Studio Culture EN FRANCE

This week marked the biggest change yet in our Versailles experience so far: we finally started meeting French students!  School had been silent for weeks, but suddenly -- yes, as late as October -- they all returned to the ENSA-V in full force.  Finally, the student-run café was up and running with well-dressed French kids swarming around it all throughout the day.  For a while, the forty-eight of us awkwardly tried to: (a) speak to the French kids without sounding like idiots, and (b) avoid coming off as obnoxious Americans.

But things got much better this week when two of the French studios had their first big meetings.  When I say "meetings", I don't mean the usual "studio culture" talk that we would usually hear during the first days of studio in Champaign-Urbana.  These French introductory meetings were advertised on posters as "pots" (pronounced poe)... which is apparently a sneaky way of saying insane party.

Yes, it's official: no studio back at home will ever be ANYTHING like the studios here in Versailles.  They couldn't be more different: teachers and administrative employees are actually not allowed to enter the studio spaces because they are entirely student-run.  Since the studios serve as personal work spaces and not classrooms, they seem to have evolved into idealized "living spaces for architects"... which includes crazy artwork all over the walls, giant sound systems for blasting music, upper levels from which the older students can yell down at the young ones to do work for them, and the freedom to drink and smoke whenever and wherever!

The ENSA-V has three studios, or ateliers, which are called 13, 14, and 19 for some reason.  Atelier 19 is a bit smaller and has a reputation for housing the more quiet, studious students, whereas 13 and 14 are very large and rather eclectic.  The bigger ones had the meetings this week, which is where several of the Americans got to befriend the French kids over free drinks and loud music.  Over the next few weeks, we might have to struggle to find spots amongst the French students in the studios, but everyone there was definitely very friendly and some even invited us to sit by them.  Phone numbers have been exchanged, we're learning how to do the French cheek-kissing tradition, and some of us have hung out with the French kids outside of school -- so all is well in Versailles!

-Kim

Weekend Field Trip to Metz, Nancy, and Reims

One of the best aspects of the architecture program in Versailles is that fact that we're so close to so many famous architectural landmarks in Europe.  We got to take advantage of this for the first time when we had our first official field trip.  From September 23rd to the 25th, all 48 students plus 4 professors piled into a coach bus and headed to Eastern France for the weekend.

Centre Pompidou Metz

Our first stop was Metz, an ancient French town featuring the brand-new Centre Pompidou Metz.  We took a tour inside, so along the way, we got to see lots of interesting modern art and some perfectly-crafted architectural models.  After debating whether or not we liked the building's style, we headed over to a very different architectural landmark: Saint Pierre-aux-Nonnains, a Gallo-Roman church from the 4th century AD.  We practiced our sketching for a while there before driving to one of Metz's hostels.

Inside St. Pierre-aux-Nonnains

Yes, all of the students plus all of our teachers ate dinner and slept at the hostel together.  The next day, after bonding over an insubstantial breakfast, everyone packed back onto the bus for the drive to Nancy.  Even though it was a rainy day, Nancy turned out to be even more beautiful than Metz (in my opinion, at least!) since it contained lots of pretty architecture.  We saw several examples of Art Nouveau architecture scattered throughout the town and also at the Musée de l'École de Nancy.  We spent lots of time sketching there, of course, and also proceeded to sketch inside the nearby Musée des Beaux-Arts Nancy.  Later in the afternoon, we sketched the Place Stanislas and finally drove back to Metz for the night, our hands and our feet exhausted.

An interesting perspective painting at the Musée des Beaux Arts

We spent another night discovering Metz's night life and woke up the next morning to explore a medieval fortress perched atop one of the town's hills.  We glanced inside St. Étienne de Metz, one of the tallest cathedrals in the world, until finally getting back on the coach bus for the last leg of our trip.  We gladly arrived in Reims and got dropped off right in front of the glorious Reims Cathedral.  Most of the students are big fans of Gothic architecture, so it was quite exciting to see this architectural gem up-close.  Before heading home, we were able to explore the town of Reims a little bit and buy souvenirs.  Almost everyone opted to buy a bottle of bubbly -- this was Champagne country, after all!  We wound our way back to Versailles after a few hours on the bus, and everyone crashed after a very tiring but very fun weekend.

The facade of Notre Dame de Reims

-Kim