Pantheon, Rome

Rome, Italy

Chapter Author - Julio Bermudez

The Pantheon is a timeless work of architecture that exhibits aesthetic qualities in construction, which led me to investigate how it connects our bodies to the ethereal. The illustration begins by understanding the quality of light and how it enters the space from the oculus. The oculus produces a circle of light that projects onto the interior of the building when the time is true noon. The light’s four stages from the rotunda to the floor are the winter solstice, the equinox, “Dies Natalis,” and the summer solstice. “Dies Natalis” is the name of the phenomenon for the rebirth of the sun (in Latin it means ‘birthday/anniversary’), and this day falls on April 21st. This celestial alignment falls perfectly in line with the entrance into the Pantheon. When it is noon on April 21st, the doorway becomes a spiritual threshold due to the way the light is pouring into the doorway. The oculus of the Pantheon becomes an instrument for transcendental moments through the way it “necessitates the assistance of light and silence” (10).

The work “Between Cathedrals” resembles a palatable architecture that is meant to evoke the user in their experience within a space by framing the space. The secular nature of Between cathedrals is through both materiality and form; the architecture is made to stand out as a juxtaposing geometry, but remain silent behind the landscape. The architecture is meant as only a stage or a window to view nature from. These palatable strategies are highly reminiscent of Mies’ Farnsworth House. The Farnsworth is a home designed very simply in order to act as a conduit for viewing nature and its foliage. Two solid planar slabs held up by eight tectonic columns and separated by a glass curtain wall provide framed views of nature. This produces the effect where people are the guests witnessing nature, and this architecture becomes a place of serenity. “Materials that transcend materiality.”1

Medium: Vellum, led pencil, Tombow ABT Watercolor Pen