Part Six: Back to the Future?

t was a hot afternoon on the via del Corso, and the sidewalks were thronged with 21^st-century humanity: Map-wielding tourists in cargo shorts pressed against well-dressed Romans, chattering into cell phones as they returned to work. Around the corner, in the cool and quiet of a 16^th-century palazzo grafted onto an ancient Roman wall, architecture students from Penn State and the University of Idaho were sharing their visions of the future.

The project: Design a comprehensive structure to house the open-air market of San Cosimato in Trastevere, where produce and cheese have been sold since medieval times.

Romolo Martemucci sat front and center, his red laser pen tracing his responses on scale models made of cardboard and balsa wood. The initial talk was of form: "The real power of symmetry is not bilateral, but in the relation of small to big," Martemucci said. And, "You have to find the line that is most compelling."

Underneath the terms of art, however, was a guiding concern for function. The students' first assignment, after all, had been to go out to San Cosimato and just sit there, observing how people actually used this space. The design problem was to make a structure that was both beautiful and functional. The two were inseparable.

Claudia Probart's nutrition students are learning the same lesson. That food is not only about nutrients. That what we eat and the spaces we live in go a long way toward defining us as human beings. That eating—and living—with an eye toward beauty has a definite bearing on our health. In Italy, it's hard to miss the connection. The question, says Probart, is, "What can we learn here that can be taken back home?"

For Martemucci, the answer is: We can learn something about how to live better in the future. For him, this collaboration between nutrition and architecture is part of a larger vision—of Italy as a model for exploring "the way we exist in the world."

"Italy presents a few key moments when culture attempted an ideal living condition," he had explained earlier. "This place, for instance—the Palazzo Doria Pamphili—is a sort of ideal 16^th-century response, an answer to the question, 'If you had all the resources in the world, what could you do with them?'"

He described another ideal place: the Villa La Magia in Tuscany, which he hopes to see opened to Penn State students next year. "It's one of the 14 Medici villas, the only one to remain intact with all its land. It's got spectacular gardens, an ongoing farm operation, produces its own olive oil and wine. This place is one of a kind in the history of architecture."

But Martemucci's interest in these places is not mainly historical. With an eye toward beauty, he contends, they could become "points of departure" for scholars "in every discipline. Not just art and architecture, but the sciences, engineering, agriculture, agronomy…. These could be interdisciplinary centers.

"They were ideal responses, in their day, to the question of how humans should be in the world. We can learn from them. We can use them to to explore how best to live in the third millenium."