Drawing Contrasts // Genoa, Italy

Drawing CONTRASTS On Drawing Methods and Contemporary Representation of Genoa

Jeanne Canto Master of Arts in Architecture Florida International University Fall 2015

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I would like to thank matthew rice for his guidance in genoa. gio for his companionship. gray read for her help and guidance.

My parents for their support and my sister for her balancing friendship.

Site Map Narrative of the Drawing thresholds, conflict and light the local: gregorio giannotta in citta fall 2014: Translation spring 2015: Analysis fall 2015: Transformation Conclusions References and diagrams

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of the drawing

I went to Genoa with the intention of drawing. I wasn’t sure what I would be drawing exactly, or designing for that matter, but I knew was going to draw. I had experienced a great subversion of the hand while completing my degree, and I would always look back on the opportunity that I had in Genoa to draw, learn, and practice via the pencil.

flows only with our personal experiences as energy. Streams of sensation, collective paradigms of thought, individual memories and moments are transformed from potential to what and how we draw. At once we are drawing what we see and what we’ve seen. It is an exercise of our capabilities and also our limitations. The drawing is ours.

The intent of drawing stems from the understanding of potential. An idea, prior to being translated as an image or words, is pure potential. Once a pencil touches paper, and you start to form the idea outside of yourself, you have begun to fully form something that can be understood or felt by others.

Here is where we developed our index of experiences and can learn to reapply them in order to solve problems. You have become an inventor with one goal. You must harness your cognitive heritage and uncover unpredictable connections.

“Nothing can be created from nothing, and what is useful must also be innovative.”

While drawing can be observed as a physical act, something that you practice and develop over time, there are other lateral skills are simultaneously developed.

Learning to see is the most fundamental skill to acquire, but the most difficult. Opening your eyes and looking around is easy, but how do you learn to see? As much as seeing is about fully absorbing your environment, it is actually more important to selectively engage it.

What do you make of what you see? In terms of the architectural sketch, what have you chosen to interpret from a building or urban space? A particular spatial articulation, the micro-scale of joint, material decisions?

Finally, you put your effort into the design. Drawing is the truest form of design we can all practice, as the pencil

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This project is the result of repeatedly putting this method to practice, and reinterpreting each phase according to the particular situation and drawing. I would like to think of this as studying the subject through a variety of lenses, and this project as a whole is my lens on Genoa.

Beginning from the unknown, I added in a series of factors: Genoa’s historic center, the aptitude of my hand, my cognitive heritage, and left to chance the experiences that occur around me. These are the ingredients that have lead to the creation of these drawings. What is their goal? To revive what some might believe to be a stagnant environment covered in grime and graffiti. To find hidden potential within buildings that are understood for what they are and not for what they could be.

To understand a space both as its history and its existence at that very moment.

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profile of genoa Genoa is a city of contrasts. These contrasts are defined by urban changes, geographic obstacles, and by inhabits of a community. While these boundaries often go unnoticed, marked by a change in light quality or architectural style, more often than not the shift is a drastic one, and I would like to think that this is what truly makes Genoa unique.

months can also find it there. Meanwhile, Albaro, east of a large highway built over a river, is known as being an Italian white-collar neighborhood, populated by middle-aged and politically conservative residents. These large urban and natural obstacles have created a clear distinction between varying social and economic strata.

The most visible of these contrasts is that of the ancient and modern. The infrastructure of the historic center is approaching a thousand years old, yet daily life continues within it. The alleyways, at times just a feet wide, create caverns six stories deep, allowing sunlight to filter through only a few opportune moments a day. As you walk through the alleys, you’ll wander past palaces converted into apartments, churches flanked, or even above, hardware stores, posters fixed to peeling stucco walls, all almost is a constant conflict with the surrounding structures. Sometimes you will have to adjust your usual route home because a dump truck is attempting to squeeze its way through a space meant for a 12th century wheelbarrow. These occurrences are very particular to modern life attempting to configure to an ancient framework.

While these previous examples have very tangible boundaries, you’ll find a very different case in Centro. One particularly stark, and sometimes shocking, contrast occurs just off of Via Garibaldi, also know as the Strada Nuova, a Renaissance street lined with palaces. Here once lived the richest and most powerful of Genoa’s merchant class starting in the 16th century and is currently a very popular tourist stop. This historic street runs just parallel to via Maddalena, a street historically known for its brothels. A hundred years ago, it was lined with these brothels, from upper class and sumptuously decorated spaces to the simplest and barest rooms. To the uninformed visitor, a wrong turn on the wide and brightly lit Strada Nuova, can send them into the narrow and shadowy Via Maddalena. While prostitution is legal in Italy, brothels were banned in 1958. Today, lucciole, or fireflies, now stand visibly along the shady cavern.

In Genoa there is this constant clashing between old and new; a battle that features the cities’ inhabitants. I’ve been told that in the historic center there are two types of people: The older generation that has lived in Zena for 50+ years, resistant to change and die-hard Sampdoria fans; Then there’s the progressive youth of Genoa, the artists, the new generation of craftsmen, people who hope to see a different future for this ancient city. Have a conversation with two random people on the street and you’ll uncover the contrasting opinions of the Genoese.

Immigrants have had a great influence in characterizing neighborhoods. In Sampierdarena, across from the western edge of medieval center, large communities of Dominican and Ecuadorian immigrants have made their home. Expats or travelers hoping for their first taste of Colombian food in

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To a newcomer, this is a contrast like no other. The ambiance, the characters, the environment drastically changes in a matter of a few footsteps. Tourists do not expect such a dramatic shift, and find themselves quickly returning to the bright avenue, but this extreme is very characteristic of the city. It takes time to become accustomed to seeing mothers with their children walking by the lucciole without even giving them a second glance, but it is part of life here. Genoa is a charming city, and very unlike the larger cities of Rome and Florence, where the culture has been staged and watered down. In Genoa, you can expect to experience a true Italian city, which includes both the exalted beauty of renaissance palaces and the understated appeal of its hidden dark corners.

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I met Gregorio while wandering near my apartment in the centro. I was on a tour with an elderly man who offered to show me the little know sites of our neighborhood. This included some craftsmen’s workshops, beautifully tiled staircases, and a secret cloister. Along the way people all over would call out to my guide (he almost seemed to be a neighborhood celebrity) including an artist in a studio full of paintings, prints, and sculptures.

He warmly invited us in, showed us the studio.

This was the first time I made the acquaintance of Gregorio Giannotta.

The studio was full of fantastic creatures, personified animals, and steampunk-style characters in an active and playful stride. The most striking of his pieces include a large sperm whale with a cityscape poised perfectly on its back. The tiny building’s striated facades hinted that the city was Genoa. The whale floated through a variety of sheets and prints in his studio, always suspended in the clouds, flying unburdened by its massive charge. His imaginative work was made of a whole variety of media, but also includes engravings, and he also designs characters and stage sets for local theaters.

took a peek at her notebook and saw a tree house, a true dream for a child living in the paved and stony centro.

Since this first meeting, I have run into Gregorio all over Genoa. I feel that he is truly a great representation of the Genoese, who typically have the bad rap of being cold and closed people.

Even though I want to learn about his method and subjects, I am very interested in learning his point of view as an artist and designer creating work within this very unique city. I wondered if he as a native sees the city the same way as I do and how it has possibly inspired his work. I met him one afternoon back at his studio, just a 45-second walk from my apartment.

First things first, and I actually find this to be one of the most important question of the interview: Are you Genoese?

(Sei da Genova?)

Yes, I actually am. I was born here… but actually my father is from Calabria, and my mother was born in Genoa, but has roots in the Piedmont. I have lived here since. The only experience I have living elsewhere in is Granada, Spain. My wife is also Genoese.

Her parents are Genoese and Sicilian, with mixed backgrounds.

idea of knowing my lineage is very important to me…

Gives me a connection to the place.

Before I ask you more questions about Genoa, how would you describe your work? (Descrivi il tuo lavoro.)

My work is about having fun. I enjoy having fun, I enjoy creating things that I like but most importantly that they have a strange logic to them.

I typically draw things that do not exist. I have the passion and luck to be able to create things that do not exist… things that I have thought up in my own imagination. I try to express and create what I have inside. In terms of technique, it all begins with a ballpoint sketch.

The sketch is a fluid creation, like Japanese ink paintings, I let the idea flow from me… and then the sketch has the possibility of becoming a story.

Do people ever ask you “why” you draw these creatures that you draw? Sperm whales with cities on their backs? Fish with glasses?

Yes, they do… and then I ask them “Why do you drink beer? Why do you eat pizza?” It’s the same, because I want to. They ask me why I draw the sperm whale, which I call the “Leviatano Metafisico.”

And I say, because for me, Amongst the paintings are one day I drew the first, I also sculptures of the enjoyed it, and I continued female visage, work created to draw it over and over My grandfather was actually

by Gregorio’s wife, Paula again. And from there it born in the United States…

Rando. She creates these became almost like a dance women with marble, ceramic, I found his signature in and I continued to draw it. the documents from Ellis and bronze. They share this It is natural almost to Island because my great studio space and are often draw a fish with glasses… grandfather would travel joined by their daughter. to draw a skyline on a often between Italy and New That day Gemma was also whale.

York with his family.

This working on an art piece. I

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A view of the Animars studio from the local artist hauhnt, La Lepre.

On the other hand of having fun, there is also work.

This is what I work from so when I do commissions, part of my work becomes about making a compromise.

If their vision and my work is not vibing well, I would rather not work on that project.

These illustrations demonstrate the mystical nature of Gregorio’s artworks. A mix of Fables and dream-like scenes transport you to a place where possibilities abound.

You have two main characters: Leviatano Metafisico and the Argonauti al Vapore. How did you come across them? (Avete due personaggi principali: Leviatano metafisico e il Argonauti al Vapore. Come ti è venuto in questi personaggi?)

Well I have this relationship with drawing kind of like the jazz musician has with music…

I just go. It’s like improvisation. I make a rhythm, I make a loop, and that is my technique.

They’ve become a theme because I enjoy drawing them… and others enjoy them. Which is of course important because this is also my work.

time a job. It is a shame that people don’t typically see it that way…. They don’t believe that it is possible to have a job in art.

Like you might say, “Oh, this place is dirty… and creepy” because of the pushers and the signore, but they are people too.

My daughter and her friend were racing around the Either way, in the future I palazzo, and at one point see myself creating a sort her friend ran off in the of graphic novel. I see wrong direction and one of it as an attainable goal the ladies turned up with because it begins with the the boy! She brought him to simple sketch that holds us and it really saved us a the seeds of the story. lot worrying and time. It’s From there the story can like a neighborhood watch. grow to a novel… and then a cartoon. Who knows? It is Here you see a contrast and a process: sketch, graphic you learn to expect it. You novel, cartoon, film, can experience Rubens and theater piece… the Museo Palazzo Rosso, walk a couple feet, enter the vicoli, make a left, Do you feel your work is inspired by Genoa? Particularly and you’re like, “What the hell? Everything has the historic center. (Senti che changed!” It is a strong il tuo lavoro è ispirato per contrast, but that’s just Genova? In particolare il centro what it is like here.

storico.)

As much as I try and convey the fantasy world, I think it is important to understand that reality always surpasses imagination. The greatest place to learn is on the street where there are beautiful things and ugly Where are these streams of things, but it is life all improvisation inspired by? the same. In the centro, (Dove sono questi flussi di it is about witnessing real life… seeing people improvvisazione ispirano?) walking by, interacting with others, and I make They are from my dream sure to take away what I world. They are totemic. need. I am really inspired They hold symbolism. They by architecture and the all came from my inner strange characters of the world, dreams and fantasy. street… here we have the pushers and these women How has your work transformed over time? (Come è standing on corners but really they are part of the il vostro lavoro trasformata nel true landscape here.

Describe Genoa in a few words.

(Descrivere Genova in poche parole.)

This is more difficult than spending two hour hours describing it. For me, Genoa is both love and hate. It’s beautiful, but conservative. The city is evidence of this mentality; it just doesn’t change.

People like to complain a lot, but then don’t act to make any changes.

This isn’t Milan with its skyscrapers. Here you need to walk, search, and discover, which is one of my favorite activities.

But then other things just don’t make me happy… The population is older and even the young people here think like the old. It tempo?) is different here in the Some people are afraid of centro, where it is lively Really, I always had this these things… it’s an issue and cultured. Outside of certain vision… I feel like of filtering the beautiful the centro, people just I have been working up to from the strange or things think about soccer, Genoa this point, and to a point your don’t know about or versus Sampdoria, shopping, in the future, since I was haven’t experienced. Space and their work. They lack very young. I have always is a big issue for people culture. Here is the better been interested in stories who come here… and there is part of Genoa. and fantasy since I was a no physical space here.

boy. And I have worked to With Genoa you have to have find the way to do it.

Do you think that the caruggi an open mind and accept (very narrow alleyways in the extremes. You have to I have tried new mediums Zeneise) can affect people’s way accept the beautiful and and created new types of the ugly. It is a place of of life? art along the way. I draw, contrasts.

I paint, I design sets (Pensi che il caruggii può and characters for plays… influenzare modo di vita?)

I design logos and create etchings. They are all It really is an issue of based on my philosophy closeness… its almost and realized in my style. like the country here, a And this is a job, not village. You get to know a passion. Well it is a people. It’s important passion, but at the same because it’s about sharing.

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in the center

There has been very little change within Genoa’s historic center in the last 50 years. After large urban development projects which lead to large swaths of the city being demolished and reshaped, further development has been slow. There have been some new additions, some surprising and some almost indistinguishable to the untrained eye, all received with a mixed reception by the Genoese.

1. McDonalds in the Sottorippa, 2012 The sottorippa is an 800-year-old arcade within the historic center of Genoa and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The structure is a series of buildings with a covered walkway that used to be just at the edge of the harbor. You can imagine the sailors unloading their wares just meters from the arcade. Today the port is about 100 meters away, the stores and restaurants that line this walkway are in a neverending flux, and the life of the sottorippa is almost an institution. Currently small stores owned

by Chinese immigrants, kebab stands, and the odd fur coat shop lined the path until a new addition in 2012: A McDonalds. This was met with resistance but it founds its spot in one of Genoa’s oldest districts. Its presence is an explicit sign of the strength of globalization even into areas that have undergone very little transformation.

2.The Sopraelevata, 1965 The sopraelevata is a raised highway that runs along the city’s port edge. It is raised in order to maintain the connection between the city and the public port. Unfortunately, it is an eyesore, both from the city and the sea. The functionalist design is lacking and considering its prominent position it should have garnered a more sophisticated design. The Genoese are not fond of this structure and some have suggested tearing it down. In the last ten years a series of tunnels have been built that bypass the use of the sopraelevata, making it superfluous.

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4.Elementary School by PFP Architekten, 2014 Placed on a prominent edge of Piazza delle Erbe, one of the city’s busiest plazas, we find a strange, shifted contemporary building painted in a blue color unlike anything in the city. The structure features a large shifted blue box placed upon a three story stone-clad pedestal. The result is a building that looks completely out of scale and out of place next to the tall and thin stucco buildings just next to it. As you walk past this, you’ll see people stop and gawk at it, possibly thinking, “Who on earth could’ve put this here?”

3. University of Genoa Faculty of Architecture, Ignazio Gardella, completed 1989 Designed on the ruins of old churches, the Facolta de Architectura is a success within the centro. The monumental modern structure uses local materials and a surface rhythm that relates to its context, creating a successful connection with this city. The building leans against Castello Hill creating a high wall to the east, and a set of stairs on the west along the hill. Gardella pulled traditional elements from the city and implemented them in a way that created a visible and modern architecture befitting of the oldest quarter of the city.

5. Modern-day Palazzos in Piazza Sarzano, 1990 A section of the medieval center adjacent to Piazza Sarzano was demolished and replaced in the 90s by a series of building that look almost exactly to the ones that were originally there. The buildings display the same scale, fenestration patterns, and height in relation to the older buildings just across the alley. In its effort to fit into the Centro, it sticks out because of the immaculate paint job and the seamless connection from one “palazzo” to the next. This begs the ever-recurring question: is better to replicate or create something new?

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“To translate is to convey. It is to move something without altering it. This is its original meaning and this is what happens in translatory motion… things can get bent and lost or lost along the way. The assumption that there is a uniform space through which the meaning may glide without modulation is more that just a naïve delusion, however. Only by assuming its pure and unconditional existence in the first place can any precise knowledge of the pattern of deviation s from this condition be gained.”

This is the opening paragraph from Robins Evans’ “Translations from Drawing to Building.” Evans considers the obsession or duty of faithfully translating a 2D drawing to a 3D building.

While teaching at an art college he has the epiphany that architects do not make buildings, but that they design drawings. What the architect does is lay ink on paper, not place mortar between bricks.

Could there be a heavier focus on the creating of the drawing, and disconnect “the architect” from construction?

to produce by reflection on the reality outside the drawing, as productive of a reality that will end up outside the drawing.” I would suggest I was trying to validate the work I was planning on doing the rest of this project.

He claims that people do not realize that true influence of the drawing in architecture, so what purpose does the drawing ‘after’ architecture hold?

The answer is in the question, it is a reflection.

As you reflect on the building, whether you are consciously doing it or not, you are trying to find what you initially went there looking for. You are reflecting on the space, and the goal is to generate ideas from this reflection.

Unexpected connections give way to innovative ideas.

The goal is arrive as a blank slate, and allow the space to inform you. As you draw, you will root up old ideas and new ones. Evans mentions that in the process of translating a drawing to a building, there is an economy, a give and take between the displacement of the image. This I approached this reading from is also the case for the drawing. another angle, considering the There is a limit to how accurately translations from building to you can translate the image you drawing, and my “naïve delusion” are seeing, and also how much of concluding something possibly you can ‘see’ of what the original “correct” about the original designer put into a space. intention of this structure. Evans says, “Drawing in architecture is Through this semester of traveling not done after nature, but prior with the group I carried out the to construction; it is not so much documentation of the building 14

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in its existing state. A group of more “traditional” drawings were compiled, including projections like the plan, section, elevation, and the axonometric. This process helps the architect create a thorough understanding of the structure, and provides a base for further analysis.

Detail drawing of light well at Notre Damn du Haut in ronchamp by Corbusier, completed 1954. Light filtered down from above onto the concave wall and a small altar.

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TRAVEL SKETCHES

Group travel throughout Italy and neighboring countries provided material to practice sketching and observation of buildings and spaces. top: lingotto factory in Turin, Italy with detail sketch of Renzo Piano’s Pinacoteca.

Middle left: Exploded axonometric of the Pazzi Chapel, suggesting the telescoping volumes of its interior.

Middle right: Overhead axonometric of La Tourette to describe all seperate elements of the complex.

Bottom: Section through Querini Stampalia by Scarpa.

Opposite page: Mixed watercolor sketches of Corbusier’s Notre Dame du Haut and the Oratory from La Tourette. I paid particular attention to elements that filter light into the space, like the tapered windows in Ronchamp. The rough texture of the beton was attention grabbing, yet subtle,

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GESÙ: FIRST LOOK

By the end of the fall semester, I decided to study the Gesù complex in the historic center of Genoa. The complex includes a 16th century church and a thin, wrap building that relates to Piazza de Ferrari(~1910).

What is intriguing about this building is the way it exists in two seperate seasons of genoa’s existense: just between the Middle Ages and Rennaisance, and the turn of the 20th century. While the genoa of the Gesù was based on religion and regional power, the genoa of the 20th century was a response to globalization and industry. Today Liguria’s regional government, la Regione Liguria, is housed in the wrap building.

These are some of my first sketches of the church. I was trying to capture the incredible light quality of the interior which at certain hours glows golden as it reflects off the lush Baroque interior.

The contrast of the voluminous church to the responsive and regularized perimeter of the wrap is of key interest.

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Il Gesù, completed in 1598, is a baroque church and was designed through an internal geometric process and is meant as an interior experience. Light is filtered through the upper windows and domes, allowing it to penetrate from above onto the congregation.

The building does not react externally to the city but its main façade is oriented to Genoa’s then-contemporary center, Piazza Matteoti. The church was once adjacent to a cloister, which was demolished and replaced

by Piazza de Ferrari, the city’s current urban center.

The modern building, constructed in the early 20th century for a shipping company, is a thin building that functions as a veneer for the once exposed volumes of the existing church.

The neo-Mannerist façade unified Piazza de Ferrari stylistically and strengthened it as the city’s new center. Conceptually, this building operates very differently from how it initially appears, a standalone building working as a composed screen. The stage it activates is the public realm of Piazza de Ferrari.

This case study will explore the relationship between the separate parts of this complex, with particular consideration to the architectural form of the 20

church and the complex’s urban relationship to the city.

The process begins with the architectural examination of form, mass, and proportion through a process of translation and reduction into specific architectural concepts. The complex is studied as a whole and dissected into specific fragments.

This study will hopefully lead me to make unexpected connections within the complex that cannot be understood as contemporary concepts for design. I want to find a way to connect a building from 16th century to the modern life of Genoa.

As mentioned in “In Citta,” Genoa has had modern and contemporary additions to the city that have not felt cohesive with their surroundings. I wanted to develop a framework of architectural motifs that would be akin to Genoa now, and by taking this process, also lead to an understanding of the Genoa of the past.

Finding these notions within existing and key structures withing the city will hopefully lead to a building that can be both contextual and appreciated by the people who love Genoa.

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Rich interior of the GESÙ church near sunset.

While the church was built throughout the 16th century, the interior was remodeled during the baroque period. It is very characteristic of the style due of the encrusted quality of golden moulding, detailed marble and boasts a rubens painting in one of the chapels.

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CONTEXT

View of the NGI Building from Piazza de Ferrari, The Side of the church is hidden by this façade. To the right is the Ducal palace and on the far left is the Nuova Borsa, the building the NGI was modeled after.

BUILDING

View of the renovated Façade of the Gesù, designed by rubans and built in the 19th century, from Piazza Matteoti. To the left is the Ducal Palace and on the right are a series of palazzi that continue along via San Lorenzo.

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INTERIOR AS FAร ADE

Faรงades are understood as being the face of the building and usually carry meaning. The faรงades of the complex and the change in orientation over its two periods is very symbolic. In the case of the church, I believe it has a secondary faรงade: the walls of the central nave.

This is a conclusion i came to after considering the scale of the procession as being similar to the scale of gathering spaces in the medieval center of genoa.

Conversely, the aisles represent the scale of the interior. The experience of standing within either space is like that of outside looking in, or the inverse.

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SHIFTING FAÇADES

In relation to the previous topic of frontage and genoa’s changes over time, this becomes evident by examining the shift of complex. La Chiesa del Gesù’s 16th century façade faced Piazza Matteotti, the square in front of the Ducal Palace.

The Doge of Genoa was effectively the ruler of the Republic of Genoa, and always a member of the ruling merchant class of the region. The original design of the church included a passageway that would directly connect the church to the doge’s palace suggesting it’s importance to the ruling powers and the people.

In the early 20th century, the building that wraps the church was built to complete the perimeter of Piazza de Ferrari.

It was the headquarters for the Navigazione Generale Italiana, a shipping company. The buildings along the square include the theater Carlo Felice, a series of bank buildings, and the new stock exchange. Cultural and International powers are now of key importance for italy as growth and globalization becomes of key interest.

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SURFACE PATTERN

The interior volume of the GesĂš is made up of barrel vaults, massive marble vlad columns, 6 small light filled domes, and the large, central dome.

All of these elements are gilded, clad in marble or painted.

The effect of a pattern on a form can serve to enhance or obscure the nature of the volume. In the case of this space, the patterning exhalts the form and leads the eye along the church’s contours.

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WATERCOLOR STUDIES Watercolor is an incredible medium to study the way light filters into a space or settles on a surface. The image on the left is a watercolor study deomnstrating how the light lands on the faceted exterior volume of the church. Some surfaces are obscured and recede due to the shadows cast on them, while others are amplified by this contrast.

On the right I used the transarency of the medium to do a study of the church’s plan. The image is not particularly succesful as a representation of the space, but is an interesting graphic study of the way the volumes interlock.

In this case I found watercolor to be valuable for its ability to render quick and gestural studies of light and form.

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Following the semester of analysis, I came to a series of conclusions about the building complex and Genoa as a city.

These observations dealt with spatial organization, proportional motifs, and considered the city around the building in both its past and present forms.

As I studied the building, drawings started as simple plans and developed into more loaded projections, one drawing informing the next. As a result, each image has an intellectual heritage, or path, that it took to reach its final form. The richest lineages led to further studies and more developed drawings.

The drawings from this section can be understood as a series of ideas and images combined to create a collage of the GesĂš complex, but also of Genoa.

The goal of this transformation is to illustrate a relationship between Genoa’s past and present. Genoa, while it continues to progress, will always have an unbreakable link to its past as long as the medieval structure stands. Even though the Genoese may no longer speak Zeneise, the palazzos and churches of the center will speak for them.

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my studio pin-up board in Genoa. After beginning the case study of the church I realized it would be helpful to track and generate ideas for more drawings by creating a web. This way I was able to reflect on my process and develop new projections or combinations that might not have been initially apparent unless connected in this manner.

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MUSEUM OF THE TREASURY

This museum was designed

by Franco Albini in 1950.

The church is attached to the Cathedral of San Lorenzo, in the historic center of Genoa.

This space was of particular interest to me because of the dual nature of its space and the object it holds. This is a similar idea to that of the church wrapped by the regulating building.

Two different centuries, different motivations, both with interesting contrasts.

This buliding holds artifacts of the Catholic church, including a piece that is considered to be the holy grail. All of the pieces within are considered priceless and are held within a modern, Mid-century space. Albini based the circular spaces, on three vertices of the hexagon, on the Tholos.

The tholos structure was used often as both a tomb and as a treasury.

In this drawing I wanted to describe the interior of the space using descriptive drawings as well as perspective projections from a variety of view points. The key station point is at the center of the hexagon where you can appreciate the geometry of the space. // Perspectives on Vellum, 34� diameter

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SURFACE AND FORM

The culmination of the drawing series of “Surface Pattern” (Pg. 36) where I studied the patterning of the interior of the Gesù. Despite its seemingly distorted form, the frontal axonometric allows for an objective appreciation of the patterned. // Frontal Axonometric Projection with Abstracted Material Motif (NTS) Ink on Mylar, 18” by 24”

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DRAWING CONTRASTS // 2015

DRAWING CONTRASTS // 2015

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SHIFTED AXES

Climax of shifting façades (pg.34-35) where I suggest relationships between the Gesù complex and sociopolitical changes in Genoa from 16th century to the 20th.

The drawing also demonstrates the differences in scale on the edge of genoa’s medieval center to the modern center. // Plan View on Watercolor Paper, 1:250 (Actual) 22” by 22”

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DRAWING CONTRASTS // 2015

DRAWING CONTRASTS // 2015

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DRAWING CONTRASTS // 2015

PROPORTIONAL

STUDIES

A study of proportion between the three main “façades” of the Complex and suggesting a relationship to the urban scale.

Wrap (NGI) Building: ~1925 Gesù Nave: 17th Century Gesù Updated Façade: 1895 Piazza Del Erbe: ~1200 Façade Ducal Palace: ~1200 // Mixed media on Watercolor Paper, 30” by 22”

DRAWING CONTRASTS // 2015

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NESTED VOLUMES

When the architect of the NGI Wrap building first proposed enveloping the Gesù church, the idea was met with a lot of controversy. The idea of wrapping a historic building, which depends on light filtering into its golden volumes, did not seem like the best option.

Years later, a second proposal passed and the building was wrapped with the thine neo-Mannerist “screen”. As a result, several of the chapel windows are covered, limiting the filtering in of light.

In this drawing I wanted to highlight the contrast the light and golden volumes of the church, inside the heavy, yet tveneer-like Neo-Mannerist building. I treated the church’s interior surface of gold, marble, and painted details as a uniform golden surface, suggesting how in actuality it is a light surface that envelopes a massive, structural system. // Mixed Media on Watercolor paper, Not to Scale, 15” by 22.5”

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DRAWING CONTRASTS // 2015

DRAWING CONTRASTS // 2015

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In essence, this project is about documenting a particular lens on Genoa, my lens. It began fueled by my intent of drawing, and my personal knowledge and understanding of the city. As I observed the city, I developed my method of seeing, merged it with my cognitive heritage, and began to formulate my idea of the city.

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Gesù while also being about structure and unification as shown on the NGE façade.

Through this building I have learned the history of the city and strengthened the idea of how much weight architecture carries as a historic marker of its time.

Once I focused my lens on Genoa, I began to discover how deeply the idea of the contrast is rooted in the city as an ideal, image, and way of life. The light that filters through the centuries old buildings of the Centro is the visible manifestation of this. Locals strengthened this belief of mine, saying that visitors but enter with an “open mind” and “acceptance of the beauty and ugliness.”

This is in no way meant as a definitive description of Genoa. It would take many years and infinite personal accounts to amass all of the ways that Genoa has been examined and appreciated as a city. Mine is a view of the individual within a extensive collective. It is the view of a foreigner within a completely new framework, attempting to mold to a new way of life. It is the story of one building and what is has to say about the thousand others that surround it.

I directed my lens on the Gesù church because it was one of these in-between structures in the heart of Genoa’s center, something that is both now and then. The periods the building represents are of regional pride and power, and also the international reach of Italy at the turn of the century. It is about beauty and feeling as demonstrated by the gilded interior of the

The process of learning about a place via its architecture and creating drawings to illustrate what I have learned has provided me with a method that can be applied again and again.

Genoa has served as a rich and varied landscape to practice this technique for the first time and I look forward to discovering a new place through a similar lens.

DRAWING CONTRASTS // 2015

DRAWING CONTRASTS // 2015

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DRAWING CONTRASTS // 2015

DRAWING CONTRASTS // 2015

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Drawing CONTRASTS On Drawing Methods and Contemporary Representation of Genoa

Jeanne Canto Master of Arts in Architecture Florida International University Fall 2015