Has autumn finally arrived? Expect a rant-y post.
It is amazing to think that this is our second anniversary away, and what better place to spend it than in a nice little French restaurant. The area of Lyon was not the most beautiful, but we had managed to find a nice little side street to park in and it wasn’t too noisy.
It rained a lot. Dora is like a drum when it is raining, amplifying the droplets as they hit the roof. You might think it is a major storm going on outside but when you open the door you find just a light drizzle. I find it quite relaxing, like sleeping in a tent; you are so close to the elements, but then so protected, warm and sheltered. Listening to the tap, tap, tap, on the roof or the tent as you gradually drift off to sleep. Susana also thinks it feel cosy, but maybe we are just used to it.
Except for when the weather becomes more violent that turns into a storm. Even the best of ear plugs can not beat the fierce noise. SM.
You get so used to your environment. For us, for the last year, it has been Dora. We are gradually realising that the trip is drawing to a close. How will we adjust back into ‘normal life’ when a tap, tap, tap doesn’t send you to sleep?
The next morning is still grey, as we venture into Lyon.
We haven’t been to a city for a while and it is a bit of a shock. Although it is the weekend, the amount of people around far surpasses what we have been used to in the mountains.
Lyon is another one of those places I visited in a long forgotten past. I remember little.
I was last here as an undergraduate, my second year of architecture. Our tutor was a fanatical modernist, he taught us well and you will get to see some of the buildings we visited all those years ago in the next couple of posts, but my memories of Lyon are sparse, maybe it has changed a lot anyway.
After a bus and a metro we arrive in a rather bedraggled looking square.
A wander down some commercial high streets that could be in any European city and we arrive in a much more grandiose space, but again in a way too big, lacking in purpose or focus, but then maybe we are biased as it soon begins to rain. We take refuge in the information office. The electronic Segways short circuit and are left stranded in the middle of this vast space, kilometres from any shelter!
Last night’s feast still lingers with us and we have forgotten to bring lunch with us. We instead head for the local, organic, homeopathic, bio, fair-trade, living wage market. It comes at a cost…too steep for us. You might think we are stingy, no, we are just careful with our money and don’t like getting ‘ripped off’.
I have always had my doubts about the value for money of these products. I would like to explore each of steps of these supply chains to assess whether the organic and environmental methods of production justify the price. That is mainly the reason I won’t buy things from here. SM.
I won’t buy because organic is a meaningless load of bullocks. GDR.
Ok, the presentation is nice, but does that really mean that you can charge three times the cost of olives in the supermarket.
Nice bit of sausage though.
These guys certainly seem to be racking in the cash though, it is only one and they are already packing up and heading off home. Profit margin for the day achieved, tourist fleeced.
The ‘huitres’ are tempting though. You just don’t get this sort of selection anywhere but the market. Tempting, but we are worried that traipsing around the city for three hours is not conducive to a nice oyster meal later on!
We picked up a bit of Dorade Sebaste in Carrefour the other day. We had never tried it before and were intrigued by the red colour. It was €11.90 per kilo. Half the price than on this stall. So ok, this guy doesn’t have the buying power of Carrefour, but should it really be more than double the cost. It might come off the same sort of boat, maybe even the very same boat. It is wild, so it hasn’t been fed any different, no organic nonsense here. Is it any fresher? Well, quite frankly, I would believe Carrefour more than I would this guy on a market stall! How much hygiene training has he had? I certainly know Carrefour has more to loose if they get it wrong… But will a case of food poisoning effect these guys market share? Probably not.
With the market closing we head across the river. Towards the old town.
It is a while since we ventured into a church. This one is half way through renovation, part spick and span, part dull and dreary.
But is does have the most fantastic modernist stained glass. How did that come about?
Surrounding the cathedral is a market of ceramics. We discuss collecting things. We don’t really collect much except memories and I suppose books. Are books different? At least they contain knowledge, what do ceramics contain? Flowers. Maybe the collectors would say beauty, but so subjective.
We do find a nice little funicular which is part of the city transport. It is nice not having to extract a kidney (like you would have to in Switzerland) just top go up a hill!
At the top another church, much more flamboyant. Was it really worth it?
Wow, gaudy as hell.
Thinking about it, if I believed in hell, it would be like this, this much ‘over the top’, so ‘in your face’ that you can never get away from it, relentless, no rest bite.
Every surface crammed with decoration.
But you are missing the artistry! Maybe it is just because sometimes there needs to be a bit of space for breathing.
Below us the city was spread out. A carpet of old and the odd bit of new heading skywards.
We walked back down the hill to the river. Actually two rivers flow through Lyon. The Rhône and the Saône. The join together at an industrial wasteland that is undergoing regeneration. And the catalyst for that regeneration is a museum.
The Confluence museum is trying to cash in on the Bilbao effect. Top revitalise your city build a really outlandish museum, in the case of Bilbao it was the Guggenheim and the architect was Frank Gehry. The Guggenheim is a modern art gallery, but still you wonder whether the only real piece of art is the building itself.
Lyon has also employed a world famous architect, Coop Himmelbau.
The building is a confusion of angles, shapes, materials and spaces.
Overlapping planes of glass inclined at inexplicable angles. Glass cut to parallelograms and other awkward shapes.
Would it be unfair to judge the building today, a bleak rainy day, devoid of harsh southern French sun. The large overshadowed under croft of the building was devoid of light and life. But even on a bright sunny day this building is inward looking, begging you to look at it rather than the adjacent landscape. A true modern building; “look at me, look at me” it shouts repeatedly.
But as I look I do not see beauty, just a cacophony of shapes, shadow and greyness. It raises more questions than it answers, why a pool that forces you to walk around.
Doors that disrupt the geometry of the pool. A mistake, an afterthought, a purposeful architectural gesture!
Is this meaningful or just whimsy?
Am I missing the point or is this the emperors new clothes?
Protruding bellies, hanging down like a cancer. What space lies above? For what purpose? If any!
And even if such a gesture is meaningful should it not come closer to the water, almost touch, the water a mirror of the cancer. Isn’t this the compromised gesture?
The inside is as chaotic as the outside; bridges, galleries, escalators and stairs all vying for attention.
And then the gesture. As the roof folds inwards like some whirlpool. It could be interesting, it could be dramatic. A simple geometric form, but this is lost within a mesh of crudely put together curved beams and the form is redundant anyway it being capped with a piece of Perspex so no rain can cascade down into its form anyway. How weak, how disappointing. So much for the big statement.
And as a purposeless form, this is about as expensive as you can get; doubly curved glass, presumably laminated. I hope all citizens of Lyon appreciate the expense, they paid for it.
Don’t get me wrong, this is a quality building, but parts of of it are not developed far enough, other parts crude and ugly, and perhaps there are just too many ideas, too many angles, forms materials. Too chaotic.
I am getting tired of this sort of architecture. All these meaningless angles. Fighting for attention.
One thing you could say about this example is that it is beautifully put together, and some of the forms, taken on their own are quite beautiful. But it is though you have had a hundred students working in separate silos, all with their young vibrant ideas, that clash together, never to be fully resolved.
And some of the individual elements are quite interesting. But just like the earlier church, there is just too much going on. No time left to breathe.
And this is a hugely expensive edifice. Those large cantilevers have to be paid for.
So why put two columns so close together, wouldn’t it be more efficient to spread them a little?
And is the water gushing out from the underside of the cladding an architectural feature. It certainly doesn’t make it conducive for walking around the building on a rainy day, trying to get some shelter.
But maybe I am missing the point, the higher purpose to this masterpiece.
What do you think?
What are all these vast expanses of external space for. Many of the views outward are compromised by the architecture. Maybe this is not about human habitation at all.
The people that are wandering like us look lost in these bewildering complex spaces.
Maybe it could have been a bit more about the confluence.
Up on top it doesn’t get any simpler.
Were they trying to make some of the forms as ugly as possible.
You might disagree on the word ‘ugly’, but it certainly isn’t graceful.
Someone must have forgotten about the lamps!
Nicely lit ceiling though.
We never did go to see around the exhibits. We didn’t feel this building was about that. I am sure they were tucked away in some forgotten bit of space, away from all the ‘drama’.
A master of geometry. These days just because we can design complex geometry, but that doesn’t mean to say we should.
What a mess.
Such crude intersecting junctions which look unresolved and poorly welded.
Even the guide book is irritating with these offset angular pages!
We cross town to visit the Lumiere museum. The family that pretty much invented moving film.
The museum is set within their former home, a lavish art nouveau villa which used to be adjacent to a vast complex of factories manufacturing film and cameras.
Like the church, this building is festooned with decoration.
but it is very harmonious.
and with some beautiful details.
A fascinating place to while away a few hours before we leave Lyon.
A very wealthy family which gave the Lumiere brothers plenty of time and economic resources to dedicate themselves to invent things. But unlike many others upper class families of that time, the Lumiere parents were working class people who earned their fortune by exploiting their natural creativity and working hard. Fortunately, Auguste and Louis learnt those traits and provided the world with the amazing experience of the cinema. SM.
We head northwest through the suburbs and into the countryside. Before long we are in deepest France, back among the vineyards. We find a a suitable place to stop and watch the sun set before settling down for the night.
Tomorrow another building.
GDR
12/09/2015
