Um because conventional film SLRs were the rage then and scanning in photos from one of those stick on albums can be quite a painful process, i'm only posting like one photo from each place we visited... one day when i'm feeling inspired (and when i find my dusty little travel jotterbook) i promise i'll come back to the writing part...
(two years later... i guess time flies, doesn't it?)
Well... it seems like i still can't find my jotterbook from 2000 (sob sob - all my sketches are in there! not that they're any great though heh) so i'm gonna dutifully try and fill in the gaps with whatever i can remember.
Enroute Charles De Gauille airport in Paris, our flight had to do an emergency stopover at Frankfurt to refuel (?!) if i recall correctly... something about the weather being worse than expected. Hence a 2 hour flight delay and a $$$uper expensive carpark fee for Arnaud and his friend, Christoph who were picking us up from the airport. Arnaud was a French architecture student Laiyeow knew when he was doing his attachment stint at the same office she interned at and offered us his place to stay at in Paris - huge relief for the poor architecture students we were!
Straight off the airport we headed to Poissy and I still remember how awe-struck i was to be seeing the Villa Savoye in its remarkable 3-dimensional form standing right before my eyes. Of all of Le Corbusier's famous works, Villa Savoye was exceptionally significant to us archi students cos that's where we first learnt about Corbu's 5 points of Architecture... uh let's see if i can name them... pilotis - something about the building being lifted off the ground, ribbon windows - windows that stretched end to end on the facade (i think!), free plan - um, something about freedom from load-bearing walls and columns for spatial planning... yikes i only remember these 3... FAIL!
Villa Savoye, Poissy
Mademoiselle's Chair in Villa Savoye
Hey hey hey... look what i did find after all! My dusty old little travel jotterbook from 2000! Here are some of my feeble attempts to do at least one sketch per building.
Next up we went to La Defense (pronounced Lah Dee Fauns i think... ooh i loved saying it haha...). It's a business district that had this sense of modernised grandeur and i think it's because there's a huge amount of urban space and the towering Grand Arc at La Defense felt pretty imposing, like a huge doorway to whatever was beyond. Just see for yourself how tiny the people on the steps of the Grand Arc are? I think it was here that i first felt that the scale of things in Paris was huge.
Another huge huge place.... well it's a palace i guess, the Chateau de Vesailes (pronounced Sha-too-dee-viak-sai from what i recall being taught then - i suppose i could google the correct pronunciation but i rather say it the way i remember from my trip so don't say i never say).
Hey hey hey... look what i did find after all! My dusty old little travel jotterbook from 2000! Here are some of my feeble attempts to do at least one sketch per building.
Next up we went to La Defense (pronounced Lah Dee Fauns i think... ooh i loved saying it haha...). It's a business district that had this sense of modernised grandeur and i think it's because there's a huge amount of urban space and the towering Grand Arc at La Defense felt pretty imposing, like a huge doorway to whatever was beyond. Just see for yourself how tiny the people on the steps of the Grand Arc are? I think it was here that i first felt that the scale of things in Paris was huge.
La Defense, Paris
Another huge huge place.... well it's a palace i guess, the Chateau de Vesailes (pronounced Sha-too-dee-viak-sai from what i recall being taught then - i suppose i could google the correct pronunciation but i rather say it the way i remember from my trip so don't say i never say).
Chateau de Versailes, Paris
Ahh, Bernard Tschumi's little red follies at Parc de la Villette. In architecture-speak, i guess a folly is something that has totally no functional use whatsover, unlike you know, a column holds up the building, a door grants access when open and provides security when shut, roofs provide shelter and walls... well you get the drift. Don't ask me why they're red but i thought they did serve some kind of purpose despite being follies in that they were markers to the different buildings in the park? Well, anyway we each had an icy cold popsicle in the cold weather sitting on the grass like everyone else. Sigh... the weather makes all the difference.
Okay i know i'm totally not doing justice to the magnificent Eiffel Tower of Paris by posting this rather crap photo of Eiffel in the background. It makes it look nothing like a bunch of steel put together... oh wait... it is made up of a bunch of steel put together... erm moving on... i think we did the climb up to the 2nd tier and took the quaint little elevator up the rest of the way.
I think it was also in the vincinity of the Eiffel Tower where we hung out at Les Tuilleries which was a garden with a pond and fountain in the middle of the pond and in the backdrop you could see the Eiffel Tower. I vaguely remember ducks and a cotton candy cart here but i can't really be sure.
Oops just realised i'm missing pics for Opera Garnier, Tuilleries Garden, Arc de Triomph & Champs Elysee... I really need to put in more effort in scanning more of those 3R photos before their colour fades any further. So much work... *grunts*
I recall walking down Champs Elysee and stopped by Arc de Triomph which was nice with the warm glowy lighting at night. Oh yah i think it was along the way here where we had our only Macs meal cos it was super duper expensive for our student budget.
I think it was one of those days like Monday or something where some places of interest were free cos i remember queuing for a really long time before being let into the Notre Dame Cathedral. And the moment we reached the entrance we were hustled in single file and climbed up this narrow spiral staircase which was neverending. You couldn't quite stop to rest or catch your breath cos it's a continuous stream of visitors in front and behind you and spiral staircases, you know how they are. So up up up and up. We continued all the way up to the topmost part of the cathedral which was the Bell Tower (i'm suddenly recalling Suzanne Vega's song In Liverpool) and took in the axial city planning views of paris while posing next to gargoyles hanging from the sides of the roof deck.
Hunted down several other buildings by reknowned architects such as Jean Nouvel who designed the Cartier Foundation and Arab Institute, both of which had a common thread in the use of glass. Cartier Foundation, for its sensitivity in respecting the site by not designing something that takes away from the existing street facade (by using glass...) I think what i found delightful were the reflections created in the layering of transparent glass planes interspersed with trees and greenery. Quite poetic.
As for his other award-winning building, the Arab Institute also was cladded in glass with a curved facade on the street edge and a straight rectangular facade on the side facing a public square. The glass facade had these islamic-motif inspired metalic screens that opened and closed according to the sun's path to allow filtered light into the interior.
One of the most memorable things on the trip (considering i didn't make it to Ronchamp) was a pilgrimage up to another of Le Corbusier's works, the La Tourette Monastry which truly was an architectural delight. The monastry. Not the pilgrimage; which by the way was a long arduous uphill climb (okay i'm so exaggerating). Well, it was pretty out of the way i remember. Anyway, i remember the poetry of daylight (for lack of a better phrase if you can somehow soothe the goosebumps off your skin) cast against narrow slits and shafts in the reinforced concrete walls and roof, cold and devoid of finishes, yet evoking a rather powerful presence on the visitor (yes rub those goosebumps away). It's just what i remember actually feeling when i was exploring the spaces in the monastry lah. And then we get to the dorms and i think there was a guide explaining how the design of these dorms were planned down to the very inch of how a monk would use the space, where the bed was, the desk and the entire room was pretty much cold and bare like the stretch of wall he was supposed to face while in meditation. Focus on the emptiness I suppose. Actually up to this point, i'm quite impressed with how much i remember considering i listened to all these almost 10 years ago. I guess the monastry must have left quite a deep architectural impression on me.
More sketches of La Tourette Monastry in Lyon.
I'm not a very museum and gallery type of person, more of a streets and squares type so i don't recall much of what we saw at The Louvre by IM Pei except that someone cut our queue and was pretty rude when Laiyeow tried to tell him where the queue was and never quite budged. Hmmm why was it called The Louvre again?
Took a train out of Paris to Marseille (pronounce Mah-Say from what i recall) which was a rather quiet sleepy slightly dirty town to check out Corbu's mass housing project, the Unite'd Habitation (Ooh-nee-tay-dee-hair-bee-tay-shawn, again from my memory). I think it was here where he developed the Le Modular figure proportions and i swear i took a photo next to it, with my left hand raised above my head and all.
Ahh, Bernard Tschumi's little red follies at Parc de la Villette. In architecture-speak, i guess a folly is something that has totally no functional use whatsover, unlike you know, a column holds up the building, a door grants access when open and provides security when shut, roofs provide shelter and walls... well you get the drift. Don't ask me why they're red but i thought they did serve some kind of purpose despite being follies in that they were markers to the different buildings in the park? Well, anyway we each had an icy cold popsicle in the cold weather sitting on the grass like everyone else. Sigh... the weather makes all the difference.
Parc de la Villette, Paris
Okay i know i'm totally not doing justice to the magnificent Eiffel Tower of Paris by posting this rather crap photo of Eiffel in the background. It makes it look nothing like a bunch of steel put together... oh wait... it is made up of a bunch of steel put together... erm moving on... i think we did the climb up to the 2nd tier and took the quaint little elevator up the rest of the way.
Eiffel Tower
I think it was also in the vincinity of the Eiffel Tower where we hung out at Les Tuilleries which was a garden with a pond and fountain in the middle of the pond and in the backdrop you could see the Eiffel Tower. I vaguely remember ducks and a cotton candy cart here but i can't really be sure.
Oops just realised i'm missing pics for Opera Garnier, Tuilleries Garden, Arc de Triomph & Champs Elysee... I really need to put in more effort in scanning more of those 3R photos before their colour fades any further. So much work... *grunts*
I recall walking down Champs Elysee and stopped by Arc de Triomph which was nice with the warm glowy lighting at night. Oh yah i think it was along the way here where we had our only Macs meal cos it was super duper expensive for our student budget.
I think it was one of those days like Monday or something where some places of interest were free cos i remember queuing for a really long time before being let into the Notre Dame Cathedral. And the moment we reached the entrance we were hustled in single file and climbed up this narrow spiral staircase which was neverending. You couldn't quite stop to rest or catch your breath cos it's a continuous stream of visitors in front and behind you and spiral staircases, you know how they are. So up up up and up. We continued all the way up to the topmost part of the cathedral which was the Bell Tower (i'm suddenly recalling Suzanne Vega's song In Liverpool) and took in the axial city planning views of paris while posing next to gargoyles hanging from the sides of the roof deck.
Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris
Hunted down several other buildings by reknowned architects such as Jean Nouvel who designed the Cartier Foundation and Arab Institute, both of which had a common thread in the use of glass. Cartier Foundation, for its sensitivity in respecting the site by not designing something that takes away from the existing street facade (by using glass...) I think what i found delightful were the reflections created in the layering of transparent glass planes interspersed with trees and greenery. Quite poetic.
Cartier Foundation, Paris
As for his other award-winning building, the Arab Institute also was cladded in glass with a curved facade on the street edge and a straight rectangular facade on the side facing a public square. The glass facade had these islamic-motif inspired metalic screens that opened and closed according to the sun's path to allow filtered light into the interior.
Arab Institute, Paris
Richard Roger's Pompidou Centre, the famous building with the escalators running up the main facade which often looked incomplete to many with all the steel structures looking somewhat like scaffolding. During a recent trip to Paris, my colleague's 4 year old son asked him innocently why people were going into that unfinished building ha ha. There was a kinetic installation in water to the side of Pompidou Centre which was quite melodious (i just made up this word didn't i?) to watch.
Pompidou Centre, Paris
American Centre
One of the most memorable things on the trip (considering i didn't make it to Ronchamp) was a pilgrimage up to another of Le Corbusier's works, the La Tourette Monastry which truly was an architectural delight. The monastry. Not the pilgrimage; which by the way was a long arduous uphill climb (okay i'm so exaggerating). Well, it was pretty out of the way i remember. Anyway, i remember the poetry of daylight (for lack of a better phrase if you can somehow soothe the goosebumps off your skin) cast against narrow slits and shafts in the reinforced concrete walls and roof, cold and devoid of finishes, yet evoking a rather powerful presence on the visitor (yes rub those goosebumps away). It's just what i remember actually feeling when i was exploring the spaces in the monastry lah. And then we get to the dorms and i think there was a guide explaining how the design of these dorms were planned down to the very inch of how a monk would use the space, where the bed was, the desk and the entire room was pretty much cold and bare like the stretch of wall he was supposed to face while in meditation. Focus on the emptiness I suppose. Actually up to this point, i'm quite impressed with how much i remember considering i listened to all these almost 10 years ago. I guess the monastry must have left quite a deep architectural impression on me.
La Tourette Monastry
More sketches of La Tourette Monastry in Lyon.
I'm not a very museum and gallery type of person, more of a streets and squares type so i don't recall much of what we saw at The Louvre by IM Pei except that someone cut our queue and was pretty rude when Laiyeow tried to tell him where the queue was and never quite budged. Hmmm why was it called The Louvre again?
The Louvre, Paris
Took a train out of Paris to Marseille (pronounce Mah-Say from what i recall) which was a rather quiet sleepy slightly dirty town to check out Corbu's mass housing project, the Unite'd Habitation (Ooh-nee-tay-dee-hair-bee-tay-shawn, again from my memory). I think it was here where he developed the Le Modular figure proportions and i swear i took a photo next to it, with my left hand raised above my head and all.
Unite'd Habitation, Marseille
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