I was standing in a damp basement in Ravenna last autumn, tracing the jagged edge of a limestone block that had been forced into a corner where it clearly didn’t belong. It wasn’t a mistake of the mason’s hand, but…
I remember standing in a dusty yard outside of Syracuse three years ago, watching a contractor reject a perfectly magnificent block of limestone simply because it didn’t match a catalog photo. He was looking for a color match, but he…
I remember standing in a drafty, makeshift studio in Palermo three years ago, staring at a stack of competition briefs that felt less like architectural invitations and more like bureaucratic labyrinths. They were thick, heavy with jargon, and seemingly designed…
I was standing in a damp basement in Palermo last Tuesday, watching a contractor toss a pile of hand-fired terracotta tiles into a skip because they didn’t meet a modern, standardized dimension. It felt like a physical blow to the…
Last Tuesday, I found myself kneeling in the dust of a crumbling courtyard near Syracuse, tracing the jagged edge of a limestone block that had been quarried less than five kilometers from where I sat. There is a specific, gritty…
I was standing in the Sant’Andrea al Quirinale last Tuesday, tracing the seam where the marble meets the gilded stucco, when I realized how much we get wrong about the Baroque. Most textbooks will try to sell you a lofty,…
I was standing in a courtyard near Syracuse last autumn, watching a contractor prepare to patch a crumbling limestone plinth with a pre-mixed, grey industrial mortar. It was heartbreaking. He thought he was doing a favor by using something “stronger,”…
I was standing in a damp basement in Ravenna last Tuesday, staring at a hairline fracture in a sixteenth-century foundation, when I realized the crack wasn’t caused by the earth shifting. It was caused by the sheer, frantic weight of…
I was standing in a damp courtyard in Palermo last autumn, watching a contractor prepare to slap a thick, grey cementitious coating over a crumbling, nineteenth-century facade. It was painful to witness. People often treat render and lime finishes as…
I was kneeling in the dust of a side chapel in Rome last autumn, my flashlight tracing a seam where a late Renaissance pilaster met a sudden, aggressive curve of travertine. Most historians will try to sell you a tidy…