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 remember standing on a scaffold in a crumbling palazzo near Ravenna, the air thick with the scent of damp oak and centuries of dust. While the structural engineers were arguing over modern load-bearing calculations and steel reinforcements, I was…
I was standing in a dusty courtyard in San Cataldo last Tuesday, running my hand over a seam where the new concrete met the old stone, when it hit me how much we get wrong. Most theorists treat Aldo Rossi…
I was crouched in a narrow service corridor near the ancient waterfront, the smell of damp tuff and centuries-old dust thick in my throat, when I saw it: a modern patch of cement aggressively forced into a gap where Roman…
I was kneeling in the dust of a small thermopolium last summer, my fingers tracing the edge of a chipped marble counter, when I realized how much we get wrong about these ruins. Most tourists walk through the gates looking…
I was standing in a damp basement in Ravenna last Tuesday, watching a contractor try to force a modern, Portland cement-based grout into a sixteenth-century masonry gap. It was painful to watch. There is this pervasive, expensive myth in our…
I was standing in a damp basement in Turin last November, my flashlight catching the jagged edge of a limestone block, when I realized how much we get wrong about the piedmont and baroque legacy. Most guidebooks will drone on…
I remember standing on a scaffolding in a narrow alley in Palermo last autumn, squinting through the dust at a set of sixteenth-century window guards. Most people see them as mere decoration or a barrier, but as I brushed away…
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 remember sitting on a crumbling limestone ledge near Vernazza, my knees stained with dust, watching a local farmer inspect a hairline fracture in a retaining wall. While the tourists were busy snapping wide-angle selfies of the colorful villages, I…