Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein. this is freaking incredible in person. it is polished to be so smooth and the window detail makes the entire facade completely flat. it almost disappears into the sky.
I sit on a stool. I draw and drink coke.
yeah, ok. delightful.
architecture is my life.
here for chronological posts of the big things :: Amsterdam and Rotterdam : MILAN : Aachen 2 and Maastricht : Münster : Liechtenstein and Switzerland : Aachen 1
from liechtenstein
inside the Parliament Building. I had to get special permission and a trip through a metal detector to get inside the main room but I did! the entire building was shaped like a big triangle. I have a photograph of the interior of the main room but I was instructed not to include any of the people (since they were actually having a government meeting when I went in) so it’s not so good.
famous Vaduz Castle
prisms. I am obsessed with these in particular.
Liechtenstein in person
the main reason for our trip was a client meeting for D and J in Liechtenstein. while D, J and MF met with the client I got to walk around downtown Vaduz (the capital of Liechtenstein). I did some wiki-research on Liechtenstein and Vaduz so that I would be at least a little familiar with the area and also to get a map so I wouldn’t get lost in Vaduz. little did I know that getting lost there was not going to happen.
Liechtenstein is the smallest country that speaks German and is, I think, the third smallest country in the world. it is fifteen miles long. yeah.
apparently it is pretty awesome financially though. there are more businesses in Liechtenstein than there are citizens. Vaduz itself is pretty small but it is very colorful and beautiful. the really incredible thing about Liechtenstein and the area around it is how mountainous it is. you can’t see the horizon there. but you can see big beautiful green and snow capped mountains. it is unreal.
the only building I knew to look for in Vaduz was the Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein (which was designed by Meinrad Morger, Heinrich Degelo and Christian Kerez). other than going to see that, I basically just set out from the drop off point to wander around. I saw a lot of neat stuff including the Government Building, the Parliament Building, lots of beautiful buildings that I don’t know the name of and the Vaduz Castle (where the reigning Prince lives!) from very far away. I didn’t realize that you could walk up to it until we were almost leaving for Switzerland.
after I walked around pretty much the entirety of the downtown area I walked up a “big” hill and got to see some of Liechtenstein with the mountains all around. you forget that you are surrounded by +2500 meter high mountains when you are walking around on the street level.
it was a gorgeous day and I actually got a lot of sun. but no burn. miraculous.
driving
driving out on the road with D and J was an absolute blast. we played the radio and talked and had a lot of fun.
on the way to Liechtenstein we saw a bunch of giant windmills and as we got closer and closer to Vaduz we went through more and more of these very cool tunnels. I didn’t get a good photograph of them but they were very cool. J even told me this story about a butter truck that was driving through a big long tunnel that crashed with another car and spilt butter all over the place. the tunnel acted like an oven with the burning butter car wreck and a lot of people were trapped! alarming. every time we went through a tunnel I held my breath.
I also learned that Mies was born in Aachen. more research to come on this.
on windmills
J: will you buy me one for my birthday?
D: um, no.
get ready
I have a lot to catch you up on. since we went to so many different and amazing places, I am going to try a series of blog entries and also photos highlighting the various parts of my trip.
short summary:
- seven hour drive to Liechtenstein
- walk around Liechtenstein and visit modern art exhibit
- two hour drive to Luzern to see Jean Nouvel’s Luzern concert hall, Calatrava’s train station and have lovely dinner on the water
- one hour drive to Langenthal (where MF lives and where our Swiss office is)
- stay overnight
- morning visit to active villa construction site
- work with MF at office
- 2:30pm. begin seven hour drive back to Koln
- stop in Weil am Rhein to see architectural Mecca at Vitra campus
- arrive at home to guests!
whew! there are links for photographs of each leg of my trip. do it.
excuses:
I promise to write a lot about my incredible road trip to Liechtenstein and Switzerland with D and J.
- I wasn’t able to use the internet hardly at all during our traveling
- once we got back I am lucky enough to have a friend from the GT architecture program and his wife visiting me
they are traveling all over Europe for over fifty days and just stopping in Koln for a few. last night we went out for traditional Kolsch beer and had a grand old time talking about architecture and the things they have seen. they are so adventurous! they are even couch surfing and haven’t paid for a single hotel since they got moving nearly three weeks ago. amazing!
- we are in the middle of crunch time getting ready to submit for a competition so I am even working all this weekend
but don’t worry. over 200 photographs are coming your way. and they are phenomenal. I am hoping to have some time (hopefully several hours!) to blog some tonight. cross your fingers!
