Wired!

Here’s an electronic version of Rachael’s handout:

• Elements of a Good Talk

Despite being pickpocketed ($50!) + feeling as if I’m already going broke, I am delighted to be here.  I arrived yesterday from Miami, and did a quick walk around tour of the Habana Libre hotel, which convinced me my model of the lobby was completely off.  Today I am going to hit up the Bienal de la Habana venues, and later “investigate” the Habana Libre hotel pool deck.  Tomorrow I am planning to meet with management if possible, as well as a waiter in the hotel whose father worked for the hotel at its opening.  He has amazing photos, so I’m going to try to copy them, or at least leave with photos of them.  I brought an HD flip cam, so I’m hoping to film most of these interactions.  I hope everyone is enjoying Durham – it is sweltering hot here.   I’ll report back at the end of the trip.

And yes, wireless works in Cuba bless the lord!  Though it still costs $6/hour.

additional images for the 3-D modelling

It was invaluable to be able to work on site.  Art (especially architecture) looks very different in person than it does in a book.  In a book, you are not able to get a sense of the scale, of the textures, of how you would move within the space.  In San Lorenzo Maggiore, it is difficult to understand from pictures the magnitude of the interior space.  Standing there in person, you are tiny in relation to the massive space.  Details that I saw on the elevation drawings which I thought would shape my perception of the space were actually several meters above my head, blending into the wall’s plane. 

At Folloni, we got an even better understanding of the structure because we could see it from so many angles.  From the platea, you can’t get a sense of how the buildings connect, how many stories they are, or what it looks like to go between them.  In person, it is much easier to understand how the space is used, how it looks from different stories, and how the volumes around you change as you move from room to room.  Seeing the whole monastery from the campanile helped us to settle our debates on how the roof lines connected.  Looking back, I am glad that the weather was so changeable.  The materials look different when they are damp, and when light hits them at certain angles.  Some of the outlines of the earlier arches and windows appeared crisper when wet. 

Though we spent the first part of the course designing our models based on the platea, they changed dramatically on our visit to the site.   In part, these changes reflected our new perceptions of the space.  They also reflected the sources that we found in the archives, and Fra Agnello’s extensive knowledge of the structure.  It was a pleasure working with the monks.  I learned so much on this trip, and it was one of the highlights of my undergraduate career.  Thank you for making this possible!

san-lorenzo-plans_wi290411

It is one thing to read about a place in a book, or hear about it in a lecture.  It is another to look at photographs, drawings, and architectural plans of this place.  It is yet another to build SketchUp models and walk in and around  this place in a virtual reality environment.  None of the above compares, however, to actually having your feet on the ground and this ‘place’ before your eyes.

Visiting the Franciscan monastary of Folloni was just such an experience for me.  Even if I was standing in an a later reconstruction, and not the earlier structure that I was attempting to re-envision.  Following Fra Angello this way and that around the monastery allowed me to get a profound sense of the complexity of Folloni.  I could see where arches once were and where columns, at one time, stood.  Additionally, climbing the campanile afforded me views of the inconsistent rooflines, and made me realize that the builders of Folloni (or any building for that matter) are not single divine entitites sitting before a screen pushing and pulling and making groups and components of architectural geometries from a bird’s eye view.  Rather, they are many individuals attempting to work in concert to create a single vast structure, and for this reason, it is clear how several things could go clearly wrong.

I will also say that Google Earth typography pales in comparison to actually standing in Montella’s mountainous landscape.  I felt like I was inside a painting.  Hiking to the top of the mountain and taking in the full panoramas of Montella, with Folloni in the distance, was definitely (besides the delicious food) the highlight of my trip.

First of all: All the digital material brought back from Naples is now available for your discretion in the Commons directory. You may all enjoy hours of touring with fra Agnelo ->> see the avi files!

The trip was a great experience. Italy is beautiful. The people we met – extremely hospitable. Food – great. In academic terms, however, I found the Folloni Project most satisfactory. Within the context of the Wired course I have learned that production of ideas on the one hand, and visualizations on the other, are two rather independent processes. It is only in very particular cases (the discovery of which the course courageosly endeavors) that the visual really ‘kicks back’ into what can be said and becomes something more than a ‘visual aid.’ The complexity of the reconstruction task at Folloni does not yield to a coherent interpretation prior to visualization work. The spatial and archival evidence is unmanigable without visual aids. The 3d reconstruction process is a necessary thinking aid through which we can work out conclusions, not merely represent them.

The pleasure of working with Fra Agnelo, intellectual appeal of the project and italian food make me quite resolved to come back – hopefully this summer!!!

The Paleo-Christian Church <– click for movie

Example of 2D Architectural Reconstruction

A few announcements regarding 2D reconstructions:

• Raquel’s made available this 2D Reconstruction Tutorial
• Assignment #8 has been posted, due Friday, March 20th