We are in Madrid for the week! It is such a European city! People are dining out at any time day and night. Just sitting outside or inside having a drink or a cup of coffee. The city creates a very relaxed and chill vibe. Some of the interesting things I found are all the mimos posing along the streets. There are people dressed as torreodors, gorillas and all other random things. There are lots of magicians, street artists and entertainers along the streets! Pretty fun! Watch out for pickpocketers though. The guy on the picture is seemingly without a head! And he is posing for my camera and giving me sums up! haha
Some other interesting things: eggs is a dinner food and bar food apparently (how odd!); there is no drinking water available in most places! You have to pay for water even at a restaurant; the symbol of Madrid is a bear sniffing a tree! The first day we got here we were clueless why there was a statue of a bear and a tree on the main plaza Puerta de Sol! haha :) Alright, back to having an amazing time here :))

Cutredad madrileña

There is a unstranslatable word that superbly describes Madrid: "cutre".

The word, enchanting and even mysterious, can't even be translated to other "spanishes": if you are from another spanish-speaking country you have no way to understand it other than to come here and let yourself live the experience... Suddenly, you feel initiated and fully capable of understanding not just the word, but a must deeper essence of what Madrid is, and what makes it in a strange way, beautiful.

Figure: calamari sandwich (bocadillo de calamares) defying the concept of a sandwich and fully embracing the essence of Spain's capital.

See you on Monday!

Our last meeting before LEAVING!!!

Final countdown! We are about to leave.

Please meet us at Crown, Lower Core, this Wed. 5th at 6:00pm to refine some details and see if you guys have any additional questions. We will talk about where to meet, what time and so on...

Please be sure you have ALL YOUR PAPERWORK DONE! we don't want to have surprises! And be sure you have your ISIC student ID, it will give you great benefits.

Ok... see you in a few days!

OUR FIRST MEETING!

The summer is getting close! and we have to get ready.

On Friday, March 5th at 6:30 in Lower Core we’re having a group meeting to discuss details about the summer class, registration, and other preparations.

Please confirm you can attend this session and come with questions if you have any.

Application deadline is here!

Tomorrow, Feb. 24th is the deadline for the applications!

If you have any doubts, email us. The application forms are online and you can download them.
Please forward all the info with it: Letter of recommendation, a simple but thoughtful 3 pages maximum portfolio and the letter of intention, explaining why you are interested on going to Spain (well... it's so obvious!)

We are looking forward to traveling around Spain with you.

ETSAB WORKSHOP -15 days of intense work and enjoyment

As we announced in our presentation, the Workshop in Barcelona is a way of extending the trip for 15 more days.

The workshop will be held at the ETSAB, the school or Architecture in Barcelona from July 8th to July 22nd, and this year, the participants for this edition will be:

- Universidade FUMEC - Faculdade de Engenharia e Arquitetura (FEA), Belo Horizonte, Brasil
- Cork Center for Architectural Education, Cork, Ireland
- Tongji University, School of Architecture, Shanghai, China
- Western Switzerland University of Applied Sciences, Geneva, Switzerland
- ETSAB - Escola Tecnica d'Arquitectura de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

and of course, us!

Each school brings between one or two professors and from 5 to 10 students and rather than staying with our well known classmates, we will mingle with the other students making interschool groups to propose a design.

The workshops are centered on the urban scale, in part because of the large tradition of the school of Barcelona mastering this topic and also, because Barcelona is one of the cradles of the urban design of the XIX century with the Cerda plan that still guides the development of the city.

During the past editions, the topics were the following:

2004 - URBAN HOUSING INTERVENTIONS
2005 - HOUSING INFILL IN URBAN INDUSTRIAL AREAS
2006 - INTERMODAL STATION IN FIGUERES.INFRASTRUCTURE: Design, City, Landscape
2007 - THE TEMPLE OF THE SAGRADA FAMÍLIA: URBAN ICON AND PUBLIC SPACE
2008 - FIGUERES, THE GATE TO EUROPE-Infrastructure / city edge / tourism / renewable energies / landscape
2009 - EL CARMEL: AFTER THE CITY

As you might see, the topics are HOT!

Sharpen your pencils!

How To Apply

If you're interested in applying to the Spain/Portugal 2010 Program, the application forms are available at the below links. You'll need to submit an application form, work samples, essay and recommendation no later than the 24th of February.

APPLICATION FORM
RECOMMENDATION FORM

For more information about the itinerary and course budget, please click here.

Photos from 2009 Trip

We've put together a brief slideshow of the photos from last year's trip. Many of these were taken by one of our students, Matt Renfree. You can also check out some of the work done by the students during the trip, and some photos of the exhibition of student work that we put together in the fall. To view the images, click on the preview to the left.

High point.

In Barcelona now.

We have had a succession of high points on this trip, each one briefly holding the title of "best of trip".

Friday afternoon will be hard to beat. Jordi Fauli, one of the chief architects of the continuation of the Sageada Familia, gave us a four-hour tour of the church, the working studio and model shop, and of the construction site. We were taken into the scaffolding over the nave and were able to see up use the complex geometry of the vaults.

From the slightly rickety scaffolds 250 feet above Barcelona, we were treated to a view of the city, and of Gaudi's original towers, from a truly priveleged vantage point.

Extraordinary photos to follow.

We've just left Mies's Barcelona Pavillion. The students feel at home.

Goooooooool!

Last night most off the group gathered after class to watch the US play Spain in the semifinals of the Confederations Cup soccer tournament. We were heavy underdogs, and no one here much respects US soccer. Basketball, yes. But not soccer.

We virtually took over the bar we decided on, and once the US scored in the 27th minute, our group began to cheer with such passion that most of the Spanish left in the bar departed for friendlier parts.

The USA won 2-0. Spain had not lost in 35 straight matches. We must bring good luck.

No one seemed too upset, but just to be sure, I immediately shushed the group of students that began the "U-S-A" chant after the match ended. Probably best not to rub it in. Though I read every newspaper this morning to savor the Spanish surprise at having been upset by a bunch of 'yanquis' that know nothing about soccer.

Pintxo

A pintxo is a Basque tapa.

It´s usually served on bread, and one grabs what one wants from platters on the bar.

Romina and I have just eaten many.

We found perhaps the best Pintxo bar so far, in a sterile new neighborhood of housing slabs, where we´d gone to check out the Moneo church under construction (I worked on this project several years back and was astonished to see it almost complete).

If you happen to be in the Riberas de Loiola neighborhood of San Sebastian, we highly suggest you stop by Bar Alkain.

Chillida in San Sebastian

Today´s highlight: a visit to the Chillida Leku museum, a vast park on the outskirts of San Sebastian dedicated to the work of Basque sculptor Eduardo Chillida.

The sun appeared later in the day, after we also crossed town to see the Peine de los Vientos, a piece by Chillida that grows out of the rocks, suspended over the sea.

All okay except for the rain.

A note to all family members and loved ones reading here: we are all perfectly fine.

The Basque terrorist group ETA detonated a bomb in the suburbs of Bilbao today. A police officer was killed. We are in Bilbao today, but I just found out about the bomb right now, as I checked the NY Times.

Life goes on in Bilbao. Everyone is just fine, though the rain has complicated our plans.

A note about Mérida

Moneo's Museum is still one of the high points of the trip. A complete experience. We were all really quiet for a while after we go out. I had seen the building in 1994. I don't think I understood it then. But this time, it hit me and many of us, pardon the obvious but unintentional pun, like a ton of bricks.

Unexpected finds in Santiago de Compostela

Antón Garcia Abril - SGAC Headquarters. Newer Brutalism.

The things I've been to busy to note.

No luck finding time or free wifi lately. Not since Mérida. Since then: Lisbon, where we happened on to one of the biggest holidays and street parties of the year; Porto, where we heard a piano concert in Koolhaas's Casa da Musica (and where Jacob Ernst wore long pants) and where I learned to get past the decay of the city and discover a charming city; Santiago de Compostela, where we were given a warm welcome and an hours-long visit to the construction site of Eisenman's City of Culture - a building that seemed to me simultaneously beautiful, tragic, and exhausting; León, where Mansilla and Tuñon's MUSAC and auditorium were the main draw, and where several of us attended a harrowing two-hour theatre performance of La Fura Dels Baus, in which we were all subjected to a simulated hostage-taking; and on to delightful Burgos today , where I truly wish we had more time just to be, not to see anything in particular.

butterflies of Lisbon are in love with Mr. Miller.

dinner at Mcdonalds in Portugal.

WHY !!????????????

Merida has a nice pool by the bus station

Thursday june 11,
me, sam, matt, dan, tyler, archit, the other dan, nicole and brian were stuck in Merida, till 1 in the morning while the rest had left for Lisbon, earlier at 4 that evening.
I can´t say for others, but for me, matt, dan and ty it was a blessing in disguise. We found a nice pool in a neighbourhood next to the bus station . We spent a good 4 hours there, ate pizza at a plaza across the river, and relaxed in a park till our bus for Lisbon was ready.

Where only architects dare to tread.

No time to post lately. Every day, it seems, brings a new city: Granada, Seville, and we're now on the bus to Mérida, where we'll we Rafael Moneo's National Museum of Roman Art, probably one of the most important buildings of the last 40 years.

Merida's a small place - probably no more than 75,000 people, though about 2000 years ago it was the capital of the Roman province of Lusitania, roughly corresponding to modern-day Portugal. Today, it's a regional capital, but pretty sleepy in general. When I went up to the window at the bus station to make sure all 29 of us would be able to buy tickets to Merida, the ticket agent looked at me, puzzled: "What is there in Merida?" she asked.

"A museum," I replied. This response did not seem satisfactory to the woman behind the counter, though she sold us the tickets anyway.