The Highlands

We spent yesterday and today driving thru some of the most amazing landscapes.

We started from the outskirts of Glasgow .. past the mind blowing Loch Lomond.. and halted for the night near Fort William.

There is something extremely magical about the highlands - its almost unreal.. even after having spend most of the last two days there it difficult to convince myself that it wasn't all a dream!

Today we drove all the way up to Loch Ness - where we all really looked hard to see the illusive monster (with no luck of course) -

... above is the Urqhart Castle at the bank of the Ness ...

Later in the day we headed back to Glasgow from where we'll be flying to London early tomorrow!

This was my second visit to this fabulous land and this time around I was constantly reminded of my trips to 'Shillong' (a city in north east India) and its clear to me why the British referred to that region as the 'Scotland of the East'.

Edinburgh

After a few days break in London after the hectic schedule on the mainland we today started our three day road trip of Scotland.

Earlier today we flew into the Scottish capital - Edinburgh. This is my second trip to this fairy tale like city sitting in it's beautiful setting and built around an ancient castle. Exhausted both physically and mentally we decided to see this city using the least possible energy. Which meant we had to resort to taking the extremely touristic hop-on hop-off bus. Nonetheless Edinburgh is one of those city that has the power to impress even the laziest of tourists!

So from the comfort of the open roof double decker we whisked thru the most important sights of the city only hopping off at the Royal Mile.......

.....Our Dynamic Earth... (a project designed by Michael Hopkins) ...

... and the Scottish Parliament....

There is little doubt in the fact that this is the most impressive parliament building built in the last 30 years and on my previous visit after my initial hiccups I had grown to like it - it's spaces, its materials and even it's landscape.

But I am not the same me and I would like to believe that my sense of architecture has evolved since then, so this time around the Scottish parliament was in no way able to arouse in me the same sense of awe! Its contextualism and non conformity (aesthetically) has persuaded some people to consider it to be a truly democratic parliament building. They say it is the true face of democracy - an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole.

Though I like how this sounds I don't think I completely buy this theory! It's confused symbolism and extravagant use of metaphors bothers me too much. And when I place this building in the oeuvre of its designer - Enric Miralles - all I can conclude is that the design of the Scottish parliament has very little to do with representing any form of governance and is just another building by a highly talented yet whimsical artist/architect.

However, coming to such a conclusion is a lot easier than having to design an institution that has to represent the contemporary state. So how are we to represent something as ephemeral as democracy? Can it be done only so haphazardly? Or rather is it even possible?

Day 2 in Paris

Also my last day on mainland Europe for this trip. I have now been escaping my guide duty towards my family for the the last 3/4 days and I knew that I had to spent at least half of today showing them around the famous sites in Paris. So in the morning I headed out early to see two buildings that you can't not go when visiting this great city. Not because I had not seen them before, in fact I've been to them more than once and I'm also quiet familiar with them but I just had to see them again!

The first of these is also apparently Paris' most visited attraction - Centre Georges Pompidou.
This centre houses the Bibliothèque publique d'information, a public library, the Musée National d'Art Moderne, and IRCAM, a centre for music and acoustic research.The building was designed by the architects Renzo Piano, Richard Rogers and Sue Rogers and engineers Peter Rice and Edmund Happold after they won a huge international competition for its design.
This project propelled both Piano and Rodgers to the elite world of starchitects and introduced the high-tech style with its exposed skeleton of brightly colored tubes for mechanical systems to a global audience.
There is little doubt that the Pompidou 'revolutionized museums,' in fact it prompted a critic to declare that the design of the Centre "turned the architecture world upside down".
It's amazing how a building that seems to have no relation to the architecture of its surroundings is still soo contextual; the proportion and section of the plaza in front of it is pure genius!

And the other must see building is probably the most impressive work by local architect Jean Nouvel.
L'Institut du Monde Arabe is a museum of sorts whose purpose is to spread knowledge and research the Arab World’s language, and its cultural and spiritual values to the West.
The design of the building clearly reflects this ambition. Jean Nouvel successfully plays with symbolic items like the traditional wooden 'moucharabiehs' screens used in most Arab cultures.
But instead of using them literally he creates a contemporary mechanized version of it in metal with polygons of varying shapes and sizes creating a geometric effect that reminds of great Arab buildings like the Alhambra.
(Sadly the mechanism which was suppose to regulate the amount of sunlight within the building is no longer working!)
And to end here's three photos of the Citroën showroom on the Champs-Elysées designed by Manuelle Gautrand .

Paris - (rest of) day 1

We first headed to see Jean Nouvel's Foundation Cartier where the external façade was designed as a glass screen running parallel to the boulevard and would prolong it’s perspective.
From there we went to see the Bibliotheque Nationale.
My sis was in disbelief that this massive complex of 4 identical 'open book' towers and its huge forested courtyard was all one huge library!
The stop was Corbusier's Cité de Refuge.
This project was the great master's first opportunity to create accommodation for the urban poor.
The compact site provided the chance for a radical approach both to bringing in light and space and to laying out the entrance halls to accommodate the Salvation Army's reception process.
However we didn't feel very safe around there with my camera and stuff and made a quick dash out of there
catching the closest metro straight to the Louvre museum.
If you've been reading my blogs you would know how big a fan of I M Pei I am.
His extension and new entrance halls to the Louvre is undoubtedly a great piece of architecture yet there is something horribly wrong with its symbolism.
Though like in his other buildings I love his choice of materials and its beautiful detailing, I am unable to agree with its overall form.
Yes I like the idea of the non-building
(everything neatly tucked away below the huge plaza),
yes I like the generosity of it's entrance spaces,
yes I like how he has dealt with proportions as one sequentially enters the original Palace but the Glass Pyramids I do not get!And clearly it isn't the glass that's bothering me.
(I have added only one photo of the inside of the museum - the one above- clicked at the Mona Lisa exhibit to show the sheer amount of people who are in here everyday of the year! It's really crazy..)
How or rather why did Pei use the Pyramid so literally here. Yes, I am aware of his inclination towards this geometry but surely this wasn't the right place for using it soo purely - Or is it?