Look Up

I recently scanned nearly 2,000 of my travel photos from 35 mm slides.  Needless to say, I hadn't seen many of them in decades.

I quickly realized that, as an amateur photographer and professional architect, I tend to take a lot of pictures that correlate with the AIA's current public awareness campaign - Look Up.  I think in my case, I take these kinds of pictures because they aren't the kind you see in guidebooks or history of architecture textbooks.  They do however provide a perspective that is just as important as the 'money shot' taken from afar - the perspective from street level.  This perspective has always intrigued me. As an added bonus, these shots are normally free of pesky pedestrians.

So I offer this perspective.  Maybe you've visited these buildings yourself and these shots may remind you of how it felt to be with the building as opposed to viewing the building.  There is something about how a building engages the sky.

Borromini's Sant'Ivo

The Cathedral & Campanile in Florence 

Gaudi's Casa Mila

Peter Behrens' AEG Turbine Factory

A very dirty Cologne Cathedral

Parthenon

Centre Georges Pompidou - Rogers & Piano

FLW's Kentuck Knob

FLW's Pope-Leighey

FLW's Robie House

Alexandria, Virginia

Stehli Silk Mill, Lancaster, Pennsylvania

St. Catherine of Siena Chapel, Estes Park, Colorado (during a snow storm)

Fonthill Castle (Mercer Museum), Doylestown, Pennsylvania

Portland Building by Michael Graves

It struck me how similar some of these shots were to one another, as they spanned over 20 years.  The stark contrast between Casa Mila and AEG, both with a tree framing the view.  The way both Kentuck Knob and Pope-Leighey have a punctuated roof to filter the view to the sky. The similarities between the churches and temples, as they all seem to carry the passerby 'up'. While this is not a polished 90 second TV spot, perhaps it will inspire fellow travelers to take a moment to record how it felt to be with the building at ground level, and how that building engages the sky.

The Stair Master

There are 463 steps to the top of the lantern atop the dome of the Duomo in Florence, Italy.  I know because I've climbed it more than once.  The first time, I was a 21 year old student with about ten of my classmates.  It was not a big deal to make the climb, it was exciting and I was more fit at that time and the exercise was not that taxing.  However, when one ascends to the top of this dome, not only is a panoramic view of the red tiled roof city presented before you, but across the square from the dome is the slightly lower but still higher than everything else, bell tower.

The Bell Tower, Before We Ran Up Its Stairs

So instead of being satisfied with the current view from the highest point in Florence, my friends and I began to wonder what it would be like to see someone we knew on the top of the bell tower.  How funny would that be?  It was too enticing.  My classmate Brian and I volunteered to go all the way down to the piazza below, buy a ticket to the bell tower, climb those stairs, and fulfill the fantasy.

Those staying behind pooled their money to help pay the 20,000 lire to get us in.  They were going to enjoy the experience, too, but they didn't have to do any more stair climbing.  I honestly don’t remember running down those cathedral stairs, but from the trip up I remembered that they are some of the oddest treads and rises I've ever experienced.  The lowest stairs in the Cathedral are fairly conventional, but as soon as you get to the stairs in the dome itself, the structure of the double walled dome is primary and the stairs fill in between the skins as best they can.  As you near the top of the dome, not only are you going up stairs but also the side slope reaches nearly 45 degrees so some areas have you bending over in half so not to hit your head on a beam.  So how I made it down without knocking myself out or twisting an ankle, I don’t know.

A Look Back to the Duomo

After passing through the largest bronze doors I have ever seen, I followed my friend Brian up the stairs of the bell tower.  The trip up these steps I recall more clearly, not for the details or the space, but of the pace.  Brian was an avid jogger and we essentially ran up these next 414 steps.  It was a cool day and there was a misty rain outside, but by the time we reached the top I was pouring with sweat and completely out of breath.  But the site at the top was worth it.  Across the plaza and slightly elevated, we could clearly see the figures of our classmates waving ferociously. 

Our Friends, in the Middle, The Future Mrs. Yeoman, Centered

Was it worth it?  Sure.  By the end of a short period of time, Brian and I climbed up and down a combined total of 1754 steps in tight, awkward spaces just to see the city (and our friends) from a different perspective.