Lina Bo Bardi was a Brazilian architect active from the 1950s through the 1980s. One of her most notable works was the museum of art Sao Paolo (MASP), an iconic building easily recognized by its giant red concrete frame holding up a double deck gallery in glass. The space below the suspended gallery becomes a huge column free plaza which commonly fills with markets, fairs, and other public gatherings. The plaza extend to the edge of the museum's lower levels, and forms an overlook over the city.
Saori and I walked there one night when we were studying abroad, at the very beginning of our relationship, and it was there, sitting under MASP, with the lights and sounds of Sao Paolo below, that I worked up the nerve to kiss Saori for the first time. Later, we both took courses at university which dealt directly or tangentially with Lina Bo's work, guided by a certain professor, one Zeuler Lima, who had spent many many years studying her work.
After recently publishing a fairly comprehensive monograph of her works, he was invited to speak in Munich as part of a symposium and exhibition commemorating Lina's 100th birthday, had she still been alive. Zeuler invited us to come, and so we came: actually, we don't really need much incentive to come to Munich, but it was good to have a good excuse. I grabbed some surprisingly cheap tickets on the ICE.
After a fitful nights sleep, we dragged our sorry asses to the station for a 7:15am train. Normally, I crawl out of bed closer to 7:45. Got to Munich around 9:30, and we ditched the first panel of the symposium in favor of coffee and shopping at MUJI.
We got to Pinakotek der Modern just as the second panel was kicking off. I could have missed it. We met Zeuler briefly at the lunch break while we grabbed a mediocre sandwich at the museum cafe.
We were quite disappointed to discover as well that the associated exhibition would not be open until the following day.
Side note: why are museum cafes so mediocre? If it's the whole captive audience issue, then why isn't the food at least like a sports arena? Do we really need the "sophisticated" sort of food which pretends to be fine dining? If you are going to serve something from an international food service consortium, just give me pizza or fries or a hot dog or doner kebab instead of a pretentious brie, arugala and spicy mustard ciabatta which is not only overpriced but also bland, boring, and exhausted.
The third panel included a presentation by our professor. Gina, a friend of our and former classmate (well, she was my TA in urban books) also came to see Zeuler, since he taught urban books. She also works for Behnisch, although in their Munich office. Zeuler gave a good presentation, although he was still a little loopy from jet lag. He kept forgetting to advance to slides on screen which where clearly not synched to the presentation tablet.
Regardless, it was clear from earlier and later remarks from the other panelists, which included one Lina Bo's closest former associates, that Zeuler was respected as a deep repository of knowledge about Lina Bo.
After the third session, we broke for a coffee break. Zeuler, learning that we had wanted to see to exhibition, arranged for a private tour with the curator(!) so we got to have a quick spin with Zeuler with the exhibition design explained by the curator. It's one thing to see a museum exhibit explained by a docent, who talks about the work, and another to have an explanation of the exhibition by the curator. It was really wonderful, with all handwritten info and signage, and many of Lina Bo's original sketches and drawings. The only thing I was sorry about was that we had to breeze through it all so quickly.
To our surprise, Zeuler took a coffee break to visit with us, ditching the entire talk given by one of the speakers. We caught up about his work, life at Wash U, got an autograph in the book he just published, and told him about our life here in Germany.
It was really nice and I was sorry we had to rejoin the conference after, although there were some more good presentations, including some remarks and anecdotes by Lina Bo's former associate who spoke about working with her on the SESC project.
The symposium was not well attended perhaps there were ten audience members per panelist, although I was happy to see for the second half (including Zeuler's presentation) a busload of architecture students trooped in, filling out the auditorium.
The symposium ended at five, and we said mata-ne to Zeuler as he went to rejoin his colleagues and panelists. We caught a U-bahn across town to The Tap Room. The tap room is an upscale but unpretentious beer hall which serves a wide variety of international beers. While it would be entirely unremarkable in most US cities, it is nearly unheard of in southern Germany. I heard about them through Gina, who bumped them to the top of my list by serving beer on tap from Urban Chestnut brewery in St. Louis, brewed from the mixed waters of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers.
It's so good to have a Wing Nut ale again, and a strong wheat bock called "Elfkönig" from the same company. Also drank a really good "continuous [ly hopped] IPA" from a US brewer called Töeter(?). Not as good as my favorite IPA, "Bengali" from six points brewery, but Devin a rely second best IPA. We also chowed down on some delicious goulash soup to cushion the blow of these strong beers. (The elfkönig was 8% abv, the IPA: 7.5%).
Sadly, we had to chug the last quarters of our second round and make a dash for the U-bahn. Service was slow and we stoppe , twice, in the system between stations. We waited nearly ten excruciating minutes in the u bahn just shy of the hauptbahnhof station, and with ten minutes before our trains scheduled departure, Saori predicted we weren't going to make it.
Shortly after, the car started moving and we dashed to the platform. Thankfully, we were at the u bahn platform right outside the station platforms, only a few tracks away from our train, and we even had time to quickly thrust some coins into a machine for a bottle of water. The train left about four minutes after we boarded.
Had to unexpectedly change trains in Ausburg due to mechanical problems but now we are on our way back to Stuttgart, less than an hour delayed. Hopefully we will be back home before 11, since we both have to work again tomorrow. All in all, a good day, but a whirlwind of limited objectives in Munich
Saori and I walked there one night when we were studying abroad, at the very beginning of our relationship, and it was there, sitting under MASP, with the lights and sounds of Sao Paolo below, that I worked up the nerve to kiss Saori for the first time. Later, we both took courses at university which dealt directly or tangentially with Lina Bo's work, guided by a certain professor, one Zeuler Lima, who had spent many many years studying her work.
After recently publishing a fairly comprehensive monograph of her works, he was invited to speak in Munich as part of a symposium and exhibition commemorating Lina's 100th birthday, had she still been alive. Zeuler invited us to come, and so we came: actually, we don't really need much incentive to come to Munich, but it was good to have a good excuse. I grabbed some surprisingly cheap tickets on the ICE.
After a fitful nights sleep, we dragged our sorry asses to the station for a 7:15am train. Normally, I crawl out of bed closer to 7:45. Got to Munich around 9:30, and we ditched the first panel of the symposium in favor of coffee and shopping at MUJI.
We got to Pinakotek der Modern just as the second panel was kicking off. I could have missed it. We met Zeuler briefly at the lunch break while we grabbed a mediocre sandwich at the museum cafe.
We were quite disappointed to discover as well that the associated exhibition would not be open until the following day.
Side note: why are museum cafes so mediocre? If it's the whole captive audience issue, then why isn't the food at least like a sports arena? Do we really need the "sophisticated" sort of food which pretends to be fine dining? If you are going to serve something from an international food service consortium, just give me pizza or fries or a hot dog or doner kebab instead of a pretentious brie, arugala and spicy mustard ciabatta which is not only overpriced but also bland, boring, and exhausted.
The third panel included a presentation by our professor. Gina, a friend of our and former classmate (well, she was my TA in urban books) also came to see Zeuler, since he taught urban books. She also works for Behnisch, although in their Munich office. Zeuler gave a good presentation, although he was still a little loopy from jet lag. He kept forgetting to advance to slides on screen which where clearly not synched to the presentation tablet.
Regardless, it was clear from earlier and later remarks from the other panelists, which included one Lina Bo's closest former associates, that Zeuler was respected as a deep repository of knowledge about Lina Bo.
After the third session, we broke for a coffee break. Zeuler, learning that we had wanted to see to exhibition, arranged for a private tour with the curator(!) so we got to have a quick spin with Zeuler with the exhibition design explained by the curator. It's one thing to see a museum exhibit explained by a docent, who talks about the work, and another to have an explanation of the exhibition by the curator. It was really wonderful, with all handwritten info and signage, and many of Lina Bo's original sketches and drawings. The only thing I was sorry about was that we had to breeze through it all so quickly.
To our surprise, Zeuler took a coffee break to visit with us, ditching the entire talk given by one of the speakers. We caught up about his work, life at Wash U, got an autograph in the book he just published, and told him about our life here in Germany.
It was really nice and I was sorry we had to rejoin the conference after, although there were some more good presentations, including some remarks and anecdotes by Lina Bo's former associate who spoke about working with her on the SESC project.
The symposium was not well attended perhaps there were ten audience members per panelist, although I was happy to see for the second half (including Zeuler's presentation) a busload of architecture students trooped in, filling out the auditorium.
The symposium ended at five, and we said mata-ne to Zeuler as he went to rejoin his colleagues and panelists. We caught a U-bahn across town to The Tap Room. The tap room is an upscale but unpretentious beer hall which serves a wide variety of international beers. While it would be entirely unremarkable in most US cities, it is nearly unheard of in southern Germany. I heard about them through Gina, who bumped them to the top of my list by serving beer on tap from Urban Chestnut brewery in St. Louis, brewed from the mixed waters of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers.
It's so good to have a Wing Nut ale again, and a strong wheat bock called "Elfkönig" from the same company. Also drank a really good "continuous [ly hopped] IPA" from a US brewer called Töeter(?). Not as good as my favorite IPA, "Bengali" from six points brewery, but Devin a rely second best IPA. We also chowed down on some delicious goulash soup to cushion the blow of these strong beers. (The elfkönig was 8% abv, the IPA: 7.5%).
Sadly, we had to chug the last quarters of our second round and make a dash for the U-bahn. Service was slow and we stoppe , twice, in the system between stations. We waited nearly ten excruciating minutes in the u bahn just shy of the hauptbahnhof station, and with ten minutes before our trains scheduled departure, Saori predicted we weren't going to make it.
Shortly after, the car started moving and we dashed to the platform. Thankfully, we were at the u bahn platform right outside the station platforms, only a few tracks away from our train, and we even had time to quickly thrust some coins into a machine for a bottle of water. The train left about four minutes after we boarded.
Had to unexpectedly change trains in Ausburg due to mechanical problems but now we are on our way back to Stuttgart, less than an hour delayed. Hopefully we will be back home before 11, since we both have to work again tomorrow. All in all, a good day, but a whirlwind of limited objectives in Munich
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