Conservatories in Europe
I spent most of last summer travelling around Europe which proved to be quite an experience and cool for any architectural student. I was planning to go back this year. But have you seen the Euro against the dollar recently?? It sucks!
Not all of Europe is the same. Some of the places are a bit uncomfortable. I’d probably give France and Germany a wide berth for a while. People there aren’t that friendly towards Americans. There is a big backlash from the Iraq war. Not surprisingly!
Eastern Europe though was cool! That is the parts that were communist 20 years or so back. Many people there now speak English. They were in the past forced to speak Russian and just swapped second languages when the Berlin wall came down. The prices there are pretty cheap. You can buy a beer for a dollar in some parts, but the big city bars are quite expensive. Many of their towns and cities were decimated during the Second World War, but some survived like Gdansk and Krakow. In Poland Krakow is a cool place with a maze of underground bars in the city centre. Most of the architecture survived the 2nd world war and the endless warrens underneath the city centre building provide great nightclub spots. But as soon as you move out into the country you are hit by big swathes of oak forest many which are now cut and exported to build your typical English person and oak conservatory.
If you go to Prague in the Czech Republic the architecture there is absolutely fabulous. It’s like a mini city of architecture. I took some great photos which I want to post later. But the real place to go is Barcelona in Spain. This guy Antoni Gaudi was absolutely crazy , he built outrageous buildings all over the city. My favourite was the Sagrada Familia .
In England you have everything including the rain the West Country conservatory, which was built on a grade 11 listed property and featured by the BBC is worth a visit. In fact the English are crazy about conservatories and devote a lot of architecture to Conservatory Planning . There is a big push on the environment and global warming in the UK. The restrictions on architecture are changing quite rapidly. Today if you want to build hardwood conservatories, you have to go through onerous heat loss calculations which show that the house will be as thermally efficient with a new conservatory as with a classic extension.
One of the other developments in the UK is the trend for larger or more stately homes to build orangeries. The first orangeries were built in Holland (which also has the 2nd largest red light district in the world). An orangery is a very distinct building which is characterised by a flat roof with smaller roof lanterns or glass atriums on them. They were originally built by Dutch noble men to host what were then exotic plants like oranges and pomegranates. During the time the English were fighting the French and doing treaties with the Dutch the trend for these buildings crossed the Channel to England. Many famous places like Hampton Court Palace (famous for Henry the X111 the English Monarch who had six wives) and Blenheim palace the birthplace of Winston Churchill boast orangeries.
One place that very few people have visited that’s worth a shot is Iceland. The Capital City in Iceland is Reykjavík. What’s scary is you can walk from one side of the city to the other in less than ten minutes. Iceland is a bizarre place. At certain times of the years they only have a couple of house of Sunlight and at other times of year they have phenomenon called the midnight sun.
You can go up on the big glaziers where the Ice is 2 kilometres thick. Yes 2 kilometres thick, but what is bizarre is that they have hot springs and pools. In the freezing temperature you can strip off into pools that are naturally heated just like baths. The heating comes from the volcanic larva way below the ice. In fact one town in Iceland has commercialised this heat and the whole town is heated from a volcano.
Europe might be small, but unlike home it is completely different and you could spend months exploring and finding totally unique places. For someone studying architecture take a camera, you’ll pick up on things you never thought of.