William J. R. Curtis Week: The Sequel

The man, the myth, the legend: William J. R. Curtis

This was our last week with William J. R. Curtis, the architectural historian who has officially taught us more about architecture than any other class or lecture to date.  This was a sort of "coming of age" moment for all of us, and a "pilgrimage" of sorts: we visited no less than five examples of modern religious architecture, and we even spent a night sleeping in cells at a monastery.  To say the least, it was the most spiritual and relaxing week of the year.

The week began with a visit to the Chapel of the Deaconesses of Reuilly in Versailles, a lovely little church with sleek glass walls, a floating roof, and a basket-like wood chapel inside.  In the afternoon we visited the Grande Arche at La Défense, the modern business district of Paris, and gladly listened to William's positive and negative critiques of the building.  We briefly popped into the Church of La Défense to see yet another modern take on religious architecture.

A modern chapel in Versailles

La Défense

The next day featured a lecture on Spanish architecture, followed by a trip to St. François de Molitor in Paris.  It was a very pleasant church tucked into the urban Paris landscape that took old ideas (like the use of ovals in Baroque architecture) and modernized them.  We also got to hear a lot about some juicy architectural drama: apparently the architect Steven Holl is building something across the street from Macintosh's School of Art in Glascow (an old classic).  William, who happens to be an expert on Macintosh and who also happens to think Holl's work is overrated, has been causing a scene -- sending letters and publishing articles everywhere -- trying to stop Holl's design from being built.  He's actually making progress.  Stay tuned for an architectural showdown!

We spent Wednesday night packing and arrived at school very early Thursday morning, when the real adventure was about to begin.  After five hours on the bus, we got to stretch our legs at Bibracte.  This old town was the site of the oldest Celtic settlements in France; it was also the temporary home of Julius Caesar, who wrote about Bibracte in his book on the conquest of Gaul.  At the Museum of Celtic Civilization, Alejandro suggested that we explore the building and then eat lunch.  Naturally, we ignored this and sat right down on the hillside and ate while taking in the beautiful scenery.  It was actually a very nice first way to experience the building, which was very modern and fit in perfectly with the landscape.  The inside was really interesting -- it looked like a bunch of stone planes intersecting each other.  But after sketching and talking with William, we set off on the bus yet again.

How very Frank-Lloyd-Wright-esque...  A very horizontal building that
blends in nicely with the landscape

After driving through the beautiful French countryside, after nearly falling into a ditch, and after climbing up some scary steep hills, our bus finally arrived at La Tourette.  We were all incredibly excited: this was the monastery designed by Le Corbusier towards the end of his career, and we were going to sleep there that night.  It was a strange, spooky place: monks in white robes were drifting around, everything was cast in dark shadows, and according to Alex, the ghost of Corbu was still haunting visitors.  We enjoyed the sunset and a great view of the valley during dinner, and after exploring the nearly pitch-black chapel, some of us set out for a walk.  The surrounding farmlands were quiet and eerie, but it was warm and we had a perfect view of the stars.  We got to know two French and Japanese students, who were also visiting that weekend to absorb the awesomeness of Le Corbusier.

Sunset from the hill at La Tourette

Another strange Corbu masterpiece: the Monastery of La Tourette

The individual cells we slept in that night were amazing.  It was cozy and quiet, and I could sit on my balcony and see the stars.  After breakfast the next morning about half of the group went to church with the monks.  It was hard to understand their French chanting, but the music sounded really cool reverberating around Corbu's great concrete chapel.  We toured the building with William, sketched, ate lunch, and then spent the afternoon sunbathing and playing frisbee on the hillside.  It was another beautiful day, and I was sad to leave that strange concrete haven of peace and quiet.

Colorful "light cannons" inside the main chapel

View in the afternoon

On the road once more, we got to the small town of Besançon around dinner time.  Situated halfway between Dijon and Switzerland, it was a pretty town with a central river lined by lots of restaurants and pubs.  I had pizza and went to the Pub de l'Étoile afterwards -- and everyone that we met was super friendly.  (Especially the pub bartender, who was seriously identical to Mike Chang from Glee.)  It was cheap too!  What an escape from Paris!

In the morning we drove a short ways to our last destination: Le Corbusier's most famous church.  Called Notre Dame du Haut (Our Lady on High) at Ronchamp, I could not believe how much I loved this building.  Perched atop a big hill, it looked like a giant concrete boat that was just about to sail off into the sky.  The curved walls and the punched-in windows were very dramatic, and the dark interior was lit by amazing bursts of light.  It was also one of the most "sketch-able" buildings I've ever seen -- I just wanted to draw its fun curvy shapes all day long.

The twisting, intertwining, floating church at Ronchamp by Le Corbusier

The dynamic interior wall

William told us an interesting story while we were there: apparently, he once asked Frank Gehry what his favorite buildings were.  Gehry responded, "It all comes down to Chartres Cathedral and Ronchamp."  Japanese architect Tadao Ando has also drawn lots of inspiration from this church.  It's fascinating how two such completely different designers -- Gehry with his crazy curving structures and Ando with his minimalist buildings -- can both admire the same building like that.  For me, it was sad to leave that dayt.  The weather was perfect once more and we were all enjoying the scenery.  I've seen a lot of architecture this year, at times too much architecture... but I know that I will never forget the awesome feeling of standing in the presence of Le Corbusier at La Tourette and Ronchamp.

Another fun week.... sans sleep

This was yet another one of those weeks that just flew by, without a lot actually happening.  It felt like everything on my "to do" list couldn't put off any longer, so I didn't really sleep much.  On Monday we had design work due, which was hard to pull off since I had been in Helsinki over the weekend, so I did some experimental study models and hoped for the best.  Tricia (my awesome studio professor) was cool enough to let me skip the first half of class so that I could work a shift at the student café (called the K'fet).  So while everyone else was falling asleep listening to presentation after presentation, I was chilling out with my French friend Alex and drinking endless supplies of free coffee!

Our Spain travel sketchbooks were due the next day, so everyone stayed up all night filling in missing diagrams and coloring in things that we had intended (and forgotten) to color in.  I spent the evening working on job applications and researching Italy travel costs.  Wednesday was a structures class walking tour, and Jeff took us to a bridge called the Passerelle Simone-de-Beauvoir.  It was a pretty cool wavy-looking structure, so we sketched there for a while and took a look at President Mitterand's modern Bibliothèque Nationale too.  I allowed myself one hour of fun afterwards: I went to the Latin Quarter and had a crêpe for lunch (nutella + bananas = yum!) and then had coffee by the Fontaine Saint-Michel.  I hung out with my host sisters that night, who were playing with toy horses and jumping on my bed for about an hour.  Priceless.

On Thursday, my friends and I signed up for morning desk critiques, because in the afternoon we were going to Paris for the Taylor Swift concert!  We got to the Zénith de Paris, a medium-sized concert venue, which was out on the Northeast side of the city.  It was a weird situation, to say the least -- half of the people there were Americans abroad, and the other half were young French girls and their non-fan boyfriends.  The show wasn't even sold out!  I only saw one guy wearing a cowboy hat... I mean, TSwift is more pop than country, but these French people clearly don't know or care much about her.  Next time I see her in concert, I want to be in Nashville or somewhere crazy like that where they really know how to party to country music.

Nevertheless, I freaked out when Taylor came onstage, and I was only 10 feet away from her the whole time!  She was WAY better live than I expected -- pretty much flawless, not at all like some of her live performances I had seen on TV.  She sang mostly Speak Now songs with a few from Fearless, though sadly nothing from her original self-titled album.  We knew basically every word to every song, and Andrea and I were super excited when she sang "Dear John."  The gorgeous outfits, the pretty guitars, the talent... I just want to be her.  That's all.  (We tried meeting her afterwards at the stage door, but to no avail.  Next time!)  We got home very late the night and struggled through structures class and a structures exam the next day.  It was easy, at least.  Now it's time to catch up on homework and prepare myself for our intensive history seminar with William Curtis again next week!

My Ever-So-Slightly-Chilly Weekend in FINLAND

View from my room at the hostel

This past weekend was a cold one, but it turned out to be quite an adventure.  We left Paris on Thursday afternoon and took a 3 hour direct flight to Helsinki, Finland.  Called "Helsingfors" in Swedish, which is also spoken there a lot, our plane pulled up at the very modern airport and we grimaced at the sight of 2 feet of snow on the ground.  Once inside the airport, we could see that Finland really embraces its culture of modern furniture design and sleek architecture -- there was even a "Café Alvar Aalto" inside.  But more on him later.

The taxis were cheap so we got dropped off at our hostel within 20 minutes.  Located at Helsinki's Olympic Stadium, the Hostel Stadion was huge and seemed to be the most popular hostel in town.  It must have been converted from an old athletic building of some sort, because the rooms were really big and the showers were actually good.

We were starving, so we set off towards the center of town to find dinner.  Unfortunately it was late due to the time change, and since people actually eat at a normal time here (imagine how dark it would be if they ate late), it was hard to find any open restaurants.  Kara and Sam and I went to a bar near the Forum shopping area while the vegetarians got fast food, as usual.  The bar was crowded with young Finnish people, and it was cool to hear their language and see their culture for the first time.  We learned that all Finnish people speak perfect English, so we had no language barrier problems for the rest of the week.  I ate some delicious chicken wings and tried the local Koff beer while listening to a live Finnish guitar performance -- not bad.  The other girls joined us and we marveled at the locals for the rest of the night.  Several guys had long black hair or mohawks, and lots of girls had crazy hair styles, even though most of them had natural pretty white-blonde hair.

Walking home in the 20°F weather was pretty brutal, so the next morning I bundled up.  We rode the tram around town and saw its Art Deco central station, designed by Eliel Saarinen, which looked a lot like Park Ridge's Pickwick; we walked to the town square with the big white hilltop church; we saw all of the design shops along the lovely Esplanade street; and we stood on the harbor to see the Baltic Sea.  It was a really exotic landscape, the complete opposite of a tropical rainforest: the sea was covered in thick sheets of floating ice, with a giant cruise liner headed for Russia pushing its way through the nearly solid water.

Central Station

The Baltic Sea

Daily cruise liner to St. Petersburg, Russia

After a quick lunch at "Wrong Noodles" (lots of strange international cuisine in Helsinki) we went to the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art.  The building, designed by American Steven Holl, was cooler than the exhibits inside.  Then we went to the National Museum of Finland, which had lots of interesting Viking furniture and clothing.  Across the street from that museum was Finlandia Hall, the concert hall designed by Alvar Aalto.  We tried to get in but missed the cutoff time by 5 minutes, sadly.  We got dinner at a place called Memphis (strange) and then went to a bar called Baarikärpänen (even stranger).  Those Finnish girls are somehow impervious to the cold, because they were wearing nothing but minidresses and heels outside, whereas I felt like my legs were going to fall off.

Inside the Kiasma Museum

The next day was designated Alvar Aalto Day for us.  For those who don't know, or for those of you who know his name from the crosswords but don't know his work, Alvar Aalto was one of the greatest modern architects ever.  He was a friend of Le Corbusier and made Finland famous with his modern designs.  We first got a private tour of his studio, which was a really nice working space with an awesome living room and an outdoor amphitheater.  Then we walked a few blocks to his home, a cute little house with more of his original lamps and furniture.

Aalto's many lamp designs 

The perfect studio space

The Aalto home 

After a nice warm lunch (salmon soup) at a local diner we walked down the street towards the ocean again.  Here, it was completely frozen over.  People were cross-country skiing on it, ice fishing, walking their dogs, and flying kites.  One lady even let us play with her puppy for 15 minutes (how un-French!) and told us good places to visit in Finland.  So we went back into town to see Aalto's Academia Bookstore.  It was very cool inside and had tons of interesting books on architecture.  We then walked to the big Lutheran church, the biggest one I've ever seen, which had big statues of Luther and Melancthon inside.  After a chocolate and coffee break we went to Uspenski Cathedral, the Russian Orthodox church.  The priests tried inviting us in to the mass, but we just wanted to admire the weird onion domes.  That was possibly the closest to Russia I'll ever get!

Helsinki Cathedral (Evangelical Lutheran)

Academia Bookstore

Uspenski Cathedral (Russian Orthodox)

In the evening we split up for dinner and Kara, Sam, and I finally went to Kappeli.  This restaurant was recommended by my friend Rick Steves (haha) and is apparently the best in all of Finland.  After eating there, I wouldn't doubt it -- I had whitefish and salmon in a dijon sauce with veggies, and I tried some of Kara's amazing reindeer.  (Sorry Rudolph... it was delicious.)  We went back to the hostel before going out to a club called Onnela.  It had amazing DJs and several dance rooms, but the €11 cover fee and the €8 drinks killed the fun a little bit.  These Scandinavian people must just accept that they have to pay a lot for food and drinks.  We felt a little out of place, since everyone else there was 8 feet tall and blond... but it was a fun time anyway.

Kappeli restaurant

Sunday was our last day, so we tried to go visit the home of Eero Saarinen (another great Finnish-American architect).  We took the wrong directions though, and suddenly we found ourselves stuck at a giant cross-country skiing resort called Paloheina.  Kara and Maria weren't interested, but the rest of us thought, "Well... we're here now!"  So I rented some cross-country skis for the first time and had so much fun.  It was trickier than I imagined, but at least I only fell once.  The other girls had never skied at all before, so they were pretty sore and bruised by the end of the day.  It was great to wind through the beautiful Finnish forest, and it was a good workout too.  We had cocoa in the lodge afterwards and watched some ski jump competitions on its TV.  I really didn't want to leave; I was in total winter sports mode and would have loved to do real-skiing, ice skating, or sledding.  Unfortunately we had to leave for the airport after that.  On the flight home, I couldn't help but think that Helsinki wouldn't be such a bad place to live in spring or summer...  If I ever have the time and money to come to Finland again, I would definitely do it, though I would make a trip up to the Arctic Circle for a Northern Lights snowmobiling tour, too.  Helsinki would be a must, again.  Only time will tell!

A great day for cross-country skiing

"Safe Box" Week with the French Students

French and American students working together for the "Safe Box" project 

Last week was by far the most fun week of school so far.  After returning from a week-long travel break, we skipped our usual Design and Structures classes in order to have a 5-day intense design charrette with the second-year French students.  Each American was paired with 3 or 4 French students, so finally, after all this time, students of both cultures were working together in the same room and got to know each other very quickly.

The assignment was simple and straightforward: choose a location, pick a disaster, and design a low-budget emergency housing unit (a "Safe Box") for the families who lost their homes.  However, with the added language barrier and different design backgrounds, a challenging and exhausting week ensued.  We were at school all day, every day -- hearing lectures, sketching our ideas, and consulting with our professors and teaching assistants.  I got lucky and was paired with 3 nice French girls who were very talented and motivated (Claire, Lise, and Barbara... they're so funny).  After they heard me speak a little French, they barely spoke English the rest of the week -- so my French improved a lot!

The three teachers for the week were guests from all over the world, and by the end of the 5 days, we loved them all.  There was Kevin Hinders from U of I, who gave a lecture on some of his sustainable work throughout the world; Jean-Christophe Grosso, a French architect who talked about his disaster relief work in Benin; and Yashar Hanstad, an Iranian-Norweigan architect from Tyin Tegnestue studios, who also did low-cost housing.  It was great to hear Professor Hinders' real American accent, something we realized we hadn't heard in months...  We also learned that Jean-Christophe used to work for Santiago Calatrava, which was awesome...  And everyone (especially the girls) fell in love with Yashar after hearing about his love for Radiohead and how his last project beat Zaha Hadid in a competition.

The 3 design teachers and the program coordinators

Yashar giving his comments

The final presentations on Friday were long, but they showed just how diverse our disaster solutions ended up being.  They were rather funny, too: while the French students had to present their parts in English, the Americans had to present in French.  Fortunately, no mocking occurred, and the day ended with a pleasant reception.  No one really wanted the project to end, because it had been such a success, both academically and socially.  (The number of my French friends on Facebook just skyrocketed! haha...)  We celebrated at a friend's apartment on Friday night, so several of the French and Americans got to mingle some more and talk about the week.  Yashar even showed up after his faculty dinner, and we talked about architecture while having some drinks until the early morning.  Overall, it was a great week that I'm sure none of us will ever forget.