Day 74 (6/3/11)

This morning we woke up bright and early to get on the waterbus before it got insanely crowded. Once we had found our tickets we hopped on what was more like a ferry than a boat, but the free movement inside was pretty fun. It was really awesome to be standing at the level of the water looking up at the buildings around us, and the movement of the boat (just like a bus but going to both sides) made the ride quite an adventure. We saw a lot of great architectural moments as well as some fantastic (and especially rare) green spaces scattered throughout, as well as the various important buildings that sit along the Grand Canal. Our trip ended abruptly with an unexpected departure from our boat (we picked the one that goes back and forth rather than the loop) onto the island of Lido, a small residential island just beyond the main lagoon of Venice.
We decided to walk around here for a little bit before realizing that there was not much to see, so we came back, bought ourselves a one-stop ticket (which we took for two stops…tee hee) back to St. Mark’s Square. Once we got there we immediately jumped in the line to get inside the Basilica, which gets awfully crowded due to its late opening time. After a half hour or so we were finally on the move and inside the church. Much like Hagia Sofia, the influences of Byzantine culture in the art, structure, and layout of the Basilica are quite present. The interior is almost entirely covered in gorgeous mosaics either depicting religious figures or plating the walls in gold. One of the most interesting moments occurs at along the main axis from the front door in that the main structural columns supporting the first dome start to angle out away from the center, which begins the transition from roof to large dome at the ground level rather than the clerestory level. After enjoying the first view and the way that a series of columns followed by a series of arches lead your eyes (and eventually feet) through the space, I began the sheep-herding march around the church. While entering is free, any specific area like the treasury, sacristy, or altar space require admission, and since no pictures were allowed I decided to pass and just enjoy the central space.
Along the narrow aisle there were fantastic moments where the space would suddenly open up to the height of the main dome in a rather confined section, causing you to pause and look up. These moments, similar to those beneath the other four major domes (while the central dome is still the most important, the quincunx plan of this church called for five in total) cause a momentary re-centering within the space, an odd feature in a (mostly) axial church that focuses towards the grand altar. Overall the space inside was much more enclosed and personal than most large-scale churches due to the solidity and general size of the structural elements as well as the darkness. While there was a little light coming from artificial bulbs scattered throughout the space as well as some from the clerestory windows around the domes, the majority of the space was very dark. However the two levels of light caused an interesting transition from the ambient lighting of the personal level, the semi-darkness of the middle level, and the natural lighting of the ceiling (or heavens if we are making an analogy). However the best lighting in the building comes from the front windows and spills onto the altar and the dividing portion of the bay.
After working my way around the one end of the transept and enjoying the beautiful rose window (the lack of stained glass was fantastic and different, but the presence of construction was not) I came to the bay that separates the main portion of the nave from the altar and apse that it sits in. Since this required payment to see as well, I just stuck my head over the gate and observed his space. The altar itself sat beneath a fantastic moment where one dome starts and three others (one in the nave and two on either side of the transept) begin. This space dictated great importance and provided a fantastic end point for the major axis. From there I walked around to the front of the bay to check out this separatrix and enjoy the area beneath the major dome. Sadly this was the last moment I enjoyed in the church because I got trapped within a giant tour group of spatially oblivious and horrifically wide tourists. After finally shuffling away from this mess I was able to look back on the altar from a great angle through the colonnade that separated the nave from the aisle.
Once I had finished inside we met up in the entrance space and took some quick photos of this area, since it was essentially a smaller scale design of the interior. From there we set of for St. Zaccaria again so that I could take a picture with the plaque that had my name on it. After that we came back to the hotel (not before stopping for another cherry cup!) to get ready for our train out to Vicenza. We decided that since we were out here we would skip the rest of the museums here in Venice to go to this small town where many of the works of Andrea Palladio, one of the great masters of Italian architecture, are located. Although we were discouraged by our teachers since there was so much left to do in the city, we all agreed that the opportunity to see another city and more famous architecture was too good to pass up (plus our train tickets round trip were less than the admission to one of the museums!).
After a pretty normal train ride through more gorgeous Italian landscape, we arrived at this odd little town. One of our first observations about it was about the people. The lack of obvious tourists in the area was expected since it was a tiny city and the work of Palladio is an architect’s thing, but the near emptiness of a great deal of the city was quite odd and at times disconcerting. It also seemed like the town was run by children and teenagers, as we only really saw adults at scattered moments outside or in the famous buildings we came to. Anyway, upon our departure from the station we walked along a major road that had some nice parks on either side as well as a great cross street that featured a fantastic axial perspective. From there we walked through a nice intersection (no cars) and to our first Palladio stop: Palazzo Thiene Bonin Longare. The public interior space was pretty nice and it lead us into an exterior area in the back that gave a great view of the rear façade (Palladio specialized in façade ornamentation through symmetry and mathematic relationships). From there we walked to the Duomo that features a crazy tall apse and end dome as well as a massive façade plastered on the front (Palladio again, we believe). Sadly, it was closed so we had to move on quickly to a fantastic piazza. The space was very long in one direction, and the end was framed by a hugely tall but skinny tower on one side and a large building cluster on the other. At the far end sat two huge columns with statues on top acting as a very minimal gate (theory class nonsense). Here we met some nice Americans that asked for directions and made us chuckle with their awkward, touristy ways.
From there we continued on to Palladio’s Olympic Theatre, one of the focal points of our trip. We wandered through a pretty great sculpture garden that led into the building itself before buying our tickets (we used our Italian to get a student discount!) and met up with our friends (from Arkansas we learned) from the piazza, who made some funny jokes about Ohio State. Once inside we walked down through an odd little corridor that smelled strongly of urine before finding a great little secret door that allowed us to take pictures of the stage set. However, our discovery of the next door being the one to lead us into the theatre space made this little discovery less fantastic, since we were given a better view here. The main interest points of this building are the interesting design of the space and the forced perspective in the stage set. The space itself is extremely shallow and steep, much like an ancient amphitheatre. Complete with rickety wooden stairs/seats and a fantastic colonnade circling the back wall, the historical feeling of this space is maintained perfectly. The stage itself is also shallow, but capped by a massive façade-like structure complete with all of Palladio’s details including statues. The interesting part comes from beyond the three arched doorways of this wall where streets extend back into space using a fantastic system of foreshortening and forced perspective. We actually asked one of the people who worked there if he could walk back, which he graciously did, showing us that the far end (designed to be a large archway that caps the major street) was really no more than five feet tall.
After enjoying this space for a little while longer we left and ventured across the street to Palazzo Chiericati, another Palladio work that we studied in our history classes sophomore year. The front façade is pretty interesting in the way that a large section of the top floor becomes a solid wall with engaged columns while the rest remains as a simple porch capped by the same line of columns. We were able to get in using the same ticket from the Theatre, so we got to enjoy the fantastic art exhibit there for a little while. My favorite parts of the building were the retrofitted staircase placed in the center of a large room as well as the fantastic procession through the varying spaces (since it was not designed as a museum, the change in program leads to an odd repurposing of the many different spaces of the Palazzo). Once we had finished the exhibit we set off (through the now driving rain) for the train station to catch a bus.
On the way we ended up stopping at the Duomo again to finally see the interior. Although it was quite plain and a little disappointing, the odd single nave design mixed with the new style of raised altar on a major stage made it pretty interesting to see. And although the painted brick interior was quite hideous, the general scale of the space was enjoyable (and from a distance I could pretend that the brick was real!). From there we walked back to the station and had the most random encounter ever! As we were ordering our tickets for the bus (in our fantastic Italian of course) the guy behind the counter asks us if we were from Ohio. We tentatively responded yes, and as it turns out the guy had lived in Mansfield for a few years before moving back to Vicenza. Much like the folks from Arkansas, we got a few wisecracks about OSU, but the craziness of this encounter was too cool to care.
After waiting for a little while we hopped on the bus and rode a little ways until the main road leading up to Villa Rotunda, one of Palladio’s most famous works and one of the most over-referenced buildings in all of my schooling. Once we had come to the main entrance and paid the fee (since the house is privately owned, the resident just gets to make money all day off of people coming to walk around his house) we began up the fantastic entry axis lined by beautiful flowers. At the end of this street the space opens up quickly into a great lawn space with the Villa sitting right in the middle. We walked out along the edge of the property to see the great views back to the city and out to the mountains beyond before turning around to take in the Villa. I find it fantastic that a building so self-contained and stoic can somehow merge with the landscape it so starkly contrasts. The roof (domed, leading to the Rotunda namesake), porches (four at the cardinal axes) and lawn space are all fantastic and exactly how I pictured them, leading to one of the better moments of experiencing one of our studies even greater.
We walked around the building for a while enjoying all our nerdy architecture moments as well as the newly found sun. I loved how the void space between each protruding porch held something different like a well or a flowerbed, making the oppressive sameness of the exterior an interesting experience in spite of itself. My favorite moment came at the back porch and how the stairs came nearly to the end of the property, making this space quite jammed. After completing the walk-around we came together for some cheesy photos before reluctantly saying goodbye to go catch out bus. After the ride back we got our tickets, caught our train, and went to sleep until we arrived back in Venice. This day trip was truly a fantastic experience, and one last observation about the oddness of this city came with the realization that we explored an entire city without seeing a single vendor of any kind; how refreshing! Once we got back the whole group met up next for one last set of announcements and to say goodbye to Beatrice before heading to dinner. The majority of us walked (for something like the tenth time) out into the city to grab some pizza. A friend and I split a prosciutto and ricotta pizza that was pretty great, and we all sat and ate it on the infamous steps where our Italy’s Funniest Home Videos moment had happened the night before. After goofing around there for a while we walked back and got gelato milkshakes (I drank it way too fast because it tasted so good!), did some last second souvenir shopping, and came back to the hotel. This has been one of the best cities that I have been in here in Italy, and I while I am sad that it is coming to an end, this was a pretty great way for the trip to do so. After repacking for the final time it was time for bed before our travel adventure tomorrow!