roBlog: Beatiful Day in Helsinki

Saturday, June 30, 2007

Beatiful Day in Helsinki

After several days of general cold and rain, Anna and I spent a truly glorious day today exploring Helsinki. We started out by checking out the Kiasma contemporary art museum by Steven Holl. It was pretty great. We spent the rest of the day walking around and riding free green bicycles. The streets were packed and everyone seemed be excited about the sun after a long, dark winter. As you may know it doesn't get dark here really. It's kind of hard to know what time it is, but the light allows you to do as much sightseeing as you can take (or in my case, as Anna can take).

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Il Campo - Siena

Torre Mangia

This is a view looking up the long and cramped staircase of the clock tower in the Campo. There are a lot of great twisting staircases in Italy that provide unusually claustrophobic experiences that we do not allow in the US. Staircase photos may be a little cliche, but I just can't resist and pledge to keep posting them. This tower is one of the tallest in Italy. It was built to match the height of the Duomo's Campanile farther up the hill. It is so named after the original bellringer who was known as a lazy worker and quite literally the "eater of profits". As you can see from the aerial photo, the tower is curiously positioned roughly at the focus of the Piazza, but decidedly off to one side.

The Maxx - South side.

This the south side of Zaha Hadid's new art museum in Rome. It is called the Maxx and I think it is going to show mostly comtemporary changing exhibits. It is located very close to the Parco della Musica and the Palazzetto di Sport, at the north end of Rome. The design is supposed to "incorporate" the existing buildings on the site. This concrete is incredibly thin and sharp. There is also a special concrete mixing station set up adjacent to the site to allow very specific and accurate mixing of experimental admixtures.

Parco della Musica

This is the interior of the largest auditorium. It is one of the most acoustically perfect places in the world. It was designed by Renzo Piano and completed in 2002. This project was commissioned to replace Rome's main symphony hall that was demolished by Mussolini in the Thirties. The interior sound reflectors are made of American Cherry, which was chosen for its acoustic properties. The entire ceiling is supported primarily by a grid of monstrous curved glu-lams, a material which was unapproved for assembly spaces in Europe up until this point.