We're 20 students at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts School of Architecture that are going to either New York (USA) or Helsinki (Finland) in the spring/summer of 2006.
However, for us to decide, can anyone then recommend certain areas of interest (museums, shops, firms, buildings etc.) regarding modern design/architecture other than the usual like fx. MOMA in New York or Alvar Alto's Finlandiatalo concert hall in Helsinki?
Where do you think it would be a good idea for us to spend two weeks?
depends on your furure plans
If i was in your situation i would consider it this way. Helsinki is fine for studying design at it's source. You start from raw material, take birch wood for example, then you go for a concept, take AALTO, then make it famous
and so forth. With HELSINKI, and FINLAND you can imagine and see how designers made great ideas out of scrap. This is the quintescence of XX th century design in a way that M.THONET, did in Germany and later in Austria in the late XIXth and early XXth century, with it's famous bentwood
furniture. Considering the other Hand, the Big Apple is quite an experience in itself. If you want a real total contemplative trip go to New York, You will not have time for analysing things You will be thrown in the grove and go from place to place. New York could be compared as a big retail shop as Helsinki a library. Other option could be spending time in the place you like, with people you like and have fun and do the virtual visit on the Internet.
Don't know if I'm right, that's just a point of view.
Knowing both...
cities well,I would answer Mr Andersen"s question differently. If you want to concentrate on architecture and design and on the learning process, I would choose Helsinki/Helsingfors any time. If you want a lifetime experience go for New York. But most of all I think that it is not really a choice. Any architect or designer preparing him or herself for practice in the 21st century should know both cities because in both there is so much to learn. To stand in the middle of the rock-walled church of the Suomalainen's (I hope I got the name right)in Helsinki is as moving as a childbirth and to experience the vitality but also the contradictions between general wealth and public misery in any American city, but especially New York, with large and small examples of excellent architecture, is as essential to design education as holding a pencil or moving a mouse...
Years ago when I was still teaching I returned my salary every year to allow the faculty to organize trips to Europe for students. There was only one condition: the students should follow succesfully one session in the language of the country they visited (Italy, Germany etc.)I never had any regrets about doing it because for most of them it was like opening doors and windows on a nice spring morning.. Have a nice trip!!
Come to new york, you will...
Come to new york, you will have a wonderful time. (i won't even try to respond to the 'all you'll do there is spend' comment'). there's plenty of architecture to see (seagrams bldg; bklyn bridge; lever house; guggenheim; saarinent's twa terminal & cbs black rock; the chrysler bldg; breuer's whitney; rockefeller center (including the noguchi frieze); central park, e.g.), but surely budding architects are interested in things besides buildings. and that we have plenty of -- with all respect to helsinki, the 2 don't compare when it comes to art, culture, food , people, ... LIFE.
the art alone is incomparable. there is no better place to see, e.g., 20th century art than to do in one swoop (1) moma; (2) whitney; (3) guggenheim; (4) neue galerie; and (5) the met.
and a 2 week trip means time for short day excursions. e.g., the dia museum in beacon; more saarinen in new haven; the louis kahn bldgs in philadelphia. i'm sure there are many, many more.
Why do some people insist on...
Why do some people insist on spewing nonsense in response to good-faith efforts to answer a poster's question? And I'm sorry to respond to this 'digital pollution', but i can't help it.
1. "Sorry "'YCL" but everything you mentioned is imported (at least most)."
What is this supposed to mean? Almost EVERYTHING here in the US is "imported" -- including me. So the F what?
2. "And they do not reflect the lifestyle of its citizens (poverty)." Thank you for that incisive social critique. I'm sure there is no poverty and injustice where you live.
Oh, and certainly not in Milan, the place you suggest. Not a poor person in sight when i visited. Not a one. EVERY man, woman & child wearing Fendi & Farragamo. design heaven.
3. "Well thats not good design !" A perfect, non-sequitur ending to a series of idiotic comments.
...or wants ycl...
to continue the list:
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-5....
-6 etc..
Notwithstanding the fact that New York is indeed an unforgetable experience....which should be updated on a regular basis. The New York fans should not forget that M. Andersen's question was about a trip for architecture students from the Royal Danish Academy.... I am not sure that they would be impressed by Breuer's Withney, when they have Utzon on their doorsteps...or by the L.M.v.d.Rohe's Seagram when they can see the reconstructed Barcelona pavilion during a long week-end in northern Spain. For most of the MoMA collection there are equivalents in Europe especially now that Picasso's Guernica (my first reason to travel to NY so many years ago) is back in Spain. My point is: travel to New York for the complete New York experience, travel to Helsinki/Helsingfors with a good architectural guide.
koen - odd logic that because...
koen - odd logic that because danes can see Utzon / Barcelona Pavilion nearby, that somehow lessens their need to see great bldgs in NYC. (And even if they are not so great, isn't there something to be gained in just seeing where the greats went wrong?) Why isn't your logic equally applicable to disqualify, oh, ... helsinki (or just about anywhere else for that matter)? In fact, why do Danes need to go anywhere outside of Europe to see architecture?
Indeed, one would think that becuase of the geographic & cultural proximity of helsinki to copenhagen (i'm aware that there are differences, but there are differences and then differences), your logic -- "Go somewhere where you can see / experience what you can't experience nearby" -- seems to work against helsinki & in favor of new york.
yes, the question is where talented danish architecture STUDENTS should go. i take "STUDENTS" to mean people who are rather young (in their early to mid 20s, and maybe even younger). Wouldn't it be better for them to go somewhere a bit less familiar than a neighboring country & culture?
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