Day 1-
Monchengladbach - town/city stuck in the 80's
Abteiberg Museum by Hans Hollein 1972 -1982
night spent getting sorted at hostel then a quick look around the city at night. (note- never go in a German goth club)
Day 2-
tour of Frankfurt then exploration of museums.
really interesting shopping centre by Massimiliano Fuksas.
Halloween night - underwhelming, almost no germans were celebrating contrary to what i had been told. got massively drunk on 'mass' and meter beer.
Day 3 -
The Weissenhof Estate: International style of modern architecture houses by Mies van der Rohe, corbusier & others. The Mercedes Benz Museum by UN Studio was really good. The porsche museum Delugan Meissl Associates was less interesting.
Quick visit into the centre of stuttgart; nothing was open but the city was nice and seemed very well laid out, would like to go back and explore further.
Night was spent exploring Frankfurt and getting more night pictures, then hitting the pubs.
Day 4 -
Darmstadt: Art Nouveau park. look at the uni's award winning eco house. talk at the Passive Haus Institute was interesting but the room made it hard to stay awake.
talk at a co housing project - being green as a community achievement.
Day 5 -
The Zollverein Pit: extremely large restoration project of bauhaus buildings the majority of which hasnt been started yet we got lost on the site however some very interesting landscaping. The Essen Aalto Theatre is a very nice, interesting building.
travel back to rotterdam for the ferry home.
