October in Rome: Part 2

At the end of our brief but amazing course with Rick, we celebrated Thanksgiving as a class. What an undertaking! We ordered 5 large turkeys, and it fell to member of the class who had an oven to cook them (luckily, my roommates and I only have a stove, so we were saved this stress). Everyone else had to bring a side dish. We made mashed potatoes and quinoa salad, both of which were delicious and disappeared before seconds were served! Eating dinner with our whole class (all 60 of us) squeezed into our lecture hall was quite an experience! Nobody could get up unless everyone got up, and no one could sit down until everyone was ready to sit down. It was very amusing.

We also had some lovely entertainment at our dinner. Some of my classmates rediscovered some never before heard scenes from our 2011 play Ilion. At the time, one of the guys writing the play had this incredible dry sense of humor, and could turn any sentence into a punch line, simply with how he delivered it. Although he is no longer in our class, some of the other writers did their best to read the scenes he wrote with the same delivery with which they was intended. The whole spectacle brought back wonderful memories of acting in the play, and the camaraderie it brought us. Not to mention it was so funny, they couldn't even finish reading the scenes, because of the uncontrollable laughter echoing off the walls.

And then, it was time to focus on the next project before the class field trip to the north of Italy. Like the first project, this one was located in the Via dis Fiori Imperiale and Colosseum area of the city. We were tasked with designing a new master plan for the area which proved to be quite a challenge! I've never been very astute at site planning, and really had to work in order to come up with something to present for this project.

I planned to redistribute the site into three different rings, a vehicular traffic ring, a park/green space ring, and a pure pedestrian ring primarily for the tourists. I imagined the park space a being a space of mediation between the city and the tourists. A place where the two worlds of Rome could meet in a relaxing environment. This area was designed on the principles of Socrates "Allegory of the Cave". This story tells us of prisoners who were held in a cave, and shown only the shadows of objects their whole lives. When one prisoner is released and begins to see the objects that once cast the shadows in their entirety, he cannot comprehend what they are. Through exposure he learns that the objects and their shadows are one in the same. I reinterpreted this story into a series of winding paths leading throughout the site, guiding people to the Roman Forum. Throughout the paths there would be small fractions of objects found throughout the Forum dispersed among the paths and trees. These would be the shadows for the visitors. Once in the forum, the people would be able to see these objects still in use on the ancient buildings that remain standing there.

I also designed a preliminary idea of my final project, a Museum of the Fora. I envisioned a building that floats over the site, using light and darkness as a means guiding people through the museum.

Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures of the first panel with the hand sketches I did, but I will do when I get them back... If I get them back. I'm not entirely sure if we do or not.

Ciao for now!