Berlin Trip (2) : Cottbus University Library

The building is the library of Cottbus University. It takes one and holf hour to get there by train from Berlin. You should take a bus from station to the university, it takes almost 10 minutes. It is designed by Herzog & de Meuron. The exterior is very characteristic but fits with the location. The inside is very colourful. It might be still new, so most of the shelf is empty. Almost books were German books, and I can’t read German very well, so I couldn’t tell how good it is as a library. A friend of mine who went there together are interested in colour effect in interior space, so she was excited when she entered the space, but in my opinion vivid colours are not good for quiet spaces like libraries, but the part of the walls was made from steel and reflected the colour of floor and the other part of walls and it was beautiful.

Berlin Trip (1) : Bauhaus in Dessau

送信者 20080908

The picture was taken not in Berlin, but it Dessau.
It takes about one and half hours to get Dessau from Berlin.
We bought the express tickets, so it was more expensive than we had expected... We should have bought local tickets.
Dessau is famous for Bauhaus, but itself is not so big and not so flourished.
We joined the tour of Bauhaus and saw the inside.
It was usual and not special, but that's why it is important historically, because it was the start point of modern style architecture.

Berlin Trip

20080910_berlin_trip

I went to Berlin with some friends of mine.
It was really interesting. The scenery of the city is different from London. Rather, it is similar to Tokyo. The reason might be that both of them were destroyed during Second World War.

Traditional buildings are few, and there are many modern buildings. The difference between Berlin and Tokyo is the density of the population. In Toyo are about 10 million people, but in Berlin 3 million people.

Tokyo is very powerful and energetic because of the huge population, but sometimes I felt it was too many, and actually I felt in this trip the size of Berlin was more comfortable. It is difficult to tell which is better, but we should think about the alternative ideas, such as the separation of city functions.

Switzerland Report03: Rheinfall

Here might be famous but not enough.
I heard It is the largest water fall in Europe, and actually it was really dynamic and powerful.
If you cannot find a good place to visit in Switzerland, I recommend to go there.
The access from Zurich is not bad.



The other reports:
http://a-to-a.blogspot.com/2008/07/switzerland-report02-used-design-shop.html
http://a-to-a.blogspot.com/2008/07/switzerland-report01-freitag.html

Switzerland Report02: Used Design Shop

I saw a lot of used design shop in Switzerland.
It sells old modern furniture and so on.

It was one of them, which is named "BOGEN33" and located near the FREITAG shop in Zurich.

Some old stuff is really interesting, and gives us some new point of views for daily stuff.

Switzerland Report_01: FREITAG

I went to Switzerland, mainly Zurich in this weekend.
I would like to introduce what I was interested in there.

A friend of mine in London had a “FREITAG” bag, and the design and quality was very cool. I heard the shop was in Zurich, so I visited there with some friends of mine.

The building itself looked a bit special, which was constructed with stacked containers. It is a clever way to show the brand concept.

Freitag’s main products are bags made with used track tarps, used seat belts, and used inner tubes, and there are many variations, such as wallets, iBook covers and so on.

I think it is very clever as a business. The costs of material are presumably low, but the price of product itself is not low. This brand is very popular at least in Switzerland and I saw a lot of people having them in the cities. It is a good example of how good designs increase a value of things.



FREITAG:
http://www.freitag.ch/shop/FREITAG/page/frontpage/detail.jsf
FREITAG SHOP ZÜRICH
Geroldstrasse 17
CH-8005 Zürich
Switzerland

Lulworth

I went to with Lulworth with some friends of mine. It took about 3 hours to get there from London. It has just one train a hour usually.The beach was beautiful and the waves are not so strong, so it’s not good for surfing but just for enjoying with water it is very nice, the water was very cold though (Nevertheless some brave people entered it…)
You needed to go over a little hill to get the beach, although a taxi driver we used told us he could bring us the closer place.

There seems to be famous for the exposed geological formation.
Anyway it was really good for a easy holiday.