KSA Vienna '09

A note to anyone reading - over the next few weeks, I'll be covering the "Vienna 2009" study abroad trip, over at my own personal blog, Tenuous Resilience.

Check the blog for regular updates - I will update the links below periodically.

Introduction

Berlin [IMG] [TXT]

Dessau [IMG] [TXT]

Leipzig [IMG] [TXT]

Eberswalde [IMG] [TXT]

Wolfsburg [IMG]

Dresden [IMG] [TXT]

Cottbus [IMG] [TXT]

Prague [IMG]

Brno [IMG]

Langenlois [IMG]

Vienna [IMG] [TXT]

Graz [IMG] [TXT]

Ljubljiana [IMG] [TXT]

Venice [IMG] [TXT]

Vicenza [IMG] [TXT]

Milan [IMG] [TXT]

Como [IMG] [TXT]

Vals [IMG] [TXT]

Lucern [IMG] [TXT]

Zurich [IMG] [TXT]

Basel [IMG] [TXT]

Weil am Rhein [IMG] [TXT]

Ronchamp [IMG] [TXT]

Stuttgart [IMG] [TXT]

Wuerzburg [IMG] [TXT]

Innsbruck [IMG] [TXT]

Munich [IMG] [TXT]

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Links are to the appropriate blog posts, updated as I post new entries. "IMG" posts are short photo-essays, and "TXT" posts are my impressions and/or analysis. Enjoy!

Karl Friedrich Schinkel - Gardner's House

Auditorium Seats at Goetheaneum

Otto Wagner - Postparkasse

Zaha Hadid - BMW

Channel Glass at Zaha Hadid's BMW, Leipzig Germany

This building material, ubiquitous in sheds and industrial buildings throughout europe, is here treated with a near-Loosian reverence: clean and exquisitely detailed.

Carlos Scarpa's Brion-Vega Cemetery

Carlos Scarpa's Brion-Vega Cemetery (San Vito d'Altivole, Italy). The layering and manipulation of the ground plane in Scarpa's cemetary is accentuated by the surrounding wall. The wall's top is at eye level, and is reinforced by a band of colored tile that continues horizontally across the taller structures in the complex. Here, the cornfield beyond the wall establishes a new ground line, you feel as though the cemetery has sunk into the earth.

herzog & de meuron - allianz arena

Herzog & de Meuron's Allianz Arena in Munich's most notable feature is the skin, an elaborate system of inflatable plastic bubbles which are backlit by red, green, and blue lights, which can be combined to indicate the colors of whatever teams are currently playing.

the soccer stadium has no track, so seats come up directly to the field, and the upper decks extend closer to the field than most stadiums. This allows more direct views for the audience, and the structure that appears monolithic on the exterior actually feels quite intimate once inside.

Not shown, the stadium sits atop a plinth, styled after highway on-ramps, and sits in a parking area landscaped according to studies on the movement and flow of fans, teams and deliveries.

Lake Bled, Croatia

bled, originally uploaded by artista de tierra.

Kelly's photograph of the island in the middle of Lake Bled in Croatia.

Villa Medici

Villa Medici, originally uploaded by rbooth_18.

Another view of the Villa Medici gardens, also taken by Ryan on a sojourn from Slovenia.

Medici Villa

Medici Villa, originally uploaded by rbooth_18.

Photograph taken by Ryan as part of the Slovenia trip, on one of their excursions into Italy.

O-H-I-O

IMG_1037, originally uploaded by tyleroguy.

You can take the students away from Ohio State, but....

Just Thought This Was Cool

IMG_1108, originally uploaded by tyleroguy.

This came across from the KSA's Europe trip the other day, and I thought it was an interesting building - don't know anything about it, though.

South Field Trip

Some of the group at the Beach in San Benedetto

Santa Croce in Lecce
The Cathedral in Trani
Matera
Ercolano- A city destroyed by Mount Vesuvius. Smaller than Pompeii but better preserved
Matera at Night

Ascoli Piceno Pictures

Piazza Arringo in Ascoli Piceno
Architecture School in Ascoli Piceno- an old monastery

Ancient Roman bridge in Ascoli
View of Ascoli from school


The first two weeks of the trip were spent in Ascoli Piceno. We worked in groups with Italian students from the University of Camerino on a small airport project.

Matera

Italy Tour Retrospective

While the Europe group is busy travelling, another group recently concluded its studies. Professor Kay Bea Jones led a group of students on a study abroad session in Italy last Spring, and they've been trickling back into the school bearing images. Above you can see the Piazza del Popolo in Ascoli.

Click here for a gallery of images from the Italy trip

ishtar gate

Babylon's Ishtar Gate at Berlin's Pergamon Museum.

I asked a brick what it wanted to be. It replied: "A LION!"

Dutch Embassy, Berlin

OMA's Dutch Embassy. Detail showing different approaches to wood as a material.

H+dM's Cottbus University Library

Interior of Herzog & de Meuron's Cottbus University Library (Germany)

The exterior (not shown) is an image comprised of overlaid letters... accumulated to the point where the letters are unintelligible, yet still recognizable as typography. The floor plates are overlaid/pained with the pure tones of a tv test-pattern, which serves several goals:

1. The mapping of the tv image onto the floor could be seen as a highly conceptual architectural move, encouraging the viewer to examine the relationship between the image (tv) and text (the facade / the stacks). Note that the facade is an example of text-becoming image. Is the coloring of the floor an example of image-becoming-text?

2. The color mapping / supergraphics of the tv-test pattern seems at first to be quite arbitrary, yet it could be understood as an overcoding - an additional organization system that exists outside of the organization of the stacks, and outside the organization of the building, yet can serve to reinforce both in unexpected ways. First of all, the floor plan of the building is rather amorphous, and there is little differentiation in the architecture itself. These ordered bands of color add order via experiential narrative -you enter (blue), take the stairs (purple/lime), find your book (orange), then retrace your steps, using the color as an aid.... perhaps it's not that complicated, but merely having one stair core in one color zone and the second in another helps the confused visitor orient himself.

(photo by Tyler)

Shalachet

“Shalachet” (Fallen Leaves), installation in the Jewish Museum's "Memory Void"

Possibly the best space/moment in Libeskind's Berlin Jewish Museum, a tall room/void filled with these metal faces. Visitors walk on the these, creating an eerie clanging.