Last week the Lecture@SAUL lecture, hosted by Peter Carroll, was given by seven SAUL students discussing their experiences while traveling in the last year.
Sinéad was only in China for a short visit but managed to travel and see a lot in that time. She highlighted some of her favorites from her visit including the Shanghai World Finance Centre at 474 m high, Paul Andreu's Pudong Airport, The Birds Nest, The Forbidden City, The CCTV Headquarters, the Temple to Heaven and Nanjing's Massacre museum.
Following Sinéad, Gavin Doheny talked about his time at the Shanghai Summer School which he won a scholarship to attend this summer. Gavin was one of around forty Europeans who attended the school but the only Irish student. He started by explaining that the Shanghai Summer School was about encouraging student exchanges and brought together students from various disciplines. He explained how the courses were structured in the Chinese universities he visited and some of the things he learned.
Gavin also mentioned the difficulties of studying in a country where he did not know that language and said there was many things that got lost in translation. Gavin finished up his talk with the highlights of his visit, a class on Chinese Painting, research into the Bund and its 1912 courtyard houses and a very interesting 1933 abattoir which has been converted into an Arts hub.
The next student to talk was Uná Breathnach HIfearnáin who spent the last year studying in Dessau Institute of Architecture in Germany. Úna Showed us her project work from her two semesters in the school including a project to revitalise the Kreuzberg area of Berlin.Uná also showed us some images form her class trip to Istanbul.
Úna also discussed what it was like to work in the same studio as students of many difference nationalities. She describes situations where even thought he course was though through English, simular to Gavin, the language barrier did cause problems at times.
Following Úna, Alan Hillard and Edel Murphy, who both studied in Stockholm's KTH School of Architecture, talked about their time in Sweden. Alan was in Stockholm for the first semester of the year and Adel for the second. They started by describing Stockholm, made up of 14 islands, to the audience and discussed how life differed living in a Swedish city.
Following this they discussed the School of Architecture and the old prison building it occupies. They also noted how the 4th year of the course is thought though English and there is a choice between being thought through Swedish or English in 5th year. Another interesting difference in the course allows the student to pick which design studio focus they wished to study. Both Alan and Edel decided to study Urban Studio.
Alan then discussed the travel he did durning his free time in Stockholm. Alan got to see a lot of interesting architecture including Asplund Public Library, Enskede's Woodland Cemetry and Sigurd Lewerentz's Church of Resurrection. Both Alan and Adel then summed up their time Stockholm and noted that the most noticeable difference they experienced was how dramatic the seasonal changes were.
Following their joint talk Edel discussed her summer trip to Panamá, the highlight being her visit to the Panamá Canal. This 77 km long canal, which takes 8-10 hours to travel by boat, struck Edel by its size and how far apart from the city it is. Edel also showed us images of the enormous sips which are designed to be as big as possible and still fit through the lock gates of the cannel. Edel also noted that the canal cannot currently meet the demand and that there is plans to build a new larger canal beside the current one. Edel finished up her talk by describing briefly her visit to Ecuador before leaving Panamá.
David started by describing the preconceptions he had before going to New York, and describing how, for the most part, they were all true. He also referenced Rem Koolhaas' Delirious New York and how he often saw the delirium of New York during his time there. David also mentioned how he was drawn to the parks in the city and found the juxtaposition of the activities in the park and the delirium of the city outside made them one of his favorite parts of the city.
David also mentioned that he tried to visit as many buildings he could while in the city and managed to get to some that really inspired him. One in particular that he really enjoyed was the American Folk Art Museum. He finished up by discussing briefly the work he did while there, starting off in construction, then moving into the company's office becoming their web designer and photographer and finally showing us the logo he designed for the company before her left.
Colin then described some of the places he saw on the way to New Zealand, including Tokyo in Japan and Australia. In Tokyo Colin was struct by how clean the city was and how even though their are 30,000 people living there, they all care about the city. He also mentioned the Yokohama Ferry Terminal as a building that he found particularly inspiring.
Colin then went on to describe the 'one chair house' where he lived in New Zealand and their plans to make their own furniture. However due the hours he put in laboring to earn money this ambition never came to fruition. Finishing up the talk Colin described some of the places he visited during his time in New Zealadn in particular the Mourri Architecture he visited.
Following all the speakers there was a short Q&A session where the students discusses the problems and benefits they all encountered while traveling. Some of the exchange students in the audience also lent their voice to the discussion. The lecture finished with the speakers giving some tips to those wishing to travel in the near future.
Tonights talk, the fifth lecture in the series, will be by PaulSelman entitled 'Reconnecting Landscape- People, Place and Nature'