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Week 10_Bilbao + Wine Tasting

I can honestly say that when I saw Frank Gehry's Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, it was the first building that I have ever thought of as a"beautiful" piece of architecture. The building is so elegantly constructed and the materiality of the building only adds to its contemporary elegance. The circulation through the museum as seen in the initial lobby space flows through the structure like "major arteries through the heart," symbolic to a living and working body. The building really is Bilbao's claim to fame, it's a must see...

As for our wine tasting travels in the La Rioja, we saw works by three of the most famous names in architecture - Zaha Hadid, Frank Gehry, and Santiago Calatrava. Each building, regardless of size, made a marketing statement for each of the wineries. The most impressive, for me, was Calatrava's sweeping wavy structure, not because the building was the most impressive I have ever seen nor was it extremely detailed, but because he paid clear attention to the landscape and the building mimics the enormous mountain range in the background of the building; and with the sweeping angles of the roof, the mountains are replicated in the roof structure. The scenery was awe inspiring for the architect and I don't think anyone would argue with that.

Week 9_Post Spring Break

So it has been a couple weeks since Spring Break, and let me tell you it was quite the trip. In all we visited Paris, London, and Rome all in 10 days - 3 of the largest and most expensive cities in Europe in 10 days...that's an accomplishment or should we say a "power trip." It was interesting from the architectural stand point in that each city had a different urban fabric, and in my eyes the urban fabric of each city informed how the culture was defined. As each city was built around a major river; the river became a reference point and a standard for mapping oneself around the urban jungle.

Paris is definitely a city of liberation. The urban fabric is free flowing as is their culture. The people are very open as one can imagine, although the city is very dense, the flow of the streets is more medieval and organic in nature thus relating to the culture of the people. With Paris comes the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, Villa Savoye, the Pompidou Center, Notre Dame, and St. Denis...and much more. Of course we visited each site and all of them were absolutely out of this world. Like I've said before, its hard to believe that you are actually seeing the places you usually only see in magazines and online photos. The Pompidou Center, or the "inside out building," really is a building that breaks all the rules in regards to relating to common site context and adjacent buildings. Paris certainly made a statement in constructing such a building and now it is seemingly stuck with it. As a museum of contemporary art, the building itself becomes a show piece - its one of those buildings that you love and love to hate because it is just so "out there." It's symbolic of Paris' free and liberating culture.

Villa Savoye, on the other hand, is the complete opposite of Pompidou as it follows the "5 rules of a new architecture." These rules follow a free flowing plan and a strict emphasis on the horizontal and linear elements. Villa Savoye is an architect's playground - it is a perfect example of a free and open plan and the simplicity of the structure is truly beautiful. To this day, Villa Savoye still serves as a precedent on many contemporary buildings.

London, even though it was cold and rainy, was the "New York City" of the UK/Europe. The nature of the city is very proper and strictly ordered, which again reflects the people who inhabit the city, even though London is mainly a commuter city as there are only roughly 3,000 people who live in the actual city and about 5,000 people travel to the city on a daily basis. Of course we saw Big Ben, Parliament, the Tower of London, and Buckingham Place which were all beautiful buildings with breath-taking ornamentation. However, we spent much of our time in one of the largest contemporary art museums in Europe - Tate Modern designed by the famous Herzog & deMeuron. The building use to be an old electric industry building, yet with the idea of adaptive reuse and the design skills of Herzog & deMeuron the old industrial dump turned into one of the most impressive museum I have ever seen. Although the building is simple, its elegance is shown through its adaptive reuse design which emphasizes horizontal volumes within a large rectangular space. The collection itself is makes the trip to the museum a must; with 5 floors of crazy contemporary design, modern design ideals and inspiration is floating all throughout the building.

Rome - a city stuck in Roman times, and this isn't a bad thing. Coming from London, which is mainly a contemporary city, Rome offered a history lesson wherever you were in the city. In seeing the Colosseum and the Pantheon, I felt myself in a true sense of awe. I keep thinking to myself...how did they ever build these massive structures? The Romans were really an amazing and intelligent civilization, once you see the Roman Forum, the Markets of Trajan, and all of the Roman ruin scatter across the city, you truly see how vast their empire really was and how advanced they were for their time. I was extremely impressed with the city. In terms of the urban fabric of Rome, for one there are no straight streets in the entire city. Secondly, the city is connected through a web of plazas and small squares which offers a number of places to rest from all the sightseeing and to eat some of their amazing gelato. All in all, Rome (the city, the food, and the culture) was definitely one of my favorite cities.

Well I can honestly say that this past Spring Break was one of my best Spring Breaks, if not the best. I have come out with a better sense of different urban conditions and how culture play a significant role in formulating these vast cities.