BRICK

Not long ago I was in this talk by a Scandinavian design guru Per Hollerup, listened to him talking about his great insight of minimalism and Mies van der Rohe, how we all should strive to design something simple and avoid ornamental elements that serve no purpose in our artwork. I thought it was very motivating and I like his remark of “nowadays there’re so many standards there’re no standards”. I left the talk thinking I must go minimalist.

48 hours later I was on a euro coach reading about how ornament design is coming back with a vengeance. Less isn’t more anymore and people want design that they will get lost in. The new trend of ornamentation is taking over and that is good news for me as embellishment has always been my cup of tea. I finished the magazine thinking I must go back to complicated design and look forward to producing a busy illustration for the adobe award.

16 hours later I arrived in Lyon. France never fails to mesmerize me. There is something about the hue and weather here; I can practically smell romance in the air. Met up with sis and bro in law and they brought me around the town, treated me to good food and explained to me the meaning of many French words. Sis can speak and understand French now. It is gratifying to see how she could slowly adapt to the French world now.
Lyon is beautiful. Like most town, it was built along a river and backed by mountains. The old buildings, some of which are already 400 years old, are very captivating. I always have a thing for brick walls and gothic doors and there are plenty of them here.

This is taken from a church on the hill and how Lyon look from the top.

48 hours later we left Lyon in my bro in law car and drove 2 hours to their French abode in Lons Le Saunier. The journey was scenic and it reminds me a lot of Malaysia actually. The feeling got stronger when we arrived at their town. The place look just like any town in east Malaysia, with the only difference being the language and of course the French are much much much much better looking than the Malays. Sis shares a nice little house with an old French couple and life seems kinda comfortable here. The next day I traveled with sis in train to a slightly bigger town called Besancon where she studies French. This town is much more interesting compared to where they stay and there are tourist attractions all around.





After walking her to school (a very nice building) I was left alone to explore. Besancon is even more picturesque than Lyon with also a river through the town and surrounded by hills. I walked to the Rivotte, where Besancon’s town gate is located. There used to be war in the 16th century and the gate is part of the city’s fortifications. There is this famous castle at the border high up on the hills called La Citadelle.

I reached the peak after climbing hundreds of steps and to my delight, the castle is now converted to a tourist spot and it houses a zoo, an aquarium, an insectarium, a climatorium, two museums and of course the castle itself is worth visiting already. The walk along the parapets offers impressive views of Besancon. I didn’t expect it but ended up spending the whole morning there looking at tigers, monkeys, beetles and learnt how France won over the ruthless Adolf Hitler’s domination.

Top of Besancon

After having lunch with sis, I made a visit to a sizable art museum which houses paintings of some renaissance French painters and some ancient artifacts found during the building of the town. The greatest reward of this trip was to learn about Fraganaud. He sketched with superb line quality and I am in love with his drawings. One funny incident while I was looking at Fraganaud. There were this group of young children, probably doing their kindergarten, were lead by a teacher to look at the drawings. The kids went from drawing to drawing and did Q&A with the teacher. The teacher would ask a question (in French, which I didn’t understand, but it must be something like “Who can tell me what’s in this painting?”). A few paintings away from where they were gathering, there were drawing of a male and female copulating, with uncensored depiction of genital organs and also one with a gentleman sucking a lady’s breast. I was waiting in awe to see what will happen when the kids all move to the two drawings. But too bad, they left shortly after they talked the last drawing they were at.

Yesterday I didn’t go to Besancon with sis, and decided to walk around Lons Le Saunier instead. It is much smaller and really nothing much to do. I spent time walking around looking at brick porch way, gothic window grills, elegant archers, alfresco French and grand facades. Although there were nothing much to do, I still felt great walking amongst the French and smelling the romance.


Today was out with sis to Besancon again. I grew to like this place a lot and I think I like it more than Paris. Paris is too complex but Besancon is just a comfortable portion of France you get for historical and leisure experience. Today I walked around the Porte Noire (black gate) area and visited the famous St. John’s Cathedral. I really like the Rose window and there are a few paintings from the 15th century in it. The weather was too cold today to walk around so I kept running into shops. I must say I am really impressed with their bookshops, any one of them are really huge with anything from cradle to grave. I spent the whole afternoon flipping through art and children books. They have really really nice illustrative books for the kids here. All done tastefully with thick matt laminated cover, spot UV titles and stunning illustrations from skillful French artist. If my dad prints money I probably will take 10 boxes of children paperbacks. Anyway check out Enki Bial, really good artist!


Tomorrow I’m leaving to Bern. That’s the end of France for me this time round. Sis has been such a great host and I really really enjoyed the time catching up with her these few days. We talked so much all the time and it has been so long since I felt like a small boy in her attention. I think I will miss her very much when I am back in London.


Alrighty I am going off to bed already cause I am taking a super early train to Bern tomorrow. Update of Swiss trip soon! Au revoir!