Italy: The Other Italy: Water / Wall

Full Course Description

The development of Rome’s arcaded aqueducts, which permeate and circumnavigate its historic center, had the curious distinction of providing both a water-conveying systems for the needs of a sizable population while integrated as part of a defensive perimeter that remained essential to the city’s defenses until 1870. This cohesive symbiosis between water and wall, in a conjoined role of supply and protection, has governed and symbolized much of the city’s development from its origins as a self-sustaining village atop a defensible hill, into the self-proclaimed center of the western world. Since Italy’s unification, this reference has materialized into a more nuanced relationship: railroad infrastructure follows the same accommodating gradient as the aqueducts; squatter settlements adapt to the structural party-wall of the arcades while conveniently tapping into its water system and the immobile bulwarks are used to demarcate boundaries for the development of housing districts. This superimposition fueled the analysis of the intertwined relationships between the patterns of human settlement and the machinery that sustains urban development. Students participated in seminars and mapping exercises, in situ, which culminated in a site-specific design project in Rome. Their time abroad focussed mainly on Rome and the environs of ancient Latium; with projected excursions to the Bay of Naples and the fortified towns of Lucca and Orvieto in Tuscany.