Weekend in the Dunes

Had a very pleasant weekend on Texel (the biggest island in the north-west coast of the Netherlands). Just wanted to share a few pictures of the Landscape.

Besides a few small villages and the amazing Dutch landscape around them, the main crowd puller for this cycleable tourist island is her beaches and beautiful Dune landscape all along her Western Coast.

London

Yet another quick trip to London to catch up with Friends and Family.

Along with Pragya went to see an exhibition on Che Guevara titled – “Che Guevara:
Revolutionary & Icon” at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Though it was a good collection of Products/Ads with Che in them I felt the exhibition could have been presented differently from the clichéd way in which we know of him.

Later that day while searching for a nice place to have dinner we* stumbled on this small housing colony very close to Covent Garden. Though bang in the centre of London once inside the Colony you were completely taken away from the noise and mess of the huge city around.

(Interesting the above project also reminded me a lot of my Aunt’s colony in Delhi designed by one the star Indian Architect of Post-Independent India – Raj Rewal. I had posted a snap from here earlier on this blog. Click HERE to see that entry.)
(* - Avani, Neha, Pragya and myself)

The great thing about be able to revisit big cities like London, Paris and Mumbai is the exhibitions that one can see there. And this time was no different so after the ‘Che’ exhibition at V and A, I managed to take a quick look at a very interesting exhibition on Architecture titled – “Future City” – at the Barbican Centre. The Barbican Centre itself is worth a trip by itself but the exhibition had an amazing collection of Architectural Projects and Utopias from over the years from all over the world. Indeed a very interesting exhibition (though they could have used a bigger space for such a large collection)

(Read more about this exhibition on the official gallery website – HERE, or you can download a brochure of the exhibition HERE it shows all the architecture movements covered in it)

And sort of the highlight of the trip – Wimbledon.

Wow, it was great to be able to see the real thing. Thanks to some great planning by ex-Wimbledon employee Amrita Ravimohan we had a great day at the All England Lawn Tennis Club and got to see some big stars play and that to for what I thought was a steal of a price. (Way to go girl !!)

And what was better was that my sister who had just flown in from Dubai the previous night was able to join us.

Here are some pictures that look like stuff you seen on your TV screens a lot of times (but what the hell I want to share my pics). And look who’s in the red box our very own Indian superstar – Sania Mirza – We love you Saniaaaaa…!!! (Check my old blog entry on Sania)

But like I said early the reason for this trip was to meet up with Friends and Family – In fact a new member of the Family – Fahad - my Nephew. Check out a few pics of him. I really hope that I can visit him quiet often, good thing I’m not too far from here.

Zuidas - Final Review

Today finally I finished with my presentation on the Amsterdam Zuidas Train station proposal, a studio that I supposedly did with Ben Van Berkel. Extremely disappointed with my project and the whole studio especially the complete lack of professionalism from Ben himself. In the course of the 4 month studio he made only 4 appearances and was more of an outsider to the project than most external jurors. But nonetheless happy that it’s over and I can move on to my next year at the Berlage and to better projects.

However, I have to say that Olaf Gipser who was supposedly only an assistant tutor tried very hard in making sense of most of our projects and was extremely helpful and inspiring. At the very least I would like to wish him and his office in Amsterdam the very best of luck in whatever they do.

And to that spirit we decided to make the studio group portrait with him alone. Thanks Olaf!

Party in the Vault

We (Juan, Melisa and I) threw an amazing party in the vault in the school yesterday. Since the school here in Rotterdam is housed in a building that used to be a bank there are some amazing spaces and huge vault (all with fancy super heavy metal doors) down in the labyrinth on basements below our studio and school offices.

We threw the party because we just found out that the three of us were awarded the Nuffic Scholarship for the coming academic year. I have to admit that my jaw is hurting from all the smiling since this news has really sunk in.

Showing today – REM KOOLHASS @ the Luxor Theatre

As part of the China Contemporary exhibition and lecture series by the Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAI) early today the legendary Rem Koolhaas lectured to a large crowd at the Luxor theatre here in Rotterdam. The lecture was largely a repeat of what he had spoken in February at a public lecture at the Berlage Institute with a bit more focus on China.

In his lecture he showed images of rapid new developments in China and in the middle east especially in cities like Dubai and asked the question – “What can we learn from these absurdities” * – However, Koolhaas didn’t have any answers to that question and a few others that he posed (at least not yet). He argued for the curtailment of architects and designers in designing everything in the city, he feared that the city was losing its most charming character - Uncertainty.

I can’t stop wondering if his worry needs to be a genuine concern for me and though I feel this phenomenon strongly in certain cities here in Europe I calm myself thinking of the situation back home in our cities of India and wonder boy I have a long time before that can even start sounding like a real problem where I come from.

* – (Silently I smiled to myself at his usage of the word 'Absurdity' remembering my post on Dubai in February on this blog titled ‘Pockets of Absurdity Vs. Pockets of Reality’ - click HERE to see that posting)