1999.09.24
since equinoctial augury
The Philadelphia and Rome connections do not always have to be evident, but I'm sure that enough interesting notions will arise. There are already good connections, the Ara Martis-Independence Mall coincidence, the Fairmount-Campidoglio coincidence, dies sanguinis, the Hadrian tomb-Logan Circle coincidence, cardo and decumanus (and this can compare to Eros and Thanatos).
Overall, this project will hold together because I have the Center City model and the Campo Marzio database, and I also have all the Rome books and the Philadelphia guide books. I just also remembered the Roma Interrotta connection via Giurgola and VRSB, and then also the general Kahn and Venturi Campo Marzio connection.
2000.07.23
Ichnographia
..."redraw" the rest of the Ichnographia by my own design. ...envisioned a slapdash design for the theater of Pompey, and then quickly realized that all the plans that are left to be redrawn can be also redesigned (just as Piranesi redesigned; another reenactment), ...adhere only to the labels and locations Piranesi uses. ...the new plans will be crazy designs, yet all the Campo Marzio research data is there to use as inspiration, thus there are a great many reenactments to be performed.
...there can be many reenactments of the redrawing... ...orient the Ichnographia to true north and orient the Philadelphia plan to true north as well. Then overlay the two plans with Hadrian's tomb and Logan circle as the registration point. From there begin considering the implications of both/either plans in 2d and 3d.
Also, Mirage City as a reenactment of Rome Interrotta.
2000.09.25
ideas
2. mesh surface "sculptures" up and down the Parkway.
3. mesh surfaces "bonded" via "walls", "towers", and "floors", etc., e.g., Hejduk architecture ideas; new typologies.
4. Quondam model collection Interrotta.
5. an orbital Ichnographia Campus Martius?
2005.05.06 17:24
Koolhaas versus the Actor
Stirling is a consummate reenactionary architect, and he knew it, but he put most of his clues in his architecture only--although his entry for Roma Interrotta is an overt reference to Piranesi's Campo Marzio plan and reenactionary architecturism. Just as Rossi reenacted the Bustum Hadriani with the Modena Cemetery, but it doesn't look like he ever told Tafuri about it. Yes, Rossi was silent, as are most architects when it comes to telling others where their real 'originality' comes from.
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2005.09.09 12:23
Hadrian was born in Spain
Interestingly, Giulio Carlo Argan was Mayor of Rome in the late 1970s. He was co-author of Michelangelo Architecto, and (I believe) instrumental in manifesting the project/exhibit Roma Interrotta.
Maybe Roma Interrotta is really just still going on.
2005.10.14 14:11
Jimmy Venturi's new website...
I still remember what Brigitte Knowles (the blonde student you see in one of Kahn's classes in My Architect, and in 1978 one of my teachers and my employer) told me after returning from Rome and having there seen the Roma Interrotta exhibition: "Venturi's boards were terrible, really a disgrace. They just pasted some Las Vegas stuff on the Nolli map, and that was it. I think they are now finished."
2006.02.02 12:46
Thesis Semester [blog] 25 years ago
Today, 2 February is the (new) feast of St. Catherine de Ricci. Catherine died 2 February 1590. My thesis project is seminally a reenactment of Louis Kahn's design of the Motherhouse of the Dominican Sisters of St. Catherine de Ricci. I knew nothing of St. Catherine de Ricci in 1981, but I know much more now...
My virtual thesis project for 2006 is entitled "Reenacting Roma Interrotta Sector VI". The design team of RI Sector VI was Romaldo Giurgola, Harold Guida, Sigrid Miller and Giancarlo Alhdeff. This project has everything to do with blending an 18th century sector of Rome with a 20th century sector of North Philadelphia.
2006.02.06 18:28
Thesis Semester [blog] 25 years ago
Because of Roma Interrotta and related genius loci issues, I've been doing a lot of reading/research, and thus I now know that when I look out my mother's living room windows I'm looking at the site where the oldest house in Pennsylvania once stood.
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2007.07.12 11:06
Sarcastic Architecture
765, you're misrepresenting when you say V, SB and Izenour were "excluded from the High Modernist cocktail party" and therefore bitter. Venturi a Rome Prize recipient, Complexity and Contradiction coming out of MoMA, V and SB teaching at Penn and Yale, Learming from Las Vegas coming out of Yale. I'd say they were definitely guests at the "cocktail" party. The exclusion, you could say, came after Learning from Las Vegas was published (thus no bitterness before the publication, as you imply).
I did begin to re-read Part II of Learning from Las Vegas last night, and I agree with kablakistan in that sarcasm isn't really the modus operandi. It may be too hard now-a-days to recognize the "Pop" sensibility of the critique--the whole mixture of high art and low art which was then something like sacrilege. Plus, the "in your face" stance (i.e., naming names rather than remaining cautiously abstract) was "just not supposed to be done."
For sure there is much taunting and ridicule within "the ugly and the ordinary," as there is always taunting and ridicule whenever an orthodoxy is questioned and critiqued, but the task was accomplished without much sarcasm at all.
765, you and others may well see sarcasm as an effect of "the ugly and the ordinary" critique, and I concur that that is one fair interpretation, but there is very little sarcasm within the actual text itself.
It's probably also fair to say that most people that saw Venturi and Rauch's entry at Roma Interrotta saw sarcasm as well. But was "Pop" sensibility too often just confused for sarcasm? Does "Andy W" suggest more Andy Warhol rather than Andy Williams? Does Lennon suggest more John Lennon than the Lennon Sisters? 
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