Friday, October 25, 2013

Architecture in the Fashion Capital

I have left Como behind for more of Italy! Wifi here on out will be unpredictable, I hear I can't get any while I'll be in Florence and the wifi here in Verona costs 3 euros. So hopefully I can keep up the regular blogging!

Our last day in Como was actually spent in Milan. We all caught the 9:17 train and arrived in Milan around 10 ish. Our day was completely unplanned and free! I spent it alternating between hanging with the group, walking around by myself, and catching back up with the group.

 
Jen and Maddie

We all went to the Galeria, which is a covered street where the fancy stores are, like Prada and Louis Vuitton. And right across the street is the Duomo of Milan, so we went in there as well. They were "selling" photo access in there, so the only photos I took were sneaky ones because I didn't want to pay 2 euros to take photos of a building. This is why I'm glad I have a camera that I can turn the sound off on!

 
It's very hard to photograph a cross vault arch.

Yey! Group!

 
The window and floor in the Duomo that I wasn't allowed to take photos of :)

And the front!

We met up with Andrew and Marcus in Milan and bopped around with them a little bit. We strolled up and down the shopping streets, but sadly everything was WAY out of my price range.

I found a GIANT octopus stuffed animal and I wanted it, but it would've required another airplane ticket to fly it home. Maybe the stuffed animal would get two carry on items as well?

I broke off on my own to take a walk to a beer store, and I spent a while in the park. It was a really beautiful park, there were lots of ducks out on the lake and lots of happy children running around. It was a nice cool grey day as well, and the fall colors popped wonderfully. I spent a nice peaceful time there.


 

I realized in the park that, because I break off on my own so much to hunt down these beer stores, I get to see parts of the city that my friends don't necessarily see. We mostly stick to the city center, the tourist spots, and the really busy parts. But these stores are all in the neighborhoods, the places people actually live instead of the places where people put on a facade and run around. I like it.

We left for Verona on Friday morning, and stopped a couple times en route to the city. Our first break was in the small town of Seriate to visit a church by Mario Botta. The church was magnificent, I loved it! The inside was incredible, the interior was covered in gold leaf and it just glowed. Sound traveled really well in the church as well.

The front of the church! The entrance reminds me of the "iconic architecture" style of Aldo Rossi, who incorporated iconic symbols into his architecture. Making an apartment building? Toss in the shape of a house!

The courses of brich were 6 cm, 13 cm, and 19 cm. Each stone was split, which gave a great texture to the building.

 
The ceiling!

Looking towards the altar

 
Looking towards the entrance. The center doors will open for mass on Sundays, whereas we came in through a side entrance door

The back side of the church. The entire place is maintained by volunteers, which says a lot about the community

We noticed that most of Mario Botta's buildings look the same. Circular windows, prominent brickwork. We were excited about this building at first because it doesn't look like his other works, but we realized that it has a similar shape to the middle school we visited in Como... awkward.

After the church, we visited the Teatro Olympico in Vincenza, a building we studied in History of Architecture. It was a theater by Palladio, where he used forced perspective in the backdrops to make the set seem much deeper than it really is. This was a really interesting (and somewhat difficult) place to draw, just figuring out the perspective and the ratio in the front facade and the ellipses shaped seating area. Andrew Wallace made a really nice drawing of the building that made me super jealous.

The garden in front of the theater

 
Beautiful interior! The stadium seats were surprisingly comfortable

The backdrops were made with forced perspective, so they look much deeper than they really are

  
It's very funny to see someone walk up and down the stage- at the back they look like giants, and in the front they look like dwarfs

The detail in here was incredible. But it makes sense. In today's society, we have lots of things to do and are fans of instant gratification. Back then, there wasn't actually much to do except dedicate your entire life to creating beautiful statues out of wood or stone

On our way out of the city, we stopped at Palladio's La Rotunda, a beautiful villa that I studied in seventh grade math class. We only stayed for ten minutes, but it's always really fun to see things I learned about like 9 years ago... Sheesh I'm getting old.


Finally, we arrived in Verona! We walked around the city, passing the coliseum and window shopping. We found a neat outdoor market while we were looking for Juliet's house, which I will be returning to tomorrow. I also bought a new suitcase, because the wheel on my first beer suitcase BROKE while I was leaving the Como hotel. LAME.

1 comment:

  1. I like that you have a suitcase just for beer. A woman after my own heart ;)

    You know what makes me realize I'm old? I have been playing Pokemon for FIFTEEN YEARS. That is a DECADE AND A HALF. And I'm still entertained by it... somehow. Jeeez.

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