Our 4 Day Road Trip: Switzerland, Austria, France, and Germany

Professor Sill organized an optional trip for us to see parts of Switzerland, Germany, and France and all of the students chose to attend. We rented two vans and a car that were paid for by the program. The first project we visited was Hans Isler’s Garden Center in Camorino, Switerland. This is a concrete shell that is used to house a garden shop. We then proceeded to see several bridges until we reached our hotel on the border of Switzerland near Bregenz. In the morning we went to see the Kunsthaas by Zumthor. We only had about a half an hour there before we moved on so we did a quick walkthrough of the art exhibits. We then loaded into the vans again to make our way to Munich. The first place we went in Munich was the Olympic stadium from 1972. The roof was composed of a cable net and a clear membrane. After lunch we headed over to the BMW showroom and headquarters which is an incredible display of contemporary architecture by Coop Hemmelblau. Next we piled back into the vans to make our way to our hostel in Stuttgart. On the way we stopped by the Stuttgart Airport to observe the unique branch columns. We began the next morning at the Werkbund Village where we saw experimental houses by Le Corbusier, Mies Van der Rogh, Gropius, and Behrens. Afterwards we visited the Porsche Museum and the Mercedes Museum, neither of which we had time to tour, and then we returned to our hostel. We woke up early the next morning so that we could make our way to Ronchamp to see Corbusier’s Notre Dame du Haut and saw plans for Renzo Piano’s project in the area. Afterwards we head to Vitra to see buildings by some of the most famous architects of our time including Frank Gehry, Tadao Ando, Alvaro Siza, Buckmaster Fuller, and Zaha Hadid. This was an incredible experience. After this we returned to Genoa exhausted but also extremely glad we had a chance to see all of these incredible projects.

Vitra Fire Station - Zaha Hadid

Kunsthaus - Bregenz  

Weissenhof Museum - Le Corbusier 

Vitra Conference Room

BMW Showroom

Garden Center