dated. Granite, tufa, travertine, and marble are but a few of the various types of stone used in construction and I believe you could date a building to after the start of the Republic through its use of granite columns.

There really is too much to take in upon first seeing these sites. Thousands upon thousands of layers of time, stone, and people populate just about every square inch of Rome that you can see with the naked eye, let alone all of the foundations which I’m sure could tell the same if not more information. We then crossed over the Tiber River and was introduced to the various hills that make up Rome: the Quirinal, Palatine, and Capitoline are the only three I can name from memory. However, the 7 that constitute ‘Rome’ each have a varied and interesting history of their own. The control of the salt trade is really what made Rome and the people who defended it famous. They could, from the defensible position of the hills, guard the Tiber and anyone who attempted to cross it.

For me, the day’s highlight was the discussion by the forum, where you could actually visualize the different processions that would go on regarding the workings of Roman government, its inauguration and re-inauguration, and various other civic activities. From the founding of Rome on April 21, 753 BC, they would appropriate the same ceremony of connecting the heavens to the ground on a template of the cardinal directions to a myriad of other cities around Europe: Barcelona, Vienna, Ostia, Madrid, etc and on and on.

I also enjoyed Doug’s talk as we sat staring at Marcus Aurelius’ horse’s ass on the Campigdolio (sp?) Given Alberti’s “vast shipwreck”, it’s still amazing to see the number of artifacts that remain. Individual statues of Castor and Pollox flank the entry to the Campigdolio, which have been pieced together over the years and look like someone has glued a broken vase back together. You see statues without heads, statues with their faces worn down to nothing, monuments with pock marks from where metal ties have been taken out, free-standing columns in the middle of the forum which are the remnants of what I assume to be a great basilica or some public building, toppled sections of fluted columns, and on and on.

It’s hard to imagine the city as a whole given its varied history and the number of rulers/kings/dictators that have been in charge. Some of them have changed the orientation of the whole city, some have built monuments on top of foundations of older buildings, some have built structures in the carcass of a dead building, some have gone ahead and tried to create new public plazas dedicated to certain kings of Rome (Vittorio Emanuelle). We can only go by the material record, however, because most of the ancient stories (which were written several hundred years after the fact) which claim to be fact are in reality myths wrapped in some kind of poetic or moral lesson. Tomorrow, we descend into the forum, into the belly of the beast!

S P Q R

5/21 Heathrow

Things To Do While Sitting in Heathrow Airport for 6 Hours:

· Wander aimlessly through the various stores, looking at all the useless trinkets they try to pedal on us weary travelers (ok I caved and bought an AC adapter for 8 pounds… I swear I needed it)

· Make conversions from pounds to dollars and wonder how the American dollar always ends up on the short end of the stick

· People watch. Now! There are many subcategories of this activity

o Those who are ambling at a normal pace, seemingly as bored as I am in this airport

o Those who walk 5 steps, stop, take out their boarding passes, walk backwards 10 steps to the computer screen, then continue walking as if nothing has happened

o Those who sprint through the crowd, dodging fellow travelers like a gold medal downhill ski run trying to get to their gate on time (my personal favorite)

· Check for your passport, wallet, boarding pass, and backpack at least 2324983984203 times (and secretly fearing it’s gone each and every time, thus prompting me to keep checking)

· Futilely attempt to log in to the Boing network or whatever they call their wi-fi here, which is 10 pounds per day! That’s almost $20/day US money

· Stare at the ever so aesthetically pleasing terminal 5. It’s really just a 21^st century modern version of a 19^th century railway station, as the terminal curves in 1 large arc over a 2 story space filled with mezzanines, large atrium areas, information kiosks, duty-free shops, and ample seating areas.

o Now that I think of it, the engineering of the enormous columns that rise from the floor and attach to the roof at 4 different points of intersections is a mind-blowing expansion of Le Corbusier’s idea for the free plan.

o He advocated using columns that were both free from the glass façade and free from interior walls so that both could be as flexible as possible

o Here at Heathrow, this concept is taken extremely far as the columns do act in this fashion but are expressed in a very Neo-modern, ultra-expressionist, Neo-High Tech fashion; a remarkable feat of engineering, in my opinion.

· Have a decent meal at an airport. Yes, I spent 6.25 pounds (which is about $11). Yet I received a chicken sandwich with bacon and tomatoes on bread which wasn’t as hard as a rock (I’m looking at the crumbling mess that comes out of your toasters, Subway), a bag of grapes, and REAL fresh squeezed lemonade (hear that Minute Maid!!??!!...I’m talking to you. Your lemonade might be in every Subway and Firehouse across the country, but guess what? It sucks!!

o On a tangent, I think we may have gone a little too far with this whole mass production thing. Why can’t we still get freshly squeezed lemonade from any major food producer. Why did I find the last 3 times I went a chick-fil-a that their lemonade, which used to surpass any on the market, was suddenly watered down and tasted like imitation lemonade?

o Yeah, ok, I get it. When the Industrial Revolution set in we were looking to find cheap ways to get the most amound of our product to the most amound of people. Well done Mr. Ford. Well done, U.S. Steel. Well done Mr. Levi Strauss. But don’t you think it’s about time we started to scale down mass production? We are becoming a country that is consuming and even demanding inferior products. Example: beer. Bud Light, Miller Light, Pabst Blue Ribbon. Shame on you. We need to produce quality as opposed to quantity. Maybe this is the reason we’ve seen an increase in the number of micro brewers over the last decade or so. Take a look at the current crop of beer commercials. They’re marketed to IDIOTS! If they’re trying to market to the Neanderthal Fraternity demographic, well done sirs. Yes I know the population increases have put a strain on our economy, food shortages have caused riots in third world countries, and the downturn in 2008 caused every company to scale down (read: make shittier products). But once our economy finally turns around, can we stop making cereal boxes thinner to save product, or stop carving out the bottom of peanut butter jars (check it out, it’s a crater!) just to save money. But in the end the dollar wins, so the consumers get stuck on the short end, as always.

· Contemplate the end of the world. As I’m writing this at 1:10pm on May 21, 2011, the world is scheduled to start coming to an end at 6pm (New Zealand time I’m hearing). Thus, this post may never make it to the interwebz, as I won’t have a chance to post it until after the destruction begins.

And finally….

· Think of different items to put on some kind of list that indicates my current level of boredom

The Thinker

Tonight's mood: pensive.

I sit in my living room tonight recognized through little bits of information and translated into a precise coordinate on this tiny blue marble, floating in space. What does it all mean to me? to you? As I prepare myself to experience a different part of the world, I realize that all I am about to see has been seen a million times before. Every structure, every column, every statue, every painting, every fresco, every cobblestone. It has all been written about; thousands of times. All the historians have recorded it, all the architects have critiqued it (and far better than I ever could). There sits millions of books around the world which contain similar bits of information which I might regard as novel but have instead already been considered, documented, and analyzed. So I sit here tonight and ask myself, what is left to do? What new information can I extract and leave to posterity? What can I contribute? What can I add?

I hope to formulate the answers to some of these questions along my travels. There are no answers right now. I hope to be inspired by what I see. I hope that I still have that child-like sense of wonder inside me. Could my writings influence a new generation of architects? Perhaps this is overstepping the capabilities of my own intelligence. I realize that most of the thousands who have made this journey before me have been forgotten into history, save for their family members and their close friends. Their works have built somewhat upon previous generations, but are not regarded as necessary historical documents.

How can I contribute and leave an important legacy behind? We shall see.

A Yellowjacket Abroad

I am about to embark on a great journey. One that will redefine the notion of a semester abroad. One that will continue in the great traditions of Homer and Jack Kerouac. One that will go down as the greatest thing done by a human being.

Ever.

One that will also hopefully be a bit more humble and use less hyperbole. But one can only hope. I intend to record my travels in a quasi-reliable fashion so anyone can check in on it on a semi-weekly basis. Is that something you might be interested in? I thought so.

Now let's get down to details and a brief synopsis. This will be a recording of my travels this summer from the 20th of May, 2011 to the 23rd of July, 2011. Encompassing 3, count them, 3! countries: Italy, Greece, Turkey, and as an added bonus, Denmark. 4 for the price of 3?! You must be kidding. That deal only happens on Ronco product commercials. Set it and forget it!

I will be faced with the daunting prospect of keeping up with this blog on a daily basis. I say daunting because we'll be doing a lot of traveling to some places that might not be internet-equipped. Yet, I shall press on. I shall endure. Now we'll also be checking out some uber sweet ancient architecture. (Can I still use uber, or is it passe? I think I was born a few years too soon for it. Alas....) I've prepared myself to see all of this old architecture, obviously, by bringing along a netbook, external hard drive, digital camera, three micro-sd cards, and a wireless mouse. Clearly, these are the tools of the trade necessary to experience these ancient sites.

A list of some cities I might be visiting:

Rome

Florence

Venice

Athens

Pompeii

Paestum

Naples

Sorrento

I hope to also include some photos, scanned sketches (don't hold out hope on that one) and to give a general recording of the day's events. I know we'll have to make a journal for this excursion at the end, so this might go along with the text of that quite seamlessly.

I guess people decide to make these blogs to give to posterity a record of their views of the world. I'm sure if Lewis and Clark had internet access and a netbook, they'd be live blogging too. It seems to be a natural instinct to want to share with the world your experiences. You can only keep them in your head for so long. Traveling abroad is a once (or twice) in a lifetime experience, so the inclination to share with everyone a piece of Europe seems like the right thing to do.

I'm also carrying with me the memory of Robert Daniel Betzel. It has come to my attention that the scholarship I received has been named in his honor partly because he was an outstanding student and also partly because of his untimely death. Every year since 1990, this scholarship has been given out to a student traveling abroad, and I am extremely grateful to be carrying the torch in Robert's name, as well as his sister's, Lori. When presented with the opportunity to expand your view of the world in conjunction with living up to the traditions passed down through this award for the last 20 years, I feel it is my duty not to waste this chance and make the best of it.

I hope to be making these entries with regularity, so if you'd like to follow along with me on this journey, make sure to check back often. Thanks for everyone's support.