I know that I was all bravado regarding the weekend in Florence. As though seeing a bunch of churches all in close proximity to one another was some kind of feat worthy of praise. As it turns out, Florence was nothing. Over the course of a week, Matt and I set about seeing as many masterpieces as possible. Indeed, we made an attempt to see a masterpiece a day every day for a week.

Images of the week to accompany this post can be found here.

Thursday - Terme, Vals

This is a good place to start any road trip. It is about as close to a perfect building as I have ever visited; perfectly crafted, somber and sober, full of silver haired elder ladies

I believe that Matt and I are probably amongst the more cynical of architects wandering around and we had difficulty in finding fault.

This is a building that contains all the cliches:

• It celebrates water.
• It celebrates bathing.
• It is of the earth.
• It is carved space.
• It has zen views.
• It has a petal pool.
• It has black leather curtains.

And yet demands respect.

And we gave it respect. For a while. As soon as we were left unattended, the shackles came off and we reverted to schoolboy antics. We tested the acoustics of the flower pool, which you will be pleased to know, is a fantastic acoustic environment for both the call of the Bushpig and the Swamp Donkey. The flower pool has extraordinary acoustic qualities; lush and reverberent. Perfect for the complex vocal range of real and imaginary Australian feral animals.

The splash capacity of the baths were also tested, rigorously as in controlled labarotory conditions. There is only so much walking around being serious about bathing you can do before you are tempted to just do a goddamn bomb. As such I would be interested to know if I am the first to do a bomb at Zumthor’s baths and in the Grotto/Ambient Sound Pool in particular {it is a very small room after all}. The brass railings running around the edge of the grotto make for an excellent launch pad and the sound of the splash wonderfully complements the piped Gregorian chant music.

Friday - Chapel of San Benedetg

Located 2km up the hill from the train station at Sumvitg is the Chapel of San Benedetg, again by Zumthor.

Seen in relation to the Baths, it proves Zumthor’s abilities as a craftsman. While I doubt that it would be classed as a cheap building, it is definitely in a different league to the Stacked-Stone-Everything-Must-Have-A-Six-Metre_Cantilever school of thinking on display at Vals.

Hijinks were kept to a minimum here, however much time was spent wading through knee deep snow in order to get that shot. You know, the one from the cover of A+U? Yeah that one. It is worthwhile pointing out that that cover photo was not taken when there was three feet of snow covering pretty much the entire surface of Switzerland. Whoever took that photo is obviously not as hardcore as us, if they were, they would have waited until Winter, like we did.

Saturday - Heidi Weber Pavilion, Zurich

Our next stop was Zurich and the Foundacion de Le Corbusier. Or something. It was not open. The lady at the train station said that it is never open. However we walked around it for a while and delighted in its primary painted exuberance.

Sunday - Ronchamp

Located 2km up the hill from Ronchamp train station is the The Chapel of Notre Dame de Haute. A building that has been so drummed into every architect is bound not to live up to the hype. But it did. What sets it apart from other gestural endeavours by lesser beings is its grounding in architecture rather than sculpture. It is comprised of towers, windows, walls and a roof. Simple things rendered exquisitely; in complete denial of orthographic projection, it shifts and changes and reveals itself as you walk around and within it. It has no elevation, no front, no back. Its roof and floor slope away from one another and themselves.

Monday - Couvent de La Tourette

Located 2km up the hill from L’Arbresele train station is the home of a bunch of Dominican Monks called La Tourette. Lesson learnt: All pilgrimage churches are 2km up the hill from the train station.

It was the highlight of the week for me. Gargantuan and rough as guts, it felt like a relic from the future and it felt primal, in the way Zumthor’s baths did - it is impossible to place its character, only that it is somehow based on the body in space. Where the baths are primal, grounded and enclosing; La Tourette is unsettling, academic. Looking across the interior space reveals the games Le Corbusier was playing as solid and void, thick and thin melt into one another. There are incredibly deep and virtually flat perspectives. It hurts the eyes to look for too long and you know that you are looking.

Both buildings are tactile and want to be touched. La Tourette feels so poorly built that even I could have had a hand in knocking up some of its formwork. No Swiss craftsmen on this job.

An extraordinary work that pre-empted virtually every idea that has followed. It is dense with invention.

Tuesday - Casa del Fascio

Like the brother in the Corrs, after Ronchamp and La Tourette, whatever followed was always going to have a tough time getting noticed.

The House of the Fascists suffered this fate. It is not that it is not a great building. It is. Its just that is downhill from the station. How can it be a masterpiece if it is not on a hill? Hell, there are plenty of hills around Como, it is not as though

It does have some kick ass, divinely proportioned facades though.

Wednesday - The Last Supper

A wall in a room not a building. But again, something that could have easily been underwhelming due to its extremely well published place in history. However it is a beguiling painting and one that does need to be seen in context - perspective, space, whatever etc. And I won’t lie, there was a bit of Da Vinci Code spotting going down, and maybe St Whoever does look like a chick, granted. But then, like, four of them look like chicks and I don’t think Leonardo was actually at the Last Supper, he just painted it about 1500 years later so I am not sre that it passes for factual evidence that Tom Hanks will be in possession of the Holy Grail this SUMMER 2005.

It was an absurd timetable and an absurd manner in which to travel around Europe. We likely spent more time on trains and looking for accommodation than anywhere else but coming from the Antipodes, it felt like it was our duty.

We were not out there to see places, cities, peoples. We were travelling to see things, object, buildings.