The studio focused on issues that relate directly to Rome and the built context. Rome consists of layers and layers of architectural design throughout the ages and it would be impossible to understand these all in just one semester so we focused specifically on one of the richest and most prolific building periods in Rome’s history: the Baroque. Where the Renaissance focused on a rebirth of humanist architecture and pure geometries, the Baroque marked a radical shift in architectural thought by challenging these pure geometries with mathematical advances in curvature, projection, and fluidity.

Before traveling to Rome, the students became familiar with the Baroque mindset by reading “The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque” by Gilles Deleuze and “Architecture and Geometry in the Age of the Baroque” by George Hersey. These readings were an introduction to the Baroque concepts of fluidity and continuity, and especially how these complex geometries are deployed in architecture. Because the Baroque pushed the limits of spatial consequences and construction of its time, computer modeling and algorithmic scripting were major tools for analyzing Baroque geometry.

The studio participated in an online forum with Jess Maertterer to discuss the equation-based geometries and develop scripts for the design projects.

Upon arriving in Rome, students first researched, documented, and catalogued specific works of Baroque architecture in and around Rome from the 17th and 18th centuries. Through analysis, we gained an understanding of the historical context, the architects, and most importantly the complex spatial and formal geometries typical of that time period by visiting the sites and documenting through photographs and diagrams, analyzing plans, sections, and elevations for formal and geometrical strategies that already exist, and adding our own layer of scripting analysis to see what geometries could be parametric and therefore manipulated through scripting

The final studio project was to design a contemporary museum in the historical center of Rome. The museum is dedicated to the Counter-Reformation and focuses specifically on the Baroque art and architecture that was sponsored by this revival. The majority of the museum program is dedicated to galleries to exhibit drawings, models, and sculpture from the period as well as contemporary exhibition space. In addition, the museum has auxiliary program of lecture hall, library, administration, gift shop, garden, parking and typical utility spaces found in museums. In the end, each group developed a thesis on the Baroque stemming from the Hersey and Deleuze readings, site visits, earlier analysis, and scripting exercises. The thesis embodied how each project (1) understood and contemporized Baroque characteristics (2) intervened into the historical context of Rome (3) used scripting as a contemporary tool to develop strategies.