il giovane holden: guida

We left Amsterdam bound for Basel, with a couple of architecture pit stops along the way. As we were driving out of Amsterdam, I looked out the passenger side window and saw this amazing, totally full rainbow. It was very difficult to get a photo out the window, but I pieced three together and at least you can get the idea of what it looked like to see this out the window on a groggy morning.

Our first stop was in Metz, France at the Centre Pompidou. Dave had actually worked on a competition for this when he was working at NoX in Rotterdam. His design didn't win, but we were able to see the winning design by Shigeru Ban. It was very nice.

Centre Pompidou in Metz, France

Centre Pompidou

After this, we drove on to Ronchamp, also in France. We decided we needed to go see the Notre Dame du Haut during the day and go inside. It was a beautiful day and walking up the hill was so nice and seeing the church from our approach up the hill was stunning. Then we went inside and it was even more stunning. There were very few visitors there so maybe three people were inside when we first walked in, then we were alone in the cathedral for a while and then one or two other people trickled in. I can't really do it justice in my description so maybe the photos will show the ambience of the light wells and the beauty of the colored stained-glass windows. I remember an entire day of first year architecture seminar being devoted to this building and standing here viewing it in all its glory, I understood why. Hopefully some of the photos will help to illustrate its beauty.

Notre Dame du Haut, Ronchamp

Notre Dame du Haut

Holden on a hill in front of the Notre Dame du Haut

roof detail of Notre Dame du Haut

stained glass inside Notre Dame du Haut

inside Notre Dame du Haut

light well inside Notre Dame du Haut

exterior of Notre Dame du Haut

Notre Dame du Haut

finding ladybugs in Ronchamp

From here we drove to Basel, Switzerland but stopped just on the other side of the border in Germany in Weil am Rhein at the Vitra design campus. I love the Vitra showroom in NYC and would love to someday own some Vitra furniture and the campus was truly amazing. It is a very impressive collection of buildings designed by Tadao Ando, Zaha Hadid, Herzog & de Meuron, Frank Gehry, Nicholas Grimshaw, Alvaro Siza and SANAA as well as structures designed by Buckminster Fuller, Jean Prouve, and Renzo Piano with lots of green space for Holden to run around. We actually sat in this huge lawn for a while and drank cappucini and Holden had a snack of some sort of cookie and then played on the elephants and fed them some grass. There was a sign on the elephant's fence asking you to please not feed them. Then we explored the VitraHaus and the other buildings and structures on the campus. For those of you who aren't architects and may not recognize these names, these are highly famous architects and it is nearly unheard of to have a grouping of buildings designed by this famous and diverse a group of architects all in one location.