From Ronchamp to Vals:

The indulgent ramblings of a truly spoiled wannabe architect.

Jennifer has entrusted me with the sacred record keeping of our fabulous travels as she is claiming that one more look at this pitiful (and mostly unread) blog will make her retch. As I have contributed only one post in the past sixteen months, I suppose I can man up and spew forth a few explanatory notes which no one will read anyway. And now that bit of pathetic whinging is out of the way, we can sally forth into the majestic dream that was our latest trip to Switzerland.

You can follow our swiss trek by checking out this sweet map I made with my killer cartography skills, I think you'll agree that I drew some wicked good international borders.

It may seem fairly obvious to most of you, but just in case you haven't taken any international trips lately, most of them begin with an airplane ride. Jennifer has most thoughtfully included a photo of ours to remind us all of this fact.

Before we begin, it should be said that this trip was all about me and I dragged Jennifer along for what turned out to be an almost completely architecturally oriented "vacation". She is and was a great sport and hardly complained at all, although she did remind me repeatedly of just how spoiled I am.

Chapelle Notre-Dame-du-Haut de Ronchamp. Ronchamp, France

Le Corbusier

The classic money shot. It looks a bit like a smurf hut, if smurfs were world class architectural masters. Well done Corbu.

After wandering around the exterior for quite a while, I stumbled upon the rear entrance. This is the view you are hit with as soon a s you step through the door, take a moment to drink it in and imagine what it would be like if my photography wasn't so challenged.

Technically you are not supposed to take photos of the interior, and I am probably facing eternal damnation for sneaking these, but I had the whole place to myself and the temptation was just too great.

Amusing anecdote here, while I was exploring the interior of the chapel one of the nuns who look after the place came in to supervise and keep a vigilant eye on me, you see they normally accompany visitors into the building in order to enforce their strict no-photography policy. Since I wanted to violate that policy and snap a few covert pics, I decided to hang around and see if she would leave. As it turns out fate was on my side, for you see the interior of the building was a good twenty degrees colder then the wintery air outside, indeed it was a veritable walk in refrigerator, so I thought to myself "all I have to do is outlast this feeble old nun and I have the place to myself". I took my own sweet time wandering slowly around the interior taking an unprecedented fascination with every bit of the exquisite architectural minutia. When I had taken a rather leisurely stroll around the entire place and the hearty nun still had not succumbed to the cold, I decide to find a comfortable seat in the back pew and do a sketch. When I was about halfway through my sketch, the dear old lady finally gave up and left. Victory, I had indeed been able to outlast the nun, although me fingers were now to numb to finish the sketch, yet I was free to take all the photos I wanted. Oddly enough I felt slightly guilty about breaking the church rules and only took a very few dark and blurry images, still I felt as though I had won.

Here I am looking quite the goof in my tourist attire. Don't judge me too harshly, at least I was warm.

View from the hill atop which sits the chapel, lovely snowy france.

Jennifer insists that we take pictures from the car, even though they always look like pictures from the car. After having her parents visit in November, I see where she gets it.

These beautiful car shots are taken on the road from Ronchamp to Basel.

On the way we stopped in the city of Belfort, and as the name seems to suggest it is home to this lovely old fort.

Random shots of Belfort.

These were taken at the Christmas market in Basel. The Christmas markets were Jennifer's way of squeezing something just for her into the trip, so while the days were all about architecture and culture, the nights were distinctly Jennifer.

Obviously we took a photo of this sign because at the time we thought it was hilarious (something about "anus paradise", I don't know) I think you had to be there.

look at that freakin' pretzel

Yes we know it's blurry, but as Jennifer points out "it the only shot of us together" (read in a whiny high pitched voice)

Vitra Campus. Weil am Rhein, Germany.

Vitrahaus. Herzog and de Meuron

Inside the vitrahaus someone had constructed a rather cheeky little gingerbread replica of the building, you know Jen loved it as she loves all things Christmas (and all things sugar).

You haven't sat until you have had your cheeks gently coddled by the sumptuous leather of the famous Eames lounge.

Vitra Fire Station. Zaha Hadid

Vitra Design Museum. Frank Gehry

Conference Pavilion. Tadao Ando

Pavilion Hadid

Rehab Center. Basel, Switzerland.

Herzog and de Meuron

Herzog and de Meuron Offices

SBB Switchtower

Schaulager

Beyeler Foundation. Basel, Switzerland

Renzo Piano

Kunsthaus Bregenz. Bregenz, Austria

Peter Zumthor

Festspielhaus Bregenz

You may recognise this building from the latest installment of the James Bond franchise.  In honour of the dashing hero we struck our own sexy action poses, see how sexy and action-y we are? Sometimes I wonder what does go on in our ridiculous american minds.

Whilst we strode merrily about the lakefront near the festspielhaus, the sun broke free of the grey Austrian clouds and we delighted ourselves by frolicking rather childishly in the sun drenched playground.  We rediscovered the delights and thrills of the time-tested classic which we call the teeter-totter, and swung free as jaybirds along this new fangled contraption known as the zipline.

We explored the narrow, winding streets of the old centre of Chur and the somehow familiar charm of the ancient swiss buildings caused Jen to exclaim "do these people realise that they live in Disneyland?"

Shelter for Roman ruins.  Chur, Switzerland

Peter Zumthor

Rather quaint, don't you think?

San Benedetg Church. Sumvitg, Switzerland

Peter Zumthor

Yes, here we are posing together in the requisite "I was there and can prove it" shot. I think you'll agree that we make quite the smart couple dressed in our matching american coats.

Hotel Therme Vals. Vals, Switzerland

Stucco room by Peter Zumthor

Therme Vals. Vals, Switzerland

Peter Zumthor

At long last we come to the pinnacle of our holiday and the real reason for our trip, the transcendent baths of Therme Vals.

You may wonder just what it is that made this place so special to us, well I have one word for you...nudity.  You see Jen and I have never been able to resist the bewitching form of the naked european, so natural, so beautiful in the raw and un-groomed european style.

Actually the baths are not a place for nude bathing, contrary to what you may have thought.  There is one small sauna specially designated as a naked area, but we did not dare to venture, or indeed even peek into it.  You know how prudish we Americans are about that sort of thing.

Just before we changed for the baths, Jennifer did turn to me with a rather sheepish look on her face and ask if we would be wearing swimming suits.  Sometimes her sweet innocence is just to good.

But enough of this vulgarity, me must continue on to purer things.

This is the view from our uber-posh hotel room, Jennifer reminded me once again of just how spoiled I am, I guess she has a point.

If you have ever heard of Valser Mineral Water then you will truly be able to appreciate the perfection that it is to bathe at Therme Vals, for you see the spring water that goes into those little glass bottles to be shipped all over the world is also the very water that flows untreated and unspoiled into the baths.

I just wanted to make sure you appreciated the fine view we had from our room, as you can see it snowed the night we stayed here and we awoke to a decidedly colder valley.

We spent two of the most completely relaxing days here.  The entire building is a play of light and water expertly choreographed to produce a grand illusion of utter tranquility (although, the illusion was broken briefly when I glanced through an open "staff only" door into a back-of-house area).  Everywhere you are surrounded by the  same beautifully simple elements of stone, water and light.  There is an amusing variety of pools including both very hot and testicle-shrivling cold plunge pools, an echo pool and a fragrant pool with flower peddle "floaties". Our favourite pool was the large outdoor pool (bonus if you can count how many times I use the word "pool" in this paragraph) where you could lie in the blissfully heated water and stare up at the starry night sky while ice crystals formed on the tips of your wet hair.

It may well be the most perfect place we have ever been, and we were loath to leave it's soothing waters for the cold, grey skies of Zurich.

Nope, these aren't the cold, grey skies of Zurich, but the warm and sunny skies over Vals just before we left. (I know what you were thinking smart-ass)

Freitag Store. Zurich, Switzerland

Spillmann, Echsle Architekten

Heidi Weber Museum. Zurich, Switzerland

Le Corbusier

This is the last building designed by architecture great Le Corbusier, and the last buildign we saw before making our way back home.  And so we come full circle  to the end of our pilgrimage.  I do hope you have enjoyed my ramblings.