howie's design adventures part 2: le corbusier

La Maison Blanche

the second part of howie's design adventures took us to La Chaux-de-Fonds, the birthplace of Le Corbusier. it was there where he lived with his family and started to practice architecture under the mentorship of a local architect. the town itself is actually quite different from any other swiss town i've been to- it is very linear and gridded with row houses lined up along the blocks. one could see why he escaped to paris to study architecture. 

la maison blanche was not his first house he designed- there are a few others very close by up on the hill above the town. he designed the house for his family which included himself, his parents and brother. it was really a beautiful house- i realized after that didn't take many photos but it was difficult to capture the feel of the place. i think what made the house dramatic was the contrasts in views and lighting and the proportions and layout of the spaces. it seemed so simple and straightforward from looking at the plan and looking at photos ahead of time, yet it had so much life that i didn't expect. amazing to be in a place where a most famous architect got his start. 

looking out from Le C's bedroom

Le C's study. not too bright with a skylight over the desk.

through the dining area out to the garden.

looking back from the garden- the blue garden wall on the left...

the first (?) house he designed. 

one of the early Le Corbusier houses

summer in Ouchy

Even though the weather is still beautiful here, its beginning to be more hazy and I'm hanging on to the memory of beautiful, clear summer nights.  

a belated happy dad's day

i did not forget about father's day since my dad was actually here in switzerland! although he and mom were away for the weekend, we spent one day biking together soon after and i think that counts as a pretty good father's day. we rode part of route 62 backwards, starting in Chatel-St-Denis near Gruyeres. i'm a little embarrassed to say that we only made it to Romont, 33km total ride, because the hills of this region are deceiving! from the train the terrain appears gentle and rolling, but we managed to find some very fierce hills. on one of the downhills i reached a speed of 38 mph- so you can imagine the climbing we did.

the route is really nice for anyone looking for a moderate ride- located between Lausanne and Fribourg with no major mountains in the way. you just need to hop on a train with your bike and within 30 minutes you are ready to bike through the hay fields, "rolling" hills and small swiss towns with mountain vistas in view. not much traffic- but a few tractors...

i'm pretty sure that dad enjoyed the ride, and hoping that the rest of you enjoyed a great father's day!

Epesses+sun+wine

for an afternoon, i stepped into a whole new switzerland. disorderly queues, crowded streets, and even some singing in the streets. not that the swiss never let their hair down, but i live in the IMD/saving money bubble of the occasional bar night and once in a blue moon restaurant meal.

Epesses is a tiny town amongst the terraced vineyards on the hillside next to lake geneva. one day of the year all of the wineries (les vignerons) of the epesses region open their 'cave a vin' for tasting. one can purchase a glass for 20 fr. and can taste all they want for free.

I set out with Sharon, Verity & little Hemming for an afternoon of tasting. the weather was gorgeous and we thoroughly enjoyed tasting and meandering the tiny streets of epesses.  great views of the lake and the surrounding vineyards. too bad we packed our own picnic and couldn't partake in this spit-roasted cow.

Verity, Sharon, me. 

town of Epesses and vineyards overlooking the lake

an entire cow, spit-roasted.

of course, i give them props for investing in some decent graphics as well.

gummy spear!

watch their website for the 2012 date, this year was the 7th of May.

morning ride.

we're back to grind here in lausanne. howie back to classes and i to my computer. i think i should go to bed soon so that it doesn't burn a hole in my lap! i've been working on a couple of graphics projects and also started seriously planning our italy trip for july.

but this morning when i woke up i didn't quite know what to do. i thought about running, but my toes hurt from all the walking we did over the weekend. i looked at my bike and knew that even though i didn't feel like hauling it downstairs, it would be exactly the thing to start my week.

somehow i found myself all geared up and ready to go so i hit the road towards vevey. i didn't plan to ride the entire route, so turned around somewhere in the middle. the route is seemingly simple- ride along the lake. but occasionally there are small towns you can ride through or the road changes into a highway, or surprise roundabouts... just enough to make a simple ride a little confusing.

misty morning lake.

so my first mistake was riding up to the top of a steep hill after riding through a town, only to find myself arriving at a round about exactly at the same time as a car, who of course did not stop (maybe didn't even see me?) but luckily there was literally only enough room for the car, maybe about 6" clearance, me, and about 1" between my tires and the curb stones. somehow i managed to stay up and just rode right through it all with the passenger in the car looking amazed that i didn't stop. i'm just amazed that i didn't fall OR touch the car! later i realized that the car had come from a hidden side road and legally had the right of way, so i should have stopped, which also would have made me fall over :)  i think i'll just avoid this intersection in the future.

that's the road i was supposed to be on... 

second mistake was on the return trip as i meant to stay on the main road and avoid all small towns. i followed the biking route sign and ended up riding through a town. somehow i missed the signs back to the main road, and ended up following some signs which took me up into the vineyards. this turned out to be not such a bad mistake- but that path has many more hills, and the occasional car popping out from nowhere. also its actually a little scary as i felt like the wind would blow me right over the edge of the path. you can't really see whats below, so might as well be the lake! i wasn't on the vineyard path for very long, but i will have to try it again soon.

vineyards are finally green!

escape to Zurich.

after howie's first round of exams he had the weekend off! of course i didn't really know about this until 2 days before, but somehow we managed to change a couple of plans and head to zurich for part of the weekend. it was so great to spend time together outside of lausanne. i think that even if we're out of our apartment its difficult to forget that we're here for one very big reason. so getting out of town really feels good!

we spent friday night wandering the city a bit. ate at Sprungli (scavenger hunt!), saw the largest clock in europe (scavenger hunt!) and also saw corbusier's last house along the lakefront. actually, the lakefront there is quite amazing. i'm still getting used to the byob aspect of life here, also the tolerance for pot smoking. so the lakefront on a sunny friday evening was packed with people having a beer, chatting with friends, lighting up and hanging out. we even saw two guys biking together- they looked like twins as well- one holding the hookah while the other was smoking (while riding bikes through the crowd!) amazing.

sprungli! 

this country is MAD about chocolate bunnies.

chocolate mousse & cappuccino. yum.

howie is free!

giant clock.

getting a little lost... true adventurers.

sunset orange

sunset pink

le corbusier 'heidi weber' house/museum

of course we found the famous bratwurst stand. i think i like the bun-less approach.

howie's head has not grown- his torso has shrunk :)

so many bratwurst! 

the evening was a lot more wandering. it was great to see people out, restaurants open late, and general liveliness.  we even stumbled on some sort of marching band bar hopping around town. then we saw a group of bagpipers playing as they walked through the streets. then all of a sudden we saw another and another. some were huge, like 50-60 people, then some were only 4 or 5 people. nobody told us it was 'battle of the marching bands'?!  we made up that name but either something was going on or zurich-ites really like drums, piccolos and bagpipes. made for an interesting evening!

saturday the plan was to stay as long as we could, then take the train home in the evening. lets just say we walked until our feet were about to fall off. we started with the design museum and saw an amazing exhibit about photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson who was a very influential photographer with quite an amazing life. he travelled to china at the turn of communism, one of the first western reporters in russia, and witnessed the death of ghandi. he also survived a concentration camp during ww2 and once he escaped he dug up his camera he'd buried in the woods and continued to shoot. his work was so amazing and insightful.

we stumbled upon this market built under an existing train bridge in this industrial/artsy neighborhood. we stopped to eat some fish and chips (minus the chips) at this great little seafood stand. they also let us taste their olive paste and pesto. yummmm.

zurich Markthalle im Viadukt 

interior- the bridge splits and this is the space between

reminds me of minneapolis!

little restaurant in big arch

the next stop was the famous freitag store of stacked shipping containers. freitag is a swiss company that makes bags from old truck tarpaulins and seatbelts. every freitag bag is different, but once you start noticing these bags you see them everywhere!  too bad we can't really afford them at the moment- even the ipad case is 100fr. boo. i guess we did get to climb up to the top of the tower for free.

freitag store

a 'skyscraper' built from shipping containers

the view from the top

on our way down

the view from between the stacked containers

we saw a few more sights but eventually we just piled ourselves onto a train and called it a day.  i'll leave you with a few more photos from the trip!