I Am Confounded By Architecture

I have posted before about how useless architecture is. I mean, there's no application of the study of architecture, unless you deal directly with buildings, and I for one am going to live in the natural light and sleep under the stars when I grow up - that is to say, I have renounced buildings altogether, and will live in the wilderness, eating honey and wild locust (which, by the way, are not indigenous to the Ozarks. I'll have to import them).

The architecture class I attend here does not usually give out grades, but has resigned itself to two major tests, a midterm and a final. Halfway through my study abroad journey, I find myself taking a midterm.

There were two parts: a series of slides, of which I was asked to define, and a essay concerning the Roman consciousness as seen through their architectural elements. The slides went off without incident, and, in retrospect, I may have gotten some right. However, when I got to the essay, everything went downhill.

As I started blowing smoke and paraphrasing texts I had recently read about the essay topic, all the slides of the past hour came to revisit me, and not in a helpful, ready to be applied way, but in a form I had never expected. In my mind, all I could envision were these buildings growing legs and morphing into enormous robots, battling through time over the city of Rome. Bramante's Tempietto became a sort of spider, powered by the dark arts and the blood of St. Peter, firing rockets every which way. The Roman Forum assembled into some sort of rock monster, throwing javelins made of the leftover columns of temples at its foes. The Vatican itself spawned innumerable beings made of marble and pieces of sculpture, firing lasers every which way.

Transformers: Buildings In Disguise.

It was about the time that I conquered and vanquished all these robots of antiquity that time was announced to be up, and tests were announced to be overdue.

Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye.

I quickly reread my paper: I managed to keep all references to the weighty Battle of the Architectural Ages out of my essay, but I did mention the comedian Zero Mostel, the Duke University football team, and the phrase 'bad news bears.' I actually said 'bad news bears' twice.

Does any of my experience with the architectural test make sense? It doesn't to me, either, I assure you.

A Place To Read A Book And Write A Letter: Bologna

This weekend, five of us, four architecture students and one crazy person, took a train three hours (3 hrs) north to Bologna. Bologna is known as the fat city, and is purported to have wonderful food. I wouldn't know, because my group was turned away from three restaurants for want of reservation. No room at this inn. Try the stables.

The city itself is a marvel of pedestrianism, and I'm pretty sure that's not a word, but the city is a marvel of pedestrianism just the same. It has over forty kilometers (40 km) of porticos, which is something the architecture students said to make me feel stupid. But I know their game. Porticos are just a fancy word for covered sidewalks. It was at this point that I rebuttaled with pedestrianism. But, yes, forty kilometers of covered sidewalks lining assorted boutiques, which are quite expensive, FYI. I came away with only a three (3) euro tie, to add to my ever growing collection of men's wear (it is really fun to dress up, no?).

These sidewalks all converge in a main piazza, crowned with what was supposed to be a magnificent church. This church took three hundred years to arrive in an unfinished state; the Church in Rome put a stop to construction when they learned the Bolognese church's plans had it rivaling St. Paul's size. It's kind of funny, the logic people use.

Bologna is also home to the fourth tallest tower in Europe, which I don't think is that big of a deal. If the world was the Olympics, this building wouldn't even medal. It claims to have five hundred steps (500). I count four hundred and eighty seven (487). Twice (2x).

We finished our day chasing buses around in a most aggravating fashion. I made the mistake of picking a hostel that was outside the city center. In my defense, Bologna had only one hostel, that was actually two separate hostels, but I digress. The point is, headquartering a few kilometers (2, 3, 4, etc. km) outside the walls was a bad idea, for several reasons. One, we had to make a series of well timed buses to complete the objective. Change buses to phone booths and you have the plot to Die Hard 3: With A Vengeance. Change buses to jumps and you have the choreography to all the fight sequences in Ong Bak: Thai Warrior. So that night was pretty much an action movie where we failed to fulfill our dramatic need. We ended up taking a taxi, driven by a man who was simultaneously watching the italian version of the O.C. The guy doing Sandy Cohen was amazing.

The other reason the hostel was a bad idea: it was where they filmed the movie Hostel. The four hostels I stayed in previously had been smash hits, and had restored my faith in student traveling. In this hostel, I locked my door and plugged my ears. I think there was some sort of backpacker pagan ritual performance in the halls. The next morning, all the blood had been cleaned from the floor, but there were chicken feathers everywhere. We left as soon as checkout began.

I Wax At Hadrian's Villa

On Wednesday, through an architectural class, we field tripped to Hadrian's Villa. Hadrian was a Roman emperor in the early second century; it was him, then Antoninus, the Marcus Aurelius, from Gladiator, if that helps. He was adopted by the Emperor Trajan on account of his skills in administration (an aside: I was recently offered adoption on account of my skills in mathematics). One of the things Hadrian is remembered for is his villa, which he built in Tivoli, south of Rome, on his wife Sabina's land. He then proceeded to fill it with images of his lover, Antinous. Take that, woman. Or just women, everywhere.

The villa is an enormous small town, self contained, with a sampling of everything, even two separate baths. The place is overrun with angles (if I've only learned one thing this past month studying architecture, it is that all cities are planned using axises. Or is it axi? Axis's?). The three primary axises (axisz?) terminate at the Maritime Theater.

But it's not really a theater. It's Hadrian's private residence. You see, Hadrian built an ideal, perfect place, a getaway from Rome, and it still wasn't enough. So he created a perfect circle, erected a Pantheon-like building, then surrounded it by a moat (when I get back home, 1915 Wedington is gonna be moated). He retreated to the Maritime Theater when he wanted to be alone to write poetry, or when he got in a mean disposition, which, according to people who know about such things, was quite frequent.

We were instructed to take some time out and sketch the Maritime Theater. What? Sketch? All the architecture students took this in stride, and immediately sat down and went to work. After some hesitation, I began to draw a column, but this column ended up looking so much like Boba Fett's helmet that I decided to finished the whole figure.

After I was done with the bounty hunter, my thoughts began to wonder, till I arrived right back in the place I was originally, thinking about how funny people act. How Hadrian built an ideal place, found out it wasn't enough, then tried to build a getaway from his getaway. How people try to fill that hole inside them - the one right between the chestplates, in the middle, at the bottom of the breast. You feel that? That gap, right smack in the middle, that empty space? People try to put the strangest things there. I try to put the strangest things there.

But that's all fancy talk.

I Explore the Mysteries of Pompeii

As a group of twenty one architecture students and four misfits (because, if you didn't know, the program I'm attending is an architecture one. It's okay, I didn't know it either, till about a week to go. And I only have three months left), we set out today for Pompeii. In terms of worldwide consciousness, Pompeii's story is about halfway between unknown and bible stories, around the level of Casablanca - nay, more than halfway, nearer to the story about my time as a fairy dancer. Pompeii was buried by a volcano in 79 A.D. - not by the lava, but by the ash, which floated down like snowflakes but didn't melt, and instead of bringing holiday cheer, killed everyone. The city was left undisturbed and unlooted, so when in the 19th century it was again unearthed, it was a figurative gold mine (literal stone mine) for archaeologists.

Let's be honest: I don't have a clue what is going on when it comes to archaeology. I'm just along for the ride. They've asked me to keep a sketchbook, along with everyone else; this sketchbook is partially filled with a series of incomplete Coloseums, and partially filled with drawings of aliens. So Pompeii went over my head. Wow, these are really big old rocks. Those faded frescoes are almost somewhat life like. Look at how those rocks are stacked! That's downright masterful.

I walked through most of the ruins thinking about something else, but at one point, not the begining or the end, it occured to me that people actually built these structures two thousand years ago. We build things with a planned twenty year lifespan. And it's not just the ash that kept it intact; there are other ruins, surviving as long, wearing the weather.

It's easy to write, but much harder to think. I can't even think it now; well, I can think it, but it doesn't mean anything. I guess the whole of the ruins are a little overshadowed by the rest of Pompeii. I walked through the modern part of the city on my way to the train station, in order to go to Salerno. Trash lines the sides of the streets as if a snowplow pushed it there to fade. It smells like old food.

The worst part, though, are the dogs. Even in the ruins, packs of stray dogs run free, unchecked. And I know that's something that Hal Naughton, Jr., said on Talledega Nights, but there it's true. Even on the streets, dogs lay in apathy or instinctively follow tourists. One native Italian had to pull a stray off the train tracks before the train pulled in.

And you thought this would be a happy post.