Summer School: On the Threshold - Guidebooks and Visions of Rome

Abstract

The summer school explores the mediated territories between the city, its guidebook and the traveller. By adopting a selection of itineraries established by past and present guidebooks, students investigate the thresholds of Rome, between the built city and its tourists.

Objective

By the end of the five days every group will have worked on a series of different building elements for each guide, so that by the end of the week about 25 units will be produced. As a collective critical guidebook of Rome, the units designed and written by the students will be presented in a final, one-day public exhibition and lecture on the last day. The instructors will follow the entire workflow, leading the visits, revisiting and checking the design outcomes, and coordinating the production phase. The general aim of the week is not to present a linear or comprehensive history of the tourist guidebook, but rather to foster and implement a discourse around topics directly informed by the experience of tourism, such as everyday life, heritage, city planning, and artistic production. To this end, students will engage in in-depth analyses of specific historical periods through both scientific-synthetic and artistic-creative methods, and on a more comprehensive understandings around how to read a city, and how to critically employ a travel book. The itineraries are based on guidebooks stretching over a wide timeframe. Hence, by observing the contemporary phenomenon of tourism through a mass-social platform such as TripAdvisor, the programme introduces the topic of the Summer School from a familiar perspective, moving towards more historical and theoretical approaches as the week progresses.

Content

We will dedicate one day to each of the five guidebooks, following an itinerary inspired by each publication. Details of each day’s visit will be determined and planned before the beginning of the week. By following a ‘pre-determined’ path, five visits through the city will be conducted during the morning. We will move and stop to linger along physical thresholds determined by various urban elements, such as monuments and buildings, observing the built environment as well as the ways in which tourists, visitors and citizens look at, interact with, admire, photograph and film places. Hence the relationship between public and private, between individual experience and collective knowledge will be investigated, documented and analyzed. The Summer School is planned for 15 international participants, ideally Master students or early career researchers, coming from different disciplines and curricula, such as architecture, applied arts, art history, literature, philosophy, sociology, photography, tourism studies and media studies. Use of personal laptops/tablets is expected. Students and tutors will stay at the magnificent Villa Maraini, the historical seat of the Istituto Svizzero. The fee will be 300 euro comprehensive of lunch (6 days).

Resources