Write the Rest
Lil' Preface: Below are assorted notes and stories from the post-Italy period. These accompany the photographs
Saying goodbyes under a street light and packing my bags in the dead (read: cool) of night opened a continent of opportunities reined in by a train pass. I shed no tears while pulling away from Termini; Florence and Milan slid away, then the Italian Alps, the border, and soon we were in Swizterland. This is what I want to know about the Swiss culture and its relationship to design: are they design conscious because they have such a graphically powerful flag or do they have such a flag because they are design conscious?
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Being an architectural tourist often made me feel a little stupid. How many busses and trains can one take and how far can one walk to see a building or two without having exherted too much effort to make it worth while? This question was running through my head when I found myself standing at the bus stop at the Vitra campus-- a worn grassy patch by the side of the road with a schedule bolted to a pole. Waiting for the bus under a huge sky I looked across the road, realized the orchard overlooking vitra is all walnuts, and smiled back to Barfusserplatz.
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Fear was my first reaction upon discovering that we has been assigned to couchettes, six to a room. The possability of being stuck in a two meter square room for eight hours with someone who really loves tuna fish or tomato juice scares me to my core. Some people dislike smelly foods but I truly hate them. Smelly foods, it turns out, were the least of my problems. After stopping by Dusseldorf to check in on a friend of mine I left on a morning train suffering from a terrible headache. Headed for London, I made my way through Brussels and finally settled into my seat on the Eurostar before taking a nap to escape my headache. Waking up from a nap to the tapping motion of someone playing footsies with my sandal-clad, exposed toes was not the sort of Train Romance I had in mind. Especially not when the person whose toes were rubbing mine had stretched his legs under two rows of seats in front of me. His toes remained there, below my foot rest, until just outside of London when he was roused by the attendant collecting his two empty Guinness cans.
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Palac Veletrzni is a never-ending labrynth of art. The museum is so large that one is asked to decide which floors they would like to visit and can pay admission per floor. Due to the size of this institution, docents are spread out and must keep a watchful eye over a wide swath of works. Unfortunately, the Veletrzni also has the aire of a place which is never busy. At first I was bothered by the docents keeping in step with me. As I walked into a section of art the staff member would rise from their chair and walk closer to me. Thus begins the staring. I'm staring at the works and the docent is staring at me, watching my every twitch, until I leave their area. After a while I had had my fill of obscure czech art for the day and began to walk through some sections without even bothering to stop. Nevertheless, the docent always rose from their seat, followed me, and then sat back down. Having paused in one woman's section for just a second and then continuing on my way I saw her face turn sour when she realized I was leaving. It was then that I wondered: are art museum docents territorial? Do I offend them or hurt their feelings when I don't spend enough time looking at the works they oversee? Does the soon to be babouska-woman watching the Picasso wing throw dirty looks and gang symbols at the skinny, bearded 19th century French Landscapes guardian?
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What is a line of 10 people doing at the back of a Lithuanian Airlines 737 flying from London to Vilnius waiting for? At first I thought maybe the inflight meal didn't sit so well with the flock of strapping young crew members on the flight, but soon they got sloppy and it became obvious: these inflight smoke detectors have already been disabled.
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A single small cloud of the finest dust floated briefly westward before falling into the ocean. Mid morning sun rendered the waves in blotches of pure reflected white; there was only the sound of water; a single lillie would not sink.
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My time at Vitra ended under huge clouds in a blue jean sky and my time in Noormarkku, Finland began under the same terms. Having navigated two trains and a bus to this small town for the express purpose of visiting Villa Mairea it became clear that distance traveled and time spent en route are required aspects of pilgrimage. At the beginning of my trip in Swizterland the clouds taunted me for having exherted so much effort, but in Finland they gave me reprieve, opened the world for me, invited me to the backwater regions of a country thousands of miles away. I squinted at my coffee (best in town, Hana-Mari says) and watched Gregory refill his Hasselblad. The sun was bright and all my own.
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Villa Mairea was built for Maire Gullichsen by Alvar Aalto in 1938 and has been owned by the family ever since. Thankfully they have chosen to open the house to the public for limited tours with one stipulation: visitors must walk around barefoot or place little blue clean-room booties over their shoes. I chose the former and felt a bit awkward taking my shoes off in such a masterpiece, as if I owned the place. You can imagine my surprise when I found myself, half an hour later, with my arms splayed out and my feet in front of me, having just crashed down the small entry stairs. Our lovely guide informed me that the stairs are slippery after making sure I was not hurt. Back in Helsinki I considered peeing on Finlandia (it was closed, I had to go, and public urination seems to be overlooked in Helsinki) but decided not to tempt the local deceny legislation. Aalto, you're safe for now.
--Posted 09/18/02 03:02AM