Its population is twice that of Mannheim, which is 100k less than Frankfurt. Home to Daimler-Benz and Porsche, it is still known mostly as a city of car manufacturing. Other large manufacturing companies have their headquarters there, like Bosch.
According to some travel blog I read, Stuttgart has the second greatest number of thermal baths in Europe after Budapest, which is kind of surprising given Baden-Baden's reputation. Ended up booking a hotel with a bookable (for guests) private sauna, which was pretty cool.
Saturday: Auto museum
Sunday: Tower and Staatsgalerie (museum)
On Saturday, which was grey and bleak, went to the Daimler-Benz Automuseum.
Very interesting. Two very different mindsets about engines. Daimler was all about PUT AN ENGINE ON EVERYTHING, and Benz was very much about building the two together into a car-like object. This thing with Daimler is where the three pointed star comes from: engines on land, sea, air.Your visit starts with a ride in a retro futuristic elevator to the 8th floor, then you wind your way down.
The following exhibiion opens with a stuffed horse. The base of this taxidermy is a quote from the Kaiser at the time, stating he believed in the horse, and that the automobile was transitory.
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| stuffed horse; I enjoy that someone bothered to put this on wheels |
As part of the leading-up-to cars history, I learned that the Neckar river used to handle upstream barge traffic with help of chains that the boats could sort of pull themselves along, as illustrated in this cute model.
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| diorama of Heidelberg |
We then had a hall of all the things with motors in them, including some early tram type things.
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| motorize all the things! |
The early auto transitioned from a motorized carriage to something that gentlemen drove themselves -- and would race. One early gentleman racer was driving Benzes and as part of his deal, he got some cars named after his daughter, Mercedes.
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| swarovski crystal decorations hanging above. I found this display really swank |
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| I'd drive that |
German trivia: fenders were developed to keep all the horse crap off of people that got churned up by the wheels. Thus, the german name for fender is "Kotflügel", Kot (said like "coat") is animal excrement (dogs, horses, whatever) and Flügel is wing.
Another shiny car I would toally drive
Another shiny car I would toally drive
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| vrooom |
A nice graph of work hours due to bombing and air raid alarms. The orange shows clearly hours lost.
Daimler and Benz were competitors (various engine patents were filed in Mannheim, and they still have a presence there), forced to merge at some point due to the market. I think this was actually post-WWII.
Eventually, we went from casual racing to more practical things, like every kind of truck. I love this bus from Argentina.
In the same hall was an early tourist bus thing from the UK
I will close with some fancy modern cars:
I rushed through the museums last 4 floors in hopes of making it outside to catch some of the sun that had appeared. It was of course mostly obscured once outside, and there was a long wait on the next S Bahn back to town.
Sunday got up to more flurries and ok weather (for winter), so tried out Killesberg Turm while the weather held, then a museum.
Killesberg tower is in a park, near some (pretty boring from the outside) cubist houses, and a museum to Le Corbusier (father of high rises and apartments that are poorly planned in terms of living -- you are expected to bring your groceries there and sleep there, but not really have parks or other useful things nearby).Most of the later criticism of Le Corbusier was directed at his ideas of urban planning. In (...)The public housing projects influenced by his ideas have also been criticized for isolating poor communities in monolithic high-rises and breaking the social ties integral to a community's development. (...)
For some critics, the urbanism of Le Corbusier's was the model for a fascist state.These critics cited Le Corbusier himself when he wrote that "not all citizens could become leaders. The technocratic elite, the industrialists, financiers, engineers, and artists would be located in the city centre, while the workers would be removed to the fringes of the city".(found on Wikipedia)
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| my coworker makes this face often. It reminds me of that surprised...prairie dog?...meme |
Returning to the city, ended up having lunch at a nice indian place, getting the Thali, and checking out the Staatsgalerie, which won over the choice of museums because of the pop unlimited exhibition.
The Staatsgalerie is on a little strip of several museums, near the center of town which had a pre-Advent "Winter market" open by a very tiny ice rink.
I will link it rather than display it, in case you might offend anyone by some dude-bits hanging out on your screen while reading this.
This piece reminds me of the plush toys people make out of kids scribbles:
There was a mix of modernism and post modernism (and other stuff, but that is what I took pictures of). I liked this poster story of a guy who was like hey this thing i found is art.
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| dude declares a wine rack a piece of art, starts a movement |
In the hallway between wings was this (technically grammatically incorrect):
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| one potato, two potato, three potato |
I loved this. Kadinsky. He is hard to understand? I would put this on my wall. Or on a paravent.
I like this next thing because of how bizarre it is.
Imagine you got to visit Picasso in his studio.You knock, you are called to let yourself in, and you are greeted by this.
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| never intended to be displayed in a gallery, just picasso fucking around |
In a completely different part of the gallery was another arrangement echoing this one in a sort of almost creepy circus figure way
After the gallery, it was time to hop a train and head home, chill out a little, do things one puts off for Sunday evenings, and rest.
