Volume II: Rome and Investigation
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Challenge: Representation of a Building
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Space drawing: The Roman Mood
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Investigation and Research 28
Roman Catacombs, Aqueducts and Underground City
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Material: Roman Concrete - Pozzolana
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Piazza del Teatro Del Marcello
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Ruins of the Jewish Ghetto
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San Nicola in Carcere
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Not just
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Any Place: Rome
Volume II covers the solidification of the design concept through challenges that I have set for myself and through research of Rome’s urban fabric, its historical and cultural context, it’s architectural materials. It covers the week from Rome and the first two weeks of design. Design process is covered in the third volume. A summary of the design concept is provided for ease of comprehension.
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Challenge: Representations of a building When in Rome, I created a challenge for myself to learn to capture architectural moods and details in an abstracted manner without drawing the buildings figuratively, in the similar manner that I have chosen to represent my models in my drawings of the first four weeks. This challenge provided me with the ability to reflect upon Rome as a destination of pilgrimage for I have had to hunt down a few buildings and although my walking of four hours did not compare to the trajectory that the pilgrims of ancient times covered, I have come to appreciate and realised the importance of approach in a building’s design. This revelation on the critical position of approach later on impacted the urban move of my design.
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The Jubilee Church Designed by Richard Meier, the Jubilee Church is located on the outskirts of Rome, thus it is not as well known to the tourists of Rome and mainly accessed by the nearby locals. It is located among tall residential blocks and near a large park making it a surprising element in the fabric of the city. This is one of the buildings that I have had to track down for the access from the city center of Rome to the Church was direct but confusing when one does not speak the language. Even as it is direct, the path to the church requires lots of walking, which is where I had the chance to contemplate and reflect upon Rome’s position as the greatest destination for a pilgrimage. In a sense, as I was on my hunt of the church, I was embarking on my own sort of pilgrimage and this gave me an unprecedented appreciation and admiration of the voyage the pilgrims of ancient times endured. This inspired my attitude to the approach of my design of the library.
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My appreciation of this building comes from the appreciation of the movement of the curving ribs of concrete. Therefore in my approach to draw this building, I decided to concentrate on the movement of its element rather than its mood, for while I found the interior atmostphere lifting, I found its movement much stronger in concept. In my drawings I try to express my own interpretation of the movement upwards, curving in and the slight falling out of each rib.
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Other attempts at abstractifying the Jubilee church.
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MAXXI museum esigned by Zaha Hadid, I found the MAXXI museum D to be a very beatiful abstract composition, in a way that I haven’t found her work to be before. Although I appreciate the abstracted approach of her work, the experience of the space as an abstract composition at every single angle in her building proves to be very inspiring. Once again however, I found that the movements and composition of elements in her building are much more interesting than the mood. So I concentrated on capturing the compositional aspect of the museum. I was also very interested in her light diffusing roof and stairs, and found that they have in themselves a very interesting atmospheric element.
Roof detail of the MAXXI museum
Abstract views of the MAXXI museum elements
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Space drawings: The Roman Mood In my previous drawings myself drawing mainly the composition and movement of a building rather than the mood and atmosphere of the building. Despite the awe inspiring atmospheres of the multiple churches of Rome, i found myself appreciating the scaffolding that were used in the conservation of the Portico d’Ottavia. I am mainly fascinated by the dark contrast of the passage and the role of the scaffolding upholding the past and accidentally acting as a screen to the sharp contrast of the light at the end of the alleyway. And as one moves through and under the scaffolding, it allows one to feel the rhythm of void and mass of the scaffolding. The drawing on page 13 is meant to concentrate on the contrast of lighting between the alley, the scaffolding and the light at the end.
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Scaffolding at Portico d’Ottavia
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The contrast of the mass and void, light and dark
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Portico D’ottavia
The blurring of the frame and mass of the scaffolding into the mass of the alley way.
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The blurring and awareness of mass and void through the frame of the scaffolds.
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As per my first week drawings of mass and the field of loose fluids hitting them and seeping into the mass, I started applying the same concept to the space drawings of Rome. I traced out the mass and void of the scaffolds and create fluid fields traveling out and between them. This time however, i trace the void between the scaffolds and blackening them rather and blackening the masss, changing the relationship between void, mass and field slightly. The drawing on the left is the first attempt at portraying the awareness of void and mass where the one on the right is about how the voids between the scaffolding permeates through and along the walls of the Portico d’Ottavia.
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Based on the drawings of the field and mass from both the first four weeks of the design and the scaffolding at the Portico d’Ottavia. I wanted to try another way to portray the impact of obstacles. My space drawings have mainly been about the awareness of masses and voids so far, but I want to see how volume can be felt by charting paths that hugs these obstacle. This was done by drawing over an image, showing lines that drip down on all surfaces. 24
Masses and volumes can be felt by the obstacle lines.
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Investigation and Research The approach to the design of the building is deeply rooted into the location’s impact on a city wide scale. The investigation covers the research into Rome’s underground system and later on as I choose the location of the library, the historical fabric of the elements surrounding that site.
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Roman Catacombs, Aqueducts and Underground City The bunker typology does not require to be completely underground to be a safe house, however I really believe that by inserting the bunker into the soil, the bunker will truly be a place of protection. This idea of a large underground hub that supplies reading to the people then prompted a question: Rome is a Christian City and like most Christian cities they bury their dead, do they then have a underground system? This interest was raised as I remebered that Paris has an extremely convoluted network of catacombs to house their dead. What I found out was then much more valuable than a system of housing the dead. The Roman underground structure is hosts to 2000 years old aqueducts, boiling houses that supplied the large Roman baths, quarries for pozzolana and tufa limestone, cult houses as well as the usual catacomb.
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3D scan of the underground network of catacombs. The catacombs were not exclusively Christian, in fact, they were quite inclusive of all faiths. The catacombs are indeed very complex but this network combined with the system of aqueducts and quarries as well as boilers make Rome’s underground very porose. This discovery prompted me to really consider making the design underground partially if not entirely. It would help this new building connect with Rome’s past on an urban scale. Moreover, it expands my hope for protection as a system with multiple nodes is less likely to be completely compromised in an attack.
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Network Using a network as a defense system is not unprecedented, I wanted to see how effective this scheme was and that lead into the study of Ludwig Hilbenseimer’s work. His Schema of Decentralized industries and linear settlements show that a system well spread out with some redundancies is more likely to retain less permanent damage than a library that is centralized and has no connection. From this I hope to devise a scheme for the building to not only combine the duality of spaces and duties but also as a scheme that can later be applied to other designs. Where this building is the first station accessing the underground network and other designs for user space can join in on this network system.
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Material: Roman Concrete The Cloaca Maxima , the great aqueduct that cleanses Rome has been withstading water movement for over 2000 years. It prompted me to study its material more closely. Made of pozzolana, roman concrete is a hydraulic concrete, curing even in water and so strong that it had widthstood the 2000 years of looting, evident in Rome’s remaining ancient structure such as the Pantheon. I recognised that this is the perfect material for a bunker against all elements.
Tufa limestone: its quarries are an important proportion of the underground fabric.
Pozzolona: volcanic ash.
Cloaca Maxima interior, still in use.
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Piazza del Teatro di Marcello The location I chose for the libary was the piazza del teatro di Marcello. This location is located next to the Tiber river, the ancient Marcello Theater and adjacent to the remains of the old Jewish Ghetto and the Church San Nicola in carcere. The neighboring ruins are sunken, fitting well with the underground concept that I chose to follow. Moreover, the San Nicola in Carcere itself is a historical example of how a building can connects with the past and not ruin it. It the church’s case, it connects with the ancient times remains of the previous church that had stood in its place. This had given the location the historical implication that I had wanted my scheme to connect to.
Altar to the fatherland
Fori Imperali Marcello Theater Piazza del Teatro di Marcello Coliseum
Photo credit: Will Tooze 32
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The ruins of the Jewish Ghetto Adjoining the location of the building is a sunken archeological site of architectural ruins. Through some digging and comparison with the Nolli Map, the ruins seems to be the remains of the ancient part of the Jewish Ghetto. A historical district not only architecturally but politically and religiously influential since its beginning with the papal bull Cum Nimis Absurdum issued by Pope Paul IV condemning the Jews to a specific slum. Not only so, the location is directly a part of the Forum Holiorium, a renowned ancient market area, adding more historical impact onto its siting. The library I envision would not just contrast the past and present of Rome, but rather i connects the past and present through the contrast, creating a dialogue and interaction between the existing historical and urban fabric and the new one. I’d like to think of the building as something that approaches history as a fluid, taking elements from the past and reinterpreting it for the future. The ruins of the Jewish Ghetto proves to be a very interesting start. 34
The Macello Theatre San Nicola in Carcere
The Nolli plan revealed that the area was infact a closely knit urban patch. The area behind the church, where the libary would be comprises of multiple building blocks hugging it. And where the area near the river is open in present days, it was very dense, with buildings spilling to the waterfront. This raises a consideration on how the libary would interact with the church and whether it should reflect the previous urban texture.
Nolli Plan of the location 1736 - 1748.
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San Nicola In Carcere The current San Nicola in Carcere is in fact a newer construction built upon the foundation of a previous church. The original building’s foot print in seen in Rodolpho Lanciani’s map of 1893 showing the 19th century construction ovelaid on plans of ancient buildings if they were to be intact. The first church is a temple built in approximately 6th century and it was rebuilt in 1599. Named in Carcere carcer: jail - the church had a crypt for jail as was the common practice. The church is built on top of the Forum Holitorium, it has its foundation is the past and have come to pass as a historic construction of Rome. It connects well the ancient fabric that precedes it and make that fabric part of its identity. This can be seen in the revealed columns of the previous temple on its sides.
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Lanciani’s map of the Church and the Marcello Theatre original plan.
The exposed columns of the temple of Speranza on the side of the church
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Upon investigation of the church a connection between the layout of the church and the scheme was created. Based on the first four weeks where I experimented with the different configurations of the juxtaposition of open and enclosed space, I was shown that the church actually follows such scheme as well. Where the enclosed space is now translated as the protected and precious zone, and the nave of the church is the user space that is understood as a much more open one. The diagram on the left shows the moments within the church, as one appreciate the axial view to the altar upon entrance, then as they move through the nave to the contact point with the altar without really accessing it. The altar here is a protected only accessible by the select few.
Moment of awareness of protcted space: view of the altar User space Contact point between user space and protected space Altar: the protected space
enclosure/protection
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openness
enclosure/protection
openness
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End of volume II
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