Chapter 4

Day four. 

As soon as we were two hours from Aix en Provence, we stopped for gas. It was an especially early start, and I drew the short straw for the morning drive. Naturally I was tired as hell… so tired I forgot my wallet was in my jeans from the previous day, and convinced my professor it was gone. It was turning out to be the trip from hell, thanks to me, but just when he got the emergency phone out, I got the nervous sweats, dove into the duffel, and found it. Sure fooled him! (he was pissedddd).

We moved on to a pretty smooth drive into Spain for about four hours until we had to stop for lunch.

Get out the car

“Jack did you lock the doors?”

“Yup”

Check for wallet (got it)

Walk inside

“Hola” (first Spanish I’ve heard all semester!)

Grab a can of honey roasted CACAHUATES, una jamon y queso sandwich, y una coca

Sit down and eat

Discuss Spanish cuisine and the excitement to indulge

Dispose of trash

Walk outside

Time elapsed: 25 minutes

Two undetected men drove up beside the three cars

            One – broke through the passenger window of the Volkswagen

            Two – broke through the back left trunk window of the Opel

Both men managed to grab

            My backpack

            Stephanie’s backpack

            Emilia’s bag

            Nick’s jacket

Who knows how long it took

I walked out to find the shattered glass all over the pavement and seat of the Volkswagen, for only enough time to realize we’d been robbed, and turned back to call for help. I realized after Stephanie Emilia and Heather rushed by that my stuff was gone. They found the hole in the window of the other car and my head started spinning. My brand new computer with my entire semester’s work, pictures, and personal files was gone, along with my passport, ipod, and sketchbooks. This was the trip from hell, and I was frozen. I didn’t know how to respond or what to do.

That’s when the spirit of Thanksgiving kicked in. I’ll never forget spending hours at the police station after things calmed down, joking around about the situation to ease the tension. The robbers left my bottle of shampoo and one flip flop at the scene of the crime, so that was an easy starter. “No dude we only need one… LEAVE THE SHAMPOO, LETS GO!” We waited for something like four hours there to see if the bags turned up on the search.

Apparently these highway robbers do it so often that the cops know where to look for the looted bags. They said it happens all the time because the punishment for the crime isn’t more than a slap on the hand. Typically they take out computers, ipods, cellphones, cameras, etc. and ditch all the other stuff.

Sure enough, they found the bags and returned them, without the valuable electronics. All of our stuff was mixed up between the bags (my shaving cream and cologne in Emilia’s bag; Stephanie’s passport in my backpack, under Emilia’s glasses). It was oddly courteous of them to put stuff back in the bags after dumping them all out.

On a more serious note I thank god for the rest of the class and my professor, my parents and the good people at USAA. Everybody really rallied and was so helpful. I had some reason to believe by the time we were back on the road that things would be ok. I had most of the pictures backed up, and all the thoughts about my project were still in my head. All I had to do was start fresh.

1 year ago  /  3 notes

Chapter 3: La Thoronet et Aix en Provence

In the morning we got on the road towards La Thoronet, when the powers that be at google maps pulled a fast one and led us astray. After a little projectile carsickness plagued the professor’s car that morning (don’t worry I dodged it), it was not too great a start. Lucky for us, we had a spare GPS laying around in our dash and set the course no problem.

When we arrived at the Abbey of Thoronet, it was a bright sun shiny day, and Corbusier was in the air. He learned a few things from this site during his travels, and for those that saw La Tourette, it was easy to draw connections between his work there and a few elements in the abbey. I unfortunately screwed the pooch on that one, but got by with a little help from my friends.

Karl told me a little bit about Corbusier’s “Sugarlumps”, planted in a long band of windows that break up views outward in a procession, like the windows of the cloister at the Abbey. I was happy to pick up on a connection between the steeple at La Thoronet and Corbusier’s oratory from our history class. After walking around for a while we made our way to the top of the cloister, where you can view the courtyard from among the rooftops. It was a pretty neat place to sketch and take it all in.

The next stop was Aix en Provence. It’s a beautiful city in the south of France that is so full of people, you’d think you’re in a district of Paris. The main streets of the downtown area shoot off from a huge fountain and branch into a maze of side streets and open plaza’s.

I remember Kyle asking “what town would you compare this to in the States?” Off the top of my head there’s really no place like it. It’s sad to think that some people back home go their whole lives without seeing what a place like this has to offer. In the walk from the hotel, I enjoyed passing through the long street corridors lined and capped with fountains and flora, gaping at the canopy of trees acting as a tunnel over one of the main roads, and curiously wandering into pedestrian streets and squares. It hurts a little knowing that unless I strike gold, it’ll be years before I get to see it again. The same goes for several other cities I’ve seen here, but I seem to be drooling excessively over this one.

We got back to the hotel, where internet was again free, wine was again in my hand, and the Hokies were again scheduled to win. It was a good night, and the Tarheels can suck it.

1 year ago  /  0 notes

The Last 10-Day: Chapter One

I’ve been putting off the blog for a while now to take care of work in the studio and a bit of travelling. It’s time to fill in the gaps and recall ten of the most chaotic days of my life. Here’s day 1.

Shit got weird at the onset… We departed for Riva with a little over a quarter tank, and it was a good idea to fill up for the long drive through France to Barcelona. The first service station we saw, we pulled off, got some gas, and B-lined it for La Tourette – more like red-lined it. Just past the Italian border near Como, the Volkswagen I was driving started to lose power steering and wouldn’t shift into gear. After a few minutes of that mess we were creeping to a stop on the shoulder, helplessly watching our professor’s car leave us behind without the means to call him. Initially I thought the battery was dead, and we were just the victims of an untimely but common issue. Ten minutes of relatively calm “what the hell are we going to do?” time passed, and Jack suddenly mentioned that the radio wouldn’t still be on if the battery was dead… and the plot THICKENS… you could see the gears turning in his head for a moment before he finally dropped the bomb… “the only reason this could be happening is if you filled up the diesel tank with regular gas”.

“You know what? That’s exactly what I did… Shit.” – cue the chorus of “oh geez”.

It wouldn’t be so bad if it didn’t say on the gas cap – in bold yellow English capital letters – “DIESEL FUEL ONLY”, or if it wasn’t printed on the key chain dangling from the ignition. It indeed was both of those things, and on this day I proved myself incompetent. Until of course, I went into crisis mode. Let me explain how I saved the day so you don’t believe I’m that much of a dumbass.

A traffic jam sprouted next to us while we sat anxiously hoping the professor’s car would figure out we weren’t still following them. Through the fog on the windows Emilia and I wrote “HELP! HELP! CHIAMA PER HELP!” to no avail. I hung my white undershirt out the window and people looked at us like we were just a bunch of silly Americans, but then I caught a middle-aged woman’s eye. I made the “call me” symbol with my hand, but she knew I wasn’t cougar hunting and I needed help. She hooked us up with some sort of Italian roadside assistance, which showed up some 20 minutes later. At this point, the Jumpy (van) that followed us into the shoulder had left to see if the other car got off at the next exit. Turns out they didn’t find it, and to make matters worse, they got lost trying to find their way back.

There I was, muttering less-than-broken Italian through the window at the men that came to help, praying for some kind of Italian fairy godmother to solve my problems with the language barrier. I spent 45 minutes struggling to express that we needed to call our professor, the house manager, or Avis to straighten things out. Therein I learned that bureaucracy is also a bitch in Italy and Switzerland, not just the states, because everybody filters out responsibility: SOME one had to shell out money for an international phone call (Italy to Switzerland), and once we could finally reach the last option (Avis), they wouldn’t help us without the license numbers of all three cars we rented. We did our best, and in the end the men felt bad enough to call a tow-truck and get us to the nearest garage. In time the Jumpy returned to find the six of us getting loaded up - IN THE CAR - onto the tow-truck. Dangerous ride, but it was actually pretty fun. We made it in one piece, and called the house manager to spread the word about my epic mistake. She made arrangements with the mechanics at the garage to get the car fixed, but we had to wait a day before heading off on the rest of our trip.

When our professor arrived, I was embarrassed but took the fall, and realized I’d miss out on one of the buildings I’d been looking forward to the entire time I was staying in Europe. There were no other options, and we had to move on. Ben volunteered to stay back and share the load on what would end up being a 7-hour trip to Nimes the following day. The rest of the class moved on to La Tourette, and we went home to enjoy a claaassic evening in Riva. We watched a movie, took a nap, contributed to a 1000 piece puzzle, ordered a pizza, made a fire, bumped some tunes, grabbed some beers at the Minibar, and called it a night. Maybe I didn’t save the day after all, and still look like an idiot, but it wasn’t all bad. The good news is that the dean of VT’s Architecture school made the exact same mistake years ago. In that respect I’m in good company. 

1 year ago  /  0 notes

Bregenz-Hérémence-Chur-Paspels-Scharans

Alright it’s about time I catch up here before I head off for Barcelona. The same weekend we went to Vals, we were close enough to Bregenz, Heremence, Chur, Paspels, and Scharans to get to some specific buildings we wanted to see as a group. Our professor was pumped to have a day off, so he let us figure out directions, meals, and timing. For us it was a fun change of pace.

We stopped in Bregenz before Vals to see Zumthor’s Kunsthaus. It’s a really interesting art museum that at the time didn’t have the most interesting art. I imagined something better when I saw pictures of it, but with places like this you never know what you’re gonna get. The exhibition spaces were transformed into mini-theatres with projection screens and headphones, and the videos were for the most part SUPER boring. The exhibits are constantly changing here and although this rotation kinda blows, there’s bound to be some sick ones in the future. Anish Kapoor did one at some point, and then went on to design the bean in Chicago, so it’s a big deal to have work in there.

After another dose of Zumthor at Vals, we saw the Heremence Church. It’s a monster of brutal and cold concrete on the outside that is remarkably non-foreboding on the inside. I had never heard of the building or the architect before going there. There are a lot of voids and some mean angular blocking going on, but the detailing is really nice. The inside is like a warm cave that people wouldn’t mind as a modern site for Sunday mass. I know I wouldn’t.

Next stop was Chur, where we saw some more Zumthor. He designed a building to preserve the Roman ruins there, so it was a unique program. He really just surrounded the remains of the walls with his own, then ran a bridge over them where you could step off to get closer and learn more.

The skylights, walls, and windows here are just additions to a running list of reasons to learn from his mastery of light. When we finished up here we grabbed a kebab and hit the road. On the way home we saw two of Valerio Olgiati’s buildings in Paspels and Scharans. It was ironic to find the school in Paspels in such a beautiful site after learning about his buildings without context.

It looked like he plopped a spaceship with windows on the set for the Sound of Music. The House for a Musician he designed in Scharans is a lot cooler in person than in the drawings and photos. It’s made of entirely red concrete with the negative extrusions of these handcrafted ornaments all over the place. I loved the little courtyard past the entrance, with the not-quite circle cut from the ceiling. That was all we could see, but the vivid contrast between the walls and grass was pretty enough to make the visit worthwhile.

It was a packed weekend, but we had a blast, and since then we’ve been working like dogs to move forward with our projects. We’re nearing the end, so before it’s all said and done, we’ve got to have a complete design presentation for a student housing project behind the villa. Add to that a book compiled with 48 of our seminar essays and you’ve got some semi-stressed architecture students - semi because we’re in Europe, and everythings too awesome to get down about work. Tomorrow we head out for our last class 10-day to Lyon and Barcelona. Once we break off we’ll head to Monaco, then shred the gnar in Tignes - WOOOO

1 year ago  /  0 notes

Verona and Vicenza

When we got to Verona, we found out our hotel room sat directly above a McDonald’s. Not so convenient when it costs way more in euros than in dollars back home to buy a meal that still makes you feel miserable. Can’t complain though; we didn’t come for the fast food.

Verona is home to Juliet (Shakespeare), a boatload of high-fashion shopping corridors, a Roman amphitheatre, and Carlo Scarpa’s work at Castelvecchio. We only spent one night in the city, so those are the parts that stick out in my mind. It’s pretty spread out, and easy to get around. The view from the top of the Torre dei Lamberti was one of the most memorable lookouts above any city I’ve seen here in Europe. If you’re into museums or Scarpa, Castelvecchio is cool.

It’s name translates to “Old Castle”, so if that doesn’t do it for you, the detail work in the exhibit spaces or the added flavor from the modern intervention might. There’s a nice art collection and a room full of medieval weapons and armor - right up any normal man’s alley. All the pieces of work in the museum have Scarpa’s name written all over the cases and easels holding them. He’s obsessed with finely crafted details, and it shows. There is a layering element to his design process that is very hard to understand, but yields an interesting representation of the building as a total work of art.

We spent the rest of our evening wandering the streets, snooping around shops we couldn’t afford clothes from before heading back for dinner. The next morning we drove to Vicenza, which is what someone in our group called a Palladio “Theme-park”. There were no roller coasters or funnel cakes, but there was a bunch of buildings by one of the most influential architects of the Italian Renaissance. Of those we saw in the rain, the building we spent the longest at was the Olympic Theatre.

Real sweet perspective. Believe it or not, the floor behind the stage rises up towards the ceiling and the roofline slopes down to create the illusion of a long city street. It limited the range of plays the theatre could host, but the ones they could were probably blockbusters.

On the way home, we stopped at the Brion Cemetery to see another of Scarpa’s projects. It’s a large section dedicated to the Brion Family tombs with a small chapel. I couldn’t figure out if I liked it because everything seemed fragmented into overly considered details. It was hard to appreciate the cemetery as that “total work of art” because there was so much going on in concentrated areas. I’m glad I got to see another cemetery though… They’re all the rage over here.

1 year ago  /  0 notes

Celine Dion loop

We had one last mini-tour of Italy before saying goodbye for a while. It was two days in Venice, and one each in Verona and Vicenza.

How exciting is it to arrive in a place via taxi-boat? After we parked in a garage on the outskirts of Venice, we got on board and in no time we were cruising down the Grand Canal, watching the colorful building facades, tall campaniles and waterside churches pass by. The closer to St. Mark’s we got, the more gondolas we saw. If there’s anything Venice is known for, it’s the romantic image of a dude in a striped shirt and funky hat serenading some lovebirds while rowing through the narrow city canals. If you can stand the smell, it does seem quite nice, but I’m fairly certain everybody’s sewage is flushed into those beautiful canals. That’s an ass-umption guided strictly by the emerging fumes near bridges that consistently threatened to draw tears. REAL STINKY. But Venice has more to offer than Gondoliers and a smelly experience.

We were fortunate to be there during the 12^th Architecture Biennale, where big-name architects showcase projects for their home countries/firms in a bunch of pavilions. It was split up between two main sites. One was set up so that each country represented had it’s own exhibit, displaying the developing trends of architecture and projects geared toward current and future issues in the built environment. The other was a series of themed exhibits in the Arsenal by famous firms that showcased ideas pushing the philosophical side of building. It was a lot to take in, but it was interesting to see all the different ways professionals are thinking about the future, incorporating new and old technology and thoughts. Canada thinks they can make Avatar happen on earth with these hanging mechanical vines and plants that spontaneously reach out now and then… reaaal useful. I bust chops.

Outside the Biennale, I ate a lot of good food, browsed the markets and shops, and saw a few sights with Celine Dion on repeat in my head. Both nights we spent there, we met at St. Marks Piazza before dinner and heard “My Heart Will Go On” among other classics on the way. Three or four string quartets performed at different spots along the colonnade, and I guess they determined over time that that song is the go-to when the audience is at it’s peak. If you go, check out one of those concerts – they’re a very pleasant way to end the night. Good luck with the bed bugs though… That sucked.

1 year ago  /  0 notes