Rome

In this book, Formation is ideal and utopian thinking, and Transformation is the adaptation of the ideal to the real or existing conditions. The book examines the dialectical relationship of these in the creation of the city. The subject is a contextual theory of urban design, utilizing Italian Renaissance and Baroque architecture and urban development of Rome, as a case study. It demonstrates the complexity of Roman urbanism and the inter-relationship and role of Roman architecture to its urban context.
Jon Michael Schwarting is an architect, urban designer and professor. He has a B.Arch. and M.Arch in Urban Design from Cornell University and received a Rome Prize Fellowship from the American Academy in Rome. He is a Professor of Architecture and has been Director of the graduate program of Urban and Regional Design at New York Institute of Technology. He has also taught at Columbia, Yale, Pennsylvania, Cornell, Cooper Union, Syracuse and the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies. He has lectured on his work and on architectural, history, theory and issues at numerous institutions. He was an Associate at Richard Meier and Associates and has had a Practice with partners since 1975, and presently, at Campani and Schwarting Architects. His work has been exhibited and published internationally in journals and books. His projects have receive LI AIA ARCHI awards and a PA Citation. He has been recognized and placed in several architectural competitions, and has directed the restoration of the 1931 Alumianaire House since 1987. He has published articles on architecture and architectural theory in Domus, Harvard Review, VIA, Modulus, Precis and ACSA, and has received private and public grants from the Graham Foundation, NEA, NYSCA and NYS P&HP. Michael has served on the Board of the Architectural League of NYC, Van Alan Institute and is Trustee Emeritus of the American Academy in Rome.
"Influenced by Rowe's vision, the author collects historical, analytical and graphical data derived from these elaborate studies on the city of Rome, which is seen as a perfect case study to comprehend and demonstrate how urban formation, transformation and architecture in general are in a critical relationship with the concepts of the ideal, the utopian and the physical reality."
"The book is simple in structure, well illustrated with a number of black and white maps and line sketches."--Landscape+Urbanism