Cologne Germany,

Today was a great day of site seeing in Deutschland. We got to see some really seminal (is that the semen related adjective or the one meaning important? I want the one meaning important. Or wait, is that the native american from florida? Shit. Well anyway...) works of contemporary architecture by such greats as Tadao Ando (the mad boxer) and Peter Zumpthor (recent Pritzger Prize winner.)

I took abajillion photographs and am uploading them as we speak. It does, unfortunately, take a bit of time for everything to move over the interweb here in the hotel so it may take some time, but it truly was a remarkable day.

The day started interestingly enough when we were missing 4 people at departure time. Apparently some of the students went on quite a tear last night and never quite got to bed before about 7 a.m. We would have left without them, but we were not able to leave ourselves. You see, apparently today was the Koln Marathon. A 26 mile race that literally encircles the hotel. As a result, the bus driver could not get anywhere close to us. We had to walk to the bus which proved problematic because at one point we had no choice but to cut through an active marathon. We tried to impede people as little as possible but 45 students crossing through a marathon, well there was going to be problems.

Soon we found the bus and our first stop was the Langen Foundation by Tadao Ando. Tadao is a wonderful architect who utilizes space and light as well as massing in ways that were never thought of before. The amazing thing about him is that he has had no formal training. His original career was as a professional boxer. What an incredible natural talent.

The next stop was a walk from the foundation. It was entitled Insel Hombroich. This was a sculpture garde/architectural garden wherein a number of architects had designed simple pavillions that generally consisted of only one movement. There were some interesting concepts at play regarding sound and experience. Since most of these places were only one room, the concepts had to have one note and be played as powerful as possible, not forcefully, but powerfully.

We then headed back to Koln and drove to the Kolumba Museum by Zumpthor. What a remarkable place this was. Built on the foundations of an acient and decrepit church, Zumpthor took no less than ten years designing this remarkable museum. Characterized by Zunpthor's trademark use of allowing natural light to cut through space, turning the light into a mass itself, this was truly a joy to walk through (and photograph. I went a little crazy with the lens.)

Last stop, the Dome church. Not really sure why it's called the Dome but there it is.

Anyway, tomorrow more travel and we wind up in Utrecht for the night. Should be interesting.