The new semester is coming up and it started with the usual studio lottery. This time there were many interesting names with interesting proposals for studio topics or destinations for the Spring break Kinne trip but in my opinion in every proposal something was off. As I talked with my fellow students there was no studio that had everybody really going. For instance the Asia/Hong Komg studio from Jeffrey Inaba: It was top of my list until he mentioned at the end that the work would be urban scale and there would be groups to work in. So down to 8th choice he went. Bernard Tschumi obviously got a lot of first votes but that might be related to the nice announcement that he wouldn't tell where the Kinne trip was going until we were at the airport. Ed Keller had a brilliant proposal that was only marred by having the intention to cram to much into it: Urban solutions, a building design and a extended movie documenting the work progress... I don't know. Being realistic and seeing what comes at the end of the semester in the way of stress and work I don't see that the massing of tasks furthers the quality of the studio results. But all in all the topics were interesting and the trips promising. I was glad and surprised that two trips went to Berlin. Maybe something is happening there again in the department of art or architecture that is noticed on a global scale, maybe Berlin is back on the cultural stage... Considering the economic slump that we are experiencing at the moment in germany that gives me hope for the future.
The lecture of Sir Richard Rogers was a nice conclusion to the lottery day although he seemed somehow tired and not as energetic as on his last lecture.