Berlin is a fascinating city with a complex history and a proud yet scarred soul. It is a fascinating urban study and an architecturally rich city full of many facets. As the former capital of Prussia, Berlin shines with the old order of a monumental state. Glimpses captured through war ravaged buildings tell the story of a proud time in Berlin's history, one that dots the landscape of an otherwise rebuilt urban fabric. The richness of Berlin's Prussian era architecture and urbanism are beautifully told in the platz and parks of the city. The work of Schinkel embues the city with the solemnity and purity of the Greeks reborn in the 19th century German mind. 20th century Berlin tells a very different tale, one of nazis and war torn decimation, of communism and divison, and later of a city reunited and reborn in a new wave of capitalism. Each of these facets in the history of Berlin has had profound impacts on the urban and cultural landscape of the city. Perhaps the most well known of these architectural facets is the Berlin wall. The wall caused a divided city to be broken into two distinct parts which is evident to this day though the urbanism and architecture of the east and west. This is very evident when one walks along Karl Marx Allee and sees the architecture and propaganda of the DGR goverment. The Berlin of today is a fascinating blend of these different times in the history of the city. The many areas of the city that have been rebuilt since the war are a showcase in the evolving stages of modern architecture. The city of today is a canvas for notable architects as they reimagine the fabric of the city for the present and the future.
Villa D'Este
Perhaps no other garden in the countryside of Rome best embodies the power of the Renaissance ideals of nature and landscape other than the Villa d'Este. The gardens of the Villa d’Este embody the notion of art perfecting and creating a new nature that is ordered perfectly to convey notions of allegory and illusion, play and spectacle. Classical groves and bosco are filled with illusionistic fountains and allegorical themes. They are composed of boschetti and compartmentalized beds with a strong use of architectonic space. Nature is ordered, classical symbolism is everywhere, Mannerist sculpture abounds, and the pure geometry of circles and squares rules. The villa takes the notions of Bramante’s Belvedere but utilizes a more complex ordering of spatial relationships. The importance of the water is key—it is the main symbolic medium of the gardens, fountains, and indeed the villa itself. Nature here is transformed by art and human imagination between sightlines and views out, organized around a series of terraces on a hillside, with a central axis and series of cross axes that open up counter views and imply above all, a new way of seeing the world—as landscape, as a Virgilian dream. These notions form the backdrop of the deeply encoded symbols and allegorical messages that link the gardens to the legacy of ancient Rome and to its site-specific location in a place traditionally associated with classical villas. Both direct and indirect devices blend into a garden landscape that functions as a sophisticated amalgamation of sources that create a new garden language, in which programmatic themes, articulated through geometry and art, encode the villa with a powerful association of the legacy and humanist status of ancient Rome.
St. Petersburg/Peterhof
The imperial grandeur of Peter the Great's St. Petersburg is a fascinating demonstration of wealth, power, and ambition. The monumental classicism and bold urban gestures of the architecture and monuments of the city are powerful. The great legacy of the Russian Empire and the ambitions of one man come together in a city of juxtapositions. His palace echoes the grandeur of Versailles in Baroque gilded splendor. The gardens and fountains of the park are quite sublime. The use of terracing and the perspective of the main canal to the mouth of the Baltic draw beautifully from the Italian and French tradition.
Venice
What is there to say about Venice--a city like no other. A city unique in so many ways it defies logic and begs to be experienced through movement and the senses. The vast labyrinth of narrow streets and corbeled bridges lead one on a journey in which a map can only be of so much help. The great history of the city, its connection to the water, and its relationship to Byzantium produced a beautiful syncretism of art, architecture, and culture. Perhaps no other place in Italy best shows the beautiful rich oil paints of the North that saturate Venetian art. This is a city of amazing contradictions and astonishing beauty, combined with the reality of life sustained by the water.
Versailles
Versailles is a jewel, the palace of a sun king. It is the crowning work of Andre Le Notre, Louis Le Vau, and Charles Le Brun--and later Mansart. The beauty, legacy and influence of Versailles is staggering. Louis XIV's palace is remarkable in so many ways, from the breadth and scope of the gardens and landscape, to the richness and craft of the boiserie lined interiors. One can hardly claim which is better, the classical architecture, the art, the landscape, or the rich symbolism of the sun king. Spatial organization is masterfully played out in the sequencing of courtyards, bosquets, alleés, axes and cross axes, and finally in the planning and organization of the envelope and wings of the palace. The allegory of the sun king plays out through architectural planning, sculptural narrative, and decorative painting. The use of geometry organizes and provides the foil on which the logic of the architecture and garden rooms unfold. The architectural legacy of influence here is overwhelming. The decidedly French interpretation of the classical language of architecture generated a pure, rational, and elegant strain of classicism that rivaled that of Italy. The architecture, landscape, and interior of Versailles were echoed throughout the courts of Europe. Here life imitated art, indeed the spatial sequencing and prominant use of the enfilade promoted a courtly manner of life that was enacted on and enabled by the very architecture and ordered landscape of Versailles. A much under-appreciated part of Versailles is the beautiful and fanciful rocailles interiors that swept through the many private apartments of the palace in the years following the Louis XIV's death. The plaster and carved boiserie lined walls tell another tale in the history of Versailles, one of lightness and pleasure embodied in the whismy and charm of Watteau and Boucher. Versailles is a true masterpiece. in the canon of world architecture. There are so many facets to it that beg for attention, this a place to be visited over a lifetime.
Villa Lante
The Villa Lante is a magical place. The natural beauty of the terra firma of this region of Italy is made perfect through the Renaissance ideals encapsulated in the pleasure villa. The Roman concept of otium, or retreat from the business of the city, is evident in every aspect of the villa, as it firmly dwells within the world of the garden expressed through Italian Renaissance humanism. This is the villa of a cardinal--a prince of the church. The villa takes advantage of the natural slope of the land to create a series of terraced platforms in which the symbolism of the garden is overlaid. It is steeped in symbolism that literally takes the visitor on a journey in which water is the nucleus of the garden. In this way, the villa is indebted to the Villa d'Este; however at the Villa Lante, as the source of the water flows through channels and fountains, the natural world in microcosm is revealed.
Athens
Athens is a city of contradictions; it is a place of both beauty and grit. Gleaming 19th century classical buildings sit among a modern city peppered with graffiti. Here, the world of the ancient Greeks permeates the very heart of the city. The aura and physical traces of this great civilization are made manifest though the architecture and soul of the city; their legacy shaped much of the formation of the city in the 19th century as architecture reaffirmed the ancient model. The acropolis, like a beacon on a hill, demands contemplation and reflection. This ritual link to the gods rests high above the city. One can only imagine the beauty of the Greek landscape that surrounded the hill. Today the views of the city are magnificent. One can appreciate the charming neighborhood of Plaka that gives a look into old Athens. The evolution of the Orders makes for an important study in a city full of the columns and entablatures of the past.
Florence
Florence is a jewel box to be discovered again and again. The city, nestled in the beauty of Tuscany, invites exploration down the narrow streets and broad piazze; the constant flock of tourists is a testament to the enduring magic of the city. It is a beautiful city enriched by some of the greatest artists and architects of all time. The artistic patronage of the Medici forever changed this city and their legacy is everywhere--from the Palazzo Vecchio to the Palazzo Pitti to San Lorenzo. As an architect, there is perhaps no other place (with the exception of Rome) where one can better trace the evolution of Renaissance thought and expression from Brunelleschi's Ospedale degli Innocenti to the Mannerism of Michelangelo. The Unity of the Arts culminates in the city where sculpture and painting are not independent of architecture, but rather work together in unison for God and city.
PRAGUE
Prague, like a grand old lady weathered by time and former neglect, shines with elegance and beauty through the peeling paint and crumbling cornices of the former royal capital. It is a city in which the Gothic blends with the Renaissance and Baroque in a seemless mix of spires, vaults, and domes. The rich urban fabric of the city invites exploring on foot. The unity of the arts is beautifully evident with sculpture, painting, and architecture interweaving throughout the city. This is revealed from the many churches to the famous bridges of the city. Prague allows a rare window into what a Gothic city would have looked like, as it has important examples of civic architecture, not merely Gothic churches. Perhaps none is more spectacular than Vladislav Hall in Prague Castle. The city represents traditional architecture and urbanism at its best, as layers of history unfold in the hierarchy of the city.
