THE ART OF EMBODIED IDEAS

In the past, it was a given in education for the arts that one would study the great classics in the given field, be it literature or art, sonatas or cities. Following in the footsteps of the greatest poets and visionaries seemed like a natural, if challenging, approach to rigorous learning that could build upon prior achievements with new innovations. Yet for many generations, art has struggled with an existential angst concerning what it is and what bases there should be for assessing itself. The underlying assumption is that established classics must be dismissed to provide freedom of expression. Ironically, many of these artists then invoke classical mythology and classics of philosophy and literature to canonize many of these bizarre or simplistic creations.

Such angst can be digested or refused when isolated to a corner of a gallery; the odd gunshot wound from performance art or dripping underwear can be viewed or avoided. Not so with our cities. In his book Timeless Cities, David Mayernik makes a strong case that our cities are "homes built large," evocative built environments that either nurture us or weaken us depending on the level of care we give them. Mayernik posits that an awakened concern with triumphs of city planning in the great era of Renaissance Italian urbanism can instill our own cities with meaning and richness which are both plangent and regenerative.

Timeless Cities takes us to five wonderful Italian cities: Rome, Venice, Florence, Siena and Pienza. David Mayernik draws on his own experiences in Italy both as a fellow at the American Academy in Rome and as an architect living and working in Rome and Florence. Mayernik suffuses his descriptive narratives with wisdom from the humanist tradition of the Italian Renaissance. In one of his pithy observations, he says, "Architecture is the art of embodied ideas," and furthermore, that "cities to the European imagination before the Enlightenment were more than simply Places, they were built Ideas suffused with cultural memory." While this seems like a lofty ideal for our time, he convincingly shows us in detail how Renaissance design addressed just those issues.

Mayernik charts the buildings along the Possesso route (the route of the Papal procession between the Lateran and the Vatican) in Rome as conscious respondents to the meaningful history of that recurring event. He notes that the processional route was already conceived of as a metaphorical "bridge" that consciously took in areas of the city that contained memories in the form of relevant historical structures or sites of historical events. Renaissance and Baroque designers added to that sense of meaning with new, exceptionally creative designs such as that of Sant’ Andrea della Valle. He points out that, "the past for ... such artists was not a straightjacket but an inexhaustible font of ideas and forms from which to learn ... to the humanist mind cities needed continuity with their past, between buildings, along a street or around a piazza, even across a river, to be harmonious like the universe and memorable like cities of our imagination. The classical style and humanist culture, passed along and transformed through centuries, provided a firm grounding that allowed buildings and artists to speak to each other across space and time."

Another discovery made by Mayernik is a fascinating example of cultures engaging in a dialogue across time: he points out that Bramante’s Tempietto at San Pietro in Montorio has the exact diameter of the oculus of the Pantheon. The idea that the Tempietto sits levitated on a hill in Trastevere conceptually completing the Pantheon with a lantern is an extraordinary Baroque conception. Other striking discoveries by Mayernik arise throughout his discussions of the five Italian cities as he investigates what is great and good about these places.

When one reaches the final chapter, “What We’ve Lost and Why These Ideas Matter Today,” one truly wonders how such stunning history and beauty can nourish our own cities. Yet therein lies Mayernik’s inspiring message: it will not be easy, but it will be surpassingly important to build our cities based on aspirations rather than circumstantial economics. He notes that the cities he discusses are Memory Theaters; when walking in those cities, one senses the accretions over time and experiences them as layered up icons with inherent meanings and associations. Mayernik believes that a renewed concerned with transcendent values could guide us to build the best to which our culture may aspire, celebrating such timeless virtues as Learning, Memory, Justice, the Good Life, Noble Character, Permanence, Harmony, and Transcendent Beauty. To accomplish this, he says we need confidence — confidence in ourselves as worthy city-builders deserving of good places for ourselves and our progeny — and confidence in timeless lessons which we may learn from the classics, from Rome and Florence, Venice and Siena, and from the confident resolve of the artists who created the most memorable portions of those urban realms.

Ralph C. Muldrow is an architect and the Simons Professor of Architecture and Preservation at College of Charleston where he teaches architectural and urban design and history.

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