Last Look

Rome, by hand

Every year, Yale architecture students travel to Rome to draw the city firsthand.

Eleanor Measham, <em>Cappella Chigi</em>, 2013

Eleanor Measham, Cappella Chigi, 2013

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Every year, some 30 Yale School of Architecture students step back in time; they travel to Rome to study its wealth of historic buildings and to practice drawing them freehand—a skill that Yale architecture dean Robert A. M. Stern ’65MArch says is becoming rare now that architects design digitally. This drawing, by Eleanor Measham ’14MArch, is from a series she made this past summer of the sculptures of Gian Lorenzo Bernini in their architectural settings. The drawing depicts two Bernini statues in the Chigi Chapel, which was designed by Raphael, in the church of Santa Maria del Popolo. Works from the Rome programs of 2011–13 will be on exhibit from April 8 through June in the Hearst Tower, 300 West 57th Street in Manhattan.

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