Verona + Milano, Italia

09.11.2008

Torino, Italia

So we’ve now been in Torino for a few days, and have been settling into life here (it has its quirks, more on that later) and starting projects, but I still have to write about Verona and Milano.

Once we got into Verona, we went to the Basilica di San Zeno as a group. It was an unexpectedly large space inside; high ceilings and a predominant crypt. The altar space was actually up a flight of stairs to accommodate the crypt below, easily visible and accessible from the nave. We snapped pictures, took some time to sketch, and then set off for the Castelvecchio Museum (literally Old Castle Museum), renovations to which were designed by Carlo Scarpa (who is quickly becoming one of my favorites). Once again, the attention to detail was stunning. Not only did he design the spaces and transitions between buildings, but he also designed all of the display systems for sculptures and paintings. He struck a delicate balance between respecting the old museum (which once upon a time had been a castle) and integrating his own additions. There was one space in particular between two buildings that most of us decided to sketch. There were interesting juxtapositions of different angles, a sculpture beautifully displayed and highlighted, a beautiful material palate, and wonderful views of the grounds and the river.

We then walked into town and got lunch at a buffet-style restaurant (pasta with tomatoes and mozzarella and fresh fruit), then split up into groups with suggested agendas. We mostly just wandered around the city. Along the way we found a large arena (too much money to go inside) and a large square with lots of stands set up (some tourist traps, some food markets). Most people were trying to find Juliette’s balcony, but Jeff, Liz, and I got separated from the group while stopping for gelato (I got kiwi and it was deliciously amazing). We tried to find the balcony, but in the process stumbled upon some ruins in the middle of the street (below street level, surrounded by railings). A plaque described it as Porta Leoni from around 50 AD. I love that you can stumble upon things like this in Europe; it would obviously never happen in the states.

We ended up also finding the Capulet family’s home and consequently, the balcony. It was a huge tourist trap, but still cool to see. To enter the courtyard that the balcony faced, we had to go through a little underpass/arch thing and the walls were littered with love notes. People wrote in every language, on any type of paper (napkin, ticket stub, maps), and secured them to the wall with anything (bandaids, gum, tape). There was also lots of writing directly on the wall itself. Overall the wall was just so dense with writing and paper that it was really interesting to look at as one large object instead of lots of little objects. We then took the rest of the afternoon to wander the streets and make our way back to the bus (we were only in town for one afternoon).

We drove in the bus for a few hours and got to Milano in time for dinner. On the way in, however, we encountered some tight turns. Usually our bus driver had been pretty pro, doing 3, 5, 7-point turns and making it around sharp corners. But there was one intersection in Milano where we were turning from a small street onto the side street (the kind that is divided from the main street by a median but still running in the same direction) of a highway. There were tons of cars parked on the median (European parking is nonsense), there were trees, and there were signs. We were clearly not going to make this turn, and all of us were looking out the windows to see what would happen. Finally our professor, Cinzia, got on the PA system and said “Okay guys. We need you to-“ and at this point we all expected her to tell us to sit down or that we would have to walk to the hotel from here. But no. “Okay guys. We need you to move a car.” The bus erupted with shouts and laughter as 4 or 5 guys got out and picked up the car and moved it one or two feet. It was now precariously perched on the edge of the median, leaning in towards the busy street, but our bus driver made the turn and drove off.

We went out to dinner all together (22 students, 1 Italian professor, 1 RPI professor, his wife and their two children) and sat at one huge table. I got a pesto pizza and we spent the rest of the night exploring the streets and looking at all the vendors (cheap knock-off purses, belts, jewelry, etc.)

The next morning involved a LOT of walking and not enough architecture, so most of us got pretty cranky. I took some pictures, but my view was still pretty tainted. First we went to the law building of Università Bocconi, which was recently completed. We saw lots of interesting façades and massing, but couldn’t go too far inside. We then walked forever, took a metro, and walked forever some more to reach a newspaper building headquarters designed by Renzo Piano. Again, we were only allowed into the lobby, so we couldn’t explore the rest of the building or the courtyard/auditorium with a green roof.

Next we went to the Triennale Museum, which had an exhibit on low budget, modular, and transportable housing. Some of it was really nicely done architecture, and some of it was atrocious. Jeff and I walked through the rooms together, getting pissed of by the bad projects and intrigued by the good. There was also quite a large display on The Whale (see Amsterdam entry), including preliminary massing sketches, so that was neat to see. Once done with the museum, lots of people were heading off to go look at shops (since we were, after all, in Milano), but Jeff and I had a feeling that they would take too long, so we opted to skip straight to the Duomo.

Words cannot even describe the Duomo. It was huge, elegantly and richly ornamented, recently cleaned (so it was nice and bright), and just…beautiful. First we tried to go in, but the guards at the door said that my shorts were too short to be allowed in (you must be properly dressed for most churches in Europe, some are quite strict). Totally dismayed, I told Jeff that I had to go into this Duomo and was determined to find something to cover up with. We wandered into the Galleria, a large interior streetscape lines with shops and covered by a huge glass and steel roof structure. We looked around, took some pictures, and soon realized that we were in Milano and there was no hope of me finding cheap clothing. We went out to the tourist stands and found a man selling pashminas for 7 €. I found a decent pattern, figured I’d wear it again, and fashioned it as a skirt! I got through the door no problem, but the guard definitely recognized me and was reluctant to let me in.

The inside was gorgeous, as expected. It was surprisingly dark, though. The windows were small and they even had some fluorescent lights (gross lighting, but I suppose slightly necessary) scattered around. We wandered around in awe for a while, went down to a crypt (there were more that weren’t accessible), took lots of contraband pictures, and went outside to go up to the top. 166 stairs took us up onto the lower roof level, and another 72 put us on the top. Both the views and architecture from that high were amazing. I’ll post pictures, because it’s just too much to try to describe. We had perfect weather for it, though, so all of our pictures came out stunning.

After climbing back down the stairs, we were sufficiently tired, so we took the subway back to our hotel and napped and check email until dinner. A bunch of us went out to a pizza/pasta place for dinner, but all vowed not to get pizza since we’d been having so much. I got a green salad and farfalle (bowties) with a gorgonzola walnut sauce. It was delicious, but very rich. When we got back to the hotel we were all too tired to go out, so we played cards (because we felt silly going to bed at 10:15 in Europe) and then headed up.

The next morning, we were given a guided half-bus/half-walking tour of Milano by one of Cinzia’s friends, Sylvia, who is an architect in the city. We learned about the canal system that was mostly filled in the 1930’s, the Spanish & Roman walls throughout the city, and various buildings. Honestly though, we were all so tired at the end of a long week, tired of walking, and her accent made it quite hard to focus, so most of us were just cranky and tired for the whole morning/early afternoon. At this point we just wanted to get to Torino and get settled into our rooms. Honestly I don’t feel like going into detail about this day, but we did see the remnants of a wicked old loch system designed by Leonardo, so that was pretty sweet.

PICTURES: 2 from Scarpa’s addition to the Castelvecchio, and 3 pictures from the Milano Duomo (I couldn’t narrow it down! We pretty much all have pictures of this building for our laptop desktops right now)