My Alternate Reality

It really is an honour to do this Field School each year. Year 5. Five years. My awareness of time is so profoundly affected by doing this study. By going back to the same places each year and seeing subtle changes. Buying fruit from the same woman in the Campo dei Fiori, a new Bialetti Moka each year from the same market stall, same man. I think that sometimes they recognize me, sometimes they say so. But mostly I just move through this other part of my life and reality for a time and, then I am not there. It is rather like a dream as much as an alternate life.

I get on the plane in Milano each year after 6, 7, 8 weeks in Italy, and by the time I am halfway over the Atlantic I think, “was I really there?” Yet, when I am there I am so NOT here (home in Vancouver). Time. I know that so many of the experiences I have had in Italy in this work have profoundly changed me. And each time, it is a new group who join me for this moment in time – that soon becomes history, and memories.

While each team is with me in Italy I am so aware of their experience of it. It never bores me to go back to some of the places we see. When I begin to feel that way, I tell them to see it on their own. I haven’t been back to the Sistine Chapel in years – not because it isn’t amazing; it is – but because I can’t stand the mass tourism aspect of going. But the new group, THEY should go sit under that amazing canvas. I love to see the looks on their faces when they enter something and so I experience it anew each time, even if I’ve seen it before. And of course I get to work with really intelligent, sensitive students, and I love to see their minds turning it over. Or their hearts break in two, their worlds shattered by the beauty. I love to share these places with them.

Gruppo Cinque

This group was outstanding for this reason: they never had to be reminded when it was time to work. They could play, and have fun. But when it was time to be engaged, they got there quick. The work they did in IAT 391 in preparation before going over to Italy was the best we’ve yet produced. And the work they did in the two main research projects – in Rome and in Tuscany – moved that project forward miles. Many of these students were 5th year and so had a lot of abilities, skills and knowledge. There were things we did with HD Video and production in general that will be hard to find and replace. There were some high level abilities with narrative (a testament to Jim Bizzocchi) and video production (another Bizzocchi contribution), sound and scripting in particular.

I am really proud of the research we did there this year. Our study of four neighborhoods of Rome – Testaccio, San Lorenzo, Ghetto/Campo and Trastevere – opened up the Rome that exists without tourists more than I had ever done before. I set this challenge and the group brought passion to doing so. When we got to Tuscany, they had learned so much about the research methodologies that we reduced it down to three main modes of observation: “fly on the wall”, “extreme user interviews”, and “shadowing”, things we have adapted from IDEO and their amazing “Method Cards”. We looked at Jane Fulton-Suri’s “Thoughtless Acts” and thought a lot about affordances and we continued to develop our use of urban “pattern language”.

Preparation + Italian Language

All of this was aided substantially by another small yet important innovation for 2008: each student was as of this year required to complete Italian 100 as a co-requisite to IAT391. Speaking and understanding some Italian opened new doors. For the students, their experience and sense of being “somewhere” was greatly enhanced. Learning Italian enabled the students to participate so much more fully in the culture, to get beyond the tourist barriers, and to meet people, both casually and for research. The reader of our work this year will see evidence of this everywhere.

Authentic Experience

April Pierce spent an hour in a coppersmith’s workshop in Montepulciano and he showed her his life’s work because she was able to ask him to show her his workshop, in his native language. If you go look at this file (under “Feature Tours”, Montepulciano Coppersmith), the tape is all in Italian, but you can see the shop and understand what he is saying even if you don’t speak the language. Azmina Karimi became our most accomplished extreme interviewer, and her language skills and confidence with speaking Italian improved substantially as a result. Morgan Taylor rode two “Critical Mass” bike rides in Rome, surrounded by Italians, was forced to speak it, and was welcomed in and joined the group for dinners in distinct working-class neighborhoods such as Garbatella. He made friends easily in San Lorenzo because it was so much like his own neighborhood in Vancouver, near Commercial Drive.

There is no price on being able to sit on a piazza surrounded by 200 young people with a bottle of beer on a hot night in Rome, finding common ground. If you read the “Transcendent Moments” section on the site, you will find many stories like this. I was really proud of the way they took what they had learned from the wonderful Chohre Rassekh, their SFU Italian teacher, and convert that into relationships and experiences. I know she would be so proud of them and what they did with what she taught them. Needless to say, this will be a feature of future Italia Design groups and field schools.

Old Friends + Partners in the Design World

I can’t say enough about the designers, architects, studios and factories we visited and interviewed this year. I was again moved by their generosity and desire to share ideas. Francesco Isidori at Labics welcomed us like family and gave us key insights into “Romanita”, the quality of being Roman. It is so fantastic to see this young firm who “gets it” continuing to open a space for discursive idea-based design. Their new project in San Lorenzo looks amazing and is one we will follow closely. It is a distinct advantage of going back to Italy each year that we have been able to build relationships with firms we like and see their practices grow and evolve.

The same can be said for Industreal in Milano, where Monica Favara has really come into her own and was able to show us how the innovative operation is continuing to evolve. Also in Milano, Paolo Rizzatto was able to see us again and pass on to the students ideas that really stuck about what one is designing, not what one designs. His thoughts on the deep moment, the capturing of a moment of time in a design have profoundly affected how we design and what I am teaching younger students back at SIAT, SFU.

Stefano Giovannoni was a great host, even taking the whole group up to his amazing apartment after our interview with him. What a gentleman. He is one of those people I refer to as “a wind-up toy” – get him started with a question and just step back for a twenty minute, non-linear tour of the mind of a genius.

Our factory tour at Bialetti was mind-blowing. After three years of pestering them, I finally got my students in the factory at Omegna. It was worth the wait. They just rolled out the carpet for us and showed us how a Moka Express is made – from ingot of aluminum to joy in a box. There were many other interviews equally as inspiring, but for brevity, I’ll relate just these, and let the kind reader visit all of the interviews on their own. Enjoy!

Transcendent Moments

Finally, after seeing the students' fantastic “transcendent moments” reports over the past two years, I wanted to add a few of my own this year. When I sat and thought about my moments of pure experience, my list was about 40 before I stopped. Here are four.

1. The Parco Acquedotto, Roma

I took five days to myself, and a small break in Rome before the study started and the students arrived. I often find that I am in Italy yet not able to really relax and enjoy it. Two friends came down from Austria and stayed at my apartment on the Via dei Giubbonari. These guys both know Rome well and we agreed that we were not interested in seeing the sites, but that we wanted to eat well, and see unique things way off the beaten track instead.

The epic day was a 50 km bike ride down the Via Appia Antica past the tombs and catacombs, the fields and the poppies. I went further down the Appian Way than I had seen before. But I had done some research on the nearby Park of Aqueducts, which is nearby the Parco Appiano and looked really cool. We managed to find our way there on our bikes arriving early evening with the blood orange sun spreading over the green fields and carpets of wildflowers. We had held off our packed picnic and bottle of wine to this point and were all starving.

But in order to find our spot we had to ride down a hill with a single track trail that led directly to a broken piece of ancient Roman aqueduct in front. It was like floating, with the occasional whipping of poppy stems along your legs. Wildflowers, carpets of red, flowed as far as the eye could see. It reminded me of that scene at the end of Gladiator where the character is dying and being brought home over tall grasses. I have a feeling I slipped into heaven for a moment. I have a feeling few people outside of the lucky Romans who live there have ever visited this amazing place.

2. Santa Costantia Mausoleum, Roma

The last day in Rome is always hard. You look at everything realizing it will be the last time. And you know that Rome will carry on without you. It’s tremendously emotional. You make a list of the things you wish you’d seen and then scale it all back to make it so that you aren’t just snacking on culture.

We went to the Jewish Ghetto and bought bread at that old Jewish bakery on the corner that has no sign and you just have to know about. The bread is slightly burnt in the oven, which burns on wood fire. Then back on the bike and a ride over to see Michelangelo’s Moses at San Pietro in Vincoli. Time running out, a decision has to be made: is there time to make it out to the Via Nomentana to see the Mausoleum of Constantia? Not really. But, this is one of the things I really came here to see this year. It will make me late for my afternoon appointment. I hate being late. But if we’re fast: maybe.

There are so many amazing church spaces in Rome: Santa Maria in Trastevere, San Carlino, San Crisogno, Santa Mari del Popolo, Santa Maria in Cosmedin, San Pietro itself, too many to mention - but the two circular mausoleums, Santa Costanza and Santo Stefano Rotondo, are really special. Rare. Not something you see ANYTHING like in other parts of Italy. They are the last structures of the empire, built by Romans, not Christians, yet they operated as Early Christian shrines and both became Christian churches and still operate as such today. Thus, they are intact and not ruins. They are the earliest of the Early Christian. But without the layers of Baroque or Renaissance that denote the church as it became. This is the church as it was at its beginning, when the people using the building would have thought of the themselves as “Romans” not as “Christians” at all. These became sites of martyrdom of Christian Saints later, much later, but did not begin as places as pilgrimage. Their meaning is thus more mysterious. They are linked to buildings we know, but because they were Christianized they are like frozen time, undisturbed. And even in the Eternal City where there is so much of that old world, buildings left as they were are few.

Metro, bus, walk – finally on the Eastern edge of the city we walk into the great circular temple structure of the late Empire. When we arrived at Santa Costanza, a wedding was about to begin, yet they did not stop us from entering. This is such a pagan place, yet so Roman, thus I understand why someone would want their service here. And thank goodness they didn’t bar us! For one, we had really made a huge effort to get out there. The location is so far outside the center that few ever get out here. It is not even well-serviced by Metro; you have to really want to get there. When we enter a violin is playing. What an amazing acoustic space. And then the roof mosaics! I hesitate to look up, I know they are there but want to anticipate them, never again will I see this for the first time.

There in this circular ambulatory are mosaics not at all depicting the Christian world, no saints, no icons, no Byzantine Gold, but perfectly maintained ROMAN era decorations, from the decidedly pagan world. And the light!! The video I shot has its own soundtrack of this moment as the violinist warms up for the ceremony soon to begin. I am lifted to another place. Transported. Outside the smog and noise of the Via Nomentana does not exist. My last day, the last place I see in my favorite city in the world.

3. San Mineato al Monte organist, Firenze

I’ve been to the Monastery of Saint Mineas on top of the Southern hill overlooking Florence many times before. It is widely known that the best sunset views of the cityscape are to be had from the Piazzale Michelangelo very nearby. Luckily the tourists don’t know that the view from San Mineato is even better. Before the gates close at about 8 pm every night, there is but a smattering of smooching lovers and people sitting with their legs over the walls in stunned silence.

Enzo Mari told us a parable of two apes sitting and watching the sunset, though it had no function, just awed by the beauty of the mysterious red ball in the sky, arms over each other’s shoulders. Sitting night after night watching the same thing. Every moment you look away at one thing and look back, the light has changed again. It’s impossible to make sense of Florence from below. From up here you see the order, the scale, the harmony. But I’ve also seen this many times. Why does it never cease to move me? Maybe my maestro Enzo is right: this is god.

Inside the church the change in light is profound. There is not a candle and only scant light from clerestory windows, so high it is hard to see anything when you first come in. It is, for an architecture geek like me, an incredible space – in fact the oldest in Florence. It’s a quirky and weird building, so unlike churches in Rome. My story is that despite having been here so many times, visiting each summer as if going to grandma’s house, I came to San Mineato two days in a row at roughly the same time with different people and both times had my most real moments in Florence this year. Profoundly moving. How is it possible to see the same place within 24 hours and not to have lost any of the fascination, the sense of seeing it for the first time? And the answer is that it is one of the most “sensorial” places I know. It is not just the visual senses that are optimized but except for taste, all the others as well.

The sound of the place is astounding. On the second day this was brought home by a young man who played the ancient organ for hours without pause. He was going at it like Jimmy Page, not just creating background music. That organ made sounds that only the earth itself has ever heard, or made. That night three of us lay on the cold stone floor propped on an elbow, against a low wall and just drifted away. Two nights in a row I rode back down the hill when the monks kicked us out, the wind bringing rare cool to the Florentine night. Past the tourists and the hawkers in Piazzale Michelangelo. How close heaven is to earth.

4. The “Meat Star” of Osteria Acquacheta, Montepulciano

From the distance of Vancouver I planned out a group dinner in Montepulciano after a day of study in Siena. Montepulciano is on the way back to our house at Dolciano and so this seemed to make sense - from afar. But you never know, and plans need to shift and everyone needs to stay flexible. What looks good on paper is pain on the ground, at times.

We arrived in Montepulciano late afternoon and had time go poke around the beautiful San Biagio church at the base of the hill. It’s one of my favorite spots in all of Tuscany, accessed down a long drive with poplar trees on either side. Flat, grassy grounds surround the tall, white, Renaissance church which contrasts with the lines and order of vineyards holding the contours of every hillock and dip. And not just any vineyards: Vino Nobile!!!

We ascend the hill and have a wine cellar tour and tasting with an old friend, Daniela Gattavecchi at Gattavecchi Wines. But as yet I have no dinner reservations. Daniela confides a favorite place with the best Val di Chiana beef for that most famous of local cuts: the bistecca fiorentina. A cut of meat charged by weight, cut for you to your specifications. The master of this art in Montepulciano runs an Osteria called “Acquacheta” – “still waters”.

From our table you can see the massive side of beef atop a cutting table in front of a wood-fired brick oven. The master comes to the table, figures out what your needs are, cuts an enormous piece from the whole, brings it back to the table for inspection before firing. Within minutes the perfect cut of beef, with nothing but salt and olive oil, arrives charred and cooked to perfection, hot all the way through. Trays arrive and the students devour it. We order the same again, vegetables, the local wine in drinking cups not wine glasses. I have had bistecca fiorentina many times before: not like this. All are transcended. I say to the master, “you are a rock star”, no he says, “I am a MEAT star”. Indeed.

Other Highpoints:

• Meeting Enzo Mari
• Branzi's description of Florence
• FC Roma winning Copa d'Italia
• Daily runs along the Tiber river in Rome
• Carciofi alla Giudia
• Marino + Andrea's welcoming dinner at Dolciano
• The Via Cave in Pitigliano
• The talk in Cloister of Sta. Croce
• Four Last Suppers in one day
• Antipasti di Mare in Piazza Santo Spirito
• Claudio and Lorenzaccio Ceramiche, Florence
• Breaks in Sardegna + Lerici
• Borromini’s San Carlino in Rome
• Buying a bike in Rome, market Via Portuense, from Augusto
• Riding in Milan - before my bike was stolen…