well. the last time i wrote i was walking on water and now my studio is over and i am fitting everything into my suitcase.
so, my time now in holland is at an end. i am really going to miss it here, both the lifestyle and all of the cool people i've met from all over the world. it is a typical exchange experience to feel like you don't have enough time to develop friendships with the people you meet, i think. when i sit down in america and think about it i will be quite sad actually. but, again, it doesn't feel like i am saying good bye forever. beyond tools like facebook, there is a strong chance i will find myself seeing some of these people again, either in america or in their respective home nations or back here in holland. i've talked with numerous people about coming back to work at one of the many important offices in rotterdam. a few other people are serious about coming to america so i hope they will visit me. another cool thing about exchange at such an international school is that now i have global contacts and people i know in portugal, barcelona, berlin, london, greece, milan, latvia, bangalore, hong kong, shanghai, brisbane, melbourne, and LA. that is a nice feeling. the world is a small, good place.
my studio finished and i am super excited about that. the end result (which probably won't be posted here but may be available shortly elsewhere) is ok but unstable and frustrating and immature as an entire studio. there were strong organizational issues with the teachers and no given situation for us to respond to. most studios are organized around problems: design a building for this, propose a new urban plan for this area, whatever. here it was just sort of a blank expanse: do some research and come up with an idea, especially when the topic is as abstract and philosophical as it was. i think my part is OK and, with some work, could stand as an ok project. in the end it was mostly me and another student trying to coordinate everything together but it turned out alright. i spoke a bit with winy about it and he is aware. he will be at MIT soon so maybe we will talk there. i never quite realized how MIT even as a name is such a global fetish. anytime i would drop that i go to school there, people are frequently suddenly impressed. its reputation is pervasive mostly for its technical and media lab work but i guess people assume it continues over to architecture even though the undergraduate program is tiny and rocky. the problems with the studio are also another reason why this blog has been more travel-oriented than academic. i think for most people that is ok because nobody likes shop talk, especially in blog form.
well, what did i do in my last few weeks? mostly stayed in delft like a slob. in the past two weeks i did some work. i actually stayed up all night on wednesday which made me feel kind of good that i was actually working. anyway, i finished two 8-10 page papers for the two lecture courses i was in. i rode my bike around ypenburg, an area north of delft that is a dutch new town development for the hague. MVRDV has some houses there and everything sits on canals. there will be pictures on flickr or facebook sometime. it was a nice sunday afternoon ride. yesterday i had my final review and ate dinner with jean paul and hannes, the two TUD students who went to MIT in my place. both of them are super cool dudes who i would love to hang out with more. it is funny because we know the same people and places now (we spent a lot of our time joking about MIT and talking about cambridge) but we don't really know each other! then there was a great party here with everybody from the two Msc2 studios at the why factory. very good party, if i am able to say so myself. it was a good way to say good bye without being emotional.
then today i went to amsterdam for the last time and walked around a new area of the city, mostly the east docklands that is a huge west 8-masterplanned housing area. there are the really stylish and now well-known dock houses (pictures to come) by MVRDV and others like EMBT. i am glad i got to see them. i also went inside the new amsterdam public library which is super nice as a place to hang out. it was a nice mix of louis kahn-type wood and brick work with some dutch interiors inside. i also saw the renzo piano nemo museum, a building i didn't know existed until this morning. then i was walking and saw the steven holl addition to an office building along the mauritskade, a green block with thin windows cut out in unexpected places and wrapped with a mesh. pictures would explain more. walking back towards the damrak i unexpectedly discovered aldo van eyck's orphanage, a building that jan wampler worships. it was just ok. i became unexpectedly emotional walking back to the station and through these small streets with snow falling. it was beautiful in a way that i hadn't seen very much here. i will miss that.
but then there is also the future: my last semester at MIT and moving forward with my life. i am excited to return to the treehome and have a big nice kitchen and my friends and cat. my classes this spring will be interesting and hopefully not as stressful as before. playing music will be good. and then i can probably graduate and do adult things and act like i have a position of authority on a topic because i have a degree in it. ok, this will also probably be the last post on this blog too because i will be back home and its purpose will have been fulfilled. i am fine with that. see you all soon in the real world.
Showing posts with label america. Show all posts
Showing posts with label america. Show all posts
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Sunday, January 10, 2010
runja, 2010, and the end
OK so christmas break has quickly flown by and now it is back to normal. runja finally arrived in holland on christmas morning, the same day as that terrorist scare on the flight to detroit. we were probably in the airport at the same time. but runja's travel was safe to and from europe.
we did lots of fun things, including walking on the beach at scheveningen, all around rotterdam, utrecht, and amsterdam a few times. we saw the van gogh museum that is designed by rietveld on the museumplein. it is expensive and 1/3 of the permanent collection wasn't on display. why aren't museums subsidized here like in england? or at least a student discount or something. also new year's eve was a blast. every person in the city set off fireworks at midnight and we watched from a small bridge so it was a beautiful sight. we ate good food (mostly pad thai), made art, and laughed a lot. that was the most important part of the trip: our time together. photos are up now on flickr. it was a blast and now it is lonely to do things i once did with her. i miss her.
but, for better or worse, i only have 3 weeks left. this blows my mind. my semester abroad has flown by. i will be both happy and annoyed to return to the US (happy for black beans, cheap food, and hills; sad for inefficient public transit, canals, and leaving delft). regardless, it will happen and life will go on. i should probably be thinking about things like how to close my bank account and how to get a school transcript, but for now i am worried about school itself. i just finished a paper for my patrick healy course and now have 3 weeks (the review is on january 29) to pump out something for the studio course. it has, organizationally, been a nightmare. i am even worried now about getting credit for it at MIT and graduating on time. i don't want to talk about it because it only makes my headache and frustration larger. instead of complaining i want to do the best i personally can to learn and get positive experience out of it. i'm also trying to get ready for the spring 2010 term at MIT that starts only 4 days after my final review at TUD and what will happen after that. but for now, it is studio crunch time.
Monday, August 31, 2009
rotterdam
on sunday i went to rotterdam. rotterdam is holland's second city, after amsterdam. it is set on a wide river and used to be the world's most active port for shipping containers (it was surpassed in 2004 by shanghai). during world war II the germans tried to invade the netherlands but were unable so they bombed the shit out of rotterdam, destroying most of the downtown. most of the buildings now are mid-century high-rises ranging from mildly interesting to absolutely ugly (in general i am not an admirer of the skyscraper).
i took the train there for the afternoon and early evening; the journey from delft to rotterdam probably takes about the same amount of time as the voyage from lechmere to park station in boston. i walked around and saw mostly architectural sites, managing to walk for a long time from the western cultural areas all the way over to blaak and back again to the main train station, a building that is being rebuilt and so that area is a mess. i got really hungry but managed to find some food (street vietnamese food [there will be a post about this stuff soon], bagel sandwich, pizza quattro formaggi). i also started to get harassed by some bum in dutch about loaning him some rolling papers, but when he saw the non-dutch-speaking look in my eye he immediately said "oh fuck, you speak english, hey man, can you help me out..." it is nice that bums can annoy you in two languages here. also walked by the american apparel rotterdam; it looks the same. i also saw a thai restaurant near blaak that looked really good. i'll probably eat there on a subsequent trip to rotterdam.
here are some pics for summary. i might put more on flickr or facebook if i have time. but probably not.
(update: i surprised myself and splurged for a pro account on flickr. the link is in the column to your right, my left [as i stare out at you from within the screen]. ok, then. goedenacht.)
cafe de unie, an important de stijl work by dutch architect j.j.p. oud (1925). actually, the internet tells me that the original building was destroyed by the germans and this is a recreation in a location different than the original.
street scene with trolley apparatus
NAI, nederlands architectuurinstituut, an organization that hosts exhibits and events. they are hosting a biennale this fall that should have some pretty interesting stuff. the building is kind of a geometric mess (and they use astroturf instead of real grass), but the gallery space i was able to see looked spare enough to like. the library is in that main volume with columns pushed outside the building but it wasn't open on sundays.
interior of huis sonneveld (1933). early dutch functionalist house for a factory owner that actually survived the WWII bombing. well-chosen colors and tons of interesting features. it is worthwhile to compare this to the gropius house built in the same time period (1937) for technological and social reasons: both had intercoms, modern kitchen equipment, and steel tubular furniture but still had space for service people to wait on the family that was really old world.
bedroom for teenage daughter including her own phone and listening station. if the record player or radio in the living room downstairs was on, she could listen in bed. this room is done in blue; the other daughter's room is in yellow. nice.
kunsthal by rem koolhaas (OMA) and cecil balmond (ARUP) in museumpark (1993). medium-sized space for exhibitions as the organization has no permanent collection. satisfying post-modern mix of expensive materials (travertine) and cheap ones (plywood, corrugated plastic). i realized that this is the first rem building i have seen in person, save for the construction on the dallas theatre center. a sort-of generic ramp-based building whose rampness seems like a good move to span the 10-meter level change between park level and street level.
kunsthal auditorium. i liked the kitsch value of this hall, with flimsy chairs and plywood finishing. the angled columns are nice too. cecil has a chapter on this building in his book "informal," but i don't need to hear any of his intellectual meditations because they are fluff.
there was a small part of the gallery that had this grating as the floor. totally awkward as i could not even look at the art and had to focus on controlling my paranoia that the floor would fold and snap and i'd fall 25 feet to the ground. thanks rem.
found piet blom's overblaak cube development (1978-1984) and went into one of the units that is now a museum.
tons of wasted and awkward space. also generally dark because windows at this level were angled down. the unit was also weirdly decorated, with a collection of model designer chairs, LOTR figurines, and a cactus collection on the upper sunroom. totally unpractical.
this was probably built with some vague commune-inspired urban social dream that sought to create both private and public places in the development. the public spaces underneath the cubes are still used as storefronts, but the feeling is again awkward with the faces of the homes and windows looking almost directly down at you, focusing any views out the lower windows directly onto the plaza users. there also isn't much light on the patio spaces so it seems dark, almost literally shady. residents refer to the development as "blaakse bos" or "blaak forest." not that impressed.
another plaza with a concert hall where i had dinner before the short train ride home. i didn't have dinner in the concert hall, i sat outside at an italian restaurant as the sun died. the sun always sets sooner in a big city because of the tall buildings.
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upon returning to delft in the dying light i heard the blues and followed my ears to koornmarkt straat where i find a one-man band pumping out the greatest hits of american music. he plays blues, he plays "like a rolling stone," he raps in english to a 50 cent hit (one i can't remember) before letting his rhythm tracks take over and playing some latin music. it is sunday night and there are some possibly inebriated dutch people shaking with no abandon to this guy's electro backing. somebody i met at jean-paul's going away party (the dude from botswana) recognizes me and gives me a free beer (brand, not the best kind of beer out there but hey, it is free). then, the pace slows, and the singer dude breaks into a version of "purple rain." people aren't sure how to dance to this, but it doesn't matter because the dude is feeding us a ridiculously shredding guitar solo over his backing. after that the 50 cent beat comes back on and some young breakers try their moves and hustle the crowd for 50 eurocent pieces. in this world you can't really leave america anymore. it has infected every place.
i took the train there for the afternoon and early evening; the journey from delft to rotterdam probably takes about the same amount of time as the voyage from lechmere to park station in boston. i walked around and saw mostly architectural sites, managing to walk for a long time from the western cultural areas all the way over to blaak and back again to the main train station, a building that is being rebuilt and so that area is a mess. i got really hungry but managed to find some food (street vietnamese food [there will be a post about this stuff soon], bagel sandwich, pizza quattro formaggi). i also started to get harassed by some bum in dutch about loaning him some rolling papers, but when he saw the non-dutch-speaking look in my eye he immediately said "oh fuck, you speak english, hey man, can you help me out..." it is nice that bums can annoy you in two languages here. also walked by the american apparel rotterdam; it looks the same. i also saw a thai restaurant near blaak that looked really good. i'll probably eat there on a subsequent trip to rotterdam.
here are some pics for summary. i might put more on flickr or facebook if i have time. but probably not.
(update: i surprised myself and splurged for a pro account on flickr. the link is in the column to your right, my left [as i stare out at you from within the screen]. ok, then. goedenacht.)
cafe de unie, an important de stijl work by dutch architect j.j.p. oud (1925). actually, the internet tells me that the original building was destroyed by the germans and this is a recreation in a location different than the original.
street scene with trolley apparatus
NAI, nederlands architectuurinstituut, an organization that hosts exhibits and events. they are hosting a biennale this fall that should have some pretty interesting stuff. the building is kind of a geometric mess (and they use astroturf instead of real grass), but the gallery space i was able to see looked spare enough to like. the library is in that main volume with columns pushed outside the building but it wasn't open on sundays.
interior of huis sonneveld (1933). early dutch functionalist house for a factory owner that actually survived the WWII bombing. well-chosen colors and tons of interesting features. it is worthwhile to compare this to the gropius house built in the same time period (1937) for technological and social reasons: both had intercoms, modern kitchen equipment, and steel tubular furniture but still had space for service people to wait on the family that was really old world.
bedroom for teenage daughter including her own phone and listening station. if the record player or radio in the living room downstairs was on, she could listen in bed. this room is done in blue; the other daughter's room is in yellow. nice.
kunsthal by rem koolhaas (OMA) and cecil balmond (ARUP) in museumpark (1993). medium-sized space for exhibitions as the organization has no permanent collection. satisfying post-modern mix of expensive materials (travertine) and cheap ones (plywood, corrugated plastic). i realized that this is the first rem building i have seen in person, save for the construction on the dallas theatre center. a sort-of generic ramp-based building whose rampness seems like a good move to span the 10-meter level change between park level and street level.
kunsthal auditorium. i liked the kitsch value of this hall, with flimsy chairs and plywood finishing. the angled columns are nice too. cecil has a chapter on this building in his book "informal," but i don't need to hear any of his intellectual meditations because they are fluff.
there was a small part of the gallery that had this grating as the floor. totally awkward as i could not even look at the art and had to focus on controlling my paranoia that the floor would fold and snap and i'd fall 25 feet to the ground. thanks rem.
found piet blom's overblaak cube development (1978-1984) and went into one of the units that is now a museum.
tons of wasted and awkward space. also generally dark because windows at this level were angled down. the unit was also weirdly decorated, with a collection of model designer chairs, LOTR figurines, and a cactus collection on the upper sunroom. totally unpractical.
this was probably built with some vague commune-inspired urban social dream that sought to create both private and public places in the development. the public spaces underneath the cubes are still used as storefronts, but the feeling is again awkward with the faces of the homes and windows looking almost directly down at you, focusing any views out the lower windows directly onto the plaza users. there also isn't much light on the patio spaces so it seems dark, almost literally shady. residents refer to the development as "blaakse bos" or "blaak forest." not that impressed.
another plaza with a concert hall where i had dinner before the short train ride home. i didn't have dinner in the concert hall, i sat outside at an italian restaurant as the sun died. the sun always sets sooner in a big city because of the tall buildings.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
upon returning to delft in the dying light i heard the blues and followed my ears to koornmarkt straat where i find a one-man band pumping out the greatest hits of american music. he plays blues, he plays "like a rolling stone," he raps in english to a 50 cent hit (one i can't remember) before letting his rhythm tracks take over and playing some latin music. it is sunday night and there are some possibly inebriated dutch people shaking with no abandon to this guy's electro backing. somebody i met at jean-paul's going away party (the dude from botswana) recognizes me and gives me a free beer (brand, not the best kind of beer out there but hey, it is free). then, the pace slows, and the singer dude breaks into a version of "purple rain." people aren't sure how to dance to this, but it doesn't matter because the dude is feeding us a ridiculously shredding guitar solo over his backing. after that the 50 cent beat comes back on and some young breakers try their moves and hustle the crowd for 50 eurocent pieces. in this world you can't really leave america anymore. it has infected every place.
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