Sightseeing IV: Rietveld-Schröeder Huis in Utrecht

Saturday we took a 45-minute train to Utrecht, a city with a large and lively student population, to see the Rietveld-Schroeder House. Speaking of students, we met up with Jeff, the familiar face above, whom we know from Emily Carr. He's an industrial design student who is currently on exchange in Eindhoven. I would say it's a small world, but it's actually it's just a small country.

We went for a guided tour of the Reitveld-Schröeder House, which should be familiar – maybe only vaguely – to those of you who took Design History as the de Stijl home constructed in 1924. This house is famous for it's interior that transforms from closed, private rooms to open and free-living space by use of sliding doors, walls that run on tracks, and windows that open as balconies. All the furniture was custom made for the house, and designed for modular living (for example, many furniture items had more than one purpose.) Being inside of the house was stepping into a breathing Mondriaan painting. Sorry, no photos allowed.


When it was designed eighty years ago, the concept was revolutionary. It was fascinating to visit, if for no other reason than when we studied it in school, I remember thinking it was in the middle of nowhere, in a city I'd never heard of, and would never see it in person. Well, here I am.

Our ticket also included admission to the Dick Bruna Huis, a museum devoted to Holland's – if not one of the world's – most famous creator of children's stories.

A graphic designer by trade, he is most famous for his character of Miffy, a simplified bunny with many animal friends. His books have been translated into more than 70 languages around the world. It was a really cute place.



But the highlight of the day was the city of itself. In addition to the usual canals, Utrecht had huge public squares, interesting shops, and wharves below street level where people sat and ate and relaxed and enjoyed the beautiful weather. It's a great city to visit.

Sightseeing III: Hoge Veluwe & the Kröller-Müller Museum

Last Sunday I got up bright and early to venture to the other side of the country to visit De Hoge Veluwe National Park, which at 55 square kilometers is the largest park in Holland. It is home to many animals including some endangered species of deer, and wild boars.

The park was originally the private property for a very wealthy German-Dutch couple, the Kröller-Müllers. He was a hunter, and she an avid art collector who wanted a museum to display her incredible collection, and hence the Kröller-Müller Museum was built in the heart of the hunting grounds. Around the 1930s the land and the collection of the museum was donated to the Netherlands and available to the public.

Since the park is so large – and most of it inaccessible by car – there are nearly 2000 white bicycles for guests to use, for free. Nearly every major European city has a bicycle sharing program of some kind, and I even think Vancouver was testing something out when we left, but this was the first time I've ever used a free public bicycle, and it was great! You just pick one up at the entrance, ride at your will, park it when you need to stop, and get on the bicycle closest to you when it's time to go again. Brilliant!


The Kröller-Müller collection is incredible. There are Mondriaans, Monets, de Chiricos, Legers, Picassos, and many other important regional artists who created avant garde Modern art, but it's largest draw card is the Van Goghs. The collection of Van Gogh paintings and drawings is second in the world only to the eponymous museum in Amsterdam, but there was one obvious advantage to seeing the Van Goghs at the Kröller-Müller: the the crowds are smaller to non-existent.

I liked to take the photo of the man in the orange pants:




Easily the most unique part of the Kröller-Müller museum is the sculpture garden. At the back of the museum there is a huge natural park filled with installations and sculptures of famous artists of the 20th century. Some of the sculptures were in plain sight, but others were somewhat concealed by the environment, and you had to search to find them, like this rock wall in a forested area.



The one below was one of my favourites. Sitting in it's own pool of water and designed to catch even the slightest breeze, this object was continuously spinning and moving like a swan.




Another of my favourites was Kenneth Snelson's needle tower. Constructed using only cable, tubes and geometry, it is a freestanding tower that appears equally solid and fragile.


And when you stand directly beneath it and look up, this is what you see:


I spent hours at the museum, and it's my new favourite (although I sill love the Fundació Joan Miró in Barcelona.) It's not so easy to get to, but if anyone ever has the opportunity, I couldn't recommend it more.

Afterwards I jumped on a bicycle and pedaled for about 25 kilometers of the huge park. The landscape changed so much during this time.


There was wooded areas,


marshland,
meadows,


and sand dunes? What the!


Wide open spaces of nature void of people is not what generally comes to mind when I think of Holland, but it was really nice to be by myself in nature for a change.

(Luckily I didn't see any wild boars, or I probably would have had a heart attack.)

Two Months!

Last Thursday marked the two month point for time remaining in the course. Yikes!
It's hard to believe how fast things are going now as we're getting close to finishing, especially with the ridiculous amount of work to do. Speaking of which, I'm hoping to post some of it soon for everyone to see. I'll see what I can do.

With a week in Berlin coming up at the end of May and a visit from my sister at the beginning of the month, the time leading up to June 17th is going to go crazy fast.

We've already begun tentative plans for our return, but will wait until everything is firmed up to risk too much excitement (or disappointment?) amongst our dedicated readers. Suffice it to say that despite how sad it will be to leave, there is a lot that we have come to miss about Vancouver.

Stay tuned for more information from the only source that brings you up-to-date information on the Democratic nominees' race to the White house...(and your favourite Expatriates).

One minute of one day

Sightseeing 2: Bollenroute (or, Flower Power)

April and May are really special months in the Netherlands because it is the time of year when the flower fields are in full bloom and the fields between Haarlem and Leiden burst into of beautiful stripes of pink, purple, red and yellow.

As you probably know, flowers are big business in Holland. Over €500 million ($750m USD) worth of bulbs are exported worldwide from this tiny country, and it all starts in the fields. Although tulips (tulpen) are the flowers most associated with this country, any Dutch person will readily tell you that the tulp originally came from Turkey. I've heard it from so many people that I believe it!

The Keukenhof – the largest garden in the world, and one of the largest tourist attractions in Holland – is situated amongst the fields. The Keukenhof is open for only eight weeks of the year, yet it attracts nearly one million visitors. Now, that's flower power! My mom and dad visited when they were here and were amazed and delighted, even though they were snowed and hailed on.

Ross & I opted to see the flowers the way the locals do: by bicycle. We rented these orange Dutch-pride beauties from the gates of the Keukenhof, and took off on the bollenroute (the bulb tour).



Like many of our experiences in Holland, at first the bollenroute was incredible confusing and overly complicated, and we spent a good part of our time backtracking and looking at the map. But (also like many of our experiences in Holland) once we got the hang of it, our frustrations eased into a memorable experience that made the struggle beyond worthwhile.




In the fields were tulips, daffodils and hyacinths. The scent as we made our way along the roads was so fresh and so beautiful. Photos can't really do the experience justice.



The Bollenroute took us through 30 kms of fields and beautiful small towns over the course of 4 hours. What took us so long? Well, mostly we had to stop to take photos around every corner . . . and we were riding into a very strong wind most of the way . . . also, Ross can't pass one of these signs without stopping:


But mostly we were in absolutely no rush, and we leisurely enjoyed this wonderful part of Holland.


And remember: the tulip originally came from Turkey.

Sightseeing 1: Gemeentemuseum

Time is cruising along and we have been in The Hague for nearly eight months, meaning there's only three left. It's disappointing to to admit that although we've been excellent tourists and explored many foreign cities, there's a lot of things in this city that we haven't seen or done yet. Doesn't that it always happen that way?

I've made it a priority to try to do something different every weekend until we leave, as a way to cross some items off the big, long to-do list. Ross is currently in full swing with his grad project, which gives me a great excuse to go out and explore on my own, and look at some of what I've previously overlooked.

Just down the street from where we live is a cluster of museums, The Gemeentemuseum, the GEM, the Foto Museum and the Museon, which are – respectively – the City Museum, the Museum of Contemporary art, the Museum of Photography, and I don't really know what the Museon is but I think it's something like Science World.

So, I decided to start my mission at the Gemeentemuseum. This is the home of a huge collection of Piet Mondrian's work. But this year the entire collection is on loan in Germany, so that kind of sucks. People always speak so highly of this building's architecture and I've never really understood why. With it's yellow water-stained brick exterior, I thought it kind of looked like a gross reptile.


But then I went inside, and I realized I was so wrong. This building is so exciting!


Primary colours, black and white, rectilinear lines, 90° angles . . . if you're familiar with Mondrian's work you would recognize the architecture as a compliment to the visual forms found in the artist's later work; I couldn't imagine a more appropriate building to house the de Stijl collection. The hallways and staircases featured exciting installations, such as these murals by Sol LeWitt.


Walking through the gallery was really fun.


I was impressed! There was lots of work by artists that I haven't really seen before, such as Nan Goldin and Gerhard Richter, and this one:


I instantly liked this gigantic photo light box because it looked like Vancouver, and I'm embarrassed to admit that I had to read the credit before I realized whose work it was. Duh. Jeff Wall. Shameful! I can't believe I had to go all the way to The Hague to see work by one of Vancouver's most famous artists.

Although the Mondrian collection is in Germany, they still kept the jewel of the crown: Victory Boogie Woogie, the last piece the artist created before he died.


Then I got kicked out because the museum was closing. I'm going back today because there's a huge exhibition of Lucien Freud's work that I didn't even get to. Lesson learned: don't overlook what's just down the street!