Pienza

Our next stop was Pienza: another beautiful city in its own way.  This city was also relatively small, probably about 3 times the size of Monteriggioni.  I forgot to mention that we are required to do readings about these cities before we visit them. (well, I guess this is technically a class, too!) Anyways, I read this article on the design of Pienza, particually its main square is distinct from other cities in that it has a very irregular shape.  This has to do with the fact that it was built in the Early Renaissance, which was considered to be a time related to the ideas of Humanism - designs that emphasize variety and richness in types of styles.  Rather than the uniformity and formal symmetry and geometry seen in the Renaissance, Pienza's square is an eclecticism of different facade styles and a discord of building arrangement (for one thing, its main square isn't "square"; its a deformed trapezoid).  The article I read by Christine Smith ("Varietas and the Design of Pienza") claims that humanistic values also incorporate ideas of movement; that because the spectator cannot not see everything in the square, one has to move through it to see certain things.  Therefore, there is a continually changing relation between the object and the viewer.  These ideas are kind of abstract and hard to grasp, but I think they are so characteristic of what we talk about now in contemporary architecture and so I was incredibly fascinated with this reading.  And it was great to go see it, even with the snow.

Here is a plan of the city - I photographed it because I was too lazy to scan it.  The orange represents the square I'm talking about, and the orange line represents the route we took to walk around the city.

Here's the snow I mentioned to u about...it was so weird how the landscape suddenly went from green to white as our bus took us here.  

Here's the church that faces the main square.  Apparently, the distance between the bottom of the facade to its middle line (highlighted by the lintels of the columns, above the middle door arch) is the same distance used in the grid marked on the ground with lighter tiles.  The idea being that if you rotated the facade to lay flat on the square, the lines would match up.  Image to the top right is the building beside the church.  Notice all of us trying to sketch in the snow...

 The snow there was so beautiful!

The two photos above show some apartment units that all sit in a rectangular block.  They are all the same size and design, as noticed in the repetitive stairs and windows.  Each unit is so cute, but I guess pretty small and tight.  

Left: view of church from behind.  Snow is continuing to fall

Right.  view inside church.  At least it was a little bit warmer in there.  A lot of us found this refuge to sketch.