Produced for the exhibition Tempietto Exemplum at the Yale School of Architecture Gallery, Tempietto Field Report re-describes the Tempietto del Bramante in Rome using contemporary real estate language. The project treats the historic martyrium—identified as the site of Saint Peter’s crucifixion—as a physical asset rather than a sacred object, using market terminology to strip away inherited symbolism and examine the building as built form.

Tempietto Field Report (41.8887° N, 12.4664° E:  The scientific, the naïve, and the sublime)

It is only though the simultaneous scientific analysis of a thing, and estrangement from it, that one may effectively utilize precedent.

Like a kind of apparition, the Tempietto (transl: “Templette”) sits atop its hill in Montorio, shielded inside the Chiesa di San Pietro, accessible only to the truly lucky: those who have timed their pilgrimage to coincide with access to the fabled courtyard and the small, much-heralded building within.

While the concept of an ideal structure is beguiling, this particular building is far from: strangely scaled, potentially mis-sited, rife with physical revisions, and incongruously drawn as it is. The architect’s potential sources of inspiration, and later professional achievements, add to the myth-making surrounding the structure.

Delineation, a tool used in real estate transactions worldwide, does away with myth and aura; it says that the only truth is that which exists and can therefore be recorded. As such, presented here is a surveyor’s “Field Report” for the Tempietto: part mapping (“metes and bounds”), part description, and part analysis.