Lausanne - a brief moment of sun!

Cathedral, to the Lausanne history museum to stay warm again... was extensive, more then i would have thought. coolest part was probably the old instrumental collection - lots of lutes and old horns and a listening station with symphonic examples of the period instruments.

More wandering down towards the shore - sara was feeling poorly and had to leave her in the train station. i finished the wandering down to the shore and caught the only 4 minutes of sunshine all weekend - i was excited - there it is in the picture. nice shoreline, 10' square chessboards with old men kicking around the pieces.

Lausanne dos

The MUDAC was the museum for contemporary art and design. there was some crazy stuff with felt and invitations to read sweet books, ceramics, lots of fashion, fonts. The top floor had an amazing timberframe structure framing even cooler glass art - i LOVE new glass art, and this was powerful thick slabs and shapes, not little paperweights or glasses.... inspiring indeed. (it was warm here too)

Cathedral was a strange mix of fancy and unadorned - i really liked it. huge organ, strange portal with this pic of ?the devil? standing with th rest... he definately had horns. there were crypts around the back, i liked that - creepy but added alot of authenticity.

Lausanne, Switzerland - Small, Fun, Grey - Sun Feb 5

OO try this! enter 46.201535, 6.1626 into the search bar on maps.google.com and click satellite and you can see the exact location of the bank in the picture i posted in the last post! hehe cool. or in google earth if you have it downloaded. its the latitude, longitude location of it

the picture in this post is from 46.523489, 6.633767 not as detailed pictures/maps.


Finish up Geneva - woke up pretty early, went for a small walk by myself, nice. checked out trinity church again, an exercize in pure forms carried out to a successful conclusion - floating pink granite globe-chapel 'floating' in water and tucked away in a well-detailed zinc panel office complex. light blue-dyed concrete, questionable feelings on that, monumental at least. made a quick getaway on a commuter train to Lausanne.
Lausanne was cold. and hilly. and very very very quiet. all buisnesses closed up for sunday, and anything besides a main street was deserted. surreal moment coming onto a plaza from a steep hill when a large leaf rolled down the pavement 100 feet behind us and it felt like a huge racket. beautiful lions... they know how to carve lions better in switzerland then france. chateaus and such, fun view of the cathedral on a hill and windings to get up to it. almost walked in during the middle of mass, choosing to not be so sacreligious, despite the gorgeous organ playing, we went to a small museum next door.

Museum called MUDAC..... awesome. Pic is out on the roofs of Lausanne from the singular portal window on the top.

Geneva, Switzerland - Sat Feb 4

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.

Webby Connectedness

spent studio today linking myself up even more with the web.... zactlymyself is my user name for close to everything now... if you're interested in what music i listen to, http://www.last.fm/user/zactlymyself/ is my audioscrobbler account - will have it posted in my blog eventually, i think it's a fun thing to have and like seeing other people with it - plus the radio function is supposed to be pretty awesomely tailored and works with launchcast and stuff.

del.icio.us is a program we were told about in the web tech class which is turning out to be very useful - it's a link sharing site, kind of like a bookmarks folder except shared with everyone on the internet and a tagging function that makes it a lot easier to find exactly what you were looking at again - and what other people look for on that topic. http://del.icio.us/zactlymyself is all my links - a ton of fun futuristic architecture stuff, it'll probably become pretty crowded with hostel reservations etc pretty soon, but it's easy to search around those. and the firefox extension to use it is amazingly easy. i like the internet.

go web 2.0.... off for some non-nerdy, real life experience in Switzerland! (Geneva and Lausanne, more posts o'course when i get back on monday)

oh - pic is another from sagrada familia, climbing up the tower - fun fun fun.... picture of Marche Cadet to come soon :)

Cloudy = crypts? Thurs Feb 2

Woke up fairly early this morning, cloudy for the first time since last week - decided going to the notre dame crypts would be the appropriate thing to see before studio at 2. took a while wandering there, stopped in a few stores, nothing to buy particularly. they have VERY cute shoes here, and the sales only last until Feb 21... haha maybe I will determinedly go shopping at some point. Wandered into Notre Dame des Victories, a nice little church. Very stripped-down facade and matter-of-fact interior, I liked it. Side chapel archways were paved in donor stone, gave a nice feel of people. Crypts were rather disappointing, I was thinking grave crypts and creepiness, but instead they were archeological digs in this one particular spot... cool, just not what I expected. Neat to be under a huge plaza and see the actual previous foundations and walls on the original levels, some from the third century ad, preserved and built over. Evidences of the island ending at that point - kind of crazy. Also walked through Notre-Dame again, got some big-picture shots I'd forgotten to get last time. This pic is the front modern altar with the traditional one in the back - so this is about 3/4 up the nave.

grocery shopping on the way to studio, baugette, Camembert cheese, hardboiled egg sandwiches. fun to pick things up at their own little store, bread and cheese, meat if I was going to do that.
I think I've official switched boulangeries - our delightfully crabby french lady in the red store makes comparatively small and crusty baugettes with useless pointed ends... the blue one with the friendlier but english speaking lady has cheaper, bigger, softer loaves, earlier on our walk to studio... we have the option of 5 bread shops on the way, these are on the fun market street though. hehe so it goes ;). we thought maybe the red store lady had connections with the apparently mob (men in suits outside at very late hours, hmmm) building on the marche cadet as well... sigh. ha I should work on studio... too many details writing about the current day

Wed Feb 1 - Ew

Hmm Wednesday was not a very good day. Sparing details, finances in general, rent, and studio were all huge hassles and didn't turn out too well, very bad mood all day. Got better when finally a little of the money I had pending was deposited... being un-broke is a fantastic feeling.

Was in the mood for a movie after ughness... watched one of Kober's, a Czech New Wave film from the 60's - very psychedelic/trippy, message about the boredom that comes from decadence, a little blunt I guess, fun ways of showing it though. interesting. projected it on the wall in the studio room with a couch - yay sitting on a couch :P confined to my pad on the floor mostly at home, or folding chair in front of desk at studio (kitchen is only occasionally warm enough to sit in, more folding chairs.)

Anyway, finally a picture with me in it! at the Barcelona pavilion (um, in Barcelona..) feeling at home on the familiar furnitures, maybe not so much with the gorgeous huge marble slabs... silly hat was very practical, it was quite rainy the first day...

Cup o' Meat tu jan 31

 


The rail line (la Petit Ceinture, to be exact) was a little of a let down after the walk, but still pretty enchanting. Got up through a closed but not locked gate, had to scramble nearly straight up a story or two to get on the track itself, pants with slightly thinner knees now, no worries... This portion of the line was further above the street level and even more unworldly then the section in the 19th. It was SO quiet up there, lots of trees and birds and leaves crackling audibly underfoot. i got nervous every time i walked above a street crossing because the auto traffic would sound like a train coming.... it was a pretty cool walk, maybe a kilometer or so. the line opened up a little towards the end (a gated, long tunnel) and there were tennis courts on the side, very charming. had to ask to be let out onto the street, nice obliging and slow moving old Parisian lady.

was going to pick up the line a few blocks ahead where it appeared to come out of the tunnel on the map - but it was dug into the ground about 50 feet at that point, and i'd had enough scrambling. Instead I layed down in the sunshine in the little park i found myself in.... probably fell asleep for 5 minutes again, very refreshing :). it really was quiet enough that i felt safe - i looked around at a pigeon walking over leaves.

rather whiled away the rest of the day in studio posting barcelona story... went home with tony for blt's: very respectable even with our questionable stovetop. we didn't want to cook all the bacon, and bags are something we're lacking... thus the cup'o'meat of the title... ew! haha. evening reading and brainstorming and sleeping...mmm.... 

Statue of Liberty - in France tu jan 30

 


After I had seen enough of the Maison, I walked across the 16th and the river to find this other hidden piece of railroad. Sweet walk - residential streets, could see the Parisian Statue of Liberty from the bridge (nothing too impressive, just like ours only 1/4 of the size maybe... I actually thought it was just fine in it's smaller form. Beautiful day for a walk, tad cold, as it is here.... not at all minnesota cold, and only occasionally chicago-cold, but it's just warm enough to feel like you should be able to be out for hours at a time, and cold enough that it's not the most pleasant....

Citroen Park after the river, beautiful park in the middle of the car maker's office park - fantastic comparison with the park Monday, which was deliberately natural. This was determinedly artificial, concrete follies and lines and diagonals - i rather liked it though, it wasn't pretending, and had some great spaces. Grassy pavers too! ha. There were two large greenhouses with appealing tropical plants in them - got to go in, interestingly minimal structure, huge wood doors and beams in an otherwise suspended glass building. 

Tuesday Jan 31 - more Corb?!?

Being given a free day to um work on studio and not being terribly impressed with the area of our rail section, I went off to find another to compare it to and hit up a few sights on the way.....
My first stop was the pair of Corbusier houses who's visiting hours i'd missed the last time I stopped by.... Maisons Roche and Jeanneret. They were in a sleepy-quiet part of the 16th district, hidden away down a private alley. I got there a little before visiting hours, so I sketched outside in the cold - i'm getting better at it, fingers were still quite stiff by the time i was done. wanted to show a little how clean the corb buildings are compared to the more frilly Parisian houses were - perspective a little off, shrug.
Could only get into la Maison Roche - it's the corbusier headquarters for Paris besides, um more just a table full of information, at least it didn't detract. Interesting house, designed as a house/art gallery, bright lit spaces and indeed a fantastic promanade through the house. Door open into a large open room, one story at the entrance but opening up to three stories on each side, with openings - one side more private and the roof terrace, the other side the living room and libraries, with a pass connecting the two right above the main door. You could see so much of the rest of the house from any one point - appropriate for the art gallery aspect, and the house too i think. the interior sketch is of one staircase drawn from the top of the other side. fun house to visit, i was by myself at first, so cool, when more people came they really cared about being there so it wasn't so bad. lots of people sketching. 

Monday Jan 30 - Hobo Park

j/k... train got in just 45 minutes late this morning. Met studio at a cafe at 2:00 for a lecture and the revealing of our site... an abandoned rail line that winds around Paris. Kind of cool, kind of inconvenient and wierd for a resort hotel, which is what we're designing... we'll see, reserving judgement. fun walking around the area, the beginning of our section of the line was a tunnel in a gorgeous romantic-style landscaped park from the 1830s (Butte Chaumant) in an old quarry so there was bluffs and waterfalls and caves - it was very obviously artificial pretending to be natural, but the effect was pretty stunning. the lake/moat was iced over, wierd to see an ice fishing hole with green holly and other leaves around :)

the line was it's own little world, backs of all the houses too it, above and under streets without interfering. Good grafitti - i thought Paris's couldn't hold a candle to the vandal artistry of Barcelona, but those tagging this area were obviously more artistic.... very fun.

hmm grocery shopping... tony made potato salad....mmmmmm :) 

Barcelona - Gaudi Day continued

Aquainting ourselves with yet another Barcelona hill/mountain, we rode the metro (and had to walk a mile uphill) to Gaudi's Parc Guell. Fun park, way too crowded with tourists though - clambering over the hills was delightful. got to leave the paved paths a little into mini-sneak through woods paths... refreshing to feel somewhat away from the city. only could get away from the scottish boys singing the beatles for a little while though. Great views of that hill and last night's glowing church again, and Norman Foster's sattelite tower. Another fantastic Gecko in the park... the crowds really did take a lot of the wonder out of it, i think i would have been more spacially impressed without masses of people in the way.

Casa Mila was the next Gaudi find, first tour i've done an audio tour with - don't quite like it. I read too much faster then I hear, and it made me miss most of a fantastic sunset on this crazy roof of the building. Also was quite propagandized by the audio and swelling music - yuck. crazy roof though, was crazy... everything had the functions though - these are the ubiquitous chimney pots, done up lovely-like... they're about 8 feet tall... inside was cool, murals, openish floor plan cool... hmm was seriously so annoyed by the talk over that i don't remember being very positive about it while i was there, though in memory the spaces seem cool. i will opt to not listen next time i have the option i think. Also was quite tired at this point 6,7 o'clockish.... this trip was a ton of walking.

Saw the Casa Batallo just down the street - crazy monkey skull railings and a fairy-tale sparkling facade, all we got to see of it. long subway transfer, but we got close to the train in enough time to peek into the church of Santa Maria del Mar - so refreshing - a Gothic church structurally without all the decorations - very solomn and grand without the distracting frillies. Also picked up a bottle for cava for the uneventful ride home... made for a pleasant start and a good sleep home :). Yay Barcelona!

ha missing big picture overview.... will add shortly

Barcelona - Day 2

So - Sagrada Familia was as mind-blowing as promised - not nearly as done as expected, but a beautiful piece of work already containing more effort then most other buildings i've seen -
huge towers that everyone knows were less exciting because of it, but the sculptures around the opening were quite nice, told the Nativity story with more expressive emotions in them all then i've seen. the addition of geckos was also key.

inside was a bit of a wonderful mess with scaffolding all over - no idea what the ceiling of the nave is like... but the entire transept is nothing but wonderful. sunburst corduroy texture concrete shaping roof above multiple rose windows (bare now, i dont think they'll be quite as good with stained glass, but still cool) and a nearly-literal forest of columns ending at more concrete oculi suns... awesome to see it less then half-done.

the glory facade with sculptures in a half-cubist style was more intriguing to me then the other - simpler and less gothic, more effective inho... previous picture from there. the brass doorways were inspiring - made me want to try that kind of collage/scuplture.

climbed the steps up the front facade - highly recommended, the lift would be so much less interesting, and there's stops to rest and look around the city pretty frequently. the sun came out while we were up there, cool, and seeing the detailed decorations close up was unbeatable.

ok, done with that.... walk to the miro museum copied the triumphal walk to the pavillion last night, being able to see the gardens in the sun was very lovely (i feel like i'm running out of positive descriptors...) and that museum was fantastic in every way the picasso was not. go there first, or only.... great overview of modern art with most major movements well represented with prime famous pieces, and then miro is much more impressive then i knew. the building was also lovely, the white curves and sun and city view.... wee... picture is with a miro sculpture.

Barcelona Evening one

Hmm continuing walk here... castle at the top turned out to be a modernist restaurant, with a gorgeous view over the nighttime city.

We got lost after this and took off on a road at the elevation of the restaurant that ran along the coast - SO beautiful. dusk/dark sky that was actually a purple-red due to the city, contrasted with wild lush vegetation (lit very well by street lights) and then the sea... it felt like it could have been hawaii. we weren't really in a tourist area at that point, just a sidewalk beside a highway, and eventually the wonder wore off and we realized we were in no way going the correct direction. headed through a scary freeway tunnel through the mountain, 18 inch sidewalks, but it turned out well.

we had to head out of the park into the city to get our bearings, walked through some 'real' barcelona neighborhoods, which was nice. Not so preserved-touristy, still very much a metropolis, 7 or 8 story apartment blocks or buildings.

The approach to the Barcelona was more... impressive then I anticipated. the current Museum of National Catalan Art was obviously an old palace with a huge street promenade with fountains aiming up a huge waterfalled and fountained and gardened hill to the vision of glory itself on top, complete with spotlight-ray halo. was a little over the top, actually.

we were treated to a enormous fountain light&music show on the way up, would have been better had it not been wonderful American music being played - Destiny's Child was not what i wanted to hear at a glorious Spanish monument... the barcelona pavillion was off to the side, we got there 20 minutes before close (our adventure had taken awhile). It was Mies, very spacially interesting although simpler then I had anticipated. Courtyard with statue and reflective water and marble lovely, homey meis chairs.... felt like being back at crown, with more expensive stone. good to have seen.

obliged to finish the walk up the hill to the palace/museum, rewarded with a different glorious view of the city. a glowing church seeming to float on the top of a distant hill was enchanting.

um - long walk home, half sketchy though cheap and volumous meal with good sangria, saw the Placa Reial with it's yuppy-ish bars (apparently was the place where Columbus met his king with the news of america). walked around a lot looking for a bar with the right ambiance, the one we found ended up being just a block from our hostel. very chill, sweet eclectic decorations, and excellent cava (spanish sparkling wine) cocktails. then to bed :)

pic is of sagrada familia.... and i'll tell about that in the next post, or rearrange them so this works. don't want to put too many pictures/posts in to keep loading times down, don't want to have so solid of text blocks... oops too late...

Barcelona Day One

Well, initially getting into Barcelona was less fun then it should have been. Due to a crappy train station error, my ticket was for the wrong day, so i had to buy a new one while on the train, and only got half of that money back. frustrating. And the train was 5 hours late getting in, due to a huge snowstorm that apparently just stopped everything in southern france. meh.

First stop picasso museum... because it was raining and we wanted to not be outside. got quite intriguingly lost on the way... didn't realize how small it was and how not-far distances on the map were, we made it across the old downtown to the Ramblas before figuring out where we were. Had to buy shoes on sale, happy cool real leather euro shoes, cheap :P. Wandered path the main Barcelona cathethdral on the way, had to go it. It was cool - in the cloister there was a large courtyard with palms trees and geese - very lush, intriguing with the frilly gothic architecture. otherwise, another gothic church, and the steps up to the top were closed due to the rain. meh. but we saw plenty of amazing views over the city later on - i don't think we missed too much.

cool interior market with sweet arcing metal and wood structure - much smell of fish and meat, probably 15 each of fruit stalls, fish stalls, butcher stalls, and food/salad stalls.

The Picasso museum (now third stop) was something of a letdown - covered his developement very well, and just when you're expecting it to open up and give you a huge outpouring of his real work.... it's over. i don't think they had enough money to buy any pieces of importance, or many from even the time of his importance. And the explanation given with the exhibits meshed poorly with the work shown, and didn't give you any sense of his place in art history or reference works you might have known... eh. i'd go to the miro museum over this one, and i'll check out the picasso museum here - apparently it had a larger collection. The bottom of the houses were sweet arched bricks - i would just visit that and skip the museum - and check my bags in the free luggage check before heading out elsewhere ;).

decided to find a place to stay - the hostel we had picked out right by the Arc d'Triumph turned out to be closed, we wondered the old streets where we had seen a few hostels, picked one called Hostel New York. It was fine, unremarkable (although we did get a good breakfast), fifth 10-foot story - sigh. double room for 30euros though, cheep. on our wanderings we went through an amazing park and saw the Parc de la Ciutadella with it's oversized folly monument - all the tropical plants were soothing after austere Paris. very nice spaces.

So - decided the walk wouldn't be too long to the Barcelona Pavillion from the hostel.... but... got a little lost. fun walk along the sea shore, really developed, large swooping/jumpy structure/sculpture impressive. Got to a large hill we assumed was the park on the map, and of course had to climb it to the tantalizing castle-thing on the top.... the hill we climbed is the one in the picture - this is about 3/4 of the way there from the hostel - i guess we're really used to walking by now, it didn't seem too far at all