Possible Palladio - Fragmented Origins

Possible Palladio

Fragmented Origins

Rebecca Lynn Raucci School of Architecture College of Design, Construction and Planning University of Florida Gainesville, Florida 32603

Contact :: Rebecca.Raucci@gmail.com

Year of Publication :: 2010

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Possible Palladio

Fragmented Origins

A Composite of Invented Fragments

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Rebecca Lynn Raucci Masters of Architecture [GSOA] Univeristy of Florida

Faculty Advisors Thesis Chair :: Professor Martin Gundersen Thesis Co-Chair :: Professor Bradley Walters The following is a Master’s Research Project presented to the University of Florida School of Architecture in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Masters of Architecture.

University of Florida, 2010

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Fragmented Origins A Composite of Invented Fragments

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“[Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.”

Colossians 1:15 -17

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Many, many thanks to :: Jesus the very first creator [who is my everything] for giving me joy and peace and abundant life Mom for always being there for me and for all your constant prayers Dad for making me laugh even when I’m trying so hard to be upset Joshua for being my AMAZING travel buddy and patiently waiting while I stared at buildings and drew things Professor Gundersen for being my mentor the past 7 years, for showing me beautiful Italy, and for teaching me to teach Professor Walters for (upon our very first thesis meeting about Palladio) telling me that I “have to fall in love with this guy!”

Le famiglie di DiPietro, Mazza e D’Amica Grazie mille per tutto Aunts, Uncles, cousins, second cousins, and everyone in the entire [crazy] Raucci family for being such a support even though you are not physically here - I love you all so much Friends and Studio-mates for helping me to grow as a designer and for letting me be my crazy self in studio

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1 I Introduction

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Beginnings of Palladio

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Virtue of Rome

From Stonemason to Student Drawing and Measuring A Name to Safeguard Rome Atmospheric Qualities Within Eternity Fresh Vision in the Veneto Traces of Origins

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In the Footsteps of Palladio

Intrigue of Palladio Experience of the Ruins

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I Elements of Place

Wall Gate Bridge River Cistern Baths Tower Column Obelisk

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I Brutte Villas

Perfect Timing Agricultural Landscape Infinite Expansion Villa Visits Villa Saraceno Villa Thiene Villa Trissino

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I Drawing Discoveries

Drawing and Measure Origins of the Inbetween Ambiguities Playing with Pieces Invisible Villas

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I Engaging Villa Trissino

History Traces of Rome Something old, something new

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I Methods of Making

Wood-plates Invented Matrix Postcard Inventions

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I Essence of the Place

Temporal Elements Material Palete

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I Endings

Passing Atmospheres Concluding thoughts Works/Images cited

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Introduction

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In the midst of ancient ruins, a story is held. Marks on the surface are etchings of history. Remains reveal the past organizational structure of a once whole construction. The fragments are contained within an atmosphere that cannot be easily determined, for it is continually changing; yet, its aura remains constant.

It tells of the place it has been a part of, the people it has sheltered, the events it has held, and the time that transcends our brief life.

“I have also traveled many times to Rome … where I have seen with my own eyes and measured with my own hands the fragments of many ancient buildings, which, having remained upright until our own age … provide, even as stupendous ruins, clear and powerful proof of the virtu and greatness of the Romans.”

-Andrea Palladio, QL 1 [3]

Andrea Palladio was one of the most influential architects in history.

He was captivated by ancient Roman ruins.

He visited the Roman ruins.

He studied, drew, invented, and composed the antiquity as he imagined them to be.

He left Rome, bringing the essence of the ruins with him.

He embedded the aura of the antiquity in the atmosphere of his spaces.

He designed dwellings, modern for their time, which surpassed the ideas of the architects before him.

This master’s research project seeks to uncover Palladio’s genius through his personal story as well as capture the essence and ideas that are held within his villas. The process is the same as Palladio’s: visiting the ruinous villas and experiencing their atmosphere through studying, drawing, and other methods of documentation. The fragments and ideas of the villas are the inspiration for a garden composed of invented fragments and temporal elements. The garden lies among the ruinous Villa Trissino, located in Meledo, Italy. The garden edge is defined by the Brenta stream, a site containing artifacts that date back to Roman times. Thus, through the composed fragments of 16th century villas, elements and ideas from Rome, and along with the rich history of the site, this villa will hold the understanding of diachronic antiquity.

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Beginnings of Palladio

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From Stonemason to Student “La storia è più grande dell’uomo, il cui arco di vita è piccolo rispetto a quello del tempo che passa; l’uomo però è spinto sempre dal desiderio di migliorare ed è così che il progresso và avanti.

The story is bigger than man, whose lifetime is small compared to that of passing time; but man is driven by the desire to always improve and that is how the progress goes on.”

(Meledo 2010)

In order to understand Palladio, we must first look at his story, for it is his life’s experiences that construct his thoughts and compose his approach to architecture. Andrea Palladio was born as Andrea di Pietro in the year 1508 in Padova, Italy. The son of a Paduan millworker, he was born on the 30th of November, the day of the Feast of Saint Andrew the Apostle, and thus given the name Andrea (Lewis, 1981). At the age of thirteen, he began his work in the field of bricklayers, stonemasons and stone carvers. He worked for the Pedemuro workshop of Giacomo da Porlezza, the company that produced many of the decorative sculptures in Vicenza. His craft was sculpting stone – carving mass into a beautiful detailed element of a building. He literally built the building; being involved with the details of buildings long before he even drew them. It was his craft, a craft that he was involved with for seventeen years, that would prove to become an integral part in his life.

In 1538, Andrea met the Vicentine nobleman Count Gian Giorgio Trissino, a relationship that would redirect the path of his life.

Trissino, an amateur architect among other professions, “was one of the leading writers on orthography, grammar and literary theory of his time.” (CISA 2010) He is the author of the heroic epic: “L’Italia Liberata dai Goti,” a story that within itself exemplifies Trissino’s views on life. Aristotle as his “maestro,” this epic illustrates many of Trissino’s interests and humanist ideas. The story is about the expulsion of the Goths from Italy by Belisarius, Justinian’s commander, intending to safeguard the survival of classical traditions. “The epic combined history with mythology and theology but also threw much light on astronomy, medicine, alchemy necromancy, mathematics and naval, military and civic architecture.” (Wittkower, 1965) In the fifth book of the epic, is his

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Beginnings of Palladio description of a palace, including a poetically-phrased section about Vitruvius: A cloister runs around the little coutrtard Its spacious arches resting on round pillars Whose height is equal to the pavements’s width; Their thickness is their height by eight divided Each column has a silver capital Whose height repeats the measure of its thickness Whereas the shaft stands on a metal base Which is again exactly half as high

(Wittkower 1965) Through this writing emerges the mind of Trissino, suggesting the building as a modular structure and proportions important to the whole of a building. The entire epic summarized Trissino’s life work and ambitions. Trissino realized that the “literary effect depends on grammar and choice of vocabulary. It may be that Trissino himself saw the parallel between linguistic structure and a structured approach to architectural design.” (CISA 2010) Trissino was recognizing a connection between architecture and language, maybe even exploring the need for a classification of components within a set of principles. Through architecture and literature, he was further investigating these ideas, while influencing his students at the same time. “Trissino’s humanism was aristocratic and in a way anachronistic; he advocated a formal esoteric and dogmatic classicism, free from any popular tendencies.”

(Wittkower 1965)

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A Name to Safeguard Rome Unlike Palladio’s contemporaries of the Renaisance, “his beginnings lacked any personal advantage.” (Palladio 1997) Palladio was not established as an architect by birth or by training, or by being from the advancing rich artistic cities such as Rome and Florence like his contemporaries. Trissino recognized Andrea’s spirited character as well as his unearthed genius and immediately acquired him as his student. As a student of Trissino, the very first thing to do was to change Andrea’s name to Palladio. In L’Italia Liberata dai Goti, the name “Palladio” was first chosen for the angel (who is well versed in architecture) but the name is also derived from the goddess Pallas Athene; the Romans believing that the Palladium (the talisman in her image), was a symbol of wisdom and vision that safeguarded Rome. Therefore the name Palladio is doubly allusive (Wittkower 1965) and fitting for Andrea’s new identity. Trissino has made a dramatic impact, changing Palladio’s name, his profession, and his influence on architectural conceptions.

(Wittkower 1965) Trissino cultivated Palladio’s genius. He began Palladio’s training by guiding Palladio through Vitruvius, inspiring his interest in antiquity. Palladio “believed that Vitruvius held the deepest secrets of ancient architecture” (Wittkower 1965) Trissino took him to Rome three times in the 1540’s, along with the painter Giambattista Maganza and the poet Marco Thiene, “which opened his eyes as to the character of ancient and modern architecture in the city, which till then he would have known only through drawings and Serlio’s Quarto Libro (1537) and Terzo Libro (1540)” (CISA 2010) Palladio first experience of Rome was alongside a humanist literary master, a painter and a poet; Palladio’s influences came not only from what he was, but where he was and whom he was with.

Fresh Vision in the Veneto Palladio lived at the end the Renaissance, the end of a revolution. His home was Vicenza, adopting the cities and countryside of the Veneto region. Venice was said to cultivate the myth of Roman origins without having the ruins to prove it. (Palladio 1997) Palladio describes Venice as “the sole remaining exemplar of the grandeur and magnificence of the Romans.” (Palladio 1996) He worked distant and removed from Rome and Florence, the Italian cities of artistic birth, so it was his independence that allowed him to thrive and make his own discoveries and inventions. His architecture had a “fresh blush of discovery – of true Rinascimento (renaissance) – which is probably why it proved so influential.” (Rybczynski, 2002)

His architecture had a “fresh blush of discovery – of true Rinascimento (renaissance) – which is probably why it proved so influential.” (Rybczynski, 2002)

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Virtue of Rome

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Ruins in Rome

Drawing and Measure Andrea Palladio’s initial trip to Rome was inspirational. Palladio was greatly moved by the “stupendous ruins,” (Palladio 1996) even more so than he originally thought he would be. It took a bit of imagination to understand the greatness from the remains that were partially buried under centuries of debris, yet he recognized these fragments as powerful symbols of civilized virtu. “The indulgence of the city on Palladio’s intellectual development was immediate and marked.”

(Palladio 1997) Palladio was “deeply stirred by studying the ‘quality of virtu’” of the Roman ruins (Wittkower 1965) Virtu, in terms of antiquity, meant “excellence” and “good action.”

The essential term is the Italian virtù, which Leon Battista Alberti used in the fifteenth century for “those excelling gifts which God gave to the soul of man, greatest and preeminent above all other earthly animals.” A man of virtù in Renaissance Italian, coming from the Latin virtus meaning power or capability [note that the root for the Latin word virtus is vir, the Latin word for “man”], was a man with active intellectual power to command any situation, to do as he intended, like an architect producing a building according to his design; by contrast with someone at the mercy of fortuna, of chance or luck, of the accidents of fortuitous circumstance, unforeseen and hence out of control.

(1986 Crombie) Virtu represented all that Rome stood for, the greatness and power of Rome being held within these ancient artifacts.

Palladio measured and drew many of the ruins in Rome, first sketching in his sketchbook and then later transferring them

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Virtue of Rome to hard line drawings. He measured the ruins with his own hands, learning the structure with his hand, his pencil and his eye. Palladio also went with Daniele Barbaro to Rome and “studied the antiquities-with an eye to Vitruvius.” (Rybczynski, 2002) This trip to Rome led to a new edition of Vitruvius which ended up being an “ongoing project to decipher the text of the Roman author [translating from Latin to Italian], which was often confused or wanting in detail.” (Palladio 1997) “The dissection of the ancient ruins to establish their original purposes was, for example, vital in understanding Vitruvius’ theory of appropriateness of scale and decoration for particular building types and patrons, referred to him as ‘decorum.’” (Palladio 1997)

Atmospheric Qualities Palladio could not grasp the greatness of the Rome until he actually visited the place of ruins. There was something in the atmosphere of the ruins that affected his soul, a beauty that was unidentifiable. Can this beauty be translated? Amazed by the ruins, was there away for Palladio to return to another place, far from Rome, still holding on to their qualities, their aura? Peter Zumthor recognizes the permanence and beauty of Palladio that is revealed in the spirit of Vitruvius. Perhaps it was through the atmospheric quality that Palladio carried the essence of Rome’s beauty into his designs. Brigitte LabsEhlert writes, “Outer beauty, the measure of things, their proportions, their materials as well as their inner beauty, the core of things. It is perhaps apt to speak of the poetic quality of things.” (Zumthor 2006)

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Ruinous Facade :: Rome, Italy

Roof markings in the facade

Filled in apertures and holes from removed structure

Perhaps it was through the atmospheric quality that Palladio carried the essence of Rome’s beauty into his designs.

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Virtue of Rome The way that we sense atmosphere is through our emotions.

There is an immediate reaction when one first enters a space, a “spontaneous emotional response.” (Zumthor 2006) A building can have the ability to move a person. Palladio’s villas have this effect, at the perfect scale, seeming so intimate. The Palladian villas have an ephemeral quality that seems to be freshly new upon each visit. Zumthor notes that there is an atmospheric energy in Palladio’s buildings, that as a builder, he “must have had an extraordinary sense of the presence and weight of materials.” (Zumthor 2006)

Within Eternity

The arts do something that science cannot do. The arts have the ability to change a person’s frame of mind – to produce emotion. With music, the atmosphere of a space can change with a single note of the violin. The frequency of sound, a specific science, has turned to pure magic. Yet music is temporal. The note changes and the music stops and the emotion lingers on for another moment. Though sound, time, space, and light can be measured and subdivided, they are also endlessly expandable. Time is infinitely continuous, but atmosphere is temporal. An ancient ruin lives within infinite time, but is surrounded by shifting atmospheres, able to be grasped for mere moments. “Architecture is a spatial art... but also a temporal art. My experience of it is not limited to a single second.” (Zumthor 2006) An atmosphere sits within eternity, just as a life is a small part of eternity. But both have the ability to make an impact for the longer. Palladio’s life is

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Museo dei Fori Imperiali :: Rome, Italy

Imagined plan

Imagined thresholds

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Virtue of Rome relatively short in compasion with eternity, but his impact has effected architecture even 500 years after his death. The organization of the Palladio’s villas is temporal as well. The rooms have no specific permanent purpose; based on the season of the year, the furniture is moved and the functions of the rooms are changed. In this way, the experience is always different.

Traces of Origins Observing the ruins in Rome is as if you are observing thousands of years before your eyes. The ancient is uncovered and origins are revealed. History is seen in a facade. It is a visual history. Through its markings on its surface, a story can be imagined and a culture can be deciphered. The facade can mark different periods in time. The ruins hint at the various ways that the architecture has been used over the years. This is visible in Palladio’s villas in the way he used the ancient Roman architecture in his designs. He did not copy the architecture, rather, he used parts and pieces integrated into his villa designs, thus bringing his villas to place its origins back to ancient Rome.

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In the Footsteps of Palladio

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On the train from Rome to Florence

Mystery of Palladio It was important to me to experience a place: to experience Rome as Palladio did. After studying Palladio for a semester, the experience of his villas and my understanding of the space would be different than visiting them the first time that I went to Italy. I needed to understand the atmosphere of his villas as well as the context that they were a part of. This intense intrigue with Palladio began three years ago during the Vicenza Institute of Architecture program.

Living in a city that celebrated Palladio so incredibly, I remember leaving the Vicenza program feeling that there is so much that I wanted to know about Palladio. He held a certain key that could not be understood solely from knowing facts about him. There was a deeper understanding of his wisdom that I wanted to unlock. The key to his architectural wisdom was somehow found through his drawings, his methods of making, his fanciful inventions, walking through his buildings, and his life story.

On December 14, 2009, I flew into Rome, Italy, accompanied by my younger brother, a music composition student. I began in Rome, following the itinerary of elements in the guidebook that Palladio created. Through sketching, writing and photography, I documented the places that Palladio wrote about.

“Stupendous� Experience The Roman ruins were integrated throughout the city, modern juxtaposed with the old. In fact, I think that the ruins would not have impacted me if I had not first seen them and experienced them myself. I was in the same place as Palladio, blown away with the city and with its history. Palladio had written when first visiting

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In the Footsteps of Palladio Rome that the ruins were worthier of his attention than he had first thought, calling them “stupendous” ruins. It was the beginnings in Rome that began to direct the path of this masters research project.

“Brutte” Villas The last part of the trip included the villa visits. The villas that I chose to visit were, the “underdog villas,” or as my Italian uncle would say, the “brutte villas” (the ugly villas.) They were the idealized villas that Palladio included in his four books but were never fully realized, some struggling to be maintained to decency and others surrounded by strange newly built contexts. I also visited Villa Barbaro at Maser, a beautiful finished villa that exemplifies the vision that was in Palladio’s mind. The juxtaposition between the grand, renovated and preserved (no shoes can touch the ground surface) and the raw ruinous incomplete fragments was alarming. However, I was more intrigued with these pieces, rather than the complete finished product that is already given away. Maybe because architecture is never completely done and can always be pushed further; we are always imagining or visualizing different possibilities of what something could be.

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Aristotle declared, “Experience creates art. Experience relies on universal principles, though these must be discovered by experience.�

(Wittkower 1965)

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Elements of Place

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Baths of Caracalla

L’antichita In 1554, while in Rome with Daniele Barbaro, Palladio published his guidebook to Rome, Le antichita di Roma. The essence of the book to truly understand the antiquities, thus Palladio measured the Roman ruins and collected information. He helped form the conception of ancient Rome, recreating the scene, providing historical facts as well as traditions that impacted the way that people lived. Unlike the previous guidebooks such as Mirabilia urbis Romae, he omitted the extravagant myths and marvels of Rome and kept the guidebook factual. “His work was the nucleus from which most roman guidebooks developed.” (Wittkower 1965) Alberti, an influential character in Palladio’s studies of Rome, used his guidebook, Descriptio Urbis Romae, published in 1444 to create an idealized view of Rome to thus further the power and eternal nature of Rome. He describes the greatness through the river, the streets, location of the temples, gates and monuments and documents the lineamenta of the walls in relationship to the Capitol center of the city, idealizing the city as a circular form enclosed by its walls. Palladio’s guidebook briefly implies circularity, first discussing the circumference of the city. He then describes the Roman gates “through which his readers ‘enter’ the city.” He then moves to the principal streets, roads, and bridges. Then the guide denotes the essential physical features (such as the water supply and the cisterns), monumental structures, the necessary public buildings for pleasure and utility and the military monuments in the city. “It is as if Palladio is – ever the architect – is rehearsing the original laying–out of the great city” (Palladio 1997) His guidebook, unlike the previous guidebooks of others, not only documents the physical attributes of the place but also includes

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Elements of Place information on Roman society, his value attesting to less of the physical attributes, and more of the invisible ones of virtue and history.

Idealized Map of Ancient Rome [1532]

The book is “transitional in character, reflecting in some ways their author’s own transformation from ‘di Pietro’ the stonemason, whose training was rooted in medieval craft legends, to ‘Palladio’ the architect whose training was rooted in Renaissance humanism and the study of Vitruvius.” (Palladio 1997)

2 [Porta San Sebastiano] Gate

Palladio’s guidebook presented Rome through its ruins. There is truth in the ruins. By their presence alone, a story is told from the fragments of what has been left behind. Within these artifacts are layers of the city, layers of history. History cannot be separated from architecture and architecture cannot be separated from history. Architects construct places that outlast their own lives. Buildings in which “merits and faults usually last forever” (Vitruvius 1960). Architecture is our concrete history. The left remnants hint at the function of a place, the way that people lived. They tell about the people, their class, who they were, their customs, rituals and daily life.

They leave room for invention, room to imagine the changing character of a place. The naming of bridges based on different rulers, the triumphs that occurred at the backdrop of majestic gate, and the walls that show the expansion of the city, are all visual pieces of history that come together as they are revealed to the visitor. A deep understanding of Rome becomes accessible through the visual itineraries of the ancient remains.

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1 Wall [of Roman Boundaries] 3 [Ponte Rotto] Bridge 4 Column [of Marcus Aurelius] 5 [Tiber] River 6 Baths [of Caracalla]

M. Fabio Calvo’s Antiquae urbis Romae simulachrum [1532]

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6 4 2

Visited monuments from Calvo’s idealized map of Rome

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Elements of Place Wall [contains the city] In Rome, the city walls expanded to accommodate more land and more citizens. The wall signifies the possession of land and of people. The city wall holds and contains the city. It moves, shifts and travels alongside the topography of the land, telling the history of what is there now and what was once before.

It holds a history telling of a ruler’s reign, the boundaries of a city and how it accommodates the land. The wall serves as a source of protection, a comfort to the inhabitants within.

There is something intriguing and comforting about touching a wall that has a history to it. Knowing that the mass of a thick wall is made up of multiple layers of material, sensing that there is a more to be unearthed. The thickness of the wall, its mass and its height, make its presence known from the largest distances.

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Opposite Page :: Portion of the wall near Porta San Sebastiano

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Elements of Place Gate [threshold into the city] The gate is significant for the ritual of passage into the city; it is a portal into a new place. Palladio writes, “no expense was spared in their making, � (Pallladio 1997) cutting slopes and filling valleys, any extreme to create the magnificent gate. The Porta di San Sebastiano was previously called the Porta Appia, the Porta Fontinale and the Porta Capena. This particular gate, San Sebastiano, is a gate of triumph. One of the three Horatii who overcame the Curiatii was documented as entering through this gate.

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Opposite Page :: Porta San Sebastiano

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Elements of Place Bridge [threshold in the water] The bridge connects a place over the water. It is a spatial threshold for one traveling in the water, a gate in the water.

It becomes an overhead condition that digs deep down into the water. For the person on foot, the bridge is a constructed ground condition that links two pieces of land. Originally, there were eight bridges over the Tiber River. The only two that remain are visible by the either the existing fragments or merely the remaining foundation of the bridge. The Ponte Rotto was first bridge to cross over the Tiber River. The bridge was rebuilt three times. Initially, it was called the Pons Sublicius, a bridge made out of wood, and during Palladio’s time remnants of the damaged bridge could still be seen in the water. The bridge was then rebuilt out of stone by Pons Aemilius, which was destroyed by a flood and then restored by Emperor Tiberius. Lastly, Antonius Pius had it built of marble and that is what remains today.

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Above :: Sketch of Ponte Rotto Opposite Page :: Ponte Rotto

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Elements of Place Column [vertical trophy, commemorates the Great] In ancient times, the column was a symbol that stood for greatness. Whether standing alone as a monument to the city, or together with many in a temple, the intention of the column was not for structural reasons, its colossal height represented greatness. The column of Marcus Aurelius sits on the Montecitorio. It is 165 feet fall with a 206-step staircase inside. Winding around the outside of the column are the deeds that he performed.

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Sketch of Marcus Aurelius Column

Right :: column of Marcus Aurelius

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Elements of Place River [natural edge] The river is a source of life. The water that runs through a city is a reminder that the built environment cannot rely on itself alone, it must accommodate the natural and construct itself based on the river’s movement. The river links city to city, and city to sea. The Tiber river runs through the city of Rome.

Originally, the Tiber River was called the Albula. Next, it was named Tiburinus after the King of Albani who drowned in it.

During the course of the river’s history, it was straightened, widened, and had a change in course.

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Tiber River near the Ponte Rotto

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Elements of Place Baths [communal gathering, carves the ground] The baths (thermae) were grand places to wash in. The impressive scale of the baths can be perceived from the enormous fragments that remain. The baths were a place for gathering and socializing, the different scales of the pools allowed for different areas and size of gatherings. There were several baths in Rome. The baths of Antonius, set on the Aventine hill were begun by Antonius Caracalla and completed

by Alexander.

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Baths of Caracalla

Baths of Antonius Caracalla

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Elements of Place Cistern [ground insertion, brings up water]

Tower [height of a city, marking place, orientation]

There were seven aqueducts in Rome, and at the end of the aqueducts branch lines, lies the cistern. The cistern is a receptacle for holding water, either catching the rainwater or receiving the water from an aqueduct. They are also used for the irrigation of land. In essence, they represent a metaphorical relationship between the sky and the ground.

The tower as part of a city is an element that provides height to the city, and marks the place. It is generally occupiable and used as a space to look out into the city. The Torre delle Milizie was built by Boniface VIII and named after the soldiers of Trajan that lived in that neighborhood. An earthquake in 1338 caused the structure to be slightly tilted.

Obelisk [city needle, traces from afar] The column was a moment that stood for greatness. Whether standing alone or together with many in a temple, the column was not structural, its colossal height represented greatness.

The column of Marcus Aurelius sits on the Montecitorio. It is 165 feet fall with a 206-step staircase inside. Winding around the outside of the column are the deeds that he performed.

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Torre delle Milizie

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Brutte Villas

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Villa Barbaro

Perfect Timing Palladio is widely recognized mostly for the designs of his villas. His majestic villa designs have been carried over to the United States, even to the most famous of buildings such as Tomas Jefferson’s Monticello and the White house. The villas (which were town and country houses) were the most common of his commissions and the most studied in comparison to his urban ones. After the War of Cambrai in the early 1500’s, there was a shift of economic means from commerce to agriculture, which resulted in new land reclamation projects in the Veneto region. This became an opportune time for Palladio to receive architectural commissions.

Most of the commissions were designed for members of aristocratic families in the Veneto, carrying a social and political presence. They were unusually large in size, yet each had a distinctive identity.

Agricultural Landscape The villas were specifically built to get away from the “agitation of the city” (Palladio 1996). Some villas set within the context of the countryside, were used partially for agricultural purposes.

According to Gable, villas were direct descendents of castles, being surrounded by walled enclosures that contained barns, dovecote towers, and places to make cheese and press grapes. Vegetable and herbal gardens and sometimes a large orchard would either be clustered around or placed within the main enclosure. (Bogglewood 1994) The program and requirements of these commissions were all very similar, giving him the opportunity to fully understand the dwelling and to perfect the house. In his drawings, he used a set standard of forms and desirable dimensions. “Early on in his architectural career Palladio realized that it was not necessary to decide for each house how wide and high the interior doors

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Brutte Villas should be, what forms stairs should have, or what profile and proportions to give to the Doric capital. It was enough to decide on a set of standard forms to be modified, certainly, when necessary, but in general applicable in most projects.

Palladio’s architecture therefore, more than that of any other Renaissance architect, is founded upon a set of carefully worked out, conceptually pre-fabricated elements.” (CISA 2010) Through his works, Palladio eagerly and affectionately taught the workmen the values of the art, such that there was not a stonemason or carpenter who did not understand the measurements, elements and principles of true architecture.

(Lewis 1981) Burns writes that the “standards Palladio set for himself came into his work as a stonemason, ordering standard sizes of stone. The architecture of Palladio is then a truly rational architecture based on principles and structured along the lines of humanist linguistics.” (CISA 2010)

Infinite Expansion Palladio’s villas are very much united to their surrounding context. He uses local materials that blend it with its surroundings and give it a sense of place. His villas are rooted in the landscape and, in a way, frame the seemingly endless Veneto fields. The Veneto fields, with its variety of corn, vineyards and other agricultural crops, creates a beautiful, colorful mosaic in which architecture can become a part of.

The approach to the villas is a spatial sequence, engaging the villa at different levels of intimacy: at a distance as a monument within the landscape, and close up as an occupiable space.

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Caroline Constant writes that, “[Scenographic space] is physically discontinuous; its unity is perceptual rather than physical. It relies on the ground plane, rather than the wall, as datum; thus it is capable of infinite extension.” (Constant 1985) The wings of his villas reach out into the landscape and simultaneously frame the central pavilion. The raised ground plane of the central pavilion creates a new ground and thus makes a distinction between the natural and the built. Constant explains that the “architecture gathers the landscape into its domain and redimensions it,” (Constant 1985) connecting the interior with the exterior.

The wings of his villas reach out into the landscape and simultaneously frame the central pavilion.

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Brutte Villas Villa Saraceno Palladio designed the Villa Saraceno for Biagio Saraceno, who held an important public office in Vicenza. The villa is located in Finale di Agugliaro, Vicenza, and is set within an older family complex. The wall and tower on the site are pre-existing although not included in the plans of the villa and the barn was added more recently, during the 19th century. The villa was intended to have two projecting wings, but its incompletion means a missing left side, and the right side joining the 15th century with the juxtaposition of the 19th.

The day that I visited the villa was a gloomy, cold day. The villa is far removed from any city center, and set within agricultural fields that seem to never end. A long deserted road directed us to the villa with a repetition of bare trees lining the way.

The ground was still wet from rain earlier in the day. The gate was locked; it was closed for the holidays. Though the villa was half completed, the villa seemed to be satisfied with how it was, as if it didn’t need any more added to it; the trees acting as its missing columns.

19th Century added barn

Finale

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Brutte Villas

Pre-Villa existing tower

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Pre-Villa existing wall

Gate entry to the Villa

The missing half is not missed at all. What lacks in the architecture, is continued with landscape.

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Brutte Villas Villa Thiene Villa Thiene was intended for two brothers; two houses built around a central courtyard. It is located in Quinto Vicentino, Vicenza. Originally, the villa was designed facing the river Tesina, the way that they would approach the entry into the villa. Only a portion of the villa was actually built, and consequently, the entry to the villa has been changed from the original intention.

The changes of the ninety-degree rotation are evident in the faรงade facing the river, containing remnants of the original entry facade. Even the river has changed through the years; since the villa was first built, the river embankment has been raised to control flooding. The villa has clear influences from ancient Roman baths and houses. The front and back faรงades have been altered over the years, and the architect Francesco Muttoni has done major changes to the garden faรงade. The holes in the faรงade are due to the extraction of metal during war times. The villa is now a municipality building, displaying notable frescoes in the interior by the sixteenth century local painter, Giovanni De Mio. Villa Thiene was the first villa that I visited during this trip.

There is now a road located in between the building and the river. The entry is through these extremely tall vertical doors.

As soon as I enter, there are offices in front and to the sides of me. An elderly Italian man greets me, giving me pamphlets about the villa as he tells me in Italian that I can go upstairs.

The main entry hall is bare of frescoes, but when I enter the room to the left, there are beautiful frescoes on the ceiling with a piano in the corner of the room. I leave the room, and go up the stairs. The top floor is a dimly lit space, a contrast to the bright half circular window on the back faรงade. The room

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on the front half of the building on the upper floor was actually not intended to be the tallest space, the building was intended to reach a higher point if actually finished. Inside that room is an exhibition space that was currently holding proposals for a modern piazza across the street.

Quinto Vicentino

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Brutte Villas

Back-side of Villa Thiene. Markings of the original entry on the side facade.

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Original entry facade.

Frescos in side meeting room.

Entry hall.

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Brutte Villas

River Tesina and bridge to the east of Villa Thiene.

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Now occupied as a city office building, Villa Theine becomes the source of life in the town of Quinto Vicentino, proposing new piazza ideas and holding art exhibitions in the unfinished spaces.

Right :: Architectural exhibition space on the top floor.

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Brutte Villas Villa Trissino While the villa Trissino is located in an appropriate place for agriculture, the villa was not just for utilitarian use. The dovecote tower was furnished with fireplaces as well as also decorated with frescos by the Veronese painter, Ellodoro Forbicini. The villa was designed to have an entry garden with a grand staircase leading up between the two wings and rise up on the projecting “porch of the villa.� The projecting porch rises up again, stepping up along with the hillside, framed by the curved barchesse. The entry axis is reinforced by the curving barchesse that scenegraphically frame the house.

The Trissino Villa was probably not finished because of its excessive size; the only completed parts being the boundary wall with the gate, the dovecote (the dove tower) and the barn.

over it. Meledo is desolate, very few people outside and most of the restaurants closed. The entry to the villa is quite hidden. The iron gate is locked; the villa is closed for the winter season, only open on certain days of the year. Because of the isolation of the town and the lack of a visible procession to the villa, the villa is easily forgotten.

The project was inspired by Palladio’s reconstruction of the Forum and Sanctuary of Fortuna Primigenia at Palestrina. The building is set into the hillside, and stepped up with the land.

The resemblance is clear from the elevations of the building compared with the ideal elevation of the Trissino villa.

Visiting the Villa Trissino was an adventure. My brother and I arrived at the almost deserted Serego train station and then traveled by an overpriced taxi to the small town of Meledo 20 minutes away. The fragments of the villa are hardly visible from the road. Across the street is a church with a beautiful bell tower. The road parallels the stream to the left until the stream makes a turn at the tower, and the road bridges

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Meledo

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Brutte Villas

Fragmented gate.

With the entry concealed and the original gate left unused, Villa Trissino, the grandest of all Palladian conceptions, has been forgotten.

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Tower and side profile of gate.

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Brutte Villas

View from the vineyards looking at the tower.

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Birds on the tower.

Stream with bridge in the distance.

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Drawing Discoveries

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Drawing and Measure Palladio was intrigued with drawing the ruins, and imagining what they could be. Drawing and measuring were his educators. This was the way that he learned. The important thing to note is that he did not copy. He used the understanding he gained from his measuring and used that as a generator for design. When drawing the ruins, he would very carefully draw and measure the fragments and then complete the composition in his drawing. Some drawings actually indicate the existing and invented parts, surviving walls indicated by shading and supposed ones drawn in outline. Palladio would draw these drawings in his sketchbooks and then some would be re-drafted in his studio, recreating his ideal image of the ruins. His sketches show his freedom and imagination, inventing multiple different ideas from only one fragment.

The following studies are drawing investigations of selected drawings of Palladio.

Using the Idealized plan and section of the three different Palladian Villas, an axonometric was put together. This axonometric was then composited with a drawing of the actual built villa.

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Drawing Discoveries Villa Saraceno Studies

Construction of Idealized Elevations + Plan

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Construction of Existing

Opposite Page :: Composite of Idealized + Existing

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Drawing Discoveries Palladio’s reconstruction of Ancient Roman Baths :: Palladio’s Idealized Saraceno :: Existing Saraceno

Ancient Elevation

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Ancient Elevation + Idealized Elevation + Existing Image

[captured fragment :: overall] Ancient + Idealized + Existing

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Drawing Discoveries

Ancient Elevation + Idealized Elevation + Existing Image + Idealized Plan

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Ancient Elevation + Idealized Elevation + Existing Image + Idealized Plan + Existing Plan

[captured fragment :: detail] Ancient + Idealized + Existing

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Drawing Discoveries Villa Thiene Studies

Construction of Idealized Elevations + Plan

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Construction of Existing

Opposite Page :: Composite of Idealized + Existing

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Drawing Discoveries Palladio’s reconstruction of Ancient Roman House :: Palladio’s Idealized Thiene :: Existing Thiene

Ancient Plan

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Ancient Plan + Idealized Plan

Ancient Plan + Idealized Plan + Existing Plan

[captured fragment :: detail] Ancient + Idealized + Existing

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Drawing Discoveries

Idealized Plan + Idealized Elevation

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Idealized Plan + Idealized Elevation + Existing Image

[captured fragment :: overall] Ancient + Idealized + Existing

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Drawing Discoveries Villa Trissino

Construction of Idealized Elevations + Plan

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Construction of Existing

Opposite Page :: Composite of Idealized + Existing

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Drawing Discoveries Palladio’s reconstruction of Fortuna Primigenia :: Palladio’s Idealized Trissino :: Existing Trissino

Ancient Elevation

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Ancient Elevation + Ancient Plan

[captured fragment :: overall] Ancient + Idealized + Existing

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Drawing Discoveries

Ancient Elevation + Ancient Plan + Idealized Plan + Idealized Elevation

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Ancient Elevation + Ancient Plan + Idealized Plan + Idealized Elevation + Existing Image

[captured fragment :: detail] Ancient + Idealized + Existing

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Drawing Discoveries Origins of the Inbetween These collages contain origins dating back to Roman times.

The components that are collaged include the ancient inspiration, the idealized drawing and the actual villa. Overlaid together, the drawings show the relationships between the compositions that are emulated through time. Origins are revealed at different moments through the transparencies, overlaps and fragmentation.

“De-contextualized from its original function, a collage element also presents the viewer with a new way in which to perceive the world. In a collage, ‘the fragments refine the life fragments.

‘Laundered,’ the life fragments have…a ‘crispness’ they did not have in life.” (Yale 2002)

Villa Saraceno [overall]

Ambiguities [woodplates]

In the four books, Palladio was mostly concerned with creating a text for thoughtful, practical and well-proportioned architecture whose ornament could be derived from antiquity. For this reason, his illustrations corresponded with the simplicity of his text. Designs were drawn omitting context, plans were regularized and facades were simplified. This created clear inventions, applicable to any range of contexts and programs.

The four books, consequently, became “untrustworthy as a reflection of their original corporeal reality.” (Lewis 1981) These discrepancies in Quattro Libre operate on several levels; one reason being that the wood-plated prints in the book are “heavy-handed paraphrases in the unwieldy medium of woodcuts, of the extraordinary refinement, delicacy and sparkle of his original drawings” (Lewis 1981).

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Villa Saraceno [detail]

Villa Thiene [overall]

Villa Trissino [overall]

Villa Thiene [detail]

Villa Trissino [detail]

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Drawing Discoveries The inconsistencies of the unrealistic nature of the illustrations lead the reader to structured inventions. The discrepancies in the woodprints and the programmatically suppressed designs motivate imagination to emerge out of the variances.

Playing with Pieces Palladio recalled that he found the ancient buildings in Rome “worthy of much greater attention than I had at first thought” (Quattro Libri, I, p. 5) and desired to carry antiquity to the forefront of his drawings. Keeping all of the extraordinary ancient Roman creations in mind, Palladio was incapable of stooping to humble or ordinary designs. His private buildings, palaces, and even country houses incorporated “elements of grandeur” (Lewis 1981) such as colonnades, pediments, and rich cornices. “Palladio justified his use of the temple pediment on domestic architecture by arguing in the Quatro Libri that the form of the ancient temple, as the house of the gods was derived from primitive dwelling types.” (Palladio 2006) On the subject of temples in Palladio’s fourth book, he writes, temples: “without which no civilization is possible.”

“Palladio even begins the guide [to Rome] with the Palatine hut of Romulus as the physical and symbolic origin of the city and its architecture. (Palladio 2006) Private houses are the core of public buildings. By raising the entry, he gave importance to the dwelling. In Villa Malcontenta, he uses the temple front antiquity but he combines it with the architecture (stairs and basement) of a modern house, thus making it more dynamic.

Palladio does not just recreate the temple; he reinvents it.

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Palladio even used parts of one thing and juxtaposed it with another.

In his drawings for the baths of Agrippa, he a space of the remnants where structure was lost, he includes the inserted imagined version of the Pantheon of Hadrian. His drawing of the Temple of Fortuna Primigenia was a hybrid containing the rotunda of the Pantheon (from his earlier Verona theater reconstruction) and terraces and levels from the theater.

Palladio played with what he saw, juxtaposing things that maybe didn’t seem to go together at first, but made something entirely new with the old.

Invisible Villas The authors of Possible Palladian Villas have produced a game to find the secret of Palladio. They believe that the genius of Palladio is that his rules are not all figured out, and it is their purpose to guess the rules of the game. Using Quattro Libre as their starting set of rules, the authors program a computer to design the Palladian villas. The computer calculates an infinite number of possible permutations, thus the computer becomes the decision maker: it becomes the architect. The problem is that generating plans and elevations produce non-spatially interesting boxes, which is exactly what a Palladian villa is not. They reduce Palladio to two dimensions, obsessing over the organization structure of the plan and neglecting the section and spatial details. One must discover Palladio’s thought-process, and discover his buildings. It is important to study the possibilities that Palladio could have produced but have not been realized. The author of The Perfect House writes most and is inspired most about the spatial quality of the villas that

Instructions sent with the postcards

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Drawing Discoveries he visits, never describing any “boxlike” form. “Progressing from the architects most obvious to his subtlest geometry, the computer ultimately creates villa plans and facades that are stylistically indistinguishable from those of Palladio himself.” (Freedman 1992) The computer program essentially takes the place of Palladio, producing the villas that they say he would have created. However, he didn’t produce these invisible villas. He designed, he created and he invented.

Deborah Howard and Malcolm Longair state, “you cannot think that a man of such intelligence would only design based on a single proportional theory alone. An architect learns to balance conflicting demands.”

(Rybczynski 2002) His buildings cannot be reduced to a set of rules – there is so much more significance to his buildings which is revealed through an infinite number of investigations and discoveries.

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Back of Received Postcard (actual size)

Front of Received Postcard (actual size)

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[special thanks to ::

Brand Gonzalez,

Ramona Samali,

Professor Bradley Walters,

Alex Ruhnau,

Neil Long,

Rachel Kirby,

Jenny Szilagyi,

Adabelgy Londono,

Noah Marks,

Sarah Scott,

Brent Daniels,

Dorina Bakiri,

Gail Milano,

Steven Tenzel,

Kelly Rowan,

Sarah Appelyard,

Kimberly Blythe,

and everyone else who ‘played the game’]

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Engaging Villa Trissino

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History Set among the hills of Mijet and nourished by the Brendola stream is the village of Meledo. Located in the Veneto region with 2000 inhabitants, it is about 15 km south of the city of Vicenza.

The Brendola stream is channeled in order to transport to the lower part of Vicenza. Meledo is full of fields of rice, corn, wheat, alfalfa, and mulberry. Archaeological remains of the first human settlements have been found along the Brendola stream, dating back to the Stone Age.

Traces of Rome There have also been traces of humans in the town of Meledo who have settled during Roman times around 148 BC. Two castles are established as a part of Meledo around 1000 AD, used to defend the villagers from multiple Hungarian invasions. It was during the war of Cambrai (1508 – 1516) an attempt to restrain the dominating Venetian influence that the town of Meledo was burnt down. The war of Cambrai ended with many damaged and destroyed houses, barns and infrastructures, (CISA 2010) paving the way just in time for Palladio to restructure and recover the identity of the place. In about the year 1550, the Trissino family commissioned Andrea Palladio to build a home worthy of luxury and a size that emulated the wealth and status for the brothers Ludovico and Francesco Trissino.

As previously mentioned, the lack of formal entry to the villa coupled with the desolation of the town disguises the value of the Palladio jewel located in the town. To enrich the town as well as the Veneto

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Engaging Villa Trissino Region, the intention is to create a garden that is an exhibition of origins. Built within the ruins of an old Palladian villa, it recalls the history of Italy. The tower on the land claims its place and marks the place from afar. The bounding water’s edge divides the land of the town and the villa site. The goal is to create a relationship of a place within a place; a spatial sequence similar to the elements of a place, but on a smaller scale.

Something old, something new Transforming the old into something modern is not a new idea; in fact, it was this approach that gave Palladio his fame. One of Palladio’s first commissions was converting the Basilica in Vicenza from its ancient state to modern use. Even in the way that he took the antiquities and transformed them to something that was modern for his time is the same concept.

This emulates the transition of the once modern, yet now ruinous, Villa Trissino, into a usable modern space.

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Methods of Making

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Learning from Palladio, it was important to discover and invent through drawing. Using a mixture of invented fragments, the garden became a playful composite of parts and pieces. Most of the design developed through multiple iterations of diagrams, and the concluding drawing is an axonometric, pulling together the beginning drawing investigations with the ending.

The garden is comprised of three factors: the matrix of a woodplate mosaic, temporal elements that sit within the matrix which give identity to the place, and visual axial relationships between the elements.

Wood-plates The postcards of collaged fragments are arranged as a way to organize the site of ruinous Villa Trissino. With the river anchoring edge of the site, a mosaic of existing extending agricultural fields and two seemingly unrelated building fragments, the isolated ruinous fragments are in need of something to hold them together and an invention to activate them. Using the fragments of the inbetween conditions, they were collaged on the area of the site onto three different wood-plate versions, the general overall scale postcards at 1:1 scale and the detail scale postcards at 2:1 scale.

Recall that Palladio’s wood-plates had led to ambiguous printed information. The three different wood-plate versions were then used to make embossings and rubbings, a technique different to Palladio’s but still arriving at a composition that is in the stage of unrefinement, as wall as including some vague discrepancies. This technique proved to keep the important information visible and the

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Methods of Making less important more to the imagination as well as merging the information into a more cohesive composition. The drawings even began to suggest relief and a way to mark the ground and organize the site.

Invented Matrix From the three versions of wood-plates, one rubbing of a woodplate version was chosen and an inventive layer was embedded into and derived from its own matrix. Using this drawing, small moments began to emerge three-dimensionally from the matrix, pushing and pulling the ground, creating smaller-scale boundaries, activating the vertical, and creating places for the temporal elements of place to occur.

Postcard Inventions The temporal elements of place are derived from the received invented postcards. Fragments of the postcards were then altered to create diagrams of the elements, using the inspiration of Rome’s elements that Palladio wrote about.

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Methods of Making

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Methods of Making

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Methods of Making

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Essence of the Place

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Temporal Elements The elements mark a place, giving visual hierarchy to the place.

Palladio’s guidebook was a physical representation of Rome, but the elements themselves offer a conceptual guidebook to the place, marking boundaries though walls, specified entry points through gates and distances between the tall markers of columns and towers. The cistern guides through the underground and the river tells the history of how the city was planned around the natural environment. They are involved with the place. On a tertiary scale, the visual axial relationships provide a way of identifying the elements of place upon arrival and visually engaging the visitor through the garden. The elements lie on an axis so there is a way of orientating the visitor in the mosaic garden. The elements of place in the garden are temporal, each in a uniquely different way.

Material Palate The material palette includes the agricultural fields, the brightly colored cornfields, the vibrant lavender of the lavender trees, the cool, reflecting transparent water, the white of the doves revealed through the screened tower, and the green of the vines climbing up the opaque earthen wall.

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Essence of the Place Temporal Elements of Place

+10 +6 0

[passing]

[seasonal]

Bridge

Wall

Gate

[of beginnings]

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[hidden]

[transparent]

[cloaked]

[unearthed]

Tower

Obelisk

Baths

Cistern 105

Essence of the Place Section through the Temporal Elements

[hidden] Tower 106

[unearthed]

[passing] [seasonal]

Cistern

Wall

Gate 107

Essence of the Place Axonometric Drawing of Temporal Elements within the Palladian Mosaic

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Essence of the Place Temporal Elements of Place 1 Bridge [of beginnings] 2 [seasonal] Gate 3 [hidden] Tower 4 [passing] Wall 5 [transparent] Obelisk 6 [cloaked] Baths 7 [unearthed] Cistern

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3 5

4 7 2

6

1

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Essence of the Place Bridge [of beginnings] Originally, the ruinous site lacked a prominent entry. Now, visible from the road is the entry to the site, the bridge of beginnings. This is the marker of the beginning of the journey.

The bridge crosses over the Brenta river and the water is pulled along side of it. Openings are sliced in its ground and overhead surfaces connecting the bridge visually with the water below and physically with the water (rain) from above.

The bridge carries the visitor into the formal garden entry court.

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Essence of the Place [seasonal] Gate In the space of the entry court, the visitor’s view is directed to the existing ruinous gate and through its opening, the obelisk is revealed. Before entering the seasonal gate, the visitor visually ties three different elements together: the seasonal gate, an aperture through the passing wall and the hidden tower. The seasonal gate is the grand physical procession into a new place. Before the gate, the visitor was only able to experience the garden visually. There are two occupiable parts to this entry gate, separated by a space inbetween that holds the door that slides though the slot to close the garden.

Surrounded by tall shrubs, the seasonal plants provide an edge that define the portal. When out of season, the gate becomes an object in an open field.

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Essence of the Place [hidden] Tower The tower reaches far out into the midst of the fields. The vines in front of the tower come all the way up close to the visitor.

These vines in front, larger in perspective, hide the distant tower, which becomes smaller in perspective. To the sides of the tower are fields of 6-8 feet tall corn, also aiding to conceal the tower. The tower holds doves (the original function of a dovecote) that are released at certain points of the year. The tower has stairs that reach all the way to the top, and when the door at the very top of the tower is pulled down, it releases the doves into the air.

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Essence of the Place [passing] Wall The form of the earthen wall is integrated with a structure to hold vines that crawl up its surface and make an overhead.

The walls are layered and pulled apart, each having similar markings, registering with the one next to it as if they were once one wall. This once wall has been pulled so the visitor is able to pass through, and to create a shaded space within.

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Essence of the Place [transparent] Obelisk Set on the raised stepped groundscape, the essence of the original Villa Trissino grand design, sits the obelisk. The raised ground is where the raised ground in Palladio’s ancients inspired design would have been. The top of the stepped groundscape becomes a terrace to the town. Upon exiting through under the terrace and down the stairs, the obelisk is lit from above and only able to be seen at this moment.

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Essence of the Place [cloaked] Baths At the edge of the site lie the baths. The baths are integrated within the lavender fields and the lavender trees are held inbetween the baths. When the petals fall from the tree, the lavender petals cloak the baths, providing a sweet smell to the visitor. There are two different scale baths, for small and large gatherings, just as in the ancient times.

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Essence of the Place [unearthed] Cistern The cistern collects and holds rainwater and is located beneath the ground. The cistern is filled up at different levels, depending on the amount of rainfall. The cistern is used to irrigate the surrounding fields. There are four water containers that are constantly filled for needed water supply. Stairs lead down to into the cistern so that when the cistern is not completely full, it is able to be occupied.

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Endings

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Passing Atmospheres The garden is meant for discovery; it transforms with the seasons, each visit leaving a different impression and each visitor experiencing it in a different way. It is a journey of exploration and imagination, the visitor able to envision what the space is like in different seasons and at different times. The garden goes far beyond the tangible form. The ideas are deeper than what is actually present. It is not only about the present, it is about the absence. There is a connection to life in the way that the place is ever-changing. The fading time of a person’s life, the different seasons in life, the times of plenty and of need, and the history that we become a part of.

Concluding Thoughts The process of making, learning through drawing, research, and history are all crucial elements in learning architecture. Never before have I gathered so much information from drawing. It was amazing to see discoveries from my drawing that lined up exactly with research that I did even after the drawing. This Master’s Research Project has been very rewarding to me and I have gained so much wisdom from the things that I have studied. I’ve learned that there is so much more to discover, so much more to learn.

This project could have been done a million different ways (there are so many possibilities) and it is by no means finished. .I wish to continue on this journey that I have created, digging deeper into the world of the ancients.

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Endings Images Cited www.panoramio.com

Works Cited Constant, Caroline. 1985. The Palladio guide. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Architectural Press.

Crombie, Alistair. 1986. Experimental Science and the Rational Artist in Early Modern Europe. Daedalus, Vol. 115, No. 3, Art and Science. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press Freedman, Richard and George L. Hersey. 1992. Possible Palladian Villas: (Plus a few instructively impossible ones). Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.

Le Corbusier. 2000. The Modulor: a harmonious measure to the human scale, universally applicable to architecture and mechanics. Basel: Birkhäuser.

Lewis, Douglas, and Andrea Palladio. 1981. The drawings of Andrea Palladio. Washington, D.C.: The Foundation.

Palladio, Andrea. 1997. The four books on architecture. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.

Palladio, Andrea, Vaughan Hart, Peter Hicks, and Andrea Palladio. 2006. Palladio’s Rome: a translation of Andrea Palladio’s two guidebooks to Rome. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Rybczynski, Witold. 2002. The perfect house: a journey with the Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio. New York: Scribner.

Vitruvius Pollio, and M. H. Morgan. 1960. Vitruvius: the ten books on architecture. New York: Dover Publications.

Wittkower, Rudolf. 1965. Architectural principles in the age of humanism. Columbia University studies in art history and archaeology, no. 1. New York: Random House.

Yale University Art Gallery. 2002. Collage: The Synthetic Century. Yale University Press.

Zumthor, Peter. 2006. Atmospheres: architectural environments, surrounding objects. Basel: Birkhäuser.

Bogglewood. 1994. http://www.boglewood.com/palladio/analysis.html Centro Internazionale Di Studi Di Architecttura Andrea Palladio (CISA). 2010. http://www.cisapalladio.org/ Meledo. 2010. http://www.meledo.it/

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