Architectural Trip to Tuscany via Germany and Switzerland

In pursuit of some missing sun we drove to Tuscany with our Volkswagen T4 Van. We started at my alma mater the Bauhaus University Weimar, stopped at Zuerich, visited the oldest house in Switzerland, crossed the Alps via the Gotthard Pass and finally made it to Tuscany where we stayed at our friend's beautiful and newly restored house in the Appenines. We were impressed by a contemporary castle restoration at Verrucole Castle with cortan steel display boards and minimal copper steel windows. On the way back we stopped at Locarno on the Laggo Maggiore where we saw some architectural gems on a walk skirting the mountains around Locarno. Terragni's Casa del Fascio in Como is terrifyingly modern and beautiful with it's immaculate white stone cladding. Luigi Snozzi's urban design at Monte Carasso in Ticino combines town planning with the quest for the Gesamtkunstwerk. We took in Peter Maerkli's remarkable and brutal concrete exhibition building in Giornico in beautiful Ticino. We sought shelter from the relentless rain in Lucerne's KKL by Jean Nouvel.