Enjoyed reading about your adventure, and I am sure you are looking forward to seeing Jason and coming back to your new digs...which we are enjoying now. It is cozy...but you are used to that and are out and about alot. We ate on the terrace and ate and slept well. OUr main objective this short visit is just to be with Jason, we don't care to see the sites, seen most of them, more time, more site seeing. BG is having elective surgery tomorrow and Bridgette wants us to be with the kids. We aren't sure when we will be headed back to St. Louis, probably Sunday. Sure glad to be here even if it comes down to only a few hours. A mom just needs to see her kid occassionally and that won't change for me. Anyhow, the place looks fine, we will see a sb game tonight before we head to Bridgette's and hope to see you sometime over the holidays, lots of Rome talk and memories...what an adventure!
Hi Susan, As you know, we are visiting Jason for a couple of days. Will leave after the game tonight to go back to PA for a day and then back to St. Louis. It's been a good trip so far. Sounds like we missed a great game on Tuesday. Read some more of your blog while we were here. One thing that keeps coming to mind as I read your travel diary is that it seems like a lot has been lost and when we look back at it now, or even visit it as you are. That's unfortunate because it seems (to me) that we don't know a lot about what life was like then except for wars and conquests and generals and emperors etc but the daily lives of the common people have always been a mystery to me. It seems like a lot of what is left to see now tells about the upper crust and how they lived. I have read that much of Rome was a rat-infested slum, not just during the latter years of the empire but even as early as the latter years of the republic. I wonder what people will see of our culture a few thousand years from now. "A few lost golf balls ..." and a lot of four lane roads, right? Maybe you can do something about that with what your learning there. Hope so..
Thanks for the notes. Wow, Terry, sounds like you are a preservationist at heart.
This is actually something I think a lot about in terms of individual buildings. It's kind of a kit-of-parts view, to be simplistic. All materials degrade over time - wood rots, metal corrodes, mortar turns to dust. So one conservation approach to the idea of a building is to design it with an eye to sustaining it for centuries. In the US the design life of a typical structure is just 25 years. This is wasteful, but like everything else, governed by economics. You can build a building designed for demolition in 25 years with less money than one intended to last for centuries.
The most famous example of this, by the way, is the Ise shrine in Japan, which is rebuilt every 20 years. It has been rebuilt 61 times. The idea and concept of the building is perfectly preserved; the actual fabric is not conserved.
This attitude is actually contrary to contemporary conservation philosophy in which the authenticity of the physical material itself is of supreme importance, overriding the shape or idea of the building. There is also some truth to that - if I were to go to the Collosseum and learn later that it was actually a careful construction from 1970 that was artificially crafted to appear ancient, I would feel cheated of the experience.
But I think we can learn a lot from the shrine rebuilding ritual in terms of how we design buildings, especially learning the lessons from buildings that are standing after 1000 years.
At the same time, be aware that thos e ancient buildings that are still standing did not survive the passage of time on their own - men imposed hundreds of interventions over the years.
So in summary of all this, the appropriateness of different conservation approaches AND new building design approaches is something that has to be considered on a case-by-case basis.
And you already know about my ethical concerns with golf and highways so I'm not going into that, apart from a one-line summary: don't waste natural resources.
Your pictures of the Monks looks a lot like the photos in the National Geographic that I'm saving for you. I'll send it and Beppe's book to you as soon as you get back stateside.
Oh, if you'll look closely at the photo of the J-Dog's infamous night on the town you can clearly tell that it's a composite from the obvious cut lines. Somebody needs a little more practice with Photoshop!
I don't recall the title right now but a few years ago I read a book that I thoroughly enjoyed. It was a summary report of the findings that a group of archeologists make in the year 3000 (or thereabouts). They had unearthed a 1970's Holiday Inn motel and were explaining the significance of each of the bits and pieces of the hotel room that they had dug up. More of a comedy that anything else. Where else would you expect to find out about the religious significance of a TV remote control or the "sanitized for your protection" strip of paper on the commode seat.
I'm enjoying his book "La Testa Degli Italiani". Nothing earthshattering, but comical, with plenty of cultural insight. Will post on this soon... I'm always playing catchup.
And re: the Holiday Inn commentary, it's true that there are now movements to "Save Our Modern Heritage", such as roadside diners, strip malls, etc.
But as my colleague from Luxembourg told a bunch of conservationists about a month ago, 'you can't save everything, people have to live somewhere.' Again, it's about being able to consider each site as a unique situation, and watch out for the die-hard preservationists on one hand who save everything and the money-grabbing developers on the other hand who demolish everything.
and one more comment, when Ann says our new home is "cozy", she's referring to about 600 SF inside. BUT, there is also a 300 SF terrace and I'd much rather have the exterior space than 900 SF inside (comparable to our last apt.).
7 Comments:
Enjoyed reading about your adventure, and I am sure you are looking forward to seeing Jason and coming back to your new digs...which we are enjoying now. It is cozy...but you are used to that and are out and about alot. We ate on the terrace and ate and slept well. OUr main objective this short visit is just to be with Jason, we don't care to see the sites, seen most of them, more time, more site seeing. BG is having elective surgery tomorrow and Bridgette wants us to be with the kids. We aren't sure when we will be headed back to St. Louis, probably Sunday. Sure glad to be here even if it comes down to only a few hours. A mom just needs to see her kid occassionally and that won't change for me. Anyhow, the place looks fine, we will see a sb game tonight before we head to Bridgette's and hope to see you sometime over the holidays, lots of Rome talk and memories...what an adventure!
Hi Susan,
As you know, we are visiting Jason for a couple of days. Will leave after the game tonight to go back to PA for a day and then back to St. Louis. It's been a good trip so far. Sounds like we missed a great game on Tuesday.
Read some more of your blog while we were here. One thing that keeps coming to mind as I read your travel diary is that it seems like a lot has been lost and when we look back at it now, or even visit it as you are. That's unfortunate because it seems (to me) that we don't know a lot about what life was like then except for wars and conquests and generals and emperors etc but the daily lives of the common people have always been a mystery to me. It seems like a lot of what is left to see now tells about the upper crust and how they lived. I have read that much of Rome was a rat-infested slum, not just during the latter years of the empire but even as early as the latter years of the republic. I wonder what people will see of our culture a few thousand years from now. "A few lost golf balls ..." and a lot of four lane roads, right? Maybe you can do something about that with what your learning there. Hope so..
Thanks for the notes. Wow, Terry, sounds like you are a preservationist at heart.
This is actually something I think a lot about in terms of individual buildings. It's kind of a kit-of-parts view, to be simplistic. All materials degrade over time - wood rots, metal corrodes, mortar turns to dust. So one conservation approach to the idea of a building is to design it with an eye to sustaining it for centuries. In the US the design life of a typical structure is just 25 years. This is wasteful, but like everything else, governed by economics. You can build a building designed for demolition in 25 years with less money than one intended to last for centuries.
The most famous example of this, by the way, is the Ise shrine in Japan, which is rebuilt every 20 years. It has been rebuilt 61 times. The idea and concept of the building is perfectly preserved; the actual fabric is not conserved.
This attitude is actually contrary to contemporary conservation philosophy in which the authenticity of the physical material itself is of supreme importance, overriding the shape or idea of the building. There is also some truth to that - if I were to go to the Collosseum and learn later that it was actually a careful construction from 1970 that was artificially crafted to appear ancient, I would feel cheated
of the experience.
But I think we can learn a lot from the shrine rebuilding ritual in terms of how we design buildings, especially learning the lessons from buildings that are standing after 1000 years.
At the same time, be aware that thos e ancient buildings that are still standing did not survive the passage of time on their own - men imposed hundreds of interventions over the years.
So in summary of all this, the appropriateness of different conservation approaches AND new building design approaches is something that has to be considered on a case-by-case basis.
And you already know about my ethical concerns with golf and highways so I'm not going into that, apart from a one-line summary: don't waste natural resources.
Ok. Sorry for rambling! :)
Suz,
Your pictures of the Monks looks a lot like the photos in the National Geographic that I'm saving for you. I'll send it and Beppe's book to you as soon as you get back stateside.
Oh, if you'll look closely at the photo of the J-Dog's infamous night on the town you can clearly tell that it's a composite from the obvious cut lines. Somebody needs a little more practice with Photoshop!
I don't recall the title right now but a few years ago I read a book that I thoroughly enjoyed. It was a summary report of the findings that a group of archeologists make in the year 3000 (or thereabouts). They had unearthed a 1970's Holiday Inn motel and were explaining the significance of each of the bits and pieces of the hotel room that they had dug up. More of a comedy that anything else. Where else would you expect to find out about the religious significance of a TV remote control or the "sanitized for your protection" strip of paper on the commode seat.
Dad "Last Day" Man
Did you know Beppe has a column in a Rome newspaper called "Italians"?
http://www.corriere.it/solferino/severgnini/06-07-28/index.shtml
I'm enjoying his book "La Testa Degli Italiani". Nothing earthshattering, but comical, with plenty of cultural insight. Will post on this soon... I'm always playing catchup.
And re: the Holiday Inn commentary, it's true that there are now movements to "Save Our Modern Heritage", such as roadside diners, strip malls, etc.
But as my colleague from Luxembourg told a bunch of conservationists about a month ago, 'you can't save everything, people have to live somewhere.' Again, it's about being able to consider each site as a unique situation, and watch out for the die-hard preservationists on one hand who save everything and the money-grabbing developers on the other hand who demolish everything.
and one more comment, when Ann says our new home is "cozy", she's referring to about 600 SF inside. BUT, there is also a 300 SF terrace and I'd much rather have the exterior space than 900 SF inside (comparable to our last apt.).
Posta un commento
<< Home