15 Juni 2012

Today was an easy day. Headed off this afternoon with Mr. Caldwell to see the Canisius Church, then Lauren and I went shopping:) The Canisius Church was impressive because it was spiritual without being overtly symbolic. It was a very calm and simple place and I'm glad I dragged myself out of bed to go see it today!

14 Juni 2012

Went to the Bauhaus Archives and Museum today by Walter Gropius. It was incredibly inspiring to see all the drawings and furniture and designs that came out of that. All of us left wanting to draw and create and design and now we're all even more excited to head to the real Bauhaus in Dessau on Saturday. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take pictures inside though!

Afterwards we saw the majority of the embassies in that area. The Mexican, Nordic, and Saudi Arabian ones were amongst what we saw.

13 Juni 2012

Sad day of Holocaust memories. The group started off the day at the Topographies of Terror, which is the site of old Gestapo barracks. A display of stories spans the length of where the barracks used to stand, and a museum at ground level houses a further exhibition. Lauren and I wandered through the exhibit silently, taking in every touching story we read. We came across an interesting photograph showing some soldiers standing in front of the Brandenburg Gate, guarding it during the beginning of the building of the Berlin Wall. It made me stop and think about how lucky we are to have moved past a time like that. Our experiences at the Brandenburg Gate include partying with the locals for public viewings of the Euro Cup. We are lucky to be in a place so rich with history and so able to move beyond it.

After that, we got to visit the Jewish Museum by Daniel Libeskind. All the architecture majors were running around taking pictures and touching the walls of the buildings because we were all so happy to be there. This building is fairly recent, and comes with a lot of thought behind it. Its shape is created from a stretched out Star of David, and it is overlaid with a system of voids that represent the pieces of Jewish history that were lost in the Holocaust. I appreciated this building because of the amount of thought and symbolism contained in the design. Its concept is directly related to its purpose. Besides the fact that Lauren and I got lost for a moment inside of it, it was a great afternoon. We even made a friend there!

After the Jewish Museum, we walked over to an exhibition of Zaha Hadid's work. Even though it was a small exhibition, it was still super impressive.

And that night we FINALLY got to up to the top of the Reichstag Dome by Norman Foster. It was well worth the wait and such a beautiful view at sunset. Can't wait to go back before we leave.

And after that, the group went out to the public viewing of the Euro Cup. Goooooo Deutschland!

12 Juni 2012

Began the day at the Memorial to Fallen Soldiers. The building that houses this memorial is the old guard house and doesn't really seem symbolic or connected to what it's representing at all. Once you step inside however, the message is clear. The figure of a mother holding her dying son is meant to show you the heartache a family feels when someone dies fighting for their country. Its sadness definitely gets its message across.

We then continued on to the German History Museum and got to see I.M. Pei's addition to the building. You turn the corner to find a glass spiral staircase leading up into the exhibits, and a heavy building behind it. It housed exhibitions on fashion, Freidrich the Great, DDR, and all of Germany's history. I enjoyed seeing I.M. Pei's addition because it is not something I would typically expect to see done by him. While the building does use a lot of glass, it is not nearly as much as some of his projects. It is a heavier building of concrete and stone which is uncharacteristic of Pei.

11 Juni 2012

Today we all set off bright and early for the Berlin Dome. This Dome was built to rival St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. The sheer size of this cathedral was incredible. A few of us climbed the two hundred and seventy some odd steps to the top for an amazing view of the city.

We spent the rest of the afternoon on Museum Island, exploring the Pergamon and Neues museums and seeing all the loot that Germany took from Greece, Rome, and Egypt.

10 Juni 2012

Today we set off to see a Zaha Hadid exhibition only to find that the gallery is closed on Sundays and Mondays. So we wandered through a few other galleries and found the longest preserved stretch of the Berlin Wall and some other cool areas of graffiti.

09 Juni 2012

Today the majority of the architecture majors set off with Mr. Caldwell to DMY, or the International Design Festival of Berlin, held inside of Hitler’s old abandoned Nazi airport. We spent the afternoon wandering through the old airport hangars looking at proposed building designs, new technologies, and cool furniture. Lauren and I spent some time outside hula hooping in the sun and had some delicious pizza!