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"

Barcelona

Olympic Park at night

Saturday, March 24, 2012 -- 10:50PM

Barcelona is easily my favorite city that I have ever been to. It is wonderfully gridded and organized really well. At one end you have the beach, which is one of the best in the world. On the end you have some mountains cornering the city into this remote corner on the water. The architecture is great, the people are great, the night life is great, etc. We stayed a youth hostel so the room was 5 bunk beds, so all 9 of our guys were stuffed into one room with one toilet, one sink, and two showers. It was interesting, but not too bad.


We had a late start due to traveling so we started with Mies van der Rohe's German Pavilion, maybe one of my favorite pieces of architecture. Spaces defined by shifting planes at perfect proportions. The materials are fantastic and a little water to top it all off. After some intense sketching we set off up the hill some more to a Joan Miro museum. As the sun was setting we made our way to the 1992 Olympic park. We entered some odd fake village walls that Barcelona built for entertainment. There are a bunch of shops and restaurants inside the walls gate and it is apparently all just made for fun. We had dinner here and I ate snails and ox tail. They were pretty crazy, but absolutely delicious.

German Pavilion -- Mies

The next day we walked around and saw some markets designed by famous architects. Then we finally made it to the beach! We were only able to walk around the beach for a little bit before heading back to see more architecture. Next was Santa Maria Del Mar a church made completely of stone blocks. Very refreshing structurally from the stuff we had seen in Italy. On our way to Parc Guell by Gaudi I stopped into a shop and then lost the group. Luckily Jess waited behind for me and we navigated our way to the area up the mountain a bit. When we got there we couldn't find our group so we toured around the Parc and then eventually just decided to stop looking for our group and got some beers to drink while sitting out in the parc. We watched these two 10 year old boys destroy these two 20 yr old guys in soccer. It was awesome. We finally met up with some of the others in our group and walked down to Barcenoleta (The area near the beach/port) and watched the sunset over some drinks. We had tapas and then went out to the Dow Jones bar, a bar themed after the stock market. Certain drinks fluctuated price based on how many of them were getting bought. The market would crash like once an hour and everything would go down a Euro. It was pretty awesome.

Parc Guell -- Gaudi

Our last group day in Barcelona began with Torre Agbar by Jean Nouvel. Around this area were a bunch of buildings with double facades to protect from the solar gain. It was like an Environmental Building System block of buildings. We then went to the Cam Framis Museum which was a really nice restoration of two old buildings connecting them with a contemporary design. Then it was finally time for the infamous Sagrada Familia by Gaudi. This cathedral has been on and off construction since the 80s. Inspired by parabolic forms and spanish style, this cathedral is absolutely gorgeous. It is such an old design but the construction is still going on so all the finishings seem so new. Should be done in the next 20 years and I really hope to be able to return. We climbed one of the towers which was over 20 stories high. It was pretty alarming since the stairs and corridors were very small and there were gaping holes in the walls. We then walked down the street to another Gaudi project called La Pedrera. More crazy forms but in the program of a residents. It had a cool Dr. Seuss like roof terrace that we spent a decent amount of time on. We had Paella for dinner. That night we went clubbing at Razmatazz. It was insane. 7 different rooms on different levels with separate DJs and dance floors. So much fun. We didn't get in til 5ish, and that was leaving early for these people.

Cam Framis Museum

Sagrada Familia -- Gaudi

La Pedrera -- Gaudi

Spring Break officially started and Bobby, Rick and I spent our first day seeing more of Barcelona because our flight to London wasn't until 9PM. We started with a Herzog & de Meuron convention center down by the beach. We walked along the beach for a long time. Saw some surfers which was legit. We walked all the down until we made it the Frank Gehry Fish in front of the SOM tower. We took the subway to Las Ramblas for lunch and shopped around for a bit. Then we headed up towards Gardens and Olympic park again. We kinda got lost walking around this neighborhood and ended up in some soccer field where there was an adult game going on. Some random old dude started yelling at us in spanish so we just left and finally found our way up to the gardens. We got to see the Olympic Park in the sunlight this time. We headed back to the hostel to prepare for the rest of our trips to London, Stuttgart, & Munich. Those posts will come soon.

Herzog & de Meuron

Fish -- Frank Gehry

Olympic Park in the day

Paris!

Saturday, March 24, 2012 -- 9:15PM

Alright I am much overdue with these posts so I am going to try to crank them out tonight. We set out March 3rd for 2 weeks of travel; one week with the group and one week independent. The first 4 days were in Paris. The weather sucked and the city is absolutely giant and not very well organized, but so much to see and do!

We started with two Jean Nouvel projects. The Institute du Monde Arab and Garden of Musee du Quai Branly. We then wondered nearby to the Eiffel tower before dinner and got to see it light up.

The next day we started at Le Parc De La Villette by Bernard Tschumi. This was a huge park that was filled with these red "folies" aka medium size structures that explore some sort of architectural and spacial idea. Though the weather wasn't great, the park was full of activity. A main place for people to exercise and play soccer. We then tried to go to Musee d'Orsay but it was free day so the place was mayhem. We went to the site of the Louvre by I.M. Pei instead. We also weren't able to get into the Louvre because of the lines for free day. We got to Notre Dame right as it started to rain pretty hard so we unfortunately weren't able to get on top, but the inside was beautiful and service was about to begin because it was a Sunday. We made our

way to the Pompidou museum by Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers, a beautiful building with all the structure and building systems on the exterior, leaving for an extremely open plan on the interior. There is a series of escalators that takes you to a sky walk 6 stories high giving you a panoramic view of Paris. The art and installations in the museum were fantastic. The feature exhibition was Josef Albers, who has some pretty incredible color and spacial studies. That night we had tickets to an Edgar Allen Poe opera performance. It was all in French and very bizarre so it was quite the experience. Nice to see the Opera of Bastille though.

Parc de la Villette

Louvre

It was raining so I didn't get an exterior photo of the Pompidou but here is the model.

The next day we started at the Communist Headquarters designed by Oscar Niemeyer. We met a random employee on the exterior who spoke English and talked to his boss to get us into the building and get a tour. If we didn't have that tour I don't know how I would have felt about the building but the auditorium was incredible. Then we took off towards Sacre Coeur. We didn't have enough time to climb the dome unfortunately but it was a beautiful church and a great view over the city. We continued on near the Eiffel tower with Cite de L'Architecture an amazing Architecture museum. So many historic installations and great models of some of the more important movements in architecture. Needless to say, we spent a lot of time here. Our last day in Paris we started at Maison La Roche, our first Le Corbusier building. Not the most spectacular Corbu house, but still very interesting nonetheless. It was in kinda bad condition unfortunately.

Communist Headquarters

Maison La Roche

Cite de L'architecture

View from Sacre Coeur

Our last day we started with La Defense, the business district towards the outskirts of Paris. Buildings are very contemporary and the most defining one is the cube building. We also spotted a Richard Serra sculpture which was a nice find. We continued further from the city to Poissy to see Villa Savoye, arguably Le Corbusier's greatest contribution to residential architecture. After a couple hours of photographing and sketching, we were able to split from the group and do what we wanted in the city. I really wanted to go to Versailles but the weather didn't seem too favorable. So instead a couple of us went back to actually go inside Musee d'Orsay which ended up being a fantastic choice. One of the coolest buildings and collections of art that I have ever experienced. Definitely a must see in Paris. We thought about trying to climb the Eiffel tower before dinner but there just wasn't the time.

Cube building at La Defense

Richard Serra sculpture

Villa Savoye

Musee d'Orsay

We ate a ton of duck in Paris, that seems to be their thing. Lots of good wine as well.