How you appreciate something is tied to the timing in which you experience it.
Who you are, what you value, what resonates and what you aspire to experience changes over time.
Had I experienced what I am about to share at 20, it would be different to what experienced on Monday. I believe it would have shaped my future then regardless, just like, how it will now.
For over a decade I’d say my main interest and hobby focus has been architecture. To the point of taking a train for 7 hours to go out of my way to see a building I’d had on my list.
But up until this week, one building was missing from this collection.
From childhood through to now, I have been obsessed with place and the buildings in them.
Sometimes I forget this, but then I’m reminded of it and then I’m all-in again.
When I was younger, I would memorize maps and continually browse through National Geographic. I’d lay awake at night as a teenager day dreaming about where I wanted to go. Now as an adult, before going to bed I retrace my steps through city neighbourhoods I’ve been as I fall asleep. I nerd out on place branding from Simon Anholt and Wally Olins through to re-reading Calvino’s Invisible Cities every so often.
I’m like the “architect” in Nolan’s Inception, recreating worlds I have experienced or those imagined.
I don’t always meet my need of experiencing new things regularly enough.
Often revisiting favourite places (and people) and not prioritizing other potentials that are out there.
Comfort is a beautiful thing.
So is experiencing something new.
Of all the buildings I have experienced and admired to date, not one would exist without the one I visited a few days ago.
I feel a need to appreciate the order of things, to understand what we have today and how they are only possible because of what came before.
A few weeks back, I declared that it was time to finally visit.
There’s was no more waiting. Only making it happen.
I booked the flight, the hotel and the entry ticket.
And in less than a month, there I was walking towards it with many others early Monday morning.
Streets were buzzing and as I made my way closer I could feel the weight of it from around the corner.
A gravity pulling everyone in its proximity towards it in collective awe.
I stepped into the piazza and there it was, in all its glory.
As its been for the past 2000 years.
The title of this special edition travel issue comes from At The Drive-In’s "‘Napoleon Solo”. The song featuring the below lyrics was on my playlist as my flight descended into the Rome. The idea of something timeless, and it’s impact forever changing someone stuck with me for the rest of my trip.
Strum this broken harp
We were struck by the chords sent from their hearts
This is forever, no turning back, this is forever
One of the only buildings in the world (that I’ve been to) where I’ve truly experienced the sensation of awe, and finally understood what is Architecture