Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Verona

Arriving in Verona so late in the afternoon. The sky looked cloudy and gloomy but there was no rain as was in the weather forecast. Thank God. I made a stroll around the town centre at night, took some night shots.. :D'.
To Castelvecchio Museum by Carlo Scarpa tomorrow. Yeahoooo...
P.S. It is said that girls here are extraodinarily beautiful. It's true. Must do some paparazzi shot tmr morning :P~
The Roman Arena (built 1st Century A.D. @@)

curves

In front of Castelvecchio Castle - Museum

Poor dudes... @@

The gate of Castelvecchio Museum

Monica Bellucci - that's what I call sexy

Is it called cobblestone or what? street-tiles?

- Road into the courtyard of Juliette's house -
It is said that Shakespeare based his whole novel "Romeo & Juliette" on a love-legend he heard of in Verona, which had taken place there centuries ago. There really used to be a kind of vendetta between two families here in this town. There is a house which is said to be Juliette's house (which is shown above in the picture) with the famous balcony where Romeo secretly met Juliette and showed her his love. There is also Juliette's and Romeo's tombs somewhere in the town which were already there from time immemorial. Real story or mere fiction? Who cares? :)' Hundreds of romantic people still pour into this tiny courtyard everyday to take picture of the famous balcony and with Juliette's statue (which surely was erected recently for touristic purpose), and to... graffitize the whole walls with all kinds of "hearts and arrows" slogans. But this kind of love-celebrating is quite unpleasant to the eyes and outdated, I guess. There is a much more interesting and "public-responsible" way, which I saw firstly in Florence, which I'm gonna tell ya later, there.. ;)

- Juliette's house, the balcony -
So this is it, the famous balcony where he showed her his love. I just wonder how he could get into this so-private courtyard and climb up there. It's high, man, 5 meters at least. Maybe love always shows us the way :)

Vandalism on the wall of Juliette's house T.T haizz

a convent

The charm of the convent's cloister

Castelvecchio Castle - Museum. This museum was renovated and refurbished by Carlo Scarpa, a Venetian architect, said to be a master of exhibition designs. How unfortunate I was! Parts of the museum were under restoration (Scarpa did his design during the 50s - 60s), especially the best view of the equestrian sculpture was not available (it was covered with a canvas for restoration). So I put here a pic from internet, the most famous view of the museum.

source: internet

Monday, October 15, 2007

Cameron Sinclair's talk - Architecture that can change the face of the world.

Cameron Sinclair, Samuel Mockbee, Shigeru Ban... and many many more architects of their ideal. They're the ones that make me believe: architecture can truly change the face of the world. A real humanitarian architecture.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/54

"I wish to develop a community that actively embraces innovative & sustainable design to improve living conditions for all" (Cameron Sinclair architect)

(Sanfe Bagar, Achham, Nepal)

http://www.openarchitecturenetwork.org/challenge Architecture for Humanity Competition

Sunday, October 14, 2007

Oscar Niemeyer

Oscar Niemeyer - my favourite Brazilian architect, he's gonna celebrate his 100 years old birthday this coming 15th December 2007 :).
Viva Oscar..

Friday, October 12, 2007

Feeling really really grateful

Excerpt from email sending to a Singaporean brother:
"Hi bro,
It's great to hear from you, and know u're busy and happy with work :)
Ya, I'm really having a good time here. I'm living with 3 other Singaporean friends who are my archi seniors at SDE. It's such a great experience to live and share things together. It's totally different from my two past years in Singapore (at the lonely PGP haha :)) )
It was the first time we went to the market together to buy food, pondering on what to buy, what not to buy, how to save money and how to plan our weekly expense in the wisest way. It was also the first time we all learnt to cook (we - 4 guys u know).
It really reminded me so much of my mom and grandmom when I took the pan and started frying some Vietnamese food (with my mom's recipe on the other hand, which I just received through email the previous night :)) ). Our everyday food keeps being experimental food... Haha.. Anyway after some trials and errors, I think our skills are getting much better now. Hehe. Will have change to impress girls in the future, haha, hopefully.
Yeah, all the time I get into the kitchen with my friends, I couldn't help but feeling so grateful for what I've received from my mom and grandmom, especially their extraordinary Vietnamese food. I think I did a good job from my mom's recipes :D hoorrayyy..
Oh, ya, my housemates also said they like my food. And I love theirs also.
Ok, stop talking about food. Or I'll get fatter and fatter. :))
School is nice since we go to school only 3 times a week :D' (will have to compensate when coming back to Singapore boohoo..). It's much more relaxing and more about researching here, since we're taking part of the aki Master course at TU Delft (our school's name).
I go to school by bicycle everyday since it's the common means of commuting to work and school here. It is so healthy and environmentally friendly :] But it's terrible sometimes to wake up early in the morning and cycle to school under the freezing rain and extremely strong wind of Delft :[['
..The rest of the week we tried to travel as much as possible, within Holland and in the coming term-break, outside.
I had spent 3 weeks before this semester started, to travel to London, Paris, Barcelona, Venice, and a small village in France, where there was a masterpiece of architecture to which I had always dreamt of paying a visit... (I travelled alone during that 3 weeks coz my friends' travelling plans were all different from mine. It was fun though, however I preferred to have at least one more travel-mate to share things (budget-hostel fees and also discoveries haha) :] ).
This coming 2 week term-break we're going again, and again their plans are different from mine, so I'm gonna be alone again in Italy and Spain this time :D. I tried to save, but I think I have been spending quite a lot of my parents' money on this travelling :(. But I also gained a lot, and learnt a lottt.. :)
Okei, my email's getting quite long now.. Gotta stop or u're gonna fall asleep, haha. I think I'll try to attach some picture I took when I was there at the small village in France I mentioned earlier on. It was a small chapel (called Notre Dame du Haut or Ronchamp Chapel, by Le Corbusier, one of the greatest architects of the 20th century).
I also posted some pictures of my trip and of Delft - the lovely town-city where I'm living onto my blog www.mocphale.blogspot.com. Check it out when u have spare time. The "August part" is my London,Paris, Barcelona, Venice... trip. And the "Delft part" in "September" is of this town.. I guess it can be very relaxing for u too see my pix of Delft, where there are a lot of ducks and swans everywhere :D. I love this town a lot, a lot. Every weekend there's something happening, at every corner of Delft (Coz we're living next to the main square, where they have antique market, flea market, fruit market all the time). I haven't managed to post some other selected pix when we went to Bruxelles, Amsterdam, Rotterdam.. I'm gonna post soon when possible :p
K k, really gonna stop now, see ya soon bro.
Duong".
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Feelling really really happy and grateful to my grandmom, my parents, my teachers in Singapore, my friends in Vietnam & Singapore, and all the people I've met here so far. It's such a great lifetime opportunity that I'm really enjoying and will surely never forget.
:)
Viva Delft and Europe.
"Banzaiiiii..." (Worms - my favourite video game once)
P.S. My grandmom, so happy to hear that u're getting much better today. I was so worried some days ago when I heard of the accident. I don't know how I'm gonna live if u're gone.. :['.
I love you. And I'll be home soon.

Paris

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Memories

Memories just keep coming back when I don't expect it to come. The good and bad, the happy and the painful... The smiles and the moments that I could hardly forget. Grateful for all I have received and given.
One just can never stay with the past, only the memories does one keeps.
Hoorray, then press forward. Remember.
And stay alive.
:)
Life has never been better.