Italy Series: Rome: Saint Peter's Square

Set up for Papal Audience - Vatican Rome

With Pope Benedict XVI about to celebrate his last mass as Pope, I recall my visit to the Vatican. It is vast, massive, beautifully detailed, extremely captivating and very intimidating. As you approach it depending on your location, your perception of the piazza is different. If you approach from Via della Conciliazione which is a street roughly 500 metres (1,600 ft) in length,which connects Saint Peter's Square to the Castel Sant'Angelo and is the primary access to the square, you will immediately see the immense collanade that flank the Basilica but will not feel the full size of the piazza until you reach the end of the road and actually enter the Piazza. I visited St. Peters Square about four times while we were in Italy and each time I felt more captivated by the magnitude of the Architecture, the crowds ( not your average tourists, the intensity of the space. It was probably the most profound and contested public space in the world. Although I never actually participated in a Papal Audience, I did get to witness the preparations for it one morning. 

I visited the Vatican three times in the four months we lived in Rome and each time it still remained dynamic both experientially and phenomenally.

Horrible Clients // design

AFTER (MY DESIGN)

BEFORE

I always loved to design, I went through almost almost seven years of higher education in undergraduate and graduate school to become an Architect and now I have the ability to design and orchestrate projects from start to finish and sign and seal them but I can't! WHY? Well I've come to the realization that the general public is really unaware of the value of an Architect (or any designer of the built environment), and has no idea what an Architect really does and more importantly has no respect for our profession and that really gets me mad. So called contractors  attempt to design slap things together and people accept and pay for the crap. I never intended to make this blog about my misfortunes but something that recently occurred has put me in a bit of a tizzy. Very simply, we were contacted by a person who wanted to design a salon in Hoboken, she interviewed me  grilled me on the phone for over an hour. I sent her a proposal for her job outlining what we intended to do and a fee, a few days later she hired us. We sent construction estimates etc. We drove out to her space and met with her for 5 hours on one of the coldest days we've had this winter in a space with no heat. When we left I was excited to have what I thought would be a great little project even though I was starving and could not feel my feet the entire ride home. 

I started designing the project, doing drawings and renderings to prepare to meet her the next week ( she stressed she needed it done fast). When we met the second time, we brought an engineer with us to check out some questionable conditions and give his opinion as to how we should proceed. I left that meeting with a strange feeling. That evening I sent her 2 floor plans to be approved and she never responeded but I kept working. THREE days later, I get a call saying we're off the job..she found a cheaper architect! WHAT! we had a contract, we agreed on it, we had already started work but she found a guy who "has dinner with the building inspector and will get her job done for her"..that is doing some backdoor deals to get the work done rather than following the approvals process in place and abiding by the LAW! WTF. I was so so angry and took many days to not feel anger towards random women who even slightly resembled this "horrible client". So a few weeks pass and I've stopped wishing her bad and she emails to ask if the retainer she gave us was worth the work we had already done and apologized "sincerely" for leaving us high and dry. I resisted unleashing weeks of anger on her and simply said that it was our fault for not collecting the entire contract cost upfront and so we would take it as a loss. I really wish there was more of market for design in this country, it seems like people just don't see any value in our work and would rather cut corners. What a disappointment. 

Italy Series: Rome: Pantheon

 

The Pantheon is a building in Rome, Italy, commissioned by Marcus Agrippa as a temple to all the gods of Ancient Rome, and rebuilt by Emperor Hadrian in about 126 AD

I still remember the moment I first saw this building..it was amazing. All we could say to each other was.."wow". Everything about it, its scale, materials, detailing and phenomenal effects is just fantastic. Once we settled into a routine in Roma, we actually walked through Piazza della Rotonda and by the Pantheon several times a week going to and from our Italian class (yes, ..we took Italian with the students!) Imagine that commute everyday, meandering through the tight cobblestone streets, watching the ever-so stylish Italian women walk gracefully while I try not to lose me heels, seeing amazing structures along the way.. I'll trade NYC any day for that walk to work.

From Trastevere, we approached the Pantheon from the back and it appears to be completely unassuming, I think we initially started taking pictures of this statue in a smaller Piazza just before you reach it and the husband then noticed the back of the building and says "I think that might be the Pantheon.."..imagine that! We walked up and sure enough, there it was..we gazed at it in amazement then realized we were about to be late for Italian class so we rushed off. For the next four months, we would visit the Pantheon on our own, with family when they visited and of course walked by it almost everyday. Good morning Pantheon..hah.

The building is circular with a portico of large granite Corinthian columns (eight in the first rank and two groups of four behind) under a pediment. A rectangular vestibule links the porch to the rotunda, which is under a coffered, concrete dome, with a central opening (oculus) to the sky. Almost two thousand years after it was built, the Pantheon's dome is still the world's largest unreinforced concrete dome. The height to the oculus and the diameter of the interior circle are the same, 43.3 metres (142 ft).

It is one of the best-preserved of all Roman buildings. It has been in continuous use throughout its history, and since the 7th century, the Pantheon has been used as a Roman Catholic church dedicated to "St. Mary and the Martyrs" but informally known as "Santa Maria della Rotonda." (..via)

On the inside, the Oculus provides an intense amount of natural light and the scale of the coffered dome becomes apparent. The ornate detail is beautiful and even though the space is filled with people at any given time, the acoustics of the Dome made it feel almost like we were alone. 

details on the columns

Underside of the exterior Portico

base of column

  

Vito Acconci \\ Sculptural subway entrance

New York City is a unique city for architecture,  within its fabric there is a place for everything from iconic structures to what some refer to as progressive, contemporary or experimental architectural ideas. Its fun to walk or drive around and see things you've only seen in books or didn't realize was even there.  Here's an  example of that, I noticed this train stop at Coney island a few weeks back and took some quick shots of it before we left. 

subway entrance for the elevated F/Q trains at Coney Island

West 8th Street-New York Aquarium

VITO ACCONCI (ACCONCI STUDIO)

Wavewall, 2005

Steel, ceramic tile, granite, fiberglass

The inspiration for the station's design was local sites - the historic Coney Island boardwalk and Cyclone roller coaster, the aquarium next to the station, and area beaches. The station is on the approximate site of a former roller coaster ride. The architect, wanted to transform the exterior station walls in a unique way. Working with the architects, artist Vito Acconci developed an architectural treatment for the station façade that is full of life. As in successful collaborations, there is no clear delineation between the architecture and the art.

Before rehabilitation, the windscreens blocked ocean views; the new windscreens open up the platform view of the Atlantic Ocean. In the artist's words, "The normally horizontal and vertical steel windscreen tubes and panels have been transformed into a more sinuous form that evokes the notion of a wave, or that of motion as in the Cyclone or the subway itself." The result is a striking and unique subway station that fits into its special surroundings. (via...)

Barn Project Part I

A. Existing Barn Structure

As  architects, we don't yet have a consistent strategy for finding architectural projects/work, we both work full time jobs in practice and academia and in the past have basically have applied for some projects and gotten recurring work through some of these past clients, colleagues and acquaintances. This is normal in architecture especially for smaller firms; word of mouth and networking is really the norm but in general we treat every project with care and try to go above and beyond the clients requests so they come back when they need more work or refer us to others. 

B. Verifying measurements

Things slowed down over the winter and due to the economic status but once in a while we'll find a project that seems worth the extra effort and I think this might be one of those. We met with the client who is an artist and talked about how to convert this barn located in Highland NY into an artist space. The project would consist of various studio spaces and gallery space in a picturesque setting, alright so its not Italy but its a nice quiet location in upstate NY.  The project seems interesting enough and could be fun for us because of its size (pretty small) and what it entails. As usual the budget is small, at least for architectural services so we're doing it basically for free..or to be fair it may provide enough to pay for the baby's furniture (crib and dresser). Why would an architect work for free? Good questions..well we basically get the experience and the opportunity to work on something you think you may put a project you think is worth. 

So far we've been paid to survey the entire barn, do a code review (sort of) and produce drawings to describe a renovation of the exterior (clean, paint and restore original wood cladding) and interior (new concrete slab/grade beam, interior partitions, insulate and close walls, 'close' it (so its climate controlled not open to the environments) re-design and re-frame two roofs and add some fenestration. 

The first visit was for a quick meeting and survey so we brought our little one and she had a good time pretending to be an architect. It turned out she was pretty helpful in holding the other end of the tape measure until she lost interest! The worst part of surveying old buildings is the dirt and possible "other inhabitants" in the building, in this case there were some birds nests, cobwebs galore, a possible fox and small bugs but I've been surveyed a building where we walked in and there were squatters living (and relieving themselves) out in the open  in the building along with a host of dead animals etc..luckily this was not that bad. Anyway, when its done I'll post a part deux to show the outcome.