An architectural guide to Rome. Talking to Stephen Harby

11th December 2017

“Robert Venturi’s ROME” re-interpreted by two authors and architects, Frederick Fisher and Stephen Harby.

“This guide is intended for all travellers to Rome, whether of the armchair or shoe leather variety, and whether the traveler is novitiate or veteran”

Robert Venturi wrote Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture in 1962, at the age of 37 when he was spending two years at the American Academy in the city, gleaning all he could about the city of such rich and diverse architectural styles, both complex and contradictory. Both authors studied his seminal work when they were students. In the original, Venturi illustrated his book with black and white photos, but in this volume by Fisher and Harby there are beautiful watercolours that bring magic to the pages, a deft and light hand.

When Venturi was in the city, the buildings were largely covered in grime and soot and his photos capture that two dimensionality. Now, when many buildings have undergone cleaning and renovation, a lighter medium is ideal to capture the light and the innate dancing of light that is present in the city. Watercolour is ideal to bring to life the light and shade, that chiaroscuro. Thus, Stephen Harby shares his watercolours as they describe selected buildings around the city, some well-known like the Pantheon, the Vatican.. to Luigi Moretti’s more stark and linear post World War II apartment building, Casa Girasoli, in Parioli, which I would now choose to visit when I am next in Rome. Porta Pia by Michelangelo would also be on my list.

This is such a diverse and wonderful selection of buildings dotted around the city, all beautifully brought to life. If I had one niggle it would be the format of presentation – a book slightly larger than A5 size and in order to access some of the double page illustrations, you would have to crack the spine (sacrilege in our house!). But wonderful to be able to slip it into your bag as you tour the city.

Tina for the TripFiction Team

Over to Stephen for our #TalkingLocationWith… feature. Here he shares background context for the book, Robert Venturi’s Rome by Frederick Fisher and Stephen Harby, published by ORO Editions, September, 2017

Rome: Continuity and Change or the City Layered in Time

Rome is unique in offering the architectural visitor a span of history whose visible remains encompass the longest timeline of anywhere in the world. There may be destinations whose history begins earlier (the pyramids in Egypt) or where the focus on a single period is deeper (Renaissance Florence), but Rome offers the best chance to explore and unpeel the layers of time spanning over three thousand years. Whether you are looking for ancient Roman ruins, early Christian churches, fountain filled baroque squares, or the latest project by architects Richard Meier or Zaha Hadid, you will find it in Rome!

It is for this reason that creative geniuses of all epochs have come to Rome to find their inspiration. Writers Keats, Shelley, Goethe, painters Ingres, Turner and Sargent all spent time in Rome and emerged transformed as artists. In the 19th century and even earlier in the case of France, countries established academies in Rome so that their citizens could go there and be inspired. In 1893 the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago was opened to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s “discovery” of America. There was a great reawakening of interest in the classical tradition of architecture as embodied in ancient Rome and in the Italian Renaissance. The group of architects who led the creation of that fair including Daniel Burnham and James Follen McKim and financier J. P. Morgan decided that architects, painters, and sculptors practicing the new style, which came to be called the American Renaissance, should have an opportunity to study at the source in Rome. The American Academy in Rome was founded a year later in the tradition of the many earlier Academies.

Sixty years later, in 1954, American architect Robert Venturi arrived in Rome at the age of 29 to spend two years at the American Academy for the prestigious Rome Prize Fellowship. In the intervening time, since the founding of the institution, much had happened in the world at large to radically reshape ideas about history and its continuity. In the world of architecture, in the first quarter of the new century a revolution had taken place with impacts no less profound than the political cataclysms of war and revolution had been for society as a whole. Modern architecture, ushered in by such figures as Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, and Walter Gropius, the latter two exiles to the United States from war-torn Germany, took firm hold in the postwar period of the 1950s, banishing the idea that architectural practice should be inspired by historical examples from the past, and calling into question the very idea of an institution whose purpose was to inspire architects and artists to come and learn from the past. The principles of modernism in art as well as architecture espoused minimalism, purity, and the creation of original and unique solutions and expressions without any reference to what came before.

Robert Venturi’s education as an architect reflected this period of transition from a traditional sensibility to a modernist one, and although much of his early training had been rooted in traditional methods, he was also of his period and by no means inclined to be a practitioner of traditional design, a stance he has maintained throughout his long career. While he was in Rome he quickly became enamored of the Renaissance and Baroque architecture and urban spaces that filled the city, and in particular the work of Michelangelo, Bernini and Borromini. While there he laid the groundwork for a revolutionary book on architecture, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, which was published in 1966, and would proceed to revolutionize thinking about architecture in the following half-century. In this dense and very personal book, he cited over 100 examples of buildings drawn from all over the world, principally in Europe, and with approximately 30 taken from Rome.

This book was widely read by architects, and particularly students of architecture in the 1970’s, which we both were. Our book, Robert Venturi’s Rome is both homage to the importance the original book had for us, but also an expression of the deeply rich lodes of architecture and urbanism that Rome can offer us. We have taken as our starting point the some 30 buildings that Venturi singled out, and have written about them both in the context of Venturi’s observations and our own impressions of the same places. This book is highly personal, dependent on both the lens Robert Venturi presented to us, but also our own unique visions of the city.

Thank you to Stephen for such wonderful insights into the city, its architecture and Venturi himself. Do take a look at Stephen’s website where you can find out more about his escorted tours to various countries and about his art, He is also on Instagram.

Do come and join team TripFiction on Social Media:

Twitter (@TripFiction), Facebook (@TripFiction.Literarywanderlust), YouTube (TripFiction #Literarywanderlust), Instagram (@TripFiction) and Pinterest (@TripFiction)

For more books set in Rome, just access the TripFiction database

From: https://www.tripfiction.com/architectural-guide-to-rome/

From: http://mashable.com/2017/11/17/homeless-shelter-design-transitional-housing/#qgujIw6Hriq4

Homes for Hope was created by USC School of Architecture students during the Fall 2016 semester. The course, called The Homeless Studio, was funded by the Martin Architecture and Design Workshop (MADWORKSHOP) and led by MADWORKSHOP director Sofia Borges and board member R. Scott Mitchell.

From: http://www.culturenow.org/cocktails_and_conversations&event=Bartholomew_Voorsanger_and_Alastair_Gordon

June 16, 2017 Center for Architecture, New York City

The Pairing:
Bartholomew Voorsanger, Voorsanger Architects PC
Alastair Gordon, Wall Street Journal

Cocktail designed by:
Toby Cecchini, Bartender + Author

Bartholomew Voorsanger, FAIA, Principal, Voorsanger Architects PC

Bartholomew Voorsanger received a Bachelors Degree with Honors from Princeton University in 1960, a Masters Degree in Architecture from Harvard University in 1964 and a Doctor Honoris Causa at the University for Architecture and Urbanism "Ion Mincu", Bucharest, Romania, in 2005. He worked for three years with urban planner Vincent Ponte in Montreal, Canada and subsequently for ten years as a Design Associate for I.M. Pei & Partners. The firm Voorsanger & Mills was established in 1978 and reorganized as Voorsanger Architects PC in 1990. Projects by Mr. Voorsanger have been published nationally and internationally in numerous volumes, magazines, and articles. His work has been exhibited in individual and group shows at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Museum of Finnish Architecture, the Frankfurt Museum of Architecture, the Spanish Ministry of Construction Gallery, the Architectural Association School of Architecture, Harvard University, the Hudson River Museum, the National Academy of Design, the AIA Center for Architecture (NYC) and New York University. The Firm has received numerous awards both locally and nationally.

Mr. Voorsanger has served on many national and international juries for design awards, has been a speaker at numerous professional symposia, and has authored a variety of articles for design and art periodicals. Mr. Voorsanger has been invited as a guest lecturer and critic and held faculty appointments in architecture design studios at the Rhode Island School of Design, Harvard University, Columbia University, and the University of Pennsylvania. He became a design Fellow of the American Institute of Architecture in 1985. Mr. Voorsanger is a former Chair of the Board of Advisors of the Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture at Columbia University, President of the New York chapter of the AIA and the New York Foundation for Architecture. He formerly served on the editorial board of the Harvard University Graduate School of Design Magazine, and is on the GSD/HDM Practitioner's Advisory Board. He also currently serves as the Chair of Design Review for the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey.

Mr. Voorsanger is the Principal in charge of design for the firm. Some of the Firm's projects include the New York University Midtown Center, the graduate and undergraduate dormitories for New York University, the New York University Center for Advanced Digital Studies, the International Competition for The Brooklyn Museum Master Plan, The Pierpont Morgan Library Garden Court, Eugenio Maria de Hostos Community College, the Air Traffic Control Tower at LaGuardia, the Asia Society and Museum in New York, Terminal B Newark International Airport, Master Plan for the University of Virginia Art Museum, Residences at Wildcat Ridge, Charlottesville, and Tucson. Most recently a complex of villas and apartments in Dubai, the National World War II Museum in New Orleans, and the competition for the new National Military Museum for the United Arab Emirates in Abu Dhabi.

Alastair Gordon, Contributing Editor, Architecture and Design, Wall Street Journal

Alastair Gordon is an award-winning critic and author who has written regularly about the built environment for the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. His critically acclaimed books include Naked Airport, Weekend Utopia, and Spaced Out. He teaches critical writing at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design, and is Editorial Director of Gordon de Vries Studio, an imprint that publishes books about the human environment. He has been awarded research fellowships from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, as well as being cited for Excellence in Architectural Criticism by the American Institute of Architects.

Toby Cecchini, Bartender & Author

Toby Cecchini is a writer and bartender based in New York City. He has written on food, wine and spirits for GQ, Food and Wine, and The New York Times. His first book, Cosmopolitan: A Bartender's Life, was published in 2003. He is currently at work on his second book, a travelogue of spirits based on his travels for The New York Times' Living and travel magazines. He began bartending at the Odeon in 1987, where he is credited with creating the internationally recognized version of the Cosmopolitan cocktail in New York. He followed that with stints in several bars including Passersby, which he owned until 2008. In 2013 he reopened the shuttered Long Island Bar in Cobble Hill Brooklyn.

From: http://www.landscapeandurbanism.com/2017/04/11/john-yeon-modern-architecture-and-conservation-in-the-pacific-northwest/

John Yeon: Modern Architecture and Conservation in the Pacific Northwest
Those not hailing from the Pacific Northwest may be less familiar with John Yeon, one of the influential figures in architecture and conservation and the development of a unique brand of regional modernism.  If you don’t know Yeon, or you want to learn more, you will be pleasantly satisfied with the recent volume from Oro Editions by Marc Treib, “John Yeon: Modern Architecture and Conservation in the Pacific Northwest”  The life and arc of Yeon’s career is carefully documented with many images and illustrations spanning his diverse and influential career.  And while I knew of and about much of his work, the detail unlocked a greater understanding of the key themes of regionalism, materiality, landscape, and conservation that are just as resonant and relevant today.

As introduced by Treib, Yeon is best know for his residential design, embodying the concept of ‘regional modern architecture’ and designs shaped by “sensitive siting, planning, masses, use of wood, and accommodation of contemporary living” the epitomy of which is the Watzek House completed early in his career in Portland in 1937.  This style “set the bar for many of the region’s houses that followed in its wake.”  The exterior rooflines juxtaposed with Mount Hood in the background, and the amazing interior wood detailing ground this as a touchstone worthy of exploration.

Beyond being a residential designer, Yeon, who was largely self-taught, brought a passion for many causes surrounding conservation and planning throughout his career, becoming a vocal advocate for landscape preservation, sensitive roadway design, scenic areas, all stemming from his regionalism of a different sort, his roots in his home place.  As Treib mentions,

“John Yeon lived in the present, held a deep appreciation for the past, but was always concerned with the future.  He understood and was troubled by the threats that development posed to the Oregon landscape and actively sought to confront and mitigate the problems they caused.”

This included work in the Columbia River Gorge, now an officially designated Scenic Area, and his purchase of land now known as The Shire, which “became a test ground, a playground, a retreat for the architect, and a tool to inspire key activists and funders of his preservation efforts.”

The area is now the John Yeon Center for Architecture and the Landscape, operated by University of Oregon and providing a legacy appropriate to Yeon’s passion for study and education specific to the region.  “The Shire is a center for Pacific Northwest landscape studies while being preserved as an example of landscape design. It provides an educational site for the study of landscape preservation, design, ecology, and management creating opportunities for individuals and study groups to engage in research and discussion of landscape architecture, planning, conservation and preservation issues associated with the Columbia River Gorge, the Pacific Northwest region, and the nation.”

The book explores in detail many of these topics, and provides lots of in depth discussion on Yeon’s self-taught architectural vocabulary, his innovative use of materials, his advocacy and conservation efforts, as well as his life-long love of art and collecting.  It also focuses on his pursuit of architecture as a relatively solitary endeavor, and his eschewing both formal education and working for larger firms to pursue his own path. Coming from an affluent family, he had perhaps some unique opportunities to travel at a young age,  which influenced his thinking around architecture, and access to some clients that gave him opportunities beyond his age and experience.

That said, his intuition as a designer, along with his evolution among established Portland architects like A.E. Doyle (whose office Yeon worked briefly) and contemporaries such as emerging talents like Pietro Belluschi offered some structure and assistance on projects.  As Treib mentions, “It is evident that in the early stages of their training, an exchange of ideas and influences passed between Yeon and Belluschi”.

The interior and exterior relationship of Watzek house is thoroughly modern, and Yeon’s feel for exterior environment is deft.  The courtyard and pool engaged the house on all sides, as Treib outlines:
“The Watzek house and landscape were conceived as an interrelated unit, but within that unity, Yeon played an intensified landscape of native species against areas — such as the courtyard and the zone outside the living room — that stood out as designed spaces.”
The use of the borrowed native Pacific Northwest landscape seemed to fit the design more than the actual design plantings, which in a residential context makes sense, with some plantings strategically employed for functions like screening and directing views, or to create and reinforce outdoor rooms.  The strong connection of architecture and landscape influences my design aesthetic, embodied in the formalism of the Watzek house portico, where Yeon “projected the interval between the portico posts as lines of paving stones set within the lawn, in effect, using rows of stones to echo the rhythm of the house architecture in the softest of voices.”

These concepts were not unique to Yeon, but still define much of regional modern design today, and at the time, much like his architectural style, were fresh and new.  Architects will also appreciate his experimentation with ‘ventilators’ which allow for user control of interior environments.  I also appreciated the deep dive into the Watzek house, as well as some of his subsequent work with the use of plywood as a building material, and the experimentation with modular designs strategies, all of which referenced his favorite and most regional of material, wood, but showcased the level of design detailing Yeon became famous for, using 1:1 drawings to investigate specific joints and interfaces of materials for functional and aesthetic reasons.  The sophistication of this is seen, for instance in the Cottrell House (below).

Also significant were the other plywood houses were the epitome of regional style, 9 of which were built in the Portland metro areas, like this super simple Speculative House in North Portland, built in 1939.

This also started sporting the Yeon blue-green paint he became famous for, most visibly applied to the 1948 Visitors Information Center located along Waterfront Park.

Yeon did venture beyond Portland to build a few houses in California, which is documented in the book, and he did live and work on the Oregon Coast (along with but most of his work was close to home and predominately residential.  And while he was known early for Watzek house, Treib posits that “the Swan house could claim first place as the most cohesive representation of Pacific Northwest regional modernism”

The book moves from residential architecture and design to art collecting and museum work which occupied much of his later life, along with the active conservation work mentioned previously.  This aspect will be enjoyable to those passionate about and interested in the history of Northwest environmentalism, as Yeon was a heroic figure in many of the fights for beautiful and ecologically significant places we enjoy today.  Chapter 7 highlights much of the work on the Oregon Coast, and the Columbia River Gorge, where Yeon served by appointment on the State Parks Commission at the age of 21 and fervently fought even then, using his own funds to buy land that was threatened, again owing to his not small amount of privilege.

He wrote letters on scenic beautification of highways, making cogent arguments on the impact of road designs that did not follow the contours of the land, and the need to plant wide enough areas to allow for visual impact and survivability.  As Treib points out “This knowledge of forestry and road design for a twenty-one year old is impressive, as is the young man’s confidence in lecturing men with decades of experience beyond his own.”

The early work on sensitive siting of roadways, such as the alignment of Highway 101 on the Oregon coast in the 1940s, evolved through the work in the 1960s dovetailed with larger interest in roadside beautification with work from designers and advocates alike striving for a more beautiful landscape experience and a more sensitive approach to road design, perhaps harkening back to the approach that Frederick Law Olmsted took a century before.  Yeon’s work focused this larger trend, with an eye towards the particular landscape experience, as Treib summarizes:
“Yeon was an evangelist for the Oregon landscape.”

The Shire was the major reflection of this trend, where Yeon fought against the wind and elements of the Gorge to shape a partly natural and partly designed space.  “Yeon’s design for the landscape, developed over decades, lovingly integrated land and water.  The tightly mown, and level-edged paths played effectively against the high grasses that blanketed most horizontal surfaces.  Paths traversed meadows, climbed outcroppings, and skirted the river — all aesthetically considered.”

The final chapter sums his focus on spending more time on projects benefiting the social good, and while he still did some residential work.  He fought for more scenic highways near Multnomah Falls, and championed designs for the Portland Waterfront Park, as well as holding the torch for a Pacific Northwest modern style that influenced architecture today.  It’s interesting reading the last chapter on how Yeon grappled with the concept of regionalism, and his role in defining it.  While the Watzek house and other residential designs were regional in form and material, he still presented that “the very existence of “a Northwest regional style of architecture is debatable”.  The connection to the land is an important factor, as well as the connections between folk architecture.

“We like to think that the visual character of the landscape shaped the vision of its inhabitants so that they conjured up [and] translated the spirit of the place into forms which were habitable.  Possibly people and landscapes have so modified each other that it is impossible to tell from the resulting composite regionalist landscape which influence is the primary one.  When we see this … phenomenon from the past, it is perhaps strongest where the inhabitants were unsophisticated — for knowledge of a broader world caused a seepage of alien influences which diluted the special regional flavor.” (251)

This concept of regionalism is perhaps the most compelling part of the narrative of the book and the life of John Yeon.  Regionalism as a stylistic element, but also regionalism as a way of living and loving the place you inhabit.  An amazing life makes for good reading, and Treib does a great job packing a lot of diversity into an easy to absorb story.  As a man with that took a unique path, John Yeon benefited much from his privilege to have the freedom to pursue his passions in a less formal way could have become a path of self-indulgence.  He was an artist, but his passion for the Oregon landscape and his life-long pursuit of it’s protection made him a true, regional hero.

Friedman House
Richard Cavell
ORO Edition

In a real estate market as hot as the Lower Mainland, it should come as no surprise that this region’s architectural heritage is as expendable as its livability. Many of the finest examples of West Coast Modern design and building once populated local neighbourhoods. Their numbers are dwindling fast.
While preserving as many of these homes as possible is a lovely goal, the reality is that it won’t happen. So concerned academics at UBC SALA (School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture) launched the West Coast Modern House Series of books dedicated to preserving the legacy of specific homes of note.

“The whole series began as a personal project with the sale of House Shumiatcher, which was quite a unique and special house, which was on land that was so valuable that the house was to be demolished,” said UBC SALA’s Leslie Van Duzer. “So a book was made to create some record of the house, which was quite challenging as there were few photographs, drawings and so forth. Then an international publisher (ORO Editions) expressed interest in the project, so we decided to make a serious text.”
Now into six editions, each book is filled with photos, design specifications and drawings related to the specific dwelling and its designer. Each book is authored by a different writer taking their own distinct approach to the subject. Richard Cavell, professor of English and Bachelor of Media Studies co-founder, wrote the book on Friedman House. The home on the University of B.C. Endowment Lands was designed by architect and UBC School of Architecture founder Frederic Lasserre and landscape architect Cornelia Oberlander.
It was one of the internationally known Oberlander’s first projects.
“This house was built at a time when there was a lot of talk about new ways of understanding space, and one of the people who was talking about it a lot was Marshall McLuhan and most certainly Lasserre was listening,” said Cavell. “And when I learned that it was Cornelia Oberlander’s first job, it became an act of preservation.”

Friedman House was for sale. Bound for the wrecking ball, it looked to be another in the series of structures receiving posthumous honours through the book series. But something wonderful happened.
“I had met with reporter Kerry Gold and mentioned that I was writing the book and she said that she thought it had been torn down,” said Cavell. “Once it was established that it was, in fact, still standing, she wrote an article about it in The Globe & Mail (newspaper) and this tech guy who had been working for Shopify around Ottawa and had cashed out saw the article, read it, and called the realtor and said I want it and will spend a million over the highest bid.”
In the end, that $5-million bid wasn’t the highest offer on the residence. But ReMax realtor Evan Ho — “whose sensitivity to the architectural and historical value of the house led him to reduce his commission on the sale in order to advance the winning bid” — enabled the Friedman House to continue standing.

Cavell and Van Duzer both believe that there is something of a “historical crisis” taking place with the loss of these homes, and it’s happening all up and down the West Coast. The West Coast Modern House Series is leading an effort to preserve this significant part of our history. You can donate to the project at support.ubc.ca.

[email protected]
twitter.com/stuartderdeyn

October issue of Perspective magazine.
https://www.adg.org/?art=Perspective-Landing