Rome Day One- Thursday, February 18th, 2010
Today we woke up early and met at the train station at 7:45 to board a Eurostar train to Rome. The train was very nice- the seats were comfortable and each set of seats had a table in the center and shades on the windows, headphones- lets just say its much better than what I’m used to. We got to Rome in about an hour and a half and took a bus to our apartment- which was 2 blocks away from the Pantheon. The apartment was very nice- there were about 5 rooms that each fit about 3 people joined together by a common space. I roomed with Tommy and Justin in a 3-person room. We had our own bathroom and mini frig and even a flat-screen HD TV with BBN so we could watch the news in English! After we got settled in we walked around to look for food. We got pizza and coke from a small shop and then went to Piazza Navona to sit down and eat.
Piazza Navona
The Piazza Navone is one of the most famous and arguably the most beautiful of Rome's many squares. The large and lively square features no less than three magnificent fountains. The piazza is very large, with many statues and a couple fountains in the center. This is the first place we went as part of our ‘Reading Cities’ class. We spent about 20 minutes in the piazza sketching and drawing, taking pictures, admiring the site, looking at the artwork from the many artists there, and listening to music from the musicians. As you can tell, the piazza was very lively and crowed during the day.
The Pantheon
The pantheon, one of the architectural wonders of the world, was built by Marcus Agrippa as a temple to all the gods of Ancient Rome; rebuilt by Emperor Hadrian in 126 AD. The building is circular with three ranks of huge granite Corinthian columns under a pediment opening into the rotunda. The most amazing aspect of the Pantheon is the by far the coffered, concrete dome with a central opening (called an oculus) overhead. Even though its been almost 2000 years since its been built, the Pantheon’s dome is still the worlds largest un-reinforced concrete dome. The diameter of the inner circle of the dome is 43.3 meters, and it is one of the best preserved Roman buildings. Its function since the 7th century has been a Roman Catholic Church and it is informally known as “Santa Maria Rotunda.”
Walking into the Pantheon is an eye-opening experience. I literally stood at the entrance for a couple minutes before I actually walked in. The dome is just so massive. I couldn’t help but stand and stare. We spent a long time learning about the Pantheon in our architecture history classes in previous years, so I already knew a lot about the Pantheon and how large of a scale it was- but it really doesn’t mean anything until you actually go there..
MAXXI by Zaha Hadid
The 1998 international competition- which included 273 submissions, was awarded to Zaha Hadid (a woman architect from Baghdad) for “her convincing and skillful integration within the urban context, the result of an innovative and highly creative architectural solution. The final design confirms the idea of an urban campus, where the traditional notion of building is broadened beyond the interior spaces of the museum to include the entire city.” We didn’t get to go inside the building because it wasn’t open to the public yet- but we did take pictures of the outside. I was intrigued by the building- the many steel columns and curvilinear façade was perhaps what stood out the most. But the irregular concrete cubical that jetted out from the top of the building seemed out of place.
Palazzetto dello Sport by Pier Luigu Nervi, 1956-57
Opened in 1957 and built for the 1960 Summer Olympics, it has a 3500 seating capacity and is constructed with prefabricated ribbed concrete. The dome stretches 61m in diameter and is braced with concrete flying buttresses. The dome was erected in 40 days due to the whole structure being prefabricated, and it hosted boxing among other sports.
Auditorium and City of Music by Renzo Piano, 1993-2002
The Roman Auditorium is not simply an Auditorium, but a complete city of music: with three halls, an open air amphitheatre, large rehearsal and recording rooms. Renzo Piano is one of my favorite architects. I did a lot of studies on him and his buildings- but never this one. And it is not a surprise that I didn’t. I didn’t like the “City of Music” as they call it- it more or so looks like three giant beatles looking at one another with an amphitheatre in the middle. I was not impressed. Regardless, we spent an unnecessary long amount of time on the site- which we entertained ourselves by playing at the playground and playing hacky sack.
So while we were at the Pantheon today, and I was lost in thought, a buy came up to me and was like “Hey man?! Are you from Kent State?! Are you looking to party tonight!!?” Right away I knew he already talked to some other architects; he gave me a flyer promoting the ‘Coliseum Bar Crawl’- which included a happy hour with free drinks, a new club or bar every 1-2 hours with a free shot at the door, and a free t-shirt blah blah blah, so of course when it came down to deciding what to do tonight in Rome, we chose the bar crawl. That wasn’t a good idea to say the least… they didn’t provide us with a way to get back home, so for most of the night we were jumping on buses and waiting for buses to take us back- it was fun, yet miserable at the same time.
The City of Rome is much bigger than Florence. The streets are more packed and there are much more tourists roaming around, haha. I also found it to be very Americanized- it had many mcdonalds and American food everywhere- and almost everyone spoke English. But that’s okay- im looking forward to being able to venture on the outskirts of Rome and experience Roman ruins where the city isn’t so dense.
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