The authors co-taught and organized a semester-long study abroad program for 48 students in Rome, where our College maintains a full-time studio and facilities on the Piazza Cinque Scuole, a location in the heart of the old Jewish Ghetto. In parallel with several charrette studio offerings and traditional sketchbook and history classes, we offered a two-week introductory project that operated on two levels. On a practical level, we wanted to provide students with a framework for exploring the city, for getting beyond the centro and figuring out Rome’s patterns, major routes, and transit on their own. On a deeper level, however, we wanted students to gain exposure to the layered history of the city, and to confront the dichotomy between experiential and abstract notions of space. We wanted them, right away, to understand the city as both an archeological and a navigational situation, and to reconcile the oftenconsiderable gulf between historical information and lived experience.