‘Lessons From Rome’ to explore
intersection of travel and design

Texas A&M University’s College of Architecture will host an exhibit this fall exploring the relationship between travel and design thinking through the work of four prominent contemporary architects.

“Lessons From Rome: The Work of Robert Venturi, Tod Williams, Thomas Phifer, and Paul Lewis,” will be on exhibit Oct. 20-Nov. 3. in the college’s Wright Gallery on the second floor of Building A in the Langford Architecture Center on the Texas A&M campus.

“The exhibit aims to render the act of traveling — the internalization and later recollection of images and experiences from foreign cultures — as a critical factor in shaping the architects’ career-long design approach,” according to exhibit organizers.

At the exhibit, the architects, who are Fellows of the American Academy in Rome, a center for independent study and advanced research in the fine arts and the humanities, will have images of their projects juxtaposed against Roman buildings, sites, landscapes and quotes from interviews.

The exhibit shows how each architect referred to different layers of Rome’s urban fabric as sources for his ideas, and how each chose different routes to experience the city.

The show asks viewers to consider

• how personal observations and experiences influence an architect’s philosophy of design,
• how new context is observed, assimilated, processed, remembered, and finally instrumentalized, and
• explore understanding how these four architects conceptually mapped their experiences in Rome, and how Rome influenced their subsequent professional work.

For more information about “Lessons From Rome,” contact Julie Rogers, jrogers@archmail.tamu.edu or 979.847.9479.
 
The American Academy in Rome’s website can be accessed at http://www.aarome.org/.