Kartause Ittingen is an historical village of Switzerland, lost in the woods north-east of Zurich, where you can have truly peaceful corporate meetings. In fact the village has been beautifully renovated to host a conference center, surrounded by beautiful gardens, horses, sheep and museums, including a remarkable church.
Where is the academic part? Well, you enter your hotel room and you start to think you need a degree in engineering for operating it. There is a wooden cube in the middle of the room, with dozen of doors which are impossible to find. I think this “design piece” was created on purpose as a humility exercise. To make us remember that, although we are more or less academics, we are not that smart. Indeed I needed to read the instructions to find all the hidden functionalities of this post-moder piece of furniture.
Sabrina Bresciani, Ph.D. 