Spring 2011 Thorp Prize winners announced!

The Spring 2011 Thorp Prize gave outstanding results. The Penn State Architecture and Landscape Architecture students were asked to design a temporary installation celebrating the 150th anniversary of the creation of the Italian Nation which occurred in 1861 thanks to the political and military action of such visionaries as Giuseppe Garibaldi, Giuseppe Mazzini and Camillo Benso Count of Cavour. The installation was to be placed in an area spanning from Piazza Venezia to the Colosseum and the students were asked to carefully analyze the urban characteristics of the sites they chose and produce projects with a strong urban connotation and an evocative, symbolic impact, regardless of their ephemeral character. Student work involved research concerning both the history of Italian re-unification and examples of urban scale installations from past and present times. As already mentioned the quality of the seventeen entries was generally very high and this made the job of the jury particularly difficult. In fact, the jurors, Professors Luca Peralta, Romolo Martemucci and David Sabatello had to go through three distinct evaluation phases which brought to an initial eight-project shortlist from which the four finalists were chosen and subsequently the two winning entries were nominated unanimously. The winners were proclaimed during the traditional end-of-semester reception coinciding with the exhibit of student work at the Pantheon Institute.

The Spring 2011 Thorp Prize winners are:

TEAM 2: Zack Baier (Landscape Architecture); Colleen McDonough (Architecture); Lauren Polacheck (Architecture)

TEAM 13: Ben Mahan (Architecture); Kaylynn Primerano (Landscape Architecture)

Professor David Sabatello

Photo of the Month - April 2011

Here is the winning picture of the last photo competition for the Spring 2011 semester:

The theme of the contest was "Goodbye Italy" and Molly Ravis sent us a nice picture taken during the visit that the students from the "Masters and Monuments" class made to the "3D Rewind Roma", an exhilarating 3 dimensional journey through the history of imperial Rome. Thanks to a series of amazing special effects and the use of automated scenographic equipment, our students had the chance to find themselves in the underground chambers of the Colosseum back in 310 AD.

Molly won a huge and yummy chocolate Easter egg! But the Pantheon Institute has decided to give a small present to all the students who participated in our photo contest to thank them for their great enthusiasm!

Olive Oil Tasting at the Pantheon Institute!

The last extra-curricular activity that we organized for the Spring2011 students at the Pantheon Institute was an extra-virgin olive oil tasting.

We contacted a real expert in the field, Mr. Luca Mattioli, who came to the Pantheon office on Thursday afternoon to teach the students how to taste olive oil and how to distinguish a good product from a bad one.

Mr. Mattioli started his lesson with a little general information about olive oil: he said that “like wine, virgin olive oil has distinct flavors and signs of the territory of origin. Italy, having its head in central Europe, its feet in the Mediterranean and its belly somewhere in between, is blessed with a varied climate. Volcanic rock, marine salt, truffles and mushrooms, herbs and spices, fruit and vegetables, all join in with the help of father Sun to create the many different flavors of olive oils”.

This is why it is essential to discover how to taste the differences between olive oils and how to recognize their main qualities (i.e. sweetness, fruitiness, smoothness, softness…) and their main defects (i.e. rancidity, weakness, dryness…).

As for wines, also the tasting of extra-virgin olive oils entails the use of three of our sensory systems: vision, olfaction and taste.

Obviously, as Mr. Mattioli explained, the mouth tasting is the “classical and most complete method to value an olive oil and finally draw a conclusion after the visual and flavor tests”. The olive oil sommelier also gave our students some suggestions on how to match olive oils that are produced in different regions of Italy with the appropriate food.

We hope that our students enjoyed this experience and we will certainly organize this interesting activity again in the future!

Girls Soccer Match

This week, and for the first time since I started working at the Pantheon Institute, I had the pleasure to organize a soccer match for girls only! As a matter of fact, some girls studying here asked me to help them arranging a game before the end of the semester. The match took place on Tuesday night at the “Olimpiclub” fields, in the Viale Marconi area. I met the girls (who came with a couple of boys who watched the game) in front of the bus stop that I had told them to get off at and we walked together to the fields.
Only few of the 11 students who took part in the game had played soccer before, which means that, for most of them, Tuesday’s game was the first ever! In spite of their inexperience, I have to say that the girls were not bad at all! Six people played in each team and the match was engaging and full of goals: the final score was 6-6! Everyone had fun (players and spectators) and I hope we will manage to organize another girls match also during future semesters!

Picture of the month - March 2011

Here is the winning picture of March's photo competition:

Congratulations to Michelle Greene! She has won a yummy dinner for two people at "La Creperie" restaurant in Testaccio!

Roman Cartography at the Pantheon Institute

As many past Penn State students know, while studying abroad in Rome all architecture and landscape architecture student are required to take Arch 499C. While the course material in itself is interesting, what really makes the course worthwhile is the professor who teaches it.

Allan Ceen has been teaching students about Roman Cartography for a long time. The course focuses on learning from various maps of Rome in order to understand the development of the city over its history. The city has drastically changed over time yet it still has managed to keep a unique identity unlike any other city I have been too this semester.

The other important part of the course requires all students to participate in ten walks through the city of Rome. Each and every Thursday was another exciting adventure through the city, as Allan Ceen would take us on yet another historical path through the city. The walks include Ancient Roman, Medieval, Renaissance, and even pre-Roman paths. Allan Ceen used these walks to illustrate the importance of how the city has change, but also stress the importance of being able to read buildings and understand the city as whole.

Many of the buildings in Rome, especially churches and government buildings, have writing directly on them which tell you what the building is, and when the building was built. However, in some cases it isn’t always that easy. Dating a building can be done through analyzing the building architecturally. Looking at the overall style, looking at the windows, or specially looking at the ornament are other ways to understand more about a building. Allan Ceen taught us the significance of the Papal Coat of Arms and how the symbols within it and often applied to the architecture constructed under the reign of a particular Pope. These techniques have been extremely useful in gaining a deeper understanding the components that make up the city of Rome. As developing architects, it is very important to understand the context in which one is designing. Therefore, it is necessary to understand how one can use what already exists within the city before deciding to demolish or introduce something new. This course has definitely equipped us with the skills to truly analyze, understand and appreciate a city. Specifically, I think all of us have become eternally fond of Rome and greatly appreciate all of Allan Ceen’s effort to allow us to learn from the Eternal City.

Wine-Tasting at "Angolo Divino"!

The world of wine is fascinating as much as it is complex. We decided to organize a wine tasting night for our students just to give them the chance to learn how to have this delicious drink in a more conscious way. This event was a great success insomuch as almost half of our students took part in it!

The wine tasting took place at the “Angolo Divino” wine shop, a small but very welcoming place in the heart of Rome, just few walks off Campo de’ Fiori. The shop’s owner, Massimo, was there to wait for us and, as we walked in, we found several tables set and ready for the event. Each person had the chance to taste three red wines produced in different Italian regions.

The tasting was structured in a very interesting way: Massimo explained to us that wine needs to be analyzed using three of our sensory systems: vision, olfaction and taste. Proceeding from this basis, our “guide” let us examine the three wines by observing, inhaling and sampling them. Therefore, we started analyzing the first wine through a visual exam. Massimo told us that this examination is helpful to discover more about the wine’s fundamental features in terms of clearness, color, brilliance and viscosity.

The second step of our tasting was the olfactory exam and this is obviously the most difficult phase of the whole process. Massimo is an expert, of course, and I would say that most of us were baffled when he managed to sniff aromas such as that of vanilla or red fruits while raising the second glass under his nose! At last, we ended the process testing the wine by mouth. Everyone immediately realized that the three wines were ordered in front of us according to their alcoholic strength: as a matter of fact, the first one was the lightest, while the last one was far stronger than the others. At the end of this very interesting lesson, Massimo finally revealed to us the names of the three wines we had tasted; they were, respectively, Morellino di Scansano, Barbera d’Asti and Negramaro.

While Max was illustrating the main features of the bottles he had opened, a waiter brought to each of us a dish full of yummy and colorful food to eat and taste with our wine; we had grilled veggies, cheese, a small omelet, some taralli, which are small crackers similar to pretzels and a breadstick with mortadella.

Our students really liked this experience and we will surely organize it again for those who will study at the Pantheon Institute in the next semesters.