Traveling/Studying in Roma
I'm entering week four now in my mandatory semester abroad in Rome to continue studying architecture. I really can't think of a better place to do so, everything is incredible...has some historical importance and is just gorgeous.
I was very much exhausting during the first week or so (between jet-lag and the very packed orientation schedule), but I was able to do things like sit in the Pantheon for hours just sketching…and I’ve been at least probably like a dozen times already. It’s so close to studio and its just amazing, no other words for it.
I came in with this kinda stereotypical image of what everything would be like, but I figured I was just being ignorant…it really is so much like I pictured. The streets wind in a maze-like web, with a conglomerate of richly colored buildings packed into the city blocks. The hues are so rich, so much orange and yellows. You can see the history in each building’s façade, the peeling away and eroding of time as the paint fades or chips away to reveal the layers beneath. There are so many balconies and terraces covered with potted plants, so many brightly colored shutters pushed open, so many rooftop gardens, so many ivy-covered walls. There’s such a history, a past that is so evident in everywhere you look, its very moving and humbling all at once. Everything has a significance, a past that just seems to full. I don’t know how I won’t leave here without a significance perspective gained for my architectural future and cultural awareness, even historical awareness. Rome is an ancient city, there’s no confusion there. It represents so much, and its painted across the urban fabric of the city. I honestly don’t know how to capture it, for my initial impressions are far better than I imagined. It makes you realize how small your life is when you look at structures that are from over two thousands years ago, but are still enjoyed today for their romantic appeal.
It’s a city of evolution, one thing piled a top another. And I really imagined more contemporary buildings, more of a touch from the hand of the 21st century. But it truly seems pure, it is represented by the ancient, the medieval, the renaissance, and the baroque…it doesn’t seem to go much farther past that. I guess why mess with an urbanism and an architectural culture that has worked for centuries to foster a successful urban space for the public masses.