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Study Abroad

On behalf of the Study Abroad Committee I am excited to announce the faculty and program for the Architecture Study Abroad for the spring of 2007. Professors Magdalena Garmaz, Nina Lewallen, Sonja Dümpelmann, and Charlene LeBleu will join on Site Director Professor Scott Finn in leading the seven week program of study in Rome.

The interdisciplinary team of Landscape Architecture, Architecture, Planning and History faculty will organize studies in water and hydrology (LeBleu), green open space and garden culture (Dümpelmann), urban design (Lewallen), and architecture (Garmaz, Finn).

Thanks to Professor Cheryl Morgan and the Study Abroad Committee for their work. Thanks also to all faculty who submitted proposals.

China in 2008?


By: Bruce Lindsey | 12/12/05 | Bruce Lindsey | Trackback | Comments RSS | Podcast Listen to this article

2 Responses to “Study Abroad” »»

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  1. Rusty Smith
    Comment by Rusty Smith | 12/12/05 at 5:07 pm

    During their most recent trip to Rome our students learned (among other things) the virtues of a piazza. Three million people entered Rome in the course of about five days, and almost all of them at some point wound up in the piazza outside the basilica. I am sure that Bernini never imagined just what might happen when Christian zeal combined with mass tourism. And there indeed lies the rub. Despite its 2000+ years of significant architectural history, the city that invented civic architecture has stopped creating it. Rome has become locked in place by the sheer weight of its own precedent.

    2008 may turn out to be a significant moment for the world, if only as a forward facing bookend for 2004 when the Olympics left Athens (the pre-modern city of their birth) for Beijing, the city that may embody our future, for better or worse. Rome in 2005 may have given the best glimpse to our students exactly for what pre-modern cities were built. Beijing in 2008 may show us for what the new cities of supermodernity are built.

    China in 2008? Yes absolutely.

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  2. Nina Lewallen
    Comment by Nina Lewallen | 12/13/05 at 10:32 am

    I would suggest instead that Bernini knew *exactly* what he was planning for with his design for piazza S. Pietro. The modern age did not invent mass tourism: since the Middle Ages, Rome has been inundated with pilgrims visiting the holy sites, especially during Jubilee years. Contemporary accounts of those mass pilgrimages suggest that they were much like the recent events in Rome, with hordes of people and even tons of garbage strewn about…

    I think that Beijing is likely the type of place that some of our students will design for during their careers, but they cannot learn nearly as many lessons of good design and place-making in Beijing as they can in Rome. Since the Renaissance, architects have learned from Rome and applied those lessons throughout the world. The fact that Rome must deal with its history at every stage of rebuilding actually makes it a fascinating case study for architecture and urbanism. Architects and planners deal daily with the interaction of old and new, issues of preservation and innovation, retaining a walking scale while accommodating modern transit, recognizing the value of piazzas that work as social spaces while engaging fully in the digital age (have you ever seen a Roman without a cell phone to his or her ear?), etc.

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  1. Rusty Smith
    Comment by Rusty Smith | 12/12/05 at 5:07 pm

    During their most recent trip to Rome our students learned (among other things) the virtues of a piazza. Three million people entered Rome in the course of about five days, and almost all of them at some point wound up in the piazza outside the basilica. I am sure that Bernini never imagined just what might happen when Christian zeal combined with mass tourism. And there indeed lies the rub. Despite its 2000+ years of significant architectural history, the city that invented civic architecture has stopped creating it. Rome has become locked in place by the sheer weight of its own precedent.

    2008 may turn out to be a significant moment for the world, if only as a forward facing bookend for 2004 when the Olympics left Athens (the pre-modern city of their birth) for Beijing, the city that may embody our future, for better or worse. Rome in 2005 may have given the best glimpse to our students exactly for what pre-modern cities were built. Beijing in 2008 may show us for what the new cities of supermodernity are built.

    China in 2008? Yes absolutely.

    2. comment_type == "trackback" || $comment->comment_type == "pingback" || ereg("", $comment->comment_content) || ereg("", $comment->comment_content)) { ?>

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    1. Nina Lewallen
      Comment by Nina Lewallen | 12/13/05 at 10:32 am

      I would suggest instead that Bernini knew *exactly* what he was planning for with his design for piazza S. Pietro. The modern age did not invent mass tourism: since the Middle Ages, Rome has been inundated with pilgrims visiting the holy sites, especially during Jubilee years. Contemporary accounts of those mass pilgrimages suggest that they were much like the recent events in Rome, with hordes of people and even tons of garbage strewn about…

      I think that Beijing is likely the type of place that some of our students will design for during their careers, but they cannot learn nearly as many lessons of good design and place-making in Beijing as they can in Rome. Since the Renaissance, architects have learned from Rome and applied those lessons throughout the world. The fact that Rome must deal with its history at every stage of rebuilding actually makes it a fascinating case study for architecture and urbanism. Architects and planners deal daily with the interaction of old and new, issues of preservation and innovation, retaining a walking scale while accommodating modern transit, recognizing the value of piazzas that work as social spaces while engaging fully in the digital age (have you ever seen a Roman without a cell phone to his or her ear?), etc.


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