Today was one of the last days we have to explore the city, so first things first I went out to the Colosseum to finally see it. After a bus ride and a great walk along the Imperial Fora (no one is out that early), I came to the line to get in. After a bit of waiting they let us in and thanks to the lack of understanding of how the ticket system works by the people in front of me, I was one of the first people in! The walk along the outer ring after buying the tickets was pretty great and after a devilish set of stairs I was on the main level looking out into the stadium. Once I exited the covered section of this level I was able to walk along the inner ring that gave fantastic views into the arena as well as up to the higher levels. While the space was impressive and it was pretty great to finally be in this famous space, I was a little disappointed by how much smaller it was than I thought. The height of it from the outside was mostly recognizable here, but the amount of structure holding what used to be seating really ate away at this space.Regardless, being able to see into the sub-levels that were covered by the arena floor was pretty awesome, and the amount of this structure that still stands (still imposingly too!) is unbelievable. There was one awesome moment where the stair-like seating structure was still visible (the marble was gone nearly everywhere else), which provided a pretty great moment of contrast between the bright and regal marble and the ruined and pedestrian brick. After I walked around this upper level taking tons of panoramas to try to capture the space I came to some fantastic views out to the space around the Colosseum to where the Pope was at Stations, to the triumphal arch, and out to the Fora. After enjoying the views inside and out I went down to the main level.
The views here were also pretty great, especially being at the level of the original floor. I was also excited to find that the scale of the structure seemed to grow here, making the space a much more intimidating one from this level (which may have been the intention I think!). There were two rings to walk around here and crossing back and forth between them was nice, especially where the roof of the tunnels that used to be here was still partially intact. Once I had finished this level I walked back up those awful stairs to check out an exhibit on the construction of the Colosseum as well as the history of the site with regards to the Emperor Nero, which was pretty fantastic (I liked the renderings of what it used to look like!).
Once I had left I had a bit of time to kill so I wandered around the outside again before taking the Metro out to Termini to meet some friends to head out to Villa Giulia for our third (and final regardless of whether we see it or not) attempt to get in. I ended up getting there a little early so I wandered around the streets outside of Termini and ended up finding the Basilica Sacro Cuore, a small but pretty great little church that was hidden amongst the unassuming façades of the random buildings along a busy street.
The interior of the church was pretty nice and the wood accents combined with the surprisingly fantastic light coming in gave the area a very peaceful and warm feel. One interesting feature came in the aisles and how they were topped by a series of small domes rather than the typical vaulting system. This plus a rather large structure that sat directly below the dome rather than back in the apse (I couldn’t explore behind it but the space back there looked great!) made this church a nice little find! Once we had made it out to the Borghese Gardens we started joking about how knowing our luck it would be closed on Saturdays, but thankfully it was open. On our way we stopped at a pretty neat exhibit on the various vehicles that the Italian military and police force have used, including old motorcycles, sailboats (how they were of any use is beyond me) and even a fighter jet! They were letting people get inside the jet, but we didn’t have time right now for me to take a picture so I planned on stopping on the way home. While this Villa is not really one of the most impressive that we have seen, we talked a bit about it in our Theory class last quarter so seeing the spaces we discussed was awesome. Once we made it through the entry space and ticketing area we came into a very skinny, U-shaped colonnade that gave way to a great courtyard. I am quite a fan of these U-shaped spaces because of how the buildings look like some great force has affected them. The courtyard gave way to two smaller and more private gardens on either side beyond the main walls, both of which were very nice (very vanilla: nothing bad but nothing great). From there we came to a nice enclosed area that cuts the main courtyard off completely. After enjoying the views back to the first building (it looks like a T-Rex took a big bite out of a sandwich as our professor would say), we turned around to find a big hole.
This hole was very nice and articulated quite well, but it was still a little bit of a shock to step this far down (at least fifteen feet) within the gardens of a Villa. Within this recessed space was another, smaller hole (inception?) filled with a fantastic little courtyard surrounded by lots of plants and water, which provided a nice contrast to the very plain stone and stucco of the building around us. After enjoying this little nook for a little while we came back up and walked around to another side garden and back to the final courtyard behind the recessed space. This garden was quite nice again, and after enjoying it briefly we came to a fantastic development: in the side garden on the far side there was a large temple structure sitting there. Although we couldn’t get inside, it was still quite interesting due to how both ends were articulated as the “front,” even though one side had the door and the other only had a porch.
When we had finished with the grounds of the Villa, we went into a pretty fantastic museum of various artifacts and a lot of information on tombs and their architecture. The exhibit turned out to be absolutely massive, occupying various parts of four different floors inside the Villa (the basement had two tombs put back together!). We wandered through here looking at all kinds of pottery, jewelry, weapons and other artifacts as well as an awesome room dedicated to the Villa itself; there were the original plans and sections as well as a great model that let us see the way that the series of spaces leading away from the entrance seem to have been pulled from each other like a telescope. Once we had finished here we went outside and sat for a little while just enjoying the day and waiting for everyone to finish up.
Sadly, when we came back to the bus stop and the adjacent military exhibit, the fighter jet’s cockpit was closed so I couldn’t get my picture. After another comfortable and restful bus ride back to Trastevere, I made a lunch of pasta with pseudo-vodka sauce and pancetta before our studio group went in to work. From then until the next morning we worked on final decisions for our design, the digital model, our presentation, and the site model. It was a very productive evening/morning, and we should be able to just sit down and produce the drawings and renderings we need tomorrow with ease. The only bad part about the night was the stopping of the trains when we came home so we had to walk the whole way back in the early morning (what is this, Knowlton?). Once I got home I was too tired to even shower, so I pretty much just threw myself in bed and was asleep as I hit the pillow.
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