Day 37- July 1st :Modern Architecture in Budapest

come see the ugly

I skipped breakfast and had lunch with Balasz and his boyfriend today. We than took the train and went to Alex's apartment to hang out. The apartment is near one of the last stop of the Blue metro and is one of the city's “newer” suburbs. The building gave out clues of the areas age and I think it was mass developed in the 60's and early 70's. Most building are fairy utilitarian and not very attractive. It looks like the projects in the U.S. But the area does feel safe. Upon entering his apartment I notice how many gates he had to pass, exterior security gates, interior gates and finally the apartment door with 4 locks.

I fell in love with his rodent pet! I am not sure what they are but they are utterly adorable. They are so cute but they do bite strangers... I think of them as miniature puppies.

After the visit I met up with Andreas for a “scary adventure” we took the Metro and picked a couple of random stops and see what would be awaiting us at the other side of the exit. First it was ....... stop and we saw a collection of contemporary buildings just on the out- skirt of the city. The style of these building are very geometrical with very little design elements. They are pretty bad in terms of design and offered almost nothing to the architecture community and Hungarian culture. There are also buildings that are 5 blocks long with no signs of design and style and they would have continued the block for miles and no one would noticed or not noticed.

We went back on the train and went to the last stop and it was worse... modern buildings disappeared and ornate Gothic buildings feels like a few light years away... What what there was South Central Los Angeles low rises with fast food joints and unkept sidewalks, overgrown empty lots, and trash littered streets. We walked around briefly and went back to the Metro station.

It's strange how “newness” became the universal language for “better”. The real estate here never shows exterior photos of any beautiful ornate buildings of Budapest. The only time exterior photos are show if the building is new or newer and often times they are just another soul-less “contempoary” building that can be found anywhere in the world; simply just buy the plans in insert it in any empty lots.

Day 4 in Vienna June 16th- Utopian confession

It was a great day today here in Vienna and I decided to visit the Architecture Museum based on my thoughts yesterday and after the visit my thoughts on Vienna are more defined and refined. I love it here but for some reason I really miss Budapest and can't wait to be back on Wednesday. I can't help but to draw more comparisons between Budapest, Vienna, Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco. LA really stands alone on this one because it's not your typical utopia, it's not even a good tourist destination and aside from it's major problems (dependence on automobile, lack of a true urban center and void of a good mess transit system) but it's a wonderful place to live. SF bay is really LA under it's facade but one has to choose: looking at the beautiful facade everyday or live in a wonderful climate. I don't think I can live in the cold climate of the bay area nor would I want to be in beauty constantly where i would loose the sense of appreciation. I think in all cases NYC is the perfect city in that sense but it's far proximity from nature is just too negative for me.

I love city life, where world class culture activities are just within your reach but we are human beings and need places to escape/ reflect and Central Park is simply not enough and 5 hours drive to get out of the city is not acceptable. This is where Budapest comes in; it's an ideal place; wonderful city life, and nature is just a bridge away; LA is that way too but the political climate and the under developed democracy makes Budapest not a suitable place for many to relocate.

Vienna is the perfect utopia in theory (or in appearance?) but very much like Communism it's wonderful in theory but humanity would not allow it and it's a wonderful fantasy. I also don't know how a middle class person would live in Vienna and it is only a utopia if you can afford it. I also feel the constant flow of tourist in Vienna is a bit tiring and the city should have a tourist containment zone (interesting architecture theory project).

After a few days in the city I do realized that If i ever give up on myself and need a third career to fall back on I should be a prostitute because there are 3 men so far, talked me on the street and made kissing sounds at me in Vienna. I now understand some women can feel totally harassed, I just want to give these guys a finger and said F you.

I also realized that my "big" sun glasses doesn't work here in Vienna and being Asian doesn't work either.... everyone dress so well here even older people. People are very fashionable without being cheap looking (like another european country i did my residency in, i won't give out any names) I can pin point whom are the locals and visitors especially Americans, they always wear shorts and a t shirt.

I miss Budapest because it has an authenticity that Vienna doesn't (or tries hard to hide or clean up).

Day 1, 2& 3 in Vienna June 13, 14 and 15th- Reflections

If there is such thing as a perfect world Vienna would be one; cultural, clean, beautiful, historic, and wonderful art scenes. everything thing that people dream about. I really love Vienna as a tourist just like how I love San Francisco as a tourist; at the first glance both cities are picturesque but the perfection of Vienna scares me a bit. Like many Americans dream of having that perfect white picked fenced yard, 2.5 kids, a dog and 2 mini vans. It might be someone else's reality but it's all too unreal to me. My first 2 days here have been wonderful!


Unlike in Budapest I no longer have to allocate time to schedule for peeing before being in public for a prolong period of time, public toilets are free and the Austrians are obsessed with cleaning. There are people and street washing trucks constantly cleaning washing the street all hours of the day. It seem like it's a impossible task but the city looks amazingly clean the cleanest metropolitan cities I have visited. People are so orderly here and I feel completely safe and there is no such thing as over charging here. It feels like i am in mega Mulberry st... that's what's so fake about it.
Can people be so perfect? can perfection exist?

I like Los Angeles and New York because it feels real but here not so much, this feels like Disneyland. I spent 5 hours at the Ludwig museum one day and viewed a wonderful special exhibition called "bad painting, good art" I really enjoyed it, i found it very humorist and understood the artists messages or the lack of.

It's a 9 story museum the architecture itself its ok and the interior was lacking other than the connecting catwalks. First floor was my last stop (entry level is on 5th floor) and now I really understand where the term "basement art" came from, Shocking!!!!!

I have never seen art like this in a major institution, photos of killing dogs and use its body parts as art and bodies on people's private parts.... ewww. videos of people eating, peeing and pooping at the same time (with zoom on the pooping part)... videos of self cutting and bleeding allover the place... photo of pretend death with animal body parts. All done in the 50-60's vienna no special effects, all real.

I don't think I have this much pressure and negative emotions viewing art. It's faces of death video! I did get the underlining message from the art works. It showed a tremendous amount of anger, social unjust, confusion and a strong desire and hopelessness to move away from the tradition and classical art form Vienna is known for. It's a painful message for the world to see but I am glad its documented.


I think this is why the perfection of Vienna scares me... The museum visit was symbolic: everything is nearly perfect until you reach the besement and for now I want Vienna to stay perfect in my memory so this time I won't venture down the basement.