Week 6

This week has been a productive week of studio getting ready for piazza studies and final critiques. Matt also directed the Modern tour, which was awesome to see that there is some modern architecture amongst all of the ancient buildings. While Richard Meir's building has received so much negative criticism, it was a well developed building and did a great job addressing the surrounds, along with the purpose of an art gallery in the interior. The natural lighting and material choice on the interior were outstanding, while the exterior lacked somewhat on materiality. We also got to see the Olympic Stadium, which was awesome! The Dean joined us for this, critiques, and group dinner. Group dinner was at the Insalata Restaurant, where we were able to watch Italy play Germany for the semifinals and we were able to have the entire room for just our group. This game was very competitive because it determined who was in the finals, along with the fact that we were playing Germany and having Filipe here opposing everyone because he obviously wanted Germany to win. Italy ended up winning, which caused great excitement and it was a very fun dinner with everyone. It was awesome to walk outside afterwards to see the whole town in excitement over their win and see everyone uniting as one! The whole walk home people were cheering, honking, waving their Italian flags; it was complete craziness.

On Friday, we visited Villa Borghese, which was amazing to see so much of Bernini's work, which was incredible and to think that he started creating a lot of his work at such a young age. The other part that amazed me was how much work he produced and how versatile he was through different areas of art; it was unbelievable! The Caravaggio paintings were indescribable and it was awesome to see so many of them in one location. Overall, this museum was probably one of my favorites because of how rich all of the pieces were within. The weekend was primarily focused on getting studio done and then we all took a break on Sunday to go to Circus Maximus to watch the soccer finals on the big screens. People were everywhere, and even though the game was a huge disappointment, the experience to see the whole city shut down was incredible.