Notes on #WFH #Archimom #VirtualTravelling Interview with Marc Dixon, AIA

May 15, 2020

Notes on #WFH #Archimom #VirtualTravelling Interview with Marc Dixon, AIA

Back Door Job

So, I know that a lot of people had to change vacation plans (because of COVID-19) myself included as I had made plans a year ago when the TWA Hotel was about to open and I was super-excited to go. I had originally planned to go for my birthday in October, changed it as I had the chance to go and do the social media for my AIA San Diego Chapter at the Monterey Design Conference and I had to switch it to April but then I had to change it and at that point they said,

"why don't you just wait until this whole thing is over and then make travel plans because we don't know what is going to happen and we don't want to take your money"

WOW. That is a disappointment on many levels. Who besides your husband at your anniversary dinner or your parents when you try and pay for something says that they don't want to take your money?

TWA Hotel Rooms and Info

TWA Hotel Architectural Tour

I think by now everyone can say that they are getting a little antsy and want to get out and of course some people have had to put off travel for a while. But for me, I didn't really have a big trip planned, well I did want to go to New York for few days. But I was thinking that at least (and I think we all thought that this would just blow over and that at the very least) we would be going to the AIA National Conference in Los Angeles. And that we would be at the very least going to a party a night and I actually had three that I had planned on attending on Wednesday night alone. Including a tour of Disney Hall and then a happy hour for 3 hours at the Peterson Auto Museum and then going to the Brooks Scarpa Party for the rest of the night. And here it is Tuesday night and I am not packing a bag or going anywhere. In fact, I feel like I am going nowhere fast.

And instead of an Eero Saarinen Womb Chair, which i am super comfortable in when i sit in them...
but costs more than what i paid for my Volvowagon (used of course)

Instead I am in this chair that is $100 and I had to screen out the rest of the crap which sits behind it which will need to be moved again so that we can take the plywood off and get into the addition...

And now my only plans for tonight, now Wednesday night were a Trivia Night Virtual Happy Hour (which ended up being waaayyy harder than I thought even without alcohol) and interviewing a local architect while we are virtually wine tasting, which was cancelled. I am not sure about the rest of you but it is not the next best thing to being there. It just isn't, but we are going to try and make the best of it.

this crew of 6 architecture students who went to Denmark
and were in the DIS program while we were in
Stockholm, Sweden staying on a Jungehjem that is a boat
in the harbor, we then took a big ferry boat to
Helsinki, Finland to see the works of Saarinen and Aalto
Neil Peoples: Peoples Architecture,
Jeanette Coran: JSC Architecture & Santa Clara University
Andrew Darragh: Ferguson, Pape Baldwin Architects
Jin Koyama: Gensler, Los Angeles
Me: Michele Grace Hottel, Architect
Jerry Topper, we just don't really know...

So, like a lot of us who studied abroad and maybe some who didn't but just get to go to Europe every year (yes, i have a few friends who do that) think back, in times like these, or when I really want to get away ,I think back to when I was young and free to travel all over, at a moments notice, Only governed by the amount of times that the paper of your Eurail pass could be eradicated and the amount of money that you needed for food, that was typically purchased at a grocery store or open market. One could live forever travelling (or at least as long as you had money and no classes) on bread and cheese and fruit and wine/beer/sparkling/non-sparkling water. There were no chargers to weigh you down, no smartphones, no social media to let anyone know where you were or who you were with, You traveled with a huge camera and had to carry enough film with you and keep it with you til the end of the trip in little plastic canisters . Your camera had a little battery in it that lasted forever and it was only for the flash or or for the program or you just kept it on manual and set it yourself. You didn't know what photos you took because you didn't see them until months later when you got home and had them developed and then you were like, omg, why did we not take more of that???

the view of Copenhagen from up
on the roof of our studio on
vestergade that overlooked the stroget

in front of the parthenon for spring break
#whatanarchitecturestudentdoes

notre dame

eiffel tower

sculpture in the musee' d'orsay

my mom and i in nyhavn
when she and my stepdad came to visit
me in denmark

my daughter and i when i came to visit her in spain
and we went to visit my danish family
that i had stayed with when i was a student

in front of illums bolighus taken by my daughter

at the citadel in alicante where my daughter studied abroad

10 overrated landmarks you should think twice about visiting

So one of the things that people were posting on Facebook at the beginning of this thing were all of the concerts that they had been to and you were supposed to figure out which two of them were false. So one that kept coming up was Billy Joel; nobody had been to a Billy Joel concert. So when I posted it, of course everyone picked Billy Joel, but I had actually been to one of his concerts. But a few nights ago, this song of his came on and it reminded me of a conversation that my mom had with me about this very song many years ago. So the other night when it came on in the car, I told my two boys what my mother had told me about it. It's about all of the things that happened that were big news stories and caused alarm when they happened but that every generation has events like these and supposedly we will get through them.

Here's a link to the song.

Billy Joel "We didn't start the fire"

It also led me to think (and this was after I had interviewed Marc Dixon, who I had studied abroad with in Copenhagen, Denmark in the DIS (Denmark International Studenter) Program in 1986-87.

Now, you will hear us talk about a few incidents, but I also remembered what the world was like when we went abroad. This is a summary of the world affairs teh year before we went abroad. Ronald Reagan was president of the United States (and contrary to people's claims that he was he greatest president ever nobody in the rest of the world and a lot of us in the US didn't like him. I didn't even like him and I was even a Republican at that time, believe it or not, and most people of our time who wanted to make money were!). There had been several bombings of train stations, airports, etc., There was a nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl and the nuclear cloud was still over Europe and migrating towards Scandinavia . The AIDS crisis had started and the rest of the world said that it had gone from Africa to the USA to Europe. And Europe was still preparing their country better for it as they were teaching 8 year olds about it!!! There were condoms on the sides of busses. The Berlin Wall was still up and there were Soviet Bloc countries that you just couldn't go into no matter what. You needed a visa to travel to France because of the bombings. There had been a bombing in a disco in West Berlin that year but we still went dancing in a disco when we went there.

When we went to the orientation program for the Study Abroad program, we were told not to display the american flag or say that we were american when we were travelling. We were told to not be loud and speak English while travelling or on public transportation. So, when I look at these events, it makes me feel a little bit better about the world we are living in now and we will get through this.

The People HIstory 1985
The People History 1986
The People HIstory 1987

So, I thought that I might give you a break and I messaged my architect friends in Melbourne, Australia as they are also practicing social distancing albeit, a way better attitude than I have about it because they are Australians. Marc Dixon, Peter Gionfriddo (Marc's is here and Peter's will follow in a later blog post). and I went to school in Denmark together with about 47 other people each semester with DIS (Danmark Internationale Studenter) We were a close knit group, especially all of us who stayed the whole year. We remain pretty close even when we don't talk that much, even now. Travelling with people typically makes you closer, even if there are some really bad and really good times that you go through together. The bond that remains is pretty strong and the architecture that most of us (and I can post who we went to school with because the list is pretty impressive, if anyone wants to know) continue to practice stays true to the concepts of social housing that we learned in Denmark, one of empathy and of aesthetics for all people.