From the Dublin Airport

An Ode to the Volcano:

Oh, Majestic Eyjafjalajokull,
we tremble in the face
of your ashen cloud of terror.
If only we had realized
your might.

Send not your shards
of molten glass upon me.
Nor upon my Aerlingus jet,
that the tiny leprechauns
whose marshmallows fuel our engines
might perish within your fiery plumes.

Terrible Eyjafjallajokull,
how the Great Icelandic Kings
must have feared you.
Trapped within their stony castles
while the rest of us remain,
bound to stay in Belfast,
until you grant us safe passage.

PS- I hope a hamster paraglides
into your enormous crater
that you may get all clogged up
and die.

Okay, I’m really terrible at this highlights thing.

So after Bern we drove through Chaux-de-Fonds, Corb’s hometown, before making it to the NAEF toy factory for our tour there. It was really neat. NAEF toys are legit, and the nice receptionist made us delicious homemade carrot cake! After that we went to our hostel just outside Basel. It was… a castle! So cool. Except that it was filled with very noisy small children. Regardless, fun. That evening after dinner we played a studio-wide game of charades, which was awesome. Our team (The Neon Tigers of the 21st Century) dominated. Then we built cantilevers with jenga blocks. The next day was our adventure to France to see Ronchamps. Spectacular. It, like the baths, is one that you’ll just have to hear about later. While there, I finished up my second sketchbook! We’ve been busy.
The next day was Renzo’s Beyeler Museum and Vitra. We saw Zaha’s Fire station and Ando’s convention center as well as the new H+DeM VitraHaus. Fun, legit, a zoo for buildings.
The following day was the H+DeM driving tour (i hate drive-bys…), Steiner’s Goethaneaum, and Botta’s Tinguely Museum. Tinguely is a kinetic sculptor… and his stuff is absolutley awesome. We all really enjoyed that visit.
After the museum, Patrick, Allie Ross, Courtney, and I broke off from the group and headed to Lausanne for our free travel weekend. Lausanne is beautiful. We spent most of our time relaxing, although we did visit SANAA’s new Rolex Learning Center and we managed to walk around the vast majority of the city while still taking the time to lay out in a grassy field in front of the Palais Justice for a few hours. Great trip.
Thursday was perhaps one of the greatest days of my life. We went to see Zumthor speak at the AAM. As we were walking up we saw him through a window, and I was so excited that I waved enthusiastically. He smiled. He lectured in Italian, but it was such that you could still get the gist of what he was saying. We were sitting about 4 rows back– so about 15-20 feet away from him. It was ridiculous. He talked about 3 projects he’s been working on. It was awesome because it was work we haven’t seen before. I especially loved the House for Nomads. Afterward people were going up to get their books and sketchbooks signed. I was absolutely terrified and nervous and almost chickened out, but Clay grabbed me and drug me up to the front. We walked right up to Zumthor himself, and I handed him my sketchbook and he looked me in the eyes, smiled, and signed it. Then I almost died of pure excitement. It was like… absolutely unreal. Entire trip to Switzerland- worth it. My only regret is that I had the wrong sketchbook with me, so I couldn’t get him to sign my sketches of the baths.
Commence work on final project.

Just the highlights…

Sorry its been so long! I’m really far behind on posting. We’ve been so busy the past few weeks! Regardless, I’ll give you the highlights of April. Easter was awesome. At midnight we baked Chocolate chip cookies for everyone at Patrick’s apartment. After everyone went to sleep I left caramel eggs on their desks in studio as a surprise from the Easter Cuckoo- the swiss believe in him instead of the Easter Bunny. Then Easter morning a group of us went to Mass and when I got back Andy Ruff had left a chocolate bunny on my nightstand and Allie Ross had made a Starburst Jellybean nest on my desk! It was legit. Then we went to Patrick’s to make Easter Mimosas with some fresh squeezed blood orange juice (Jesus mimosas).
The next few days were filled with daytrips around Graubunden and Ticino. For the first daytrip 4/5, about half of us went to Mogno to see Botta’s Chiesa San Giovanni. On Daniela’s recommendation, we stopped by Val Bavona on our way home to see the stone valley. It was gorgeous– all these little villages strung together made of nothing but sheets of stone. She says its so rocky there that they had to plant grass on top of the boulders just so that the cows would have something to eat. I collected a decent sample of rocks to help with my studio project, I jumped across a river, and I played outside in the mountains before we returned to the Villa. By the next morning, everyone woke up feeling like their sinuses had punched them in the face. Apparently pollen is a bit of an issue in Riva in the spring.
Regardless, we set out on our next daytrip 4/7. We hiked down to Viamala to see a bridge designed by Jorg Conzett. The hike was wonderful. It was a bit like being in the smokies if they were way prettier and had water that was naturally mini-golf blue. We kept driving to see a series of small chapels by Christian Kerez. Along the way, we drove past what looked like a bunch of dinosaur eggs dropped along the side of the road. It ended up being a little church. At the Bonaduz mortuary chapel I fittingly almost got stung by a bee and died. Unfortunately it was closed, and we were unable to get in so we ate lunch and then continued to the Oberrealta Chapel. Its a little (bold and italics on little) concrete chapel up a hill and pushed back against the edge of a cliff across an empty field of tilled dirt and grass. A lone set of trees sits alongside the exquisite concrete shed with its single slit of light along the back wall. When we’d spent some time there, we continued on to Chur to have a tour of Bearth and Deplazes Biology Liceo before having a firm visit with them. It was actually one of our better ones. On the way home we drove through Haldenstein to find Peter Zumthor’s house and studio. I touched it. Life goal: accomplished.
We continued our daytripping 4/9 with an adventure out to Caviano for our firm visit with Wespi and De Meuron. Jerome took us around the area to see a few of their projects. They’re absolutely awesome. I mean, their office is in a treehouse! How much more legit does it get than that? Plus their work is incredible. Really, everyone should check them out. Its all at a very small scale- lots of residential stuff in Ticino- but its really beautiful and the detailing is super refined. They did a house all out of OSB, but it was on the side of a cliff so everything had to be designed in prefab modules and airlifted in by helicopter. Awesome. Afterward we headed on to the Bellinzona area to see some work by Snozzi. It was sort of fun. I’m not that into Snozzi. After the tour, the half of the group that hadn’t seen the Botta chapel in Mogno went to check that out and the rest of us came back to Riva to sit and enjoy an afternoon skipping rocks by the lake and watching paragliders jump off Monte Generoso.
4/11 we headed out on our longer travel adventure. Our first stop was at the Congiunta Museum by Peter Markli just outside Giornico. Its a roughly constructed concrete piece in the middle of an empty field just outside of the town. It was designed to house the sculptures of Hans Josephson. The thing was beautiful. You must walk through the grassy field and around the building to get to the door, which is one large step up from ground level, the step being a plane of concrete projecting out from below the door and only large enough for one person at a time. The gallery is one shot down, divided by concrete walls with openings for doors punched out and just off center. The way the building was constructed made reference to the nature of the sculptures– it was made for them and could only ever really serve to house them, hidden away forever in the rural fields of Switzerland and veiled in a distinct otherness. I was in love. After returning the Museum key to the Bar Osteria Giornico, we made our first drive through the Gotthard Tunnel! It was awesome! The tunnel is so long that it gets three radio stations specially for it. While inside, we jammed to u2, Tina Turner, and ABBA. The Swiss seem to really love ABBA, which I simultaneously appreciate and find very funny. Bern was our final destination, but we stopped in Luzern to look at some projects by Calatrava, Gigon + Guyer, and the Pius Church by Franz Fluegg along the way. When we finally arrived in Bern, we ate dinner at our hostel and then took a walk to the Barenpark to see the Bears! They were SO CUTE!!! There were two baby bears, and they were climbing things and playing and it was adorable. We also stopped at Renzo’s Paul Klee Museum on the way in. The building was as elegant as Renzo always is, although not particularly conducive as a gallery space. However, I love Paul Klee and thoroughly enjoyed it. Yay Paul Klee!

Liechtenstein, Bregenz, and the Baths! Through 4/1/10

We got in the cars once again and headed toward Liechtenstein to see the Kunsthaus there. As we were driving in, Margarita said, “Oh, that’s a cool building.” We looked out the window only to find that the “cool building” was Hansjorg Goritz’s Parliament building! We got super excited, and ended up sitting outside it to eat lunch in the plaza. As we were sitting, a woman who had just come out of the building stopped to ask me what we thought of the sculpture in the plaza. I told her we were there to see the building because our professor had designed it, and she got very excited, and Bruno Jehle- a member of the secretariat, came out and gave us a tour of the interior. People in Liechtenstein are nice like Swedes. The place is absolutely stunning. Its so precise and well-detailed, and the level of quality present in the construction is ridiculous. I have a whole new level of respect for Goritz. He is a master, and you could tell that the people of Liechtenstein hold him in incredibly high regard. We got our picture taken sitting at the main table in the President’s seat to send to Hansjorg. Memorable moments: in the bathroom there’s a small window above the sink where you an look out over at the sink on the other side, the meeting rooms and offices have glazing set outside the frame along thehallway and another layer outside the frame of the room’s interior with copper blinds sandwiched between. Also, if you stand with one foot outside these rooms and look out along the columns running along the facade, the banding aligns to create a really neat hyperbolic pattern. We didn’t have time to go inside the Kunsthalle, so we just went ahead to Bregenz to see Zumthor’s Kunsthaus. It was… a definitive experience. We had 4 hours there, and I took my time. There was a video installation, so it was fairly dark but nice beause of the reflections it permitted on the polished concrete floors. I spent two hours sitting by myself on the floor in the top level watching and listening to the exhibit on John Lennon- Working Class Hero. I was completely relaxed, and time stopped. Right before we left, the museum officers let us go downstairs and walk in between the two layers of the skin. I understand now how the building is constructed. We went to the local youth hostel when the museum closed, and had veggie lasagna for dinner.
Upon waking up in Bregenz, we were all buzzing with excitement about the Therme Vals. We hopped into the cars and set out for our first destination: Appenzell, Switzerland to see the Liner Museum by Gigon + Guyer. It was snowing when we started driving, so there was a tiny bit of concern that we’d have some trouble on the smaller mountain roads, particularly the one up the Alps to Vals. When we got to Appenzell, it was still snowing, but it was actually perfectly fitting for the Liner Museum. Its silver and snakelike on the outside, its large front window poking out like a face as it crouches just above the white ground. When you go inside everything is intensely well-detailed and gleaming white, seeming to blend with the white snow visible through the large, seamless window openings– all of which consist of only one piece of glass. So everything is white, except for the dark, slate-gray floor, which is pulled back from the walls rather than dropped below them as would be typical in a gallery space. The effect is beautiful. Light diffuses in through the sky lights up above and washes the walls with a subtle glow– perfect for the watercolor was exhibition that is the museum’s current display. Thw woman working the desk liked us and recommended another museum in town. This one was inside a renovated Swiss chalet-kiln. It smelled strongly of WD-40.
Commence the drive up the mountain to Vals. You skirt the edge of a sheer cliff all the way up, but the view all around is snow and tree covered Alpine valley extending out below and rising up into mountain after mountain on the other side of the gorge. The landscape was dotted with small wooden sheds and farmhouses, and I listened to William Fitzsimmons on my ipod all the way up to the Therme. We got there right on time for our 3pm check-in and bolted from our rooms to the baths. Insert the single most amazing-incredible-awesome experience of my entire existence. It will get its own post after I return from Lausanne as I’m in a bit of a rush this morning to get ready.

Back in Switzerland!

I’m skipping out on writing about my last few days in Copenhagen/Malmo- nobody reads those posts anyway. I’ll summarize by saying we had an awesome time and Copenhagen’s my favorite city in the world. Also, that Chantal makes excellent funfetti cake and Patrick makes excellent California burritos! When we got back from our adventures in Northern Europe, we were beyond exhausted and Patrick was super sick. We think he may have had dysentery. Okay probably not really, but he DID have to go to the Swiss doctor.
Apart from that, this has been a super eventful week in Riva. We got back and were greeted by absolutely beautiful weather. There was a lot of work to be done as we had an interim pin-up for studio on Friday. I’ve made a good deal of progress with it, though. On Wednesday Margarita asked me to build a model to help figure out my site stuff, and it worked out pretty well. I finally moved into cad on Saturday, which was really nice. Before the pin-up Friday we got to go on a tour of Botta’s Bianchi House. It was legit.
Saturday was great. We woke up sort of late-ish only to find that the Swedes had just arrived! I threw on some clothes and was ready in time to go downstairs with the other girls to meet them. They were super nice, as anticipated. We had coffee with them and talked about our visit to Malmo last weekend before they headed out to see the Bianchi House and continue their tour through Switzerland. After brunch, a large group of us headed out to Lugano because the weather was incredible and Trip wanted to go see the boat show. We walked through the park on the waterfront and just enjoyed spending some time outside. It was about 60 and sunny and perfect. We watched a group of kids racing dinghies just like the one Max has in Where the Wild Things Are. I want one. I also got to pick up my pet cactus while we were there- he’s a succulent and his name is Norman.
Sunday morning we went to Palm Sunday Mass at the Settala church. It was great. Apparently in Ticino they use olive branches instead of palms. I heavily approve. The service was beautiful, and it was super neat hearing the passion in Italian. Later in the afternoon I sat out by the playground by the lake to do my Italian homework. It was beautiful, and everyone in town was sitting out eating ice cream and enjoying the weather because the local gelateria opened today. I can’t wait for the end of Lent! After dinner, we all sat and waited for the Pritzker Prize winner to be announced (yay for Sanaa!) before having a group viewing of UT’s epic loss in the tournament.
Monday was AWESOME because I got my package from home! It was filled with all sorts of Easter goodies (Gum + Marshmallow Peeps = yay) as well as my clothing and my new Wild Things shirt, which I promptly put on. Unfortunately, right after I opened my package I went to my computer only to find that my charger had died. Like… dead died. So today I had to go to Lugano to get a new one (this one will be much safer because it has a removable Swiss plug….)

Copenhagen 3/17/10

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! This morning we woke up, packed our bags, and said goodbye to all our new VT Grad student friends before heading off to the Vienna airport with Tess and Ian. We ended up taking the metro, which was slightly traumatic, but only slightly. Patrick, Allie Ross, and I caught our flight, and I’ll have to recomment Norwegian in the future because it was by far the smoothest flight we’ve had the whole trip. As we were landing in Denmark, you could look out the windows on the righthand side of the plane and see a long line of wind turbines extending out into the ocean. We were so excited to be there. We got our luggage and Andy Pittmann and Michele met us at the gate. There were hugs all around, and then we hopped on the metro. Danish trains are as clean if not cleaner than Swiss trains, we weren’t at all disappointed. Patrick headed to Andy’s dorm with him, and Allie Ross and I went with Michele to put our bags at hers and Chantal’s dorm. The building’s really nice– concrete with Salk windows done all in red wooden frames and a bar downstairs. Chantal was super happy to see us and gave us a quick tour of the dorm before continuing to work on her history paper. We hung out with Michele until Patrick, Andy, Bonny, and her friend Lisbeth joined us. I was beyond excited to see Bonny- I’m glad she made it to Copenhagen the same weekend as us. We ran by Jacob’s Bakery on the corner so everyone could pick up danishes and then went to the grocery store to get some drinks. The guys got some beer that has chickens on it (apparently the thing to do for Easter in Copenhagen is to brew special Easter beer) and the girls got Pear Sommersby (delicious, tastes like starburst kind of). For dinner we stopped at Smorbrod, which means butter bread, to get our first authentic danish meal. I got the one with shrimps on it, and it was really incredible, although I took as much of the mayo off of it as I could. By this point, Fleming and Jess came to join us, and we all sat and caught up. Eventually we headed out to partake in St. Patrick’s Day festivities and to meet Matt and Dan at a bar called Retro. All the Irish bars were very crowded, so Allie Ross, Chantal, and I ended up going to the Moose Bar with Matt, Dan, and their friend from Carnegie Melon. It was great getting to catch up with the guys– they seem to be really enjoying their semester, and I think they were just as glad to see us as we were them. Eventually we decided to turn in and took the metro back to Chantal’s dorm. Allie Ross and I are sleeping on her floor on sleeping bags she borrowed for us from Fleming and some of the Danish students.

Vienna 3/16/10

This morning about half of the group headed out on their various Spring Break adventures. Its strange not having everyone all together for the first time in 3 weeks, but also a bit refreshing. After breakfast, those of us who were left headed over to Haus Wittgenstein. Apparently it was designed by a well-known philosopher for his sister. It was well detailed, but not much more than that. The prints that were on display, however, were exquisite- by Milko Bozhkov. My favorite was the one that showed birds in flight and sitting on a telephone wire. After that we said goodbye to Andy Ruff, Daniel Topping, and Clay as they headed off on their train to Krakow and the rest of us went to get lunch. We all met back up after lunch at the Secession. Its an art museum that has some really beautiful Klimpt murals painted on the walls of its basement. However, for the time being the lower level has been converted into a Swinger’s Club called Element 6. It was strange. And disgusting. You walked in and there was a fairly normal looking room to check your coat connected to a bar with nice looking couches, a stripper pole, and oil paintings of naked women. Beyond that was a bondage room, then a room with a jacuzzi, and a series of interconnected rooms with beds for floors. When we finally made it through to the Klimpt paintings, they were in the lowest level with some fake trees, children’s lawn toys, and a stuffed lion. The whole thing was just incredibly strange. After the swinger’s club, we caught the bus to the outskirts of town to see Otto Wagner’s Church for the insane asylum. It was all decorated in marble and gold leaf, and it was absolutely stunning. It takes a good bit to impress us at this point, and I think everyone really liked it. An Austrian man named Walter gave us our tour. He told us it only took 2 kg of gold leaf to cover the entire dome, which is pretty spectacular. He also pointed out that this is the only church in the entire world where the holy water fonts actually drip water down over the user’s hands to prevent the spread of disease. The altar and light fixtures (which looked a bit like huge bundles of grapes) were really pretty– everything was so white, and light, and clean. Walter took us upstairs to the choir loft so we could see better, which he said he hasn’t done for a group in 2 years. After Wagner, we went back to the hostel to pack and run some errands before dinner. We went to Cafe Nil, a Turkish restaurant, for our final meal in Austria. It was definitely not a disappointment. I had a bowl of lentil soup with Turkish bread and a final glass of Gruner Veltliner (all for only E5- gotta love Austria).

Vienna 3/15/10

Today Margarita gave us an insider’s walking tour of Vienna, which was actually quite fun even though it was incredibly cold. We rode the cable cars out into the city. They’re really funny because they’re so narrow, but very nice– clean and with interiors finished entirely in wood. Our first stop was Otto Wagner’s Postmarke Bank. It brought back a lot of memories from Kalas’s class, but nothing much more profound than that. After the bank we headed to the main square to look in the Cathedral. It was fairly beautiful. The columns were carved out like so many waterfalls, and the stained glass was all nonfigural squares done in pastel colors. We couldn’t get into the central nave, but the light was coming in perfectly so that the ambulatory on the other side was bathed in colored light while ours was left dark. After the Cathedral we kept walking, and Margarita pointed out a lot of points of interest along the way. Eventually we stopped for lunch at the University’s cafeteria, and then again for coffee at a small cafe outside the Albertina. I got a really excellent double espresso. Next stop was the Museum Quarter. All the UT students ended up going to the Momuk to see the special exhibit on Media Art. There was a lot of really interesting stuff there including some of Yoko Ono’s videos and the Dan Graham video delay project. I really enjoyed it, but we were pretty exhausted, and Allie Ross and I ended up heading back to the hostel a bit before the guys did. We ended up going shopping. I picked up some gum and mascara at the Bipa (which also had the only European skittles we’ve seen! Its a magical place). We also found this really amazing Boutique store called No.5. I could have bought everything there, but refrained because it was expensive. By the time we got back to the hostel it was almost time to meet up with Catherine and Jeff for Schnitzel night. Schnitzel is basically batter-fried meat, and apparently Vienna is known for it. We had reservations at Ansen Gruber, a famous Viennese schnitzel restaurant. We got a bit lost getting there, but we weren’t too late. Allie Ross and I had salad and bohnsuppe (bean soup) which was pretty delicious. Apparently everyone also really enjoyed their schnitzel. After dinner most of us went to a hookah lounge with Tofan for his birthday. He really enjoyed it, and we finally made it back to the hostel around 1:00 and fell asleep.

Vienna 3/14/10

This morning we got an early start to drive to the edge of the city and look at some public housing projects. The first one we stopped at was an early Coop Himmelblau project. We walked past it and then got back in the car. Gotta love that public housing. Next we drove out to see some Herzog housing, and then we went out to see some “garden plot” housing that Jeff and Catherine had recommended. Next we drove past a really pretty little church, but they were in the middle of Sunday services so we didn’t really get to go inside. Next stop was a beautiful free-form concrete church by the cubist sculptor Fritz Wotruba. I really enjoyed getting to see it. Since it was designed by an artist rather than an architect, it demonstrated a very different form of spatial organization than what we’re used to seeing. After sitting at the church for a little while, we headed out into the Austrian countryside– which is entirely lovely and desolate in a beautiful green expansive way– to see the Grafenegg auditorium and outdoor ampitheater complex. We had a tour of the grounds, which we were about 30 minutes late for, but I’m really glad we got to see it. The two tehaters were both done by competition by small Austrian firms. The indoor theater was really nice in the way that it connected with the adjoining historic stables, but the actual auditorium had a very awkward scale. The room was light and massive, and the seats were very small and a dark red. Also, the stage was elevated in a sort of strange manner. The outdoor ampitheater– known as the Tower to the Sky– however, was stunning. It was a concrete form that crawled up out of the grassy hill as a Jimmy-style geologic mass. The wooden panels at the base of the stage were stained a gorgeous maroon red. I love that space. I’d love to return in the summer at some point to see a concert there. After that we had a quick lunch (French onion soup!) at a really small restaurant in the town and then we headed to the Steven Holl winery for our wine tasting. Yay for my first ever Steven Holl experience! It wasn’t a disappointment. We watched the Austrian sunset while drinking delicious wines, my favorite being the Riesling, and then returned to the hostel for the night.

Prague 3/13/10

It was another early morning as we had an appointment set up to tour Adolf Loos’s Moller House before leaving Praha. We split up into two groups– I was in the first one. Our guide was nice and took us through every room in the house except for the driver’s bedroom on the lowest level. Walking through that house, I have a much better understanding of Loos’s ideas about Raumplan. Rather than achieving spatial hierarchy and compression simply through a manipulation of the ceiling plan, he utilizes the movement of both floor and ceiling in order to provide a more engaging haptic experience while allowing for a higher degree of variance and subtlety. I’ve never been overly interested in Loos’s actual built works, but I certainly am now. He put into action many of the techniques that I’ve always unknowingly tried to integrate into my own architecture. Plus he sketches just the same as i do! After the tour we drove back into the city to see Pleznik’s purple church. Its kind of cool because all the bricks are glazed so that its a really pretty, dark color, but apparently everything that’s actually worth seeing is inside, and it was closed until 6:00 pm so we left pretty quickly. Back at the hostel we had lunch (broth-based, herbed pea soup that tasted strangely like Jewish rye bread) and then packed up the cars and set off for our next destination. Andy Ruff was taking a turn at driving, so I was in the backseat between Zsolt and Sadia. Our next stop was the Sedlec Ossuary just outside of Prague. The story behind it is that a monk brought some soil from Golgatha hundreds of years ago and placed it at the cemetery. After that there was a surge in the number of people who wanted to be buried there. To accommodate everyone, the oldest skeletons were exhumed and their bones were used to decorate the chapel above. It was, in my mind, a little bit disrespectful. At the Capuchin Monastery, there’s an idea that the entire time you’re in the monastic order you know that eventually your remains will be used to adorn the crypt. These were the bones of people who had no idea– and it was set up to be very touristy. It was at least cool to see. After that we continued the drive into Austria uninterrupted. There were a few really terrifying moments where you really couldn’t see the road at all for the snow. I’m glad ARuff was driving. By the end of the trip I was really nauseous though, and as soon as we got to the hostel I ran inside and was sufficiently sick. Welcome to Austria. After we got settled in, Patrick, Allie Ross, Tess, and I went to a Mediterranean restaurant to get some food. I had a glass of Gruner Veltliner, a white Austrian wine with a light appley flavor, and some stir fried veggies with rice. It was good to get something back in my stomach. After dinner we headed back to the hostel and went to bed.