In 1979, the University of Waterloo School of Architecture launched its Rome program in a dark studio in a tiny alleyway near Piazza Navona. Forty years later, the program has a permanent home in Trastevere, and over 2,000 Waterloo students have had the privilege of spending a term in the Eternal City, studying architectural icons such as the Roman Forum, the Colosseum, and Hadrian’s Villa, as well as masterpieces by Bramante, Borromini, Bernini and Michelangelo.

But how has this exposure to more than two thousand years and multiple layers of city building in one of the richest architectural environments in the world affected them as architects? RomaXL presents drawings by a selection of highly accomplished Waterloo graduates completed during their Rome term, together with examples of their built work. RomaXL features work by Alison Brooks, Johnson Chou, Jean Colonnier, Shelley Craig, Alexander Josephson, Chris Pommer and Lisa Rapoport, Paul Raff, Brigitte Shim and Howard Sutcliffe, John Shnier and others.