Creswick Christmas 2013

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Paris Conference

Last weekend I attended the annual IRC Congress in Paris. Despite some misgivings beforehand, I remain the vice-chairman and one of the policy steering troika. On Saturday evening we had an entertaining dinner at the Yacht Club de France, near the Arc de Triomphe and then an amusing bus tour of the Champs Elysees, Eiffel Tower et al. Whilst the Saturday meeting took place in the dungeon of the hotel, we had the smaller meeting on Sunday morning on the 7^th floor with lovely views out over the Paris skyline.

  

After lunch on Sunday I caught up with Deb at La Defense, the amazing high rise area on the western outskirts of the city, whose development was initiated in the 60’s and still continues. It features some very impressive glass towers. The focus of this area is La Grande Arche which completes the historical axis of Paris beginning with the Louvre, the Tuileries, Place de la Concorde and the Champs Elysees. Its symmetry is somewhat spoilt by the lift frames and awnings, but they at least afford interesting shapes to photograph.

  

I was quite taken by the funky but elegant simplicity of the EDF building. It was no surprise to subsequently discover that the architect was I M Pei, he of the Louvre steel/glass pyramid and the Bank of China Tower in Hong Kong. It seemed to me a brave decision by the main state owned electricity company to commission such a radical but dogmatic architect. I am glad they did.

Most times I have been in Paris, I have tried to visit the Grande Palais, that magnificent edifice built for the 1900 Universal Exposition. Whilst the stone façade is typical over-the-top Beaux-Arts, it is the iron/steel/glass dome structure that I find fascinating and inspiring. But, as always, I was not able to visit the interior as they were setting up another exhibition.

As consolation, I decided to visit the Orangerie in the Tuileries, forgetting that it housed amongst others, Claude Monet’s “Nympheas” - hence the 150 m long queue outside. I continued walking east along the Seine past the Louvre, to see the Art Nouveau/Deco extravaganza “La Samaritaine” department store, which was of course closed for renovation. My mood was much improved by an excellent, simple lunch at a brasserie on the Rue de Rivoli, with the passing entertainment of rich ladies shopping.

I wandered on past Notre Dame and the Ile Saint-Louis to see the glass houses in the Jardin des Plantes. To continue the steel/glass structure motif, I took in the Gare d’Austerlitz and Gare de Lyon with their wonderful spans. I then strolled along the Canal Saint Martin before Metro-ing to the Gare de l’ Est and catching the 320 kmh TGV back to Luxembourg.

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Elephant Parade

A herd of 95 fantastically decorated elephants has been parading around Trier and Luxembourg for the last 3 months, in order to raise money for "The Asian Elephant Foundation" and other local charities. For the last couple of days, they have been corralled in the Law Courts precinct in downtown Luxembourg so that we could say goodbye.

"Grapes" and Friends.

Ingrid with "Stardust"

An Elephant with a Bear Behind

Villeroy and Boch

On Sunday we felt like a good, cheap schnitzel for lunch, so we ventured over the border to Mettlach on the banks of the Saar River. As it was, the schnitzel was cheap. For some, another attraction of Mettlach is the factory outlet of Villeroy and Boch. A non-attraction is the uneven cobblestone streets – Ingrid twisted her ankle.

We visited the Villeroy and Boch headquarters situated in the picturesque old abbey. The factory is now defunct as I imagine that production has been outsourced to China. I guess there is a small irony there.

The museum housed in the old factory is very impressive. We quite liked the delicate picnic sets in their exquisitely crafted travel hampers and trunks. Tupperware it wasn’t.

  

We were particularly taken by this flamboyant art nouveau his-and-hers vanity unit. Unfortunately, we don’t have a bathroom of sufficient dimensions to accommodate it.

There was an amusing reproduction of the table setting for the original Villeroy/Boch wedding. By the facial expressions of some of the realistic looking mannequins, I’m glad we were not invited.

Bologna Weekend

Having missed our Bologna friends when we rushed home after our Tuscany sojourn in July, Ingrid arranged 20 euro each way Ryanair tickets to the sun this last weekend. This happily coincided with Krantz and Silvia’s 25^th wedding anniversary. As I had been best man, it was also the 25^th anniversary of my once-in-a-lifetime experience of buying myself a suit. The celebrations took place at Krantz’s family’s magnificent summer house in the country outside Verona. The guest list was almost exactly that of the wedding, but with the addition of a generation of children and a few grey hairs.

The rest of the weekend was spent in the always pleasant company of Aldo and Pucci. We wandered through the old part of Bologna, which was made even more pleasant by the temporary provision of large pedestrian-only areas. Aldo and I talked boats and Pucci and Ingrid were talking about who knows what. There were, of course, some lovely lunches too.

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Belgian Beer Weekend

Last weekend we attended the Belgian Beer Weekend in Brussels with a good fun group of Ingrid’s work colleagues. It began immediately after school on Friday with a loud and beery 3 hour train trip to Brussels. On arrival at our hotel, we found that we could not have our rooms because they were “polluted”. We never found out exactly what this signified. Ingrid was delighted to find that our substitute hotel was right on the Grand Place where the event was held.

After a bucket of moules for dinner, we joined the rest of our troupe for a late night in the famous Delirium Café. It was jumping. The pink elephant is the café mascot. It was a bit of a tart.

On Saturday morning, we had a lovely late breakfast at a window table overlooking the hoi polloi queuing for entry to the festival area in the Grand Place. We wandered out a little later to find that the rest of the team was already out of the blocks and sprinting.  I figured that if I were to enjoy the whole day, I should start off rather slowly.

  

Ingrid and I took a break to look for some lunch. We both love Brussels and it is always fun just to wander around. Its apparent haphazard juxtaposition of architectural styles is fascinating and I love the abundance of Art Deco extravaganzas. We searched out the start of the procession of traditional beer carts with their magnificent draught horses. After, we had a delicious soup and chunky bread lunch in a local café and enjoyed being able to sit down for a while.

  

Not being a beer drinker, Ingrid was delighted to find a cassis flavoured lambic beer from Lindemans. I tried a sip. It was really girlie. At only 3.5% alcohol content, it was good for keeping Trixie away.

It was a long trip home on the train, longer for some than others. At least we had Sunday to recover before work on Monday

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Vitra Campus

For another rainy day activity, we had discovered that there was a design museum in Weil am Rhein, on the outskirts of Basel. Vitra, a Swiss furniture manufacturer, has a unique factory complex comprising buildings by various world renowned architects including Nicholas Grimshaw, Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Alvaro Siza, Herzog & de Meuron and my favourite, Tadao Ando.

The Frank Gehry designed museum is the centrepiece of the Vitra Campus, but strangely, it was the most underwhelming of the buildings. It appeared to eschew the edict of form following function with its profligate use of “look at me“ twirls and random angles. Subsequently, this made it very easy to photograph.

I have been an admirer of the Japanese architect Tadao Ando ever since I recognised his 1981 Koshino House in Ashiya, Japan as “my” house. My taste for shuttered concrete has been ridiculed over the ensuing years, but it has stood the test of time. Just being in and around his conference pavilion here at Vitra has confirmed my fascination with Ando’s brutally beautiful simple style. This visit had the same spiritual quality as my pilgrimage to the house and studio of Alvar Aalto in Helsinki.

The VitraHaus, designed by Herzog and de Meuron in 2010, is the flagship store for the Vitra Home Collection. The exterior appears as a random stack of graphite black, pentagonal tubes. The interior quite cleverly guides the visitor down through five spectacular levels of the company’s products like a very up-market Ikea. The furniture on display was often intelligent, invariably ultra stylish and expensive. But, I am afraid that I was more taken by the building itself, especially the delightfully sculptural staircases.

The Zaha Hadid designed fire station displays none of the hallmark fluid shapes of some of her other famous projects, but its angularity is highlighted by zig-zag, shard-like shapes of shuttered concrete panels. I loved it.

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