This week’s entry serves as an addendum to last week’s report that my travel compan- ion, Kate, and I had not been blown up. Kate, in fact, would not let me arm myself with explosives and we were scheduled to be away from the Dam on the eve of the New Year. At 4pm on that eve, it is legal in the city of Amsterdam to set off roman candles, bottle rockets, jumping jacks, M80s, fire crackers, and various-sized fireworks- right in the middle of the city. (This is strange to witness as a New Yorker because we’re a little more high strung- prone to mistaking firecrackers for gunfire, and rooftop bbqs for 3-alarm fires- well, maybe I mean the nypd and the fdny are more prone, that is). Take a second look before absent-mindedly throwing your gum in the trashbin as that is a favorite place for young and old smokers to be setting off small rockets with their cigarettes.
On the eve of the New Year, I had hoped to go see zZz (psychedelic- electro-rock) at Melkweg or any of a number of different bands at Paradiso, but we somehow ended up a party being thrown at the Odeon. From what I remember of the party, there were lots of friendly people, men wearing ascots, a 23-year old who kissed both Kate and I until we managed to pass him off to some unsuspecting French women, a succession of unmemorable DJs, a lot of free champagne-wine-beer-and cigarettes all around, and some go-go dancers? The best thing for New Year’s, really, is to have absolutely no expectations of anything going right or of any having fun whatsoever. I tried not to have any expectations for the music or djs, and I’m glad I didn’t.
If you’re lucky enough to get to Amsterdam (and everybody should be so lucky at least once our solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short existences) there is also a boat, called the Stubnitz which is docked in the Het Ij and throws really great parties. It may be leaving for another port of call soon, so please check their website if you’re into advanced planning.
By the time I made it to Cambridge to visit my friend Anna, we both had our own versions of post-new year’s sinus infections, and so we spent a few uneventful days on the couch watching the beeb’s Planet Earth series, which I highly recommend whether or not you have fallen ill. More so than cigarettes and bad djs.
At the moment, I’m listening to this Kasabian album REALLY LOUD BECAUSE IT SOUNDS BETTER LOUDER AND I DON’T THINK MY NEIGHBORS ARE HOME YET. Actually, that was my upstairs neighbor going up the stairs, and so will now put in the Pan American’s ‘For Waiting, For Chasing’ before going to bed. If you are still one of those people who purchase physical copies of music complete with cover art instead of downloading it, there’s a particular street in London where they still sell records and cds, that I would like to bring to your attention: it’s called Berwick St. and it’s in Soho. There are at least five great new and used shops right in a row. I usually happen to pass through Sister Ray on my way to and from the HSBC cash machine conveniently located on Oxford Street. My purchases yesterday did not count toward the UK charts, because these days it’s based solely on downloads. Wtf.
*Some of these photographs are not related to music, and are instead related to my other fascination in life: modern housing. My apologies to those of you who consider this a non-sequitur. Imagine these as punk rock squats instead.
I remember a new years i spent in Rome where the firecrackers started crackling around 9pm and continued for about 4 hours straights with some heavy peaks around midnight. it sounded like one continous thunder which at first I thought it was until i realized that it wasnt stopping anytime soon. and then the next day people threw all their shit out the windows – electronics, clothing, appliances, you name it, out with the old in with the new. Crazy europeans.
I was in Amsterdam once and really loved it, been hoping to go back ever since. Like the BBoys I ate the pan-a-kooken but mine was a bit soft in the middle. The Van Gogh Museum was exceptional as was, surprisingly, the Anne Frank Museum. I cried at the Anne Frank Museum (tip: go early)
Chicago, especially in the hispanic neighborhoods like mine, go c-r-a-z-y for New Years/the Fourth. Scared the hell out of me when I used to park on the street.
I dig the architecture photos. Before I got to your comments on the photos I was thinking that there was something musical about them.
Your post reminded me of how I used to really like Hundertwasser and it still amazes me that he got away with as much as he did. Apparently he designed some cool toilets in Kawakawa NZ, that maybe DD has had some opportunity to see. No doubt his influence is strong there since he spent most of his life in NZ. New Years in Amsterdam must have been very cool. sigh.
Kilian- really good buildings often do have ‘harmonic’ relationships in terms of proportions between the parts and the whole. Then there are the material relationships and different possibilities for articulating the details of construction. It is just another form of composition, in a way.
Carlos- In Milan & Bologna they’re pretty sedate about New Year’s in terms of destroying things, from my experience. Rome sounds like more fun. Napoli, though, has the best reputation for innocent tourists being killed by falling washing machines.
I didn’t want to leave Amsterdam.
Hey- I’ve been to Hunterwasser’s Kunsthaus in Vienna and liked it a lot. If only more people had the confidence to add colorful embellishments and overgrown gardens the way he did.
You could almost call it edible architecture.
I have been to the Hundertwasser toilets, actually. Even used them! I probably have photos somewhere, if anyone cares.
Heidi, what’s your take on Christopher Alexander? I read a couple of volumes of THE NATURE OF ORDER last year (1 and 3 – 2 and 4 were stolen from the library after I started reading 1, grr), and fell in love with them, but the few architects I’ve run the name by basically shrug and say interesting but impossible so fuck it. I picked up two architecture books in the Taschen series when I was in Christchurch art gallery (at an amazing Giacometti exhibition, oh man is it rare to see something that strong in NZ). Now I want to take a trip around the world visiting amazing buildings. Tadao Ando’s AWAJI YUMEBUTAI haunts my dreams. Well, not really, but it sounds nice to say it that way. Mostly I just really want to see it in person.
Hey Doug,
It has been a looong time since I looked at or read anything by CA. Um, if I remember correctly he uses lots of biological models of order and generally espouses that cities could grow according to some sort of ‘natural’ formations. I don’t want to seem too dismissive, but yeah, he’s editing out way too much of the messy reality in which we all live. If only we were all worker bees.
The way cities look is much more driven by policy, the economy, and underlying infrastructure than by architects’ ideas about, say, generative grammar.
That said, the stuff I saw at Borneo Sporenburg (Amsterdam) definitely shared a modern syntax. I think CA’s Pattern Language (1977) was a response to the power of Chomsky’s ideas in Syntactic Structures (1957). My problem with trying to codify building form with written language is that you end up with nonsensical things like the New York City Zoning Resolution which is just a property rights manual. I have to stop before I start going off on more tangeants.
Tadao Ando is a gift to the world.
heidi-is that last shot an mvrdv housing project?
The architects for the last shot are Dick van Gameren and Bjarne Mastenbroek. MVRDV did some stuff on the next block over. A great source for architecture in Amsterdam is: http://www.arcam.nl/ Check out ‘Map’ under ‘Architectural Guide.’