Studio Sorrento 2018 @ Sant’Anna Institute -- The Grand Tour as a Model for Empirical Learning

Goethe and His Italian Friends.

Drawing by Friedrich Bury.

Goethe Museum, Düsseldorf -

Alfred State College –Department of Architecture + Design

Studio Sorrento 2018 @ Sant’Anna Institute The Grand Tour as a Model for Empirical Learning The name empiric derives from Latin empiricus, itself from Greek empeirikos ("experienced"). It ultimately traces back to the verb peiran, meaning "to try, attempt, or experiment.“ (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/empirical)

http: //www.wga.hu/fra mes-e.html? /Html/b/bury/inde x.html

Goethe and his Italian Friends in Rome Studio Sorrento Students Marina Grande, Sorrento Photo by Betty Torrell

American Association of Italian Studies 2019 Annual Conference Public Spaces/Private Spaces in Contemporary Italy Wake Forest University 14-16 March 2019 Wake Forest University, Winston Salem, North Carolina Betty R. Torrell Assistant Professor of Architecture and Design SUNY Alfred State College

Studio Sorrento Students at Marina Grande Betty R. Torrell

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Anna Amalia von Weimer and her Suite at Villa D’Este, Tivoli, 1789 Stiftung Weimarer Klassik -Museum

Studio Sorrento 2018 The Grand Tour as a Model for Empirical Learning The typical 18th-century stance was that of the studious observer travelling through foreign lands reporting his findings on human nature for those unfortunates who stayed at home.

Recounting one's observations to society at large to increase its welfare was considered an obligation; the Grand Tour flourished in this mindset.

(Paul Fussell, 1987)

Anna Amalia von Weimer and her Suite at Villa D’Este, Tivoli, 1789

Alfred State Studio Sorrento, 2018 Students Archeology Field Trip to Pompeii with Sant’Anna Institute Archeology Professor Ilaria Tartaglia, Photo by Betty Torrell

INTRODUCTION Since Sorrento’s urban fabric is not well documented historically, students in the historic preservation studio that focused on adaptive reuse of historic urban design, relied on empirical methods to understand the public spaces of Sorrento. The model for this exercise was based on “learning to see” as a first-hand experience like the Grand Tour of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries.

The curriculum used the pedagogy of Experiential, Collaborative, Problem-Based and Applied Learning in order to engage the students in the life of the piazza and the street. The goal was to understand the success of contemporary Italian public spaces, and to bring that knowledge home to underscore the Department of Architecture and Design’s mission of “Good Design for Social Good.”

Professor Ilaria Tartaglia and Studio Sorrento at Pompeii, 2018

Betty R. Torrell

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John Bargrave with John Raymond and a companion by Mattio Bolognini, Canturbury Cathedral, 1647

Studio Sorrento 2018 The Grand Tour as a Model for Empirical Learning Practical experience enables students to interact with phenomena directly rather than abstract concepts. (Rieber, 2001)

THE EMPIRICAL EXPERIENCE Grand Tour As Paul Fussell speculates in “The Norton Book of Travel,” John Locke’s psychological theory (which Locke set forth in his influential Essay Concerning Human Understanding of 1690) contributed to the “curious awareness of travel,” and the popularity of the Grand Tour as an educational experience. At that time “No one doubted Locke’s argument that knowledge comes entirely through the external senses, and from the mind’s later contemplation of materials laid up in the memory as a result of sense experience.” (Fussell, 1987).

Studio Sorrento My curriculum for Alfred State’s spring 2018 foreign study program employed the pedagogy of Applied Learning in both the architectural studio and the urban sketching and journaling courses. It focused on the student’s empirical experience, namely Locke’s “knowledge through the external senses,” with the subsequent reflection on the experiences of the public space of Sorrento, “laid up in memory” as Fussell suggests.

The design of the curriculum and use of the Applied Learning pedagogy came as a direct result of my research into the pedagogy of Professor Emerita Astra Zarina, the founder and director of the University of Washington Architecture in Rome and Italian Hilltowns foreign study programs.

Betty R. Torrell

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Studio Sorrento 2018 Students at Civita de Bagnoregio.

Photo by Alessio Colage

Studio Sorrento 2018 The Grand Tour as a Model for Empirical Learning In addition, travel sharpens the senses. Abroad one feels, sees, and hears things in an abnormal way.

(D.H. Lawrence)

Field Trip to Civita di Bagnoregio

BENEFITS OF TRAVEL

Studio Sorrento Students Sketch by Molly Kase – Studio Sorrento Student

Grand Tour In the mid 19th c according to Dr. Johnson, the benefit of the Grand Tour was to “reaffirm the pan-European consciousness” with the observation that “All our religion, all our arts, almost all that sets us above savages, has come from the shores of the Mediterranean,” which is the grand object of traveling. (De Seta. 1997) Studio Sorrento According to The Association of International Educators (NAFSA, 2017) the benefits of travel for short-term (fewer than eight weeks’ duration) study abroad students are many: enhancing global citizenship development, identity development, attitude and behavioral changes, open-mindedness, world-mindedness, intellectual development, personal growth, meaning making and self-efficacy. To these, I would add self-confidence, agency, and the breaking down of the concept of “the other”.

Students Sketching on Field Trip to Civita di Bagnoregio Betty R. Torrell

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View of the Theater, Pompeii, 1793 – Georg Abraham Hackert – The British Museum

Studio Sorrento 2018 The Grand Tour as a Model for Empirical Learning In the Europe of the ancient regime travel of one country to another was a normal part of life, as it has always been. But by the early seventeenth century there emerged a perception of Italy as a special destination. (de Seta, 1997)

WHY ITALY?

Studio Sorrento 2018 Students Archeology Field Trip to Pompeii with Ilaria Tartaglia – Photo by Betty Torrell

Grand Tour “Italian culture had assumed a dominant place in Europe during the sixteenth century, when the philosophy, arts and literature of the country penetrated to most other parts of the Continent.” (Wilton, 1996) After Rome, “The next most popular place was Naples, a jewel in its renowned setting of curving bay and picturesque hills, with Vesuvius brooding overall and occasionally adding an eruption to the excitements of the lively social calendar.” “...and there were excursions … to the newly discovered classical sites of Herculaneum, Pompeii and Paestum.” (Wilton, 1996) Studio Sorrento Italy continues to be the site of over 500 contemporary university study abroad programs (https://www.study.eu/country/italy) ranging from languages, classic and modern literature, art, classical archeology, archeology, anthropology, classical studies, culinary, etc. not to mention architecture and urban studies. It continues to inform, inspire, and shape our perceptions and expectations in all disciplines of design.

Betty R. Torrell

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The Campo Vaccino, Rome by Giovanni Busari, NT, The Ford Collection

Studio Sorrento 2018 The Grand Tour as a Model for Empirical Learning Francis Bacon in his essay Of Travel (1615), had given authoritative support to the idea of the educational trip as an indispensable experience for a young person ambitious to play a leading role in Society. (de Seta, 1996 )

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE GRAND TOUR The Oxford English Dictionary defines the Grand Tour as: “A tour of the principal cities and places of interest in Europe, formerly supposed to be an essential part of the education of young men of good birth or good fortune.” It was, “an ‘invisible’ or ‘virtual’ academy” (Bignamini, 1996), and in general transpired between the time of the break with the Church of Rome in 1534 until the arrival of mass train travel in the mid-19th century.

Until 1780, Grand Tours were practical, studious tours undertaken by male British aristocratic students with ages ranging from 14-23 years: largely Oxford or Cambridge educated, traveling singly or in groups with a tutor, with the goal of culture, education and pleasure.

A typical tour generally lasted a year, but it could be as short as a summer or as long as five years. In Italy, the principal itinerary included Florence, Venice, Rome and Naples. Naples was attractive because of the newly excavated archeological sites of Herculaneum, and Pompeii, as well as the thrilling excursions to the summit of Vesuvius. (Fussell, 1987)

By the end of the 18thc participants expanded to include travelers from other European countries, the middle class and families, and travel to more general cultural sites for which education was often not the primary motive. (Towner, 1985)

Betty R. Torrell

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http://www.al fredstate.edu/ studyabroad/italy/a rchitecturestudies

Studio Sorrento 2018 The Grand Tour as a Model for Empirical Learning

SUBJECTS STUDIED Grand Tour The young aristocrats, privileged members of the middle classes and students subsidized by bursaries were all encouraged to increase their knowledge of literature and the arts, ancient and modern history, of commerce and diplomacy, to widen their appreciation of music and the theater, local customs and folklore, and to become acquainted with cities other than their own. (de Seta, 1997). https://www. worthpoint.co m/worthoped ia/1739missonvoyage-italy4vols-venice1783161252

Studio Sorrento The Studio Sorrento 2018 was a seven-week program composed of discipline specific courses; an architectural design studio and an urban sketching and journaling course, as well as general courses specific to Italy and the region; an Italian Language course and an archeology class focusing on the classical world in the “Cities of Fire.” Within these courses, the students’ studies concentrated on the fine art, architecture, urbanism, and archeology found in Sorrento and the region surrounding the Bay of Naples. Most students are also taking some general Alfred State on-line courses.

Betty R. Torrell

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Tourists at the Temple of Isis in Pompeii, c<.1788, drawing by Louis-Jean Desprez © DeAgostini/ Getty Images

Studio Sorrento 2018 The Grand Tour as a Model for Empirical Learning Applied learning pedagogies share a design fundamental: the nurturing of learning and growth through a reflective, experiential process that takes students out of traditional classroom setting. The approach is grounded in the conviction that learning is maximized when it is active, engaged, and collaborative. (Ash & Clayton, 2009)

PEDAGOGY: COMPARISON AND CONTRAST Applied learning pedagogies share a design fundamental: the nurturing of leaning and growth through a reflective, experiential process that takes students out of the traditional classroom setting. The approach is grounded in the conviction that learning is maximized when it is active, engaged, and collaborative. (Ash & Clayton, 2009)

On the surface, the experiences of the Grand Tour and Studio Sorrento have many similarities, for instance youth traveling as a group directed by a tutor or facilitator to directly engage with a foreign country and its cultural heritage for educational purposes.

Four common pedagogies, Experiential, Collaborative, Problem-Based and Applied Learning were employed in the curriculum of Studio Sorrento and the accompanying course, Urban Sketching and Journaling.

Of these four strategies, three are common to both the Grand Tour and Studio Sorrento. The fourth pedagogy not common to the Grand Tour, however, would be a Problem-Based pedagogy and will not be discussed here.

Specialists and non-specialists alike easily understand two commonalities between the make-up of the Grand Tour and the structure of the curriculum of Studio Sorrento: Kolb’s Experiential Learning Theory (ELT), and Collaborative Learning, “joint intellectual effort by students, or students and teachers together”. (Smith & MacGregor) Upon reflection, what emerged as key to understanding the Grand Tour as a “model” was the commonalities inherent to both found in the pedagogy of Applied Learning and will be examined further here.

Betty R. Torrell

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Alfred State Studio Sorrento Students Photo by Betty Torrell

Studio Sorrento 2018 The Grand Tour as a Model for Empirical Learning Applied learning pedagogies – including service-learning, internships/practica, study abroad, and undergraduate research – have in common both the potential for significant student learning and the challenges of facilitating and assessing that learning, often in non-traditional ways that involve experiential strategies, outside the classroom as well as individualized outcomes. (Ash, S. & Clayton, P. (2009)

APPLIED LEARNING Applied learning provides students with the opportunities to connect theory with practice, to learn in unfamiliar contexts, to interact with others unlike themselves, and to practice using their knowledge and skills (all common generally to the experience of travelers on the Grand Tour as well).

Despite the oft-cited maxim that “experience is the best teacher,” experience alone cannot provide quality of learning. An Applied Learning pedagogy consists of several crucial steps, including the empirical experience that reinforce the meta-cognitive skills required for lifelong, self-directed learning that the Applied Learning so critically supports. (Ash, S. & Clayton, P., 2009)

The Applied Leaning process consist of several phases. These phases are referenced several ways, and for this study we will be using the nomenclature as follows: the first phase is “Construction of a Knowledge Base,” the second phase is Disciplined Inquiry,” the third phase is Reflection,” and the fourth phase is “Value Beyond School.”

(Knobloch, 2003). Our next step here is to briefly compare these steps or phases in relation to the Grand Tour and Studio Sorrento 2018.

Betty R. Torrell

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Studio Sorrento 2018 The Grand Tour as a Model for Empirical Learning

•https://www.pps.org/article/what-is-placemaking

STEP 1: CONSTRUCTION OF KNOWLEDGE Grand Tour The students traveling on the Grand Tour had generally attended Oxford and Cambridge with a classical education reading Latin and Greek. They were traveling to Italy to see for themselves the ruins and antiquities central to their education.

Studio Sorrento The knowledge base for Studio Sorrento 2018 students’ urbanism project was not based on the literature of the classics, but on the tenets of Placemaking, and how they support the well-being of the community.

WHAT IF WE BUILT OUR COMMUNITIES AROUND PLACES? • As both an overarching idea and a hands-on approach for improving a neighborhood, city, or region, Placemaking inspires people to collectively reimagine and reinvent public spaces as the heart of every community…Strengthening the connection between people and the places they share.

•An effective Placemaking process capitalizes on a local community's assets, inspiration, and potential, and it results in the creation of quality public spaces that contribute to people's health, happiness, and well being.

•Some of the thinking behind Placemaking gained traction in the 1960s, when mentors like Jane Jacobs and William H. Whyte introduced groundbreaking ideas about designing cities for people, not just cars and shopping centers.

•https://www.pps.org/article/what-is-placemaking

Betty R. Torrell

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Sketch by Alfred State Student – Molly Case

Studio Sorrento 2018 The Grand Tour as a Model for Empirical Learning …the best study abroad courses clearly integrate the academic content of the course (learning outcomes, daily readings, lectures, focused journal assignments, seminar discussions) with the on-site experiences of the students (museums, political briefings, cultural experiences, historical site visits, field-work/data collection, etc.

NAFSA

STEP 2: EMPIRICAL LEARNING Studio Sorrento The Studio Sorrento design studio as well as the Urban Sketching and Journaling course was designed to incorporate the empirical experience.

In the design studio, students became observers of the public spaces of Sorrento through their daily life and through field-study exercises.

They documented these spaces or sites through photographs and journal entries. Successful spaces were then identified as loci, groups of patterns that became points of interest. The students then created an itinerary based on the paths found between these points of interest to create a tour narrated both through a printed brochure for an onsite walking tour, and a Prezi presentation.

In the Urban Sketching and Journaling course students used the public places of Sorrento and field-trip locations to practice their sketching and journaling skills, as exercises in “learning to see” the urban fabric, creating mnemonic devices for what they had encountered, and to support their studio work.

The Prezi presentation was presented during the Symposium.

Betty R. Torrell

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Journal Entry

by Alfred State Student Molly Kase

Studio Sorrento 2018 The Grand Tour as a Model for Empirical Learning

STEP 3: REFLECTION – JOURNALING The Grand Tour There were three categories of travel writing typical of the Grand Tour: manuscript accounts, accounts published by contemporaries and those published subsequently. The first and the third were designed for personal recollection, family and friends. Letters were the most common method of the sharing experiences with others. Letters were read aloud and handed round by friends and relations. (Black, 2003)

Studio Sorrento For the students, journaling was integrated into the Sketching and Journaling course. Writing undirected impressions and feelings became an important part of the reflective process while sketching. Directed reflection with prompts were incorporated into Reflection Exercises following field trips, excursions or events.

The second, accounts published by contemporaries as travel literature, were often based on journals or letters not originally intended for publication but were the result of the traveler persuaded by family, friends or opportunity to publish guides with itineraries and key destinations.

Betty R. Torrell

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httpschatkam er.nai.nlenpro jectsschetsbo ek-grandtour-dooritalie

Studio Sorrento 2018 The Grand Tour as a Model for Empirical Learning

Kase, Molly.

Alfred State Urban Sketching and Journaling.

(Spring Semester2018).

STEP 3: REFLECTION – SKETCHING AND PHOTOGRAPHY The Grand Tour The travelers on the Grand Tour used sketching, as well as the purchasing and commissioning paintings and prints to graphically record their impressions and as mnemonic devices.

Studio Sorrento 2018 For the Studio Sorrento students, sketching and photography was employed as a method of “learning to see” the urban environment as well as a mnemonic device. Field exercises as well as studio sketching were integrated in the Urban Sketching and Journaling class to graphically record the urban environment.

Betty R. Torrell

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Studio Sorrento 2018 The Grand Tour as a Model for Empirical Learning There are three principal means of acquiring knowledge... observation of nature, reflection, and experimentation. Observation collects facts; reflection combines them; experimentation verifies the result of that combination.

Denis Diderot

)

STEP 3: REFLECTION – PREZI

Sketch by Alfred State Student Katy Swank

The Studio Sorrento design studio focused its work on the public spaces of Sorrento. Using the vocabulary of Christopher Alexander’s book, “A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction (Center for Environmental Structure Series),” and the tenets of urban PlaceMaking found in the references below. Students documented and analyzed the public streets and squares of Sorrento: how these spaces were constructed and/or evolved over time to be active and engaging community places.

https://www.pps.org/about

https://healthystreets.com/

Betty R. Torrell

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Poster Design

by Betty R. Torrell

Studio Sorrento 2018 The Grand Tour as a Model for Empirical Learning This is the ultimate goal of public spaces: to foster safe, fun, meaningful encounters between friends and strangers. I have opened my eyes to way that public places become the areas for society to flourish.

Studio Sorrento Student - Sarah Aitchison

STEP 4-VALUE BEYOND SCHOOL: SYMPOSIUM Both the Alfred State students from Studio Sorrento as well as the students from the Building Beauty - Ecological Design and Construction Process, a post-graduate Diploma in Architecture that was also hosted at the Sant’Anna Institute, presented their work at the symposium.

Studio Sorrento presented their study of the public spaces of Sorrento, and the Building Beauty students presented “Project pattern language; design and construction of a bench – Sant’Anna Gardens.

The symposium and the discussion following gave the Studio Sorrento students the opportunity to compare and contrast their means and methods with the work of their fellow program at the institute, as well as discuss their findings with the guest critics Jackie Buhn and Alan Razak from the firm AthenianRazak, “a real estate services company that consults on, creates and manages real property.”

Both projects were based on the work of Christopher Alexander, specifically his book, “A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction (Center for Environmental Structure Series).”

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Now that our time here in Sorrento is coming to an end, I wanted to take a look back at what we learned and explored during our seven weeks.

During this experience, we analyzed the physical, social, and psychological elements in Sorrento that aid in placemaking, and presented our findings at a symposium to an audience of peers and professional critics, Alan Razak and Jackie Buhn from AthenianRazak.

Studio Sorrento 2018 The Grand Tour as a Model for Empirical Learning What preservation is really about is the reflection and active relationship of buildings of the past to the community’s functioning present.

Ada Louise Huxtable

Reflection from Molly Kase, Studio Sorrento Facebook, 2018

The symposium helped to contribute to my understanding of placemaking because it really forced me to look deeper into why things are the way they are here in Sorrento, and the causes and effects of those things.

Without this project, I believe I would have only enjoyed Sorrento on a much more basic, superficial level (such as the simple acknowledgement of a condition such as “oh, that building is tall” or “oh there’s a path here.” It also helped me to learn the general rules of placemaking, rather than looking at individual elements, which is much more useful for me as a learner.

Studio Sorrento 2018 Archeology Field Trip to Herculaneum, Photo by Ilaria Tartaglia, Sant’Anna Institute

CONCLUSION The structure of the Alfred State Studio Sorrento 2018 curricular was loosely based on my foreign study experience on the University of Washington Foreign Study programs of Architecture in Rome and Italian Hilltowns under the direction of Professor Emerita Astra Zarina.

It was only when writing a review of the semester for my Alfred State Course Narrative did I come to understand how closely Professor Zarina’s pedagogy paralleled an Applied Learning model well before David A. Kolb's published his experiential learning theory (ELT) in 1984, and how closely both these models followed the empirical experience of the Grand Tour.

I would like to thank the faculty and staff at the Sant’Anna Institute for their guidance in support for my semester with the Alfred State Studio Sorrento 2018 program.

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REFERENCE LIST Ash, S. & Clayton, P. (2009). Generating, deepening, and documenting learning: the power of critical reflection in applied learning. Journal of Applied Learning in Higher Education, Vol. 1, Fall 2009, 25-48.

Baxter Magolda, M.B. (1999). Creating context for learning and self-authorship: constructivist developmental pedagogy. Nashville, Tennessee: Vanderbilt University Press.

Black, J. Italy and the grand tour. (2003). New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press.

Studio Sorrento 2018 The Grand Tour as a Model for Empirical Learning I roamed the countryside searching for answers to things I did not understand.

Leonardo da Vinci

Chieffo, L., & C. Spaeth. (Eds.) (2017). The guide to successful short-term programs abroad (Third Edition).

Washington, D.C.: NAFSA. De Seta, C. (1997). Grand tour: The lure of Italy in the eighteenth century. In Wilton. A. & Bignamini, I. (Eds.) Grand tour, the lure of Italy in the eighteenth century. (pp. 13-20). Millbank, London: The Tate Gallery Publishing Ltd Empirical. (2019). In Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary (11th Ed.). Retrieved from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/empirical Fussell, Paul. The norton book of travel. (1987). New York, New York: W.W. Norton.

BANNER NOTES 1. Gavin Hamilton Leaving a Party of Grand Tourists to the Archeological Site at Gabii,

by Giuseppe Cades, 1793, © The National Gallery of Scotland.

2. Letter including sketches of Castel Sant’Angelo and St. Peter’s in Rome, 1776, Derby Museum Trust 3. Gardens of the Villa d'Este at Tivoli, by Charles Joseph Natoire, 1760, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 4. https://www.soanefoundation.com/news.html

Knobloch, N. A., (2003) Is experiential learning authentic? Journal of Agricultural Education, Vol. 44, Number 4.

Stinga, Olga.. (March 6, 2019). History of Alfred State Studio Sorrento at Sant”Anna Institute. (Email describing the history of the Alfred State Department of Architecture and Design foreign study program at Sant. Anna Institute in Sorrento Italy.)

Smith, B.L. & MacGregor, J.T. (1992). What is collaborative learning? In Goodsell, A., Maher, M., Tinto, V., Smith, B.L. & MacGregor, J.T. Collaborative Learning: A Sourcebook for Higher Education, State College, Pennsylvania: National Center on Postsecondary Teaching, Learning, and Assessment at Pennsylvania State University.

Rieber, L.P. (2001). Designing learning environments that excite serious play. URL: http://www.

Nowhereroad.comseriousplay/Rieber-ASCILITE-seriousplay.pdf (Google Scholar).

Study in Italy. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.study.eu/country/italy Towner, J. (1985). The grand tour, a key phase in the history of tourism. Annals of tourism research, vol.12, 297-333. 0160-7383/85.

Wilton, A. & I. Bignamini. (Eds.) (1996). Grand tour: the lure of Italy in the eighteenth century. Millbank, London: Tate Gallery Publishing.

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