Author: KURT

The three of us, that is, all of AVA, taken at the Santuari de Nostra Senyora dels Angels in the hills outside of Girona, Spain, last week. We all enjoy cycling, and the gravel and dirt roads in Catalonia offer to us ample bandwidth to recharge our batteries, which include:

design

cultural

culinary

physical

As we explore the areas outside of Girona, architecture is always on our minds.  What we find most compelling are the vernacular buildings.  Our rides would be a lot shorter if we didn’t stop to take photos of these buildings, which we do all the time.   

If you look closely at the white gable facade above, you will see that the door, and the circular window above the door, are centered on the gable.   However, we have found this centeredness to be uncommon. The  photo below is a more typical example, in which the door, the religious niche and the round window are not centered on the gable.   While this off centeredness is pretty much unthinkable in Upstate New York (can you imagine what historical review boards would say if we presented a gable elevation with off centered windows??…the horror!!!), it’s all cool here.

For us, the gravel bike is the perfect bicycle for Otsego County.  Wider tires, lower gearing, and relaxed geometry make it fun to ride on the wide variety of surfaces and terrain. In our rides, we like to ride on as many gravel / dirt roads that we can.

During the winter, the amount of gravel surfaces that you can ride on increases exponentially, given the thick quantities of gravel that the road crews put on the roads.  The road surface in the photo above is asphalt.  Yet just looking at the road, you wouldn’t know that.  Instead, it looks like a nice, upstanding, dirt / gravel road.

Many rides have a 30 / 70 ratio: that is, the surfaces are 30% gravel and 70% paved.  With the winter gravel transformation, that ratio flips to 70% gravel and 30% paved.  This is another dynamic that makes riding in Otsego county so much fun.

It’s never too cold to ride a bike.  There is that (supposedly) Norwegian saying, there is no bad weather, only bad clothes.  And that applies to cycling.  With proper clothing, riding in Otsego County can be enjoyed all winter.  And now you have more gravel roads to do it on.     

During our stay here in Panama City, Panama, we rode bicycles to Frank Gehry’s Biomuseo.  And we want to report that this is our favorite Ghery building that we have visited so far.  The building makes a very powerful connection to the environment.  Even when you were inside amongst the exhibits, there was never a loss of connection to the exterior.  And after 10 years of use, it was holding together well.  

This caused us to wonder which Ghery buildings we have visited.  These include:

-Guggenheim Bilbao

-Museum of Pop Culture, Seattle

-Piex (Fish), Barcelona

-Dancing House, Prague (exterior only)

-Stata Center, MIT (exterior only)

-Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto

-Chau Chan Wing Building, Sydney

-Weisman Art Museum, Minneapolis

-etc.

So here is a question: when is it appropriate for the museum building to be better than the cultural exhibition it houses?  For this was certainly the case in the Biomuseo: the exhibits paled in comparison to the geometric dynamism of the building.   And as we think back, most museums by star architects are better than the culture / art that the building houses.  Our recent visit to The Prince Philip Science Museum in Valencia was almost embarrassing: the science exhibits looked like they were done by amateurs compared with the stunning surround of Calatrava’s exhortation.  Another example: the Museum of Pop Culture is a more coherent cultural statement than the meager artifacts that the museum houses.

The free architectural expression of the Biomuseo seemed as if it had grown.   Steel I beams are brought down in clumps: you felt like you were in the rain forest under the tree canopy.  Which we are sure was Ghery’s intent.

As we ride on the back roads around Girona, Spain, we have become fixated on a common architectural form.  This is the long, soft, low gable that we see in the photos above.  This is used as a house, a barn, a workshop, and sometimes multiple functions are contained within this simple and elegant form.  

Typically, the walls are stone, and the roof is tile.  What gives the incredible softness to the forms is the playful manner the geometry is subtly manipulated:

-the two end walls are typically not the same height.

-the gable ridge is usually not in the center

-windows and doors are never placed symmetrically

Just as interesting is the many ways that this form has been modified and adapted.  Stunningly, a large archway on the side allows for more utilitarian uses, as seen in the photo top right.  When smaller additions are added, an entire universe of architectural expression becomes possible.  The lower right photo shows buttresses on the exterior walls.  And sometimes the form is assembled out of steel and concrete, as can be seen in the middle right photo.

We can’t imagine seeing this spectacular landscape without doing it on bikes. There is one unbelievable visual experience after the next. Many photos are snapped from the moving bike. Despite our self navigation with GPS, getting somewhat lost, which has happened more than once, only adds to the wonder of what we will see next.

Both of our sons have replaced the clutch in their vehicles.  Max replaced the clutch and flywheel in his truck, image above, in which we see the transmission being lowered.  And Hans replaced the clutch in his car about 2 years ago.  

The similiarities include:
-they did the work solo
-they did it on the floor of the garage where they live
-both are Naval officers

You might say, what?  What does THAT have to do with your provision of architectural services?  Well, keep in mind that AVA is a family operation.  Quite possibly, there is some family DNA in play.

In the office, we try to be hands on as much as is practical.  We still construct study models by hand, with chipboard, an X-acto, and Elmer’s glue.  We draw, by hand, sketches.  We go out and record, physically, with a tape measure, the existing structures that we are working on.  A materials library is maintained which explain how structures are made, and how materials work together.  

As our kids were growing up, they saw us doing this hands on work.  Every day after school they would spread their homework out on the conference table and then get to work.  And there Teresa and I would be, constructing yet another study model variant.  Or producing a hand sketch.

Did our hands on work habits rub off?  We like to think so.  We’re obviously proud of them for having the resourcefulness to attempt, and successfully complete, a mechanical repair of this magnitude.  And then, to come full circle, their work ethos inspires us to push our hands on ethos further. 

We had the occasion last week to spend a few days in Lancaster County in PA.  Our bikes were put to work as we toured the back roads, mostly southwest of Lancaster.  And we were amazed by the incredibly rich barn tradition.

The dominant barn archetype is what is called the Pennsylvania Barn.  This is typified by a cantilevered second story, which provided protection from the weather.  It is also categorized by a bank, or grass slope, on the opposite side, leading to the upper level.  These were built principally by the German immigrants who settled the area in the early 1800s.

As we rode thru the fantastic countryside, what we began to notice is how close many of the barns were located to the road.  They were placed right on the edge of the pavement, which creates a very powerful, almost shocking, effect.  We began to realize that they were tobacco barns.  You can see the operable ventilation panels, and wood vertical connectors, that opened the barn to permit air to move thru.  

After cursory research, I have not been able to determine why this particular barn type was placed smack dab at the edge of the road.  My best guess is that it helped the convection of air.  The road air temperature was warmer than the field air temperature, which then boosted the air circulation in the barn.  Quite possibly, the correct answer can be found in a book somewhere. 

Another surprise was how some barns were at an angle to adjacent barns.  It was  shocking to see a massive barn which was not 90 degrees to another large barn not 50 feet away.  Chalk it up to those crazy immigrant Germans again, right?

And back to those Pennsylvania Barns, which we are here to tell you, they work great.  For when a sudden thunderstorm cropped up, the cantilevered overhang was a great place to stand under with the bike.  We stayed, mostly, dry.    

New York State has many public lands.  They are either State Forests, State Parks, or County Forest Lands.  And there are fun biking trails thru them.

It has gotten to the point now where a typical ride for us starts with pavement, then transitions to unpaved roads, with the apex of the ride thru some of these public lands.  Rides with this diversity only adds to our thesis that Cooperstown is a great biking destination.  

When you see any of the signs shown above, you know there are public lands.  When riding, look into the woods, you can see where the trails start.  Some of them are clearly marked. Others are nothing more than two unmarked tracks into the woods. An axiom for us is that when you don’t see no trespassing signs for awhile as you ride along, there is a good chance that the land is public.  

We have ridden on trails in the State Forests of Arnold Lake, Roseboom, Hooker Mountain, Hartwick, R. Milton Hick, and the county lands off of Indian Run Road. These are all within the range of a typical ride.  This photo is taken on Andy’s Trail in the Betty & Wilbur Davis State Park.     

We have found most of these trails as a result of exploration.  Of course, you can take the scientific approach and just look it up.  The image below is from the DEC’s website, and it shows State Forests and State Parks.  This is a link to Otsego County’s website showing the county land holdings. 

We had an unexpectedly delightful experience at Monticello yesterday.  We rode our bikes from Charlottesville thru the beautiful early spring morning.  All of the tulips were in boom.  The trees were just budding out.    

Here it all was.  This was the beginning of America’s love affair with neoclassical architecture.  Whether you have had an architectural education or not, Monticello is seared into your iconography.  It’s on the back of a nickel, for God’s sake.  So it is difficult not to bring emotional baggage to the interface.   Yet, all the same, we were seduced.

It was interesting to learn that Monticello was Jefferson’s reaction to the English.  He spent time in Williamsburg, and considered that architectural language as “rude and misshapen.”  No, what this new country needs is an architecture which speaks to the classical ideals of Greece and Rome.  An architecture which invokes the concepts of individual liberty, education, rationality, clarity and restrained proportion is what is needed.  And that’s what we got.  

Jefferson’s copying of French Neoclassicism is well documented.  Palladio is cited as another of Jefferson’s influences.  It seems that while he may not have visited any of Palladio’s buildings, he knew about them from his books.  The Rotunda at the University of Virginia, which we also visited, is of course a direct copy of the Pantheon.  

You’ve got to admit, Jefferson had a point.  If you’re going to establish an architecture of democracy, you absolutely would want the flowing, genteel, graceful and soft geometry of Neoclassical inspired Monticello compared to the boring chop a block British.

And, yes, none of this bucolic splendor would have been possible without Jefferson’s ownership of other human beings.  That fact is acknowledged thu out the experience.  They are just finishing the construction of what they call a meditation to Jefferson’s slaves, with their names cut into corten steel panels, photo below.

As I was writing this post this AM, I was dabbling around with this drawing.  I kept thinking, the design of Monticello is really about that dome that he added to his house.  He could write the Declaration of Independence, and also establish an architectural ideal for a new democracy.

As we continue our stay in Buenos Aires, we are spending our time in avid exploration of the city.  Traveling around both on bike and on foot, we have become captivated by the architectural expression of the sides of apartment buildings.  

Most apartment buildings have the footprint of a long rectangle.  The short side faces the street, and the long side extends back from the street.  For the long sides of the rectangular volume, there are typically two or three vertical cuts.  These cuts are made to give light and ventilation to the apartments that do not face the street.  What has focussed our attention is the sculptural manner in which these vertical cuts are made.

The cuts are typically very wide at the top of the building, and they narrow the lower they are.  The wider opening at the top brings as much light and ventilation as possible into the lower apartments.   The visual effect, once you tune into it, is very powerful and aesthetically pleasing.

You can see similar vertical cuts in the sides of apartment buildings in, for example, NYC.  Yet these are always straight vertical shafts with no stepping.  

As the four photos show, there is a wide variation in the geometry these forms.  The stepping of the cuts is typically not symmetrical.  That is, one face is typically not the mirror image of the other face.  The juxtaposition of how the cuts widen from side to side gives an amazing sculptural and organic quality to what are very ordinary buildings.  The best ones have a ziggurat quality to them.  

The sketch below uses this geometry as a jumping off point for a possible architectural form.