A building tells you how it was built if you know where to look. I write about joints, mortar and the decisions of people who are long dead, because that is where the real story sits.
I remember standing in the courtyard of the Castelvecchio last autumn, my fingers tracing the grit of a sixteenth-century lime mortar that was slowly weeping under the weight of a modern steel intervention. Most critics will spend hours prattling on…
I was kneeling in the dust of a site near Ostia last summer, my knees aching against the grit, when I saw it: a section of wall where the Roman brickwork transitioned into a crude, hurried patch of lime mortar….
I was standing in the shadow of the Tempietto last Tuesday, squinting against the Roman sun, when I realized how much we get wrong. Most textbooks treat bramante and the high renaissance as if they were discussing a collection of…
I was standing on a rickety scaffold in a damp crypt near Siena last autumn, my nose inches away from a fractured lancet window, when I realized most people completely miss the point of stained glass in italian churches. They…
I was standing in the Querini Stampalia last Tuesday, my flashlight tracing the edge of a brass inlay, when I realized how much people misinterpret him. Most architectural critics treat the relationship between Carlo Scarpa and detail as if it…
I was standing in a narrow carruggio in Camogli last Tuesday, squinting against the salt spray, when I saw it: a “restored” villa where the owner had replaced traditional lime-based pointing with a modern, grey cement grout. It was an…
I was kneeling in the dirt outside a site near Pompeii last autumn, my knees aching from the damp, when I realized how much we get wrong about the past. Most guidebooks treat roman housing and the domus as if…
I remember standing on a scaffold in Rome last autumn, my fingers tracing the jagged transition where a Renaissance pier meets a much older, more weary foundation. Most people walk into the Vatican and see a finished masterpiece, a seamless…
I was standing in a dim corner of a basilica near Ravenna last autumn, my flashlight tracing the uneven surface of a crumbling apse, when it hit me how much we get wrong. Most guidebooks treat glass mosaic in byzantine…
I was standing under the shadow of the Via Santo Stefano arches last Tuesday, watching a tourist struggle to photograph a “scenic view” while completely ignoring the way the terracotta bricks were actually laid. It’s the same old story: people…