like i wrote in my Dear City essay, i am forever comparing each new place i visit back to my experience in copenhagen.  i wonder if this is irritating to my friends at home.

11am at 31st x 8th in new york. why are there only 3 people sitting and basking and taking advantage of these sunshine-drunken stairs??? if this was copenhagen, people would be all over that beautiful urban seating like flies on a caramel apple

while waiting for my megabus to boston, i couldn’t help but silently egg on the few lone bikers weaving in and out of the arrogant manhattan car traffic.

much improved! i couldn't believe my eyes when i exited the subway in times square. thanks to janette sadik-khan, the current Commissioner of the NYC Department of Transportation, and her admiration of Copenhagen's bicycle+pedestrian culture, this 'radical' pilot program in times square has finally gotten people strolling and relaxing without fear of becoming roadkill.

i’m working as Dwell‘s online editorial intern for the summer in San Francisco, and my first blogpost was actually about the opening of the High Line in Chelsea/Meatpacking, and all this relatedly good stuff happening in new york.

jackson square/columbus ave near the financial district in san francisco -- a 5 minute promenade from the dwell office. fantastic variety of food choices in the vicinity (italian, thai, chinese, vietnamese, mexican, sandwichy, + more more more) but not enough restful green public spaces to sit and enjoy lunch outdoorsily.

this is the nearest park: the smallish transamerica redwood park filling in and around the base of said building.

after a semester of wanderlusting nomadicness, it’s nice to be sort of anchored for awhile.  i’ll be living in hayes valley soon, and hopefully riding my new pretty bike, courtesy of christine!), but for now, i’m currently settled in san mateo with john for june.  he has just finished U.S. Puzzle Championship, which occurred this morning from 10am-12.30pm.

next week, the Dwell crew will be trekking down to the Dwell on Design 09 conference in LA in two raucous caravans, and i’m so excited.

little did i know what was in store after capriciously buying my $80 EasyJet roundtrip ticket to Milan back in early February.  our first impression after exiting the unbreathably-sardiney metro at Rho: billowingly snakey, glass-net volumes that enveloped the fairgrounds with an overwhelming sense of expectation.

russell, abe, and i wandered around these halls for an entire day (with our eyes re-bulging after turning every corner), but there was just absolutely no way to see everything.  i think what was most overwhelming was the glamour of it all — we were in the middle of what was simply la creme de la creme of the design world, and we were able to touch, sit in, and sprawl over it all.

after studying interior architecture for the bulk of the semester, i found that i was often more fascinated by each store’s overall exhibit and its spatial/emotional effect, rather than the individual pieces themselves.  i probably spent the most time in hall 12, which housed most of the (few, but now expanding) furniture designers i was faimilar with.  in my whirlwind of wanting to retain it all, i just couldnt sketch fast enough, so i was relegated to jotting down soundbyte associations/metaphors for the pavilions that were most memorable to me.

some of the 'big boys' in hall 12

kartell: a celebratory photomontage [celebratory of their 60th anniversary, celebratory of 'diversity']

arkitepo: a purple, webby, atom of biomimicry

thut mobel: ribbons of woody fluorescence…edgy organic!

horm: snowflake tapestries

artek: presumptuous one-liner ["ONE CHAIR IS ENOUGH!" on shigeru ban's 10-unit system]

campeggi: tornado of compressible doghouses

edra: madonna pop-glam

giovanetti: white concrete igloo, laced with flower pods

emeco: another one-liner [this time less exuberant, more one-hit-wonder-esque, with gehry involved]

in and around milan - fritz hansen, 'design virus' at zona tortona, images from salone satellite, various showrooms, and the duomo

but it wasn’t just the fairgrounds at Rho — the entire city turns into a giant festival, with everything going on at zona tortona, the showrooms in and around the center of the city, at the Triennale…  i spent a day at each, and consistently, i was attracted to the smaller, younger exhibitors who were eager to talk to you and connect with you and explain their ideas.  my favorite part of the fair by far was the Salone Satellite, the area all the way at the very back of the fairground by halls in the 20s, where it was so inspiring to see ‘youthful, creative talent’ at its best, and be in awe of students who are the same age as me and have already accomplished so much.

russell and i explore some Ear Chairs at SuperStudio in Zona Tortona. "A group of Ear Chairs facing each other will create a place for private conversation. It is one of two collections Rotterdam-based Studio Makkink & Bey have created for the Dutch firm Prooff"

after three days, all i can say is — i want more.

andrew, roger, and i had an unfair share of obstacles earlier in the weekend — including a roguish debit-card-chomping ATM machine, an 8am mariah carey hostel crisis, and a wandering australian named ben elliot.  but after playing among the rolling green hills like our adopted animal namesakes, gulping the (hopefully) pristine babbling brook water, and one ice cream cone with chocolate flake, these worries were all but forgotten.

andrew leads the pack on our 10 km loop

every old civilization seems to have a roundtower… Glendalough was once a monastery, and now the gravestones sit all angley and look as if some of the dead became chummy friends and some didnt

guide description: 'you might be able to catch a glimpse of feral goats on the miner's trail....'

roger looks

back in dublin city - the spire, which does not serve any real purpose other than 'being the tallest sculpture in the world.' it claims to be a symbol for urban revitalization. yet it's not even a monument saluting some profound historical achievement, but a seemingly blank icon, erected solely for the purpose of being an icon. successful dublin branding? donno...

ben and i have a pensive moment on one of my favorite parts of dublin: the palette of bridges that span the river liffey. each one is different, and makes for exciting 'just around the riverbend!' singsongy thoughts.

to me, dublin had its fine points (fiercely exciting historical stories, a few nice greens spaces, guinness, the best live street music i’ve ever heard), but it also had distinct sour spots (a river so polluted i could not see my reflection in it, temple bar’s uncanny likeness to an american frat party, heroin junkies sprawled on every other bench, a building color scheme of blacks and browns).  overall, it just couldn’t hold a candle to copenhagen’s charm.

it’s been quite exhilarating to be flying off to a new city every weekend, but a part of me just wants to stay put in copenhagen now.  with the lovely sun and my lovely bike, and with only three weeks left to this danish shebang of a semester, my desire to be continually jetsettery has waned some.

but!

not before Design Week at the Salone Internazionale in Milan this weekend =)

another reason (and probably most importantly) why i adore copenhagen 1 googolplex times more now than i did before the three-week spring break:  Elijah Lake.

Elijah Lake is my new darling on two wheels from Baisikeli [= bicycle in swahili; 'the best bike rental for the world', 'rent a bike and help us send bikes to Africa'] — he is 11 days old, shiny black with a single piece of green tape, basketless, and beautiful.  my relationship with Elijah has been absolutely amazing so far, and i don’t see the honeymoon period ending anytime soon.

Copenhagen is lovingly known as the cycling capital of the world.  ogsa, Roger named his bike Ursula so I think Elijah Lake is pretty good, comparatively.

several memorable trips over the virginal week:

1. biking to school every morning and breathing in a gallon of freshness everytime the lakes come into view
2. biking to frederiksberg plads, walking around copenhagen business school + the faculty of life sciences at univ of copenhagen, sniffing and learning about trees, and searching for that elusive 2 hot dogs for 24 kroner deal at 7-11
3. biking past the 16 football fields in Amager [yet another development by B.I.G.] on the way to the beach at Amager Strand for a picnic on thursday, and hiding among the sand dunes for shelter
4. biking to the boardwalk on Islands Brygge on friday and, yes, having another picnic.

along islands brygge: with fresh french bread, pepper salami, creme fraiche, wine, and a box of strawberries

a baby swan came over to philipp to honk hello

]]> http://ytiffanie.wordpress.com/2009/04/21/longer-lighter-later/feed/ 1 ytiffanie islands-brygge1 philipp1 http://ytiffanie.wordpress.com/2009/04/11/mosque/ http://ytiffanie.wordpress.com/2009/04/11/mosque/#comments Sat, 11 Apr 2009 12:14:12 +0000 ytiffanie http://ytiffanie.wordpress.com/?p=555 ]]> i had never been in a mosque before this week.  at sunset on tuesday, after tea + hookah with the turkish students, we explored this hilly area in beyoğlu, on the european side of istanbul, north of the golden horn harbor.  in our typical itinerant style, roger and i stumbled around for a bit…and ended up in this mosque [it was bound to happen in a city of 3000 of them]

a welcoming nod from an elderly local was all we needed — we creaked open the heavy stone door, took off our shoes, and tiptoed onto the soft [and somehow luscious?] green carpet.  my thoughts, from a highly non-divine perspective:

-there is something about the physical feeling of carpet being gingerly squished underneath toes that conjures in me a feeling of protection and homeyness.

-mosque architecture – the space underneath the domed roof, the bright colors of the walls, the absence of statures/figures/icons, and others praying in silence – gives me an incredible sense of serenity.

-this physical feeling + spiritual feeling added together makes me want to duck inside every single mosque i pass here in istanbul. [there are many.]

-however, it is not unaccompanied by an unbalancing feeling of ignorant unfamiliarity…what do i do with my hands?  how should i sit?  is my uncovered head disrespectful?  should i try to pray along with everyone else?

praying at the windows of the blue mosque

inside the hagia sophia, now a museum (thanks to ataturk)

being in istanbul and seeing all of the layers of christianity/islam, old/new, east/west, this/that all piled on top of each other, shaken around, and expected to play nicely together throughout the course of history has opened up my spirituality perspective a great deal.  at this point in my life, i don’t think i want to be a fully religious person, but i want to experience other religions.  i want to see what they see, feel what they feel…without commitment, without a lasting label, just to get a tasty learning morsel without being forced to call it my own.  i realized that this mentality is how i deal with many things — major of study, scheduling too many appointments, dating habits, menu choices…

is this selfish?

hagia sophia and the blue mosque - they face each other as peers, but while blue has six minarets to sophia's four, she is a millennium older

patriarchal cathedral church of st. george (pronounced 'Yorgi') - the worldwide headquarters of the Greek Orthodox Church. a rather unassuming building from the outside, but definitely makes up for it in splendor and interior gildedness

looking up and listening to the entire history of christianity at this (one of many) church-turned-mosque

amsterdam's got nothin on turkey's tulips

how many abandoned cats do you see here at the topkapi palace? (hint: you may or may not be able to count them on one hand.) it was said that while obama was in istanbul on tuesday (during which all of the roads were closed, forcing us to change our schedule around his), he pet a cross-eyed cat. i may have pet the same cat that obama did.

after riding a ferry from the european side....sunset greets us on asia minor, while looking out from the anatolian side

Stortorget ('large square' and the oldest one in stockholm) - see the little iceberg?

view of gamla stan from sodermalm, 'the southern isle' -- like venice?

laura, russell, steve, and i proudly display our gamla stan models on the day of review, week 2 of the semester

the fishermen’s alleyways, tyska brunnsplan, jarntorget, mårten trotzigs gränd [the narrowest alley at only 90 cm wide!] were almost exactly how i imagined them.  i was amazed at the topography of the island [being in flat denmark for 2 months has made every molehill into a huffing mountain] — how it made a huge impact on the way we walked up to the square, and the way we experienced discovering all of its narrow crannies appendaging from it.

martin trotzigs grand, the narrowest alleyway in all of stockholm

a part of me wished there was more…life?  and not just the touristy streets on västerlånggatan.  in fact, gamla stan really is all touristy =\

also, by poking my nose into an old swedish church, i got stuck inside during a sunday service and couldn’t leave.  i had to peer over at the boy sitting next to me constantly to see what song page we were on…and then sing accordingly in swedish.  being that i do not understand swedish, i wasn’t forced to listen to what was being preached at me, but only had to enjoy the space and the music.  it was wonderful!

or like a bunch of eager beaver architecture students on the quest for alvar aalto’s experimental summer house…

we trekked across a frozen lake in central finland last week.

in muuratsalo, an incredible expanse of flat, sparkling whiteness

we each soon figured out our individually preferred method of snow travel:

1. the sszwee! of sliding speedily+dangerously across icy patches,

2. the crample crample of crunching/trampling on softer, safer snow pockets, or

3. the chomp…plop, chomp…plop of standing elevated on top of several inches, and then (embarassingly) sinking down, two seconds after each step.

we climbed up to a small promontory where the house was supposedly perched — and at first, we didnt see it.  the outside-facing brick walls were painted white, which camouflaged very well with the surrounding winter landscape.  standing from inside the courtyard, these massive walls framed a perfect view of the lake.

summer view, winter view, lake view

and behind the house was the sauna*, quite the cornerstone of finnish culture.

hands down, it was the best surprise of the entire week.

more aalto delights + nature-inspired details

auditorium on jyväskylä campus

look at the butterfly trusses exaggerated, but beautiful that hold up the ceiling of the city council chamber)

when you see leather-wrapped door handles inviting you in, you know it can't be anyone but aalto (säynätsalo town hall)

finnish octogenarians on cross country skis whizzed by us on the frozen lake

cattails and me

• * sauna = sweat out every globule of moisture from your pores while baking the scorching heated room.  add more water onto the hot coals, producing copious amounts of steam.  when you can breathe no longer, take a deep breath and stampede out of the sauna, into the negative 10 degrees celsius outside air, down the icy neck-breaking flight of stairs, and plummet your battered body into the frigid lake.  repeat as many times as needed.

what impressed me:

• very cute minimalist branding [black + white + darling red star amidst a sea of hip lowercase sans serif letters]
• equally delightful interior design [sleek wooden tables, canteen-style seating, open kitchen plan, fun white webby balls surrounding the light fixtures]
• the small, useful glossary of japanese culinary terms on the side of the menu.  and the attractive graphics of the placemat settings.

what made me roll my eyes:

• how wagamama tries to brand itself with a number of ‘features’ that are really not special at all.  the waitresses say, ‘welcome to wagamama, have you been here before? oh, no?  well then!  at wagamama, we want to ensure the freshness of your food, so it is served once it is cooked — meaning some dishes may arrive before others! enjoy the wagamama experience!’  how does that constitute an experience?!  i feel like this happens all the time…
• on their menu: ‘side dishes – these are not starters but the perfect complement to your meal’ — why cant you order side dishes for the sake of ordering side dishes?  if wagamama is truly based on the noodle bars that have been popular in asia for centuries, you should be able to eat just edamame as a roadside snack!
• the diction that the menu uses to describe the dishes is so painstaking and annoyingly detailed –  it seems like they are adding such exotic, diverse ingredients [i.e.  topped with seasonal greens, sliced marinated pods of asian mushroom, embellishly garnished with a garden-fresh springlike spriggy sprig of slightly fucking yellow-green tinted onion, etc.] ….where in actuality all of these things are already expected to be in the most basic of ramens.
• food quality = ordinary.

wagamama probably has the worst, most asymmetrical restaurant environment : satisfaction ratio i have ever experienced.

is studio really the best-designed environment for design?
 

what makes doing your design work in studio better than, say, in your nicely-decorated dorm room?  or the buzzy woodshop?  or one big round table with lots of seats?  or smaller, more focused conference-esque rooms?

at MIT, maybe it’s those rolling pin-uppy dividers that make it so conducive to sharing ideas.  i love walking around and admiring other people’s creativity when i’m stuck.  or maybe it’s the communalness of it all — our generous materials sharing [/mild pilfering] habits, the food table, the fridge…  or the expectation for course 4 kids to always be in studio creates an automatic sense of gathering and livability, and it becomes comforting to know that there will always be someone there if you need inspiration.

here at DIS, it’s been a little different.  our project is an exhibition space in Rundetårn [the round tower], and the smaller scale makes me feel closer to my project, knowing that what i design coulllld potentially be constructed.  interior architecture itself claims to ‘solve the meeting between architecture + individuals!’, and seems to be more about a story and some kind of feel-good humanistic journey.  and i think that’s what i love most — creating the narrative, the back story behind an experience.

but i don’t spend half as much time sitting in studio in denmark, and i wonder why.  even though there are similar amounts of design thinking to be done this semester [notice i did not say work, because that to me is all too wrapped up in the idea of production], i don’t feel as inspired at my desk.  instead, i feel inspired when i am walking around copenhagen, at museum exhibits, at the black diamond, the danish architecture center.

(i guess i didnt really answer the first question, but here’s another question anyway…one that might be worm-canny)

why is it that ‘studio’ disappears after college and grad school?  why is there not more of a studio culture in professional architecture firms?  why oh why is the education so different from the profession?

archibabble updates from michelle + jon’s ‘This Week in AD and CPH!’:

last week:  liminal spatial exchange.

this week: replace the word effect with Affect to achieve more active presences in your building; be sure to over-pronounce/capitalize the A (depending on if the term is being spoken or written).

lamb + goat cheese sandwiches, red wine, and chocolate creme cookies.  thank you KLM.

i will mention that after this bottle, two more magically came along

we emerged from the danky depths of the metro (‘renfre’) and slowly rose to the level of Passeig de Gracia. a breathtaking [and slightly wobbly, due to airplane wine] vision of wide, tree-lined avenue warmth! i took my jacket and socks off and twirled around. we were definitely not in denmark anymore…

after roger and i meandered around a couple more Eixample streets [that widen at intersections and have cut-off corners, making an octagon-type shape that sort of 'celebrates' the intersection and also forces pedestrians to skooch off to the right side if they want to cross], we ended the night with tapas [grilled garlic cod, bread topped with tomatoes, + another delectable fishy dish], and of course, sangria.

saturday = feet day.

what a surprise to find that our hostel was twenty skips away from gaudi’s Casa Batlló!

casa battlo : visceral, organic, skeletal, modernisme...and perhaps a little reptilian

roger insisted on galloping all the way to Plaça d’Espanya so he could sign in for the marathon and snatch a highly-coveted size S t-shirt.  at the runner’s expo, i felt extremely vigorous and athletic by association.  another vigorous-looking person even gave me a powerbar sample.

a premature victory lap

we walked all the way back towards catalunya, and encountered many fascinating affairs along the way:  two raucous food markets, pleasant triangular garden plots punctuated by playgrounds, a bird woman cuddling up to and whispering to a fine-feathered friend.  and countless ‘street entertainers’ drowning in spray paint — such as the jilted goth bride with raven, the ever-popular gold metallic winged Maleficent, and leafy fruit tree woman.  initially shocked and soon bored, roger refused to look at them after about two blocks, and adopted a no-peripheral vision policy along La Rambla.  (which may have been a factor in the near-successful pickpocketing of my eyelash curler in my backpack the following night.)

it was soon evident that roger and i were captivated by different things.  i, by alluringly cheap spanish clothing vendors, narrow, laundry-laden alleyways, and any waft of paella; and roger, by spiral earring spacers, curiosity shops, and the puzzling photographs and life stories of argentinian nomads.  it worked well together.

sunday = ISFP day.  [introverted sensing feeling perceiving]

roger ran a marathon while i snoozed at the hostel.  he also wrote me an excessive note of what i was supposed pack and bring for him at the end of his run.  among the items listed: socks, shoes, new cardigan, 2 oranges, my brain, and a sunny disposition.

i expected nothing less

we went our separate ways in the afternoon. i went to the MACBA (museu d’art contemporani de barcelona) — and when i turned the corner and saw massive planes of glass and overwhelming whiteness, i thought to myself, why hello mister Richard Meier.

other places of note: Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, the Montjuïc area, mies van de rohe’s barcelona pavilion!, parc joan miro, the old city/ciutat vella: el raval, barri gotic regions — the most perfect street layout for ‘discovery-making’ that i have ever experienced.

monday = power day.

7.30am wake up. 8.00 breakfast. 8.30 leave hostel. 9.00 la pedrera. 10.00 leave for parc guell. 10.30 walk steep path to parc guell. 11.00 sit/people-watch amongst the teacups. 12.00 play in parc. 12.30 leave to gather belongings from hostel. 1.00 get on the wrong renfre away from the airport. 1.30 fix our mistake, get on the correct renfre, scamper to the airport. 2.00 check in for flight. 3.00 drink wine and fly away back to copenhagen.

the weekend in more pictures:

mercat de san antoni

street 'entertainers' along la rambla

laundry = life, activity, and community, and one of the most subconsciously pleasant sights for humans

mies van der rohe - from 4.205 to real life

la pedrera/casa mila in the morning light

playing in parc guell. (which included careful observation of the various power symbols of tour group leaders. personal favorites: pinwheel wand, long metal back scratcher, mickey mouse baton.)

making discoveries

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