On Architecture

“You know what Rome needs?” my friend asked. “A few glass and steel sky scrapers.”

In Rome, no building is much taller than about five stories. Most of these look like apartment buildings that were built over 100 years ago. They generally have a dull reddish or light tan-like color. The whole city has a crowded and uniform feel. Yet I find this old uniformity to be rather charming. Throwing in a random sky scraper would completely ruin this. I say as much to my friend.

“But this has been done here through the centuries. If you remember what they said in the tour, the Romans conquer someone, steal their art, and build a temple. The Christians come along, set up a cross and make it a church. Then the Renaissance happens, and they add their own unique flavor to it. And that’s awesome, but then it just stops. There is nothing newer than the Renaissance. Why can’t the modern era add its own stamp to the city just like every era before it?”

 Egyptian Obelisk on a Renaissance base, in front of a church.

One of my favorite places we had visited on the tour was the Piazza Navona. There are two fountains in this plaza.

If I recall correctly, my aesthetics teacher spoke about one of these fountains. The plaza is irregularly shaped, one side is curved and the opposite end is square. The artists who made this fountain brilliantly decided to use a shape that was both square and circular that would harmonize with both ends. This structure, along with the special placement of this fountain, helped make the uneven sides of the plaza appear more orderly.

Across the Piazza Navona is another fountain (shown below). The story goes that the artist had a rivalry with another artist who was doing work in the church that happened to be right in front of the fountain. Because of this, he made the figures on the fountain as though they were hiding their face from the church and writhing in agony at the horrible sight. While this story is probably not true, it does indicate a lack of awareness on the part of the artist for the context in which he was working in.

The first artist did better than the second, for he took his environment into account, and was even able to impose order where none existed before.

Rome could probably use some modern buildings. But care must be taken to harmonize the old and the new, so that one does not overshadow the other. In all honesty, I think a skyscraper might be a little too tall.