I was standing in a derelict courtyard in Palermo last Tuesday, watching a team of contractors prep a site for what the local news was calling a “revolutionary” urban regeneration project. They were talking about seamless integration and synergistic spaces,…
I remember standing in the shadow of a towering structure in Barumini, my hands caked in fine, ochre dust, feeling more frustrated than inspired. Most guidebooks treat the sardinian nuraghi as these mystical, almost magical monoliths—mysterious relics left by a…
I was standing on a scaffold in a dusty courtyard near the Forum last autumn, tracing the underside of a weathered capital with my flashlight, when it hit me how much we misinterpret these stones. Most guidebooks treat the corinthian…
I was in a crumbling palazzo near Ravenna last autumn, kneeling on a cold floor, when the smell hit me—that thick, heavy scent of earth and decay that tells you a building is suffocating. I wasn’t looking at the peeling…
I was kneeling in the dust of a side street near the Quattro Canti last Tuesday, my knees aching against the uneven basalt, when I saw it: a tiny, jagged seam where a 12th-century limestone block had been shoved into…
I was standing on a scaffolding in a narrow alleyway in Palermo last Tuesday, watching a junior conservator reach for a chemical cleaner to scrub away what he called “dirt” from a travertine lintel. I had to stop him before…
I was standing in a crumbling courtyard in the outskirts of Naples last Tuesday, watching a contractor try to patch a structural fissure with nothing but cheap, grey cement and a prayer. It’s the same way politicians approach the concept…
I remember sitting in a dusty studio in Ravenna, my fingers stained with glue and charcoal, staring at a mass of balsa wood that refused to behave. Everyone around me was obsessed with the latest high-resolution digital renders, treating them…
I was standing in a dusty courtyard near Paestum last autumn, tracing the edge of a weathered column with my thumb, when I realized how much we get wrong in the textbooks. People love to talk about the seamless transition…
I was surveying a small, nineteenth-century farmhouse near Ravenna last Tuesday when I saw it: a jagged, ugly seam where a new housing development had simply slapped itself against the ancient boundary wall. There was no transition, no respect for…