Today we went on our second tour with Luigi, but he couldn't walk the whole way, so a woman (whose name I don't remember) took us on the second part of the tour. I liked her much better than Luigi, but didn't like the buildings again today. Oh well, I'm just not much of a modernist. But we all knew that!
The first building we visited today was the Lateranense Library, designed by King & Roselli in 2003. It had some nice design ideas, but had horrible detailing, so it didn't feel nice at all. Good architecture is all in the details, which is sometimes out of the architect's hands. . .
I really liked how the stacks were all short, so no one needs a ladder to reach the top shelf!
There was a giant red thing (conference room) in the middle of the main floor. Inside was even worse. . .
The bathrooms were pretty terrible too. . . The sinks glowed red and then white and the stall doors looked like giant refridgerator doors. . .
The last building we went to was Ara Pacis Museum by Richard Meier, which was completed in 2006. It was definitely my favorite. I liked the simple materials, the shading devices, and the use of sunlight. Plus it was air-conditioned, and has a great fountain out front where people can actually play in the water!
Well, other than that, I worked in studio today (that was all I did yesterday, that's why there was no post), so nothing terribly exciting there. . . I also mailed out postcards this evening (stamps are both hard to find and expensive here!) so watch your mailboxes!
Tomorrow we have an appointment to see the Galleria Borghese, which is really exciting! Our appointment is at 9 am, but since the trains are going on strike tomorrow, the bus system will be messed up, too, so we don't know if we'll be able to take the bus or not, so we're heading out at 7:30 to walk to the Galleria. . . I sure hope its worth the walk!
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