Thank you everyone who kept up with my blog these past two months. It has been a pleasure extending my experiences to you back home. The last two weeks have been both busy, and non climactic, but fun as well. We finished up our class last Wednesday with a (soft)final presentation for our projects, and ended the day with a group goodbye dinner. Everyone split ways the next day, and I went to Barcelona for two days and explored the city there. Now back in Paris, I have been exploring the city again with my mom, and enjoying my last few days abroad. I head back to the states on Wednesday, and will be reunited with some of you.

Thanks again, and I hope you follow along with any future blogs I host on JordanBuckner.com

-J Buckner

All architects study the work of Le Corbusier, one of the most influential architects of the 20th century. Over the past few days I had the honor of visiting two of his works in France, and was quite amazed by the experience. The most problematic part of architectural education is the inability to visit most of the buildings we study in person. A 3dimentional spatial read of every building is critical to understanding any building, and I realized just how much so with this trip.

In Marseilles, we visited Corb’s Unite d’habitation, a large housing project located in southern france. The building is innovative because of its sectional ability to provide every housing unit with 1 1/2 floors that extend across the building and provide each unit access to each side of the building. In all of my education, I have seen relatively few images of the building, and being able to experience it in person gave me a completely new appreciation of the design.

The second of Corb’s projects that i visited was his Villa Savoye, built in 1929 just outside of Paris. The house is probably his most famous built projects as it most effectually showcases his 5 revolutionary design principles. It was great to experience the building in ways that photographs cannot justify. While i cannot recreate the space as I experienced it, photos will be posted later.

Yesterday we visited our final site Belle de Mai in Marseilles. The building was originally an old tobacco factory, but has now been converted into a museum, mediatech center, and cultural staging area. The factory is located in one of the worst neighborhoods in the city and is looking to provide a location to hang out for both locals from the surrounding neighborhood and people from around the city.

The main components are: skatepark, restaurant, 3 performance areas, a cyber lounge (for computer access), studio space, and offices for artistic organizations.

The space provides the same juxtapositions as the Lieu Unique project, and even more situations for program crossover. The only way to get to the restaurant is to walk through the skate park, and with no clear path through, people in suits and cocktail dresses had to walk through teenagers skateboarding to get to dinner

Today we are departing Lyon after a fun two day trip. Next we are headed to Marseilles.

Lyon is the third largest city in France and I like to say that if Paris is close to New York City, Lyon is comparable to Chicago. Lyon is much calmer than Paris, and even though the city seems to have a similar density, it also has a really unique historical distric with really nice shops. More soon!