20 Juni 2012

We spent the majority of today on the bus, driving through the countryside. We stopped in Aachen for lunch and a tour of their cathedral, which was pretty interesting. Their cathedral houses the shrine of Charlemagne, where 93 of his bones are kept. It also holds the shrine of Virgin Mary, which is said to contain the swaddling clothes of baby Jesus, the birth skirt of Virgin Mary, and loin cloth worn by Jesus during his crucifixion. It is up to you whether or not you believe they are in there or not, but it's at least interesting to think about. 

After leaving Aachen, we headed towards Cologne. Once there we got to visit the Cologne Cathedral and climb the 533 steps to the top. Not quite sure how we all made it up there without dying, but we did!

And then we returned to see it at night, and all laid down on the ground in the plaza for a great view of the Cathedral.

19 Juni 2012

Today we finally got to see a castle! We toured one of the Hohenzollern family castles that sits of top of a huge hill in the middle of nowhere. It was beautiful and we got to tour the whole thing and get some amazing views of the countryside.

18 Juni 2012

Today was definitely the most intense day of the trip so far. We visited the old Dachau concentration camp grounds and got a true feel for the terror inflicted by Hitler and the Nazi party. We were able to walk the grounds on our own and see where the prisoners lived, worked, and died. Dachau was the first concentration camp built so it mainly held political prisoners in the beginning. Some 37,000 people were kept at Dachau in 30 small bunkers. It was indescribable to walk through the entrance gates and see what a concentration camp actually looked like. I spent the majority of our time there walking around alone, so I could have a personal experience with what I was seeing around me. My last stop at the camp was to the crematorium, where the corpses were burned and the gas chamber was held. Walking through that building was one of the most memorable moments I'll ever have. I'll never forget what it felt like to walk through the doors and stand in those rooms and think about what those people went through.

After that we headed to BMW Welt for a much lighter afternoon. This building was done by Coop Himmelb(l)au to represent the BMW brand and it accomplishes its task quite well. We spent a good bit of time at this building and got a good impression of everything it advocates.

After leaving BMW Welt we made a quick stop at the Herz Jesu Kirche by ASW Architects, one of my favorites. This church is a simple rectangular glass form with a smaller wooden one enclosed inside. It has screen printed sheets on nails on its facades and giant doors that open up the entire front of the building. The glass box changes from being totally transparent to opaque, while the wooden one opens up more in the opposite direction. I personally really like this building and am so happy to have been able to see it.

17 Juni 2012

Spent the morning in Nuremburg visiting a few churches and a castle before heading on our way to Munich. The climb to the top of the hill that the castle sat on was so worth the views once we got there!

After our short morning in Nuremburg, we headed to the Nazi Rally Party Grounds. These grounds were where a lot of Nazi architecture. The grounds contained pieces of architecture that are of an unbelievable size. The Nazis built things at such a large scale to show the people of the world how powerful they were and to seem even more influential. Everything the Nazis did was done to impress people and make them seem attractive. Someone once said that upon seeing Hitler speak, he wanted to be a Nazi for about five minutes. They were a very convincing group of people, especially when no one knew the horrors that they were doing right under everyone's noses. Our tour guide was the grandson of a Nazi, which made the tour even more interesting. Although he said he grandfather was never involved in any war crimes and that he was a good Nazi, his grandfather still refused to speak about what happened between 1933 and 1945. This seems to have been the trend with those generations. Those born after the war didn't know what had happened because everyone refused to speak about it. Those twelve years could've been lost in history if people would not have broken the trend and informed the future generations. It is said that they did so to help avoid something so horrible from happening again. If we are all well informed about the war and the Holocaust, we can prevent it from reoccurring.

Hitler the frustrated architect

16 Juni 2012

Started the day off at a place I never thought I would get to see in person-the Bauhaus. As soon as we pulled up, all the architecture majors ran off the bus and up to the building. The Bauhaus was begun in 1919 in Weimar by Walter Gropius as a school that combined arts and crafts with the fine arts. This was unusual because those two subjects were typically taught separately. In 1925 the school moved the Dessau, which is where we visited. The Bauhaus went through many changes and lot of turmoil during the second world war. The Nazis shut down the Bauhaus because they saw it as controversial and communist. They used the building as many different things and they damaged much of the building's original glass. It has since been restored as close to its original condition. The Bauhaus is full of interesting details, like the way the windows open and how the doors stay open. During our tour of the Bauhaus, we were encouraged to touch and interact with the building. We got to open all the windows and sit in the chairs and stand on the stage, which made the tour and the building seem so much more interesting. The founders and students of the Bauhaus continued working and inspired generations of designers even when the Nazi regime tried to shut them down. The Bauhaus is inspiring because it tells all of us to keep going even when faced with opposition. Definitely one of my favorite stops so far.

After our morning at the Bauhaus, we got on the bus and drove for what seemed like forever to Nuremburg. We spent the evening wandering the city and checking out what we would be visiting the next morning. Even though we only spent one night in Nuremburg, I enjoyed it so much. That city seemed so much more European than Berlin. Berlin is a very modern city in comparison to the medieval feel of Nuremburg. I hope one day I get to return there!