qui per un breve periodo

So it seems I am continuously running a few weeks behind. Oops!! I'll try to be better behaved. The last few weeks have been very busy with school- mainly studio projects, surprisingly (I say surprisingly because we students expect our study abroad semesters to be less work than home... it seems that may not be the case here). But, I have still managed much in the way of travel and cultural experience.

The weekend after Bologna and Fiesole, I returned to the magical land of the Cinque Terre. Those who have been there know what I mean. The towns nestled into the cliffs above the Mediterranean; the sailboats and fishing boats dotting the horizon; the smell of olive groves and salty sea and fresh fish and wine; the breathtaking views from the hike along the coast: it is all wonderful. However, it was more crowded than I remember on the trails. I suppose the word has been out too long about the beauty of this place... hopefully it will not be compromised as a result. We only spent a day in the Cinque Terre, with 4 other classmates, but it was a much needed break from the noise and congestion and stone and exhaust-filled air of Florence.




The following day I joined my entire class for a real European experience: a soccer match.

Fiorentina met Livorno in a rivalry game that turned into something more like water-polo. It began to rain hard in the first 5 minutes of the game, and it did not stop. Ever. Our class was die hard, though, and most of us stuck out the weather and stayed through the whole 90 minutes. We were, of course, soaked from head to foot and everywhere in between, but it was worth it. Fiorentina won the match 3-2, I walked home (still in the rain), and spent the evening drying out and warming up. It seems that with the rain fall arrived.


Another week of classes happened, with more studio, more work, more coffee, and less sleep.

Then suddenly it was the weekend again, and at 4:45 last Friday morning Katherine and I were walking through the streets of a very dead Florence to meet the bus for our latest all-class architecture field trip. The excursion was a whirlwind tour of northwest Italy- 3 cities in 3 days. First was Como, which sits at the foothills of the Alps, a mere 20 km from Switzerland. The town is on a famous lake, and it was raining when we arrived, so the place was blanketed in a thick mist. It was beautiful. Como was, at one point, the seat of the Fascist government, and some of the most famous buildings in the history of Italian modernism are located here. We spent the whole day touring work by one specific architect, Giuseppe Terragni- Italy's leading modernist (by the way, modernism started around the turn of the last century, and Terragni did most of his work between 1920-1940). He has at least 5 buildings in Como alone, including his most famous, the Casa del Fascio (now called the Casa del Terragni). We ended our day with a three-hour bus ride from Como to Torino, where we would stay for the next two nights in a 4-star Holiday Inn (I didn't know there were 4-star HI's).

Torino (or Turin, as we call it) is a large city, and very un-Italian in many aspects. To me it felt much more northern European- wider piazzas, wider streets, more green space, newer buildings. It will also be hosting the 2006 Winter Olympic Games in something like 120 days, and as a result half the city is under construction. Two of the buildings we were supposed to get into had scaffolding up and were closed to the public. One of the major piazzas had been completely torn up so they could lay new stone paving. But, we came to see architecture, and we prevailed. The morning was spent walking around the historic city center, and my favorite stop was the Church of San Lorenzo by Guarino Guarini (he has the best name)- very Baroque and very overdecorated, but the way your eye moves through the space- never stopping, never resting, always traveling from top to bottom and in and out of chapels- was amazing to me.

In the afternoon we toured another piece of modernism and some contemporary work, all in one building: the Fiat Lingotto Factory. This structure is amazing, with 6 floors and 16 million square feet of assembly line space. On the roof is a test track for the cars once they are built. The factory was closed in the early 80s and then infilled to become a hotel/mall/offices/conference center/museum/art gallery- yes, a little of everything. The track is still on the roof, though, and the view from their out over the Alps was spectacular.

The next day we started our trip with a short drive to Superga, a church built in 1730 on the top of the highest hill overlooking Torino. Again, amazing views. The church itself was not much to speak of architecturally, but one interesting thing was the back part. If you see it, it looks like it was bombed- maybe during the war. What I found out later when I bought this strange-looking postcard was that a plane carrying an entire soccer team crashed into the church in the 50s.

Everyone on board was killed, and the rear of the church was never rebuilt. A tragic event, but made slightly comical by the postcard. Yay for 60s graphic art.

Finally we arrived in our last destination, Genova. Another large city, Genova has made its fortune in trade and banking. It is a port city, almost a huge scale version of the Cinque Terre with buildings stepping up the cliffs from the water, but with industry and probably 100 times the population. Our tour guide was an American professor teaching in Genova. We started walking at 1:00 and we didn't stop until 5:30. Not even to sketch. It was a little much. Genova has some fantastic winding medieval streets in its historic center- some of the narrowest I have seen, actually. And being on the water it is also a city of bright colors and light. The stepped buildings allow for nearly everyone to have a view out to the water and to get ventilation, and there is a network of pedestrian streets and bridges that connect the levels to people's roofs and to the "real" streets below.

After Genova and all of our walking, 55 exhausted architecture students re-boarded the bus and slept all the way back to Florence. I finally got home around 9:30, with just enough time to unpack, eat, and do some laundry before starting into another week.

Can you see why this semester is going so fast? Each week just bleeds right into the next, with hardly any time to breathe or catch up with myself. I am grateful to be here and cannot believe how much I am seeing- but I hope I can soak it all in, and survive 8 more weeks of it!