Transcendent MomentsRei Chiang

SITES VISITED

Table of Content

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Italy Field School 08’

Table of Content

The Uffizi GallerySanta Croce

Santa Maria del CarmineMedici Chapel

Cupola del DuomoSan Salvi’s cortile

Chiesa di San Giovannino degli ScolopiSan Giovannino della Calza

Parco delle CascinePiazza della Santissima Annuziata

Piazzale MichelangeloChiesa di San Salvatore a Ognissanti

Orsanmichele exteriorMuseo dell’Opera del Duomo

Santo SpiritoPazzi Chapel

Basilica di San Lorenzo and Sagrestia VecchiaSan Miniato al MonteSan Marco Museum

Brancacci Chapel’s Expulsion frescoMercato Centrale and San Lorenzo Market

Loggia dei Lanzi at Piazza della SignoriaGates of Paradise

Santa Croce cortile

Quest for Proportion and Finding Peace

Journey to the South

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10

Signi�cant Sites

Being my favourite building in Florence, this is where my understanding of proportion and overall composition, together with the application of the chaos theory was most revealing. One of my transcendent moments started here and would be further elaborated on at a later time. Here I truly felt space, planes, and complexity driven by simple geometric shapes.

Italy Field School 08’

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Santo Spirito

I carried the new way of seeing things from Santo Spirito to here. Immediately, the new way of deconstructing allowed me to see the proportions and parallelism between the transitional space and the interior. The arches and spherical domes work harmonically and that curvature was repeated throughout the windows and di�erent parts inside the building.

Pazzi Chapel

Similar to Santo Spirito, San Lorenzo was proportionally stunning. However, I do �nd myself appreciating Santo Spirito more because there were fewer decorations on the arches and the columns created a forest due to their shape and the architecture. When comparing Sagrestia Vecchia and the Pazzi Chapel on the other hand, I found a greater appreciation for the Sagrestia Vecchia’s interior due to its oculus and natural lighting. However, the Pazzi Chapel’s stand-alone structure and its loggia de�antly allows a smoothing transition and relation between the exterior and interior space.

Basilica di San Lorenzo and Sagrestia Vecchia

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Signi�cant Sites

Every time I arrived there it was early in the morning when no one else was there. I think that allowed me to further appreciate and want to spend time there meditating about the entire �eld school: what I’ve seen so far and what I’ve been looking at in Florence. Because it’s a religious building, I also felt comforted being there. I do miss attending church back home, and this place really helped making me feel at ease. The basement area of the church made me feel most at peace. Maybe it was the low ceiling, or the dense columns, but it was there where I was most encouraged to re�ect.

Italy Field School 08’

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San Miniato al Monte

I am uncertain why, but though I appreciate paintings, I don’t feel a very deep connection with many of them. However, in this expulsion fresco, Eve’s broken heart and outcries of regret were felt and heard.

Brancacci Chapel’s Expulsion fresco

This place was quite special. It showed me the importance of utilizing natural light in the building to accentuate and draw attention to the paintings. The connection between each painting and its cell, then to the immediate outside environment was another lesson that struck me. The location of the paintings and colours were all carefully chosen. For example, in the rooms with three circles on their door that allowed light to shine into the room, paintings that re�ect the cruci�xion are located on the wall immediately behind the door so that natural light would hit it and merge the space in the painting with the cell itself.

San Marco Museum

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Signi�cant Sites

Because this location leads directly to a transcendent moment, I will talk about it more then. The Mercato Centrale was de�nitely one of my favourite places to purchase fruit, �gs in particular. I love how simple conversations can be started easily there despite the ‘poco Italiano’ I spoke. It contrast, the supermarkets were where conversations with the cashier seemed unwelcome.

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Mercato Centrale and San Lorenzo Market

At night, I would always gravitate towards the Loggia. Maybe it’s the lighting that focused the attention only onto the statues. The more interesting thing was how I seem to always see someone from the Gruppo there too. At times a few of us would go there just to sit silently with the statues, watch people in the piazza, then go for a small gelato on the way back to the apartment. These quiet nights settled me into Florence.

Loggia dei Lanzi at Piazza della Signoria

The Baptistery was THE place I wanted to visit. It was one of my build-ings and I understood the break-through Ghiberti exhibited on his ‘Gates of Paradise’. When I was able to see them from only a few inches away at the museum, I was even more ba�ed at their detail and com-position. In one of the panels, a small circle of four women seem to be engaged in a regular-day conversation, making the market place so much more lively and realistic. The multi-narrative at di�erent perceived distance kept me engaged and moving from one story to the next, one panel to the next.

Gates of Paradise

Ever since I visited this cortile I compared it with many other cortiles. This would remain my favourite cortile in all of Florence. I felt that the openness of this cortile pulls the energy upward and outward with its taller arch areas and large garden in the center that draws my atten -tion into then up towards the open sky.

Santa Croce cortile

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Transcendent Moments

My father is an old man, and with his age comes wisdom. Since I was a child he would always tell me “it’s better to travel a thousand miles than to read a thousand books”. I’ve never realize the meaning of that until the �eld school, where I learned to be a traveler and to see with new eyes. My �rst transcendent moment was based on architectural spaces, the second was self-discovered while being completely lost, and the last was based on a simple interaction at the San Lorenzo market. These transcendent moments are lessons I’ll take with me outside of Italy and into the rest of my life.

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Transcendent moment introduction

3 moments - intro

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Transcendent Moments

On the 27th day of the �eld school, we went to Santo Spirito. The content expert elaborated the importance of proportion in this work by Brunelleschi. I must admit, sketching was never my strength, but I took out my pen and notebook and started to plot out the structure. Retrieving some grade 11 geometry and the laws of perception, I began to make sense of the space through careful inspections so it could be recorded on paper. The beauty and complexity of the columns made perfect sense when seen in relation with one another. This simple structural formula is repeated in di�erent scales throughout the building, creating a clean but multilayered space when seen from di�erent axis. Without having to put this on paper, I would never be able to understand this grander vision.

Taking this new found interest in plotting/deconstructing structures, I raced towards Brunelleschi’s Pazzi Chapel, pausing only when going through the loggia. Stripping away the decorations, the space becomes yet another set of proportional planes and the loggia as an extension of those interior calculations. Again, into San Lorenzo and Sagrestia Vecchia I grew to appreciate the beauty in the proportions of the smallest parts, such as the small circular windows along the aisles and the Pantheon-like oculus in respect to the other parts of the building.

Italy Field School 08’

Quest for Proportion and Finding Peace

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Transcendent Moments

Even in spaces not by Brunelleschi, I took out my pen and paper to do the same. What it is that makes space, and why, essentially became my quest. I traveled to San Miniato al Monte since it was one of my buildings; I thought it would be interesting to see if there are any di�erences between Brunelleschi’s proportions and that of a Romanesque basilica. Sure enough there were proportional similarities, but after spending an hour and a half there, completely alone in the morning, the space became more personal. It was unlike Brunelleschi’s strict statements of perfection and calculation that brings people closer to God, but it’s this trio-dialogue between three very di�erent but cohesive spaces within one building that made me feel like I’m not in just another church but I’m experiencing God. Yes, I am a religious person, but this space truly allowed me see God as someone untouchably holy, as a guide, and yet as a personable friend.

I revisited San Miniato al Monte the next morning, and after being away for 31 days, this place felt like home.

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Quest for Proportion and Finding Peace... continue

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Transcendent Moments

After visiting San Miniato al Monte, I continued to travel south up the hill. Taking a side street I was lead towards another church. However, it only opened on Sundays and so I continued my journey down the hill. It was unfortunate the battery ran out on my camera, for I won’t be going back in the term of the �eld school.

There’s a point where I was able to see over the A1 and into another city that had a cathedral that looked like a smaller version of Santa Maria del Fiore. I thought to myself, “I wonder what it’s like inside there…”, but quickly dismiss the idea as I realize I was going to hit the afternoon sun and was unsure of how to return to the apartment. I rode for a while and turned back north when given the chance. I was certain I was heading in the right direction, but when I stopped to ask a local which way to the centro, he answered “centro? Centro di Firenze?" I replied and was pointed towards town. That was de�antly a sign that I might have gone a little too far, but the fear of being so far never step foot in my mind. During this journey I felt for myself the idea of a “limit” is truly self-created.

My limit is myself.

Regardless of how fearless we see ourselves, we’re tied with obligations, and there is never ‘no fear’. I feared being scorched in the afternoon sun, and I also feared burning myself out if I do decide to chase after the other cathedral I saw. It’s not a bad thing to have fears, they in fact set the boundary in which de�nes us as an individual. Nevertheless, it’s important to note which obstacles are to be overcome, and which are just essential as a human being.

Removing fear but retaining self.

Italy Field School 08’

Journey to the South

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Transcendent Moments

The little Italian I’ve acquired during the Italian course was absolutely helpful. I must say, interviews are still a little di�cult to conduct, but the simple day-to-day interactions allowed me to pull myself away from the typical tourist the locals deal with everyday.

At San Lorenzo market is when I had a small but memorable lesson. For those who don’t know, San Lorenzo market is full of tourist looking for cheap little souvenirs, or leather items. The merchants have to deal with all kinds of people. It’s obvious they’re tired of �ghting against bargains, tired of speaking in English, and above all, tired of being in the beating summer heat during siesta time.

I was looking around for a leather wallet at a stand, like the other English speaking tourist that was there. The tourist, probably still unconscious that they’re in Italy, broke out in English expecting the stand owner to understand. Luckily, the stand owner understood and replied in English. In full knowledge that she spoke English, I turned and asked “parle Englese?” She smiled, slightly taken back that I’d asked, and replied “si”. I then asked some more speci�c things that I would otherwise unable to express in Italian and she was very kind in helping me; still, I was unable to �nd what I needed. Unlike many other stand owners though, she was the only one that didn’t curse beneath her breath when I thank her and left the stand not making a purchase.

Instead, she said with a smile, “Prego, arrivederci”.

Italy Field School 08’

Respect for Dummies

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