I was standing on a scaffolding in a dim chapel near Syracuse last autumn, scraping away a layer of what a previous “restorer” had called a luxury upgrade, only to find the original intent buried under a thick, suffocating coat…
I was kneeling in the damp shade of a Bologna corner last Tuesday, my calipers out and my notebook getting ruined by the humidity, when I realized most people walk right past the very thing that makes these places breathe….
I remember standing in a dusty site office outside Syracuse, staring at a cracked, peeling slab that a contractor had insisted was “cutting-edge” engineering. He spoke about the miracle of modern materials, but all I could see were the tell-tale…
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 remember standing in a damp basement in Ravenna last autumn, my flashlight catching the way a modern, synthetic coating was literally suffocating a sixteenth-century wall. It was heartbreaking. Everyone thinks they can just slap a thick, waterproof layer of…
I was standing in the shadow of the Flavian Amphitheatre last Tuesday, watching a tour group cluster around the travertine arches. They were listening to a guide drone on about the sheer scale of the empire and the glory of…
I remember standing in the shadow of the Palazzetto dello Sport in Rome, my fingers tracing the rhythmic, sweeping curves of the precast ribs. Most people stand there and marvel at the aesthetic grace of the structure, treating it like…
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 was crouched in a damp, narrow calle near Cannaregio last Tuesday, my flashlight tracing the jagged interface where a foundation block meets the salt-slicked water. Most tourists walk right past these details, seeing only the shimmering reflection of the…
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…