Italia2009 once again found itself in Firenze… Between theory and practice, the work of Alberti captivated us. The Palazzo Rucellai and its accompanying Loggia (attributed to either Alberti or his influence) seemed to be theoretical projections reaching out into the city. Reason, or perhaps more appropriately, Ratio, was the filter through which the architect practiced. Alberti offers us something more however: a definition of the architect as well educated in all of the arts and sciences. With Alberti, the Medieval master-craftsman begins to fade altogether from the history of architecture. Clearly, this notion of the architect being educated in mathematics, geometry, music, rhetoric, literature, poetry, and philosophy has been abandoned today in favor of a very different course of education… that of training. What we may be loosing is the rich contamination of theory and practice. Are we on the brink of abandoning architecture altogether?
Ah! but Firenze embraces us! We turn from such theoretical discourse and are once again swept into the immediacy of the city… We trace Brunelleschi's work to Santo Spirito – a different, though still humanist, approach from Alberti. Here, Geometry is itself Reason. We paused on our walk at Santi Apostoli, an early Medieval basilica that represents a definite origin point for Santo Spirito. Spatially, Santo Spirito was amazing! Brunelleschi wraps the colonnade of the side aisle around the transept: a planar descision that results in a new spatial condition. The students were clearly taken with this, and after wandering throughout the building, settled down to sketch for an hour.
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