Friday, April 13, 2012

Tell Me Three Things You Love About Yourself


Friday, April 13th, 2012 -- 10:50PM

This post will be dedicated to what is easily the most memorable experience of my study abroad. I'll skip over Bregenz, Austria and Berlin, Germany for the time being.


J.J. Stinson, "John Benson Stinson Jr. minus the B.S." as he would say was born on March 22, 1992. From Alexandria, Virginia, J.J. went to high school at Bishop Ireton. In the Fall of 2010, J.J. joined the Virginia Tech community. He studied philosophy and was an active member of the Newman Community, the Catholic Campus Ministry at Virginia Tech. In his Spring semester of sophomore year at Virginia Tech, J.J. joined a group of thirty honors students to study abroad in Switzerland under the Presidential Global Scholars program. There they studied alongside seventeen architecture students and nine distinguished professors. J.J. was found to have passed away on April 11, 2012.


We were in Berlin, on Tuesday, when we were notified that he was missing. We were all worried but had faith that JJ knew what he was doing and was very capable of returning to the villa safely. We all just hoped it was some big misunderstanding.


It was around 11PM on April 11th, 2012. Most of us were sitting at the hostel bar drinking some beers with plans to go to a club soon. I had picked up these crazy looking airplane bottles from the Kaiser grocery store. People wanted me to try one so I convinced Blake to do it with me. We linked arms, naturally, and took the shot. It was a high moment of the night that quickly turned to probably the lowest moment of my life. Paola walked into the circle and asked if we could all meet. I’ve never felt my heart sink so hard. I think we all knew, subconsciously, what was about to be said. We all moved outside to the front plaza of the hostel. The words will be forever engraved in my memory. Paola said, “I just got off of the phone with Daniela, and they found JJ…” she paused for what felt like an eternity. With every millisecond that passed, my heart raced faster and faster. There was no smile on Paola’s face. I looked at her eyes beyond her seeing-glasses and could see the water built up. See repeated, “well, they found JJ.” Multiple gasps expelled from the group. A couple people brought their hands to their faces. Some people embraced the ones adjacent. I remember latching onto Lisa, on my left, with my left arm and covering my mouth with my right. Paola went on to explain the details of where JJ was found and that he didn’t appear to have any suffering or foul play. The initial thought was hypothermia. She went on to discuss what our next plans would be, but I couldn’t focus. My mind was running wild as tears began to stream down my face. Once Paola was finished speaking, we attempted to collect ourselves and finish hugging each other. The only thing I could think to do was find some way to call my mom and dad. I couldn’t stop thinking about the devastation news like that would bring to his parents. I rushed inside to find my phone at the bar and clean up our area quickly. I rushed up to my room and logged into the internet which I luckily already had purchased. I immediately connected to Google Voice and called home. I could barely even speak because of my hysteria. Dad picked up and I asked if he could put Mom on too. They were already aware that JJ was missing but I assume it was a very alarming phone call to receive hearing me cry.


JJ was an incredible human being. He just turned 20 a couple weeks ago and I remember giving him a hard time because of how young he was. Though he was so young, he had already accomplished so much and touched so many people's lives. JJ was always known to ask the incredible difficult, philosophical questions at the lunch and dinner table. I frequently sat near him and would barely be able to eat my meal because he would ask me so many questions. He was genuinely interested in the answers and conversations that would steam from his profound questions.


I will always remember the first day I met JJ. We were sitting at the lunch table on the first day of classes. As I attempted to eat my salad and meal, he says, "so Jacob...," the name in which he read from my napkin envelope, "I'm putting you on the spot. Tell Me Three Things You Love About Yourself. What makes you, you?” ; an answer that is much more difficult to answer than you would think. JJ was full of these types of questions. As a psychology major he loved to ask people the difficult questions, especially the ones that made you think about who you are, why you are that way, and why you like the person that you are. He found joy in listening to others have love for life. And when people avoided these questions, as someone would do naturally on the hot seat (I know I did), he wouldn't forget. He would keep asking until you answered the three things you love about yourself, or why you chose your major, or what makes you different from everyone else. JJ was never afraid or uncomfortable to befriend and talk to someone new. He had stock questions in which he was legitimately interested. There would never be a dull moment in conversation when he was around. JJ also wasn’t ever afraid to crack jokes. He would bust people's chops to then apologize and have an excuse to tell them how much he loves them.


We returned to the Villa the next night (Thursday) as planned. Our flight didn't land until 10:30pm and we didn't make it back to the villa until a little after midnight. The honors students waited up for us, so we could all partake in a memorial ceremony. I knew it would be tough getting back to the villa but I even hesitated walking through the doors. Some of the honor students had a great idea of buying a large candle that we can keep lit out in the garden for the remainder of our time here, in honor of JJ. We all circled around the stone picnic table about 20 steps into the garden from the villa. It was raining but we were lightly canopied by nearby trees. The students had set up the large candle in a glass container to catch the wax and stacked some bricks to prop a wire trashcan upside-down over the flame to protect it from the rainwater. This ceremony took a lot out of me. Things were really brought to reality being back in the villa and not having JJ by my side. People tapered away slowly to retreat to the villa.


JJ was also in love with music. He had his guitar with him and played it almost every night. He loved to sing to absolutely everything, from show tunes, to Lady Gaga, to oldies. He brought so much energy and positivity to the villa even in the most stressful times.


Today, we all collectively spent the day creating memory albums to send to his family. I was struggling pretty hard until we all started brainstorming ideas for cards, videos, etc. Things suddenly started becoming easier to handle. I began writing a lot about JJ to just get my thoughts out on paper. I can't help but smile while thinking about the great things he has taught me in these last couple of months. He will always remind me to love life and love everything I am doing in life; To love the people surrounding me and the ones far from me; To live life with a positive attitude and to relay that positive attitude to others. Though he will be sorely missed, his spirit will forever live within the Riva Spring 2012 family.


JJ, your love of others was and will always be infectious. We miss you so much already, but we know you are in a better place now. I can never be more grateful for having the opportunity to meet you and spend the past couple of months with you. I love you.

Friday, April 6, 2012

Day Trip to Como, Italy

Como, Italy

Friday, April 6, 2012 -- 3:40PM

After we got back from Spring Break, our studio took a group trip to Como, Italy. Como is a small city, like Lugano, that is just barely over the border of Switzerland and Italy. Like most towns here, it is on the water and is surrounded by mountains. And apparently George Clooney lives there, but we unfortunately didn't see him. We visited Casa del Fascio (House of Fascist) by Giuseppe Terragni. This was back during the Fascist reign in northern Italy. It is a modular, aka gridded, plan. A very simple and structured plan. We spent some time just wandering around and sitting by the lake. Terragni also has a war memorial down by the lake. We then went a little bit to the outskirts to see a kindergarten also designed Terragni. Pretty similar concepts of Casa del Fascio but not a rectangle. Como is really nice, but I think a lot of us were a bit travel-packed. We had just gotten home from 2 weeks of travel and needed time to unwind and digest everything we had seen.

Como Duomo...it rhymes

Casa del Fascio

Nice Stair

Front Facade

War Memorial -- Terragni

Kindergarten

Overdue -- Lugano Professional Cycling Race

The Villa's Garden on a beautiful Sunday
(It's pretty awesome to sit out here after meals to relax for a little bit)

Friday, April 6, 2012 -- 12:37PM

So, I completely forgot to post about this: On Feb. 26th a couple of us caught the short train up to Lugano to spectate a cycling race. Basically all the top professional riders/teams were here for this short circuit race. Rick and Blake are huge cyclers, and I'm aspiring, so we decided to spend the morning up there before afternoon studio. It was a beautiful day and it was really awesome to see these extreme athletes.

Our train station

The first lap, they weren't trying yet. Smiling for pictures and whatnot

Cadal Evans, in the red, was the Tour de France winner

10 minute train ride back to Riva

Spring Break Part 3/3 -- Munich

Olympic Park at Sunset

Friday, April 6, 2012 -- 10:30AM

My final leg of Spring Break was to Munich. Bobby and I took a train (Rick went off to the Italian Riviera to see a cycling race). The train was super smooth and really nice. We just used the time to start filtering through photographs from our previous week and a half of travel. We made it to Munich and our Hostel was right across the street from the train station. Also kind of on the edge of the red-light district, but Munich is one of the safest cities in the world, apparently. Our hostel was very interesting. It was Jagermeister themed and had a bar in the lobby that was open to public at night. The rooms were actually really nice, even though it was bunk beds. Bobby and I took some time to roam the center city which was a lot older than we expected. That city has an incredible history. It was unlike every other city we had been to. We got some awesome pretzel sandwiches for lunch and went into a Haus der Kunst (a museum) that we randomly stumbled upon. It actually had a really interesting collection of photography and paintings. We walked back to the hostel through the hofgarten where we saw many people playing bocce and drinking beer, of course. We had dinner at Hofbrauhaus, one of the most popular breweries over here. We walked back to the hotel listening to a lot of excellent street music. Mostly jazz but a little bit of classical and reggae. Blake arrived pretty late from his travels in Spain.

Haus der Kunst

Hofgarten

Hofbrauhaus

We started out next day at the BMW Welt, Museum, and Factory. The Welt was more like a convention center with a lot of interactive mechanisms to teach you about the innovative design of BMWs. The factory was absolutely incredible. Being able to see the robots and mass production was great. You always see things online and on TV but to see it in person and to hear the sounds and watch the sparks from the welders fly across the warehouse, was just awesome. The museum was really great as well. A spiraling plan, kind of like Frank Lloyd Wright's Guggenheim, it took us through the history of the BMW and the engines. Bobby helped inform me of a lot of the mechanics because I must admit, I'm not as educated in the engine field as I would like to be. After spending most of the day with BMW we went right next door to the 1972 Olympic Park. We weren't able to get into the stadium or anything which kinda sucked but we climbed a nearby hill to be able to see down into the park. Apparently the hill was built from all the rubble from WWII. We stayed there until about sunset and went back towards city center. Blake really wanted to go to Hofbrauhaus, so we went again because it was so good and cheap. We were all pretty whipped out so we called it a night pretty early.

BMW Welt

"The Hurricane" design of BMW Welt

BMW Welt (Kind of like a convention center)

BMW Museum

The Kidney shaped grill that made them so popular

2012 3-series

Bond.... James Bond

The rebirth of the M1

Super tall escalator, cutting through the space

1971 Olympic Park

Our last day in Munich, we started at Dachau, the very first concentration camp. It was a smaller camp that was more for temporary stays, while in transport to other concentration camps. Let's just say that it was a pretty heavy experience. A lot of things happened there that I can't even wrap my head around and don't really want to try. An extremely weird feeling overwhelmed my body while I was there, but I am glad I was able to experience it. It was good for a one-time experience, but I don't think I'll ever do it again. We then took the subway out to Allianz Arena, designed by Herzog & de Meuron, home of FC Bayern and TSV 1860 Munchen futbol teams. TSV 1860 Munchen, their club team, was playing and we got some tickets to get inside and watch. It was a pretty boring game because they are terrible and we had standing tickets, so it was tough to see. But we stuck around after the game to get closer to the field and really take a look at the structure. A lot of Leiterhosen and we almost saw a fight too; it was a full experience.
We took the packed subway to the "Highlight Towers" by a Chicago based firm. As the sun was going down we grabbed some beers and started walking towards the Biergarten (Beer Garden). We stumbled upon a set up in the river that these guys were surfing the wake. So we hung out there for a while and drank our beers. We made it into the English Garden, which houses the Biergarten, and it was really dark. We just followed most of the paths that had light. We finally found this Biergarten, right before they closed. We got some beers and hung out for a bit. They allow you to take your 1 Liter Beer Steins as a souvenir if you pay 1 euro more. It was a good deal. We stopped somewhere random for dinner which was really good and had some more good beer. We watched some more street music on the way back to our hotel and then obtained our free shots from our hotel bar, as our welcome to Munich gift. We hung out there for a little and got the bar to play Bobby's favorite song, "Call On Me." People were loving it. We called it a night and I had a 7:30am train to head back to Switzerland. I was riding alone, because apparently my ticket was the last ticket for the train, so Bobby and Blake were on a later train. It was an 8-hour train in total, with switches in Stuttgart, Zurich, and Lugano. I slept the first part and then spent a lot of time working on editing pictures, so I would be ready to post them immediately when I got home. It really wasn't too bad of a trip at all.

Walk of Remembrance to Dachau. I'm not going to post any other photographs of the concentration camp because it was pretty deep. An experience that photos can't and shouldn't attempt to do justice.

Allianz Arena -- Herzog & de Meuron

Barely see-through membrane

TSV 1860 Munchen

Highlight Towers

Guy surfing in the river

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Spring Break Part 2 -- Stuttgart

Revolving doors closed at Staatsgalerie, just before opening time

Thursday, April 5, 2012 -- 8:13PM

Alright I gotta crank out these next few posts quickly before we head off to Berlin, Basel, Luzern, Ronchamp, La Tourette, and Lausanne. Rick, Bobby, and I stayed in Stuttgart the next two nights. Stuttgart has a much lower skyline, and doesn't really feel like a city. It has a lot of open and green spaces, which makes it seem more suburby. It is sprawled out pretty far, so they keep the industrial stuff away from city center. We met up with Sarah, another architecture friend from VT, who actually grew up in Germany, so she helped us a lot with the ordering of food thing. Our hotel was right on the edge of city center and the small red-light district, which was kinda exciting.

We first made our way to the suburbs to the Weissenhof Housing Complex. This was a little neighborhood that was created in the 20s to showcase the new Bauhaus style of modern architecture. Some of the famous "Star-chitects" to build there were Le Corbusier, Mies Van der Rohe, Walter Gropius, Taut, J.P. Oud, etc. The Corbu house is the only one that isn't being lived in anymore and we are allowed to see it. It was probably my favorite Corbu project so far. An extremely free and flexible housing plan. This German women just started rambling off to us for like 5 minutes without a breath and finally realized we didn't sprechen Deutch. She then repeated herself in English haha. The walls in the bed room transformed to create partitions and doors, it was incredible. We went back to city center and went in the Kunst, aka art museum. It was a really nice glass box with interior gallery spaces that were shielding from the light filled areas, a lot like the Kunsthaus Bregenz by Zumthor (which I'll post about in a couple posts). We poked around the city for a while and then met up with Sarah for dinner. Pretty traditional German dinner, sausages and beer.

Weissenhof -- Le Corbusier



Operable partition

Wiessenhof -- Mies Van Der Rohe

Weissenhof -- JP Oud

Kunst

The next morning we went to the Neue Staatsgalerie by James Stirling which was basically the first real extreme expression of Post-modern architecture. Extreme colors and exaggerated structure and hand rails. It almost seems cheesy, but surprisingly is very elegantly done. For the time it was absolutely radical, even more so than today. Next up was the Porsche Museum. A cantilevered building holding up 100 of cars weight. Incredible. The cars were gorgeous. Then we went to the Mercedes museum which was also a great building. It was more of a historical museum which was really cool as well. We went out to eat with Sarah again and got some more traditional German food. We went out to a bar for a little while but had an early train so we called it kind of early. Off to Munich!

Neue Staatsgalerie -- James Stirling


Porsche

I got to sit in one!

Mercedes

Really nice light condition

300 SL :)

Friday, March 30, 2012

Spring Break Part 1 -- London


Thursday, March 30th, 2012 -- 9:45AM

Yeah I know I'm really behind at updating this thing, but here goes Spring Break. Bobby, Rick, and I left Barcelona late at night on a flight to London Stansted. We didn't get to our Hotel until 1:30am. At first I was a little sketched out by the old run down row home style hotel, but the room was actually pretty nice and the beds were super comfortable. We woke up early, tried to get some breakfast, but it was packed and it was only like toast and some bran flakes. We set off on foot through Victoria up towards the Buckingham Palace. We walked walked all the way through Hyde Park and saw the Serpentine Lake which had the Princess Diana memorial next to it. We made it to the Serpentine Gallery only to find out that the awesome pavilions that are built every year are only in the summer. We walked back along the other side of the lake watching all the skillful rollerbladers weave in and out of cones. We passed the Palace again en rout to the Parliament and Big Ben. We crossed the river and got some Mediterranean food for lunch. We walked by the London Eye but the line was too long. We continued along the river until we got to the Tate Modern Museum by Herzog & de Meuron. They are actually building another addition to it right now. That was easily one of my favorite museums, converted from an old train station. The art collection was really nice. We then crossed the Millennium Bridge by Calatrava towards St. Paul's Cathedral. Mass was about to start so we could only peak in for a moment. We walked along the other side of the river passing the London Bridge, which isn't too glamorous, but then made it to the more monumental Tower bridge. We crossed the bridge just as the sun was setting getting some great shots of the city skyline with a beautifully colored sky. We saw Norman Foster's City Hall which surprised us with it's really really nice exterior urban space. We stopped for dinner at a Frenchish restaurant on the river. We continued along the river towards Renzo Piano's "Shard" skyscraper, appearing to be a shard of glass. It is currently under construction, but close to being complete. It is the tallest building in London and is absolutely gorgeous. We were all star-struck by it and couldn't stop taking pictures of it. It's size is just phenomenal. We decided to try to ride the London Eye at night but tried to explore the city along the way and got kind of lost. We got there just as it closed and it seemed kind of pricy anyways. From here we just decided to call it a night and head home. I mapped our path for the day and determined we walked 12.5 miles within a 12 hour span. Incredible.

Buckingham Palace

Big Ben

London Eye

Tate Modern Museum

Millennium Bridge and St. Paul's Cathedral

Tower Bridge

The Shard at sunset

City Hall

Urban Space outside of City Hall

The Shard at night

The Eye at night

Our second day was a little more tame. We took the underground up to the AA (architecture school) to visit Esther. She was no where to be found at first so we went down a few blocks to check out the British Museum which has an amazing collection of artifacts. After that we stopped in the AA again and finally found Esther! We convinced her to play hookie and explore some of the city with us, since she hadn't been able to do much of that yet. We started with the Gherkin by Norman Foster. They wouldn't let us inside so we just admired the exterior for a bit. Then we went down a block to see the Lloyd's of London building by Richard Rogers, a building that looks inside out, with all of it's structure, circulation (elevators + stairs) and systems (HVAC, Water, etc.) on the exterior. Also unable to get in. We then went to see Broadgate by SOM which are also towers. We got kicked off the property because apparently the plaza is private property and we aren't allowed to be taking pictures of it. Also a beautiful building with exposed structure and a very nice structural canopy that connects the two buildings. We then hopped on the train and went north to the 2012 Olympic Park. We weren't able to get on the site but the nearby mall had an Olympic Store on the top floor with windows looking over the Stadium, the Aquatic Center (by Zaha Hadid), and the Polo arena. We headed back to Victoria and got some dinner nearby the hotel and called it a night since we had to catch a 4:30am bus to get to the airport in time for our Stuttgart flight.
British Museum

We found Esther!

The Gherkin

Lloyd's of London

Broadgate by SOM

2012 Olympic Stadium

The Aquatic Center and some structure called "The Orbit"