I was standing in a sun-bleached square in Lecce last July, watching a group of urban planners argue over the placement of a “modular, interactive seating installation” that looked more like a piece of plastic playground equipment than anything meant…
I spent three weeks last summer in a dusty archive in Florence, tracing the ink lines of Renaissance masterworks, only to realize how much we get wrong about the concept of perfection. We tend to treat the ideal city drawings…
I was standing in a narrow side street in Pienza last autumn, squinting against the midday sun, when I realized how much we misinterpret the concept of the “ideal city.” Most textbooks treat urban planning in the renaissance as if…
I was kneeling on a damp limestone floor in a small, deconsecrated chapel outside Ravenna last autumn, my flashlight tracing the hairline fractures where a heavy dome met its supporting piers. Most architectural guides will tell you that centralised plan…
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 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 the shadow of the Laurentian Library last autumn, tracing the way the stone seemed to buckle under the weight of its own elegance, when it hit me how much we get wrong. Most people approach the…
I was standing in a damp, narrow passage in a crumbling Palazzo near Palermo last Tuesday, tracing the lime-wash decay with my flashlight, when it hit me how often we misinterpret these spaces. People tend to wax poetic about the…
I was crouched in the dust of a narrow side street near Santo Spirito last autumn, my knees aching against the uneven pavement, when I realized I was looking at something most tourists walk past without a second thought. I…
I remember sitting in a dusty archive in Ravenna three years ago, staring at a sixteenth-century folio that had been rebound so poorly the spine was practically screaming. Most scholars will spend hours lecturing you on the “intellectual democratization” brought…