project 1
description


Project 1: Walking Rome’s Neighborhoods (click here for maps)

Walking connects us to the earth; walking is a persistent characteristic of the human. -- Ben Jacks, "Reimagining Walking" JAE 57:3

Knowledge of Rome must be physical, sweated into the system, worked up into the brain through the thinning shoe-leather.... When it comes to knowing, the senses are more honest than the intelligence. Nothing is more real than the first wall you lean up against sobbing with exhaustion. -- Elizabeth Bowen, A Time in Rome

The goal of this project is to find Rome.   Rome’s finding or founding has been given a first date – 753 BCE – but Rome has been lost and re-found many times.  Each time Rome has been transformed; each time has been an attempt to create a world that allowed us to feel at home in it.  Joseph Rykwert has argued that today we have lost “the beautiful certainty about the way the world works” that the ancient Roman had. By returning to the basic reality of ourselves as human beings walking the earth, we search for a relation between the known and the unknown, the chaos and order that is inherent in civic life.

To understand Rome, to discover the ground of its present and its history, is to walk it.  For four weeks, from September 27 to October 21, we will walk the city.

Walking in Rome is a form of interpretation, a way of understanding Rome’s historical and mythical textures.  Walking can take various forms: the purposeful walk connecting two sites, such as the walk between house and work, the fastest way between your apartment and your Italian class.  The experience of the route is subordinated to the importance of the beginning and end.

Wandering is a special kind of walking, characterized by the immediacy of walking itself. While you wander, city space is less differentiated by us than by the form of the land and the buildings, and the habits and customs of the citizens. The city is moving, constantly changing, from morning to night, from workday to weekend, from summer to winter, from year to year.

Rome's natural topography is the starting point of this project, its hills and plains by which its neighborhoods are still called.  This organization is intended to take you back to Rome's earliest form, which is a group of hills around a river.  You will explore the city first by wandering: moving through your part of the city, getting lost and found again. You will develop your skills in the observation and documentation of the natural and the urban context.   The first step is wandering with no intent, to see what you find.  How do you orient yourself?  The sun?  The river?  The Aurelian Wall?  Specific monuments?  Specific open spaces or public places?

Means of notation and representation:

You are also strongly encouraged to use different means and media to record your observations, including sketches, plan and section drawings, photographs and written impressions. Mix up these media and use them in different ways as you learn more about the ways you interpret the city. Don’t worry about the aesthetic qualities of these initial notations, as we are interested the observations that they represent.

More direction for the project will be given to you on Monday 6 October.  For now, begin to explore your part of the city.   Purposeless wandering, moving, stopping, climbing, sitting and imagining.  Discover the edges, centers, thoroughfares, landmarks and open spaces.  At first, go out in teams or pairs, to orient yourselves.  As you explore, you should execute this wandering phase both alone and with others, to develop the richest impression of the territory.  Team members should respect their teammates' desires for team travel, especially at night, or in areas you find little populated or sketchy.    Once you know where you are going, you will feel far safer -- none of these areas is considered dangerous.

Rione Ripa: Aventine Hill (Aventino) Piccolo Aventino and Testaccio: Scott Claassen, Minjeung Koh, Charla Lemoine, Gia Mugford, John Todd

Rione Trastevere, including Janiculum Hill (Gianicolo): Tim Ardeña, Merith Bennett, Travis Danh, Reena Marthina, Ruchika Singhal

Flaminio, Campo Marzio and Pincio/Quirinal (Quirinale) Hills: Connor Irick, Jake LaBarre, Hyun Ji Lee, Jessica Miller, Kaity Tang

Rione Monti: Esquiline Hill (Esquilino): Olivia Allen, Vicki Contreras, Beth Mitchell, Danielle Pierce, Vlad Sirbu, Ted Wegrich

Centro Storico (Rioni Ponte, Parione, Regola, Pigna, S. Eustachio, S.Angelo): Amy Gookin, Zach Jensen, Grace Kidd, Andrea Lacour, Nathan Woods

Rione Borgo and Prati: Haejung Arasmith, Tyler Bush, Heather Mease, Elena Myers, Isabel Rivera.