As I adjust to my return to America, I think back on how one year ago today I packed my bags for an experience that I knew would change the quality of my life and career. I did not imagine though, just how much fruit would yield from this opportunity. The internship at Renzo Piano Building Workshop and study abroad at Universita degli studi di Genova enriched both my professional and personal life immensely. I now feel comfortable working in an international context, have clarity about my aspirations and goals, and have much better chances at achieving them because of the programs that FIU organized.
It has been four years since I studied in Genoa, Italy but not a day goes by where I do not feel its impact in my life. I will never forget the people I met and the places I visited. It was an eye-opening experience that changed my orientation of the world. Architecturally, the experience changed my design approach and has contributed to where I am today.
At my job I push boundaries and aim to create structures and dwelling environments that stimulate their cultural context and communicate better within their urban fabric. I still feel a deep connection to Italy and I hope to return one day to live and work. There is no better way to study a city than to live in it. The daily strolls through the city where a feast to the senses revealing a layered, rich history where the visual confluence of medieval walls slicing through Renaissance buildings and Rationalist plans trying to impose an order on a city revealed a city that resists order.
The feel of worn granite and marble cobblestones along the paths felt like a connection to all previous inhabitants of Genoa, but the smell of freshly baked bread and coffee quickly pulled me out of my daydream and placed me in a bustling, growing organism of a city. My daily strolls from my apartment to the studio allowed me to discover the many layers, constructed and lived in, required to create a place with identity.
In Genoa, I studied an urban identity that is open and evolving, accepting that the built landscape is a product of cultural encounter and exchange, shaped by global networks and movements of people, goods, and ideas across geographic, religious, and cultural boundaries.
