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81 Museo Madinat Al Zahara Nieto-Sobejano Arquitectos 2003-09. 160716. 2312 by Javier

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Museo de Madinat Al-Zahra

(Museo arqueológico y centro de interpretación del Conjunto de Madinat al-Zahra)

Ctra. de Córdoba a Palma del Río, A-431, km 5.5, Córdoba

Arquitectos: Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos: Fuensanta Nieto y Enrique Sobejano. Arquitecto de proyecto Miguel Ubarrechena. Equipo de proyecto Carlos Ballesteros, Pedro Quero y Juan Carlos Redondo. Dirección de obra: Fuensanta Nieto, Enrique Sobejano y Miguel Mesas Izquierdo. Proyecto museográfico: Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos / Frade Arquitectos, S.L. Concurso: 1999 Proyecto: 2002 Finalización: 2009

Los Arquitectos describen su proyecto:

“Los restos de la antigua ciudad hispano-musulmana sugerían un diálogo con quienes mil años antes la habían concebido y construido, pero también con el paciente trabajo de los arqueólogos y con el paisaje agrícola circundante, al que la geometría de las ruinas otorgaba una inesperada cualidad abstracta. El terreno del recinto arqueológico destinado al museo provocaba, no obstante, sentimientos encontrados.

Por una parte, la añoranza de un pasado remoto aún por descubrir impregnaba el paisaje que se extendía hacia la sierra de Córdoba. Por otra parte, el desordenado avance de las construcciones recientes se cernía inquietante sobre el entorno de lo que un día fue la ciudad palatina. Nuestra primera reacción al llegar al lugar habría de marcar, desde el primer momento, la futura propuesta: no debíamos edificar en aquel paisaje.

Ante una extensión de tal amplitud, que aún espera ser excavada, decidimos actuar como lo haría un arqueólogo: no construyendo un nuevo edificio, sino encontrándolo bajo tierra, como si el paso del tiempo lo hubiera ocultado hasta el día de hoy. De esta forma, el proyecto descubre la planta de un museo subterráneo, que articula sus espacios en torno a una secuencia de llenos y vacíos, áreas cubiertas y patios que guían al visitante en su recorrido. A partir del vestíbulo principal se extiende un amplio patio de planta cuadrada que, como un claustro, organiza en torno suyo los espacios públicos principales: salón de actos, cafetería, tienda, biblioteca, y salas de exposición. Un patio profundo y longitudinal articula las zonas de uso privado: administración, talleres de conservación e investigación. Un último patio constituye la prolongación al exterior de las áreas expositivas del museo. Las zonas de almacenamiento, concebidas como grandes espacios visitables iluminados cenitalmente, se funden en los recorridos del edificio con las áreas públicas de exposición y difusión. La propia concepción del proyecto lleva implícito un posible futuro crecimiento, pudiéndose agregar nuevos pabellones como si de nuevas excavaciones se tratase.

El nuevo museo establece casi imperceptiblemente un permanente diálogo con la arquitectura y el paisaje de la antigua medina árabe. La planta de doble cuadrado del museo se hace homotética con la de la ciudad, los jardines evocan la geometría abandonada de una excavación, los muros de hormigón y las cubiertas de acero cortén reflejan en el blanco y el rojo los colores con que originalmente estuvieron estucados los muros de la ciudad califal. La luz, la sombra, la textura, el material, abstraen la riqueza perceptiva que transmiten las ruinas arqueológicas.

El museo de Madinat al-Zahra aparece en el paisaje silenciosamente, como si hubiera sido encontrado bajo tierra, del mismo modo que a lo largo de los años continuará ocurriendo con los restos de la antigua ciudad de los califas omeyas.”

En “Museos de Andalucía” podemos leer:

El Museo, abierto al público en octubre de 2009, es un complejo edificio que contiene los espacios propios de un museo moderno, así como toda la infraestructura dedicada a la gestión patrimonial que demanda un conjunto arqueológico de la magnitud de la ciudad califal. El edificio está concebido como el punto de partida para la visita al yacimiento, con una presentación y exposición museográfica sobre Madinat al-Zahra.

La creación del Museo resuelve varios problemas planteados desde el comienzo de la recuperación del yacimiento en 1911. El primer edificio construido para dar apoyo a la excavación quedó pronto obsoleto por la ingente cantidad de material arqueológico que se fue almacenando en sus instalaciones y por la insuficiencia de espacios expositivos.

El Museo viene a resolver, además, varias demandas del Conjunto, referidas tanto a la difusión y función didáctica de la institución, como a la tarea de custodia y conservación que esta institución tiene encomendada.

Destaca en el edificio su ubicación exterior a la ciudad, aprovechando uno de sus caminos originales de acceso, de forma que no condiciona ni las excavaciones futuras ni el crecimiento en extensión de las mismas. Este compromiso de la nueva infraestructura con el yacimiento se extiende también al paisaje, pues el proyecto planteado por el estudio de arquitectura Nieto y Sobejano la concibe como una edificación que se oculta parcialmente en el territorio, para no interferir ni en la contemplación del paisaje ni en el fundamental protagonismo de la ciudad califal.

Se trata, en definitiva, de una infraestructura, ideada para facilitar la comprensión del yacimiento y desarrollar a todos los niveles sus potencialidades. Se concibe como una infraestructura para impulsar nuevos proyectos de investigación, conservación y difusión de la ciudad de Madinat al-Zahra y toda la ordenación territorial que constituye su entorno. Cuenta con los siguientes servicios:

Área cultural, expositiva y didáctica: Auditorio, Exposición permanente, Biblioteca Especializada "Manuel Ocaña", Aula didáctica y Sala de seminarios. Área de conservación, investigación y Administración: Almacenes, Talleres de restauración, Centro de documentación, Oficinas y despachos. Otros servicios: Tienda con librería y Cafetería-restaurante.

Premios:

2009: Finalista Premio Intervención en Patrimonio Arquitectónico Español. The International Architecture Award. The Chicago Athenaeum Museum.

2010: Aga Khan Award for Architecture.

2011: Piranesi Prix de Rome. Obra Seleccionada Premio de Arquitectura Contemporánea de la Unión Europea – Premio Mies van der Rohe. Finalista Premio Arquitectura Española. Finalista Premios FAD

2012: European Museum of the Year Award

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So be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid and do not panic before them. For the Lord your God will personally go ahead of you. He will neither fail you nor abandon you by Allen Warren

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FEARLESS - March 20, 2012

Chapter 1 – “Why Are We Afraid”

“Why are you fearful? O you of little faith.” Matthew 8:26

You would have liked my brother. Everyone did. Dee made friends like bakers make bread: daily, easily, warmly. Handshake—big and eager; laughter—contagious and volcanic. He permitted no stranger to remain one for long. I, the shy younger brother, relied on him to make introductions for us both. When a new kid moved onto the street or walked onto the playground, Dee was the ambassador.

But in his mid-teen years, he made one acquaintance he should have avoided—a bootlegger who would sell beer to underage drinkers. Alcohol made a play for us both, but where it entwined me, it enchained him. Over the next four decades, my brother drank away health, relationships, jobs, money, and all but the last two years of his life.

Who can say why resolve sometimes wins and sometimes loses, but at the age of fifty-four my brother discovered an aquifer of will power, drilled deep, and enjoyed a season of sobriety. He emptied his bottles, stabilized his marriage, reached out to his children, and exchanged the liquor store for the local AA. But the hard living had taken its toll. Three decades of three-packs-a-day smoking had turned his big heart into ground meat.

On a January night during the week I began writing this book, he told Donna, his wife, that he couldn’t breathe well. He already had a doctor’s appointment for a related concern, so he decided to try to sleep. No luck. He awoke at 4:00 a.m. with chest pains severe enough to warrant a call to the emergency room. The rescue team loaded Dee on the gurney and told Donna to meet them at the hospital. My brother waved weakly and smiled bravely and told Donna not to worry, but by the time she and one of Dee’s sons reached the hospital, he was gone.

The attending physician told them the news and invited them to step into the room where Dee’s body lay. Holding each other, they walked through the doors and saw his final message. His hand was resting on the top of his thigh with the two center fingers folded in and thumb extended, the universal sign language symbol of “I love you.”

I’ve tried to envision the final moments of my brother’s earthly life: racing down a Texas highway in an ambulance through an inky night, paramedics buzzing around him, his heart weakening within him. Struggling for each breath, at some point he realized only a few remained. But he didn’t panic or cower, he quarried some courage.

Perhaps you could use some? I know I could. An ambulance isn’t the only ride that demands valor. You may not be down to your final heartbeat, but you may be down to your last paycheck, solution, or thimble of faith. Each sunrise seems to bring fresh reasons for fear.

They’re talking layoffs at work, slowdowns in the economy, flare-ups in the Middle East, turnovers at headquarters, downturns in the housing market, upswings in global warming, breakouts of Al Qaeda cells. Some demented dictator is collecting nuclear warheads like others collect fine wines. A strain of Asian flu is boarding flights out of China. The plague of our day, terrorism, begins with the word terror. News programs disgorge enough hand-wringing information to warrant an advisory. “Caution: this news report is best viewed in the confines of an underground vault in Iceland.”

We fear being sued, finishing last, going broke; we fear the mole on the back, the new kid on the block, the sound of the clock as it ticks us closer to the grave. We sophisticate investment plans, create elaborate security systems, and stronger military; yet we depend on mood-altering drugs more than any generation in history. Moreover, “the average child today … has the same level of anxiety as the average psychiatric patient in the 1950s.”

Fear, it seems, has taken a hundred-year lease on the building next door and set up shop. Oversized and rude, unwilling to share the heart with happiness. Happiness complies. Do you ever see the two together? Can one be happy and afraid at the same time? Clear thinking and afraid? Confident and afraid? Merciful and afraid? No. Fear is the big bully in the high school hallway: brash, loud, and unproductive. For all the noise fear makes and room it takes, fear does little good.

Fear never wrote a symphony or poem, negotiated a peace treaty, or cured a disease. Fear never pulled a family out of poverty or a country out of bigotry. Fear never saved a marriage or a business. Courage did that. Faith did that. People who refused to consult or cower to their timidities did that. But fear itself? Fear herds us into a prison of unlocked doors.

Wouldn’t it be great to walk out?

Imagine your life, wholly untouched by angst. What if faith, not fear, was your default reaction to threats? If you could hover a fear magnet over your heart and extract every last shaving of dread, insecurity, or doubt, what would remain? Envision a day, just one day, absent the dread of failure, rejection, or calamity. Can you imagine a life with no fear? This is the possibility behind Jesus’ question.

“Why are you afraid?” he asks.

At first blush we wonder if Jesus is serious. He may be kidding. Teasing. Pulling a quick one. Kind of like one swimmer asking another, “Why are you wet?” But Jesus doesn’t smile. He’s dead earnest. So are the men to whom he asks the question. A storm has turned their Galilean dinner cruise into a white-knuckled plunge.

Here is how one of them remembered the trip. “Jesus got into a boat, and his followers went with him. A great storm arose on the lake so that the waves covered the boat” (Mt. 8:23-24 NCV).

These are Matthew’s words. He remembered well the pouncing tempest and bouncing boat and was careful in his terminology. Not just any noun would do. He pulled his Greek thesaurus off the shelf and hunted for a descriptor that exploded like the waves across the bow. He bypassed common terms for spring shower, squall, cloudburst, or downpour. They didn’t capture what he felt and saw that night: a rumbling earth and quivering shoreline. He recalled more than winds and white tops. His finger followed the column of synonyms down, down until he landed on a word that worked. “Ah, there it is.” Seismos—a quake, a trembling eruption of sea and sky. “A great seismos arose on the lake.”

The term still occupies a spot in our vernacular. A seismologist studies earthquakes, a seismograph measures them, and Matthew, along with a crew of recent recruits, felt a seismos that shook them to the core. He only used the word on two other occasions, once at Jesus’ death when Calvary shook (Mt. 27:51-54), and again at Jesus’ resurrection when the graveyard tremored (28:2). Apparently, the stilled storm shares equal billing in the trilogy of Jesus’ great shake-ups: defeating guilt on the cross, death at the tomb, and now silencing fear on the sea.

Sudden fear. We know the fear was sudden because the storm was. An older translation reads, “Suddenly a great tempest arose on the sea” (NKJV emphasis mine).

Not all storms come suddenly. Prairie farmers can see the formation of thunderclouds hours before the rain falls. This storm, however, sprang like a lion out of the grass. One minute the disciples were shuffling cards for a mid-journey game of Hearts; the next they were gulping Galilean sea spray.

Peter and John, seasoned sailors, struggled to keep down the sail. Matthew, confirmed landlubber, struggled to keep down his breakfast. The storm was not what the tax collector bargained for. Do you sense his surprise in the way he linked his two phrases? “Jesus got into a boat, and his followers went with him. A great storm arose on the lake…” (vs. 23-24 NKJV).

Wouldn’t you hope for a more chipper second sentence, a happier consequence of obedience? “Jesus got into a boat. His followers went with him and… suddenly…a great rainbow arched in the sky, a flock of doves hovered in happy formation, a sea of glass mirrored their mast…” Don’t Christ-followers enjoy a calendar full of Caribbean cruises? No. This story sends the not-so-subtle and not-too-popular reminder: getting on board with Christ can mean getting soaked with Christ. Disciples can expect rough seas and stout winds. “In this world you will [not ‘might,’ ‘may‘ or ‘could’] have tribulation” (Jn. 16:33 brackets mine).

Christ-followers contract malaria, bury children, and battle addictions, and, as a result, face fears. It’s not the absence of storms that sets us apart. It’s whom we discover in the storm: an unstirred Christ.

“Jesus was sleeping” (vs. 24 NCV).

Now there’s a scene. The disciples scream, Jesus dreams. Thunder roars, Jesus snores. He doesn’t doze, catnap, or rest. He slumbers. Who could sleep at a time like this? Could you? Could you snooze during a roller coaster loop-de-loop? In a wind tunnel? At a kettle drum concert? Jesus slept through all three, at once!

Mark’s gospel adds two curious details. “[Jesus] was in the stern, asleep on a pillow” (Mk. 4:38). In a stern, on a pillow. Why the first? From whence came the second?

First-century fishermen used large, heavy seine nets for their work. They stored the net in a nook that was built into the stern for this purpose. Sleeping upon the stern deck was impractical. It provided no space or protection. The small compartment beneath the stern, however, provided both. It was the most enclosed and only protected part of the boat. So Christ, a bit dozy from the day’s activities, crawled beneath the deck to get some sleep.

He rested his head, not on a fluffy feather pillow, but on a leather sandbag. A ballast bag. Mediterranean fishermen still use them. They weigh about a hundred pounds and are used to ballast, or stabilize, the boat. Did Jesus take the pillow to the stern so he could sleep, or sleep so soundly someone rustled him up the pillow? We don’t know. But this much we do. This is a premeditated slumber. He didn’t accidentally nod off. In full knowledge of the coming storm, Jesus decided it was siesta time, so he crawled into the corner, put his head on the pillow, and drifted into dreamland.

His snooze troubled the disciples. Matthew and Mark record their response as three staccato Greek commands and one question.

The commands: “Lord! Save! Dying!” (Mt. 8:25).

The question: “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” (Mk. 4:39).

They do not ask about Jesus’ strength: “Can you still the storm?” His knowledge: “Are you aware of the storm?” Or his know-how: “Do you have any experience with storms?” But rather, they raise doubts about Jesus’ character. “Do you not care…?”

Fear does this. Fear corrodes our confidence in God’s goodness. We begin to wonder if love lives in heaven. If God can sleep in my storms, if his eyes stay shut when my eyes grow wide, if he permits storms after I get on his boat, does he care? Fear unleashes a swarm of doubts, anger-stirring doubts.

And it turns us into control freaks. “Do something about the storm!” is the implicit demand of the question. “Fix it, or…or…or, else!” Fear, at its center, is a perceived loss of control. When life spins wildly, we grab for a component of life we can manage: our diet, the tidiness of a house, the armrest of a plane, or, in many cases, people. The more insecure we feel, the meaner we become. We growl and bare our fangs. Why? Because we are bad? In part. But also because we feel cornered.

Martin Niemöller documents an extreme example of this. He was a German pastor who took a heroic stand against Adolf Hitler. When he first met the dictator in 1933, Niemöller stood at the back of the room and listened. Later, when his wife asked him what he’d learned, he said: “I discovered that Herr Hitler is a terribly frightened man.” Fear releases the tyrant within.

It also deadens our recall. The disciples had reason to trust Jesus. By now, they’d seen him “heal all kinds of sicknesses and all kinds of disease among the people” (Mt. 4:23). They had witnessed him heal a leper with a touch and a servant with a command (Mt. 8:3, 13). Peter saw his sick mother-in-law recover, and they all saw demons scatter like bats out of a cave. “He cast out spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick” (Mt. 8:16).

Shouldn’t someone mention Jesus’ track record or review his resume? Do they remember the accomplishments of Christ? They may not. Fear creates a form of spiritual amnesia. It dulls our miracle memory. It makes us forget what Jesus has done and how good God is.

And fear feels dreadful. It sucks the life out of the soul, curls us into an embryonic state, and drains us dry of contentment. We become abandoned barns, rickety and tilting from the winds, a place where humanity used to eat, thrive, and find warmth. No longer. When fear shapes our lives, safety becomes our god. When safety becomes our god, we worship the risk-free life. Can the safety lover do anything great? Can the risk-averse accomplish noble deeds? For God? For others? No. The fear-filled cannot love deeply; love is risky. They cannot give to the poor. Benevolence has no guarantee of return. The fear-filled cannot dream wildly. What if their dreams sputter and fall from the sky? The worship of safety emasculates greatness. No wonder Jesus wages such a war against fear.

His most common command emerges from the “fear not” genre. The gospels list some 125 Christ-issued imperatives. Of these, twenty-one urge us to “not be afraid” or to “not fear” or to “have courage,” “take heart,” or “be of good cheer.” The second most common command appears on eight occasions. If quantity is any indicator, Jesus takes our fears seriously. The one statement he said more than any other was this: Don’t be afraid.

Siblings sometimes chuckle or complain at the most common command of their parents. They remember how Mom was always saying: “Be home on time.” “Did you clean your room?” Dad had his favorite directives too. “Keep your chin up.” “Work hard.” I wonder if the disciples ever reflected on the most-often repeated phrases of Christ. If so, they would have noted: “he was always calling us to courage.”

“So don’t be afraid. You are worth much more than many sparrows.” (Mt. 10:31 NCV)

“Take courage, son, your sins are forgiven.” (Matthew 9:2 NASB)

“Don’t worry about everyday life—whether you have enough…” (Mathew 6:25)

“Don’t be afraid. Just believe, and your daughter will be well.” (Luke 8:50 NCV)

“It’s all right. I am here! Don’t be afraid.” (Matthew 14:27 NCV)

“Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.” (Matthew 10:28)

“Do not fear, little flock, for it is your father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” (Luke 12:32)

“Don’t be troubled. You trust God, now trust in me…. I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am.” (John 14:1-3 NLT)

“.. don’t be troubled or afraid.” (John 14:27)

“Why are you frightened?” he asked. “Why are your hearts filled with doubt?” (Luke 24:38 NLT)

“You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed.” (Matthew 24:6 NIV)

Jesus came and touched them and said, “Arise, and do not be afraid.” (Matthew 17:8 NKJV)

Jesus doesn’t want you to live in a state of fear. Nor do you. You’ve never made statements like these:

“My phobias put such a spring in my step.”

“I’d be a rotten parent were it not for my hypochondria.”

“Thank God for my pessimism. I’ve been such a better person since I lost hope.”

“My doctor says, if I don’t begin fretting, I will lose my health.”

We’ve learned the high cost of fear.

The question of Jesus is a good one. He lifts his head from the pillow, steps out from the stern into the storm, and asks: “Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?’” (vs. 26).

To be clear, fear serves a healthy function. It is the canary in the coal mine: warning of potential danger. A dose of fright can keep a child from running across a busy road or an adult from smoking a pack of cigarettes. Fear is the appropriate reaction to a burning building or growling dog. Fear itself is not a sin. But it can lead to sin.

If we treat fear with angry outbursts, drinking binges, sullen withdrawals, self-starvation, or vice-like control, we exclude God from the solution and exacerbate the problem. We subject ourselves to a position of fear, allowing anxiety to dominate and define our lives. Joy-sapping worries. Day-numbing dread. Repeated bouts with insecurity that petrify and paralyze us. Hysteria is not from God. “For God has not given us a spirit of fear…” (2 Tim. 1:7 NKJV emphasis mine).

Fear will always knock on your door. Just don’t invite it in for dinner and, for heaven’s sake, don’t offer it a bed for the night. Let’s dedicate some pages and thought to Jesus’ teaching about fear, examining a select number of his “Do not fear statements.” The promise of Christ and the contention of this book are simple. Fear may fill your world, but it doesn’t have to fill your heart. You can fear less tomorrow than you do today.

When I was six years old, my dad let me stay up with the rest of the family and watch the movie Wolfman. Boy, did he regret that decision. The film left me convinced that Wolfman spent each night prowling our den, awaiting his preferred meal of first grade, red-headed, freckle-salted boy. My fear proved problematic. To reach the kitchen from my bedroom, I had to pass perilously close to his claws and fangs, something I was loathe to do. More than once, I retreated to my father’s bedroom and awoke him. Like Jesus in the boat, Dad was sound asleep in the storm.

How can a person sleep at a time like this? Opening a sleepy eye, he asked to be reminded, “Now, why are you afraid?” And I would remind him of the monster. “Oh, yes, the Wolfman,” he’d grumble. He would then climb out of bed, arm himself with superhuman courage, escort me through the valley of the shadow of death, and pour me a glass of milk. I would look at him with awe and wonder, “What kind of man is this?”

God views our “seismos” storms the way my father viewed my Wolfman angst. “Jesus got up and gave a command to the wind and the waves and it became completely calm” (vs. 26).

He handled the great quaking with a great calming. The sea became as still as a frozen lake, and the disciples were left wondering, “What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!” (vs. 27).

What kind of man, indeed. Turning typhoon time into naptime. Silencing waves with one word. And equipping a dying man with sufficient courage to send a final love message to his family. Way to go, Dee. You faced your share of “seimos” moments in life, but in the end, you didn’t go under.

Here’s a prayer that we won’t either.

From Fearless

Rio Tejo e Torre de Belém - Lisboa - Portugal 🇵🇹 by Vitor Oliveira

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A Torre de Belém é um dos monumentos mais expressivos da cidade de Lisboa. Localiza-se na margem direita do rio Tejo, na freguesia de Belém, onde existiu outrora a praia de Belém. Inicialmente cercada pelas águas em todo o seu perímetro, progressivamente foi envolvida pela praia, até se incorporar hoje à terra firme. É um ícone da arquitectura do reinado de D. Manuel I. O monumento faz uma síntese entre a torre de menagem de tradição medieval e o baluarte, mais largo, com a sua casa-mata onde se dispunham os primeiros dispositivos aptos para resistir ao fogo de artilharia.

Ao longo do tempo a Torre de Belém foi perdendo a sua função de defesa da barra do Tejo e, a partir da ocupação Filipina, os antigos paióis deram lugar a masmorras. Nos quatro pisos da torre, mantêm-se a Sala do Governador, a Sala dos Reis, a Sala de Audiências e, finalmente, a Capela com as suas características abóbadas quinhentistas.

A Torre de São Vicente (1514) pertence a uma formação de defesa da bacia do Tejo mandada erigir por D. João II, que é composta a sul pela torre de São Sebastião da Caparica (1481), a oeste com a torre de Santo António em Cascais (1488).

O monumento destaca-se pelo nacionalismo implícito, visto que é todo rodeado por decorações do Brasão de armas de Portugal, incluindo inscrições de cruzes da Ordem de Cristo nas janelas de baluarte; tais características remetem principalmente à arquitetura típica de uma época em que o país era uma potência global (a do início da Idade Moderna).

Classificada como Património Mundial pela Organização das Nações Unidas para a Educação, a Ciência e a Cultura (UNESCO) desde 1983, foi eleita como uma das Sete Maravilhas de Portugal em 7 de julho de 2007.

Em 2015 foi visitada por 608 mil turistas. pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torre_de_Bel%C3%A9m

Nobuo's Proof by Stuart Rankin

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Today, a researcher published a video showing a cat that likes to sit in implicit squares formed from circles. This reminded me of something I read a long time ago about cats liking to sit in circles on the floor. I made a hexagon (not being able to make a circle out of tape) in California and our cats did indeed like to sit in the middle of it, as shown by Nobuo, in November of 2014.

Call of the Wild by Jme Wheeler

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Astrid and Vasilij have been together a long time. They trust one another implicitly - which in the frozen wilds of the arctic - is important. Monitoring research stations covering vast areas of snow covered countryside is dangerous work.

84 Museo Madinat Al Zahara Nieto-Sobejano Arquitectos 2003-09. 160716. 2334 by Javier

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Museo de Madinat Al-Zahra

(Museo arqueológico y centro de interpretación del Conjunto de Madinat al-Zahra)

Ctra. de Córdoba a Palma del Río, A-431, km 5.5, Córdoba

Arquitectos: Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos: Fuensanta Nieto y Enrique Sobejano. Arquitecto de proyecto Miguel Ubarrechena. Equipo de proyecto Carlos Ballesteros, Pedro Quero y Juan Carlos Redondo. Dirección de obra: Fuensanta Nieto, Enrique Sobejano y Miguel Mesas Izquierdo. Proyecto museográfico: Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos / Frade Arquitectos, S.L. Concurso: 1999 Proyecto: 2002 Finalización: 2009

Los Arquitectos describen su proyecto:

“Los restos de la antigua ciudad hispano-musulmana sugerían un diálogo con quienes mil años antes la habían concebido y construido, pero también con el paciente trabajo de los arqueólogos y con el paisaje agrícola circundante, al que la geometría de las ruinas otorgaba una inesperada cualidad abstracta. El terreno del recinto arqueológico destinado al museo provocaba, no obstante, sentimientos encontrados.

Por una parte, la añoranza de un pasado remoto aún por descubrir impregnaba el paisaje que se extendía hacia la sierra de Córdoba. Por otra parte, el desordenado avance de las construcciones recientes se cernía inquietante sobre el entorno de lo que un día fue la ciudad palatina. Nuestra primera reacción al llegar al lugar habría de marcar, desde el primer momento, la futura propuesta: no debíamos edificar en aquel paisaje.

Ante una extensión de tal amplitud, que aún espera ser excavada, decidimos actuar como lo haría un arqueólogo: no construyendo un nuevo edificio, sino encontrándolo bajo tierra, como si el paso del tiempo lo hubiera ocultado hasta el día de hoy. De esta forma, el proyecto descubre la planta de un museo subterráneo, que articula sus espacios en torno a una secuencia de llenos y vacíos, áreas cubiertas y patios que guían al visitante en su recorrido. A partir del vestíbulo principal se extiende un amplio patio de planta cuadrada que, como un claustro, organiza en torno suyo los espacios públicos principales: salón de actos, cafetería, tienda, biblioteca, y salas de exposición. Un patio profundo y longitudinal articula las zonas de uso privado: administración, talleres de conservación e investigación. Un último patio constituye la prolongación al exterior de las áreas expositivas del museo. Las zonas de almacenamiento, concebidas como grandes espacios visitables iluminados cenitalmente, se funden en los recorridos del edificio con las áreas públicas de exposición y difusión. La propia concepción del proyecto lleva implícito un posible futuro crecimiento, pudiéndose agregar nuevos pabellones como si de nuevas excavaciones se tratase.

El nuevo museo establece casi imperceptiblemente un permanente diálogo con la arquitectura y el paisaje de la antigua medina árabe. La planta de doble cuadrado del museo se hace homotética con la de la ciudad, los jardines evocan la geometría abandonada de una excavación, los muros de hormigón y las cubiertas de acero cortén reflejan en el blanco y el rojo los colores con que originalmente estuvieron estucados los muros de la ciudad califal. La luz, la sombra, la textura, el material, abstraen la riqueza perceptiva que transmiten las ruinas arqueológicas.

El museo de Madinat al-Zahra aparece en el paisaje silenciosamente, como si hubiera sido encontrado bajo tierra, del mismo modo que a lo largo de los años continuará ocurriendo con los restos de la antigua ciudad de los califas omeyas.”

En “Museos de Andalucía” podemos leer:

El Museo, abierto al público en octubre de 2009, es un complejo edificio que contiene los espacios propios de un museo moderno, así como toda la infraestructura dedicada a la gestión patrimonial que demanda un conjunto arqueológico de la magnitud de la ciudad califal. El edificio está concebido como el punto de partida para la visita al yacimiento, con una presentación y exposición museográfica sobre Madinat al-Zahra.

La creación del Museo resuelve varios problemas planteados desde el comienzo de la recuperación del yacimiento en 1911. El primer edificio construido para dar apoyo a la excavación quedó pronto obsoleto por la ingente cantidad de material arqueológico que se fue almacenando en sus instalaciones y por la insuficiencia de espacios expositivos.

El Museo viene a resolver, además, varias demandas del Conjunto, referidas tanto a la difusión y función didáctica de la institución, como a la tarea de custodia y conservación que esta institución tiene encomendada.

Destaca en el edificio su ubicación exterior a la ciudad, aprovechando uno de sus caminos originales de acceso, de forma que no condiciona ni las excavaciones futuras ni el crecimiento en extensión de las mismas. Este compromiso de la nueva infraestructura con el yacimiento se extiende también al paisaje, pues el proyecto planteado por el estudio de arquitectura Nieto y Sobejano la concibe como una edificación que se oculta parcialmente en el territorio, para no interferir ni en la contemplación del paisaje ni en el fundamental protagonismo de la ciudad califal.

Se trata, en definitiva, de una infraestructura, ideada para facilitar la comprensión del yacimiento y desarrollar a todos los niveles sus potencialidades. Se concibe como una infraestructura para impulsar nuevos proyectos de investigación, conservación y difusión de la ciudad de Madinat al-Zahra y toda la ordenación territorial que constituye su entorno. Cuenta con los siguientes servicios:

Área cultural, expositiva y didáctica: Auditorio, Exposición permanente, Biblioteca Especializada "Manuel Ocaña", Aula didáctica y Sala de seminarios. Área de conservación, investigación y Administración: Almacenes, Talleres de restauración, Centro de documentación, Oficinas y despachos. Otros servicios: Tienda con librería y Cafetería-restaurante.

Premios:

2009: Finalista Premio Intervención en Patrimonio Arquitectónico Español. The International Architecture Award. The Chicago Athenaeum Museum.

2010: Aga Khan Award for Architecture.

2011: Piranesi Prix de Rome. Obra Seleccionada Premio de Arquitectura Contemporánea de la Unión Europea – Premio Mies van der Rohe. Finalista Premio Arquitectura Española. Finalista Premios FAD

2012: European Museum of the Year Award

www.nietosobejano.com/project.aspx?i=1&t=MADINAT_ALZA...

www.metalocus.es/es/noticias/nieto-sobejano-arquitectos-m...

www.museosdeandalucia.es/cultura/museos/CAMA/?lng=es

NietoSobejano Arquitectos

www.nietosobejano.com/project.aspx?i=1&t=MADINAT_ALZA...

01 150731 Córdoba Museo Madinat Al Zahara Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos 2009, 33152 by Javier

16 10

Museo de Madinat Al-Zahra

(Museo arqueológico y centro de interpretación del Conjunto de Madinat al-Zahra)

Ctra. de Córdoba a Palma del Río, A-431, km 5.5, Córdoba

Arquitectos: Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos: Fuensanta Nieto y Enrique Sobejano. Arquitecto de proyecto Miguel Ubarrechena. Equipo de proyecto Carlos Ballesteros, Pedro Quero y Juan Carlos Redondo. Dirección de obra: Fuensanta Nieto, Enrique Sobejano y Miguel Mesas Izquierdo. Proyecto museográfico: Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos / Frade Arquitectos, S.L. Concurso: 1999 Proyecto: 2002 Finalización: 2009

Los Arquitectos describen su proyecto:

“Los restos de la antigua ciudad hispano-musulmana sugerían un diálogo con quienes mil años antes la habían concebido y construido, pero también con el paciente trabajo de los arqueólogos y con el paisaje agrícola circundante, al que la geometría de las ruinas otorgaba una inesperada cualidad abstracta. El terreno del recinto arqueológico destinado al museo provocaba, no obstante, sentimientos encontrados.

Por una parte, la añoranza de un pasado remoto aún por descubrir impregnaba el paisaje que se extendía hacia la sierra de Córdoba. Por otra parte, el desordenado avance de las construcciones recientes se cernía inquietante sobre el entorno de lo que un día fue la ciudad palatina. Nuestra primera reacción al llegar al lugar habría de marcar, desde el primer momento, la futura propuesta: no debíamos edificar en aquel paisaje.

Ante una extensión de tal amplitud, que aún espera ser excavada, decidimos actuar como lo haría un arqueólogo: no construyendo un nuevo edificio, sino encontrándolo bajo tierra, como si el paso del tiempo lo hubiera ocultado hasta el día de hoy. De esta forma, el proyecto descubre la planta de un museo subterráneo, que articula sus espacios en torno a una secuencia de llenos y vacíos, áreas cubiertas y patios que guían al visitante en su recorrido. A partir del vestíbulo principal se extiende un amplio patio de planta cuadrada que, como un claustro, organiza en torno suyo los espacios públicos principales: salón de actos, cafetería, tienda, biblioteca, y salas de exposición. Un patio profundo y longitudinal articula las zonas de uso privado: administración, talleres de conservación e investigación. Un último patio constituye la prolongación al exterior de las áreas expositivas del museo. Las zonas de almacenamiento, concebidas como grandes espacios visitables iluminados cenitalmente, se funden en los recorridos del edificio con las áreas públicas de exposición y difusión. La propia concepción del proyecto lleva implícito un posible futuro crecimiento, pudiéndose agregar nuevos pabellones como si de nuevas excavaciones se tratase.

El nuevo museo establece casi imperceptiblemente un permanente diálogo con la arquitectura y el paisaje de la antigua medina árabe. La planta de doble cuadrado del museo se hace homotética con la de la ciudad, los jardines evocan la geometría abandonada de una excavación, los muros de hormigón y las cubiertas de acero cortén reflejan en el blanco y el rojo los colores con que originalmente estuvieron estucados los muros de la ciudad califal. La luz, la sombra, la textura, el material, abstraen la riqueza perceptiva que transmiten las ruinas arqueológicas.

El museo de Madinat al-Zahra aparece en el paisaje silenciosamente, como si hubiera sido encontrado bajo tierra, del mismo modo que a lo largo de los años continuará ocurriendo con los restos de la antigua ciudad de los califas omeyas.”

En “Museos de Andalucía” podemos leer:

El Museo, abierto al público en octubre de 2009, es un complejo edificio que contiene los espacios propios de un museo moderno, así como toda la infraestructura dedicada a la gestión patrimonial que demanda un conjunto arqueológico de la magnitud de la ciudad califal. El edificio está concebido como el punto de partida para la visita al yacimiento, con una presentación y exposición museográfica sobre Madinat al-Zahra.

La creación del Museo resuelve varios problemas planteados desde el comienzo de la recuperación del yacimiento en 1911. El primer edificio construido para dar apoyo a la excavación quedó pronto obsoleto por la ingente cantidad de material arqueológico que se fue almacenando en sus instalaciones y por la insuficiencia de espacios expositivos.

El Museo viene a resolver, además, varias demandas del Conjunto, referidas tanto a la difusión y función didáctica de la institución, como a la tarea de custodia y conservación que esta institución tiene encomendada.

Destaca en el edificio su ubicación exterior a la ciudad, aprovechando uno de sus caminos originales de acceso, de forma que no condiciona ni las excavaciones futuras ni el crecimiento en extensión de las mismas. Este compromiso de la nueva infraestructura con el yacimiento se extiende también al paisaje, pues el proyecto planteado por el estudio de arquitectura Nieto y Sobejano la concibe como una edificación que se oculta parcialmente en el territorio, para no interferir ni en la contemplación del paisaje ni en el fundamental protagonismo de la ciudad califal.

Se trata, en definitiva, de una infraestructura, ideada para facilitar la comprensión del yacimiento y desarrollar a todos los niveles sus potencialidades. Se concibe como una infraestructura para impulsar nuevos proyectos de investigación, conservación y difusión de la ciudad de Madinat al-Zahra y toda la ordenación territorial que constituye su entorno. Cuenta con los siguientes servicios:

Área cultural, expositiva y didáctica: Auditorio, Exposición permanente, Biblioteca Especializada "Manuel Ocaña", Aula didáctica y Sala de seminarios. Área de conservación, investigación y Administración: Almacenes, Talleres de restauración, Centro de documentación, Oficinas y despachos. Otros servicios: Tienda con librería y Cafetería-restaurante.

Premios:

2009: Finalista Premio Intervención en Patrimonio Arquitectónico Español. The International Architecture Award. The Chicago Athenaeum Museum.

2010: Aga Khan Award for Architecture.

2011: Piranesi Prix de Rome. Obra Seleccionada Premio de Arquitectura Contemporánea de la Unión Europea – Premio Mies van der Rohe. Finalista Premio Arquitectura Española. Finalista Premios FAD

2012: European Museum of the Year Award

www.metalocus.es/es/noticias/nieto-sobejano-arquitectos-m...

www.museosdeandalucia.es/cultura/museos/CAMA/?lng=es

NietoSobejano Arquitectos

www.nietosobejano.com/project.aspx?i=1&t=MADINAT_ALZA...

79 Museo Madinat Al Zahara Nieto-Sobejano Arquitectos 2003-09. 160716. 2309 by Javier

8 8

Museo de Madinat Al-Zahra

(Museo arqueológico y centro de interpretación del Conjunto de Madinat al-Zahra)

Ctra. de Córdoba a Palma del Río, A-431, km 5.5, Córdoba

Arquitectos: Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos: Fuensanta Nieto y Enrique Sobejano. Arquitecto de proyecto Miguel Ubarrechena. Equipo de proyecto Carlos Ballesteros, Pedro Quero y Juan Carlos Redondo. Dirección de obra: Fuensanta Nieto, Enrique Sobejano y Miguel Mesas Izquierdo. Proyecto museográfico: Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos / Frade Arquitectos, S.L. Concurso: 1999 Proyecto: 2002 Finalización: 2009

Los Arquitectos describen su proyecto:

“Los restos de la antigua ciudad hispano-musulmana sugerían un diálogo con quienes mil años antes la habían concebido y construido, pero también con el paciente trabajo de los arqueólogos y con el paisaje agrícola circundante, al que la geometría de las ruinas otorgaba una inesperada cualidad abstracta. El terreno del recinto arqueológico destinado al museo provocaba, no obstante, sentimientos encontrados.

Por una parte, la añoranza de un pasado remoto aún por descubrir impregnaba el paisaje que se extendía hacia la sierra de Córdoba. Por otra parte, el desordenado avance de las construcciones recientes se cernía inquietante sobre el entorno de lo que un día fue la ciudad palatina. Nuestra primera reacción al llegar al lugar habría de marcar, desde el primer momento, la futura propuesta: no debíamos edificar en aquel paisaje.

Ante una extensión de tal amplitud, que aún espera ser excavada, decidimos actuar como lo haría un arqueólogo: no construyendo un nuevo edificio, sino encontrándolo bajo tierra, como si el paso del tiempo lo hubiera ocultado hasta el día de hoy. De esta forma, el proyecto descubre la planta de un museo subterráneo, que articula sus espacios en torno a una secuencia de llenos y vacíos, áreas cubiertas y patios que guían al visitante en su recorrido. A partir del vestíbulo principal se extiende un amplio patio de planta cuadrada que, como un claustro, organiza en torno suyo los espacios públicos principales: salón de actos, cafetería, tienda, biblioteca, y salas de exposición. Un patio profundo y longitudinal articula las zonas de uso privado: administración, talleres de conservación e investigación. Un último patio constituye la prolongación al exterior de las áreas expositivas del museo. Las zonas de almacenamiento, concebidas como grandes espacios visitables iluminados cenitalmente, se funden en los recorridos del edificio con las áreas públicas de exposición y difusión. La propia concepción del proyecto lleva implícito un posible futuro crecimiento, pudiéndose agregar nuevos pabellones como si de nuevas excavaciones se tratase.

El nuevo museo establece casi imperceptiblemente un permanente diálogo con la arquitectura y el paisaje de la antigua medina árabe. La planta de doble cuadrado del museo se hace homotética con la de la ciudad, los jardines evocan la geometría abandonada de una excavación, los muros de hormigón y las cubiertas de acero cortén reflejan en el blanco y el rojo los colores con que originalmente estuvieron estucados los muros de la ciudad califal. La luz, la sombra, la textura, el material, abstraen la riqueza perceptiva que transmiten las ruinas arqueológicas.

El museo de Madinat al-Zahra aparece en el paisaje silenciosamente, como si hubiera sido encontrado bajo tierra, del mismo modo que a lo largo de los años continuará ocurriendo con los restos de la antigua ciudad de los califas omeyas.”

En “Museos de Andalucía” podemos leer:

El Museo, abierto al público en octubre de 2009, es un complejo edificio que contiene los espacios propios de un museo moderno, así como toda la infraestructura dedicada a la gestión patrimonial que demanda un conjunto arqueológico de la magnitud de la ciudad califal. El edificio está concebido como el punto de partida para la visita al yacimiento, con una presentación y exposición museográfica sobre Madinat al-Zahra.

La creación del Museo resuelve varios problemas planteados desde el comienzo de la recuperación del yacimiento en 1911. El primer edificio construido para dar apoyo a la excavación quedó pronto obsoleto por la ingente cantidad de material arqueológico que se fue almacenando en sus instalaciones y por la insuficiencia de espacios expositivos.

El Museo viene a resolver, además, varias demandas del Conjunto, referidas tanto a la difusión y función didáctica de la institución, como a la tarea de custodia y conservación que esta institución tiene encomendada.

Destaca en el edificio su ubicación exterior a la ciudad, aprovechando uno de sus caminos originales de acceso, de forma que no condiciona ni las excavaciones futuras ni el crecimiento en extensión de las mismas. Este compromiso de la nueva infraestructura con el yacimiento se extiende también al paisaje, pues el proyecto planteado por el estudio de arquitectura Nieto y Sobejano la concibe como una edificación que se oculta parcialmente en el territorio, para no interferir ni en la contemplación del paisaje ni en el fundamental protagonismo de la ciudad califal.

Se trata, en definitiva, de una infraestructura, ideada para facilitar la comprensión del yacimiento y desarrollar a todos los niveles sus potencialidades. Se concibe como una infraestructura para impulsar nuevos proyectos de investigación, conservación y difusión de la ciudad de Madinat al-Zahra y toda la ordenación territorial que constituye su entorno. Cuenta con los siguientes servicios:

Área cultural, expositiva y didáctica: Auditorio, Exposición permanente, Biblioteca Especializada "Manuel Ocaña", Aula didáctica y Sala de seminarios. Área de conservación, investigación y Administración: Almacenes, Talleres de restauración, Centro de documentación, Oficinas y despachos. Otros servicios: Tienda con librería y Cafetería-restaurante.

Premios:

2009: Finalista Premio Intervención en Patrimonio Arquitectónico Español. The International Architecture Award. The Chicago Athenaeum Museum.

2010: Aga Khan Award for Architecture.

2011: Piranesi Prix de Rome. Obra Seleccionada Premio de Arquitectura Contemporánea de la Unión Europea – Premio Mies van der Rohe. Finalista Premio Arquitectura Española. Finalista Premios FAD

2012: European Museum of the Year Award

www.metalocus.es/es/noticias/nieto-sobejano-arquitectos-m...

www.museosdeandalucia.es/cultura/museos/CAMA/?lng=es

NietoSobejano Arquitectos

www.darckr.com/username?username=11569107%40N06

Cells by Annette Kölzow

49 53

"The true colour of life is the colour of the body, the colour of the covered red, the implicit and not explicit red of the living heart and the pulses. It is the modest colour of the unpublished blood." Alice Meynell

“Carros de bois em dia de nevada” – Alfredo Cabeleira by Mário Silva

8 1

A pintura "Carros de Bois em Dia de Nevada", do pintor português Alfredo Cabeleira, é uma obra que celebra a ligação entre o homem, a terra e as adversidades da natureza.

Situada num contexto rural, a obra destaca uma cena quotidiana, imortalizando o trabalho árduo dos camponeses num dia de inverno rigoroso, marcado pela neve e pelo frio.

.

A pintura retrata uma cena campestre num dia de nevada.

No primeiro plano, vê-se um carro de bois conduzido por um camponês, acompanhado de uma criança.

O carro, feito de madeira, exibe marcas de uso, simbolizando a rusticidade e funcionalidade da vida rural.

Os bois, elementos centrais, representam a força e a resistência, essenciais ao trabalho no campo.

Ao fundo, outros camponeses e carros de bois atravessam uma paisagem enevoada, criando uma composição que transmite movimento e continuidade no espaço.

.

A neve, capturada em pinceladas delicadas, cai sobre a cena, cobrindo o chão molhado e refletindo a luz difusa de um dia nublado.

A atmosfera é serena, mas também transmite a dureza do inverno.

A paisagem apresenta árvores despidas de folhas e um horizonte enevoado, que reforça o tom melancólico e bucólico da composição.

.

Alfredo Cabeleira utiliza um estilo realista com toques impressionistas, evidenciado na forma como retrata a luz, a neve e a atmosfera.

As pinceladas são precisas, especialmente na representação dos detalhes dos carros de bois e dos animais, mas tornam-se mais soltas ao descrever o fundo enevoado, criando profundidade e distância.

.

A composição equilibra movimento e estabilidade.

O primeiro plano foca no carro de bois principal, enquanto os outros personagens e elementos no fundo criam uma continuidade visual, conduzindo o olhar ao longo da cena.

A estrada húmida reflete as sombras e texturas, dando realismo e integrando os personagens no ambiente.

.

A obra evoca uma sensação de nostalgia e respeito pelo trabalho rural.

Apesar da dureza do inverno representado pela neve e pelo frio, há um calor humano implícito na interação entre os camponeses e os bois, simbolizando a resiliência diante das adversidades.

.

Os carros de bois representam o modo de vida tradicional e a relação do homem com a terra.

A nevada simboliza a adversidade e a resistência da comunidade rural em condições difíceis.

A paisagem rural retrata o isolamento e a tranquilidade do campo, contrastando com a modernidade e o progresso urbano.

A pintura é uma celebração das raízes rurais de Portugal, especialmente na região de Trás-os-Montes, onde a paisagem e o trabalho agrícola desempenharam papéis cruciais na formação da identidade local.

Alfredo Cabeleira imortaliza um aspeto dessa cultura, muitas vezes ignorado na modernidade.

.

Em conclusão, "Carros de Bois em Dia de Nevada" é uma obra que combina técnica refinada com um profundo respeito pela vida rural e pela história cultural de Portugal.

Alfredo Cabeleira utiliza a arte como uma ponte para conectar o passado ao presente, lembrando-nos da beleza e da dignidade inerentes às atividades simples e essenciais.

Ao retratar a resiliência diante das adversidades do inverno, a pintura também simboliza a força das comunidades que vivem em harmonia com a natureza.

.

Texto: ©MárioSilva

Pintura: Alfredo Cabeleira

.

Going red by Daniela Duncan

62 119

The Power of Red

”Blue is the male principle, stern and spiritual. Yellow the female principle, gentle, cheerful and sensual. Red is matter, brutal and heavy and always the colour which must be fought and vanquished by the other two.”~ Franz Marc

“The true color of life is the color of the body, the color of the covered red, the implicit and not explicit red of the living heart and the pulses.”~ Alice Meynell

“And whenever I'm in a situation where I'm wearing the same as 600 other people and doing the same thing as 600 other people, looking back, I always found ways to make myself different, whether it be having a red lining inside of my jacket, having red shoes, it hasn't changed.” ~ Jeremy Irons

“When in doubt wear red.”~ Bill Blass

la traversee de Paris estivale ~ 2023 by Christopher Perez

140 15

J'assiste à cet événement depuis 10 ans. La traversée de Paris a généralement lieu deux fois par an. Chaque fois que je viens voir les voitures j'essaie de faire quelque chose d'un peu différent. J'essaie de me faire évoluer ma photographie sur ce sujet de l'automobile, de la bagnole.

Il m'est finalement venu à l'esprit que mes images, pour la plupart, manquent de mouvement implicite. C'est-à-dire que les voitures et les motos bougent et que mes images avaient rarement le sens du mouvement.

Alors cette fois, j'ai commencé avec des voitures en mouvement. Lorsque j'aurai exploré le sujet de cette manière, je retournerai le concept à l'envers et je partagerai le même sujet d'un point de vue conceptuel différent.

Somali nomad carrying camel new born - Somaliland by Eric Lafforgue

206 65

On the way from Zeila to Berbera, we crossed a nomad with a camel. He carried something on his back. First I thought it was a dead goat, but when we stopped, I saw he was carrying on his back a baby camel! Just a new born which could not walk yet! He was on the way to his coastal village, kilometers from there...

Livestock farming is the backbone of Somaliland economy. Every year, an estimated 4.2 million heads of sheep, goats, cattle and camel –mainly living animals- are raised and sailed to neighboring Arab States via the port of Berbera. This number has been steadily growing over last years. Although from 1998 to 2009 (roughly), Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Oman’s import of meat coming from the African horn was banned because they suspected it was infected by the Rift Valley fever. This measure deeply affected the economies of Somaliland and Ethiopia.

Nevertheless, the growing popularity of Hajj among Muslim worshipers has increased the demand in meat over the past years. The traditional yearly pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia and the rapid growth made the economy of Somaliland pick up again.

And Saudi Arabia announced in early 2011 that it would increase livestock imports by two-fold by the following year. At the same time, Somaliland is pushing forward plans to get a partnership with Malaysia for the exportation of Halal meat.

Indeed, more than a half of the population in Somaliland relies on meat, milk and other livestock products on a daily basis and 70% of job opportunities are related to livestock raising business. Stockbreeding-related activities really are the main source of livelihood for the majority. Besides, the livestock sector represents 50% of Somaliland GDP and nearly the whole export earning.

But nowadays, nomadic stockbreeding is endangered by alternate severe droughts and flash floods combined with overgrazing, which provoke a lack of pasture available for the animals.

Formerly a British colony, Somaliland briefly reached its independence in 1960. It is one of the three Territories, with Puntland and former Italian Somalia that compose the current State of Somalia.

Somaliland proclaimed its independence in 1991, adopting its own currency, a fully independent government, working institutions and police. The authorities organized a referendum in 2001, advocating once again for full independence. However, to date, it is not internationally recognized.

Ethiopian Prime minister Meles Zenawi is the only one to speak about a Somalilander president, recognizing implicitly the existence of an independent State. Indeed the economy of neighboring Ethiopia dramatically depends on Somaliland stability, since the landlocked country’s main trade route passes through the Somalilander port of Berbera… And vice-versa, the economy of Somaliland largely depends on the taxes and duties it charges Ethiopia. Besides that, the principal economic activity of Somaliland is livestock exportation to the Arabian Peninsula. Most people are Sunni Muslims and speak Arabic, as well as some Somali dialect and many of them, English.Lastely, the East African demography being based on clan alliances, it is no surprise that the frontiers drawn by the colonists don’t match the ethnic divisions of territory, leading to open clashes. More broadly, this problem is recurrent across the African continent.

www.ericlafforgue.com

The Frontline Fighters by Jonathan Rashad

49 9

On February 2, 2012 thousands of Ultras Ahlawy and Zamalek (hardcore soccer fans) marched to Ministry of Interior HQ in Cairo near Tahrir square, following the catastrophe that took place in Portsaid stadium a day earlier, where 73 were killed and hundreds injured.

According to all the Ultras from the incident whom I met, Central Security Forces didn't intervene in the match and withdrew right after clashes broke out, which shows the their implicitly in the catastrophe.

The Ultras marched to Interior Ministry along with thousands of revolutionaries to show their objection regarding Portsaid events. Riot police responded to the protests with teargas, rubber bullets, and birdshot pellets. The battle stayed for more than 4 days leaving 9 at least dead and more than 3000 injured in Cairo and Suez clashes.

Happiness is...Thank you for view counts stats 1,527,799 all time by Soleil is me.

34 43

Thoughtfully;

When you believe in a thing, believe in it all the way, implicitly and unquestionable.

Walt Disney

..........

Take care my friend,

Sunny

.........

flickeflu.com/explore

bighugelabs.com/scout.php?username=11569107%40N06&sor...

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www.flickr.com/photos/kornrawiee/8241418424/lightbox/

..............

Do not note on my images.

The Girl Of My Dreams by Julie Bracken

134 8

She moves through my dreams

As a star in the night

Her hair soft and long

Her eyes glowing bright

( twas her first ever night out; her first ever dressing experience; she trusted me implicitly; I think you will agree she looks d....ed good. Hot, hot, hot......)

candygirls 111-57

15 Aug 14

Depth over distance by Fly bye!

41 24

This image is probably one of the most personal, and visually meaningful, images I've ever posted.

A perfect storm of stress, depression, illness and a severe lack of sleep over a period of several weeks culminated in putting my head into one of the scariest places it's ever been in, and appropriately enough whilst on a 3 day holiday sabbatical in the mountains of Snowdonia last week. They were 3 days I hope I never have to experience the like of which again. The sense of isolation, of disjointedness from the world around me, of not even being sure who I was anymore was emotionally and mentally excruciating. The nights were the worst, unable to sleep I experienced the full depth of myself while at the same time feeling so terrifyingly distant from everything in existence. Identity and reality fractured, insanity beckoned…

Strangely enough, as much as it scared me, it was finding my depth that was my saviour, that and the love of a woman who reached down into my personal hell, gently pulled me out and helped me see the light again, inner and outer. If she hadn't been there to listen to my ramblings, my fears, and to comfort me in the darkest moments, I dread to think what the consequences for my mental health would have been.

I've thought long and hard about revealing such a personal experience here on flickr, but ultimately I'm willingly to do so if it helps just one person going through something similar to take a risk and reach out and talk to someone they trust implicitly, and maybe you who read this with a sound mind could extend a hand to someone who you know is going through their own personal hell and be the spar they cling onto in their storm tossed ocean, and slowly but surely carry them back to the safety of the shore. Don't worry, you don't have to come up with answers to their issues, it's enough to lend an ear to their fears. I tried to deal it with by myself but badly crashed and burned. I kept quiet because of pride, fear and the belief that no one could help me. They can. Find that person you trust, and talk, talk like there's no tomorrow, don't leave it until you're hanging on by your fingernails like I did.

Whatever is not here is nowhere, and whatever is not now will never be. As is this moment in which I am free to choose God, so will be death, Judgement and Eternity. by Traditional Quotes and Symbols

10

Actualization of the consciousness of the Absolute (the "remembrance of God" or "prayer" in so far as it brings about a fundamental confrontation of creature and Creator) is already a death and a meeting with God and it places us already in Eternity; it is already something of Paradise and even, in its mysterious and "uncreated" quintessence, something of God.

Whatever is not here is nowhere, and whatever is not now will never be. As is this moment in which I am free to choose God, so will be death, Judgement and Eternity. Likewise in this center, this Divine point which I am free to choose in the face of this boundless and multiple world, I am already in invisible Reality.

----

Human life is studded with uncertainties; man loses himself in what is uncertain instead of holding on to what is absolutely certain in his destiny, namely death, Judgement and Eternity. (But besides these there is a fourth certainty, immediately accessible moreover to human experience, and this is the present moment, in which man is free to choose either the Real or the illusory, and thus to ascertain for himself the value of the three great eschatological certainties. )

The consciousness of the sage is founded upon these three points of reference, whether directly or in an indirect and implicit manner through "remembrance of God".

Besides the dimension of succession, however, one must also consider that of simultaneity, which is based on spatial symbolism: the world around us is full of possibilities presented to our choice, whether we wish it or not; thus it is full of uncertainties, not successive as in the flux of life, but simultaneous like the things offered to us by space.

Here too whoever wishes to resolve these uncertainties must hold on to what is absolutely certain and this is what stands above us, namely God and our immortality in God.

But even here below there is something which is absolutely certain when we are confronted with the multitudinous and bewildering possibilities of the world, something of which sacred forms represent so many exteriorizations, and this is metaphysical truth and the "remembrance of God", that center which is within us and which places us, to the extent that we participate in it, beneath the "vertical" axis of Heaven, of God, of the Self.

Man finds himself in space and in time, in the world and in life, and these two situations imply two eschatological and spiritual axes, the one static and "vertical", the other dynamic and "horizontal" and more or less temporal; thus it is that contingency, in the mind of the contemplative man, is conceived in terms of the Absolute, is attached to it and leads back to it. But these various points of reference, in effect, only enter into consideration to the extent that the sage is necessarily conscious of contingent situations; they characterize his manner of taking account of his own relativity.

Within this whole context, but completely independent of it and not in any sense "localized", resides that mystery where knowing is being and being is knowing; in other words, these certainties of "succession" and "simultaneity", of "life" and "world", form the necessary framework of contemplation, representing points of reference which serve to free us from the world and from life, or which facilitate that liberation.

Indeed exoterism, which is the necessary basis of esoterism, is in the last analysis centered upon these elements which concern our final ends, namely Heaven and God, or death, Judgement and Eternity, and our own terrestrial attitudes as conforming to these realities.

The important thing to grasp here is that actualization of the consciousness of the Absolute (the "remembrance of God" or "prayer" in so far as it brings about a fundamental confrontation of creature and Creator) anticipates every station on the two axes: it is already a death and a meeting with God and it places us already in Eternity; it is already something of Paradise and even, in its mysterious and "uncreated" quintessence, something of God.

Quintessential prayer brings about an escape from the world and from life, and thereby confers a new and Divine sap upon the veil of appearances and the current of forms, and a fresh meaning to our presence amidst the play of phenomena.

Whatever is not here is nowhere, and whatever is not now will never be. As is this moment in which I am free to choose God, so will be death, Judgement and Eternity. Likewise in this center, this Divine point which I am free to choose in the face of this boundless and multiple world, I am already in invisible Reality.

-----

Frithjof Schuon

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Quoted in: The Essential Frithjof Schuon (edited by Seyyed Hossein Nasr)

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image: Jain votive plate, Kankali Tila, Mathura

15 150731 Córdoba Museo Madinat Al Zahara Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos 2009, 33156 by Javier

13 3

Museo de Madinat Al-Zahra

(Museo arqueológico y centro de interpretación del Conjunto de Madinat al-Zahra)

Ctra. de Córdoba a Palma del Río, A-431, km 5.5, Córdoba

Arquitectos: Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos: Fuensanta Nieto y Enrique Sobejano. Arquitecto de proyecto Miguel Ubarrechena. Equipo de proyecto Carlos Ballesteros, Pedro Quero y Juan Carlos Redondo. Dirección de obra: Fuensanta Nieto, Enrique Sobejano y Miguel Mesas Izquierdo. Proyecto museográfico: Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos / Frade Arquitectos, S.L. Concurso: 1999 Proyecto: 2002 Finalización: 2009

Los Arquitectos describen su proyecto:

“Los restos de la antigua ciudad hispano-musulmana sugerían un diálogo con quienes mil años antes la habían concebido y construido, pero también con el paciente trabajo de los arqueólogos y con el paisaje agrícola circundante, al que la geometría de las ruinas otorgaba una inesperada cualidad abstracta. El terreno del recinto arqueológico destinado al museo provocaba, no obstante, sentimientos encontrados.

Por una parte, la añoranza de un pasado remoto aún por descubrir impregnaba el paisaje que se extendía hacia la sierra de Córdoba. Por otra parte, el desordenado avance de las construcciones recientes se cernía inquietante sobre el entorno de lo que un día fue la ciudad palatina. Nuestra primera reacción al llegar al lugar habría de marcar, desde el primer momento, la futura propuesta: no debíamos edificar en aquel paisaje.

Ante una extensión de tal amplitud, que aún espera ser excavada, decidimos actuar como lo haría un arqueólogo: no construyendo un nuevo edificio, sino encontrándolo bajo tierra, como si el paso del tiempo lo hubiera ocultado hasta el día de hoy. De esta forma, el proyecto descubre la planta de un museo subterráneo, que articula sus espacios en torno a una secuencia de llenos y vacíos, áreas cubiertas y patios que guían al visitante en su recorrido. A partir del vestíbulo principal se extiende un amplio patio de planta cuadrada que, como un claustro, organiza en torno suyo los espacios públicos principales: salón de actos, cafetería, tienda, biblioteca, y salas de exposición. Un patio profundo y longitudinal articula las zonas de uso privado: administración, talleres de conservación e investigación. Un último patio constituye la prolongación al exterior de las áreas expositivas del museo. Las zonas de almacenamiento, concebidas como grandes espacios visitables iluminados cenitalmente, se funden en los recorridos del edificio con las áreas públicas de exposición y difusión. La propia concepción del proyecto lleva implícito un posible futuro crecimiento, pudiéndose agregar nuevos pabellones como si de nuevas excavaciones se tratase.

El nuevo museo establece casi imperceptiblemente un permanente diálogo con la arquitectura y el paisaje de la antigua medina árabe. La planta de doble cuadrado del museo se hace homotética con la de la ciudad, los jardines evocan la geometría abandonada de una excavación, los muros de hormigón y las cubiertas de acero cortén reflejan en el blanco y el rojo los colores con que originalmente estuvieron estucados los muros de la ciudad califal. La luz, la sombra, la textura, el material, abstraen la riqueza perceptiva que transmiten las ruinas arqueológicas.

El museo de Madinat al-Zahra aparece en el paisaje silenciosamente, como si hubiera sido encontrado bajo tierra, del mismo modo que a lo largo de los años continuará ocurriendo con los restos de la antigua ciudad de los califas omeyas.”

En “Museos de Andalucía” podemos leer:

El Museo, abierto al público en octubre de 2009, es un complejo edificio que contiene los espacios propios de un museo moderno, así como toda la infraestructura dedicada a la gestión patrimonial que demanda un conjunto arqueológico de la magnitud de la ciudad califal. El edificio está concebido como el punto de partida para la visita al yacimiento, con una presentación y exposición museográfica sobre Madinat al-Zahra.

La creación del Museo resuelve varios problemas planteados desde el comienzo de la recuperación del yacimiento en 1911. El primer edificio construido para dar apoyo a la excavación quedó pronto obsoleto por la ingente cantidad de material arqueológico que se fue almacenando en sus instalaciones y por la insuficiencia de espacios expositivos.

El Museo viene a resolver, además, varias demandas del Conjunto, referidas tanto a la difusión y función didáctica de la institución, como a la tarea de custodia y conservación que esta institución tiene encomendada.

Destaca en el edificio su ubicación exterior a la ciudad, aprovechando uno de sus caminos originales de acceso, de forma que no condiciona ni las excavaciones futuras ni el crecimiento en extensión de las mismas. Este compromiso de la nueva infraestructura con el yacimiento se extiende también al paisaje, pues el proyecto planteado por el estudio de arquitectura Nieto y Sobejano la concibe como una edificación que se oculta parcialmente en el territorio, para no interferir ni en la contemplación del paisaje ni en el fundamental protagonismo de la ciudad califal.

Se trata, en definitiva, de una infraestructura, ideada para facilitar la comprensión del yacimiento y desarrollar a todos los niveles sus potencialidades. Se concibe como una infraestructura para impulsar nuevos proyectos de investigación, conservación y difusión de la ciudad de Madinat al-Zahra y toda la ordenación territorial que constituye su entorno. Cuenta con los siguientes servicios:

Área cultural, expositiva y didáctica: Auditorio, Exposición permanente, Biblioteca Especializada "Manuel Ocaña", Aula didáctica y Sala de seminarios. Área de conservación, investigación y Administración: Almacenes, Talleres de restauración, Centro de documentación, Oficinas y despachos. Otros servicios: Tienda con librería y Cafetería-restaurante.

Premios:

2009: Finalista Premio Intervención en Patrimonio Arquitectónico Español. The International Architecture Award. The Chicago Athenaeum Museum.

2010: Aga Khan Award for Architecture.

2011: Piranesi Prix de Rome. Obra Seleccionada Premio de Arquitectura Contemporánea de la Unión Europea – Premio Mies van der Rohe. Finalista Premio Arquitectura Española. Finalista Premios FAD

2012: European Museum of the Year Award

www.nietosobejano.com/project.aspx?i=1&t=MADINAT_ALZA...

www.metalocus.es/es/noticias/nieto-sobejano-arquitectos-m...

www.museosdeandalucia.es/cultura/museos/CAMA/?lng=es

NietoSobejano Arquitectos

"Every explicit duality is an implicit unity" #AlanWatts .. .. .. #coincidenceproject #syncronicity #afterall #nothingisbeautiful #nothingisugly #go #behind #frames #subjectivelyobjective #newtopographics #minimalzine #noicemag #valtimmermans #broadmag #r by Denis Cherim

Somali girl eyes - Somaliland by Eric Lafforgue

160 48

Formerly a British colony, Somaliland briefly reached its independence in 1960. It is one of the three Territories, with Puntland and former Italian Somalia that compose the current State of Somalia.

Somaliland proclaimed its independence in 1991, adopting its own currency, a fully independent government, working institutions and police. The authorities organized a referendum in 2001, advocating once again for full independence. However, to date, it is not internationally recognized.

Ethiopian Prime minister Meles Zenawi is the only one to speak about a Somalilander president, recognizing implicitly the existence of an independent State. Indeed the economy of neighboring Ethiopia dramatically depends on Somaliland stability, since the landlocked country’s main trade route passes through the Somalilander port of Berbera… And vice-versa, the economy of Somaliland largely depends on the taxes and duties it charges Ethiopia. Besides that, the principal economic activity of Somaliland is livestock exportation to the Arabian Peninsula. Most people are Sunni Muslims and speak Arabic, as well as some Somali dialect and many of them, English.Lastely, the East African demography being based on clan alliances, it is no surprise that the frontiers drawn by the colonists don’t match the ethnic divisions of territory, leading to open clashes. More broadly, this problem is recurrent across the African continent.

www.ericlafforgue.com

19 1

The Revolutionary Kid by Jonathan Rashad

41 2

On February 2, 2012 thousands of Ultras Ahlawy and Zamalek (hardcore soccer fans) marched to Ministry of Interior HQ in Cairo near Tahrir square, following the catastrophe that took place in Portsaid stadium a day earlier, where 73 were killed and hundreds injured.

According to all the Ultras from the incident whom I met, Central Security Forces didn't intervene in the match and withdrew right after clashes broke out, which shows the their implicitly in the catastrophe.

The Ultras marched to Interior Ministry along with thousands of revolutionaries to show their objection regarding Portsaid events. Riot police responded to the protests with teargas, rubber bullets, and birdshot pellets. The battle stayed for more than 4 days leaving 9 at least dead and more than 3000 injured in Cairo and Suez clashes.

The Spinners Center by tim lowly

65 10

This painting is part of the re. Rainbow Girl project. The "meaning" of these paintings is suggested in part by their conversation with specific works of art–mainly well known European paintings.

Last year I was making a sketch of the painting “Las Hilanderas” ("The Spinners") by the Spanish painter Diego Velázquez in the Prado Museum when a tour group came into the gallery. The tour guide began her talk about this painting by saying, “When you first look at this painting you think it is about the spinners, but…” and she went on to explain, as art historians have written, that the painting was actually a depiction of the myth of Arachne and Minerva. That story, simply put, is that the goddess Minerva becomes incensed when she hears that the mortal Arachne claims that she can weave better than anyone. Minerva comes in the guise of an old woman and challenges Arachne to a weave-off. Arachne wins and Minerva is so angry she turns Arachne into a spider. Ostensibly, in this painting Arachne and Minerva show up twice: First, in the foreground Minerva is the older woman on the right (who appears to have the leg of a young woman) and Arachne is the young woman on the right in the white blouse. And second, in the back room Minerva is the figure with the helmet and she is about to turn Arachne into a spider. The painting is made even more complicated–but also clearer in intent–with the inclusion of a second myth depicted in the weaving on the back wall of the back room. This tapestry is based on a painting by Rubens (Velázquez’s chief competition) which was a copy of a painting by Titian (regarded by both Velázquez and Rubens as the “god of painting”) titled The Rape of Europa . In that painting the god Jupiter, in the guise of a bull, absconds with the mortal woman Europa.

When that Prado tour guide said, “…you think it is about the spinners, but…” I was tempted to turn and say, “Actually, it is about the spinners.” Here’s why: There are two myths alluded to in the painting: these stories share in common the conflictual relation between a god and a human. There are two spaces in the painting: in the background, the play room of the aristocracy and, in the foreground, the weaving room with the workers. There seems to be an at least implicit analogy being made between the relationships of god - human and that of the aristocracy - workers. If one is inclined to understand these aspects of the painting to suggest that Velázquez is reflecting on social and political status it seems quite clear that he has privileged the weavers in the fore-ground by virtue of scale, presence and–by allusion to the Arachne / Minerva tale–creative significance.

Painting as a form of theater, where the artist uses anonymous models to play roles, was a common practice in the Renaissance. By the Baroque period it became more common that the identity of the model had some role in the work: Carravagio being one of the better known examples of artists doing this. As such Velázquez was not without precedent in his practice. Never-the-less, as the court painter it seems quite remarkable the number of times that he depicted specific people who were members of the “lower” classes, including some who were physically or mentally disabled. Particularly significant is the way he represents them such as to give them a dignified and more complex presence in a context that one would expect them to be marginalized.

The lack of an apostrophe in the title of my painting “The Spinners Center” allows for two possible meanings, meanings which are alluded to by the two Spanish titles. The double meaning plays into the idea that Temma is both 1) herself as the subject and 2) playing a role in a work with a “bigger” subject. On the one hand the title "El Centro de la Persona que hace Girar" translates as “The Spinner’s Center”, that is the center of the one who spins: centering the painting’s significance in the one depicted (who does indeed appear to be spinning). On the other hand "El Centro de 'Las Hilanderas'" (The Center of “The Spinners) references the painting by Velázquez that we have been considering. Specifically it points to the woman in the red skirt who is at the center of that painting. This shadowed figure seems relatively inactive: perhaps she is carding the wool that is to be spun. I find myself drawn to the gesture of her arm reaching towards the floor and the slight turn of her head–as if turning towards the drama in the back room. She seems to exist between the two worlds: on the margins of both yet somehow centering them. In that sense I find her to be much like Temma.

Phot.Hamburg.Deichtorhallen.Horizon.Field.01.071222.5984.jpg by frank müller

45 339

Germany, Hamburg, Deichtorhallen, the in 1950 London born British artist “Antony Gormley” has developed a new, spectacular installation especially for the large Deichtorhalle; the “Horizon Field Hamburg” will go on show during the “Documenta”.

The installation is located in the north hall in a space that is almost 2,500 sq. m. in size, nearly 19 meters high & virtually empty. Here, a vast, black, reflective structure will float 7.5 meters above the ground, overall dimension are 48,9 by 24,9 by 0,206 mtr, containing 168 wood acoustic cells, a 1,2 cm thick birch plywood floor with three layers of 4,7 tonnes of pu resin coating, the whole installation has a total weight of 67 tonnes. It requires at least ten person to get the installation into oscillation producing a 0,18 hertz frequency . The suspended, slightly oscillating platform exploits the structural potential & architectural context of the Deichtorhallen building, taking visitors into a new spatiotemporal matrix.

Horizon Field Hamburg will provoke an experience of re-orientation & re-connection with walking, feeling, hearing & seeing. Like a horizontal painting stretched taut in space, the visitor will be positioned as a figure in a free, floating, undefined ground.

For almost 40 years now, Antony Gormley has been creating sculptures in which he explores the relationship between the human body & space. This is explicitly addressed in his large-format works such as “Another Place”, “Domain Field”, “Inside Australia”& implicitly in works such as “Clearing”, “Breathing Room” & “Blind Light” where the work becomes a frame through which the viewer becomes the viewed.

👉 One World one Dream,

🙏...Danke, Xièxie 谢谢, Thanks, Gracias, Merci, Grazie, Obrigado, Arigatô, Dhanyavad, Chokrane to you & over

17 million visits in my photostream with countless motivating comments

The Basilica of the National Vow at 2,860 meters (9,383 ft) above sea level, Barrio Histórico, Quito, Ecuador. by Elias Rovielo

68 10

The Basilica of the National Vow presents two types of anthropomorphic figures: gargoyles and acroteros. On the one hand, gargoyles are one of the main hallmarks of the Basilica, but which in turn maintain a direct relationship with the time they were conceived. They are located on the upper sides of the central nave and constitute the unprecedented contribution to the neo-Gothic style by Ecuador. This is because the animals that decorate the temple are not only mythological (like those of European temples), but are a sample of Ecuadorian endemic and exotic fauna. Thus, you can find alligators, Galapagos turtles, blue-footed boobies, armadillos, howler monkeys, pumas, among others.

Acroteros, on the other hand, differ from the previous ones because in addition to being decorative gargoyles have the function of serving as a boot-waters, while acroteros serve exclusively to decorate. It is also important to state that both anthropomorphic figures have an implicit assessment of helping to frighten evil spirits, a belief that originates in the Middle Ages and can be seen in every Gothic construction.

implicit_expectation_of_winter by Masan Orona

14

...

Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680) - David (1623-1624) - Sala II Galleria Borghese Roma by raffaele pagani

49 6

Bernini riprese un mito biblico già trattato da Donatello, Michelangelo Buonarroti e Andrea Verrocchio. I David del Rinascimento trattano i momenti successivi alla morte di Golia, rappresentando così un eroe meditativo, rilassato e soddisfatto del successo dell'impresa; al contrario, Bernini prende le distanze dall'iconografia tradizionale scegliendo di dipingere David nell'istante che precede il lancio della pietra contro Golia.

Il movimento circolare implicito nella tensione del David di Gian Lorenzo Bernini attira lo spettatore nella sua orbita, invitandolo a muoversi intorno alla scultura. interessante il contrasto con la calma statica del David di Battistello appeso al muro.

Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680) - David (1623-1624) - 2nd Room Galleria Borghese Rome

Bernini resumed a biblical myth already treated by Donatello, Michelangelo Buonarroti, and Andrea Verrocchio. The Renaissance David deal with the moments following the death of Goliath, thus portraying a meditative hero, relaxed and satisfied with the success of the enterprise; on the contrary, Bernini distances himself from traditional iconography by choosing to depict David in the instant preceding the stone's throw against Goliath.

The circular movment implicit in the tension of Gian Lorenzo Bernini's David draws spectator into his orbit, inviting them to move round the sculpture. Interesting contrast with the static calm of Battistello's David hanging on the wall.

How can forests affect climate change? by Zahoor Ahmed

64 46

Growing stock

Growing stock has formed part of global forest resources assessments since the first report. In addition to providing information on existing wood resources, growing stock estimates constitute the basis for estimation of biomass and carbon stocks for most countries.

Country information on total growing stock and forest area was used to estimate growing stock per hectare as an indicator of how well or poorly stocked the forests are. FRA 2005 has also collected country information on commercial growing stock. Chapter 5 (Productive functions of forest resources) presents results for this indicator, as well as a more detailed discussion of total growing stock.

Information availability

Of the 229 countries and territories covered by FRA 2005, 150 countries, representing 88 percent of the world’s forest area, reported on growing stock for 2005. Oceania was the only region for which information was available for only a small portion of forest area (15 percent), given that Australia did not provide information on this variable. With a few exceptions, reporting countries gave information for all three reporting years (see Figure 5.6 in Chapter 5).

Although many countries provided information on growing stock, the quality of the information is variable. A few countries with repeated national forest assessments have very reliable information, but many countries do not have good inventory data to support growing stock estimates and changes in growing stock over time.

Status

In order to obtain consistent global, regional and subregional estimates of total growing stock, growing stock per hectare was estimated for each region/subregion for those countries providing information. These estimates were then multiplied by the total forest area of each region and subregion. Table 5.7 in Chapter 5 shows the status of growing stock in 2005 and its distribution by region and subregion.

Total growing stock is estimated at 434 billion m3, of which some 30 percent is found in South America.

The five countries with the greatest total growing stock account for almost 261 billion m3, which corresponds to 60 percent of the global total. Of these, Brazil has the largest growing stock, with 81 billion m3 or 19 percent of the total.

The global average for growing stock per hectare is 110 m3/ha. The countries with the highest growing stock per hectare are found in central Europe and in some tropical countries.

Trends

Based on data from the 147 countries that reported growing stock figures for all three reporting years, total growing stock shows a slight decreasing tendency at the global level (see Table 5.9 in Chapter 5). There are some regional tendencies: Africa, Asia and South America show a slight decrease, while Europe and North and Central America show a slight increase.

As regards growing stock per hectare, changes at the global level are not significant. At regional and subregional levels, however, there are more significant changes. For example, Europe, excluding the Russian Federation, shows a net increase of 0.3 percent (or 1.2 m3 per hectare) annually for the last 15-year period, while South and Southeast Asia show a net decrease of 1.0 percent (or 1.0 m3 per hectare) annually, mainly due to a decrease in growing stock per hectare in Indonesia.

Changes in total growing stock reflect the combined effects of changes in forest area and in growing stock per hectare. However, for many countries, changes in growing stock reflect only the changes in forest area, because their estimates of growing stock are based on a single figure per hectare determined at one point in time (see Chapter 5). Thus the actual trends may be more pronounced than those in this analysis.

Biomass and Carbon

At a casual glance, the amounts of biomass and carbon seem simply to reflect the extent of forests and their growing stock. A more meaningful understanding emerges in the context of the global carbon cycle, climate change and related international agreements such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Since half the dry weight of biomass is carbon (IPCC, 2003), the following analysis addresses biomass implicitly. For data related to biomass stock in forest and other wooded land, refer to Table 13 in Annex 3.

Forests, like other ecosystems, are affected by climate change, be it a sea-level rise that threatens coastal forests or changes in temperature and rainfall patterns. In some places, impacts may be negative, while in others they may be positive. However, forests also influence climate and the climate change process. They absorb carbon in wood, leaves and soil and release it into the atmosphere when burned, for example during forest fires or the clearing of forest land.

The Kyoto Protocol entered into force in the same year that this assessment was carried out. The protocol and the UNFCCC oblige all member countries to regularly assess and report national greenhouse gas emissions, including emissions and removals of carbon reflected as stock changes in forests. To that end, IPCC has created guidelines, methods and default values for all parameters needed to assess carbon stocks and their changes in forests (IPCC, 2003). It has thus furnished all countries with the means of estimating and reporting carbon stocks, greenhouse gas emissions and removals, irrespective of the availability of country-specific data. Striving for synergies and for streamlined country reporting to international organizations, FAO incorporated the IPCC guidelines on assessment of carbon stocks in forests into its guidelines for country reporting for FRA 2005.

Reporting on carbon stocks in forests under the UNFCCC, the Kyoto Protocol and to FAO may overlap, but are not necessarily identical. For FRA 2005, countries reported carbon stocks for the years 1990, 2000 and 2005. The UNFCCC mandates reporting carbon stock changes. However, in one of its methods, IPCC estimates net emissions of carbon as the difference between periodic carbon stocks.

In a further difference, UNFCCC members report on ‘managed forests’ only. The convention does not define ‘forest’ or managed forest. However, IPCC considers managed forests as “all forests under direct human influence” or “forests subject to the process of planning and implementing practices for stewardship and use aimed at fulfilling relevant ecological, economic and social functions” (IPCC, 2003). Given this broad definition, many countries may classify all their forests as managed forests. However, only by assuming both a steady state of biomass in ‘unmanaged forests’ and identical definitions of ‘forest’ will carbon stock changes be the same under the two reporting systems. Even in this case, estimates of the total carbon stock may still differ, depending on whether all forests are included or not in reporting under the UNFCCC.

Quantifying the substantial roles of forests as carbon stores, as sources of carbon emissions and as carbon sinks has become one of the keys to understanding and modifying the global carbon cycle. Global forest resources assessments have the potential to contribute to or substantiate estimates of the magnitude of stocks and flows by scientific bodies such as IPCC. Simultaneously, they complement and facilitate international reporting by countries on greenhouse gas emissions and removals under the UNFCCC.

Information availability

By integrating IPCC guidance into the guidelines for country reporting for FRA 2005, FAO sought to facilitate complete reporting on biomass and carbon pools by all countries. Yet many of the 229 countries and territories had difficulty in providing complete information for all pools of carbon, i.e. above- and below-ground biomass, dead wood, litter and soil carbon to a depth of 30 cm.

With few exceptions, countries that reported growing stock also successfully transformed this data into above- and below-ground biomass and then to carbon stock in forest biomass (Figure 2.11). Many countries based the conversion from growing stock to biomass on the IPCC good practice guidance factors (IPCC, 2003), reflecting a lack of country-specific biomass expansion factors.

Of the 151 countries that reported on forest biomass:

87 have used the IPCC good practice guidance biomass expansion factors exclusively;

41 have used the IPCC factors in combination with factors from other sources;

13 have used national data – either direct estimates or national expansion factors;

5 have used factors/models from FAO and FAO/UNECE publications;

5 are based on expert estimates.

Response rates for carbon pools other than forest biomass decreased steeply, to merely 20 percent of the countries, representing 51 percent of the total forest area for soil carbon.

It is clear that many countries do not possess country-specific information on the parameters necessary for calculating all carbon pools. However, perhaps blanks in the reporting tables also reflect political concerns, institutional and human capacity for reporting, or difficulties with the IPCC guidelines. Response rates for carbon in biomass were high from developing countries in all subregions except the Caribbean, while some large industrialized countries in North America and Oceania did not report biomass and carbon data at all or only incompletely, because they are currently in the process of finalizing their overall carbon inventories.

Overall, this report assesses carbon in all pools based on a fairly representative fraction of over half the global forest area for all components and more than 80 percent of total forest area for carbon in forest biomass.

Although countries were asked to provide information on carbon in forest soils in the top 30 cm, some countries used other threshold values. In these cases, the figures were adjusted to the common threshold of 30 cm.

Status

Carbon stock per hectare. Table 2.8 provides forest-area-weighted average carbon stocks per hectare for biomass, dead wood, litter and soils by region for the year 2005. Biomass and dead wood account for 44 and 6 percent of total forest ecosystem carbon respectively, while soils to a depth of 30 cm and litter contribute approximately 46 and 4 percent respectively.

Carbon stocks in forest biomass reach the highest values per hectare in Central and South America and Western and Central Africa, while East Asia, Northern Africa and Western and Central Asia report the lowest values.

IPCC (2000) estimated an average carbon stock of 86 tonnes per hectare in the vegetation of the world’s forests for the mid-1990s. The corresponding carbon in biomass and dead wood in forests reported here amounts to 82 tonnes per hectare for the year 1990 and to 81 tonnes per hectare for the year 2005.

Each cubic metre of growing stock equals different amounts of biomass and carbon in biomass in the regions. Table 2.9 provides average conversion factors compiled from country submissions. Globally, each cubic metre of growing stock equals, on average, 1 tonne of above-ground biomass, 1.3 tonnes of total biomass and 0.7 tonnes of carbon in biomass.

Total carbon stock. As a consequence of missing data, it is not possible to sum country data to obtain complete regional or global totals for carbon in any pool. Yet, in the context of climate change, these totals and their changes over the years are beyond mere academic interest. Figure 2.12 shows estimated total carbon stock for all pools by region. The figures were obtained by expanding reported data through the use of subregional estimates of carbon per hectare of forest, multiplied by the total forest area for each subregion.

The country reports indicate that global forest vegetation stores 283 Gt of carbon in its biomass, and an additional 38 Gt in dead wood, for a total of 321 Gt. A prior estimate by IPCC (2000) assumed 359 Gt of carbon in these pools. An assumed amount in FRA 2005 of only 10 tonnes per hectare of carbon in dead wood, on average, probably represents an underestimate and might be one reason for the discrepancy between the IPCC and country reports. Another may be exclusion of the biomass of undergrowth by some countries.

Soils (down to 30 cm) and litter contain 317 Gt of carbon according to country estimates in this assessment. There are large data gaps for major boreal forests with typically large amounts of soil carbon; thus the figures are likely underestimates.

The total carbon content of forest ecosystems for the year 2005 is, therefore, 638 Gt of carbon, which is more than the amount of carbon in the entire atmosphere. Roughly half of total carbon is found in forest biomass and dead wood combined, and half in soils and litter combined.

Trends

From 1990 to 2005, carbon in biomass decreased in Africa, Asia and South America, remained approximately constant in Oceania and increased in Europe and in North and Central America. Not all subregions followed this trend. Thus total biomass carbon stocks increased in East Asia and in Western and Central Asia, and decreased in Central America (Table 2.10). The decrease in overall biomass carbon stocks since 1990 was driven by South and Southeast Asia (33 percent decrease), Western and Central Africa (7 percent) and South America (6 percent).

If an average change of total biomass carbon stocks of at least 0.5 percent per year is defined as significant, then of a total of 146 countries and territories, 42 reported decreases, 55 increases and 49 reported no significant change in total carbon stocks within forest biomass.

In interpreting the reliability and meaning of these results, it is helpful to examine carbon stocks per hectare concurrently. Based on the same significance level, 99 countries reported no substantial change of carbon stock per hectare for the 1990–2005 period, 11 countries reported a decrease and 36 countries an increase.

Of the 42 countries communicating significant declines in total carbon stocks in forest biomass, only 17 percent also described lower levels of carbon stocks per hectare. In contrast, 78 percent – overwhelmingly developing countries – presumed virtually identical carbon stocks per hectare at the beginning and end of the 15-year period. In these countries, therefore, a reduction in total carbon stock in forest biomass reflects a net loss of forest area. Of the 20 countries reporting the highest absolute reduction in carbon stock, 15 did not report decreases in carbon stock per hectare. Essentially all the carbon stock reduction, therefore, is due to a net loss of forest area. Of the two countries with the highest decrease in carbon stocks, Brazil and Indonesia, only Indonesia recorded a significantly lower level of carbon per hectare in 2005, indicating that not only the forest area but also the biomass and carbon stock per hectare had decreased.

In contrast, of all countries reporting significant total carbon stock increases (mainly Chile, China, many European countries, India, Japan and the United States), 67 percent also documented substantially higher levels of carbon stock per hectare, indicating a higher likelihood that stocks were actually assessed more than once. For 25 percent of these countries, carbon stocks per hectare remained essentially the same, pointing to an increase in forest area as the main reason for increased total stocks.

www.greenfacts.org/en/forests/l-3/3-climate-change.htm#0p0

All the World's a Game ? - Etang de la Gruère - Jura - Switzerland by Rogg4n

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"All the World's a Stage" wrote Shakespeare. "All the world's a screen" may have wrote some film director during the 20th century. But if I had to pick a version to speak of today, I would choose "All the World's a Game".

It's pretty impressive to see the place the word “game” took in our discourse. Is the Sony a9 a gamechanger, asks DxO ? Some website give us 5 tips to improve our photography game. Of course, the consecration of the word, it’s invasion of the collective unconscious comes probably from the successful “Game Of Thrones” of HBO. The way characters use the concept of “Game” to speak about the over-corrupted political world should also warns us.

I may be wrong on the exact origin of the expression, but I am pretty sure it is related to video games. Please note that I am not saying that there was no game before in a lot of social realm (real new human mechanisms are quite rare). What I am saying is that the thing became recently quite explicit and … inhibited (décomplexé, we would say in French).

If you ever played a little bit seriously, you know that a video game is two things. Firstly, it’s a set of possibilities determined by a set of rules/algorithms. Most of the time, you can discover these “rules of the inner world” by playing or even by reading the manual. Secondly, and more importantly, a game is a set of hidden regularities that haven’t necessary been planned by developers, but that you can exploit to hack, in a certain way, the in-game rules. These things are not directly available in-game, so you find them outside, on forums, on website and so on.*

One thing is undeniable: once you discover this metagame aspect, your in-game efficiency increase … A LOT. It’s also undeniable that if you had pleasure just playing without caring of the outside-game rules, this will ruin your “naive” experience. In some way, you’ll lose you innocence. Every serious gamer confess for time to time how nostalgic he is of his first games, when he was a noob: he was so ineffective, everything was so hard, but it was so fun !

What is particularly disturbing with the expansion of the “Game” word outside the realm of video games – in politics, professional life, love, music, art, photography – is that it carries with it the same fundamental idea: there is a gap between the explicit and the implicit rules. There’s the rules we pretend to follow, but we know that they are part of an illusion. And there’s the rules that we pretend not to follow, but we know that it’s the only thing that matters.

Let’s be frank: if All the world’s a Game, there must be winners (serious gamers) and losers (noobs). The real gamers-winners, are the ones who master the hidden rules while being effective in pretending not doing so. In other words, to win, you have to learn how to cheat. By the way, cheating is not really cheating anymore: it’s just the real understanding of how to play.

Why do I write this on a photography social website? Because Flickr, Instagram, and any other photography platform can be perfectly described as games. Exactly like video games, there’s the official in-game rules: we are here to share images, we can get exposure in proportion of our talent, and we can give and receive constructive critique in order to improve our technique together in a happy world. But there’s also the hidden exploits: we can choose the time we post to get a lot of favs, we can give meaningless comments with the chance to get some attention back, we can randomly follow people without even watching one of their picture hoping that they’ll follow back, … **

This cynical topic came to my mind when I was shooting the Milky Way by the Etang de la Gruère last week. I was quite disorganized : all I had – apart my tripod and my camera – was my smartphone with less than 50% of battery. It was my only source of light, and I realized quite soon that I would not find my way back in the darkness. It was cold, I forgot to take a jacket: in brief, it was quite uncomfortable.

During the 17 seconds of every shot, I had time to think about what I was doing: why do I go out to take nightscapes? Why do I play fair? Couldn’t I use always the same shots (that I could take once for all) and create some fake foreground in Photoshop? After all, isn’t that what most people do on Instagram? The competition is so fierce that “real” nightshots have no chance! Cheating is just the way of playing properly: am I that naive to think that a simple nightshot without the silhouette of a naked-young-woman-holding-a-flashlight-as-if-she-was-painting-the milyway-that-finally-turns-out-to-be-a-swarm-of-butterflies-eaten-by-a-wolf-howling-in-a-blood-moon could still interest someone in 2017 ??! What a noob I am! I felt so stupid with my wet shoes and my torn up pants ! Photography is over, it’s all about artwork now !

Kidding apart, it’s not always easy to keep faith in photography when it comes so close to a game. After all, no one really came for this in the first place. It’s something that come insidiously. It’s simply related to the old cognitive mechanisms of rewarding in our brain. We like to receiving attention – even meaningless – from other people. Nothing’s more normal. The question is why do we stay ? Of course, there’s a part of addiction and laziness, but there’s something more. If the game is not fun when you know too well how it really goes, it’s neither fun to play alone … I don’t think I would still find motivation practicing alone. In some way, I really want to test my picture on public opinion. I need emulation. That’s what keeps me wanting to improve. However, what ruins the experience is that you realize that the only way to “be serious” now is to practice things you don’t approve and that would take crazy amount of time …

Maybe I have the wrong conception of “being serious”, it’s maybe time to find some other sort of motivation. If you really red that far – thank you for that - I would love to know how you cope with “the Game” …

*(Pokemon on Game Boy gave a good example in the 90’ : everyone – below 30 years old – remember the good old days wandering around and training their favorite creatures, sometimes up to level 100 ! The Pokemon was so powerful then, it killed everything in one single shot. What most people didn’t knew is that it was possible to take control on the way creatures received new skills at every level (which seemed random according to in-game rules) : rather than having a big fat jack-of-all-trade, you could have a specialized beast that had huge lacks in some skills, but was top rated on others. Of course, because these skills were well chosen, the guys who applied this strategy were unbeatable.)

**(The award-game is an excellent illustration of this : There’s no in-game awards on Flickr, but gamers figured out a way to create a game-in-the-game from outside. Everybody knows that the small texts that accompany awards are meaningless, but everyone pretend it is sincere. All in all, it’s just a way to get more exposure and more followers. That’s how it goes, everybody knows …).

Lucky spot by Мaistora

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Most iron fences in central London have signs saying "No bikes! Bicycles attached here will be removed!" This is a rare (short) stretch with implicit parking permission (not sure if it has anything to do with the site being a church?)

Undecided, as always, between colour and BW :(

83 Museo Madinat Al Zahara Nieto-Sobejano Arquitectos 2003-09. 160716. 2330 by Javier

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Museo de Madinat Al-Zahra

(Museo arqueológico y centro de interpretación del Conjunto de Madinat al-Zahra)

Ctra. de Córdoba a Palma del Río, A-431, km 5.5, Córdoba

Arquitectos: Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos: Fuensanta Nieto y Enrique Sobejano. Arquitecto de proyecto Miguel Ubarrechena. Equipo de proyecto Carlos Ballesteros, Pedro Quero y Juan Carlos Redondo. Dirección de obra: Fuensanta Nieto, Enrique Sobejano y Miguel Mesas Izquierdo. Proyecto museográfico: Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos / Frade Arquitectos, S.L. Concurso: 1999 Proyecto: 2002 Finalización: 2009

Los Arquitectos describen su proyecto:

“Los restos de la antigua ciudad hispano-musulmana sugerían un diálogo con quienes mil años antes la habían concebido y construido, pero también con el paciente trabajo de los arqueólogos y con el paisaje agrícola circundante, al que la geometría de las ruinas otorgaba una inesperada cualidad abstracta. El terreno del recinto arqueológico destinado al museo provocaba, no obstante, sentimientos encontrados.

Por una parte, la añoranza de un pasado remoto aún por descubrir impregnaba el paisaje que se extendía hacia la sierra de Córdoba. Por otra parte, el desordenado avance de las construcciones recientes se cernía inquietante sobre el entorno de lo que un día fue la ciudad palatina. Nuestra primera reacción al llegar al lugar habría de marcar, desde el primer momento, la futura propuesta: no debíamos edificar en aquel paisaje.

Ante una extensión de tal amplitud, que aún espera ser excavada, decidimos actuar como lo haría un arqueólogo: no construyendo un nuevo edificio, sino encontrándolo bajo tierra, como si el paso del tiempo lo hubiera ocultado hasta el día de hoy. De esta forma, el proyecto descubre la planta de un museo subterráneo, que articula sus espacios en torno a una secuencia de llenos y vacíos, áreas cubiertas y patios que guían al visitante en su recorrido. A partir del vestíbulo principal se extiende un amplio patio de planta cuadrada que, como un claustro, organiza en torno suyo los espacios públicos principales: salón de actos, cafetería, tienda, biblioteca, y salas de exposición. Un patio profundo y longitudinal articula las zonas de uso privado: administración, talleres de conservación e investigación. Un último patio constituye la prolongación al exterior de las áreas expositivas del museo. Las zonas de almacenamiento, concebidas como grandes espacios visitables iluminados cenitalmente, se funden en los recorridos del edificio con las áreas públicas de exposición y difusión. La propia concepción del proyecto lleva implícito un posible futuro crecimiento, pudiéndose agregar nuevos pabellones como si de nuevas excavaciones se tratase.

El nuevo museo establece casi imperceptiblemente un permanente diálogo con la arquitectura y el paisaje de la antigua medina árabe. La planta de doble cuadrado del museo se hace homotética con la de la ciudad, los jardines evocan la geometría abandonada de una excavación, los muros de hormigón y las cubiertas de acero cortén reflejan en el blanco y el rojo los colores con que originalmente estuvieron estucados los muros de la ciudad califal. La luz, la sombra, la textura, el material, abstraen la riqueza perceptiva que transmiten las ruinas arqueológicas.

El museo de Madinat al-Zahra aparece en el paisaje silenciosamente, como si hubiera sido encontrado bajo tierra, del mismo modo que a lo largo de los años continuará ocurriendo con los restos de la antigua ciudad de los califas omeyas.”

En “Museos de Andalucía” podemos leer:

El Museo, abierto al público en octubre de 2009, es un complejo edificio que contiene los espacios propios de un museo moderno, así como toda la infraestructura dedicada a la gestión patrimonial que demanda un conjunto arqueológico de la magnitud de la ciudad califal. El edificio está concebido como el punto de partida para la visita al yacimiento, con una presentación y exposición museográfica sobre Madinat al-Zahra.

La creación del Museo resuelve varios problemas planteados desde el comienzo de la recuperación del yacimiento en 1911. El primer edificio construido para dar apoyo a la excavación quedó pronto obsoleto por la ingente cantidad de material arqueológico que se fue almacenando en sus instalaciones y por la insuficiencia de espacios expositivos.

El Museo viene a resolver, además, varias demandas del Conjunto, referidas tanto a la difusión y función didáctica de la institución, como a la tarea de custodia y conservación que esta institución tiene encomendada.

Destaca en el edificio su ubicación exterior a la ciudad, aprovechando uno de sus caminos originales de acceso, de forma que no condiciona ni las excavaciones futuras ni el crecimiento en extensión de las mismas. Este compromiso de la nueva infraestructura con el yacimiento se extiende también al paisaje, pues el proyecto planteado por el estudio de arquitectura Nieto y Sobejano la concibe como una edificación que se oculta parcialmente en el territorio, para no interferir ni en la contemplación del paisaje ni en el fundamental protagonismo de la ciudad califal.

Se trata, en definitiva, de una infraestructura, ideada para facilitar la comprensión del yacimiento y desarrollar a todos los niveles sus potencialidades. Se concibe como una infraestructura para impulsar nuevos proyectos de investigación, conservación y difusión de la ciudad de Madinat al-Zahra y toda la ordenación territorial que constituye su entorno. Cuenta con los siguientes servicios:

Área cultural, expositiva y didáctica: Auditorio, Exposición permanente, Biblioteca Especializada "Manuel Ocaña", Aula didáctica y Sala de seminarios. Área de conservación, investigación y Administración: Almacenes, Talleres de restauración, Centro de documentación, Oficinas y despachos. Otros servicios: Tienda con librería y Cafetería-restaurante.

Premios:

2009: Finalista Premio Intervención en Patrimonio Arquitectónico Español. The International Architecture Award. The Chicago Athenaeum Museum.

2010: Aga Khan Award for Architecture.

2011: Piranesi Prix de Rome. Obra Seleccionada Premio de Arquitectura Contemporánea de la Unión Europea – Premio Mies van der Rohe. Finalista Premio Arquitectura Española. Finalista Premios FAD

2012: European Museum of the Year Award

www.nietosobejano.com/project.aspx?i=1&t=MADINAT_ALZA...

www.metalocus.es/es/noticias/nieto-sobejano-arquitectos-m...

www.museosdeandalucia.es/cultura/museos/CAMA/?lng=es

NietoSobejano Arquitectos