Finished

I'm getting ready for a trip early tomorrow morning, to the wilder reaches of Bavaria to celebrate the end of the project that G and U and myself have been working on for just under two years. We meet the press and town council tomorrow afternoon, then a great big thank-gods-it's-finished party for all who worked on the project; then on Friday there is the official opening for the public, again in the presence of town council and the press. Famous Photographer will be going with us to take fame-and-glory shots of the building in its squeaky-clean brand-new-ness, before the local kids get their grubby hands on it.

Odd how traditions develop that are specific to a certain region. G and U discovered by chance this morning, that the city council expects to receive a symbolic key to the building from them at the event tomorrow afternoon. That could have been quite embarrassing had we turned up empty-handed, as one would for such a celebration in BaWü; and yet it was so utterly self-evident to them that nobody thought to tell us about this during the last few weeks of planning and near-constant meetings. This is why the king had a Master of the Revels and why embassies have protocoll officers: to make sure that everyone knows exactly what will happen and which part they have to play. (The role of the architect at such events in BaWü is to stand around wearing an insufferably smug expression before deigning to be interviewed by the press.)

It will be interesting (as always) to put faces to people who have been voices on the telephone, or scribbles on a faxed page, for the last two years.