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

Cecilia: Worked focused on non-schematic designing. The goal was to get past schematic designing and into designing details and thinking of things beyond schematic. At Woodbury we spend a lot of time on schematic designing, but we don't really get into how things actually come together. How does the old actually meet the new? What is that detail between these areas?

v5: Who were your instructors?

Cecilia: Jay Nickels in Barcelona and Peter DiSabatino in Paris.

v5: Did you get input from local people or local architects as you traveled?

Monica: For our final jury in Barcelona, Jay brought in architects from
the city and that was interesting!

v5: What was your typical week like?

Mili: In Barcelona we would get up at seven in the morning and since we had class at ten, we would leave at eight to get there because it was a long walk. We walked everywhere!  We started with an urban theory class, which was in the morning, and after that we would take a lunch break and then we would have studio, which started from one and it went on to five or six. During that time we are walk to one of the buildings and sit down for an hour or so to sketch and then go to another place and sketch. We would walk around the city and Jay would talk about things like the buildings’ history and urban theory, and we would take notes.

Monica: We didn't have studio like you would think of it here, where you go to a place and you have your stuff. The first day of class in Barcelona they said, "Meet in front of the Cathedral"! The old Cathedral!

v5: What was your impression of Barcelona as a city and the architecture
that is there?

Mili: We stayed at the old part of Barcelona, the Gothic part, which is
for me the best part of Barcelona. I think most people liked it and
that was our favorite area. We did go see the Olympic area,
but I guess because we first arrived in the Gothic area, our first
impression of Barcelona was old architecture and beautiful little dark alleys. Barcelona is great as a city.  We met very friendly people and what was interesting is you would see people on the streets all the time. Even at four in the morning you would see people just walking on the streets,
they would party and socialize a lot, there are many bars so people would go out after ten. They would work the whole day and go out every night, the whole lifestyle is so different than here.

Monica: In Barcelona they did have some new architecture, a new bridge by Calatrava, which already has graffiti on it! The Barcelona pavilion is there as a reconstruction. One thing that I learned from going overseas is you never see buildings in their context in the books! The Barcelona pavilion was standing there by itself and I walked around it and there was an 17th century palace right behind it that you never see in the books.

Barcelona was also nice because it was manageable for us since we didn't have a car. We were on a very tight budget and since we didn't want to keep buying metro passes, we walked everywhere! You could walk to the new and the old parts of the city.  We found out that by walking you would see the same people two or three times, especially the street performers.  You would see them everyday you walk past and they become part of your day.  Barcelona was really nice.

v5: Where did you stay when you where at Barcelona?

Mili: The Pension, a very small place that Peter arranged it for us to stay.
He gave us the address and when we arrived we called them, he had already made reservations for us. It was good because we had a place to stay, although the rooms were small and since we were all rooming together, it got a little crowded!  There was no bathroom in the rooms; the whole floor had to share one bathroom. That's very common in Hotels at Europe. The laundry was so expensive in Barcelona, eight dollars a load, so we used to wash our clothes in the sink and hang up our clothes in the rooms. We were so happy to be able to wash our clothes!

v5: How many people traveled with you?

Mili: It was eleven students from Woodbury and one instructor.

v5: What year studies were the students?

Mili: There were four fourth year and the rest was fifth year. The program is fourth year studio so you get credit for fourth year studio.

v5: Is there an opportunity to have other students from other institutions to join this program?

Mili: It would be great opportunity for other students because then
they would know how other schools design and about their programs.
The travel was very intimate since we had a meeting with the instructors
before we left.
In Paris we had arrangements at the City University and stayed
in the Danish House. It is a campus with different types of houses.
Students come from different countries to stay there and that was a
great place to stay for us because we met people from many countries.
Paris was really cheap because we had a kitchen! We used to
cook for everyone and all of us helped, some cooked and the others
washed the dishes.

Cecilia: I think it was a great experience to cook there because we
had to either go out into the metro or walk around the block to go to the
grocery to get the food.  So we became part of Paris, living there we
actually felt we were part of the city. We did the little things, the daily routines.

Monica: It's hard to find a supermarket, they don't have supermarkets
like we think of them here, and these are super supermarkets!  They also
have little markets, even the big stores are small! But they don't have brown sugar in Paris! The little things that you would think would be everywhere, they don't have.

v5: Did you come across things you didn't know in the market?

Monica: Yes we did, actually a lot.
 

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