LEFT ARCH: What on EARTH are you doing?
RIGHT ARCH: Who, me?
L: Yeah, who else would I be talking to? The doorway and I go way back. We’re good friends, that doorway and I.
R: Well I just thought I’d kind of arch my way on over here. You’ve got a nice little set up covering half of the doorway there, but the other half… Well let’s just say I thought the other half looked a little too exposed.
L: YOU’RE STANDING RIGHT ON TOP OF ME.
R: Whoa, whoa, let’s calm down. You don’t want to burst a keystone. You’re still standing. I haven’t damaged your arch in anyway.
L: (Grumbling)
R: And aren’t you standing on your “good friend” the doorway anyhow?
L: Well, I– he– we.. have an arrangement.
R: Right, right, you both just decided to share this wall I’m sheltering here?
L: Um.. Yes.
R: And he’s never complained? He’s just that good of a friend he’s let you stand on top of him for a couple hundred years?
L: Yep, buon amico that doorway.
R: Then why don’t you take a page from his book and, quietly, be a good friend and let me stand on you. There’s nothing you can do about it now. I’m built.
L: (More grumbles)
R: You’ll see– after a century or two we’ll be best friends. The people who wander beneath us will think we’re inseparable!
To decipher how I perceive a building to meet the ground, I first must decipher: which ground is it meeting? The ground that lies in plane with the off-kilter cobblestones? The ground beneath that, which once belonged to a medieval castello wall? The ground beneath that, the home of a broken and buried Doric column base? Or the ground beneath that, upon which the column base sat on?
It’s easy to say “ground” and automatically assume we’re speaking about the thing we walk on, the thing we see easily, and forget that there are layers upon layers of other grounds buried below that upper crust of cobblestones. The newer (though still quite old) buildings I’ve seen on walks through the city hardly seem to celebrate any connection with the ground– whichever layer it happens to meet. In fact, the walls of these buildings celebrate that meeting about as much as they celebrate meeting each other; instead a sad sort of apathy occurs.
I’ve found that in the gap between buildings of the Baroque and their corresponding grounds that meetings turn into gatherings. Wide stairs often remove the building from an immediate connection with the ground and form an interstitial space– a space to gather. The result of separating ground and building allows people to sit, to lean, to eat lunch, to watch the city go by. In my experience, the mediator between building and ground is more important than the meeting itself.
How do I know I’m in Rome?
Rome, like any other region of Italy, has its own prominence apart from the rest– but it isn’t simply the overwhelming scale of things. There is a rhythm to this city unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. There is the common flow of tourists with cameras glued to their faces, in and out of the most sacred ancient monuments as if they were paparazzi stalking Brangelina. Hurrying in between them are the residents of Rome, attempting to get to their job or the market without bruising someone with their Vespas in the process. And rising high above all this commotion are the icons of our history as intelligent human beings: the Colosseum, the Pantheon, the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica– the list alone would run far past the 150 word suggestion for this blog. You cannot escape the magnificence that was and still is Rome– I cannot escape the splendor that is my home for the next 16 weeks. How do I know I’m in Rome? I don’t know; not for sure. I’m just going to keep pinching myself until I’m finally convinced.