Architectural Bucket List

Summer is here and that means that families around the country are packing up and heading out on vacation. Surprisingly, despite how much bellyaching you might hear, architects do in fact take vacations. I’ve said it on this site myself many times, architects tend to plan their vacations around buildings they want to see.

Thinking about taking a trip (like to Hedonism)? If it isn’t somewhere architecturally significant or have some redeeming historical context … you probably won’t be going.

For the longest time, I have been thinking about a particular trait most architects share when it comes to traveling and wonder if it’s actually true? Do architects travel to specific locations because they want to look at a particular building? OR … do they simply look at buildings that happen to be where they have traveled? Maybe you think this is semantics but I tend to be a person who thinks that these subtle distinctions make a huge difference. One might be considered a character trait demonstrating purpose and method, whereas the other simply seems like a captured opportunity or in my case, this building happens to be right in front of me so “Why not?”

I am going to step out in to the 12-Step light and make a confession:

Bob: Hi everyone. (looking down at shoes) My name is, uhm, Bob.

Architectural 12-Step Crowd: [in unison] Hi Bob

Bob: Well … I’m an architect, and, hum, [blurting out] I don’t travel to specific places to look at buildings.

Architectural 12-Step Crowd: Hold on … What the *#!* did he just say?

Wow. I feel a lot better; I’m glad to finally be able to admit that to everyone. I should clarify that I do like looking at buildings – quite a bit actually – but I don’t make it a point to travel someplace just so I can see one; at least I haven’t done that so far in my life. SO now I’ve been thinking: “Are there any buildings I would travel to go see? Do I have an Architectural Bucket List?”

The short answer is no – all I have are places I want to go … we’ll see what happens from that point.

Norway – 4,844 miles from my house

I have wanted to go to Norway for a long time – probably because I am 50% Norwegian and I want to get a grip on my heritage … besides, how many times can I have heard my Dad talk about Rømmegrøt – a porridge made from natural sour cream; served with butter, sugar and cinnamon – without having actually tried it?

Image credits: Christian Bothner

Image credits: here

And I have always wanted to see the aurora borealis – it literally seems fake to me looking at the images. How can something like this be real?!?

New Zealand – 7,599 miles from my house

New Zealand is a country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean consisting of 2 main islands, both marked by volcanoes and glaciation. On the North Island, capital Wellington’s dramatic setting, including Mt. Victoria, the Fiordland and Southern Lakes, stood in for mythical Middle Earth in Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy.

My wife has a cousin who is married to a fellow originally from New Zealand. He actually came to the United States in his twenties as a professional frisbee player and was hired to travel around the country and set up frisbee clubs. He is a cool guy and maybe I am projecting that the rest of the country is made up of people like him … a country full of cool people.

Image credits: here

Iceland – 3,760 miles from my house

Hmm, what do you know? … another Nordic island nation. Iceland is defined by its dramatic volcanic landscape of geysers, hot springs, waterfalls, glaciers and black-sand beaches – all of which sound pretty interesting to me. The capital, Reykjavik, home to the majority of the population, runs on geothermal power and offers a renowned nightlife scene as well as Viking history museums. The glaciers in Vatnajökull and Snæfellsnes national parks are popular for ice climbing, hiking and snowmobiling.

Iceland is one of those places that is so beautiful I don’t know how they aren’t overrun with people who want to live there … maybe it’s because they named the country ICELAND?!!? Maybe it was a clever attempt by the people who live there to try to keep the place to themselves. Either way, I challenge you to look at pictures from Iceland and tell me that it isn’t one of the most beautiful places you have ever seen.

I double dare you.

Image credits: Gunnar Gestur

Image credits: Wim Dennis

Image credits: Andre Remove

Image credits: Max Rive

Antarctica – 8,784 miles from my house

Antarctica is Earth’s southernmost continent, containing the geographic South Pole. It is situated in the Antarctic region of the Southern Hemisphere, almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle, and is surrounded by the Southern Ocean.

Okay … while this might seem like a goof I am playing, I really do want to visit Antarctica. I have watched more documentaries on Antarctica than any other place and I still want to go there. There isn’t any “architecture” there to see, not really. There are only 700 or so people who live there year round and it remains relatively untouched by human hands. While I can’t say that I would be excited about having icicles hanging off my eyelashes, I am more than just a little intrigued to be in a place where I can experience absolute silence and literally no other human beings. (That makes me sound incredibly anti-social, but if you know me, you’d know that couldn’t be further from the truth.)

Image credits: here

Image credits: Antarctica by Alicia Hall

Japan – 6,463 miles from my house

Japan is an island nation in the Pacific Ocean with high-rise-filled cities, imperial palaces, mountainous national parks and thousands of shrines and temples. Tokyo, the crowded capital, is known for its neon skyscrapers and pop culture. In contrast, Kyoto offers Buddhist temples, Shinto shrines, gardens and cherry blossoms.

Japan might have been the most difficult place for me to search for photos to use in today’s post. In terms of population, going from Antarctica to Japan couldn’t have been more extreme. Most of the photos I ended up searching through were of Japanese gardens, temples and shrines – which were also a bit at odds with where I left off with Antarctica. I won’t admit to being an expert on traditional Japanese architecture, but it is the thing that interests me the most. The way the Japanese culture seemed to want to integrate itself into the landscape, while maintaining complete dominion and control over it is something that I’ve always felt that I needed to experience in order to have a better understanding. Meanwhile, when I think of Japan, the words that come to my mind are: tranquility, solitude, and order – and all three of those seem pretty good to me.

So going through the process of picking the places that would go on to my “Architectural Bucket List” has been fairly enlightening. I came up with all of these locations within moments once I decided that I needed to pick them – and why not? They have all been places I have wanted to visit for as long as I can remember.

Since I have never been to any of these places, I don’t have any of my own pictures to show. This is how I spent my Sunday afternoon – searching online of images I could use for this post. After I spent hours looking for images, I started to notice a trend … almost no buildings at all. I also started noticing that several of these places share certain similarities … they are environmentally beautiful places where nature is on full display. They are all remote (at least to me) and are unlike anything I have able to casually visit.

If you’ve ever been grocery shopping while you’re hungry, you’ll acknowledge that the food you buy is typically stuff you want to eat while shopping – not necessarily the food you should be buying. Those ‘Pop Tarts’ look pretty good when you’re hungry but the next day you’ll find yourself standing in the kitchen, looking at the box, scratching your head trying to remember why you bought these things. That’s a little like how I am feeling right now … Should I be reading something into the list I’ve assembled here? They all look like wonderful places to go for a hike … except, I don’t really go on hikes. Camping would probably be amazing at these places but I’ve never really been camping before.

Summer break – for me and many people around the world – is about removing yourself from the routine and experiencing something that recharges your batteries. Maybe summer break is about slowing things down and remembering why it is that we work as hard as we do the rest of the year.

Happy and safe travels,

P.S. – so what places would be on your architectural bucket list??

This was the tenth post in a series of posts called “ArchiTalks”. If you would like to see how other architects responded to the topic of “Summer Break”, just follow the links below. Hopefully you’ll find another architectural blog you think is worth reading.

Matthew Stanfield – FiELD9: architecture (@FiELD9arch)
SummerBreak?

Marica McKeel – Studio MM (@ArchitectMM)
Summer Break = Extreme Architecture

Jeff Echols – Architect Of The Internet (@Jeff_Echols)
Summer Break and Aunt Loretta

Lee Calisti, AIA – Think Architect (@LeeCalisti)
summer break

Mark R. LePage – Entrepreneur Architect (@EntreArchitect)
2 Simple Systems That Will Transform Your Studio

Lora Teagarden – L² Design, LLC (@L2DesignLLC)
Vacationing with an Architect

Cormac Phalen – Cormac Phalen (@archy_type)
MILES AND MILES OF ROAD

Andrew Hawkins, AIA – Hawkins Architecture, Inc. (@hawkinsarch)
Summertime

Jes Stafford – Modus Operandi Design (@modarchitect)
Summer Getaway

Cindy Black – Rick & Cindy Black Architects (@ddd)
summer Getaway

Rosa Sheng – Equity by Design / The Missing 32% Project (@miss32percent)
#Architalks 10 – Give me a Break!

Michele Grace Hottel – Michele Grace Hottel, Architect (@mghottel)
#Architalks 10 – “summer break”