This assignment has been a fruitful and enjoyable venture for me, boiling down to the fact that the body of knowledge of my book, even as it was written in Latin, a tongue foreign to me, was extensively covered during our lectures and allowed me to get the jist of its teaching. And, as the main additions to the original Vitruvian body were synthetic drawings, this material was also relatively palatable to me. I therefore do not share the bittersweet feeling expressed by many of my classmates regarding the lack of connexion towards the material.
The execution of the different tasks went smoothly, my book being relatively well documented made my work thoroughly enjoyable and familiarized me with the methods and more importantly the mindset of the historian.
Being assigned such an essential piece of knowledge was a blessing and motivated me to give this assignment my best. Interacting with it was a sensory pleasing and intellectually stimulating experience.
Considering the current climate of ubiquitous and plentiful information, interacting with curated knowledge, crafted in another paradigm, is deeply healing and, in my opinion offers a better chance of making sense of the tremendous amount of knowledge available to the human experience.
Regardless of the media, this whole experience and the content of the lectures kindled in me a keen interest for architectural history and its analysis. Unfolding and understanding the relationship between historic spheres of knowledges and what became landmark architecture, the transmission of concepts and practices through time and the power structures governing them.
Therefore, my dear old friend, farewell to you, as I intimately know that, one day, we will reunite, hoping that my accumulated experience will help me sharpening my understanding of your secrets.
NB: In my opinion, the general structure of the assignment requires some tweaking, as the current form can prove confusing for the student not wilful or able to analyse and synthetize the teachings of the different steps of the assignment.
In its current form the overarching structure remained arcane until the very end, I would have enjoyed it to be apparent from the beginning as to give the opportunity for the motivated to go in depth immediately to keep their flame from fizzling out.
Finally, the different introductions offered to us by the assisting staff would benefit from some form of written medium to counteract the minuscule timeframe given to work with and allow the knowledge discussed there not to be overlooked and forgotten so readily.