LA 401 Study Abroad-Exploring the Italian Landscape

RELIGION

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EXPLORING THE ITALIAN LANDSCAPE

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DYNAMISM

SENIOR SEMINAR

GOVERNMENT

FALL ‘16

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CULTURE

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CHASE CONK CAL POLY POMONA LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE

STUDY ABROAD SANTA CHIARA, FALL 2016 CASTIGLION FIORENTINO I

Table of Contents pg. #

Chapter

1 Walkscapes 2-3 Ch.1 Castiglion Fiorentino 4-5 Ch.2 Florence 6 Gardens and the Larger Landscape 7-8 Ch.3 Castiglion Fiorentino 9-10 Ch.4 Rome 11 Grafting the Edelweiss on the Cactus Plant 12-13 Ch.5 Castiglion Fiorentino 14-15 Ch.6 Venice 16 The Use of History in Landscape Arch. Nostalgia 17-18 Ch.7 Castiglion Fiorentino 19-20 Ch.8 Rome 21 Defining Urban Sites 22-23 Ch.9 Castiglion Fiorentino 24-25 Ch.10 San Gimignano 26 Defining the Urbanistic Project 27-28 Ch.11 Castiglion Fiorentino 29-30 Ch.12 Siena II

WALKSCAPES

pg. 1

WALKSCAPES

Castiglion Fiorentino

Being raised in Southern California, the majority of my experiences with walking on a daily basis have been manifest through landscapes that have been developed around the automobile. Castiglion Fiorentino is quite the opposite of the walking experiences that I have grown up with because this city was actually built on the people’s sole form of transportation at the time, walking. Understanding the foundation of the city, it is interesting to analyze the circulation and layout as one moves through the landscape.

Spaces have been formed solely on the senses of the human body and its relationship to the land. What I recognized initially in terms of the landscape and walking here in Castiglion Fiorentino is the location of spaces of congregation, piazzas, and their relationship to the conditions that exist here on this hilltop. These gathering spaces are located at the crests of hills or on the top of slopes due to the relative amount of flat ground available for occupation. I was able to record this by using my body to experience this pathway, walking up huge inclines, out of breath, to eventually reach a high point where the ground would level out and allow rest. These spaces are very important as they act as centers for activity as well as provide visual connections to the valleys below. All streets and pathways lead to these plazas from the hillsides beneath providing many routes to walk to the same space. This is due to the need for people to walk to these spaces as directly as possible to avoid lengthy trips. The result is a city with a concentric center, and arterial streets radiating out from the center to reach the city as it descends down the hillside.

pg. 2

Val Di Chio

Val Di Chiana

pg. 3

CASTIGLION FIORENTINO

WALKSCAPES

Florence

Florence is a city with a completely different feel from Castiglion Fiorentino. Walking through this city, one can get lost if it were not for historic landmarks throughout the city which allow one to orient themselves. The first noticeable difference as you move through the city is the relative flatness of the city center, creating an intimate feel of being below structures and the built landscape as you walk, unable to see out to the surrounding landscape. The city was developed based on the River Arno in the floodplain and flat lands that surround it. The city of Florence radiates from this source of life, whereas Castiglion Fiorentino radiates from the hilltop. The river is linear as well as the valley, resulting in many points of access to the body of water throughout the city. This resulted in a city constructed on a linear grid-like level adjacent to the flow of the water as people needed to walk and access it at various points along its course. As I meander through the city, there is no distinguishable reason for the placement of congregating spaces, except for their position near historic structures. The city was developed on flat land, a maze of streets and structures that sprawl across the valley with the only focal point in the landscape or feature being the river and the distant hills beyond the city.

The way one orients themselves here is through identifiable landmarks that facilitate in positioning oneself among the steep streets. The experience of walking through Florence is unlike any other with its beautiful structures and classical piazzas, but as a spatial arrangement and landscape as a whole, its organization is set up like many a modern city.

pg. 4

Wayfinding

pg. 5

FLORENCE

GARDENS AND THE LARGER LANDSCAPE

pg. 6

GARDENS & THE LARGER LANDSCAPE

Castiglion Fiorentino

pg. 7

Castiglion Fiorentino embodies what this reading speaks about in terms of distance and measuring in the landscape. The first thing that comes to mind is the presence of geographical distance in the city. The city is composed of a few primary entries and exits that make geographical references to places that exist across vast geographical distances. These entries Porta Fiorentina, Porta Romana, and Porta San Giuliano all make allusion to prominent cities or regions like Florence and Rome. These references provide orientation through direction and associations across a larger regional area to connect this tiny town to the broader context in which it is situated. Another prominent feature of the larger landscape and distance is the horizontal distance that dominates the views from the top of this hill town. The patterns in every direction as you look out at the landscape are unique to this area and help define distances through different experiences of color, texture and form. The ability to see across the landscape also creates a strong connection between Castiglion Fiorentino and the surrounding valleys through a visual stimulant that moves your eye across the space in front of you.

PORTA FIORENTINA

PORTA ROMANA

ROMA

CASTIGLION FIORENTINO

FIRENZE

pg. 8

GARDENS & THE LARGER LANDSCAPE

Rome

pg. 9

With a plethora of public spaces, Rome is a city that has developed with a strong connection of its interior parts through different techniques.

The grand piazzas and civil or historical structures were all designed with an intellect that surpassed mere placement of objects and focused on connecting spaces to the surrounding and/or distant landscape context.

The many piazzas are connected through horizontal distance with long corridors or sight lines that cut across the city and provide orientation. An example of this is at Piazza del Popolo where corridors of three main axis split from the piazza, establishing a visual and physical connection from the central space to areas beyond that are of significance. Another way Rome is strongly connected as a city is the reuse of materials. Many significant structures that stand today were originally built using materials from previous structures such as stones. Some of the originally building materials were first reused in structures thousands of years ago. This is significant because these old materials create a sense of time and place and connect their current structure to the larger Roman landscape where the material first derived from. This refers to distance in technology.

Avenues of Connection

Visual Axis

ROME- Piazza di Popolo

pg. 10

GRAFTING THE EDELWEISS ON A CACTUS PLANT pg. 11

GRAFTING THE EDELWEISS ON A CACTUS PLANT

Castiglion Fiorentino

Castiglion Fiorentino’s landscape is a prime example of qualities that come to mind when one thinks of Italy and the typical nature of the land. That is, agriculture, fields and hills filled with olives, grapes, and other agricultural crops that are used and sent worldwide for wine, olive oil, and other products. It is true that some of Italy’s landscapes are used for this purpose, specifically in smaller towns out in the countryside. The fact of the matter is however that Italian landscapes are not all the same because the country spans a large distance of a north-south alignment consisting of many climates and factors that determine how the land is used.

Castiglion Fiorentino does not have a typical Italian landscape; It is terrain that exemplifies the characteristics of a more focused regional quality that is the Tuscan landscape which encompasses only a portion of the country. Tuscany and Castiglion Fiorentino is full of rolling hills and valleys that expand as far as the eye can see, composed of a mosaic of regional agricultural crops that can be found nowhere else in Italy. The landscape here is unique and will not be found in equal fashion up near Milan and Venice, nor down near Sicily. The idea that landscapes, including gardens, in Italy are all the same or that the country has a single identifiable type of landscape is unrealistic. Castiglion Fiorentino has its own flavor, a flavor consisting of a broader regional condition that envelopes only a fraction of Italy.

pg. 12

pg. 13

CASTILGION FIORENTINO

GRAFTING THE EDELWEISS ON A CACTUS PLANT

Venice

The landscape in and directly around Venice is unique in its own right. Primarily the cities location on the coast and its northern conditions result in a landscape and garden type that is different from other regions of Italy including Castiglion Fiorentino. The region of Venice is close to the Dolomites, mountains just north of the city, creating particularly colder conditions that does not allow the plant palette of central Italy to take hold.

The coastal conditions involving salt spray, breezes and generally lower elevations have a strong influence on the landscape surrounding Venice.

The islands, examples of what Venice once was before it was settled, show the true landscape type of the region with low growing plants such as sedges, rushes, and grasses mixed intermittently with sparse groves of trees. These landscapes reveal the strong variance in Italian landscapes and their qualities that change as one moves along the north-south alignment of the country. There is no such thing as one Italian landscape or garden type as plant material changes based on the conditions that allow them to grow, evidenced by the difference between Castiglion Fiorentino and Venice.

pg. 14

VENICE

FLORENCE

pg. 15

VENICE

THE USE OF HISTORY IN LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE NOSTALGIA

pg. 16

THE USE OF HISTORY IN L.A. NOSTALGIA

Castiglion Fiorentino

The identity of a place and a people is a very important concept throughout history and very much so today. The idea that a certain group of people are of a region with specific languages, cultural activities, and building styles creates pride and gives people a sense of who they are.

Castiglion Fiorentino and surrounding Tuscany have a particular identity that is renowned for its beautiful agricultural hillsides with towns perched atop, composed of Italian stone structures and classic Italian plants. This style of landscape has been developed over thousands of years of cultural continuity in daily cultural practices. There is an identity that cannot be denied. This nostalgia is a good thing for places like Castiglion Fiorentino because this landscape is known for just that. To begin to create a massing of modern housing in Castiglion Fiorentino’s Val di Chio would ruin the sense of place and identity by breaking up the existing patterns that generate this regional flavor. Nostalgia rules land use in places like this in order to serve the purpose of ensuring a continuity of identity. Some may say it limits progress to allow nostalgia to rule so strongly in people’s minds. There is a time and place for nostalgia; It is something that should be considered and used where appropriate.

pg. 17

CASTIGLION FIORENTINO pg. 18

CLASSSIC ARCHITECTURE

NEW HOUSING MATCHING OLD

STONE PINE

AGRICUTURAL PATTERNS

OLIVE GROVES

FORESTED HILLSIDES

COBBLESTONE PAVERS

STONE BUILDING MATERIALS

THE USE OF HISTORY IN L.A. NOSTALGIA

Rome

Rome is an example of a different case when it comes to nostalgia.

Rome is a mixture of the old and new with its grand ancient structures and modern day cityscape. The idea of a historic nostalgia has been lost through some of the city as it has grown into a modern city much like the rest of the world. Nostalgia likely still has an effect on the newly constructed built environment in Rome, although its dominance is not like that in Castiglion Fiorentino. This is due to the vastness of the Eternal City’s population and industry that has required new structures in rapid fashion, resulting in a city that at times, outside of its core, can look like any other metropolis in the world. In another sense, the grand scale of architecture in the historic center,and the piazzas invoke thoughts of nostalgic roots. The piazzas give many Italian cities, including Rome, a strong identity that has been carried on for thousands of years. The materials used are like no other place, and the continuous upkeep to preserve their form and structure breathes an air of nostalgia. An old Roman piazza is like no other in the sense of history and time and the activities that take place in these spaces today are longstanding cultural conditions.

pg. 19

ROME pg. 20

BAROQUE SCULPTURE

CLASSIC ARCHITECTURE

LARGE SCALE PIAZZA

COBBLESTONE PAVERS

FOCAL POINT STATUE

GRAND PAVING PATTERNS

DEFINING URBAN SITES

pg. 21

DEFINING URBAN SITES

Castiglion Fiorentino

In terms of defining urban sites, Castiglion Fiorentino is a site defined by linkages that connect it to different levels of boundary. The first link that comes to mind when defining urban sites is Castiglion’s placement among the hill towns of Tuscany, specifically along a line of historic Etruscan settlements that include Arezzo and Cortona. Castiglion’s nearest boundary of its urban site and the influences therein include these towns which exist to the north and south. These sites are visually defined as well through their positions in the landscape atop hills. These decisions to settle a town in this topography allow access to views towards the Val di Chiana, one of the primary sites of the urban context. Arezzo and Cortona provide historic influence, trade, and tourism linkages that help sustain the Castiglion Fiorentino as an urban site. In the same sense, the next largest boundary that defines Castiglion in the urban setting is Florence. Castiglion is influenced heavily by the linkages that exist between here and one of the world’s best known cities. This includes the same linkages that exist between Castilgion Fio. and the local context of this urban site, containing Cortona and Arezzo. The biggest influence on defining Castiglion Fio. and its urban site is the agriculture that dominates the landscape. The vast amount of olive groves, vineyards, and other crops define this region and its urban sites within. These landscapes influence the urban sites of Florence and its parts with power unrivaled by any other. Without these places, these urban sites would falter.

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CASTILGION FIORENTINO

DEFINING URBAN SITES

San Gimignano

The ancient Roman, Etruscan, and Medieval cities of Tuscany are dynamic, and have been since ancient times. San Gimignano is one of these cities that provides definition to the context in which it is settled.

This cities complex linkages, historic and modern, have made it one of the most famous in the world. The immediate definition of San Gimignano is the agriculture of central Tuscany as in the case of Castiglion Fiorentino.

The countryside has provided for the majority of the towns economy and influence to its surroundings for a long time. San Gimignano is also celebrated among a route of historic hill towns that are essentially linked through Siena and Florence. Siena’s influence upon San Gimgnano is important because it is a larger town that acts as an urban hub along a trade route for these cities. The route is an ancient pilgrmage road which connects Canterbury in the UK all the way to Rome. This route passes through San Gimgnano, Siena, and Florence, adding to the the complexity of this urban site. Through these routes, important connections between economies, cultures, and tourism are made allowing the survival of each of these towns. Determining the success of these historic towns, these sites depended on one another for survival and continue to today. They define each other as urban sites.

pg. 24

IMMEDIATE URBAN SITE

CANTERBURY ARRAS REIMS

LOSANNA AOSTA PAVIA LUCCA SAN GIMIGNANO SIENA

ROMA

pg. 25

SAN GIMIGNANO

DEFINING THE URBANISTIC PROJECT

pg. 26

DEFINING THE URBANISTIC PROJECT

Castiglion Fiorentino

Castiglion Fiorentino and cities throughout most of Italy exemplify the aspects of urbanism. Cities like Castiglion are compact, walkable, mixed use, and have an inter-connectivity that has been lost in the modern era of metropolis and suburbia. Castiglion Fiorentino has a sense of identity and has been planned so well that the city has survived through thousands of years of occupation. Structure and material re-use has been evidenced by the still standing city center which has constantly been developed and maintained through its history. Piazzas in the city are examples of mixed use spaces which have a longstanding function for markets and gathering, but are now alternated with parking and functions of the modern era.

There is an air of nostalgia as the city references the past with its new structures built to match the historical aesthetics of the old. There are small settlements of homes outside the city center which are mostly connected to agricultural production. There isn’t a suburbia and stagnant sprawls of homes that are separated from the city. Castiglion Fiorentino alludes to its major connected cities through its gates which point in their direction. The connection between Castilgion Fiorentino and the nearest anchor cities in Rome and Florence is very strongly evidenced by the transportation system which allows easy access to and from them, as well as across the country.

pg. 27

CASTIGLION FIORENTINO

pg. 28

DEFINING THE URBANISTIC PROJECT

Siena

It is very difficult to compare Italian cities with an outlook focused on urbanism. The ideas of urbanism applications have been formed out of the modern way of construction and town planning that have left cities of the newer era lacking connectivity, primarily due to the presence and influence of the automobile. Siena is a town similar to Castiglion Fiorentino as it was constructed a long time ago based on walking and connections to the surrounding landscape and cities beyond. Siena, as a more prominent and well known city compared to Castiglion, is a great example of a city connected throughout and beyond its immediate boundaries. It has strong connections to Florence, and lies along a historic Roman pilgramage route that connected the entire country of Italy and beyond. It’s preserved historic structures and piazza’s are longstanding, and their construction many ages ago were urban interventions that united the city into a cohesive and dynamic landscape. This success is why Siena is one of the most visited cities in Tuscany, and the ease of access to and throughout it define its site.

In the end, urbanistic projects are those that are dynamic, that connect places and ideas to create a cohesive city or cities. The ancient cultures that created cities like Siena understood urbanism and the necessity for its principles to be applied for its success. It is only this modern era and growth of population along with poor planning that has contributed to the loss of these principles; A reason why this topic is being discussed today.

pg. 29

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CASTIGLION FIORENTINO, ITALY SANTA CHIARA STUDY CENTER

CHASE CONK FALL 2016 SENIOR SEMINAR IV