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Our last day in Rome, our professor decided to show us parts of Rome less traveled, a break from antiquity to give us a chance to see the modern side of the city. First stop, the Postale Centrale, the main post office for Rome, built around the 1930's, yet still looks completely modern with clean sleek lines and curves and lots of glass. It was one of the first buildings to start having diagonal bracing on the front facades.
This building is under construction, due to be completed some time next summer. It is a museum by Zaha Hadid, a currently famous female architect who has done several new and wild buildings. I'm not particularly fond of the style, but I do like how they left the front facade similar to the surrounding buildings so it won't stick out so much when it's done.
The next stop was at Richard Meier's Ara Pacis Museum, built in 2006. It is a very modern style building with clean perpendicular angles and built with glass and stone. It houses the Ara Pacis Augustae, a massive marble triumphal arch built to commemorate the return of the Roman emperor Augustus, made completely out of one stone.
... you can see the arch through the windows as you pass.
Next, we went farther out of the city towards the buildings from when Italy hosted the Olympics in the 1960's. Here is an abstract sculpture near some housing buildings.
This is one of the basketball auditoriums used during that Olympics.
The large spacious eliptical dome on the inside looked like one gigantic geometrical puzzle as it forced your eye to follow its lines upwards to the top of the ceiling. The seats were surprisingly very comfortable, especially considering they were at a basketball court, and every seat had a good view.
... even the windows were decorated for the Olympics.
Last, we went to see Renzo Piano's music auditoriums. There are three different sized spaces, all grouped with a common lobby and courtyard. The roofs, made of lead for ease of shaping and its soundproofing, remind many people of armadillos or pill bugs or something ... not exactly the most attractive things ever, but I suppose function of the material and design outweighed aesthetics in this particular structure.
The roof is not actually resting on the specially made brick walls - the walls don't support it at all. Instead, it is separate, held up with a series of this metal beams. The wooden layer on the inside of the roof also adds to the acoustics of the buildings.
... the view of the common courtyard area. The lobby is downstairs, on top of which lies seating that serves as an outdoor ampitheater.
This is the inside of the first and smallest concert hall, mainly used for small musical performances. Each of the different buildings are designed differently, so as to best suit each one for the perfect acoustics for the size and use of the space. This one had wooden panels along the sides at varying shapes and angles, some moveable, to best reflect and absorb the sounds as needed.
The second one, slightly larger, had retractable cloth panels on the walls for the sound control. The stage can move to the center of the floor to create a round theater for certain theatrical performances.
The third and largest auditorium was very magnificent. The ceiling was covered with organically shaped large wood sheets, positioned just so to create the best sound for the orchestra. The stage is fixed, but has plenty of room for a full orchestra and choir as needed. The seats on the balcony go all the way around the auditorium in order to maximize the number of people who could fit as well as minimizing the farthest distance someone would have to sit away from the music. I really enjoyed seeing these and marveled at how beautiful they were, especially considering how ugly the exteriors are. I can only imagine how amazing it would be to get to hear a concert in one of these halls.
In the lobby of the auditoriums, they have a small music museum, displaying many various types of old fashioned and new instruments, ranging from traditional to very bizzare. They even had a room that showed how they make them.
Our last day in Rome, our professor decided to show us parts of Rome less traveled, a break from antiquity to give us a chance to see the modern side of the city. First stop, the Postale Centrale, the main post office for Rome, built around the 1930's, yet still looks completely modern with clean sleek lines and curves and lots of glass. It was one of the first buildings to start having diagonal bracing on the front facades.
This building is under construction, due to be completed some time next summer. It is a museum by Zaha Hadid, a currently famous female architect who has done several new and wild buildings. I'm not particularly fond of the style, but I do like how they left the front facade similar to the surrounding buildings so it won't stick out so much when it's done.
The next stop was at Richard Meier's Ara Pacis Museum, built in 2006. It is a very modern style building with clean perpendicular angles and built with glass and stone. It houses the Ara Pacis Augustae, a massive marble triumphal arch built to commemorate the return of the Roman emperor Augustus, made completely out of one stone.
... you can see the arch through the windows as you pass.
Next, we went farther out of the city towards the buildings from when Italy hosted the Olympics in the 1960's. Here is an abstract sculpture near some housing buildings.
This is one of the basketball auditoriums used during that Olympics.
The large spacious eliptical dome on the inside looked like one gigantic geometrical puzzle as it forced your eye to follow its lines upwards to the top of the ceiling. The seats were surprisingly very comfortable, especially considering they were at a basketball court, and every seat had a good view.
... even the windows were decorated for the Olympics.
Last, we went to see Renzo Piano's music auditoriums. There are three different sized spaces, all grouped with a common lobby and courtyard. The roofs, made of lead for ease of shaping and its soundproofing, remind many people of armadillos or pill bugs or something ... not exactly the most attractive things ever, but I suppose function of the material and design outweighed aesthetics in this particular structure.
The roof is not actually resting on the specially made brick walls - the walls don't support it at all. Instead, it is separate, held up with a series of this metal beams. The wooden layer on the inside of the roof also adds to the acoustics of the buildings.
... the view of the common courtyard area. The lobby is downstairs, on top of which lies seating that serves as an outdoor ampitheater.
This is the inside of the first and smallest concert hall, mainly used for small musical performances. Each of the different buildings are designed differently, so as to best suit each one for the perfect acoustics for the size and use of the space. This one had wooden panels along the sides at varying shapes and angles, some moveable, to best reflect and absorb the sounds as needed.
The second one, slightly larger, had retractable cloth panels on the walls for the sound control. The stage can move to the center of the floor to create a round theater for certain theatrical performances.
The third and largest auditorium was very magnificent. The ceiling was covered with organically shaped large wood sheets, positioned just so to create the best sound for the orchestra. The stage is fixed, but has plenty of room for a full orchestra and choir as needed. The seats on the balcony go all the way around the auditorium in order to maximize the number of people who could fit as well as minimizing the farthest distance someone would have to sit away from the music. I really enjoyed seeing these and marveled at how beautiful they were, especially considering how ugly the exteriors are. I can only imagine how amazing it would be to get to hear a concert in one of these halls.
In the lobby of the auditoriums, they have a small music museum, displaying many various types of old fashioned and new instruments, ranging from traditional to very bizzare. They even had a room that showed how they make them.
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