5 countries, 4 days, 3 cars, 2 hostels, 1 unforgettable weekend

So this past weekend our whole group rented 3 cars and took to driving through 5 different countries to see as many architecturally significant buildings and structures as humanly possible in 4 days. Needless to say, we covered a LOT of ground, which I will try to sum up as much as possible in the following blog.

On Friday we left around 1 after Saverio's class and headed toward our first destination, Switzerland. We had 2 vans and 1 car, and all were stick shift, so we only had a couple of people who could effectively control these cars at top speed. I am SOOO thankful for our drivers this weekend and all the stressfull driving they had to do,,, through snow, high speeds, and crazy European traffic. Our first stop was Isler's Garden Center which is a reinforced concrete shell that made some breakthroughs with the use of concrete in roofs. Next we started our ascent into the alps, and had some absolutely gorgeous scenery to keep us occupied. Some of the roads that we were driving around,,, we were litteraly driving right under a frozen waterfall in a couple of parts!!!!!! Also, we have decided that the Swiss know how to make public restrooms,, according to my friend Amy. Just a side note. Next we went to a few bridges in Switzerland, but had to stop our treks due to some snow problems we ran into along the way.... Anyway, we got to our hostel outside of Bregenz and stayed the night there.

In the morning we woke up to a beautiful serene lake right outside our hostel, and then had to go play in the snow and drained swimming pools before we left in the morning. Our first stop on Saturday was Kunsthaus Bregenz by Peter Zumthor, which is basically a glass box museum with some very well thought through details. Next we drove to Munich and saw the Olympic Stadium of 1972, which is basically a tent roofing structure made of glass. However, my favorite building of the whole trip was the BMW World museum by Coop Himmelblau in Munich. It had great lighting so every picture I took in there was perfection, and the whole project works so well to emphasize the main function,,, the selling of the BMW vehicles. Next we went to Stuttgart and saw the airport there which is basically supported by tree-like column structures, and then we headed to our hostel which had a great view of the city and settled down for the night.

Sunday we started out at the Werkbund Village and in particular the two family house built by Le Corbusier--- This was neat because we could really see his 5 points on architecture expressed throughout the building. Next we saw some footbridges in the surrounding area as well as a pretty cool park for the landscape people. We saw the Outlook tower at Stuttgart, and then had lunch, which was very German. I had a Doner which I have been craving since last Germany trip, a danish for desert, and some Milka chocolate--- very German. Then we went to the Mercedes-Benz Arena and Museum and then got to see the New Porsche Museum which just opened the week before we saw it. After this we all went out to a mexican restaurant, which was a lot of fun, especially once the live American music started playing! THen we headed back to try to make it an early night....

On Monday we left by 6:45 to drive to Ronchamp, France. This was my research project by Le Corbusier ,,, it is Notre Dame du Haut Chapel. This building breaks all of his previous design styles, and it is one of the most sculpturally gorgeous buildings he has designed. The roof is a large concrete shell meant to immitate a boat sailing off to heaven, and the inside is filled with color and light which very didacticly focuses peoples attention to where they should be placed. Next we went to Vitra, which houses many significant architectural buildings... The Geodescic dome by Fuller, a building by Siza, a firestation by Zaha Hadid (who I have now confirmed that I dislike because she distorts perspective way to much for her buildings to actually be lived in comfortably), a museum by Frank Gehry, and a pavilion by my new favorite architect--- Tadao Ando. He is known for his perfection of concrete, and his entire project has uses the smoothest, most beautiful concrete I have ever seen in a very reflective, interactive way. After this we stopped for another outlook tower and another Hadid building (yay.), and then headed back to Italy through a variety of very long tunnels.

All in all the weekend was exhausting, but it was a blast,,, you don't get this kind of opportunity very often. Well that is all for now!

~Heather

A Grand Day in Milan

This week we restarted our Tuesday day trips with Giuditta, and we travelled to Milan. Our morning started rather early because we had to leave by 6:15 to give us time to walk/get lost/finally make our way to the train station for our 7:19 train, don't ask me why I remember that. Anyway- we hopped on the train and then immediately passed out for the next hour and 45 minutes until we arrived at Milan Centrale, where we hopped on the Tram and then arrived at our first location- Santa Maria Delle Grazie. So in case you didn't know--- we have to sketch on these day trips, or really we should on any of our travels, but especially the day trips and 10 day trips. Anyway- I started out my sketching very solid and optimistically at this first church, and then continued to slide downhill throughout the day. My goal was to do a quick sketch at every destination we reached, but that ended up failing. Continuing on our journey we saw Sant'Ambrogio which had two very uneven towers, and then to Torre Velasca which is a tower with a hideous bulbus form sticking off the top like the Hunchback of Notre Dame for Milan. Our next destination was Ospedale Maggiore which is now a public university that has the appearance of a jail due to all the highly intricate gates and the impossiblity to enter the courtyards or anything good in life. Next we made our way to the most famous part of Milan, the Duomo. Outside it kind of looks like a cake with a bunch of needles sticking of the top, and is really rather unappealing to me from the outside because of its exaggerated grandeur and the millions of hidden sculptures who are just constantly staring at you.... Anyway, we went inside which is also rather intense--- The columns are huge and seem to be exaggerated for their load, even though the church is rather tall. But,,, what was absolutely fantastic was the light streaming in through the stained glass that hit onto these over emphasized columns and made one or two columns out of the whole forest light up like a disco ball with millions of glorious colors. So the church was great, but there was one column in particular where I spent all my time and about 40 of my pictures,, and that is what I will remember about the Duomo in years to come. So after our inside excursions, we ventured onto the roof to get some quick views, and then we headed down into the piazza for lunch.

After lunch we hit Santa Maria Presso S. Satiro which had this crazy false perspective behind the alter to give the impression that the church was in the shape of a latin cross when it really wasn't. And this is when I decided that I absolutely despise false perspectives because I couldn't even look at it it annoyed me so much. It might be talented, but its not magical and it presents a falsehood that you can't interact with, so I now I am most assuredly against false perspectives. Next we hit the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, which is basically a large open market space that connects the Teatro to the Duomo which is covered by this glorious glass roof and dome. Supposedly, the engineer/architect jumped off the top of the dome into the center soon after completion,,, but regardless, it is a gorgeous place with some very high end shops and a rather snazzy McDonalds. Next we headed through to the Teatro, which I remember because there were people hanging from the roof on bungee cords and doing interpretive dancing on the side of the building--- it was absolutely amazing and I want to do that someday-- put it on the list. THe afternoon included Palazzo Marino, Uffici Montecatini, Hotel Duca Di Milano, Uffici Pirelli (by Nervi that was actually ran into by a tourist plane a few years back but has since been restored), and our personal favorite, the Ca' Brutta (the Ugly building). I mean it was ugly, but part of that was because it was in such a state of disrepair because no one cared enough to restore it that it was all black and dirty all over, but we had a good laugh about its hideousness, even though it was one of Italy's first modern buildings. Then we headed back and got back to Genova around 9.

We have since been working on our site model, or updating the pitiful remains of a site model left for us by previous years and trying to make it look decent so we actually don't feel bad putting our own designs in it. It actually was a lot of fun although it has consumed our past couple of days here in Genova. However, now we are done and moving upward and onward. This weekend we are heading out to Switzerland and Germany for a weekend full of building seeing, but I am also pretty excited about this-- if only to see my building,,, Le Corbusier's Ronchamp-- which if you don't know you should. I have been researching it a lot for my project, and am ready to see it in person,, and I guess the other buildings we are seeing will also be exciting, but it will be a lot of travel so our days will be booked. We leave Friday afternoon, and we won't return until Monday night, so I might be out of touch for a while. Ciao!

~Heather

J'ADORE NICE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So we just got back from our too short weekend trip to Nice, France. I have been there before, but I didn't remember much at all except going down onto the rocky beaches and swimming in the salty Mediterranean... But this trip, made Nice potentially my favorite destination ever, and definitly my favorite trip of this study abroad experience so far. So Saturday morning we left by train and arrived around noon at the train station. After eventually finding our way to the tram without the help of that lady yelling at us telling us to go to the train staiton,,, we hopped on the tram and got to our British led hostel, which was pretty awesome. Even though the hostel was kind of far away from the city center,,, the tram system (which I am a HUGE fan of) took us a ways up and then the hostel drove a shuttle (a very dung up silver VW van) up to it. SO we had absolutely no problems....

We started off our Nice excursions by eating lunch in the Vieulle Ville (old town) and then split off into various groups,,, the girls did some shopping, the boys wandered around aimlessly, and we had a few attempted museum goers as well. Anyway,,, we met back up in time for the Carnavale that night,,, which was so absolutely amazing. You get down town and there are these really creepy floats circling around the city with masses of people crowded around it absolutely lost in a mesh of silly string and confetti... We quickly worked our way into the crowd and were likewise covered with these highly colorful pieces of paper and whatever silly string is made out of. They played a lot of American music, which made it that much more fun for us, and we just danced around and had a good time until pretty late at night, when we headed back to the hostel and went to the hangout space on the lower level and had all in all a great valentines day.

The next day, Sunday, today, we woke up and had a very great breakfast--- many cereals (which I miss desperately)! Then we checked out, went and stored our bags at the train station, and then went back into town. Some people went to the Museum of modern art, but I and some others headed up to a park situated on a large hill that overlooks the town of Nice. We couldn't have asked for better weather, it was warm and the sky was blue, and we were just so used to rain that that immediately put us in great moods. We got to play on this playground contraption that was made of rope entwined around a pole in kind of an eiffel tower like fashion with a bunch of french kids, which was very exciting. THen we headed back down and met up for lunch, and some more Carnavale action,,, I even got a butterfly mask for the "Masquerade Parade"! After this we went down to the coast and had our Nutella crepes on the rocky beaches as suggested by my good friend Jon Fritz,,, and then some of us rented roller skates and skated around the boardwalk. Funny thing is-- most of us haven't touched skates since elementary school, so we were all rather rusty and had a few crashes into various trees, trash cans, poles, and in some cases small children. However, it was so much fun,,, the parade ended up coming right beside us, so we got to skate along side of the floats and the american music. After this, we unfortunatly had to head back to catch our train back to Genova, but we all wanted to say so much longer,,, Nice definitely left us with a great impression. This trip was Leslee's (a girl here at the villa) birthday present, and I think it was a great way to spend a birthday, and we certainly all enjoyed ourselves.

Unfortunatly we must go back to work tomorrow, but tonight there shall be no more thoughts of architecture and we'll try to continue to let the awesome adventures of this weekend sink in. Au revoir!

~Heather

When in Rome...

This week we have basically been catching up on updating pictures from the trips, blogs (as you can tell), and then doing some studio work as well. It is odd to actually have classes after so long of not even thinking about school, just sketching beautiful buildings which doesn't even feel like work at all. We are working on our tower designs, which has been really interesting and frustrating at the same time, which always happens at the beginning of a project while you are sifting through millions of ideas. Soon we will be building a new site model so we can start physically representing our ideas, but not really thinking about that right now....

This weekend we are going to Nice, France, which I have been to before. We are going for absolutely no architectural purpose, which will be relaxing for once--- we will be shopping, celebrating a birthday, and enjoying the Carnavale which is starting there this weekend. Tonight we actually have a wine tasting, which should be interesting since most of us know little to nothing about the wine here. SO we will leave for Nice Nice tomorrow morning and stay the night and come back on Sunday night. I'm excited to actually try using my french! We shall see how incompetent I sound... I'll fill you in upon our return!

~Heather

Roma- 08 February 2009 THE END

On our last day in Roma, we went to the part of town where the architecture was highly influenced by fascism. We saw the Palazzo Dei Congressi, the Palazzo Della Civilta Italiana (where we saw a model of the entire city of Rome from the 15th century that was made by the aliens in just one year), a few others, and of course the Square Colosseum, a perfect model of fascist architecture. Then we enjoyed a nice lunch and gelato one last time before we headed back to Genova via a highspeed train. This trip was a blast, and we saw so much probably more than I could even begin to describe here, but we were all ready to come back home to the villa and have a little down time--- it’s called school.

~Heather

Roma- 07 February 2009

Today we took a day trip from our 10 day trip to go to Tivoli, the place where the Romans used to do most of their digging for tufa and travertine. In Tivoli we went to the Villa Adriana which is now in ruins, and despite the pouring rain which Giuditta brought with us, it was very interesting to walk around the ruins and see what this palace of a Roman emperor used to be like. Then we quickly rushed to the Villa d’Este to see the vertical gardens behind it, which were definitely worth it. This garden is very well organized and filled with amazing waterworks that we couldn’t even begin to see all of it in the 30 minutes we had. But we had to leave so that we could get back to Roma in time for some people to visit the Colosseum, but what we did instead was a little shopping and rest before our last night in Rome. For our last dinner, we went to a restaurant suggested by our favorite Terry Kirk, Da Francesca. This was definitely a local’s restaurant, and had great food and we enjoyed great company there as well, followed by our gelato visit to the gelateria by our hotel with millions of flavors

~Heather

Roma- 06 February 2009

Today we were back with our fearless, restless tour guide Giuditta so you know our day was filled to the brim. The first and most exciting building of the day in my opinion was Renzo Piano’s Auditorium Parco Della Musica, which consists of three auditorium spaces which look like bugs from the outside, but become very beautiful, acoustically and functionally perfect spaces on the inside. The largest hall was my favorite, and it is set up like a big musical instrument,, it has thick heavy wooden panels that provide great resonation as well as velvet curtains that can be placed for the proper amount of absorption. This building has made me seriously interested in theatre design, especially because it provides a happy median between my two greatest interests.

Next we visited my research building for this semester- the Palazzetto Dello Sport by Pier Luigi Nervi, where me and my partner sketched and photographed like crazy. It was interesting to experience the space that we have been researching about for so long, and some of what we found was very surprising. Then we saw the Maxxi Museum by Zaha Hadid which is under construction, and then the Ara Pacis museum by Richard Meier.

Then we went back in time to do some other buildings,, the Sant’ivo Alla Sapienza by Borromini which plays with convexity and concavity in the façade design, the Piazza Navona, the Chiesa di Santa Maria Della Pace, and the Palazzo Spada which has Borromini’s false perspective gallery. After all that was over, we looped around the city to go to a sushi restaurant named Fish. This was an interesting experience because I have never had sushi, but I was in good company and we definitely picked a great place to try it. So after they order rolls for me, I have decided that I am definitely a sushi fan! And that was our exciting night

~Heather