My project was a 5 week trip throughout Europe to study the seminal works of architecture throughout the past 1500 years. We ventured through a number of countries, including Czech Republic, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, France, and Germany. We learned about culture, history, and importance, through discussion, presentation, observation, and intensive sketching.
While on the trip, I was exposed to a completely different style of life. Particularly, we were engulfed in a sea of people who cared about design in a much different way. Throughout various conversations with locals on buses, or in cafes, the general standard of knowledge on painters, buildings, and designers was incredible. It is rare for me to ever have that type of conversation with someone outside of the arts in America, but it has prompted me to talk to my peers much more about the subject (I have definitely annoyed my roommates since being back by the amount of art opinion related questions I have asked them). This is in stark contrast with the US, where seemingly nobody cares. This trip has certainly sparked a desire to bring that common understanding back to the US. It is fortunate I plan on going into a profession, architecture, where that mission is attainable.
Looking back, I realized I was quite closed minded before the trip. Everything I knew, including my ideals, were a result of my upbringing in a small town in Ohio. Overseas, you quickly realize there are a lot more people with a lot different views on life. We were fortunate enough to have meetings set up with various art curators at world famous museums, personal building tour guides, and my favorite, a meeting with world famous architect Wolf Prix. They were all not shy to impress on us their views on current events, world affairs, political leaders, and what they’re doing to influence it all. It was extremely encouraging and justified completely the major path I chose. It also gave me so much motivation to work hard in school, in order to one day be in a position similar to them, where I can make my voice heard.
Being an architect is a way of life. It influences everything that you see and do. Its not like math, in that you learn a topic and then are done. It is a life long learning process of history, theory, art, design, etc. There is an unlimited amount to learn about the software that architects use, about materials, and especially about buildings that have been built. It is a very simple formula, the more you see and the more you know, the better designer you will become. Thats why I am never really done with homework. Theres always a way I can make a drawing better, or another book I can read to improve myself. The most important and significant way to enhance all of this, is to visit famous buildings. I had a pretty extensive knowledge of a handful of the buildings we visited on the trip. And I can confidently say my experience of seeing them dwarfed anything I thought I knew about them previously. There is no amount of reading in a book that can give you the feeling of sublime when standing in Vierzenheiligen, of appreciate the delicacies of suspended formal composition we saw at the Vitra fire station. Seeing these buildings will always and forever have changed my life. In my current studio class, there’s not a day that goes by when I am working on my current project that I don’t in some way use what I saw on my trip to influence my design decisions in some way.
The strategy my professors chose as a way of obtaining this knowledge, and of documenting it was sketching. We were given intensive sketching lessons and mandatory scheduled critiques throughout the trip. It was hugely transformational to learn what is important to sketch to evaluate a particular piece of information (it could be drawing a specific detail, where I normally would have just drawn the whole buildings, or making diagrams, or drawing a plan or section). Aside from learning to critically evaluate in a new way, it was also amazing to learn a new skill. Sketching is clearly something that is a useful means of communicating an idea for an architect. And it is almost embarrassing to see where I was before I started. But I really devoted time on the trip to improving this skill, often times finishing incomplete sketches in my book, or doing new ones instead of hanging out with my classmates. My teacher noticed my hard work and dedication, and at the end of the trip, gave me the award for most improved. It was very significant for me to hear someone who had been on so many trips with so many student say such nice things about me at the awards gathering and it was really affirming of all the hard work I spent on the trip. I continued to do a sketch about every other day over the summer to continue growing in that skill. And during the semester now, I sketch every idea out, which i normally would have just done in the computer. Additionally, the head of a local architecture firm in Columbus saw a few of my sketches, and he told me it would be incredibly valuable for their firm to have someone who could sketch like I can. Learning how to sketch and having a recorded documentation of all the buildings we saw has clearly been valuable on a multitude of fashions.
This was certainly the most unbelievable trip I have ever been on. It absolutely confirmed what I want to be doing with the rest of my life. It broadened my knowledge base and opened up a whole new realm of possibilities of what can be done in the world. My dream is to influence people through design and the build environment, and to see first hand what the leaders in the field are doing currently and throughout history has definitely inspired me and affirmed what I want to do. I am confident that when I am much older and working in a firm, I will use the ideas from the buildings I saw in my future buildings. It has already paid off, allowing me to communicate with the teachers I have in a whole new way. I now can’t wait to travel again and feel so thankful to STEP for making this previously unattainable trip possible.