Beautiful Landscape

This morning we left Munich early to head to Stuttgart. Throughout our traveling we rode along the Austrian and Swiss border where we got to see a beautiful landscape of mountains and rolling hills covering with trees, fields of crops, and small villages. These villages were densely packed with cottages that laid low in the valleys and some along the mountain side. It was a foggy morning where the fog sat low on the mountain tops. The fog emphasized the depth of the layers in the mountains where they began to fade into the background. The village looked so inviting with their smoke stacked chimneys and church steeples rising above the fog. The cottages were all made of white stucco and tan ceramic tiled rooftops; each of various shapes and sizes. Surrounding the villages were rows of crops among the rolling hills which added an interesting pattern to the rural landscape. The composition of these patterns can be described as a quilted landscape that was patched together. We also saw many barns, pastures of cows, and people riding horses. In between these villages were grassy meadow fields with large wind turbines subtly appearing in the background. After seeing all of that, we passed through the Black Forest. Everything I saw was picturesque; I couldn’t keep my eyes off of the beautiful landscape. I tried to capture the experience through pictures, but a frozen image does not illustrate the immeasurable beauty of this rural landscape. I thought about my family the hold time because I know they would have loved to see it all. I’ve decided that it would be a good idea to design my parent’s retirement home somewhere nearby.

After being mesmerized by my surroundings, we finally arrived at our first destination, the Vitra Campus. It’s location can be compared to the ark-la-tex; except dealing with countries: France, Germany, and Switzerland. The Vitra Campus is a large company that sells and produces designer furniture, primarily chairs. On their campus was a museum designed by Frank Gehry that exhibited the original designs, a Buckminster Fuller dome, a conference hall designed by Taado Ando, a fire station designed by Zaha Hadid, and their most recent completed addition was a large showroom designed by Herzog & de Meuron to feature their latest products. There is currently a building under construction that was designed by SANNA.

All of these architects are have one the Pitzker Prize (annual architectural design award). Vitra’s vision was simply to have these famous architectural works to act as individual objects of attraction. The combination of all of these famous architectural designs was like an ‘Architecture Disneyland’. I enjoyed seeing most of the projects; but I found the randomness and inconsistency of the overall campus aesthetic to be disturbing. We got to see a lot of fun and unique chair designs.

At the end of the day we went to visit the Hohenzollern Castle. The Hohenzollern family is the Prussian royal family of Germany’s former empire. This castle was every castle little girl’s dream ‘princess’ castle. It sat on the top of mountain, standing tall and peaking above the clouds on a cloudy day. It was authentically gorgeous with elegant ornamentation, and interestingly still owned by the Prussian Prince Georg Hohenzollern who is only 34 and single. I think I found my future plans; I just need to become an aristocrat somehow. I don’t need to say much more because the pictures will speak for themselves.