When I initially planned to go to Switzerland it was for the architecture that I wanted to see, but what I didn’t take into account was how beautiful the Alps would be. Part of me feeling this way was probably because I imagined nothing else I would see on this study abroad could compare to Sweden. I was wrong, the Alps were gorgeous. The little villages that were spread out throughout the Alps were very quaint, beautiful, self-sufficient little towns.
I traveled with three other grad students. We woke up Thursday and went to the airport to pick up our rent-a-car. It was a four-door, manual, small Fiat, which ended up being a nice ride. Thank God we paid the extra money for a Tom Tom. We would have been lost without it. We started our drive north, through Bologna, to Milan where we stopped and checked out a Fuksas project, which was pretty cool. Then we continued north into the Alps. Our first stop was Vals, Switzerland, which was in the middle of the Alps. The route had snowy hairpin turns with giant cliffs off the side, with wood guardrails. It was pretty nerve-racking.
We finally got to Vals and checked in our hotel and went to the Thermal Baths by Zumthor. The baths (warm swimming pools) were great. The spaces Zumthor created were nice. There was a hot bath, warm bath, German bath (and I intentionally did not go near this one for good reason), steam bath, cold bath, scented bath, and a warm outdoor bath. The views he set up to the Alps were great as well. That night, the baths were open from 10:30 to 12:00. I went to the outdoor pool and relaxed; saw a couple shooting stars and the big dipper in a sky that was black. I felt like I was pretty close to them being on top of the Alps.
The following day, we spent the morning at the baths and then packed up and drove to Sumvitg, Switzerland. This was even further in the middle of the Alps. Old, weathered, log cabins were scattered around the mountainside. It is the location of another great Zumthor project that is now one of my favorite pieces of architecture, a church built for the town San Beneditg.
Light, material, craft, smell of the wood, and the apparent value of labor allows the everyday inhabitant to transcend his architecture and find a deeper meaning within it. In this piece of architecture, Zumthor puts the craftsman on the spot. Every saw cut and nail will be seen. The intentionality of making the space rougher and more related to the construction techniques of the local people, when compared to the baths, shows the flexibility of Zumthor to adapt to certain programs and places.
When we left it was my turn to drive. It was a lot of fun, but one mistake and we were off the side of a cliff. I thought I knew a shortcut, but the road we took was blocked because of snow, so we had to turn around and go the long way.
On the way to Basel, we attempted to stop in Zurich to quickly check it out, but got stuck in a traffic jam for two hours. No luck. Then we got to Basel and crashed at the hostel. Hostels are cheap places for young backpackers to stay. You basically pay for a bed, rather than a room. This hostel was 20 euros a night for a 10 bed room, meaning 9 other people in the room, with shared bathrooms and showers. Luckily, no one else was in the room that the group of us was in.
Saturday morning, we drove into France and checked out Notre-Dame Cathedral in Ronchamp, France. This is a must see for any architect that is in the area. It was pretty cool. I liked the lighting effects and the lightness of the church for actually how massive it looks. The outdoor area for service was something I never knew about. After Ronchamp, I drove through back through France to Vitra, Germany. This place has a work by Zaha Hadid, Tadao Ando, Frank Gehry, Herzog de Meuron, a Bucky Fuller dome, Nicholas Grimshaw. A lot of architecture. Zaha and Ando were my favorite.
When we showed up in Basel that night there were people lined up on the streets cheering for people of all ages running. Some kind of 5k or 10k. But people were going crazy for these runners. It created a great, live atmosphere. The city was nice, it had a lot of young people because of the university.
In Switzerland they use Swiss Francs rather than euros. In Basel they had some pretty amazing bratwursts. They hit the spot. They don’t put them on buns, but they give you a piece of bread with Dijon mustard on it. So you eat the brat and then take a bite of the bread.
Sunday we woke up and walked around downtown looking at HDM buildings and we walked through the markets. Then drove back to Florence and arrived that night at 10:30.
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