v5 Interview

by

Marine Vanyan and Han Hoang with

Monica Wayne

Mili Amin

Cecilia Recendez

Study Abroad

Woodbury Architecture Program

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Woodbury Architecture Study Abroad Program with Jay Nickels

v5: Can you tell us the dates of your Woodbury Study Abroad program?

Mili: Our Summer Program started on June 1st in Barcelona and we had our finals for the Barcelona studio on June 24th.  We then we took a week break before we started the other half of the session in Paris on July 1st. During the break we went to Bilbao to see the Guggenheim Museum and other work and then we went to Paris for a month.

v5: What is Bilbao Spain like?

Cecilia: Bilbao is an older city where they have 10 to 15 major
projects lined up, the Guggenheim was one of them, which now is completed. Everybody in the town is so proud of what is planned for the future. The are so friendly there and love to talk to you.  It's a whole different place, but they're very proud of where they come from and where they are going.

Monica: We met the head of the city re-development agency at a conference held for us. He had pamphlets and booklets and slide show to share with us.

v5: What is up and coming? So who are the other architects which are meant to follow Frank Gehry?

Cecilia: Most of the architects are not known like Frank Gehry is. I believe they are trying to get a variety of architects for the projects.

Mili: They are also heading for known architects. I think the reason he said that he feels it will attract tourists to come down from a variety of respective countries. Norman Foster designed the metro stations over there and everytime we saw them we were amazed at the details and how beautiful it was. We wanted to take pictures inside the station, yet just as we were about to take out the camera and take a picture, a security guard comes in and tells us, "No, you cannot take pictures.”  We replied, “But it’s just a metro station, why can’t we take pictures?”  We found out they are very strict about stuff like that.

Monica: They said that they still have some problems with the population, there is still some uneasiness and they are worried. I guess for a long time they have had a history of civil unrest, and still concerned about bomb threats and that kind of stuff.
 

v5: My first trip to Europe, when I first went to Barcelona, it was basically a police state. There was a bombing campaign that was going on with the Basque Separatist fighting against the Franco Spanish government at the time and there were policemen everywhere. They wore this very bizarre sort of El Madador like hats and they had enormous machine guns.
Every time you went to the bank you went through three doors just to be able to exchange your traveler's check! It's interesting the types of strategies they are putting in place to be able to build and rejuvenate their cities. But I think some of that tension is probably still there.

Can you tell us about some of the projects that you did for the studio?

Monica: Our program was based on working out of our sketchbook. We did not bring any tools and we never had a desk, which was sort of hard at first. The focus was on learning how to draw and how to express your ideas and design through sketching. So we would go out into the city, especially in Barcelona, and just draw. Our projects were taken from the city and they would say, ok, this space needs work, redesign the corner.

Mili: The whole studio was about innovations. We would go into old buildings and design something new in the old building section. We went to a courthouse and we would design the bookstore. It was quick sketch problems and we had to do them in an hour. We designed for an hour and then for next project we would go somewhere else and sketch for another hour.  It was basically about our analysis and design.

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