Week 1 Lecture: What makes a good building? Ways to look at and represent architecture: plan, elevation, axonometric view. Construction; roofing systems.
Then we’ll go look at a modern building I like very much: the Ostiense Post Office. (I also like the copper beeches that are part of the landscaping). We may throw in the Pyramid of Gaius Cestius and Ostiense Fire Station.
Read: Vitruvius Book I
Write a 1-page description of a building that you like in Rome.
Week 2 Lecture: Columns, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, Tuscan, Composite, and Creative; Light, Space, and Roman concrete.
Then a quick site visit: Santa Maria in Trastevere and San Crisogono, for porphyry columns!
Read: Vitruvius, Books III and IV (excerpts)
Week 3 Lecture: Greek, Etruscan, and Roman architecture.
Then a quick visit to the Forum Boarium to see the temples of Hercules Olearius (Greek) and Portunus (Etrusco-Roman)
Read: Vitruvius on the Basilica at Fano; Leon Battista Alberti, De Re Aedificatoria, excerpts on temples and churches.
Write 1000 words on an ancient building that you like.
Week 4 From Temples to Churches
Site visit: San Clemente. Meet at San Clemente.
Read: Palladio’s Rome, excerpts
Prepared handout on Palazzo Architecture
Prepare a report for next time on a Renaissance Palazzo, to be followed by a 1000-word paper.
Week 5 Meet in Piazza Farnese for a tour of Renaissance Rome focused on palazzi: fifteenth-century cube buildings, Palazzetto Turci, Palazzo Torres, Palazzo Alberini, Palazzo Caprini, Palazzo Farnese, Palazzo Baldassini, Palazzo Cadilhac, Palazzo Maccarani, etc.
Read: Rowland, The Roman Garden of Agostino Chigi
Paolo Portoghesi, Renaissance Rome, excerpts, looking especially at his descriptions of palazzi
Week 6 Lecture: City and Country
Site visit: Site visit: Villa Farnesina. Meet at Villa Farnesina.
Read: John Burchard, Bernini Is Dead? Chapter 8.
Write a 1000-word critique of Burchard’s chapter—do you agree or disagree and why? Please note: there is no “right” answer to this, so say what you really feel!
Week 7 Lecture: Baroque Architecture
Site visit : Sant’Andrea al Quirinale, San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane. Meet by the Horse Tamers at Piazza del Quirinale.
Read: Burchard, Bernini is Dead? Chapter 9
Paper: Compare San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane with Sant’ Andrea al Quirinale. 1000 words.
Week 8 Entering the Modern World. Neoclassicism, 18C Baroque, 19C Eclecticism, the Grand Tour, the Buona Borghesia
Read: Matilde Serao, “Cecchina’s Virtue”
Henry James, “Daisy Miller”
Edith Wharton, “Roman Fever”
Heather Hyde Minor, Piranesi’s Lost Words, excerpts
Terry Kirk, The Architecture of Modern Italy, Chapter 1.
Week 9 Site visit: Trevi Fountain, Galleria Sciarra, San Silvestro Post Office, Teatro Quirino, Birreria Peroni. Meet in Piazza SS. Apostoli.
Week 10 Fascism: Visit to Piazza Augusto Imperatore and Ara Pacis
Read: Ruth Ben-Ghiat, “Why Are So Many Fascist Monuments Still Standing in Italy?” The New Yorker, October 5, 2017
Terry Kirk, "Framing St. Peter's: Urban Planning in Fascist Rome ," The Art Bulletin 88.4 (2006).
Terry Kirk, The Architecture of Modern Italy, Chapter 6.
Write an analysis of the Ostiense Post Office
Week 11 Lecture: The Machine Age, Mass Housing, and Urban Sprawl
Read: Terry Kirk, The Architecture of Modern Italy, Chapters 7-8
Week 12 Architecture for the working class: visit to Quartiere San Giovanni, tram ride to Centocelle and Richard Meier Church of the Millennium at Tor Tre Teste.
Read: Burchard, Bernini is Dead?, Chapter 12
Week 13 Public Works: San Michele, Regina Coeli, Prigioni Nuove.
Submit an outline for your final paper.
Week 14 Discussion: What makes a good building?
Site visit: Bramante’s Tempietto.
Week 15 – Final Paper Due on a topic of your choice: 1500 words