13/04 - An Architectural Pilgrimage, Ronchamp

Four hours after we departed from Basel we were still on a regional train speeding into the mountains of the French Jura. A tiny stop at the tiny mountain village Ronchamp. Le Corb's masterpiece stands above them all on a hill. Passing by an old mining structure, a 20-minute walk uphill brought us to the entrance.

The rain stopped. Lush-green lawns. Concrete of every finishes. Modernist details. A stroll around the chapel reveals a continuously changing facade. We stayed for a couple of hours, from early afternoon to sunset, and entered the chapel several times in between. This is a building to stroll around, a facade to ponder upon. Be patient, and one will get rewarded. No photographic documentation can justly translate the spiritual interiors into images. Light is the key: light through stain-glass, slits of light between walls and the ceiling, voids of light above prayer areas, the alter light box of Virgin Mary, red, blue, yellow, green. Le Corb's personal touch can be found everywhere, including the painted entrance door. From the first minute and on, we had undoubtedly fallen in love with the building. A sensational experience. A day of revelation: being an architect can be fun, now I finally understand.

12/04 - Vitra Design Museum_3, Weil am Rhein

Our first ever visit to see an Ando's building and his iconic 6-holed-concrete wall! A great harmony between architecture and nature, as the Japanese architect insisted to build his conference centre around the existing cherry trees on site. Perfect time to visit with the cherry blossoms allover.

12/04 - Vitra Design Museum_2, Weil am Rhein

Built in 1993, Vitra Fire Station is Zaha Hadid's first ever built project.

12/04 - Vitra Design Museum_1, Weil am Rhein

From Basel, Switzerland, we took a but to Weil am Rhein at the southwest corner of Germany to visit the world-famous Vitra Design Museum. Throughout the past three decades, to signify their support to the design world and innovative vision of Vitra, the design furniture manufacturer has commissioned a number of great architects to create a wonderful collection of architecture in their premises.



































top to bottom:
The Museum Building, Frank Gehry's first building in Europe
Petro Station by Jean Prouve
Production Hall by Alvaro Siza

11/04 - Hoenheim Tram Station, Strasbourg

Zaha Hadid has made a strong presence at the tram terminal in Hoenheim. An urban delight that involves a 700-space-parking lot and a concrete tram shelter. For us, it was a pure reward after a pleasant tram ride on the highly acclaimed public transit system that links the old town with its suburbs and modern development such as the European Parliament.

11/04 - As If Real, Strasbourg

Original Medieval busts from the Strasbourg Cathedral, now exhibited in the nearby cathedral museum.

11/04 - Cathedral, Timber houses, Cafe terraces, Strasbourg

Our first stop in France: lovely cathedral, elegant timber houses, lively cafe terraces - the capital of Alsace.

10/04 - Porsche Museum, Stuttgart

We were a bit overwhelmed by the Benz Museum as we took the S-Bahn rushing to Porsche's. We get off almost right in front of Delugan Meissl's new museum. With a building cost of 100 million euros and 35,000 tons of steel, we came to the museum with high expectations. At first glance, I was quite impressed by the boldness of the floating structure and the purity of the white powdered coated aluminium panels. Yet the most impressive of all are the highly-polished stainless steel panels on the underside of the structure, forming a super-reflective surface above us as we entered the building.

However, it was a different story inside. Visitors crowded at the foyer to pay for admission and obtain their audio-guides, not entirely organized when we were there, with large amount of people queuing from various directions. Long escalators brought us up to the exhibition level and found the trendy white interiors forming a uniform backdrop for the sport-cars. With open layout, we had difficulty to find the ideal sequence to see the exhibition. As our primary interest lies in architecture and not automobile, we soon shifted our focus from the 911's to the interior detailing and spatial designs. With no windows to allow natural light to get in, the entire exhibition space feels like an isolated showroom underground, instead of floating in mid-air. In similar fashion of isolating from its context, the exhibition itself does not in any sense provide much information on the context of Porsche. With the large amount of visitors we had experienced that day and the lack of contextual information, the museum failed to provide a clear story of Porsche to someone like us, who have little knowledge about sport-cars and Porsche. Our tour ended in an anti-climax: we walked into a long corridor, found our way through a door that was monitored by a security guard (seems like a design flaw, either the door is not too well sign-posted or it's a bit dangerous for people to use it at the same time from both sides), and then reached two narrow and confusing doors side by side at the end of another corridor - the male and female toilets.

Unlike the experience of many, our visit to the Porsche Museum is a little disappointment.

10/04 - Benz Museum, Stuttgart

If you believe successful architecture = interesting interior spatial experiences, the Mercedes Benz Museum in Stuttgart will be your perfect example. Three lifts, a futuristic concrete atrium, a double helix of walkways, sensible exhibitions on automobile from each period in history, a high-tech audio guide and some cool design detailing gives every viewer a ultimate architectural experience from start to finish. UN Studio have done a great job to maximize space and direct viewers' circulation. We enjoyed the building, the exhibition and even began to imagine of owning a Mercedes Benz as our dream-car...that's really as far as design can go!

09/04 - Concrete, Salzburg

On our way from the train station to the old town we passed by a large concrete building with a tall chimney, the Heizkraftwerk. We knew nothing about this former power station when we were there. I took a photo of it because it seems very interesting to me. The concrete seems nicely built. Not until I returned to Canada do I find out that many locals actually hate the building, especially the contemporary addition completed in 2003. They see the new concrete addition as a total waste of tax money.

09/04 - Salzburg

After Innsbruck, we made use of our rail pass to make a detour at Salzburg. A pretty Baroque city in a picturesque alpine setting. Thanks to the 1965 film The Sound of Music, everyone has a presumption of its beauty without setting foot in Austria.

We spent around three hours strolling through the old city without climbing the castle hill. The stroll along the Salzach River was particular pleasant. We were attracted by some Baroque houses that built against a cliff side. We had some good ice-cream at Mozart Square, took some pictures of the Mozart statue, passed by the Mozart residence and purchased three Mozart chocolate balls, Mozartkugel. That's Salzburg! In the evening, we hopped on a train to return to Munich.

09/04 - Zaha Hadid, Innsbruck

We visited one of Hadid's Nordkettenbahnen funicular stations in Innsbruck.

A brave experiment on new building technology and design innovations. Not too good when comes to detailing: poor silicon joints. But at least, they found a way to clip and hang the extremely curvy glass panels.

A perfect piece of art, with magnificent mountain backdrop.

09/04 - Innsbruck

I first visited Innsbruck in 1985 with my parents. Obviously I don't remember a thing about it except a few really dark images of the iconic Golden Roof, seen from some stone-age family albums stored in the basement of my old house. 24 years later AC and I decided to make a day trip from Munich to Innsbruck, mainly because of Hadid's funicular stations.

It's strange to revisit a place that faintly existed in my memory. Everything to me seems familiar, and it makes me wonder whether I remember the snow mountains and the old lanes and the Golden Roof from my childhood or I just know they exist because I have simply created a memory of the town from books, photos and my parents' descriptions.

Anyhow, Innsbruck is a pretty little town in Tyrol of West Austria, surrounded by snow-capped mountains in all four sides, and famous for a little balcony topped with 2000+ shiny copper tiles. That's Innsbruck.

08/04 - Art Museums, Munich

http://www.museum-brandhorst.de/


http://www.pinakothek.de

We dropped by Kunstareal, the main art district of Munich, to see Stephan Braunfels' Pinakothek der Moderne and Sauerbruch Hutton's Brandhorst Museum. Ceramic rods in some 23 colours caught our eyes as we approached the Brandhorst Museum, which shared a single street block with the Pinakothek der Moderne. The Brandhorst had yet opened when we were there. It is going to showcase works by a number of famous modern artists, including Andy Warhol, Cy Twombly, Gerhard Richter, Joseph Beuys and many others.

Diagonally across from Brandhorst, Stephan Braufel's highly acclaimed Pinakothek der Moderne was erected in such harmonious proportion with its context that one can hardly grasp its true volume before entering the building. Completed in 2002, the fine finished concrete and some interesting space planning in the interior of this modern art museum have earned Braunfel praises from around the world. Unfortunately we could only make a brief stay before the closing time. It remains in our must-go list if we ever revisit this part of Germany in the future.

07/04 - BMW Welt, Munich

Another iconic contemporary architecture in Munich. An architecture of automobile. A forum for BMW customers, technological information exchange, and commercial exhibitions.

07/04 - Allianz Arena

The stadium that hosted the final of World Cup 2006. A predecessor of Beijing's Bird Nest. A pure beauty by Herzog de Meuron.

1989.06.04

May one day history can be treated openly and fairly. Until then, we will never forget.

06/04 - Bamberg

We decided to visit at least one old town in Germany. We chose Bamberg. It was pleasant to stroll through the old market, pass by the vivid exterior fresco of Altes Rathaus before finding our way up to the Michaelsberg Abbey on top of a hill.

The splendid Baroque interiors of Michaelsberg Abbey was definitely the highlight of Bamberg. The ceiling paintings of plants and herbs enhances a sense of natural beauty and freshness to the interior, and provides a perfectly clean backdrop for the ornamental Baroque figures at the chancel, organ and alter. The gardens of Michaelsberg provides great views over the town. Before heading down, we had lunch at the outdoor cafe in the abbey's garden and tasted the famous Bamberg smoke beer.

We are the People!

Leipzig, 1989. Monday demonstrations at St. Nicolas Church. Thousands crying out the slogan - We are the People! The fall of the Berlin Wall. Unification of Germany. It all began here.

20th anniversary to the fall of the Berlin Wall. 20th anniversary to the June Fourth Movement at Beijing's Tiananmen Square. 1989, a year which no one can easily forget.

04/04-Bauhaus, Dessau

Cannot imagine what the design world would become if Walter Gropius didn't found Bauhaus 90 years ago in Weimar.

For only 7 years between 1925 to 1932 that Bauhaus was operated in Dessau, and in fact, the school of Bauhaus had only existed for less than 14 years in total, before the Nazis finally forced Mies van de Rohe to close down its last campus in Berlin.

We spent half a day in Bauhaus' Dessau campus, an iconic building designed by Gropius back in the 1920s. Today half museum and half design institute, the modern school building is occupied by visitors and students. Although in German, we took a tour which allowed us to see rooms behind doors, such as the theatre and Gropius' office. Bold colours, experimental detailing and innovative fixtures, making this school building a manifesto on avant garde design of early 20th century. We also visited the masters' houses nearby. Again designed by Gropius, those houses served as accommodation facilities for professors such as Kandinsky and Paul Klee.

02/04-East Side Gallery, Berlin

I feel guilty if I don't show any image of the East Side Gallery of Berlin, especially when 2009 marks the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. East Side Gallery is both a wonderful open-air showcase of art and an impressive manifesto of human freedom. The longest surviving stretch of the Berlin Wall. A great feast of street art.

03/04-Fragmented Architecture, Dresden

The UFA Cinema by Coop Himmelb(l)au

03/04 - Dresden

As an antithesis of World War Two, Dresden lives long in memories of many. Kurt Vonnegut might have depicted the historical tragic moment in a humorous way, yet the pointless Allied bombings at the end of WW2 remains as a serious subject for many Germans, even today. The devastating bombings in 1945 abruptly transformed this capital of Saxony, which was renounced for its cultural and artistic glories, into a huge pile of rubble. Sixty years on, reconstruction still dominates contemporary urban development. The mighty Frauenkirche Church, rebuilt stone by stone with private raised funds signifies the pride and determination of Dresdeners. The reconstructed Green Vault containing most of Saxony's royal treasures that had survived the 1945 firestorm and the fantastic museums at the Zwinger Palaces reveal Dresden's past glories to both foreigners and the locals. Layers upon layers of glories and tragedies, Dresden will remain symbolic for many centuries to come.