Hmm.... Geneva, Switzerland. I have to say we encountered it under less then fortunate circumstances. Train on Friday ran 2 hours late (what happened to the reputedly fantastic European rail system? that was zero of three on time for them) late enough to not be able to see much - we ran to our hostel, a 20 minute walk from the train station, 40 minutes with being completely turned around. i'm sorry, train stations of necessity should have huge compass roses in the flooring all over. i shall design the tiles myself :). look for them in the future.went back towards the station (a busier part of town) to find food... 9:00 at that point. Stopped in a Boky Chinese place - later found out that a restaurant with a very similar name is a fast food place on par with a McDonalds, but i think this was maybe different - HUGE plates of food, and slow service, not too expensive. And served beer, thai ?ashati? beer is nothing terribly special or exotic. thoroughly stuffed by the time we got the waiters attention, we just drifted home. oo new feature - click on the link, it'll give you the rest without looking abhorently long and scary on the main page. i might do this a lot from now on, make the main page look nicer.
Next day wake up with a big complementary breakfast, walk to the tourist information, try to rent bikes and are foiled by the lack of atms anywhere nearby. serious lack of atms in the whole country, kind of wierd. start on a very long walking tour - along the lakeshore (then into buildings because the wind was rather bitter at the world) some amazing parks - they're very into public art in switzerland, statues of high and less quality all over. I've been somewhat of a sceptic about public art in the past, but when there's such a high frequency of it, the occasional flop doesn't jar as much. unicef, united nations, and other international organization, none of them matching their prestige with quality architecture... pit stop in a ceramic and glass museum of some very dubious green and pink precast fake stone... blech. museum was relatively fun (and warm!), although the only thing I was really intrigued by was the British black pottery. hmm need to find the exact name again, can't belive i forgot it. black bisque? gorgeous flat black, thin, geometrically patterned from the turn of the century~1910.
united nations flags, whatever, walking back through the more residential districts, newer, 70's, 80's mostly, very ordinary and not terribly pretty. Although - i did see what stands for now as the ugliest building ever. postmodern pastiche, brick and grey concrete and crayola bold balcony accents.... it was bad. possibly trying to echo the somewhat lauded gaudi-esque 'smurf' building behind it. having seen the real gaudi apartment buildings, this didn't hold a candle... a little more successfully whimsical then the 80's acrylic aroebic nightmare beside it though. i dunno, the fluid massing and ironwork/stonework details of gaudi's buildings work together seamlessly - this massing was more drippy then fluid, and the angular ironwork looked pasted on. It was called the "smurf" housing development pretty successfully, it did call the blue creatures to mind.
managed to get south of the lake/river to see the older section of town, quite a bit more swiss feeling, but touristy and more expensive - pretty interesting. thai food in a seriously expensive place - switzerland is expensive, more on that later - just got a salad and rice though and got very full. salad was excellent, pad woonsen, lots of thai celery and cilantro - light and yummy.
found the ing bank by mario botta, pic doesn't give you all that great of an idea of it, bit it was basically the only cool pic i got all day - it was SO INCREDIBLY grey out, weather-wise. we were on a gorgeous lake, with hills all around, but we couldn't see out onto the lake at all, and i'm extrapolating the hills from the postcards.... but the bank was an impressive ediface, very balanced and calm from the main road, oddly proportioned from the side but with a cool entrance with steps down and mentally squeezing columns with a similar shaft opening up to the top. nice use of stone.
wandering away from that we whoops happened upon a corbusier building! we knew it was in the city, couldn't find the street on any maps. was definately more of a double take - it stood out as being better proportioned then other buildings, but the material was a dark rusted metal (possibly cor-ten steel?) with bright orange sun-shades - not typical. the white square portals with glass block cinched the id though, and we got to explore :). was not a radiant city high-rise, no streets in the sky, but the stair tower we climbed was regaurdless quite lovely - glass pavers and steel, with the fantastic detail of 4" high i-beam with one side poured full of concrete floor and the other open to the stairwell forming a shelf... beautiful... i am such a geek.
more wandering, random impressive old style buildings, they get repetitive. large gold-plated onion dome orthodox church... we went back to the hostel to shower (oo nice showers) and nap and relax and make pasta... cheap meal necessary. hoo this is long - no logical breaking point though.
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