LEARNING FROM ROME
The Magnetic Power of Italy

Drawings:

1. Arch of Janus, Rome (29/1/04)
2. Cappella di S. Maria della Stella alle Paparelle, Naples (1/9/03)
3. Castel dell’Ovo, Naples (23/8/03)
4. Piazza Pio II, Pienza (1/10/03)
5. Porticus of Octavia, Rome (22/4/04)
6. Portal in Via del Duomo, Naples (18/8/03)
7. Villa Valmarana ai Nanni, Vicenza (27/5/04)

The lure of Italy, with its historically rich city centers, splendid buildings, and breathtaking countryside, has been a powerful force in American art and architecture ever since Thomas Jefferson first set foot on the Italian peninsula in the late-eighteenth century. In the capable hands of such distinguished architects, artists and writers as Jefferson, James McNeill Whistler, John Singer Sargent, Henry James, Charles Follen McKim, and John Russell Pope, Italian art and architecture has served as a background against which American cities and towns developed, and a noticeable Italo-American artistic culture flourished. Rome, specifically, served as the paradigm for learning — no artistic education would have been considered complete without a mandatory visit to the “Eternal City”, and a “Grand Tour” of Italy. To this day, Rome continues to inspire generations of American artists, architects, and students in the humanities and fine arts. Yet in the case of architecture - and in particular, architectural representation — her influence remains somewhat hidden, as a part of the design process, or distinctly private inquiry. While painters, sculptors, musicians and writers continue to bask in the grandeur of Rome, contemporary architects tend to store away their studies of Roman precedent, never to be seen by the public at large. These drawings and watercolors aim to show that that the lessons of history are not only relevant for contemporary architects, planners and engineers, but also politicians, developers and civic activists, in fact everyone involved in city building and growth management. They not only demonstrate how knowledge of the past is a critically important vehicle for structuring the present, but a necessary means for securing a better future.