Scandinavian Odyssey, Part 5

waterside home in Sweden

We got a very early taxi from our hotel on Friday, July 22, to take us to the Ferry Terminal.  Our 12 hour ferry ride started at 7AM, Stockholm time, and was aboard the Silja Europa, which was just as outfitted as any cruise ship we might expect to see - with a pool, multiple restaurants, shops, etc.  The only difference is this "cruise ship" makes 2 12-hour trips back and forth from Stockholm to Turku, Finland each day.

a boat, out for a peaceful sail, as we approached Turku.

When we got to our cabin, it was still messy from the night's boarders, but once we returned from our breakfast (at the very classy Maxim's a la Carte), it was ready for us to spend the day there, sitting by the small bay window, looking out at the passing ships and coastal homes, and snoozing on the two twin beds.  We also managed a trip to the duty free shop (of course) and a walk around the lido deck.
            We arrived in Turku, hot, tired and a little grumpy (at least I was, which means mom was too because she had to deal with a grumpy travel mate).  Around 9pm, we took a short walk in the area around our hotel and realized that there was no place to get food without waiting, so we got a little sandwich for dinner at the hotel and put our grumpy selves to bed.

Saturday market, with our hotel, the Hamburger-Bohrs
in the background.

            The next day started with so much promise.  When we woke, there was a great market set up in the square outside of our hotel.  We bought some fresh berries and cardamom bread and marveled at the green beans the size of our fingers.  It was raining on and off, but it was hot so the rain felt good.  Later in the morning, we thought it was time to go pick up our rental car (which was reserved for after 10AM).  Little did we know that the custom in small town Finnish rental car agencies is to only have the car available to you for one hour after your reserved time.  Since it was Saturday, the rental agency was closed by the time we got there, after 11AM.  We walked to the train station for help, then across town to the tourist info office, and had just about given up all hope of getting our car, or ever getting out of Turku.  However, one final trip to the rental agency was fruitful, since someone else had reserved a car for the afternoon and we happened upon the office, once again open for that other guy.  Victorious, we picked up our car and drove it the few blocks back to the hotel parking lot.

Lace maker at Luostarinmaki

            That afternoon, we snuck in and out of rainstorms at the Luostarinmaki Handicrafts Museum.  This was not the traditional museum we expected to see, but rather a preserved village in the heart of Turku, each building of which has been assigned a certain craft.  We had a private English-speaking tour with a very cute guide named Elizabeth from Austria.   We got to see a few artisans making lace, printing, making pottery, etc.

Turku Cathedral

            The next morning, in our rental car, we pulled away from Turku, but not before making a stop to see the Turku Cathedral.  There was a service going on, so we didn't get to see the sanctuary up close, but we enjoyed standing in the entrance hall for a while and listening to the beautiful singing.  On the outside, the cathedral looks rather primitive (it is over 700 years old) and a little shabby from being rebuilt many times, but inside it was clean, impressive, and almost modern in its simplicity.

Alvar Aalto's Sanatorium.

            On the road for real this time, we headed out to the Paimio Hospital, completed in 1932 as a Sanatorium, designed by Alvar Aalto.  There were no tours offered on a Sunday, but we enjoyed walking around the outside of the building and we weren't alone - what seemed to be a group of architecture students were scattered about, sketching the hospital.  The secluded, wooded spot was very serene, matching the simplicity of the white architecture, with shocks of color from some orange and green awnings, and some vivid flower beds.
           We made a great stop on the highway at a place called Design Hill, which was a veritable outlet of all of the best Finnish design.  We enjoyed a rather classy lunch of paninis, and dipped into our wallets to buy some Aarika jewelry.

Rya Rug couch, at Hvittrask

            We pulled in to Hvittrask just before 3pm, which was lucky because that was the time that the last English speaking tour of the day started.  We loved seeing Eliel Saarinen (and his two partners') home and hearing all of the stories of his love and life.  Rya rugs and some great wood detailing - a really homey, yet inspiring stop for this architect-to-be.

a wonderful selection
of Marimekko mailers,
at the post office in Espoo.

             There isn't much interesting to say about our hotel or dinner that night - it was a Sunday and we were still outside of Helsinki, which means nothing of note was open.  A stay at another Scandic hotel and a Chinese dinner got us through the night, anyway.  But we did do a little shopping in Tapiola Gardens the following morning.

The Gallen-Kallela museum.

            On Monday, we were off for our final drive of the trip, toward Helsinki.  First, we stopped at the Gallen-Kallela museum, the home of Finnish artist Akseli Gallen-Kallela.  The house was nice and quiet, with a great tower that seemed to keep on going, room upon room.  I especially liked the big dining room and the paintings there, including a portrait of Gustav Mahler.
            One more stop before the hotel - in search of the store where mom got her Rya Rug pattern 35 (or so) years ago.  Her pattern has now faded so she needs a new copy, but unfortunately, the store was closed for a week's vacation that coincided with our visit.  What bad luck!
            Anyway, we had arrived in Helsinki, for the final leg of our trip.

if you would like to see more of my pictures, you can check them out here.

Scandinavian Odyssey, Part 4

the view from our hotel room at
the Radisson Blu Strand

            We drove into Stockholm on Monday, July 18, both helped and hindered by the GPS.  And thanks to our GPS, we got a little extra tour of the city, although we were too stressed (i.e. lost) to enjoy it.  We finally located our hotel and our spectacular room: the only room on the 8th floor (the bottom of a 3 floor tower, each floor only having one room).  After dropping off the car at the rental shop, we spent the rest of the day shopping and trying to avoid small rain storms.

An old house at Skansen with a great harvest
of Lilies.  

            The second day in Stockholm was a little more tourist-y; we walked over to the Djurgarden, with the intention of visiting Juribachen, the Astrid Lindgren theme park, but one quick look at the child-infested ticket line convinced us to spend our time elsewhere.  We ended up at the Nordic Museum, where we enjoyed exhibits of Nordic folk art, textiles, and the history of local interior design through the decades.  After that, we were off to Skansen, which mom had fond 35-year-old memories of, which turned out to be mostly false.  It ended up being a little too commercial for our tastes - more outdoor rock concerts than historical reenactments.

Mom, enjoying our boat ride on a perfect, sunny afternoon.

             Daunted by the prospect of having to walk all the way back to the hotel, we braved the ferry crowds and were rewarded with a very pleasant ride around the harbor.

Long hallway at the Stockholm Palace,
recognizably inspired by Versailles'
Hall of Mirrors.  

            The third day in Stockholm started on Gamlastan (the old town).  We spent a few minutes in the Stockholm Cathedral before taking a tour of the royal apartments in the Palace.  Some very impressive rooms, though nothing that made us too jealous of the royals.  We put off our lunch again and again in favor of shopping with the rest of the world, first in the Dalarna horse "museum," then some Norwegian sweater stores, then Scandinavian design stores, and on and on.

The Blue Hall at the Stadshuset.

            After our late lunch, we made our way over to the Stadshuset, and snuck in on the last tour of the day.  The impressive statehouse, built from 1911-1923, was designed by Ragnar Ostberg for the competition which took place in 1907, but some aspects of its design made it seem a lot more recent than that.  The most famous room is probably the Blue Hall (which was meant to be painted blue, but Ostberg decided he liked the color of the bricks just fine), where the annual banquet takes place after the Nobel prizes are awarded.  It was designed to emulate an Italian piazza.  Once our tour had ended, and we went through a little more afternoon shopping, we ended up having dinner outdoors in the Kingsgarden, while listening to a free concert.

We got back to the hotel early that night, and were rewarded with a great sunset view of some hot air balloons touring the city.

            Our final day in Stockholm was a little rainy, but we had kept our indoor stuff for that day, so it didn't matter too much.  We headed over to the island of Skeppsholmen, where the Modern Museum and  Architecture Museum are located.  The Architecture museum had a great exhibit on the history of living standards (apartment sizes and accommodations, etc.) for Swedish families.

Tatlin's Monument . . .

            At the Modern Museum, we enjoyed an extensive exhibit on the Swedish drawer/painter/clothing designer, Siri Derkert.  In another room I recognized Vladimir Tatlin's Monument to the Third International, which I had learned about in my Arch. History class.

Stockholm Stadbibliotek

           Later that afternoon, we braved the Stockholm bus line for a trip to Gunnar Asplund's Stockholm Stadbibliotek (public library, completed in 1931).  I suspect that Mom was a little unsure that this modern building would really be worth the bus trip, but I think that she was quickly convinced that it was.  We even enjoyed poking around in the stacks, and looked through a great picture book of the Swedish countryside.

At the Saluhall

            We made a stop at the Ostermalm's Saluhall for a small snack and a pear cider (my new favorite drink), before heading back to the hotel, where we had an early dinner and spent the rest of the night packing.  The next day we would be off to Finland!

If you would like to see more pictures from our time in Sweden, you can check out my facebook album here.

Meet Brad, from AutoCAD

            So after that (mini) flurry of posts about my trip, I've been on hiatus from blogging, because I was doing what the name of this blog implies: going to architecture school.  Yes, I started this past Monday.  Although classes and the semester don't officially start until Monday, August 22, all the 3 year Master of Architecture students have to do a 2 week "boot camp" program to get going/get on the same page/get the lead out, etc.
            It's been a very busy 4 days so far, and it already feels luxurious to be leaving the studio before 8:30 pm, or get home by 9 to have a microwave dinner out of a bag before settling in to a few more hours of computer work.  The work is hard, but my classmates seem like fun people so far.  And I'm super thankful that those students who studied architecture in undergrad are very willing to help little old me figure out some of these dang computer programs (new fangled machines!).
             It will be too complex to attempt to tell you what kind of assignments we've been doing, but I will tell you that I've spent the last 2.5 days or so poring over AutoCAD.  And here is the latest fruit of my labor:  I unknowingly created a little soldier man.  I doubt he is what the professors had in mind when they gave us this assignment, but I like him, and I think he will be my new mascot.
I like to call him AutoCAD Brad.

Scandinavian Odyssey, Part 3

the main house at Starnsjunds Slott

We left Jonkoping, Sweden early on a Saturday morning to drive ~400 kilometers NNE to Falun.  We made a few unexpected but very welcome stops along the way.  The first was at Starnsjunds Slott (slott is the Swedish word for mansion/manor).  It was a beautiful estate, on a hill on a bit of a peninsula, so there were views of the water all around.  We had a lovely buffet lunch in the cafe there, then attempted to take a tour, but no English tour was leaving for another hour and we still had a lot of driving to do.

             So back on the road, we were making some more good time, until we spied an IKEA from the highway, and had to make another quick stop.  We learned that Swedish Ikeas are really exactly the same as the ones in America, with the slight exception that the signs were completely un-understandable, as opposed to only being half understandable at home.

an old building (now restaurant),
by the river in Falun

             We finally made it to Falun, which was a very cute town but surprisingly dead for a Saturday night.  We mourned the fact that there was a whole Dalarna Horse museum that we could not visit because again we would have to get on the road early-ish in the morning.

this sign taunted us from the outside of the
Dalarna Horse Museum in Falun

an idyllic scene, in the town of Sundborn

            Our big excursion for the next day was up to Sundborn, where Carl Larsson's house is.  We got there just in time for an English-speaking tour, led by one of Larsson's great-great-grandchildren.  The house was darling on the inside, decorated with all kinds of colors and patterns, very similar to my own decorating style.  Unfortunately we were not allowed to take pictures inside, so a few from the outside will have to suffice here.

the front of the Carl Larsson house, where it looks like Christmas all year long.

            We followed up our Carl Larsson excursion with an overnight in our final small(ish)-town in Sweden, Vasteras.  If we had thought that Falun was dead on a Saturday night, then Vasteras showed us that Sunday nights can be even deader.  We walked around the town in search of an open restaurant, and ended up back at the one in the hotel.  We did see and read a lot of things that made us want to stick around the next day to explore Vasteras while things were open, however the following morning was rainy, and we just didn't have the strength.

great sculpture in the square in front of our hotel, in Vasteras:
workers biking to their jobs.

If you would like to see the rest of my pictures from these small towns in Sweden, please click here.  On to Stockholm!  

Scandinavian Odyssey, Part 2

mom with our favorite statue in Boras, visible from our hotel room window: the man in the river.

After leaving Copenhagen, my mom and I took a quick, smooth train ride to Malmo, Sweden, to begin the Swedish leg of our trip.  Malmo looked like a great town, but unfortunately we didn't get to explore it.  Instead we picked up our rental car at the nearby Avis office, and headed north to Boras, Sweden.  Boras was an adorable town.  Cobblestone streets, a river running lazily through the middle of the town, and there was a wonderful display of sculptures everywhere over the town.  In spite of a rainy visit, we enjoyed walking around finding some of these sculptures:

stone seats in the town square - from the display a few years ago, but so loved
by the locals that they got together to buy the seats.  They double as a sundial. 

very cute statue of a little boy in his rain suit.

me and some bunny

mom, trying to get the best
picture of the model factory.

The reason for our visit to Boras was to tour the Textile Museum, which is in an old textile factory, as Boras used to be a major hub of the Swedish textile industry.  We enjoyed a practically-hands-on tour of some of the machines in the museum, including a machine that made socks (note: they are auto-sewn with 2 heels; one becomes the toe and the other remains a heel).  Our favorite part of the museum wasn't a machine at all, however, but the dollhouse-type model of the old working factory, with the entire top floor visible, and full of wooden people constructing blazers.  

factory workers, hard at it.

Another thing we liked at the textile museum was the display of the local art university's graduates' final projects.  Some great and some crazy designs including wallpaper, fashion, fabrics, rugs, and more.

an oriental inspired rug, but if you look closely, you'll see this one
has guns and boom-boxes incorporated into the pattern.

clotheslines filled with this senior's beautiful, colorful fabrics.  

Great stop, now on to Jonkoping, another very cute, pedestrian-friendly town about in the center of Sweden (east to west) and right at the lower tip of Vattern Lake.  We found out too late that it was right next to Husqvarna, which housed a sewing museum of sorts.  Unfortunately, we couldn't make last-minute plans to visit it because the opening hours did not work with our intense driving schedule for the next day, but we did get to wander around the town.  We walked out to the dock by the lake, which is mostly obscured by a huge breakwater (or something), but there are benches and makeshift steps where people can climb to sit on top of it and enjoy the massive view.  There were few people with a guitar and a harmonica up there while we were wandering around, playing Tom Petty songs in very foreign accents.  

climbing in the breakwater in Jonkoping

We enjoyed a very nice Friday evening in Jonkoping, with perfect weather and rested up for our long drive the next day . . .

Scandinavian Odyssey, part 1

Yes, I've been away from my computer for over a month, but that's not because I didn't have anything Future Architect-worthy going on.  On the contrary, I was out gathering inspiration and experience.  For months, my mom and I had been planning what we were calling a "design tour" of Scandinavia.
            As you know, I am interested in architecture, yes, but if you've spent any time reading my other blog, you also know that I am interested in crafts, sewing, etc., all of which can be inspired by things we would see over there.  I get all that craftiness from my mother.  In the past, she has done lots of projects like needlepoint (some of which she bought over in Scandinavia, when she and my father lived there for a year back in the '70's) as well as weaving a Rya Rug, which we will revisit when I get to talking about the Finnish part of the trip.  Her main interest these days is weaving.  She has a full-sized loom in her home and I have been the happy recipient of many scarves, dish towels, etc. that she has made over the past few years.

            On July 9, my mother and I flew out of Boston over to Copenhagen, making a stop-over in Reykjavik.  Over the 3 weeks following, we toured the city of Copenhagen, some small towns in southern Sweden, Stockholm, a few towns in Finland, and finally ended up in Helsinki.  I got back to Chicago about a week ago and have been very busy with preparations for my architecture program (which starts in 3 days!) but it looks like I'm finally getting around to showing off a bit of what we were up to, out there in the Nordic countries.

just one of many spires we looked up to

Our first major design theme in Copenhagen was the spires on all of the churches and public buildings around the city.  We walked around a lot, especially on the first day, when we couldn't yet get in to our hotel room, and just photographed buildings.  Everywhere we looked, there was a spire worth photographing, and by the end of the visit we got to climb one, at Our Savior's Church, about 400 steps to the top.

Our Savior's Church tower

            It was a cold and rainy day, and the last 100 or so stairs were outside, on metal steps, but we braved it anyway, and the view over the city was well worth it.  I'm not showing it to you here for 2 reasons: 1) no single picture I took satisfied me as being representative of the huge view, and 2) climb the tower your damn self!

Nyhavn, early Sunday morning, without any
of the usual hustle and bustle.

            Another thing I liked a lot about Copenhagen was the Nyhavn area.  It has flourished in spite of its sordid past (yes, it was the red light district once upon a time), and the very clean, simple, bright colors on the buildings are visually interesting, yet calming, even in an area flooded with tourists and people drinking outdoors.  We found ourselves back on this street a number of times: for a wonderful 3 course prix fixe dinner the first night, to enjoy a beer with a friend of a friend who lives in Copenhagen on the second night, then to catch a boat for a tour of the city from the water on our last day there.  Each time we were there, I took many pictures, but the one I put here is my first view of it, when nobody was around and it felt like ours alone.

Future Architect Wicky, with matching elephant.

            On display through the end of August, there is an "elephant parade" in Copenhagen.  At the end of the "parade" all of the elephants will be auctioned off for charity.  Now, I've always thought that displays like these in many different cities were a little kitschy, but I must admit that being a tourist and getting to see these guys all over the city is a lot of fun.  There was also a small store set up inside Illums Bolighus (my new favorite department store) where you could buy models of the elephants.  I really don't know how I made it home without one.

At the Design Museum: chairs designed by Hans J. Wegner,
the siblings of the dining chairs I grew up with.

            We saw a few really good museums while we were in Copenhagen.  The first one was the Dansk Design Center, which we enjoyed, but didn't get to see all of it because the whole city was semi-shut down due to water damage from some incredible rains they had had a few weeks before we arrived.  We also went to the Design Museum, which had rooms full of Danish design chairs, in particular.

a surprisingly topographical building model, at the
Danish Architecture Center.

            We also visited the Danish Architecture Center (each of the cities we toured on our trip had a museum of Architecture: amazing, but not surprising).  The two main exhibits going on at the time were about using design to improve life in Copenhagen and throughout Denmark (really, that's what the point of design is, right?).  The first room had many models of buildings that have recently been built, or are about to be built, and explanations of what they are, how they will be used, what's new/different about them, etc.  The second room had a -mostly video- exhibit about improvements in nearby areas, interviewing residents about what they like about an area, or what needs to be improved.  The whole exhibit was called "what makes a livable city."
            And with all of the bikes and primarily pedestrian streets in Copenhagen, I would definitely say that it is, indeed, a livable city.  Mom and I had a great time there, and it was a very good starting point for our Scandinavian Tour.

If you would like to see more pictures from my trip, brace yourself!  Click here to see pictures from the first half or so of our time in Copenhagen, and then click here to see the rest of Copenhagen, and some of Sweden, which will be discussed in my next post!

One-on-one with Mies for my Birthday

This past Tuesday was my birthday, and in order to celebrate, since I didn't have to work, I headed down to Plano, IL, about an hour southwest of Chicago, to see the famous Farnsworth House by Mies van der Rohe.  There were a lot of options on the website for buying tickets, and I had considered going on a bus trip with the Chicago Architecture Foundation, but in the end I decided to just buy my own ticket and get myself down there, BUT I sprung for the extra $10 so that I could take pictures inside.  Best $10 I've ever spent.
            The Farnsworth House was completed in 1951, and built to be a vacation house for Dr. Edith Farnsworth, a single doctor from Chicago.  Because of a falling out over the price of the house, Mies never constructed furniture for the house, which was his original intent.  When Farnsworth sold the house 20 years later, the new owner did furnish it with Mies-designed furniture, and a few pieces by Mies's grandson, Dirk Lohan.  Sitting just north of the Fox River in Plano, the house is subject to flooding, which is why it is raised over 5 feet above the ground.  Even though Mies built it higher than scientists said he would need to, it has been damaged from flooding a few times in its sixty year history.
            When I arrived at the house, I asked what the deal was with the interior photography, and the guide told me that after they were done with the normal interior tour, I would be given 10 minutes inside to take all of the pictures I wanted.  I asked how many other people on the tour had bought the photography permit, and the tour guide answered that I was the only one.   So, when the guide was done with the normal interior tour, all the other visitors and the guide when outside, closed the door, and I was left alone inside the Farnsworth House for 10 minutes to take pictures.  I went over to the bedroom, which was the closest thing to a private area in the glass house, and called my mom.  I left her a voicemail saying something like "don't call me back, but I just wanted you to know that I'm alone inside the Farnsworth House right now."

the long kitchen, with the only real storage in the whole house, and the longest piece of stainless steel ever manufactured at the time.

The dining area

The bedroom area - with a bed by Dirk Lohan 

sitting in the corner isn't a punishment at the Farnsworth House; this chair was designed by Mies for use on cruise ships.

I think that this is actually a Tugendhat Chair, similar to Mies's Barcelona Chair, but with a more curved seat.

Mies's Barcelona Couch.

             When I got back to the visitor's center, I considered buying myself a birthday gift to commemorate the occasion.  Looking at all of the postcards, I realized that I myself had taken all the pictures I could want to remember the visit by.  It was such a cool birthday gift.