Ackislander

But you have to have a car to see most of them. You can do the buildings in the center of Vicenza, but you would have to take a taxi to La Rotonda if you haven't got a car, and that is certainly true of La Malcontenta, la Saracens and all the Brenta villas. I doubt that an impecunious student would have a car, and many of these won't be open in the winter anyway.

Has she disappeared, by the way?

nytraveler

In most sizable cities in Germany almost nothing is original. (Hence the reco for Prague, which is an architectural jewel.)

And large parts of west Berlin look like route 17 in New Jersey. I don;t see the point in looking at fake whatever it is built in the 1950s/60s when there is so much real (ancient all the way to modern) to look at.

Lenska

WOW! I can't believe all this advise I have received! Im blown away! This is the first time I have ever written on a forum and I had no idea how insightful it would be!
I want to see every piece of architecture I can lay my eyes on… I have so much to learn! I was recently in Rotterdam and was fascinated by all the experimental architecture happening there… also how they map on the side walks where the city was bombed. I am interested in restorations. I am originally from Johannesburg and our city centre has a lot of beautiful derelict buildings. There is quite a drive in Johannesburg to redevelop and restore the original buildings and recreate a safe and successful city centre, rather than build a monstrosity elsewhere where it is not catered for. I love to see buildings in context. Often one finds new modern buildings placed next to old historical buildings and I find it interesting to see how the architects dealt with that. Here some can be very tactful in how they treat the old, where others are rather arrogant, but I'm sure this is relevant all over the world. I always find it interesting to see how it is done in other places and learn from that. Again, I'm still in the process of learning so anything I see or experience is "research" to me and the more I can see the more I know. So I want to see it all, the old to learn and extract from, the "bad" architecture to know what not to do, contemporary architecture, etc etc etc… my interest is endless.

I guess I'm asking for advise on whats a must see, educational, exposure, "never been done", "don't dos","always do", "learn from", "just have to sees" ..I myself am finding it difficult to narrow it all down and focus, so asking for some help.

South Africa is a developing country so there are a lot of architectural opportunities. This is fantastic but also places a large responsibility on all involved. I am particularly passionate about making a difference with good and clever design and to do this I need to learn and be exposed to as much as I can.

@DRJ thanks for that absolutely wonderful list of recommendations! I LOVE being an architecture student! So filled with passion and its fantastic to see someone who's long in the profession still so in love with it! It is so inspiring! I guess thats why we do it… its wonderful when your career is also one of your great loves…Im so lucky!

@Michael I am very fond of the Bauhaus movement so I take note! Thanks!

@Ackislander your trip sounds idyllic! I like the idea of "following" one movement or person… Im quite a fan of Zumthor so thought to try see a bit of his work, although I think most of it is in Switzerland and a bit in Germany. I will definitely keep Palladio in mind!
Are there not trains going to places like La Rotonda and La Malcontenta etc? Im sure I could maybe hire a car for a day or two if i needed? This is a good point. I would love to see all the villas!

@Southam Thanks for the awesome advise! It is also great to hear someone mentioning Rotterdam! I was there for an architecture summer school last year and was fascinated by everything they have been up to there!

Sorry for the late reply everyone! I so appreciate and love all your advise! Please do keep it coming!

Rostra

Architect Tom Rankin started Scala Reale which became Context Rome and also co-founder of the American institute of Roman Culture.
I had taken a couple tours with him, one tour it was only myself.
I am very interested in the ancient history of Rome and never really went in-depth over the actual architecture of the ruins.
On that tour he showed me things and reasons why in places like the Pantheon and the Michelangelo's architecture in the Piazza del Campidoglio, places I had just walked through on previous trips totally unaware.
Perhaps he has a architectural small group tour planned while you are in Rome? (if Rome becomes your choice).

http://www.tomrankinarchitect.com/TRA_20/tomrankin.html http://www.tomrankinarchitect.com/TRA_20/walks.html

Lenska

@Peter_S_Aus I HAVE to see that! Thanks so so much for the link!

Lenska

@Rostra Brilliant! That sounds terrific!
I take a lot of walking tours here in Cape Town and did plenty in Johannesburg! One of the best ways to not just see a city but learn about it! Thank you! This is splendid
Was a wonderful experience that must have been! Something I bet you will never forget!

JeanneB

<i>"Often one finds new modern buildings placed next to old historical buildings and I find it interesting to see how the architects dealt with that." </i><P>

Well, then, that's Rome! I think Rome/Paris would make a terrific trip, with side trips to nearby landmarks.

nytraveler

There is a difference in rehabbing derelict buildings and the war damage in Germany. My father had pictures of a number of German cities and essentially everything was flat - there wasn't anything standing more than about 5 feet high. It was not rehabbing buildings. It was bulldozing them down to the ground - in many cases even removing and recreating basements and then making new buildings from the ground up. In Berlin there is naturally a huge difference between the east and west. In the east you have a mixture of some new buildings put up based on photos of what stood there previously mixed with a lot of monolithic soviet realist stuff. In the west only a few things were rebuilt as they had been and most was built from the ground up in style of the 1950/60s suburban US with an incredible number of commercial signs/billboards etc and there are parts that are truly horrendous. After that a local look took over - but primarily modern, not traditional.

The same is true of many places in Germany - so I would head for only those few places that were not bombed flat.

You will find much more original in much of France, Belgium, Netherlands, Scandinavia and Czech republic - as well as Spain and Italy (places where the bombing did not occur or was minimal).

Rostra

This is very long poorly written but *very accurate* but I do point out many architectural tidbits among the ruins in the Roman Forum that might be of interest?


[PART 1]
http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...lking-tour.cfm
---(OR)---
http://tinyurl.com/romanmuzzy [PART 2]
http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...our-part-2.cfm
---(OR)---
http://tinyurl.com/romanmuzzy2

Mainhattengirl

I think nytraveler needs to do a bit more research than just looking at a few photos. There is a big difference between needing to put a new roof on a building and replace the windows, and starting out from scratch.

For the bombing of Frankfurt, the Allies used phosphor bombs, which work wonderful on wooden buildings, and that was what made up the center core of the city. Thus, many of the century old buildings made of stone, (city hall and the churches) survived fairly intact. St. Leonhards, Alte Nikolai, Deutsche Orden, Drei König, Karmeliter Cloister, the Römer, Westend Synagogue, Eschenheimer Turm, Sachsenhauser Warte, Bockenheimer Warte, Gallus Warte, Renten Turm, and the gorgeous Hauptbahnhof as well as the lovely buildings on the Kaiser Strasse.

So, my suggestion is Frankfurt. Here you get a wonderful selection of both modern and old. From one of the oldest churches in Germany, the Justinus church built in 850, to the tallest building, the Commerz Bank. We have guard towers built in the 1400's, churches built in the 1200's and 1300's and many, many neighborhoods that offer a look at architecture at the turn of the century. Westend, Bornheim, Sachsenhausen, Sechbach, Bergen, and the best of all, Höchst, which has just been added to the Half-Timbered Route that runs through Germany.
http://www.deutsche-fachwerkstrasse....p?s=7&c=sbesch

Most of the skyscrapers here are Leeds Certified and the lobbies are open to visitors. The Deutsche Architecture Museum is worth a visit. Certainly MyZeil should be on your list of unique architecture.

nochblad

Consider Como as a base for part of your trip. Every year (late spring/early summer) a group of architectural students from the US use is as a base. In Como itself you will come across Giuseppe Terragni and Antonio Sant'Elia who you will certainly have studied.

Being near to Switzerland (Ticino or Tessin Canton) will enable you to see works of Mario Botta. A day trip to Genova (Genoa) will allow you to seek work by Renzo Piano.

Milan offers much to see in terms of modern architecture (as well as old) and current building projects - especially around City Life (where the Fiera zone was), the Porta Nuova (including the Vertical Forest or Bosco Verticale buildings by Stefano Boeri) and the Naviglio Grande (conversion of former industrial buildings and areas).

Peter_S_Aus

Tuesday 20th May, we took a day trip to Vicenza. Fast train, taking about 40 minutes, blasting across the Veneto plain at about 100 mph. Last time I went to Vicenza was in mid-December, and the fields were covered in snow, and it was bitterly cold, this time Spring planting in full force, a very different landscape.

Vicenza is, of course, Palladio Centrale. We visited the Teatro Olimpico, walked around the Basilica Palladiana (an older building, the tower dating from the 12th Century, Palladio designed the loggia around the Basilica), the Palladio Museum and the Civic Art Gallery of Palazzo Chiericati, which is near the theatre.

If you visit,and are on a Palladio kick, then I'd suggest visiting the Palladio Museum first. The museum is housed inside an urban dwelling, the only such dwelling completed by Palladio in his lifetime. It gives great insight into where Palladio was coming from as an architect, shows drawings that Palladio did when he visited Rome, sketching and measuring architectural details from ancient buildings. There are models of many of his buildings, including the Rotunda. Palladio was an apprentice stone cutter in his youth, and knew a thing or two about stone - also about faking the appearance of stone and marble. He was seen as an economical builder, knowing when to use marble, and when to use plaster with marble dust in it to simulate stone. There is a model of a brick column, showing how wedge shaped bricks, like pizza pieces, were laid to create a circular column, and then rendered with cement, given a couple of coats of plaster, and a fine edifice results.

Palladio wrote "The Four Books of Architecture", first published in 1570, and the books define what is finest in Renaissance architecture. He was able to describe what details should be used in a facade, maybe a square cornice vs. a rounded cornice, depending on how the light and shade was to fall on the wall. From a distance, Palladio's architecture may seem repetitive, but once you get closer to the details, it can be understood on an intellectual level as well. It's no coincidence that the Melbourne Public Library, or antebellum architecture in the USA, show the same influence - somehow Palladio was able to get it just right.

Having wealthy clients would have helped. The loggia around the Basilica is interesting, as Palladio had to design the loggia to accommodate an existing, much older building, and the architectural tricks that he employed to make the design work are evident. All the arches are identical in form and size, but if you look, you can see how the column spacing varies - it's a bit hard to explain. But the fact that building details are more closely spaced at the corners makes the loggia look more solid, more substantial. The corner columns on the Parthenon are more closely spaced than the centre columns, for the same reason.

At the time of building the loggia, Palladio was on a stipend of 7 ducats a month, which was reasonable pay for a celebrity. The loggia cost some 60,000 ducats - or about 700 years salary for a celebrity. A formidable cost - which maybe explains why the loggia took 50 years to complete. A bit like Gaudi's cathedral in Barcelona.

I've never been able to figure how Palladio worked. There are a mass of drawings and documents, proposal drawings, working drawings, set-out plans. Some fairly simple, others beautifully rendered, maybe to convince clients that it was time to go to contract. Palladio's design office must have had a host of draftsmen, but you don't hear about them, in the same way as you don't hear about the drafties in the offices of the Corb, van der Rohe, Phillip Johnston et al. There must have been site clerks, quantity surveyors, quality assurance people, cost control, just like any modern building project, along with specialists knowing about erecting domes, laying drains, sorting foundations. The information is mute on these people, but I would love to know the back story about them.

One trick that was used, to obtain a good finish to brickwork, which can otherwise be a bit rough. Bricks were polished with silica sand and water on a rotating table, to bring them to an exact, uniform size. They could then be laid with fine, about one millimetre, layers of mortar. Polish the wall to remove any laying imperfections and voila, job done. Apply plaster, dress it to look like stone, and you've saved the client a bundle.

Palladio had a thing about the architecture of antiquity, and the Olympic Theatre gave him his chance to build an amphitheatre. Semi-elliptic seating looking down on the stage, a homage to the theatre at Olympia in Greece. The Olympic Academy commissioned the theatre, Palladio designed it, but died a year later, before it could be finished. There are references to the Labours of Hercules in bas-relief above the proscenium arch, maybe a reference to the worth of labour, the work ethic and so on. A good way of getting the message across to a populace that was illiterate. There are niches with statues of the Academy members who funded he job, and they are in good condition, being plaster but always under cover. The faces are of the Members, the more senior members garbed in togas, the more junior as warriors. But look at the statue at the very top left as you face the stage - the body is of a woman, showing breasts, but wearing armour, a Member of the Academy. Someone decided to re-cycle a statue in 1584, hoping it might pass un-noticed.

Behind the seating there are nine niches with statues. The centre statue, the statue in pride of place, is Palladio. Maybe as a way of avoiding controversy as to who should get the best spot.

The Civic Art Gallery is housed in the Palazzo Chiericati, built by Palladio in 1550. It is a great collection, starting in the basement. Recent restorations have uncovered Roman walls, including retaining walls made of amphora filled with broken brick and pottery, and Roman drainage tunnels. When the Palazzo was built, the foundations were punched down through the Roman remnants, leaving much of them un-disturbed. Really worth a look.

On the upper floors, you can see the development of painting, particularly Renaissance portraits, which are well explained in English, with reference to the iconography. For instance, one little girl holds a golden finch, a symbol of piety. It is recorded that she was later to become a nun, and maybe her life's path had been established at the time of the portrait. Many of the portraits have a diagram detailing who the people are, and what they later did in life.

There is a collection of "ancient" coins - except that many of them are not ancient. In 16th century Vicenza, anyone with the slightest claim to education, good manners and social acceptance was interested in antiquity. So there was a market for antiques, statues, coins and medallions. Most markets get corrupted if there is enough demand for product, and 1550 Vicenza was no exception. Enter the counterfeiters, making Roman coins and medallions, generally not detected as fakes. Anyone interested in my almost genuine Picasso? - I'll get in the mail once the paint has dried. PayPal is fine.

There is a great fresco of a naked charioteer, representing the Sun, being pursued by, I think, Diana, wearing a moon. The genitalia, both equine and male, are rendered in some detail, I think maybe as a bit of a joke.

Upstairs, on the top floor, is one man's collection of art - sadly I can't remember his name, but he was wealthy and of good taste. There are several ink sketches by Tiepolo, maybe prelims for the fresco now in Ca' Rezzonico, the vision of the new world, showing mainly the backs of people. A Picasso, and a host of other works. It's interesting to see such a collection, many periods and styles, a way of getting inside the head of the collector himself, who may have been a bit of a snob. There is displayed, safely under glass, an engraved invitation - the invitation being from Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, asking could she have the pleasure of his company for luncheon on the Royal Yacht Britannia, in about 1953.

A couple of spritzes in passing, a couple of proseccos, a couple of paninis, and a most satisfying day all round.

Andre Palladio, born 30th November, 1508, died 19th August, 1580. Leaving a most remarkable legacy.

nytraveler

Mainhattengirl - I did ont address Frankfurt specifically - since I don't know exactly what happened there - just that there are a massive number of garden apt buildings that are definitely post-war. (I said check out what the various towns have that is real.)

But many towns in Germany were squashed flat. I remember one photo of Ulm in particular when the only standing building was a portion of the cathedral (which the bombers unsuccessfully tried to miss) in the far distance. Everything else was rubble.

DRJ

LENSKA: The love of the practice of architecture is all consuming and intoxicating, but consider the following:

An architect wins the lottery and $1,000,000! He is interviewed the next day and is asked: "Will this change your life?"

"Not at all. I'll just keep practicing until its gone."

Cowboy1968

I think it is worth while to revist Lenska's posts and acknowledge that OP is interested in examples of cities that renovated historic neighborhoods or examples of successful (or not so successful) integration of modern architecture into historic neighborhoods.
While an intact historic city center is beautiful and nice to visit, it is also not highly relevant from that perspective.

What makes Berlin really interesting for an architect (and not necessarily the average tourist) is that you can see the different philosophies of re-building and building - and both the Western "capitalist" way, and the Eastern "communist" way.
Obviously, the West Berlin inner city freeway reflects the thinking of the 1950s and 1960s which took the development of US cities as a blueprint. If you told someone back then that this looked like New Jersey, they would probably have taken it as a compliment.

After reunification in 1990, architects faced the challenge to close the gaps created by the quite wide area where the wall was. Or that suddenly remote and unimportant neighborhoods became the city center.
And to re-invent old socialist housing projects at the edge of town so that tenants would stay.
And both is still going on, so you can see neighborhoods being developed - even in the central city.

Most of the above is of no real interest for the normal tourist, but can be of interest for architects.