Week 14: Old Meets New

After a nice relaxing Easter break, we all returned from our short getaways for more adventure.  On Tuesday, April 10, we had a tour of Trajan's Market.  Here we learned of the magnificent structure issued by Emperor Trajan, including Trajan's Column, which depicts stories of Ancient Rome.  Before our tour started, Professor Jenkins made note of a very important architectural aspect.  The importance of this building in an architect’s eyes is to look how the new architecture is incorporated with the old.  Basically how does the architect in this era design structures with the old ancient ruins of Rome?  Here we saw many different ways of preserving structure with modern strategies and technologies and how coverings are built into the old structure without damaging.

Trajan's Forum

Attentively listening to our tour guide.

Example of the new with the old.

John multi-tasking with his camera and sketchbook!

Glass doorways connected to the arch.

Another example of the new: an elevator.

The Trajan Column.

The next day accompanied by Dr. Dawson we went to the very famous Jubilee Church designed by Richard Meier.  Instead of having different parts of a building incorporated into one another, new and old, this church is more about how it fits into the surroundings.  Being a modern building in Rome, it does not look anything like a normal church or basilica.  Only until you enter inside does the space look more familiar with the pews, the altar, the crosses etc.  But something very important about this church that differs from nearly all the churches from ancient Rome is that there is barely any decoration.  The walls are white and everything is very plain.  Because of the design there are no large light fixtures in the space, it is all natural lighting.

The front facade of the Jubilee Church.

The altar and very little decoration behind.

Glass ceiling which helps for natural lighting.

Dr. Dawson with some of the class.

For our final studio project we have four small projects that we pin up and discuss over wine and snacks.  The first project was due Thursday April 12^th.  We were given instructions to sketch a minimum of three drawings on a 10x10 sheet of watercolor paper.  Then we had to use the tools that Tom Kerns taught us to incorporate a new medium…WATERCOLOR!  This intertwined the old aspects of what we did in the beginning of the year: sketching and drawing with a new medium that most of us are not used to: water coloring.

A couple examples of student work.

By: Sean Toner and Catherine Simonse