Corbusier to Hadid to Ingels

Arrival & Welcome

Arrive in Paris on the flights of your choosing and make your own way to the hotel to check in. At 3:00 PM we gather for a welcome meeting and hand out Paris Metro transit passes. That evening, enjoy a welcome reception at Le Ciel de Paris, on the 56th floor of the Tour Montparnasse, with the whole city laid out below. An easy first day!

Icons, Adaptive Reuse & Cultural Architecture

A morning on foot and by Metro through the buildings that turned Paris inside out. First, a drive by Centre Pompidou (closed until 2030) where Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers put the guts on the exterior and got away with it. Forum des Halles and its canopy. The Bourse de Commerce, where Tadao Ando dropped a nine-meter concrete cylinder inside an eighteenth-century rotunda without touching the dome.

After lunch, La Samaritaine — SANAA's rippled glass wall on rue de Rivoli beside a restored Art Nouveau department store — and I. M. Pei's Louvre Pyramid, still the best example in architecture about putting new things next to old ones. Organized touring finishes around 2:30–3:00 PM. Evening free.

Le Corbusier & the Birth of Modernism

This is the day everyone comes for. Travel by private coach out to Poissy for Villa Savoye, 1931 — pilotis, ribbon windows, roof garden, the ramp, the whole argument built at full scale and standing in a field. Then Villa Stein in Garches, the 1927 house that worked out the proportions first.

Lunch, then the Fondation Louis Vuitton, Frank Gehry's glass sails in the Bois de Boulogne, and finally Maison La Roche and Maison Jeanneret in the 16th — the pair of 1925 houses that now hold the Fondation Le Corbusier. Both Villa Savoye and Maison La Roche require advance reservations, which we hold. Evening free.

La Défense & the Future of the City

Out to La Défense, the business district France built rather than let towers into the historic center. The Grande Arche de la Défense, Johann Otto von Spreckelsen's hollow cube aligned on the axis that runs back through the Arc de Triomphe to the Louvre. The CNIT, whose 1958 concrete shell still spans farther on three points of support than almost anything since.

In the afternoon, the new generation: Tour Alto, Jean Nouvel's Tour Hekla, Tour First, and selected contemporary sites. Evening free.

Note: the Grande Arche rooftop is closed to the general public. We have applied for special permit access for our group and will confirm before departure.

Paris Sunday & Transfer to Brussels

A free morning. Optional: the Marché aux Puces de Saint-Ouen, the largest antiques market in the world, twelve markets and several thousand dealers, and the single best place in Europe to find a mid-century chair you will then have to figure out how to get home.

That afternoon, the high-speed train to Brussels — roughly ninety minutes city center to city center — and check in at the Radisson RED. Dinner on your own; the Sainte-Catherine quarter is a short walk.

Europe, Civic Architecture & Expo 58

The European Quarter by private coach: the Berlaymont, the star-shaped 1967 headquarters of the European Commission, stripped to its frame in the 1990s for asbestos and rebuilt behind a new glass skin; the European Parliament; and the Solvay complex in Leopold Park.

In the afternoon, Poelaert's colossal Law Courts — for years the largest building constructed anywhere in the nineteenth century — and then the Atomium and the Expo 58 precinct, where Belgium built an iron crystal magnified 165 billion times and then simply never took it down.

Note: Whit Monday. Exterior touring is unaffected; interior hours are verified about 90 days before departure.

Historic Infrastructure & Contemporary Icons

A full day in Antwerp by private coach. Start at Antwerp Central Station, Louis Delacenserie's 1905 stone cathedral of a terminal with Clément van Bogaert's iron and glass train shed behind it, since rebuilt into four levels without disturbing a stone of the front. Then the historic center on foot.

In the afternoon, the Port House — Zaha Hadid Architects' faceted glass vessel cantilevered above a converted 1922 fire station — and the MAS, Neutelings Riedijk's stacked red sandstone tower on the old dock. Riverfront walking and selected modern and adaptive-reuse sites. Return to Brussels; dinner on your own.

De Stijl & Transfer to Amsterdam

By private coach to Utrecht for the Rietveld Schröder House, 1924 — the only building constructed entirely according to De Stijl principles, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and a house that is far smaller and far stranger than the photographs suggest. Truus Schröder-Schräder briefed it and lived in it until 1985. Entry is timed and tightly limited; we hold the reservation.

Lunch and selected Utrecht architecture, then on to Amsterdam and check in at the Room Mate Aitana on the IJdock. That evening, a private Captain Jack canal cruise with drinks and appetizers — the best way there is to read the city, and the reason Amsterdam looks the way it does becomes obvious from the water.

Housing, Water & Future Cities

Morning at ARCAM, René van Zuuk's small silver architecture center on the Oosterdok, and the NEMO area, where Renzo Piano's green copper hull rises straight out of the IJ tunnel.

Then the eastern docklands: Borneo-Sporenburg, where sixty architects were each given a narrow lot and told to reinvent the Dutch canal house, plus Java Island and KNSM Island. Further east at IJburg, Sluishuis — Bjarke Ingels Group with Barcode Architects, 2022 — lifts a double cantilever clear of the water to open a gateway into its own inner harbor, with a public stair and rooftop walkway climbing the far side. In the afternoon, the Zuidas — MVRDV's Valley with its rock-face terraces, and The Edge. Routing is planned to limit backtracking and keep a moderate pace. Evening free.

Independent Amsterdam

A full free day, deliberately. Go back to something you want more time with, or go find the Rijksmuseum, the Stedelijk, the Eye Filmmuseum, Het Schip and the Amsterdam School, or Berlage's Beurs. Or sit somewhere with a coffee and watch the bicycles.

That evening, a farewell dinner at MOS, with tables by the water.

Flight Home or Journey Onwards

Breakfast, then independent transfers to Schiphol for your flight home. Or stay on — you are a short train ride from Rotterdam, Delft, and the Hague, and the tickets are cheap.

You'll leave with fabulous memories, several thousand photographs, and a heart full of Modernism, wonderful people, and three cities you will want to come back to.