Tuesday, April 26, 2011

All Good Things Must Come To An End

Well, it looks like this is going to be my last blog post here in Rome. We're finishing up all of our work, the semester ends on Friday, and we leave this weekend. It's been a great time and it's hard to believe it's almost over already. These last few weeks have been pretty busy and there hasn't been much time to update here, so I'm going to roll it all into one.

First off, we had three big site visits the last few weeks, the EUR Complex, Mussolini's idea of the Fascist City, Trajan's Market, and Hardian's Villa, both ruins. EUR was something completely different than we have seen in our time here. It is located in the southern part of the city, far from the city center. It is a perfectly ordered city as it was planned and the architecture is all the Fascist interpretation of ancient Roman rules.

Trajan's Market is an ancient market in the city center, right near the forum. It is now a museum, but the form of the ancient market is still extremely visible. We were able to move through the entire complex and spent some time sketching there as well.

Hadrian's Villa was very nice to see. We've learned about it in lots of classes up to this point and the complex is absolutely beautiful, so it was something we all really wanted to see. The area was beautiful, even on the rainy day. We were all glad to finally get ther, we spent some time walking around, and had some sketching time here as well.

One of the best things we got to do over the last few weeks was attend the Easter Concert at Parco Della Musica. The concert was Mozart's Requiem and it was absolutely phenomenal. The architecture of the auditorium is great enough, but to see a concert that good in there was a great experience and I am extremely glad we had the opportunity to get to see it.

Two of the best opportunities on the trip came within a week of each other. I was lucky enough to get tickets to attend both Palm Sunday and Easter masses at the Vatican with the Pope. It was an incredible opportunity to be able to attend mass said by the Pope and they were certainly two masses that I will never forget. Both masses took place in St. Peter's Square rather than in the basilica, and the square was absolutely packed with people both times. Half of the square was filled with chairs and the rest was standing room, without a single empty spot to see.

Finally, our final project was due last week. Our project was to take a facade in Rome that we had already analyzed and take the rules used in that to designa modern facade. I was extremely excited about the project and I realized that I really enjoy designing facades. I was happy with how my facade turned out and the jury went extremely well also. This is definitely a project that I am extremely happy with and it will certainly end up in my portfolio.

Well, I'm glad you've all read my blog this semester, I wish there was more, but unfortunately, as the title of this post says, all good things must come to an end. I hope you enjoyed following my semester as much as I enjoyed experiencing it and documenting it for you!

OK, there should be pictures with most of this post, but I'm having trouble with the server on the website uploading pictures, so they will be added as soon as I can get that fixed, so stay tuned for more to come.

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