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.