Live From Dessau -- Episode 7

Alright! As I promise, there are a ton of pictures to be shared from the weekend in Munich and this week.

So Friday during the day our class went to Berlin to meet with Prof. Omar Akbar and tour the city. Prof. Akbar is our Architecture and Society professor and he wanted to show us the different urban developments in Berlin. It was a good trip, and my third time in Berlin since we have been here. The UK group hopped on a train at 4 headed for Munich. It was a six hour train ride, but the dining car and comfy seats made it pretty tolerable (I had always wanted to eat dinner on a train riding through a countryside). The scenery was amazing, like something out of a movie (Sound of Music maybe..). We passed numerous castles and small villages, it was so relaxing after a hectic bike ride through Berlin that morning.

We got to Munich around 10:30 and made it to the hostel at 11:00. Lauren Davis and Lauren Early (arch. students from UK that are studying in Florence, Italy) were waiting for our group in the lobby of the hostel and we all rushed over to say hello. We checked into our room and then headed out for a late bite to eat and to catch up with our fellow travelers. We shared stories from Germany as they told us about visiting Rome and Pisa; what a great opportunity we have all been blessed with!

Saturday morning we all got up kind of early and hit the city. We walked around for a total of 6 hours and got to see a lot. My favorite part of the day was when we stumbled upon a little festival in one of the courtyards of the city. There were children of all different ages performing traditional German dances and groups of people watching and clapping, it was just a really good time. It made me feel like I had really arrived in the heart of German culture!





Afterwards we went to and architecture and design museum, which was fantastic. The Pinakothek Musuem housed exhibitions of architecture, art, design, and works on paper.






It was nice to walk through a museum and really get a glimpse into the minds of designers around the world, but even better to know that I was part of the same conversation.



One of the coolest displays showed soccer stadiums from around the world and had tiny models of each. This is a picture of one of my favorites.

Saturday evening we went to the world famous Hofbrauhaus beer-garden. The site dates back to 1589 and over 4 million people visit each year. This is also where we watched the USA-England soccer match, which was a lot of fun.



There was a huge group of people out on the patio and the restaurant had set up a large projector and screen for people to watch the game on. Surprisingly, there was a significant American presence on the patio, which made the atmosphere that much better. We tied, which for us seemed like a win, and everyone was really excited.

The trip back on Sunday was a little longer...like 8 hours. Luckily I slept for a majority of the time, only waking up to change trains. Between Sunday and Thursday, studio week took up most of my time. Thursday evening a large group of us met up with some German students that have graciously befriended us and had a cookout. It was a nice way to wrap up a hard week of work.



In about 45 minutes we are going to watch Germany's second world cup game, which is conveniently followed by USA's second game...so I have a full day of watching soccer ahead of me!

Live from Dessau - Episode 6

It is the middle of the fourth week of class at the Bauhaus and time seems like it is flying by. It has gotten hot in the city of Dessau!! It is a pleasant change from the rainy and cold weather that we had been having for the first three weeks. On Sunday we went down to the Elbe River and sat out in the sun and read, listened to music, etc. It was a great time. Monday started with some rain clouds, but we quickly chased them away and this entire week has been beautiful. Well that is really all that has happened this week, our big trip to Munich is on Friday so I will have plenty of pictures and stories to share at the beginning of next week. For now...random photos of Brian!!!

This is me sitting on stairs done by Rem Koolhaas and OMA, really cool!


Don and I looking at something interesting...I'm pretty sure it was just a street sign.


Just my face...


Don, me, and Jenna waiting for a tour to start at Zollverien


Jenna, Don, me, and Cody waiting for our tour at the Neues Museum.

Live from Dessau - Episode 5

So I know that it has been a really long time since my last post, but that is because we have been traveling a lot with the school and doing a lot of work (we had a review on Tuesday and then left for Essen early Wednesday morning and just got back today..)

So lets begin...

Last weekend our group went to Berlin for a weekend of fun and sight-seeing. The train took about two hours and I got a lot of reading done (I am currently 3/4 of my way through The Fountainhead) and found some time to sleep too. We got off on the wrong stop in Berlin and walked for a good while until we found our hostel. It was my second time in Berlin in as many weeks and so instead of heading straight for a bratwurst stand, I went to a Mexican restaurant that I had wanted to try the first time and hadn't gotten the chance(I miss Clamato's in Lexington). After dinner, our group walked around the city for a while and then it was time to hit the hay. Saturday morning we got up and went to the Neues Museum for an Egyptian exhibit that included the bust of Queen Nefertiti!

Lunch followed, and this time I took full advantage of a bratwurst/crepes cart located outside the museum. Crepes may be the best thing in the world...A thin pancake filled with, in this case, Nutella and bananas...they are awesome!! Several groups split off and went to other sites in the city, but then we met back at the hostel at 6 to get ready for dinner. Cody and Marge had met a couple of Germans that were in Berlin for a bike race on Sunday so they joined our motley crew Saturday evening for a meal at the Sony Center. They invited us to come cheer them on during the race, but when Sunday morning rolled around, we found ourselves a little too tired and very ready to get back to our temporary home in Dessau. This is a picture inside the Sony Center:

Because we took the weekend off for some fun, everyone had to get back to work on Monday in order to prepare for a preliminary review of our concepts for the summer project on Tuesday morning. All of the Kentucky students represented the university very well in this initial phase reviewing our program concepts (what the space will be used for) and basic design concepts. Tuesday evening I went to see Prince of Persia at the movie theater (finally..), but it was not nearly as good as Robin Hood. It was, however, a nice way to relax after a couple days of work.

Wednesday morning we had to meet at 7:30 to get on a bus headed for Essen. I was pretty much asleep for the entire trip, except during our 30 minute lunch stop. I hopped back on the bus, passed out again, and woke up in Germany's culture capital for 2010: Essen. We started our tours immediately. The first site was a large park and office complex that is being constructed on the west side of the city. Previously, it had been a large factory for coal mining and producing steel, one of the largest factories in the world. The picture below is of the new headquarters of the steel company.

The next day we went to another coal mining site outside of Essen. Zollverein is a beautiful site and is currently being used as a center for culture and events. For example, instead of miners and factory workers, the spaces are filled with cafe areas, musical performances, and museums. This is an image of one of the main shafts on the site.

On Friday, we went to an academy for learning and research in Herne. It is a remarkable set of structures within an enclosing envelope and one of the most sustainable buildings in Germany.

The enclosure was a wood frame with glass paneling. Instead of using shading techniques to limit direct sunlight and glare on the interior, photovoltaic panels were used to both texture the glass and provide shade.

Our final stop on the way back to Dessau was at a factory built in 1911 by Walter Gropius (former director of the Bauhaus) It was the first building that Gropius completed on his own and is still running to this day.

We got back to Dessau around 7:30 pm on Friday...

At 10:30 pm on Friday I was back on a train! This one headed for Leipzig to celebrate Ainsley's birthday in the city with a couple other UK students. We all stayed in a hostel near the train station and then went shopping on Saturday. It was a nice way to cap off the weekend, but I was definitely ready to get home for a shower and some rest and relaxation. Now we are all sitting in our studio room chatting and facebooking with friends and family from home, and exhaustion is definitely hanging in the air. I think I am going to head back to the apartment and read a little before heading to bed. Hopefully the blog will be more consistent from now on. This week will be a little slow until Friday when our class is heading back to Berlin (yay!!) and then our UK group is going to Munich to meet up with some UK girls that are studying in Florence, Italy (but traveling in Germany that weekend). I am really excited for the trip and will have some more pictures and stuff to share.

Goodnight everyone!!

and here are some other pics from the trip..

Herne

Herne again...

Zollverein

Berlin

Berlin again...

Live from Dessau - Episode 4

Our first week went by in a blur and the second week is already half over! I cannot believe how quickly the time seems to move here. Our project is going to be really fun and really challenging for an eight week session. We are responsible for the maintenance and restoration of a large building complex that was severely damaged during the second World War. Hugo Junkers used the site to construct metal air crafts and he is an icon in the field of aviation. There are two significant structures on the site, the daylight hanger and the lamella hanger. The lamella hanger is significant because of the method of construction. It was built entirely from parts that Junkers used in his aircraft manufacturing and has a completely open floor plan because of the material system.
This is one of the hangers on the site...

This is my friend Ainsley at the site...

This is the other hanger that we will be restoring.

Okay now for a quick note on recreation in Dessau. One of the most fun things that I have done here is seeing a movie at the theater in German. Some friends and I went to see the new Robin Hood movie and it was completely in German with NO SUB-TITLES!! I understood maybe 5% of what was being said, but really enjoyed being in the theater trying to figure out the dialogue. I am planning on seeing more movies while I am here...I think next up is Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. (Action movies are easiest to watch because everyone can pretty much understand what is going on.)

In a few minutes I will be hopping on a train to go to a small conference for the program. There is a lecturer from Harvard there so hopefully I will not have to listen to the lecture via a translator like I have so many times already :).

Our first German language class was today and it was a lot of fun, so hopefully in another couple of weeks I can start blogging in German and English!

Sorry for the choppiness of this post, but getting acclimated has taken a little longer than I thought. So many thoughts are memories running through my mind from just the first week and a half, its hard to narrow then down and know what to type.

I hope that everyone is enjoying the blog and I will do my best to post pictures later this evening!

tschüs!!!

Live from Dessau - Episode 3

So I think I have figured out the image problem, at least temporarily. This is just a short entry to showcase the campus and city that I will living in for eight weeks. These images are courtesy of my roommate Don (another UK student).

This first image was taken as we were touring the Bauhaus facility on day one. The way that warm and cold gray scales work with color is really great and highlights the simple construction methods.

This image is of one of the buildings on campus. Those are the bikes that Don and I will be using to get around the city. It has been really nice to only have the bicycle as a means of transportation. It makes me really want to use mine that much more when I get home.

This is picture of a fountain in one of the parks near our apartment building. Really short walk from home and has a nice little restaurant to grab a brat and enjoy the nice weather.

Live from Dessau - Episode 2

The Wanderers and My First Day of School.

PICTURES ARE UP ON FACEBOOK, FRIEND ME IF YOU CANNOT SEE THEM ALREADY!! HOPEFULLY I CAN GET THE BLOG FIXED SOON!

I don't even know how to start describing the last couple of days. Since I left Berlin on Friday morning, I have had one adventure after another! We made a pit-stop in Wittenburg on Friday to see the church that Martin Luther is believed to have nailed his 95 theses to. It was a beautiful church in a wonderful little town. (It was at this point that we realized that the further we got from Berlin, the harder it was to find someone that spoke English, but I'll get into that a little later.) This is a picture of the cast iron doors that have been engrave with the 95 theses (am I spelling that right).

Then we headed to Dessau to find a place to stay for the last two nights before our apartment was available. This is where the adventure really started. Every place that we tried to stay at was completely full, and no one could tell us in English where to find a place to live. We eventually drove to Aken, which is a little town about 4 km from Dessau and met a woman there that ran a bed and breakfast. Her house was also full, but she was gracious enough to call another place that she knew that may have some rooms available. With luck, there was a hotel in Brambach that had two rooms for the night so we said we would take them and we were on our way. (Just to let you know, Brambach consists of one street with about 20 buildings on it.) We stepped out of the car and into a postcard.


The hotel & restaurant was right on the river and we couldn't believe that a place so beautiful would have rooms on such short notice...well, it turned out that they didn't!! The person that booked our rooms had accidentally looked at the wrong day when she said that they had rooms available! We could not believe what was going on! Then, an older couple that was in the hotel heard about our situation and said that we could stay at there bed and breakfast in Steutz, which is 20 km outside of Dessau. After several minutes of communication breakdown, a young man that was with the couple came out to help translate. We agreed on a price for the rooms and breakfast for two mornings and we set out. I slept like a rock that night...

Saturday morning started with a delicious breakfast courtesy of Herr und Frau Lisso and then we were off to Leipzig, the home of Thomaskirche and J.S. Bach. The church did not open until 2:15 so we walked around the inner city for an hour or so and then waited in line to go in. We thought we were just going in to take some pictures and see the organ, but we sat and waited until 3:00 and we got to witness a full service and performance by the boy's choir there. They sang original Bach choral pieces and it was amazing. Then we sent back to the Lisso's cottage and hit the hay.

Sunday was the day we were all waiting for...move in day! We met Don and Ainsley (both UK students) at the front of our apartment and then it started to finally hit us... we are going to be here for 8 weeks!! I am rooming with Don in a dorm style apartment with a small kitchen area and bathroom. I will upload some images of the dorm once it has a little more life, meaning some posters...

Our campus is beatuiful! We had orientation today at 9:00 and took a tour of the Bauhaus and the Master's Houses. We also headed out to the site of our project and started to gather ideas for concepts for our design projects for the summer. These are some shots of the campus area.


We have a pretty busy week ahead, but I think it is good to jump right in and get going. Right now I am sitting in the basement cafe of the Bauhaus and can't believe how lucky I am to be here! This is going to be a fantastic program and I hope you all enjoy following along!

Live from Dessau (but this time Berlin) – Episode 1 Day of Arrival

Cody and I getting ready to get on our flight to Berlin!

Wow!! What an exhausting experience that just was. I arrived at the Cincinnati airport with my friend and classmate Cody at 8:30 in the morning on Tuesday, and after a long layover at JFK and by far the longest plane ride I’ve ever been on, we arrived in Berlin at 12:00 noon (Local time) on Wednesday. The plan is to stay in Berlin until Friday and see some sights before heading southwest to Dessau for the next eight weeks.
After checking into our hotel with our other friend and classmate Margaret, we set out on foot to see some of the amazing sites of Germany’s most famous city. Just down the street from our hotel we stopped at the new Holocaust Memorial designed by Peter Eisenman. It is a beautiful arrangement of extruded rectangular prisms, each representing a different number of casualties based on its height. It was amazing to walk through the grid of monuments because as you moved towards the center, the shapes seemed to swallow you up, while at the edges they are merely benches or a small step.




Our next stop was at the Brandenburg Gate, which was the backdrop for many historic moments during WWII. The bullet marks that can still be seen in the masonry act as a solemn reminder of what happened in the not too distant past. Today, the platz (plaza or square) in front of the gate was full of life and entertainment.



Later in the day we made it to the Berlin Cathedral, which was absolutely breath taking. The “Berliner Dom” can be identified by its multiple green domes and ornate decoration on the exterior. We were lucky enough to grab a sneak peek of the inside before a service began…and it did not disappoint. The space under the dome seems so much larger on the interior! Gold ornament lined the walls and vaulted spaces and large paintings depicted the life of Christ along the ceiling. Definitely a must see for anyone in Berlin!
This a picture of Cody, Marge, and I across the river from the Berliner Dom.


Then we headed over to the Daniel Libeskind’s Jewish Museum. We are planning a full tour tomorrow, but we wanted to see the exterior and just get a glimpse of one of his best works. Set in a more under-developed part of the city, the museum stands alone as a testament to modern architecture.



We finished up the day by visiting the US Checkpoint (Checkpoint Charlie) and the remains of the Berlin Wall. The parts of the roads on which the wall used to stand have been replaced with a strip of stones to remind people of what used to divide the country.




I am sitting back in the hotel room now and I believe that jet lag has finally caught up to me. I am going to watch some German television, to work on my communication skills of course, and then hit the hay. I want to say thanks again to everyone for all of the support!