Leipzig Pictures!

It's Saturday, which is lovely. Today is the first day in three weeks that I (or any of my classmates) have been able to sleep in and not worry about any kind of structure in our day. Of course, we have a very large assignment due Monday, but that's just what architecture school implies. We're used to it. =)

26 August, 2008
On my second day abroad, my friends and I took a day trip from Munich to Leipzig, to have a guided tour of the BMW Factory Plant, the central building of which was designed by the rock-starchitect, Zaha Hadid, who is probably the most prominent female architect in the entire world. The building was quite beautiful, but unfortunately we weren't allowed to take photos anywhere inside, except in the lobby. In addition to that, our tour ended about a minute before we had to catch a bus back to the train station, so we had almost no time at all to take exterior photos either. All that aside, this building was pretty incredible - I won't go too far into the hairy architectural details, but I think some of the photos I have convey a bit of the genius. Basically the central building houses administrative and other desk-job-type personnel, and connects the three other plant buildings: body shop, paint shop, and assembly. Because it connects all of these buildings, completely silent conveyor belts carrying cars in various states of assembly crisscross the ceiling of the central building, so that all of the personnel there are constantly aware of what is going on in the buildings around them. A very cool concept. On to the pictures!

(if you want to see a photo a bit bigger, just click on it!)

To get to the BMW Factory from the Leipzig train station, we had to take a tram and then a bus. It took a very long time. These are my boys on the tram.


In the main lobby of the central BMW building.


Sneakily trying to photograph deeper into the building, while still technically standing in the lobby. The ramp-type thing curving in from the left is a walkway, and the two large ramp-like things in the top right-ish are both conveyor belts.


How can you pick an architecture student out of a crowd?


A 125i on display in the lobby.


The round thing is a turn in the conveyor belt - it rotates the cars around Zaha's curvaceous design.


Some bodies in white on the conveyor belt - on their way from the body shop to the paint shop.


Zaha is famous for her curves.


Exterior shot - under "the Bridge" which connects the body shop and central building.


Under the Bridge - body shop to the left, central building to the right


The front of the building. (as I took this picture, the bus that we needed to take to get back to the train station was revving its engine at us...)


Continuing to take pictures, despite the revving bus.


One more, right before booking it to the bus.


"Aw, why did we have to leave the pretty building?" Lyndon on the bus.


Leipzig train station.

That's all for now!

Love,
Rachel

Germany!

Hi there everybody!

I'm sitting in a hostel in Munich, Germany. That's München (mewn-chin) in German. I've been staying here with three of my friends from school for the past two nights. The hostel is very clean and has a great environment, so no worries in that department.

The past three days have been excellent. I wish I could post pictures, but the internet here in the hostel leaves something to be desired when it comes to speed, so I can't do that at the moment. For now I'll just give a day-by-day breakdown, I suppose.

24.August.2008
After a bit of spastic running around and last-minute packing, I finally got out of the house. My parents drove me to a small airport, and I boarded a plane to a larger airport, where I met up with my friend Brandon, and we flew together to...

25.August.2008
...Munich! With luggage in hand, we took a train to our hostel, where our friends Lyndon and Heath had also just arrived. We checked in, then walked around the city for the rest of the afternoon and night. Munich is lovely, with lots of beautiful architecture of different styles, all jumbled together. The four of us went to a beer garden, apparently famous, and had beer and wine, and felt like silly Americans, but it was loud and crowded and German there, and thus fun. We practically fell into bed, terrifically tired from the jet lag.

26.August.2008
Having gone to bed quite early, we awoke early and spent a good deal of time trying to procure Eurorail passes in the main train station in Munich. We finally spoke with a ticket-seller who was clearly American, and extremely sarcastic and helpful. She helped us book a train to Leipzig (lipe-zeeg) and back, and after grabbing a bite to eat, we got boarded the train for the four-hour ride to Leipzig. In Leipzig, we had an appointment for an English-speaking tour of the BMW central building and factory, and we had to take a tram and then wait a ludicrously long time for a bus to pick us up to get to the factory. We barely got there in time for our appointment. Our chipper tour guide took us around the beautiful central administration building, designed by Zaha Hadid, and into the body shop. It was so fantastic to see the way these cars come together, and I'm not even a BMW-freak, like Lyndon and Brandon. After the tour, we frantically boarded another bus, followed by another tram, to get back to the central train station. Leipzig is a very industrial city, with graffiti covering nearly every surface, but it does have some beautiful architecture. After the four hour train ride back to Munich, we all went to bed.

27.August.2008
Today we woke up late and went jaunting about the Olympic park here in Munich. It's made up mostly of swooping steel-and-plexi-glass tensile structures. It's generally very beautiful, and has held up remarkably well, considering it was built for the summer Olympics of 1972. We did an absurd amount of walking around the park, and took lots of pictures, which I'll hopefully post soon. After that we went to BMW World, a dealership/showroom/beautiful building, and then I loitered in the lobby of the BMW museum as the boys went on a 12-euro tour. Cars don't interest me quite that much, but I amused myself looking through books in the museum store and writing in my journal.

I have a bit more to write about today, but I've got to go for now.

Pictures will be up soon, hopefully!

--Rachel