NOOSA/QLD (16th March, 2012): The penultimate and semi finals day of competition commenced, with inspirational action taking place from the very first heat. Although an insignificant drop of swell occurred overnight, it was complimented by a decrease in wind and more favourable direction blessed the contest arena with manicured waves running across the mid-tide sand bank.

 

Junior divisions abound for the quartet of opening heats, the Pacific Longboarder Under 18s rapidly followed by the Under 15 Boys semi final, sponsored by Humid.

 

The Jones brothers had a fantastic morning, older brother Nic, a team rider for event sponsor Classic Malibu, gleaning nine well-earned points from his opening wave, and a mid-range score very late in the piece securing a justified victory in the first heat of the day. His younger sibling Harri had more of a challenge in the Humid Under 15s, putting all his efforts in to narrowly qualify for tomorrow’s final.

 

Nathan Strom was untouchable in heat one of the Under 15s, leading from the commencement and indefatigable throughout to register a superb win.

 

Light showers came down on the heads of the spectators clamouring for position along the shoreline of First Point’s natural amphitheatre, as the inaugural Laguna Bay Longboards Logger Pro launched into its first semi final.

 

Matt Chojnacki, from Sydney’s Northern Beaches was world-class in his performance, his very traditional stylings the epitome of panache and the perfect example of the skills required for the event. 16 points even garnished Cojnacki with a convincing win in heat one, whilst the second heat was dominated once again by the local superhuman surfer, Harrison Roach.

 

Only three waves were ridden by Roach, his opening ride, an impressive 6.75, looking shabby next to his very high following scores. Roach’s faultless talent gave him a near-perfect score to set the bar for the final tomorrow.

 

Another traditional event ensued, the Old Mal division, sponsored by RACV Noosa Resort. Matt Cuddihy remained in the water after taking a qualifying second place in the previous division, and backed it up with a healthy twelve points, a touch of Sage Joske’s influence in his crouched rail-grab bottom turns, Joske an outstanding participant in previous years.

 

Cuddihy surfed outstandingly and, alongside Matt Cojnacki, was a definitive surfer in this event, featuring exclusively boards all made before 1967. Cojnacki channeled the spirits of yesteryear, emulating the surfers of a decade in which he was not even born.

 

Both surfers will take their well-earned places in tomorrow’s final.

 

The Old Guys Ruled once again, with the Over 55 and Over 60 Men’s events taking to the water.

 

These semis were the last opportunities for surfers to earn a berth in tomorrow’s finals, the top three of each heat advancing. This do-or-die challenge drew some outstanding performances from the surfers, Albe Curtis particularly of note, posting two very solid rides to lead from start to finish. Nipping at his heels though was Pacific Longboarder chief editor, John ‘JB’ Brasen. JB’s best was the heat’s highest score, a 7.25, but he was unable to match it and relinquishing the top spot, but not his ticket to the final.

 

Mike Pimm, too, was a standout, two massive 7.5 waves giving him a fantastic victory.

 

And then to the noserider. The Golden Breed Noserider, always a thrilling crowd-pleaser, failed to disappoint and, with little surprise, Harrison Roach again was head-and-shoulders above his adversaries.

 

Local knowledge paid dividends and three of the four surfers tip-timing their ways into the finals. Roach went from the sublime to ridiculous, with again very closely a minute perched on the front end of his board. But today he was in closer company, Matt Cuddihy and Beau Nixon both around ten seconds off the pace. All three were indisputable finalists, but the fourth and last remaining place was a nail-biter. With just seven seconds separating the remaining contestants, it was young Noosa local, Zye Norris who won the coveted fourth.

 

With so much action taking place throughout the day, it is very nearly impossible to hone the highlights, like needles in a needle stack of exceptional moments.

 

To précis a wonderful day of semi finals, Nic Jones was phenomenal in both the Under 18 and the Open Amateur Men’s, claiming outstanding victories in both, amounting almost 17 points of a possible twenty in his heat, making for a very busy finals day tomorrow.

 

The PJ Burns Under 18 Girls second semi was far too close to call. A very lethargic ocean providing little opportunity in the heat’s first half reduced the action to ten minutes. The surfers added to this compression of scores, matching each other evenly right up until the dying minutes. An overabundance of very late scores left the judges sweating for a full five minutes after the final horn, but it was Rosain Carolan who emerged victorious, Rachel Fleming set to join her in the final.

 

The SeaGlass Project Finless Challenge was again Harrison Roach’s feeding ground, but Fred Branger dominated the second heat and it will be very interesting watching the pair go head to head in tomorrow’s final.

 

Final competing was done by the Senior Women, for the John Madill Toyota semi final.

 

An interference call denied local favourite, Keena Wilson a berth in the first heat, Leanne ‘Bluey’ Gilkes taking the heat, and in the second semi, visiting Taiwanese surfer, BayBay Niu surfed an exquisite round, but with a breath-taking 8.25 points scored on a perfectly executed wave, Yvette Kordick tipped the balance.

 

Both surfers, though, will have their rematch in the final.

 

The greatest crowd of the day was drawn in the dying hours of daylight. Wrapping up the day was a fantastic display of surfing-meets-gymnastics, with five tandem couples paddling out and gaining the largest cheers and greatest appreciation of the festival so far.

 

All the action of the last day of the festival tomorrow, as finals fill the day for all divisions. Exceptional talent, thrilling tension, nail-biting finishes – the day is poised to be an unmissable event, all taking place right on the beach at First Point, Noosa.

 

All results for the day, and the week, are available on the event website, as well as draws for Thursday’s competition.

 

Visit www.noosafestivalofsurfing.com for further information and images of the daily events.#

 

Photos: Geoff Fanning / Noosa Festival Of Surfing

Exert from: ‘The Absurdity of Pigeon Feed’ by Tom Tomlinson

‘Yet another act of God, Pt. 2.’

 

Context: The international space station undergoes a catastrophic accident. Shit is launched into deep space and spawns life on two distant planets. Billions of years later the two planets tune into slightly different radio broadcasts from planet Earth (broadcasts of religious wars and children’s programs).

Result: they are infected by different belief memes and decide to go to war against each other. A space ship from another civilization is about to enter their solar system…..

 

‘Sir, we’ll be entering the constellation in less time than it takes for a Greater Naked Mole Rat to engage in a quick Jiffy.’

‘Is that your best effort at humour Mr Speck? Pathetic. Besides, don’t mention greater naked mole rats when Piranha’s about, she suffers from arachnophobia; human beings have feelings, don’t you know?’

‘I think you mean zemmiphobia. The psychological condition is totally illogical, there is no evidence that the greater naked mole rat ever existed, and hence zemmiphobia is doubly irration….’

‘Shut the fuck up you insignificant…. Take her out of hyperinflation drive and engage subprime engines, mark 3, plot a course intersecting the two planets and bring us to rest between them.’

‘Aye, aye, Captain Buckfirst.’

 

‘Captain Sir, sensors are picking up hundreds of craft around that very location. Captain, they appear to be engaged in warfare?’

‘What? Warfare. Thank you Mr Stalin. Science officer Speck, what do you make of it?’

‘Antiquated weapon systems, no problem for our shields. However, the two class P planets do seem to be engaged in an unauthorised war of attrition and yet both planets appear to have abundant resources Sir. Laser weaponry isn’t up to much, they’d be better off throwing soggy turds at each other. However, I recommend engaging the shields.’

‘Mr Speck I’m going to need two science crews, one to beam down to each planet. I want to find out why these beings are engaged in ignorant economically crippling activities without any sign of profitable outside subversion. We’ve no records of selling arms to either side.’

‘Yes Captain, in their case warfare does seem totally irrational.’

The ship came to rest, the science teams got on their way. The Captain had nothing to do so he and the other members of the bridge crew returned to their game of ‘Risk,’ its objective the economic dominance of the entire Universe. The Captain kept his eye on Communications Officer Piranha. Sassy bitch always cheated.

The ship came under attack, laser beams hit it repeatedly; the powerful blasts nothing more than wasp stings to the enormous vessel and her shields. After a pause in fire, quite suddenly the ship lurched just as the Captain had secured a total monopoly on cocoa trade in the Milky Way. Pissed off, he put the game aside for the moment and then just as he’d taken the advantage – in fact he’d never actually won – that fucking science officer ‘vulcanised ears’ with his mind twisting rationality always had to play.

 

‘Mr Grueshev what in tar-nation was that.’

‘Sir one of the opponents are using the low down dirty Kamikaze tactics of crazed martyrs, that last bump was thirty of their ships hitting us at one time, why would they do that sir, they killed themselves for nothing? No profit there Sir, I’ve run the strategy through all the game theory algorithms we have?’

‘Any real danger Stalin?’

‘Na Captain Buckfirst, the shields can handle it.’

‘Your go; by the way Piranha I thought I saw a great naked rat or was it a mole in the corridor next to your cabin today,’ commented Captain Buckfirst as he eyed her hands carefully.

The game went on while the ship rocked gently back and forth like a baby sleeping peacefully in its crib as thousands upon thousands of alien craft destroyed themselves for nothing at all. Coffee breaks with banal conversation came and went. Just as the Captain was about to seriously lose it, his being on the verge of going economically bankrupt again to Piranha, the two teams arrived back. The Captain sighed with relief, ‘Pack that shit away, we’ve got work to do. Mr Speck, I hope you have some answers for me.’

‘Yes Sir complicated but not irresolvable, I calculate we have a 99.78% chance of resolving the situation to our advantage.’

‘Good, give it to me, what’s going on?’

 

‘It seems both races have evolved from genetic material from Planet Earth Sir, although one or two genes were corrupted during their transportation here, Interstellar radiation would account for that. Both races are humanoid derivatives; they call themselves Drogans. Their genetic codes mutations resulted in a phenotype that’s overly fertile and their sex hormones are elevated to unsustainable levels.

‘Hang on Speck, are you saying they fuck like Greater Naked Mole Rats on Viagra and pop em out at the same rate?’

‘Something like that Captain, although strangely evolution has taken care of that by checking their population growth and bringing it into balance with their planet’s resources in both cases.’

‘Give me the details Speck, not the sex, pervert, just how exactly are the populations brought in check?’

 

‘Sir, the original wild oats sown on the planets contained the same human genome even if it wasn’t fully expressed for aeon’s to come. From a shitty sludge rose up a multitude of life forms not dissimilar from those that populated your original home planet Sir. The outright evolutionary winners on both planets, humanoid life forms.’

‘You’re boring me, showing off again you swat, get to the point.’

‘Both populations began to accede to the effects of over fertility yet each population became checked and put in balance by symbiotic relationships with other species, all be it the truth was never discovered by their own scientist.’

‘Speck I said the point, I haven’t got a Galaxy year, we have to move on soon and get that druggie doctor up here, stun him if you have-to and spike him up with something to sober him up; see to that Piranha.’

‘As I was saying, one race evolved together with a cat like animal, its paw in the door original value to them was to keep the rodents plaguing the population to a level insuring civilisation grew without their nuisance. Illogically it came to pass cats became revered as agents of their God and their faeces are burnt as ceremonial offerings to him.’

‘Are you pulling my plonker Speck?’

‘No Sir, that would be irrational and in your case it might even be classified as a disgusting perversion. Unfortunately the cat’s shit is infected with a virus, benign to themselves but with the capacity to meddle with their human carers: the ubiquitous ceremonial burning of their faeces facilitates the virus to infect all the humanoids. After a period of incubation it gains access to yummy regions of the brain, regions controlling emotion. The virus meddles with the brain’s chemistry producing a population where melancholy is the norm, suicide common and hardly worth the mention. That explains the irrational Kamikaze ships dousing the shields have had to put up with; Captain the shields will need cleaning soon.’

The Captain appeared to nod, in approval.

‘The other planet’s humanoids story is not dissimilar. Its population was put in balance with their resources by a symbiotic relationship with a canine, a dog like creature with a trick in its paw. It too gained access to the private lives of the humanoids, first by tapping into the humanoids practical needs, then overtime, it evolved a clever neuropeptide to subjugate and addict its masters by excreting it from sweetened farts and later the humanoid produced his own neuropeptide every time he made eye contact or petted the animal. The humanoids became so addicted to the dog’s drug fellow humanoids became secondary to their beloved pets, unaware of their addiction they began to isolate themselves, happy, content, and fulfilled. Sex however, became an-ever increasingly complicated chore requiring great effort, to be avoided if possible.’

 

Speck became suspicious, the Captain hadn’t interrupted him once. ‘Captain, Captain Buckfirst.’

‘What? What the…?’ The Captain had drift off and now came too taking note of the medical officer who had arrived bleary-eyed and staggering.

‘The last aspect of the two planet’s discord revolves around their belief meme/genes. Same old story there, useful for enabling them to learn life’s basics and keeping them safe in childhood, but if it doesn’t get switched off or moderated by rationality and logic after puberty.

It always results in the same old boring bollocks; belief in unsubstantiated absurdities. We’ve seen the same old crap all over the Universe Captain, Gods, phantasmagorical tittle-tattle and other such primitive brain numbing stuff.

So, the vastly different mind-sets of each planet had no chance of resolving even the tiniest of disputes, then, add in such a stupid contention as to whose God thingy is the realest and bestest, in their case all rationality and logic disappeared in a murky haze of sweetened dog farts and cat shit fumes.

It’s totally illogical, just imagine Captain they’re fighting each other in a war of attrition that can only end in the extinction of the two races over whether one planets’ gods ‘Bill and Ben and his Flower Pot Men’ or the others ‘Zebedee of the Magic Roundabout and his prophet Florence’ are the one and only true gods.?’

‘Shut it Speck. Why not throw down a few clones and unseat their governments, you know, install two corrupt cronies who are open to a one-way trade agreement and bribery and get some real democracy going?’

‘Captain, that’s illogical we haven’t done that for eons, it’s costly and always fucks up super big-time creating even more problems, untold loss of life, cultural genocide and no profit to mention other than arms sales.’

‘Okay I’ve had enough of this. Mr Stalin load the photon tubes and take out all life on one of the planets on my word. Second thought’s trash everything I’m bored with all of this. Let’s get on our way there’s no way we can we make a quick buck here, target both the planets.’

 

The Doc had been sat for some time listening in and now jumped from his seat to confront the Captain, ‘My God Jim. What about the Federation’s Prime Directive? No meddling in alien civilisations, do the greatest good for the greatest number of people and all that?’

‘Oh come on Doc get your bleeding nose outa this.’

‘But Captain Buckfirst, you were the one who dragged me away from my stuff. Now look here Jim, the Prime Directive clearly states, not to interfere in the internal development of alien civilisations unless there’s a reasonable profit to be made out of them for the good of the greatest number of people, namely us.’

The Captain swivelled his chair back and forth, ‘I don’t see no profit here you Boneless druggie.’

‘Jim, just give me half an hour and we can blast both planets with one of my unbelievably clever concoctions and we can redress the belief meme/genes to their correct levels.’

‘Oh Yeah, and what about the cats and dogs.’

Speck spoke up, ‘Captain, we can blast them with species specific lasers and eradicate them bringing total freedom to all those we deem to be friendly humanoids. There may even be a buck to be had out of all this.’

Speck lent down and whispered in the Captains ear.

 

The ‘USS. ECONOMIC CONQUEST UN-LTD.’ engaged its hyperinflation warp drive and spend off into the unknown on its never-ending mission to discover and economically subvert any civilisation where a reasonable profit to the detriment of others was to be made.

Captain Buckfirst and the enterprise had done it again; they’d brought real free democracy to the two civilisations at once by eradicating the cats and dogs and moderating the two side’s belief meme/genes.

 

The emancipated humanoids where now able to exercise total freedom of choice within a democratic society. That is; one sufficiently warped by the wake of hyperinflation engines as they scarpered down dirty intergalactic wormholes off to their next exciting mission, opening up new markets to exploitation whilst rendering them forever dollar indebted to beloved Utilitarian ethics of freely given help and generosity. More precisely put: a warped Utilitarianism that brings about the minimum morally best action to achieve the greatest illusion of pleasure and happiness to the greatest number of people while making maximum profit bled off to US consortiums.

 

Epilogue; (Cheap crappy music running in the background.)

 

In time the Dog Star constellation became universally famous for its male and female whores and their incredible unlimited sex drives. Whereas the populations of the two planets had had their minds enslaved by dogs, cats and belief meme/genes, they now became economically enslaved having to buy in all manner of contraceptives and expensive drugs at vastly over inflated prices to treat a new strain of the dreaded sexually transmitted belief meme – Scrambled Fibobytes Unidemic Disease –commonly known as – Schmuck Smegma’s disease – that was sweeping across several galaxies.

Mind mangling drugs poured in rocking and rolling an American stylised democracy of sycophantic corruption, quickly followed by police state thought control, racism and topped off with a spot of cultural genocide piggybacking in on the computer-generated green back.

Highly profitable social breakdown and crippling debt ensued; The Dog Star constellation soon became a gold star standard for US economic imperialism.

 

Exert from: ‘The Absurdity of Pigeon Feed’ by Tom Tomlinson.

Conceptual photographer and essayist

  

www.arqueologiadelperu.com/writing-on-the-church-wall/

 

Cley-Next-the-Sea's 14th-century prosperity is reflected in St. Margaret's church and its cathedral-esque proportions. The interior contains examples of medieval religious graffiti.

 

Imagine walking into your local church, pulling a penknife from your pocket, and scratching a little drawing into the wall: a geometric design, a drawing of a boat, even a few meaningful words. Today that would be sacrilege, but a new survey of the walls of medieval churches in England is revealing that many of them are covered in riots of graffiti, scratched into what were once boldly colored walls. Furthermore, the practice appears to have been condoned, and sometimes even encouraged, by Church authorities. The finds are changing the perception of how medieval worshippers viewed religion and interacted with their churches.

 

Cley-Next-the-Sea, on the north coast of Norfolk in eastern England, is a well-heeled tourist village of ancient flint-walled houses and narrow streets. Situated far from England's highways, it draws visitors—but only committed ones—year-round. Its harbor silted up in the seventeenth century, so the village is now separated from the sea by spectacular salt marshes that draw many bird-watchers. But 700 years ago, Cley-Next-the-Sea was at the heart of one of the busiest ports in England, the Glaven Port, where grain, malt, fish, spices, coal, cloth, barley, and oats were exported and imported. That period of prominence explains why the seemingly insignificant village sports a glorious church of cathedralesque proportions.

   

Panels on the octagonal font in the nave of St. Margaret's church have medieval markings thought to bring luck or protect from evil. As the large wooden door shuts behind him, Matthew Champion, project director of the Norfolk and Suffolk Medieval Graffiti Surveys, proceeds to the ornate octagonal font that dominates one end of the nave of St. Margaret's church. Its elaborately carved stone panels depict religious scenes, including a baptism and the ordination of a priest. Tiny fragments of paint in the crevices confirm that the font was brightly decorated in medieval times. “The blue color was made from lapis lazuli pigment,” Champion says, “which was very exotic and expensive then.”

 

Approaching what appears to be a bare patch of stone on one of the font's panels, Champion illuminates it with his flashlight—at first from the front, and then from the side. As the panel is bathed in raking light, patterns come into view: a series of perfect circles, filled with six-petaled flower patterns, scratched into the stone.To twenty-first century eyes, the scratched designs seem incongruous with the magnificent setting, but Champion sees more than ancient graffiti. He moves quickly to the north side of the church and, this time, sweeps the beam of his flashlight down a column, where the raking light reveals repeats of this same precise geometric design. “In the past, fonts were usually situated on the north side of churches, close to the ‘Devil's door' [a door on the north, or ‘heathen,' side of a church], and we find concentrations of these designs on and around the area where the font would have been,” he explains.

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In 2008, Champion was asked to manage a conservation program of medieval wall paintings at Lakenheath church in Suffolk. It was when he closely inspected the paintings that he first observed marks scratched into the paint: previously unnoticed graffiti. “I was a bit nonplussed to begin with,” he says. He began to dig around in the literature and realized that no one had thoroughly documented such medieval graffiti. Perhaps this was because of its rarity, he thought. So he selected another medieval church at random—All Saints' in Litcham, Norfolk—and inspected the walls. “I started to shine my torch and realized there were hundreds and hundreds of markings,” he says. “They are almost invisible unless you shine light on them from the side, and I think they simply hadn't been noticed before.” Champion was hooked, and in 2010 he started a community archaeology project, using teams of volunteers to systematically record the graffiti in the County of Norfolk's medieval churches. With ordinary flashlights and cameras, volunteers have mapped the wall markings in half of Norfolk's 650 or so medieval churches. To date, they have uncovered more than 28,000 inscriptions. In 2014, Champion established an equivalent survey in the neighboring County of Suffolk, with similar results. Now Champion has surveys springing up all over the country, and the findings, along with reports from other countries, suggest that medieval religious graffiti was a widespread phenomenon. “I've seen the same kind of symbols cropping up in churches in Norway, Germany, Spain, and even Malta,” he says. “It seems that graffiti was normal and accepted everywhere the medieval Christian Church got to.” With these data, and the promise of more, Champion has been able to provide some context and interpretation for the symbols the volunteers are finding. “Everyone from the lord of the manor to the lowliest commoner was making these marks,” says Champion.

 

Circular floral designs (highlighted here to show the shape clearly) are the most common motif in medieval church graffiti, and were thought to trap malevolent spirits.

 

The circular floral designs, for example, turn out to be the most common motif, with several thousand recorded in Norfolk and Suffolk alone. The majority are quite small—less than four inches across—and are precise enough that they must have been drawn with compasses or other tools. “Originally, we thought these might have been created by the masons, perhaps to teach their apprentices the basics of geometry, or to create a guide for themselves,” Champion says. Indeed, some of the larger compass-drawn designs are probably exactly that, but the small designs that Champion has found peppered around fonts would have been impossible to draw with the giant compasses that masons used. Rather, the clustering of the symbol on and around fonts is a crucial clue. Traditionally, baptism ceremonies were meant to cast out the devil, and Champion thinks that the marks served as ritual protection, brought luck, and protected the person being baptized from evil. “Christianity was not the warm and fluffy religion that it is today,” he says. “People believed in the power of evil, and would do everything they could to ward off the ill forces that lurked outside the church door.” Designs like this, intricate and mazelike, were thought to trap malevolent spirits, which would follow the lines and be unable to find their way back out.

 

Mark Gardiner, a medieval graffiti expert from Queen's University Belfast in Northern Ireland, agrees that the symbols were probably intended to ward off evil. “We also find an abundance of these kind of marks inside medieval houses, often close to fireplaces. This coincides with the interest in and fear of witches,” he says, “which grew markedly during the second half of the sixteenth century.”

 

So who could have made these marks? Compasses from this time are exceedingly rare in the archaeological record. Champion speculates that they could have been made using the little shears that women tended to carry around with them. “The shears would be about the right size, so we think it could have been predominately women making these protective symbols around the font,” he says. Medieval women carried small shears, which they may have used to incise the circular graffiti designs.

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St. Nicholas' in Blakeney, which was located at the harbor mouth of a bustling medieval port, is the site of much intricately drawn graffiti depicting ships.

 

At St. Nicholas' church in Blakeney, the village that sat at the harbor mouth of the Glaven Port, Champion squeezes past some wooden paneling to view part of a stone column normally hidden from view. Practiced in applying the right amount of raking light to make the designs emerge from the stonework, Champion flourishes his flashlight to reveal ship after ship etched at eye level and below—more than 30 in all, ranging in size from two to 12 inches. Every ship is intricately drawn, with details such as anchors, rigging, and flags. Like the font at St. Margaret's, the column holds minuscule flecks of paint, which confirm that the ships, faint today, would have once stood out boldly on a colored background. They reflect another side of life in a medieval port—the uncertainty that comes with a culture built on the hazards of the sea. “Most of them are single-masted cogs, which were typical trading ships in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries,” Champion says. By analyzing the types of ships depicted, he concluded that they were all drawn over a period of 200 to 300 years, and must have been tolerated by the priests of the day. “They could easily have repainted the column to cover them up,” he says, “but they didn't.”

 

It will never be known exactly who drew the ships, but it is no accident that they are clustered around the side altar of St. Nicholas—patron saint of those in peril upon the sea. “I think they were like little prayers made solid in stone, perhaps thanks for a voyage safely undertaken, a prayer for a voyage yet to come, or maybe a plea for a ship long overdue [to return to port],” he says. According to documentary records, the Glaven Port usually had 50 to 60 ships that would have considered the harbor home, and, on average, one ship was lost at sea every two or three years. “Some of these ships were taking people on pilgrimage, and when one ship was lost, that could be as many as 250 people gone in one go,” says Champion.

Ship graffiti from St. Nicolas' church, used as prayers for safe voyages, depict late 14th- and early 15th-century vessel designs.

Ship etchings are no surprise in a church so closely tied to the sea, but such pieces weren't only found in coastal churches. Champion and his volunteers have found them as far inland as Leicestershire, a good 50 miles from the coast. “This inland ship graffiti is quite possibly associated with pilgrimage, with people traveling to or from continental shrines,” he explains.

 

The church in Steeple Bumpstead, a small village in eastern England, doesn't have etchings of ships on its walls, but rather more stark, literal expressions of anxiety. “God help us, God help us, God help us,” reads an inscription dated 1348. “It is the scariest inscription I've ever seen and sends shivers down my spine,” says Champion, who documented a peak in inscriptions like this in the middle of the fourteenth century, when the Black Death swept across Europe. People were terrified of the mysterious disease, which wiped out entire villages and killed nearly half the European population over four years, and Steeple Bumpstead was particularly hard-hit. Meanwhile, in All Saints' and St. Andrew's in Kingston, near Cambridge, three names—Cateryn, Jane, and Amee—are inscribed, thought to belong to three children from one family who died during the 1515 plague outbreak.

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Crosses (highlighted) found carved in stone around church porches are thought to have been a way of sealing important agreements.

 

Written records clearly state that churches at the time were always locked, except during services. This reinforces the idea that the graffiti was made during Church services, condoned, and intended to be seen. “These were not the furtive scratchings of people making illicit messages, but were part of the ritualistic activity, which seems to have been quite widespread in the late Middle Ages,” Gardiner says. Indeed, some of the graffiti may have even been part of ceremonies. In many churches Champion found crosses scratched around the doors and in porch areas. “In medieval times documents and agreements were often signed in the porch, and it may have been that scratching a cross into the wall was a way of making an oath,” he says.

 

At St. Mary's in Wiveton, church graffiti depicts the crests of a patron family. Another form of Church ritual—the making of donations—was the subject of still more graffiti. In Wiveton, near Blakeney, a church column sports a strange angular symbol that also appears on a crest above the “parish chest,” a huge locked trunk, located on the other side of the church, used to hold the parish's valuables. In Wiveton, the chest had been donated by a local businessman named Raulf Greneway. Greneway's mark was memorialized on the plaque, but then was also repeated as graffiti on the column, perhaps as a symbol of the aspirations of the family or pride at their rise in society. “This man was a working man,” explains Champion, “who had done well for himself, and the mark on his crest is a kind of heraldry or guild mark for the working man, something that was passed down through the family after he had gone. It was their way of preserving the memory of their family for posterity.” Similar merchant's marks have turned up in the surveys across the country, though in most cases it has been impossible to trace the families to whom they belong.

 

And finally, some churches sport inscriptions made by stonemasons and architects for purely functional purposes. At Binham Priory, for example, sweeping lines represent working architectural drawings dating to the 1240s. The architect in this case was experimenting with a window design from France—called bar tracery—that the English were only beginning to employ at the time. In fact, the drawings have helped settle just how the church's large arched windows, long since collapsed, had been conceived. “It was totally revolutionary designwise,” says Champion, “and not the gradual progression in architecture we might have expected.” Taken together, all this graffiti provides Champion, his volunteers, and a visiting writer with a strong sense of connection with the people who scratched into church walls hundreds of years ago.

 

The daisy-wheel patterns from St. Margaret's transmit an aura of fear, protectiveness, and hope for the best possible start in life. Meanwhile, the exquisite little ships at Blakeney exude excitement but also terror about the unknown. And the merchant's marks represent the desire for a person or family to be remembered for posterity. Prior to the Protestant Reformation, which began in 1529 in England, people's relationships with God were officially mediated via priests or the Pope. “For me, the graffiti represents the religion and spirituality of ordinary individual people,” Champion says. “It was their opportunity to communicate with God without needing the interaction of a priest.” Following the Reformation, the amount of church graffiti declines. “After the Reformation, religion became more personal—you could read your own Bible for example—so perhaps people didn't feel the need to make their own individual mark on the church wall any more.”

 

At a time when writing materials were expensive and many people were illiterate, it seems that church walls were an accepted place to express one's deepest hopes and fears.

 

Kate Ravilious is a science journalist based in York, United Kingdom.

 

Sihanoukville (Khmer: ក្រុងព្រះសីហនុ, Krong Preah Sihanouk), also known as 'Kompong Som' (Khmer: កំពង់សោម), is a coastal city in Cambodia and the capital city of Sihanoukville Province, located at the tip of an elevated peninsula in the country's south-west at the Gulf of Thailand. The city is flanked by an almost uninterrupted string of beaches along its entire coastline and coastal marshlands bordering the Ream National Park in the East. A number of thinly inhabited islands - under Sihanoukville's administration - are in the city's proximity, where in recent years moderate development has helped to attract a sizable portion of Asia's individual travelers, young students and back-packers.

 

The city, which was named in honour of former king Norodom Sihanouk, had a population of around 89.800 people and approximately 66.700 in its urban center in 2008. Sihanoukville city encompasses the greater part of four of the five communes (Sangkats) of Sihanoukville provinces' Mittakpheap District. A relatively young city, it has evolved parallel to the construction of the Sihanoukville Autonomous Port, which commenced in June 1955, as the country's gateway to direct and unrestricted international sea trade. The only deep water port in Cambodia includes a mineral oil terminal and a transport logistics facility. As a consequence, the city grew to become a leading national center of trade, commerce, transport and process manufacturing.

 

Sihanoukville's many beaches and nearby islands make it Cambodia's premier seaside resort with steadily rising numbers of national visitors and international tourists since the late 20th century. As a result of its economic diversity, the region's natural beauty and the considerable recreational potential, a constantly increasing number of seasonal and permanent foreign residents make Sihanoukville one of the culturally most varied and dynamic population centers in Cambodia. As of 2014 the tourism sector remains insignificant in comparison with neighboring Thailand. Sihanoukville's future will largely be defined by the authorities' capability of a successfully balanced management in order to protect and conserve natural resources on the one hand and the necessities of island - and urban development, increasing visitor numbers, expanding infrastructure, the industrial sector and population growth on the other.

 

Despite being the country’s premier sea side destination, after decades of war and upheaval the town and its infrastructure remain very much disjointed and architecturally unimpressive. Infrastructure problems persist, in particular related to water and power supply, while international standard health facilities remain limited.

 

ETYMOLOGY

The official name of the city in Khmer is: Krong (city) Preah (holy) Sihanouk (name of the former king), which adds up to: "City of the holy Sihanouk" or "Honorable Sihanouk City". King Norodom Sihanouk (reigned 1941-1955, 1993-2004) was and still is revered as father of the (modern) nation. The name "Sihanouk" is derived from Sanskrit through two Pali words: Siha (lion), and Hanu (jaws).

 

The alternative name, Kompong Saom (also romanized as Kompong Som and Kampong Som), (Khmer: កំពង់សោម) means "Port of the Moon" or "Shiva's Port". Saom is derived from the Sanskrit word "saumya", the original (Rig Vedic) meaning of which was "Soma, the juice or sacrifice of the moon-god", but evolved into Pali "moon", "moonlike" "name of Shiva". The word Kampong or Kompong is of Malayan origin and means village or hamlet. Its meaning underwent extension towards pier or river landing bridge.

 

HISTORY

CLASSICAL PERIOD (BEFORE 1700)

Prior to the ports' and city's foundation works of 1955, the port of Kompong Som must have been only of regional significance - due to the absence of navigable waterways that connect the port with the kingdom's settlement centers. During the many centuries of pre-Angkorian and Angkorian history – from Funan to Chenla and during the Khmer Empire, regional trade was centered at O Keo (Vietnamese: Óc Eo) in the Mekong Delta, now the province of Rạch Giá in Vietnam. The township of Prei Nokor (Saigon) was a commercial center of the Khmer Empire. The Chronicle of Samtec Cauva Vamn Juon - one of the 18th and 19th century Cambodian Royal Chronicles - briefly mentions the region as the country was split into 3 parts during a 9-year civil war from 1476 to 1485: "In 1479, Dhammaraja took on the throne at Catumukh (Phnom Penh) and controlled the provinces of Samraong Tong, Thbong, Kompong Saom, Kampot up to the Bassak, Preah Trapeang, Kramuon Sah, Koh Slaket and Peam"[mouth of the Mekong].

 

EARLY MODERN PERIOD (AROUND 1700-1863)

From the end of the seventeenth century, Cambodia lost control of the Mekong River route as Vietnamese power expanded into the lower Mekong. During the Nguyen-Siamese War (1717–18) a Siamese fleet burned the port of Kompong Som in 1717 but was defeated by the Vietnamese at Banteay Meas/Ha Tien.[20] A Cambodian king of the late eighteenth century, Outey-Reachea III allied with a Chinese pirate, Mac-Thien-Tu, who had established an autonomous polity based in Ha Tien and controlled the maritime network on the eastern part of the Gulf of Thailand. Ha Tien was located at a point where a river linking to the Bassac River flows into the Gulf of Thailand. Landlocked Cambodia tried to keep its access to maritime trade through Ha Tien. In 1757 Ha Tien acquired the ports of Kampot and Kompong Som as a reward for Mac's military support to the King of Cambodia. Until its destruction in 1771 the port developed into an independent duty-free entrepot - linked with several Chinese trading networks.

 

Alexander Hamilton, who traveled on the Gulf of Thailand in 1720, wrote that "Kompong Som and Banteay Meas (later Ha Tien) belonged to Cambodia, as Cochin-China was divided from Cambodia by a river (Bassac river) of three leagues broad." and "King Ang Duong constructed a road from his capital of Oudong to Kampot". Kampot remained the only international seaport of Cambodia. "The traveling time between Udong and Kampot was eight days by oxcart and four days by elephants." French Résident Adhemard Leclère wrote: "...Until 1840s, the Vietnamese governed Kampot and Péam [Mekong Delta], but Kompong Som belonged to Cambodia. The Vietnamese constructed a road from Ha Tien to Svai village - on the border with Kompong-Som - via Kampot."

 

The British Empire followed a distinct policy by the 1850s, seeking to consolidate its influence. Eye witness reports give rare insights, as Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston's agent John Crawfurd reports: "Cambodia was...the Keystone of our policy in these countries, - the King of that ancient Kingdom is ready to throw himself under the protection of any European nation...The Vietnamese were interfering with the trade at Kampot, and this would be the basis of an approach..." Palmerston concluded: "The trade at Kampot - one of the few remaining ports, could never be considerable, in consequence of the main entrance to the country, the Mekong, with all its feeders flowing into the Sea through the territory of Cochin China The country, too, had been devastated by recent Siam - Vietnam wars. Thus, without the aid of Great Britain, Kampot or any other port in Cambodia, can never become a commercial Emporium." Crawfurd later wrote: "The Cambodians... sought to use intervals of peace in the Siam - Vietnam wars to develop intercourse with outside nations. The trade at Kampot which they sought to foster was imperiled by pirates. Here is a point where the wedge might be inserted, that would open the interior of the Indo-Chinese Peninsula to British Commerce, as the great River of the Cambodians traverses its entire length and even affords communication into the heart of Siam".

 

FRENCH RULE (1863-1954)

Under French rule Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia became a single administrative and economic unit. The coastal region Circonscription Résidentielle with Kampot as its capital contained the Arrondissements of Kampot, Kompong Som, Trang and Kong-Pisey. The establishment of another international trading center near the existing city of Saigon was not considered necessary. Focus remained the Mekong and the idea to establish an alternative route to Chinese and Thai internal markets along an uninterrupted navigable waterway from the Red River to the Mekong Delta.

 

INSURRECTION

An insurrection that took place from 1885 to 1887 further discouraged French ambition. It started in Kampot and quickly spread to Veal Rinh, Kampong Seila, and Kompong Som, where the insurgents were led by a Chinese pirate named Quan-Khiem. He managed to control the northern part of Preah Sihanouk for some time until he - an old man - was arrested by Preah Sihanouk's governor.

 

The most notable infrastructural improvements of this period were the construction of Route Coloniale No.17, later renamed National Road No.3 and the national railway system, although work on the "Southern Line" - from Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville - only began in 1960.

 

AFTER INDIPENDENCE (SINCE 1954)

The city's and province's alternative name Kampong som (Kampong Som) was adopted from the local indigenous community. After the dissolution of French Indochina in 1954, it became apparent that the steadily tightening control of the Mekong Delta by Vietnam required a solution to gain unrestricted access to the seas. Plans were made to construct an entirely new deep-water port. Kompong Saom (Kampong Som) was selected for water depth and ease of access. In August 1955, a French/Cambodian construction team cut a base camp into the unoccupied jungle in the area that is now known as Hawaii Beach. Funds for construction of the port came from France and the road was financed by the USA.

 

During the Vietnam War the port became an intensive military facility on both sides, in the service of National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam and after 1970, under the government of Lon Nol, in the service of the United States.

 

The port was the last place to be evacuated by the US Army, only days before Khmer Rouge guerrillas took control of the government in April 1975. The events surrounding the taking of the US container ship SS Mayaguez and its crew on 12 May by the Khmer Rouge and the subsequent rescue operation by US Marines played out on the waters of Koh Tang off the coast of Sihanoukville. During the two days of action, the US commenced air strikes on targets on the mainland of Sihanoukville including the port, the Ream Naval Base, an airfield, the railroad yard and the petroleum refinery in addition to strikes and naval gun fire on several islands.

 

After the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime in 1979 and the subsequent opening of the economy, the port of Sihanoukville resumed its importance in the development and recovery of the country. With the further opening of new markets in 1999, the city regained its role in the economic growth of Cambodia.

 

In 1993, the Ream National Park was established per royal decree of former King Sihanouk.

 

The Sihanoukville Municipality was elevated to a regular province on 22 December 2008 after King Norodom Sihamoni signed a Royal Decree converting the municipalities of Kep, Pailin and Sihanoukville into provinces.

 

In 2006 the Koh Puos (Cambodia) Investment Group submitted an application, planning to invest $276 million in converting the 116-hectare Koh Puos - Snake island into a luxury residential - and resort complex. After the completion of certain elements of the infrastructure, the investor announced alterations of the original blueprints, as "Reapplying for permission will happen in 2014..." according to the Council of the Development of Cambodia.

 

On 26 May 2011 Preah Sihanouk area joined the Paris-based club Les Plus Belles Baies Du Monde (The most Beautiful Bays in the World). The organisation officially accepts the Bay of Cambodia as one of its members at the 7th General Assembly.

 

BEACHES

Sihanoukville's beaches are one of the city's most valuable ecological and economic resource with varying degrees of commercial exploitation. The beaches listed in this section do not include any of the island's beaches.

 

- Ochheuteal Beach, ឆ្នេរអូរឈើទាល: is a 3.3 km long strip of white sand beach and although the name translates to "Creek/Estuary of the Tiel tree" it is lined with Casuarina and Tamarisk trees. Grass umbrellas, rental chairs in front of around 30 standardized beach huts serve meals, drinks and entertainment. Well established middle class hotels and high-profile residences flank the beach along its Northern part. The sustainability of Ochheuteal beach was a primary consideration of various stakeholders, which brought about the development of a tourism development and management plan in 2005. The Southern half remains - apart from some hotels at its far end - essentially undeveloped.

 

- Serendipity Beach: Technically the western end (roughly one fifth or 600 m) of Ochheuteal beach, is very popular with Western tourists and has a few small guesthouses right on the beach. It has been named by an American fellow, who came here in the Nineties. Struck by its (then) unspoiled beauty and pristine condition, he came up with the term, which quickly entered common vocabulary.

 

- Otres Beach, ្នេរអូរត្រេស: is around 4.6 km long and beyond the small "Queen hill" headland at the southern end of Ochheuteal Beach. Its long white sand strip, also completely lined with Casuarina and Tamarisk trees, is far less developed and commercialized than Ochheuteal Beach and has developed into a preferred lodging place for Western visitors. From 2004 to 2011 this beach was occupied by numerous bungalows and dormitories, run by Western people. Due to the element of illegality of on-beach accommodation, among other reasons, police cleaned up the area in May 2011, removing the greater part of the beach-side bungalows. Permanent structures beyond the beach road supplement the remaining places since 2012. It is a very popular, well established holiday retreat – where prices have risen considerably over the course of the last years.

 

- Sokha Beach: Sokha Beach is around 1.2 km long and located west of Serendipity Beach. The beach is privately owned by - and its southern half occupied by the Sokha Beach Hotel, the first five-star luxury beach hotel in Cambodia. While the beach is well kept and many facilities are provided, visitors have to pay for their use and beach vendors are not allowed.

 

- Independence Beach: Independence Beach is around 1.3 km long and located north-west of Sokha Beach. The beach is named after the Independence Hotel, another example of New Khmer Architecture, towering on top of a rock at the beaches northern end.

 

- Victory Beach: Victory beach is around 300 m long and situated at the furthest north of the peninsula of Sihanoukville. It was heavily used by backpackers and is still popular with budget travelers. The deep water port is located at the northern end of the beach. A consortium of Russian business people undertook large scale development here. The beach is regularly maintained.

 

- Lamherkay/Hawaii Beach: is the southern succession of Victory Beach, situated north of Independence Beach. It is a strip of similar length as Victory Beach - around 300 m. Here is the very place where the French/Cambodian construction team's groundwork began for the construction of the Sihanoukville Autonomous Port in 1955.

 

- Treasure Island Beach south of Lamherkay/Hawaii Beach is less than 50 m long and its entire length is fringed with concrete steps and wooden pavilions of a big Cambodian seafood restaurant.

 

- Hun Sen (Prek Treng) Beach, ឆ្នេរព្រែកត្រែង: is the northernmost beach of the city with a length of around 1.5 km, situated behind the local port and essentially empty without beach huts and bars, it sees only weekend - and holiday visitors. The water is very shallow, but the area is lacking favorable infrastructure and is not regularly cleaned.

 

WIKIPEDIA

The Taj Mahal (/ˌtɑːdʒ məˈhɑːl/, more often /ˈtɑːʒ/; from Persian and Arabic, "crown of palaces", pronounced [ˈt̪aːdʒ mɛˈɦɛl]) is a white marble mausoleum located on the southern bank of Yamuna River in the Indian city of Agra. It was commissioned in 1632 by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan (reigned 1628–1658) to house the tomb of his favorite wife of three, Mumtaz Mahal.

 

Construction of the mausoleum was essentially completed in 1643 but work continued on other phases of the project for an additional ten years. The Taj Mahal complex is believed to have been completed in its entirety in 1653 at a cost estimated at the time to be around 32 million Indian rupees, which in 2015 would be valued at around 52.8 billion Indian rupees ($827 million US). The construction project employed around 20,000 artisans under the guidance of a board of architects led by Ustad Ahmad Lahauri. The domed marble tomb is part of an integrated complex consisting of gardens and two red-sandstone buildings surrounded by a crenellated wall on three sides.

 

The Taj Mahal is regarded by many as the best example of Mughal architecture and is widely recognized as "the jewel of Muslim art in India". It is one of the world’s most celebrated structures and a symbol of India’s rich history. Designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983, the Taj Mahal attracts some 3 million visitors a year.

 

INSPIRATION

In 1631, Shah Jahan, emperor during the Mughal empire's period of greatest prosperity, was grief-stricken when his favorite of three wives and beloved companion, Mumtaz Mahal, a Persian princess, died during the birth of their 14th child, Gauhara Begum. Construction of the Taj Mahal began in 1632. The court chronicles of Shah Jahan's grief illustrate the love story traditionally held as an inspiration for Taj Mahal. The principal mausoleum was completed in 1643 and the surrounding buildings and garden were finished about five years later.

 

ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN

The Taj Mahal incorporates and expands on design traditions of Persian and earlier Mughal architecture. Specific inspiration came from successful Timurid and Mughal buildings including; the Gur-e Amir (the tomb of Timur, progenitor of the Mughal dynasty, in Samarkand), Humayun's Tomb, Itmad-Ud-Daulah's Tomb (sometimes called the Baby Taj), and Shah Jahan's own Jama Masjid in Delhi. While earlier Mughal buildings were primarily constructed of red sandstone, Shah Jahan promoted the use of white marble inlaid with semi-precious stones. Buildings under his patronage reached new levels of refinement.

 

TOMB

The tomb is the central focus of the entire complex of the Taj Mahal. It is a large, white marble structure standing on a square plinth and consists of a symmetrical building with an iwan (an arch-shaped doorway) topped by a large dome and finial. Like most Mughal tombs, the basic elements are Persian in origin.

 

The base structure is a large multi-chambered cube with chamfered corners forming an unequal eight-sided structure that is approximately 55 metres on each of the four long sides. Each side of the iwan is framed with a huge pishtaq or vaulted archway with two similarly shaped arched balconies stacked on either side. This motif of stacked pishtaqs is replicated on the chamfered corner areas, making the design completely symmetrical on all sides of the building. Four minarets frame the tomb, one at each corner of the plinth facing the chamfered corners. The main chamber houses the false sarcophagi of Mumtaz Mahal and Shah Jahan; the actual graves are at a lower level.

 

The most spectacular feature is the marble dome that surmounts the tomb. The dome is nearly 35 metres high which is close in measurement to the length of the base, and accentuated by the cylindrical "drum" it sits on which is approximately 7 metres high. Because of its shape, the dome is often called an onion dome or amrud (guava dome). The top is decorated with a lotus design which also serves to accentuate its height. The shape of the dome is emphasized by four smaller domed chattris (kiosks) placed at its corners, which replicate the onion shape of the main dome. Their columned bases open through the roof of the tomb and provide light to the interior. Tall decorative spires (guldastas) extend from edges of base walls, and provide visual emphasis to the height of the dome. The lotus motif is repeated on both the chattris and guldastas. The dome and chattris are topped by a gilded finial which mixes traditional Persian and Hindustani decorative elements.

 

The main finial was originally made of gold but was replaced by a copy made of gilded bronze in the early 19th century. This feature provides a clear example of integration of traditional Persian and Hindu decorative elements. The finial is topped by a moon, a typical Islamic motif whose horns point heavenward.

 

The minarets, which are each more than 40 metres tall, display the designer's penchant for symmetry. They were designed as working minarets - a traditional element of mosques, used by the muezzin to call the Islamic faithful to prayer. Each minaret is effectively divided into three equal parts by two working balconies that ring the tower. At the top of the tower is a final balcony surmounted by a chattri that mirrors the design of those on the tomb. The chattris all share the same decorative elements of a lotus design topped by a gilded finial. The minarets were constructed slightly outside of the plinth so that in the event of collapse, a typical occurrence with many tall constructions of the period, the material from the towers would tend to fall away from the tomb.

 

EXTERIOR DECORATIONS

The exterior decorations of the Taj Mahal are among the finest in Mughal architecture. As the surface area changes, the decorations are refined proportionally. The decorative elements were created by applying paint, stucco, stone inlays or carvings. In line with the Islamic prohibition against the use of anthropomorphic forms, the decorative elements can be grouped into either calligraphy, abstract forms or vegetative motifs. Throughout the complex are passages from the Qur'an that comprise some of the decorative elements. Recent scholarship suggests that the passages were chosen by Amanat Khan.

 

The calligraphy on the Great Gate reads "O Soul, thou art at rest. Return to the Lord at peace with Him, and He at peace with you." The calligraphy was created in 1609 by a calligrapher named Abdul Haq. Shah Jahan conferred the title of "Amanat Khan" upon him as a reward for his "dazzling virtuosity". Near the lines from the Qur'an at the base of the interior dome is the inscription, "Written by the insignificant being, Amanat Khan Shirazi." Much of the calligraphy is composed of florid thuluth script made of jasper or black marble inlaid in white marble panels. Higher panels are written in slightly larger script to reduce the skewing effect when viewed from below. The calligraphy found on the marble cenotaphs in the tomb is particularly detailed and delicate.

 

Abstract forms are used throughout, especially in the plinth, minarets, gateway, mosque, jawab and, to a lesser extent, on the surfaces of the tomb. The domes and vaults of the sandstone buildings are worked with tracery of incised painting to create elaborate geometric forms. Herringbone inlays define the space between many of the adjoining elements. White inlays are used in sandstone buildings, and dark or black inlays on the white marbles. Mortared areas of the marble buildings have been stained or painted in a contrasting color which creates a complex array of geometric patterns. Floors and walkways use contrasting tiles or blocks in tessellation patterns.

 

On the lower walls of the tomb are white marble dados sculpted with realistic bas relief depictions of flowers and vines. The marble has been polished to emphasise the exquisite detailing of the carvings. The dado frames and archway spandrels have been decorated with pietra dura inlays of highly stylised, almost geometric vines, flowers and fruits. The inlay stones are of yellow marble, jasper and jade, polished and levelled to the surface of the walls.

 

INTERIOR DECORATION

The interior chamber of the Taj Mahal reaches far beyond traditional decorative elements. The inlay work is not pietra dura, but a lapidary of precious and semiprecious gemstones. The inner chamber is an octagon with the design allowing for entry from each face, although only the door facing the garden to the south is used. The interior walls are about 25 metres high and are topped by a "false" interior dome decorated with a sun motif. Eight pishtaq arches define the space at ground level and, as with the exterior, each lower pishtaq is crowned by a second pishtaq about midway up the wall. The four central upper arches form balconies or viewing areas, and each balcony's exterior window has an intricate screen or jali cut from marble. In addition to the light from the balcony screens, light enters through roof openings covered by chattris at the corners. The octagonal marble screen or jali bordering the cenotaphs is made from eight marble panels carved through with intricate pierce work. The remaining surfaces are inlaid in delicate detail with semi-precious stones forming twining vines, fruits and flowers. Each chamber wall is highly decorated with dado bas-relief, intricate lapidary inlay and refined calligraphy panels which reflect, in miniature detail, the design elements seen throughout the exterior of the complex.

 

Muslim tradition forbids elaborate decoration of graves. Hence, the bodies of Mumtaz and Shah Jahan were put in a relatively plain crypt beneath the inner chamber with their faces turned right, towards Mecca. Mumtaz Mahal's cenotaph is placed at the precise centre of the inner chamber on a rectangular marble base of 1.5 by 2.5 metres. Both the base and casket are elaborately inlaid with precious and semiprecious gems. Calligraphic inscriptions on the casket identify and praise Mumtaz. On the lid of the casket is a raised rectangular lozenge meant to suggest a writing tablet. Shah Jahan's cenotaph is beside Mumtaz's to the western side, and is the only visible asymmetric element in the entire complex. His cenotaph is bigger than his wife's, but reflects the same elements: a larger casket on a slightly taller base precisely decorated with lapidary and calligraphy that identifies him. On the lid of the casket is a traditional sculpture of a small pen box.

 

The pen box and writing tablet are traditional Mughal funerary icons decorating the caskets of men and women respectively. The Ninety Nine Names of God are calligraphic inscriptions on the sides of the actual tomb of Mumtaz Mahal. Other inscriptions inside the crypt include, "O Noble, O Magnificent, O Majestic, O Unique, O Eternal, O Glorious... ". The tomb of Shah Jahan bears a calligraphic inscription that reads; "He travelled from this world to the banquet-hall of Eternity on the night of the twenty-sixth of the month of Rajab, in the year 1076 Hijri."

 

GARDEN

The complex is set around a large 300-metre square charbagh or Mughal garden. The garden uses raised pathways that divide each of the four quarters of the garden into 16 sunken parterres or flowerbeds. Halfway between the tomb and gateway in the center of the garden is a raised marble water tank with a reflecting pool positioned on a north-south axis to reflect the image of the mausoleum. The raised marble water tank is called al Hawd al-Kawthar in reference to the "Tank of Abundance" promised to Muhammad.

 

Elsewhere, the garden is laid out with avenues of trees and fountains. The charbagh garden, a design inspired by Persian gardens, was introduced to India by Babur, the first Mughal emperor. It symbolises the four flowing rivers of Jannah (Paradise) and reflects the Paradise garden derived from the Persian paridaeza, meaning 'walled garden'. In mystic Islamic texts of the Mughal period, Paradise is described as an ideal garden of abundance with four rivers flowing from a central spring or mountain, separating the garden into north, west, south and east.

 

Most Mughal charbaghs are rectangular with a tomb or pavilion in the center. The Taj Mahal garden is unusual in that the main element, the tomb, is located at the end of the garden. With the discovery of Mahtab Bagh or "Moonlight Garden" on the other side of the Yamuna, the interpretation of the Archaeological Survey of India is that the Yamuna river itself was incorporated into the garden's design and was meant to be seen as one of the rivers of Paradise. Similarities in layout and architectural features with the Shalimar Gardens suggests both gardens may have been designed by the same architect, Ali Mardan. Early accounts of the garden describe its profusion of vegetation, including abundant roses, daffodils, and fruit trees. As the Mughal Empire declined, the Taj Mahal and its gardens also declined. By the end of the 19th century, the British Empire controlled more than three-fifths of India, and assumed management of the Taj Mahal. They changed the landscaping to their liking which more closely resembled the formal lawns of London.

 

OUTLYING BUILDINGS

The Taj Mahal complex is bordered on three sides by crenellated red sandstone walls; the side facing the river is open. Outside the walls are several additional mausoleums, including those of Shah Jahan's other wives, and a larger tomb for Mumtaz's favourite servant.

 

The main gateway (darwaza) is a monumental structure built primarily of marble, and reminiscent of the Mughal architecture of earlier emperors. Its archways mirror the shape of the tomb's archways, and its pishtaq arches incorporate the calligraphy that decorates the tomb. The vaulted ceilings and walls have elaborate geometric designs like those found in the other sandstone buildings in the complex.

 

At the far end of the complex are two grand red sandstone buildings that mirror each other, and face the sides of the tomb. The backs of the buildings parallel the western and eastern walls. The western building is a mosque and the other is the jawab (answer), thought to have been constructed for architectural balance although it may have been used as a guesthouse. Distinctions between the two buildings include the jawab's lack of a mihrab (a niche in a mosque's wall facing Mecca), and its floors of geometric design whereas the floor of the mosque is laid with outlines of 569 prayer rugs in black marble. The mosque's basic design of a long hall surmounted by three domes is similar to others built by Shah Jahan, particularly the Masjid-i Jahān-Numā, or Jama Masjid, Delhi. The Mughal mosques of this period divide the sanctuary hall into three areas comprising a main sanctuary and slightly smaller sanctuaries on either side. At the Taj Mahal, each sanctuary opens onto an expansive vaulting dome. The outlying buildings were completed in 1643.

 

CONSTRUCTION

The Taj Mahal is built on a parcel of land to the south of the walled city of Agra. Shah Jahan presented Maharajah Jai Singh with a large palace in the center of Agra in exchange for the land. An area of roughly three acres was excavated, filled with dirt to reduce seepage, and leveled at 50 metres above riverbank. In the tomb area, wells were dug and filled with stone and rubble to form the footings of the tomb. Instead of lashed bamboo, workmen constructed a colossal brick scaffold that mirrored the tomb. The scaffold was so enormous that foremen estimated it would take years to dismantle.

 

The Taj Mahal was constructed using materials from all over India and Asia. It is believed over 1,000 elephants were used to transport building materials. The translucent white marble was brought from Makrana, Rajasthan, the jasper from Punjab, jade and crystal from China. The turquoise was from Tibet and the Lapis lazuli from Afghanistan, while the sapphire came from Sri Lanka and the carnelian from Arabia. In all, twenty eight types of precious and semi-precious stones were inlaid into the white marble.

 

According to the legend, Shah Jahan decreed that anyone could keep the bricks taken from the scaffold, and thus it was dismantled by peasants overnight. A fifteen kilometer tamped-earth ramp was built to transport marble and materials to the construction site and teams of twenty or thirty oxen pulled the blocks on specially constructed wagons. An elaborate post-and-beam pulley system was used to raise the blocks into desired position. Water was drawn from the river by a series of purs, an animal-powered rope and bucket mechanism, into a large storage tank and raised to a large distribution tank. It was passed into three subsidiary tanks, from which it was piped to the complex.

 

The plinth and tomb took roughly 12 years to complete. The remaining parts of the complex took an additional 10 years and were completed in order of minarets, mosque and jawab, and gateway. Since the complex was built in stages, discrepancies exist in completion dates due to differing opinions on "completion". Construction of the mausoleum itself was essentially completed by 1643 while work continued on the outlying buildings. Estimates of the cost of construction vary due to difficulties in estimating costs across time. The total cost has been estimated to be about 32 million Indian rupees, which is around 52.8 billion Indian rupees ($827 million US) based on 2015 values.

 

LATER DAYS

Abdul Hamid Lahauri in his book Badshahnama refers to Taj Mahal as rauza-i munawwara, meaning the illumined or illustrious tomb. Soon after the Taj Mahal's completion, Shah Jahan was deposed by his son Aurangzeb and put under house arrest at nearby Agra Fort. Upon Shah Jahan's death, Aurangzeb buried him in the mausoleum next to his wife. In the 18th century, the Jat rulers of Bharatpur invaded Agra and attacked the Taj Mahal, the two chandeliers, one of agate and another of silver, which were hung over the main cenotaph, were taken away by them, along with the gold and silver screen. Kanbo, a Mughal historian, said the gold shield which covered the 15-foot high finial at the top of the main dome was also removed during the Jat despoliation.

 

By the late 19th century, parts of the buildings had fallen into disrepair. During the time of the Indian rebellion of 1857, the Taj Mahal was defaced by British soldiers and government officials, who chiselled out precious stones and lapis lazuli from its walls. At the end of the 19th century, British viceroy Lord Curzon ordered a sweeping restoration project, which was completed in 1908. He also commissioned the large lamp in the interior chamber, modelled after one in a Cairo mosque. During this time the garden was remodelled with British-style lawns that are still in place today.

 

THREATS

In 1942, the government erected a scaffolding to disguise the building in anticipation of air attacks by the Japanese Air Force. During the India-Pakistan wars of 1965 and 1971, scaffoldings were again erected to mislead bomber pilots.

 

More recent threats have come from environmental pollution on the banks of Yamuna River including acid rain due to the Mathura Oil Refinery, which was opposed by Supreme Court of India directives. The pollution has been turning the Taj Mahal yellow. To help control the pollution, the Indian government has set up the Taj Trapezium Zone (TTZ), a 10,400-square-kilometre area around the monument where strict emissions standards are in place.

 

Concerns for the tomb's structural integrity have recently been raised because of a decline in the groundwater level in the Yamuna river basin which is falling at a rate of around 5 feet a year. In 2010, cracks appeared in parts of the tomb, and the minarets which surround the monument were showing signs of tilting, as the wooden foundation of the tomb may be rotting due to lack of water. In 2011 it was reported that some predictions indicated that the tomb could collapse within 5 years.

 

TOURISM

The Taj Mahal attracts a large number of tourists. UNESCO documented more than 2 million visitors in 2001, which increased to about 3 million in 2015. A two tier pricing system is in place, with a significantly lower entrance fee for Indian citizens and a more expensive one for foreigners. Most tourists visit in the cooler months of October, November and February. Polluting traffic is not allowed near the complex and tourists must either walk from parking lots or catch an electric bus. The Khawasspuras (northern courtyards) are currently being restored for use as a new visitor center.

 

The small town to the south of the Taj, known as Taj Ganji or Mumtazabad, was originally constructed with caravanserais, bazaars and markets to serve the needs of visitors and workmen. Lists of recommended travel destinations often feature the Taj Mahal, which also appears in several listings of seven wonders of the modern world, including the recently announced New Seven Wonders of the World, a recent poll with 100 million votes.

 

The grounds are open from 06:00 to 19:00 weekdays, except for Friday when the complex is open for prayers at the mosque between 12:00 and 14:00. The complex is open for night viewing on the day of the full moon and two days before and after, excluding Fridays and the month of Ramadan. For security reasons only five items - water in transparent bottles, small video cameras, still cameras, mobile phones and small ladies' purses - are allowed inside the Taj Mahal.

 

MYTHS

Ever since its construction, the building has been the source of an admiration transcending culture and geography, and so personal and emotional responses have consistently eclipsed scholastic appraisals of the monument. A longstanding myth holds that Shah Jahan planned a mausoleum to be built in black marble as a Black Taj Mahal across the Yamuna river. The idea originates from fanciful writings of Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, a European traveller who visited Agra in 1665. It was suggested that Shah Jahan was overthrown by his son Aurangzeb before it could be built. Ruins of blackened marble across the river in Moonlight Garden, Mahtab Bagh, seemed to support this legend. However, excavations carried out in the 1990s found that they were discolored white stones that had turned black. A more credible theory for the origins of the black mausoleum was demonstrated in 2006 by archaeologists who reconstructed part of the pool in the Moonlight Garden. A dark reflection of the white mausoleum could clearly be seen, befitting Shah Jahan's obsession with symmetry and the positioning of the pool itself.

 

No evidence exists for claims that describe, often in horrific detail, the deaths, dismemberments and mutilations which Shah Jahan supposedly inflicted on various architects and craftsmen associated with the tomb. Some stories claim that those involved in construction signed contracts committing themselves to have no part in any similar design. Similar claims are made for many famous buildings. No evidence exists for claims that Lord William Bentinck, governor-general of India in the 1830s, supposedly planned to demolish the Taj Mahal and auction off the marble. Bentinck's biographer John Rosselli says that the story arose from Bentinck's fund-raising sale of discarded marble from Agra Fort.

 

Another myth suggests that beating the silhouette of the finial will cause water to come forth. To this day, officials find broken bangles surrounding the silhouette.

 

In 2000, India's Supreme Court dismissed P. N. Oak's petition to declare that a Hindu king built the Taj Mahal. In 2005 a similar petition was dismissed by the Allahabad High Court. This case was brought by Amar Nath Mishra, a social worker and preacher who says that the Taj Mahal was built by the Hindu King Parmar Dev in 1196.

 

WIKIPEDIA

Varanasi, also known as Benares, or Kashi is an Indian city on the banks of the Ganga in Uttar Pradesh, 320 kilometres south-east of the state capital, Lucknow. It is the holiest of the seven sacred cities (Sapta Puri) in Hinduism, and Jainism, and played an important role in the development of Buddhism. Some Hindus believe that death at Varanasi brings salvation. It is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. Varanasi is also known as the favourite city of the Hindu deity Lord Shiva as it has been mentioned in the Rigveda that this city in older times was known as Kashi or "Shiv ki Nagri".

 

The Kashi Naresh (Maharaja of Kashi) is the chief cultural patron of Varanasi, and an essential part of all religious celebrations. The culture of Varanasi is closely associated with the Ganges. The city has been a cultural centre of North India for several thousand years, and has a history that is older than most of the major world religions. The Benares Gharana form of Hindustani classical music was developed in Varanasi, and many prominent Indian philosophers, poets, writers, and musicians live or have lived in Varanasi. Gautama Buddha gave his first sermon at Sarnath, located near Varanasi.

 

Varanasi is the spiritual capital of India. It is often referred to as "the holy city of India", "the religious capital of India", "the city of Shiva", and "the city of learning". Scholarly books have been written in the city, including the Ramcharitmanas of Tulsidas. Today, there is a temple of his namesake in the city, the Tulsi Manas Mandir. The current temples and religious institutions in the city are dated to the 18th century. One of the largest residential universities of Asia, the Banaras Hindu University (BHU), is located here.

 

ETYMOLOGY

The name Varanasi possibly originates from the names of the two rivers: Varuna, still flowing in Varanasi, and Asi, a small stream near Assi Ghat. The old city does lie on the north shores of Ganges River bounded by its two tributaries Varuna and Asi. Another speculation is that the city derives its name from the river Varuna, which was called Varanasi in olden times.[11] This is generally disregarded by historians. Through the ages, Varanasi has been known by many names including Kāśī or Kashi (used by pilgrims dating from Buddha's days), Kāśikā (the shining one), Avimukta ("never forsaken" by Shiva), Ānandavana (the forest of bliss), and Rudravāsa (the place where Rudra/Śiva resides).

 

In the Rigveda, the city is referred to as Kāśī or Kashi, the luminous city as an eminent seat of learning. The name Kāśī is also mentioned in the Skanda Purana. In one verse, Shiva says, "The three worlds form one city of mine, and Kāśī is my royal palace therein." The name Kashi may be translated as "City of Light".

 

HISTORY

According to legend, Varanasi was founded by the God Shiva. The Pandavas, the heroes of the Hindu epic Mahabharata are also stated to have visited the city in search of Shiva to atone for their sins of fratricide and Brāhmanahatya that they had committed during the climactic Kurukshetra war. It is regarded as one of seven holy cities which can provide Moksha:

 

The earliest known archaeological evidence suggests that settlement around Varanasi in the Ganga valley (the seat of Vedic religion and philosophy) began in the 11th or 12th century BC, placing it among the world's oldest continually inhabited cities. These archaeological remains suggest that the Varanasi area was populated by Vedic people. However, the Atharvaveda (the oldest known text referencing the city), which dates to approximately the same period, suggests that the area was populated by indigenous tribes. It is possible that archaeological evidence of these previous inhabitants has yet to be discovered. Recent excavations at Aktha and Ramnagar, two sites very near to Varanasi, show them to be from 1800 BC, suggesting Varanasi started to be inhabited by that time too. Varanasi was also home to Parshva, the 23rd Jain Tirthankara and the earliest Tirthankara accepted as a historical figure in the 8th century BC.

 

Varanasi grew as an important industrial centre, famous for its muslin and silk fabrics, perfumes, ivory works, and sculpture. During the time of Gautama Buddha (born circa 567 BC), Varanasi was the capital of the Kingdom of Kashi. Buddha is believed to have founded Buddhism here around 528 BC when he gave his first sermon, "Turning the Wheel of Law", at nearby Sarnath. The celebrated Chinese traveller Xuanzang, who visited the city around 635 AD, attested that the city was a centre of religious and artistic activities, and that it extended for about 5 kilometres along the western bank of the Ganges. When Xuanzang, also known as Hiuen Tsiang, visited Varanasi in the 7th century, he named it "Polonisse" and wrote that the city had some 30 temples with about 30 monks. The city's religious importance continued to grow in the 8th century, when Adi Shankara established the worship of Shiva as an official sect of Varanasi.

 

In ancient times, Varanasi was connected by a road starting from Taxila and ending at Pataliputra during the Mauryan Empire. In 1194, the city succumbed to Turkish Muslim rule under Qutb-ud-din Aibak, who ordered the destruction of some one thousand temples in the city. The city went into decline over some three centuries of Muslim occupation, although new temples were erected in the 13th century after the Afghan invasion. Feroz Shah ordered further destruction of Hindu temples in the Varanasi area in 1376. The Afghan ruler Sikander Lodi continued the suppression of Hinduism in the city and destroyed most of the remaining older temples in 1496. Despite the Muslim rule, Varanasi remained the centre of activity for intellectuals and theologians during the Middle Ages, which further contributed to its reputation as a cultural centre of religion and education. Several major figures of the Bhakti movement were born in Varanasi, including Kabir who was born here in 1389 and hailed as "the most outstanding of the saint-poets of Bhakti cult (devotion) and mysticism of 15th-Century India"; and Ravidas, a 15th-century socio-religious reformer, mystic, poet, traveller, and spiritual figure, who was born and lived in the city and employed in the tannery industry. Similarly, numerous eminent scholars and preachers visited the city from across India and south Asia. Guru Nanak Dev visited Varanasi for Shivratri in 1507, a trip that played a large role in the founding of Sikhism.

 

In the 16th century, Varanasi experienced a cultural revival under the Muslim Mughal emperor Akbar who invested in the city, and built two large temples dedicated to Shiva and Vishnu. The Raja of Poona established the Annapurnamandir and the 200 metres Akbari Bridge was also completed during this period. The earliest tourists began arriving in the city during the 16th century. In 1665, the French traveller Jean Baptiste Tavernier described the architectural beauty of the Vindu Madhava temple on the side of the Ganges. The road infrastructure was also improved during this period and extended from Kolkata to Peshawar by Emperor Sher Shah Suri; later during the British Raj it came to be known as the famous Grand Trunk Road. In 1656, emperor Aurangzeb ordered the destruction of many temples and the building of mosques, causing the city to experience a temporary setback. However, after Aurangazeb's death, most of India was ruled by a confederacy of pro-Hindu kings. Much of modern Varanasi was built during this time by the Rajput and Maratha kings, especially during the 18th century, and most of the important buildings in the city today date to this period. The kings continued to be important through much of the British rule (1775–1947 AD), including the Maharaja of Benares, or Kashi Naresh. The kingdom of Benares was given official status by the Mughals in 1737, and continued as a dynasty-governed area until Indian independence in 1947, during the reign of Dr. Vibhuti Narayan Singh. In the 18th century, Muhammad Shah ordered the construction of an observatory on the Ganges, attached to Man Mandir Ghat, designed to discover imperfections in the calendar in order to revise existing astronomical tables. Tourism in the city began to flourish in the 18th century. In 1791, under the rule of the British Governor-General Warren Hastings, Jonathan Duncan founded a Sanskrit College in Varanasi. In 1867, the establishment of the Varanasi Municipal Board led to significant improvements in the city.

 

In 1897, Mark Twain, the renowned Indophile, said of Varanasi, "Benares is older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend, and looks twice as old as all of them put together." In 1910, the British made Varanasi a new Indian state, with Ramanagar as its headquarters but with no jurisdiction over the city of Varanasi itself. Kashi Naresh still resides in the Ramnagar Fort which is situated to the east of Varanasi, across the Ganges. Ramnagar Fort and its museum are the repository of the history of the kings of Varanasi. Since the 18th century, the fort has been the home of Kashi Naresh, deeply revered by the local people. He is the religious head and some devout inhabitants consider him to be the incarnation of Shiva. He is also the chief cultural patron and an essential part of all religious celebrations.

 

A massacre by British troops, of the Indian troops stationed here and of the population of the city, took place during the early stages of the Indian Rebellion of 1857. Annie Besant worked in Varanasi to promote theosophy and founded the Central Hindu College which later became a foundation for the creation of Banaras Hindu University as a secular university in 1916. Her purpose in founding the Central Hindu College in Varanasi was that she "wanted to bring men of all religions together under the ideal of brotherhood in order to promote Indian cultural values and to remove ill-will among different sections of the Indian population."

 

Varanasi was ceded to the Union of India on 15 October 1948. After the death of Dr. Vibhuti Narayan Singh in 2000, his son Anant Narayan Singh became the figurehead king, responsible for upholding the traditional duties of a Kashi Naresh.

 

MAIN SIGHTS

Varanasi's "Old City", the quarter near the banks of the Ganga river, has crowded narrow winding lanes flanked by road-side shops and scores of Hindu temples. As atmospheric as it is confusing, Varanasi's labyrinthine Old City has a rich culture, attracting many travellers and tourists. The main residential areas of Varanasi (especially for the middle and upper classes) are situated in regions far from the ghats; they are more spacious and less polluted.

 

Museums in and around Varanasi include Jantar Mantar, Sarnath Museum, Bharat Kala Bhawan and Ramnagar Fort.

 

JANTAR MANTAR

The Jantar Mantar observatory (1737) is located above the ghats on the Ganges, much above the high water level in the Ganges next to the Manmandir Ghat, near to Dasaswamedh Ghat and adjoining the palace of Raja Jai Singh of Jaipur. Compared to the observatories at Jaipur and Delhi, it is less well equipped but has a unique equatorial sundial which is functional and allows measurements to be monitored and recorded by one person.

 

RAMNAGAR FORT

The Ramnagar Fort located near the Ganges River on its eastern bank, opposite to the Tulsi Ghat, was built in the 18th century by Kashi Naresh Raja Balwant Singh with creamy chunar sandstone. It is in a typically Mughal style of architecture with carved balconies, open courtyards, and scenic pavilions. At present the fort is not in good repair. The fort and its museum are the repository of the history of the kings of Benares. It has been the home of the Kashi Naresh since the 18th century. The current king and the resident of the fort is Anant Narayan Singh who is also known as the Maharaja of Varanasi even though this royal title has been abolished since 1971. Labeled "an eccentric museum", it has a rare collection of American vintage cars, sedan chairs (bejeweled), an impressive weaponry hall and a rare astrological clock. In addition, manuscripts, especially religious writings, are housed in the Saraswati Bhawan. Also included is a precious handwritten manuscript by Goswami Tulsidas. Many books illustrated in the Mughal miniature style, with beautifully designed covers are also part of the collections. Because of its scenic location on the banks of the Ganges, it is frequently used as an outdoor shooting location for films. The film titled Banaras is one of the popular movies shot here. However, only a part of the fort is open for public viewing as the rest of the area is the residence of the Kashi Naresh and his family. It is 14 kilometres from Varanasi.

 

GHATS

Ghats are embankments made in steps of stone slabs along the river bank where pilgrims perform ritual ablutions. Ghats in Varanasi are an integral complement to the concept of divinity represented in physical, metaphysical and supernatural elements. All the ghats are locations on "the divine cosmic road", indicative of "its manifest transcendental dimension" Varanasi has at least 84 ghats. Steps in the ghats lead to the banks of River Ganges, including the Dashashwamedh Ghat, the Manikarnika Ghat, the Panchganga Ghat and the Harishchandra Ghat (where Hindus cremate their dead). Many ghats are associated with legends and several are now privately owned.

 

Many of the ghats were built when the city was under Maratha control. Marathas, Shindes (Scindias), Holkars, Bhonsles, and Peshwas stand out as patrons of present-day Varanasi. Most of the ghats are bathing ghats, while others are used as cremation sites. A morning boat ride on the Ganges across the ghats is a popular visitor attraction. The extensive stretches of ghats enhance the river front with a multitude of shrines, temples and palaces built "tier on tier above the water’s edge".

 

The Dashashwamedh Ghat is the main and probably the oldest ghat of Varansi located on the Ganges, close to the Kashi Vishwanath Temple. It is believed that Brahma created it to welcome Shiva and sacrificed ten horses during the Dasa -Ashwamedha yajna performed here. Above the ghat and close to it, there are also temples dedicated to Sulatankesvara, Brahmesvara, Varahesvara, Abhaya Vinayaka, Ganga (the Ganges), and Bandi Devi which are part of important pilgrimage journeys. A group of priests perform "Agni Pooja" (Worship to Fire) daily in the evening at this ghat as a dedication to Shiva, Ganga, Surya (Sun), Agni (Fire), and the whole universe. Special aartis are held on Tuesdays and on religious festivals.

 

The Manikarnika Ghat is the Mahasmasana (meaning: "great cremation ground") and is the primary site for Hindu cremation in the city. Adjoining the ghat, there are raised platforms that are used for death anniversary rituals. It is said that an ear-ring (Manikarnika) of Shiva or his wife Sati fell here. According to a myth related to the Tarakesvara Temple, a Shiva temple at the ghat, Shiva whispers the Taraka mantra ("Prayer of the crossing") in the ear of the dead. Fourth-century Gupta period inscriptions mention this ghat. However, the current ghat as a permanent riverside embankment was built in 1302 and has been renovated at least three times.

 

TEMPLES

Among the estimated 23000 temples in Varanasi, the most worshiped are: the Kashi Vishwanath Temple of Shiva; the Sankat Mochan Hanuman Temple; and the Durga Temple known for the band of monkeys that reside in the large trees nearby.

 

Located on the outskirts of the Ganges, the Kashi Vishwanath Temple – dedicated to Varanasi's presiding deity Shiva (Vishwanath – "Lord of the world") – is an important Hindu temple and one of the 12 Jyotirlinga Shiva temples. It is believed that a single view of Vishwanath Jyotirlinga is worth more than that of other jyotirlingas. The temple has been destroyed and rebuilt a number of times. The Gyanvapi Mosque, which is adjacent to the temple, is the original site of the temple. The temple, as it exists now, also called Golden Temple, was built in 1780 by Queen Ahilyabai Holkar of Indore. The two pinnacles of the temple are covered in gold, donated in 1839 by Ranjit Singh, the ruler of the Punjab and the remaining dome is also planned to be gold plated by the Ministry of Culture & Religious Affairs of Uttar Pradesh. On 28 January 1983, the temple was taken over by the government of Uttar Pradesh and its management was transferred to a trust with then Kashi Naresh, Vibhuti Narayan Singh, as president and an executive committee with a Divisional Commissioner as chairman. Numerous rituals, prayers and aratis are held daily, starting from 2:30 am till 11:00 pm.

 

The Sankat Mochan Hanuman Temple is one of the sacred temples of the Hindu god Hanuman situated by the Assi River, on the way to the Durga and New Vishwanath temples within the Banaras Hindu University campus. The present temple structure was built in early 1900s by the educationist and freedom fighter, Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya, the founder of Banaras Hindu University. It is believed the temple was built on the very spot where the medieval Hindu saint Tulsidas had a vision of Hanuman. Thousands flock to the temple on Tuesdays and Saturdays, weekdays associated with Hanuman. On 7 March 2006, in a terrorist attack one of the three explosions hit the temple while the Aarti was in progress when numerous devotees and people attending a wedding were present and many were injured. However, normal worship was resumed the next day with devotees visiting the temple and reciting hymns of Hanuman Chalisa (authored by Tulidas) and Sundarkand (a booklet of these hymns is provided free of charge in the temple). After the terrorist incident, a permanent police post was set up inside the temple.

 

There are two temples named "Durga" in Varanasi, Durga Mandir (built about 500 years ago), and Durga Kund (built in the 18th century). Thousands of Hindu devotees visit Durga Kund during Navratri to worship the goddess Durga. The temple, built in Nagara architectural style, has multi-tiered spires[96] and is stained red with ochre, representing the red colour of Durga. The building has a rectangular tank of water called the Durga Kund ("Kund" meaning a pond or pool). Every year on the occasion of Nag Panchami, the act of depicting the god Vishnu reclining on the serpent Shesha is recreated in the Kund.

 

While the Annapurna Temple, located close to the Kashi Vishwanath temple, is dedicated to Annapurna, the goddess of food, the Sankatha Temple close to the Sindhia Ghat is dedicated to Sankatha, the goddess of remedy. The Sankatha temple has a large sculpture of a lion and a nine temple cluster dedicated to the nine planets.

 

Kalabhairav Temple, an ancient temple located near the Head Post Office at Visheshar Ganj, is dedicated to Kala-Bhairava, the guardian (Kotwal) of Varanasi. The Mrithyunjay Mahadev Temple, dedicated to Shiva, is situated on the way to Daranagar to Kalbhairav temple. A well near the temple has some religious significance as its water source is believed to be fed from several underground streams, having curative powers.

 

The New Vishwanath Temple located in the campus of Banaras Hindu University is a modern temple which was planned by Pandit Malviya and built by the Birlas. The Tulsi Manas Temple, nearby the Durga Temple, is a modern temple dedicated to the god Rama. It is built at the place where Tulsidas authored the Ramcharitmanas, which narrates the life of Rama. Many verses from this epic are inscribed on the temple walls.

 

The Bharat Mata Temple, dedicated to the national personification of India, was inaugurated by Mahatma Gandhi in 1936. It has relief maps of India carved in marble. Babu Shiv Prasad Gupta and Durga Prasad Khatri, leading numismatists, antiquarians and nationalist leaders, donated funds for its construction.

 

RELIGION

HINDUISM

Varanasi is one of the holiest cities and centres of pilgrimage for Hindus of all denominations. It is one of the seven Hindu holiest cities (Sapta Puri), considered the giver of salvation (moksha). Over 50,000 Brahmins live in Varanasi, providing religious services to the masses. Hindus believe that bathing in the Ganges remits sins and that dying in Kashi ensures release of a person's soul from the cycle of its transmigrations. Thus, many Hindus arrive here for dying.

 

As the home to the Kashi Vishwanath Temple Jyotirlinga, it is very sacred for Shaivism. Varanasi is also a Shakti Peetha, where the temple to goddess Vishalakshi stands, believed to be the spot where the goddess Sati's earrings fell. Hindus of the Shakti sect make a pilgrimage to the city because they regard the River Ganges itself to be the Goddess Shakti. Adi Shankara wrote his commentaries on Hinduism here, leading to the great Hindu revival.

 

In 2001, Hindus made up approximately 84% of the population of Varanasi District.

 

ISLAM

Varanasi is one of the holiest cities and centres of pilgrimage for Hindus of all denominations. It is one of the seven Hindu holiest cities (Sapta Puri), considered the giver of salvation (moksha). Over 50,000 Brahmins live in Varanasi, providing religious services to the masses. Hindus believe that bathing in the Ganges remits sins and that dying in Kashi ensures release of a person's soul from the cycle of its transmigrations. Thus, many Hindus arrive here for dying.

 

As the home to the Kashi Vishwanath Temple Jyotirlinga, it is very sacred for Shaivism. Varanasi is also a Shakti Peetha, where the temple to goddess Vishalakshi stands, believed to be the spot where the goddess Sati's earrings fell. Hindus of the Shakti sect make a pilgrimage to the city because they regard the River Ganges itself to be the Goddess Shakti. Adi Shankara wrote his commentaries on Hinduism here, leading to the great Hindu revival.

 

In 2001, Hindus made up approximately 84% of the population of Varanasi District.

 

OTHERS

At the 2001 census, persons of other religions or no religion made up 0.4% of the population of Varanasi District.

 

Varanasi is a pilgrimage site for Jains along with Hindus and Buddhists. It is believed to be the birthplace of Suparshvanath, Shreyansanath, and Parshva, who are respectively the seventh, eleventh, and twenty-third Jain Tirthankars and as such Varanasi is a holy city for Jains. Shree Parshvanath Digambar Jain Tirth Kshetra (Digambar Jain Temple) is situated in Bhelupur, Varanasi. This temple is of great religious importance to the Jain Religion.

 

Sarnath, a suburb of Varanasi, is a place of Buddhist pilgrimage. It is the site of the deer park where Siddhartha Gautama of Nepal is said to have given his first sermon about the basic principles of Buddhism. The Dhamek Stupa is one of the few pre-Ashokan stupas still in existence, though only its foundation remains. Also remaining is the Chaukhandi Stupa commemorating the spot where Buddha met his first disciples in the 5th century. An octagonal tower was built later there.

 

Guru Nanak Dev visited Varanasi for Shivratri in 1507 and had an encounter which with other events forms the basis for the story of the founding of Sikhism. Varanasi also hosts the Roman Catholic Diocese of Varanasi, and has an insignificant Jewish expatriate community. Varanasi is home to numerous tribal faiths which are not easily classified.

 

Dalits are 13% of population Of Varanasi city. Most dalits are followers of Guru Ravidass. So Shri Guru Ravidass Janam Asthan is important place of pilgrimage for Ravidasis from all around India.

 

RELIGIOUS FESTIVALS

On Mahashivaratri (February) – which is dedicated to Shiva – a procession of Shiva proceeds from the Mahamrityunjaya Temple to the Kashi Vishwanath Temple.

 

Dhrupad Mela is a five-day musical festival devoted to dhrupad style held at Tulsi Ghat in February–March.

 

The Sankat Mochan Hanuman Temple celebrates Hanuman Jayanti (March–April), the birthday of Hanuman with great fervour. A special puja, aarti, and a public procession is organized. Starting in 1923, the temple organizes a five-day classical music and dance concert festival titled Sankat Mochan Sangeet Samaroh in this period, when iconic artists from all parts of India are invited to perform.

 

The Ramlila of Ramnagar is a dramatic enactment of Rama's legend, as told in Ramacharitamanasa. The plays, sponsored by Kashi Naresh, are performed in Ramnagar every evening for 31 days. On the last day, the festivities reach a crescendo as Rama vanquishes the demon king Ravana. Kashi Naresh Udit Narayan Singh started this tradition around 1830.

 

Bharat Milap celebrates the meeting of Rama and his younger brother Bharata after the return of the former after 14 years of exile. It is celebrated during October–November, a day after the festival of Vijayadashami. Kashi Naresh attends this festival in his regal attire resplendent in regal finery. The festival attracts a large number of devotees.

 

Nag Nathaiya, celebrated on the fourth lunar day of the dark fortnight of the Hindu month of Kartik (October–November), that commemorates the victory of the god Krishna over the serpent Kaliya. On this occasion, a large Kadamba tree (Neolamarckia cadamba) branch is planted on the banks of the Ganges so that a boy acting the role of Krishna can jump into the river on to the effigy representing Kaliya. He stands over the effigy in a dancing pose playing the flute; the effigy and the boy standing on it is given a swirl in front of the audience. People watch the display standing on the banks of the river or from boats.

 

Ganga Mahotsav is a five-day music festival organized by the Uttar Pradesh Tourism Department, held in November–December culminating a day before Kartik Poornima (Dev Deepawali). On Kartik Poornima also called the Ganges festival, the Ganges is venerated by arti offered by thousands of pilgrims who release lighted lamps to float in the river from the ghats.

 

Annually Jashne-Eid Miladunnabi is celebrated on the day of Barawafat in huge numbers by Muslims in a huge rally coming from all the parts of the city and meeting up at Beniya Bagh.

 

WIKIPEDIA

NOOSA/QLD (16th March, 2012): The penultimate and semi finals day of competition commenced, with inspirational action taking place from the very first heat. Although an insignificant drop of swell occurred overnight, it was complimented by a decrease in wind and more favourable direction blessed the contest arena with manicured waves running across the mid-tide sand bank.

 

Junior divisions abound for the quartet of opening heats, the Pacific Longboarder Under 18s rapidly followed by the Under 15 Boys semi final, sponsored by Humid.

 

The Jones brothers had a fantastic morning, older brother Nic, a team rider for event sponsor Classic Malibu, gleaning nine well-earned points from his opening wave, and a mid-range score very late in the piece securing a justified victory in the first heat of the day. His younger sibling Harri had more of a challenge in the Humid Under 15s, putting all his efforts in to narrowly qualify for tomorrow’s final.

 

Nathan Strom was untouchable in heat one of the Under 15s, leading from the commencement and indefatigable throughout to register a superb win.

 

Light showers came down on the heads of the spectators clamouring for position along the shoreline of First Point’s natural amphitheatre, as the inaugural Laguna Bay Longboards Logger Pro launched into its first semi final.

 

Matt Chojnacki, from Sydney’s Northern Beaches was world-class in his performance, his very traditional stylings the epitome of panache and the perfect example of the skills required for the event. 16 points even garnished Cojnacki with a convincing win in heat one, whilst the second heat was dominated once again by the local superhuman surfer, Harrison Roach.

 

Only three waves were ridden by Roach, his opening ride, an impressive 6.75, looking shabby next to his very high following scores. Roach’s faultless talent gave him a near-perfect score to set the bar for the final tomorrow.

 

Another traditional event ensued, the Old Mal division, sponsored by RACV Noosa Resort. Matt Cuddihy remained in the water after taking a qualifying second place in the previous division, and backed it up with a healthy twelve points, a touch of Sage Joske’s influence in his crouched rail-grab bottom turns, Joske an outstanding participant in previous years.

 

Cuddihy surfed outstandingly and, alongside Matt Cojnacki, was a definitive surfer in this event, featuring exclusively boards all made before 1967. Cojnacki channeled the spirits of yesteryear, emulating the surfers of a decade in which he was not even born.

 

Both surfers will take their well-earned places in tomorrow’s final.

 

The Old Guys Ruled once again, with the Over 55 and Over 60 Men’s events taking to the water.

 

These semis were the last opportunities for surfers to earn a berth in tomorrow’s finals, the top three of each heat advancing. This do-or-die challenge drew some outstanding performances from the surfers, Albe Curtis particularly of note, posting two very solid rides to lead from start to finish. Nipping at his heels though was Pacific Longboarder chief editor, John ‘JB’ Brasen. JB’s best was the heat’s highest score, a 7.25, but he was unable to match it and relinquishing the top spot, but not his ticket to the final.

 

Mike Pimm, too, was a standout, two massive 7.5 waves giving him a fantastic victory.

 

And then to the noserider. The Golden Breed Noserider, always a thrilling crowd-pleaser, failed to disappoint and, with little surprise, Harrison Roach again was head-and-shoulders above his adversaries.

 

Local knowledge paid dividends and three of the four surfers tip-timing their ways into the finals. Roach went from the sublime to ridiculous, with again very closely a minute perched on the front end of his board. But today he was in closer company, Matt Cuddihy and Beau Nixon both around ten seconds off the pace. All three were indisputable finalists, but the fourth and last remaining place was a nail-biter. With just seven seconds separating the remaining contestants, it was young Noosa local, Zye Norris who won the coveted fourth.

 

With so much action taking place throughout the day, it is very nearly impossible to hone the highlights, like needles in a needle stack of exceptional moments.

 

To précis a wonderful day of semi finals, Nic Jones was phenomenal in both the Under 18 and the Open Amateur Men’s, claiming outstanding victories in both, amounting almost 17 points of a possible twenty in his heat, making for a very busy finals day tomorrow.

 

The PJ Burns Under 18 Girls second semi was far too close to call. A very lethargic ocean providing little opportunity in the heat’s first half reduced the action to ten minutes. The surfers added to this compression of scores, matching each other evenly right up until the dying minutes. An overabundance of very late scores left the judges sweating for a full five minutes after the final horn, but it was Rosain Carolan who emerged victorious, Rachel Fleming set to join her in the final.

 

The SeaGlass Project Finless Challenge was again Harrison Roach’s feeding ground, but Fred Branger dominated the second heat and it will be very interesting watching the pair go head to head in tomorrow’s final.

 

Final competing was done by the Senior Women, for the John Madill Toyota semi final.

 

An interference call denied local favourite, Keena Wilson a berth in the first heat, Leanne ‘Bluey’ Gilkes taking the heat, and in the second semi, visiting Taiwanese surfer, BayBay Niu surfed an exquisite round, but with a breath-taking 8.25 points scored on a perfectly executed wave, Yvette Kordick tipped the balance.

 

Both surfers, though, will have their rematch in the final.

 

The greatest crowd of the day was drawn in the dying hours of daylight. Wrapping up the day was a fantastic display of surfing-meets-gymnastics, with five tandem couples paddling out and gaining the largest cheers and greatest appreciation of the festival so far.

 

All the action of the last day of the festival tomorrow, as finals fill the day for all divisions. Exceptional talent, thrilling tension, nail-biting finishes – the day is poised to be an unmissable event, all taking place right on the beach at First Point, Noosa.

 

All results for the day, and the week, are available on the event website, as well as draws for Thursday’s competition.

 

Visit www.noosafestivalofsurfing.com for further information and images of the daily events.#

 

Photos: Geoff Fanning / Noosa Festival Of Surfing

NOOSA/QLD (16th March, 2012): The penultimate and semi finals day of competition commenced, with inspirational action taking place from the very first heat. Although an insignificant drop of swell occurred overnight, it was complimented by a decrease in wind and more favourable direction blessed the contest arena with manicured waves running across the mid-tide sand bank.

 

Junior divisions abound for the quartet of opening heats, the Pacific Longboarder Under 18s rapidly followed by the Under 15 Boys semi final, sponsored by Humid.

 

The Jones brothers had a fantastic morning, older brother Nic, a team rider for event sponsor Classic Malibu, gleaning nine well-earned points from his opening wave, and a mid-range score very late in the piece securing a justified victory in the first heat of the day. His younger sibling Harri had more of a challenge in the Humid Under 15s, putting all his efforts in to narrowly qualify for tomorrow’s final.

 

Nathan Strom was untouchable in heat one of the Under 15s, leading from the commencement and indefatigable throughout to register a superb win.

 

Light showers came down on the heads of the spectators clamouring for position along the shoreline of First Point’s natural amphitheatre, as the inaugural Laguna Bay Longboards Logger Pro launched into its first semi final.

 

Matt Chojnacki, from Sydney’s Northern Beaches was world-class in his performance, his very traditional stylings the epitome of panache and the perfect example of the skills required for the event. 16 points even garnished Cojnacki with a convincing win in heat one, whilst the second heat was dominated once again by the local superhuman surfer, Harrison Roach.

 

Only three waves were ridden by Roach, his opening ride, an impressive 6.75, looking shabby next to his very high following scores. Roach’s faultless talent gave him a near-perfect score to set the bar for the final tomorrow.

 

Another traditional event ensued, the Old Mal division, sponsored by RACV Noosa Resort. Matt Cuddihy remained in the water after taking a qualifying second place in the previous division, and backed it up with a healthy twelve points, a touch of Sage Joske’s influence in his crouched rail-grab bottom turns, Joske an outstanding participant in previous years.

 

Cuddihy surfed outstandingly and, alongside Matt Cojnacki, was a definitive surfer in this event, featuring exclusively boards all made before 1967. Cojnacki channeled the spirits of yesteryear, emulating the surfers of a decade in which he was not even born.

 

Both surfers will take their well-earned places in tomorrow’s final.

 

The Old Guys Ruled once again, with the Over 55 and Over 60 Men’s events taking to the water.

 

These semis were the last opportunities for surfers to earn a berth in tomorrow’s finals, the top three of each heat advancing. This do-or-die challenge drew some outstanding performances from the surfers, Albe Curtis particularly of note, posting two very solid rides to lead from start to finish. Nipping at his heels though was Pacific Longboarder chief editor, John ‘JB’ Brasen. JB’s best was the heat’s highest score, a 7.25, but he was unable to match it and relinquishing the top spot, but not his ticket to the final.

 

Mike Pimm, too, was a standout, two massive 7.5 waves giving him a fantastic victory.

 

And then to the noserider. The Golden Breed Noserider, always a thrilling crowd-pleaser, failed to disappoint and, with little surprise, Harrison Roach again was head-and-shoulders above his adversaries.

 

Local knowledge paid dividends and three of the four surfers tip-timing their ways into the finals. Roach went from the sublime to ridiculous, with again very closely a minute perched on the front end of his board. But today he was in closer company, Matt Cuddihy and Beau Nixon both around ten seconds off the pace. All three were indisputable finalists, but the fourth and last remaining place was a nail-biter. With just seven seconds separating the remaining contestants, it was young Noosa local, Zye Norris who won the coveted fourth.

 

With so much action taking place throughout the day, it is very nearly impossible to hone the highlights, like needles in a needle stack of exceptional moments.

 

To précis a wonderful day of semi finals, Nic Jones was phenomenal in both the Under 18 and the Open Amateur Men’s, claiming outstanding victories in both, amounting almost 17 points of a possible twenty in his heat, making for a very busy finals day tomorrow.

 

The PJ Burns Under 18 Girls second semi was far too close to call. A very lethargic ocean providing little opportunity in the heat’s first half reduced the action to ten minutes. The surfers added to this compression of scores, matching each other evenly right up until the dying minutes. An overabundance of very late scores left the judges sweating for a full five minutes after the final horn, but it was Rosain Carolan who emerged victorious, Rachel Fleming set to join her in the final.

 

The SeaGlass Project Finless Challenge was again Harrison Roach’s feeding ground, but Fred Branger dominated the second heat and it will be very interesting watching the pair go head to head in tomorrow’s final.

 

Final competing was done by the Senior Women, for the John Madill Toyota semi final.

 

An interference call denied local favourite, Keena Wilson a berth in the first heat, Leanne ‘Bluey’ Gilkes taking the heat, and in the second semi, visiting Taiwanese surfer, BayBay Niu surfed an exquisite round, but with a breath-taking 8.25 points scored on a perfectly executed wave, Yvette Kordick tipped the balance.

 

Both surfers, though, will have their rematch in the final.

 

The greatest crowd of the day was drawn in the dying hours of daylight. Wrapping up the day was a fantastic display of surfing-meets-gymnastics, with five tandem couples paddling out and gaining the largest cheers and greatest appreciation of the festival so far.

 

All the action of the last day of the festival tomorrow, as finals fill the day for all divisions. Exceptional talent, thrilling tension, nail-biting finishes – the day is poised to be an unmissable event, all taking place right on the beach at First Point, Noosa.

 

All results for the day, and the week, are available on the event website, as well as draws for Thursday’s competition.

 

Visit www.noosafestivalofsurfing.com for further information and images of the daily events.#

 

Photos: Geoff Fanning / Noosa Festival Of Surfing

The Borough of Brooklyn lies across the East River from Manhattan. Of late there's been a bit of a competition over which destination is cooler (rather...hipper...or even more accurately, has more hipster cred.) Saw this view of the Empire State Building paling in comparison to the Williamsburg Bridge last month and had to share it. Hard to make historic landmarks seem puny and insignificant but if anyone can do it, the folks in Brooklyn can. Representin' NYC from the wrong coast, yo.

 

Visit my new photo blog at www.alanwshapiro.blogspot.com/

Modern cars can do over 100,000 miles without pausing for breath. If you really pile on the miles, you might have 200,000 or even 300,000 miles on the clock. If the car Gods are really shining on you, you might have managed more than half a million.

 

Prepare to feel insignificant. Irv Gordon from East Patchogue, New York, together with his Volvo P1800, a 1966 1800S, has completed over three million miles--a new world record for the highest number of miles driven by a single person in the same car. If you're after an arbitrary comparison to offer some perspective, that's around six round-trips to the moon, or 120 circumnavigations of Earth.

 

Gordon hit the three million miles mark on September 18 while driving near the village of Girdwood, on the Seward Highway, south of Anchorage, Alaska; one of the two remaining states where Irv and his famous car had not been together until now.

 

”It was all rather undramatic,” said Irv. ”We just cruised along and I kept an eye on the odometer in order not to miss the great moment”.

 

Gordon first bought his 1800S on a Friday back in 1966 and immediately fell in love. He simply couldn't stop driving the car and over the course of the weekend he had already covered 1,500 miles, causing him to return to the dealership he bought it the following Monday in order for its first service.

 

With a 125-mile round-trip daily commute, a fanatical dedication to vehicle maintenance and a passion for driving, Gordon logged 500,000 miles in 10 years. In 1987, he celebrated his one-millionth mile by driving a loop around the Tavern on the Green in Central Park, and in 2002 he drove the car's two-millionth mile down Times Square. Since then, Gordon has broken his record every time he gets behind the wheel of his beloved Volvo.

 

[Text from MotorAuthority]

 

www.motorauthority.com/news/1087353_irv-gordon-reaches-3-...

 

History

 

The project was started in 1957 because Volvo wanted a sports car, despite the fact that their previous attempt, the P1900, had been a disaster, with only 68 cars sold. The man behind the project was an engineering consultant to Volvo, Helmer Petterson, who in the 1940s was responsible for the Volvo PV444. The design work was done by Helmer's son Pelle Petterson, who worked at Pietro Frua at that time. Volvo insisted it was an Italian design by Frua and only officially recognized that Pelle Petterson designed it in 2009. The Italian Carrozzeria Pietro Frua design firm (then a recently acquired subsidiary of Ghia) built the first three prototypes between September 1957 and early 1958, later designated by Volvo in September 1958: P958-X1, P958-X2 and P958-X3 (P:Project 9:September 58:Year 1958 = P958).

 

In December 1957 Helmer Petterson drove X1, (the first hand-built P1800 prototype) to Osnabrück, West Germany, headquarters of Karmann. Petterson hoped that Karmann would be able to take on the tooling and building of the P1800. Karmann's engineers had already been preparing working drawings from the wooden styling buck at Frua. Petterson and Volvo chief engineer Thor Berthelius met there, tested the car and discussed the construction with Karmann. They were ready to build it and this meant that the first cars could hit the market as early as December 1958. But in February, Karmann's most important customer, Volkswagen VAG, forbade Karmann to take on the job.[citation needed] They feared that the P1800 would compete with the sales of their own cars, and threatened to cancel all their contracts with Karmann if they took on this car. This setback almost caused the project to be abandoned.

 

Other German firms, NSU, Drautz and Hanomag, were contacted but none was chosen because Volvo did not believe they met Volvo's manufacturing quality-control standards.

 

It began to appear that Volvo might never produce the P1800. This motivated Helmer Petterson to obtain financial backing from two financial firms with the intention of buying the components directly from Volvo and marketing the car himself. At this point Volvo had made no mention of the P1800 and the factory would not comment. Then a press release surfaced with a photo of the car, putting Volvo in a position where they had to acknowledge its existence. These events influenced the company to renew its efforts: the car was presented to the public for the first time at the Brussels Motor Show in January 1960 and Volvo turned to Jensen Motors, whose production lines were under-utilised, and they agreed a contract for 10,000 cars. The Linwood, Scotland, body plant of manufacturer Pressed Steel was in turn sub-contracted by Jensen to create the unibody shells, which were then taken by rail to be assembled at Jensen in West Bromwich, England. In September 1960, the first production P1800 (for the 1961 model year) left Jensen for an eager public.

 

P1800

 

The engine was the B18 (B for the Swedish word for gasoline: Bensin; 18 for 1800 cc displacement) with dual SU carburettors, producing 100 hp (75 kW). This variant (named B18B) had a higher compression ratio than the slightly less powerful twin-carb B18D used in the contemporary Amazon 122S, as well as a different camshaft. The 'new' B18 was actually developed from the existing B36 V8 engine used in Volvo trucks at the time. This cut production costs, as well as furnishing the P1800 with a strong engine boasting five main crankshaft bearings. The B18 was matched with the new and more robust M40 manual gearbox through 1963. From 1963 to 1972 the M41 gearbox with electrically actuated overdrive was a popular option. Two overdrive types were used, the D-Type through 1969, and the J-type through 1973. The J-type had a slightly shorter ratio of 0.797:1 as opposed to 0.756:1 for the D-type. The overdrive effectively gave the 1800 series a fifth gear, for improved fuel efficiency and decreased drivetrain wear. Cars without overdrive had a numerically lower-ratio differential, which had the interesting effect of giving them a somewhat higher top speed (just under 120 mph (193 km/h)) than the more popular overdrive models. This was because the non-overdrive cars could reach the engine's redline in top gear, while the overdrive-equipped cars could not, giving them a top speed of roughly 110 mph (177 km/h).

 

1800S

 

As time progressed, Jensen had problems with quality control, so the contract was ended early at 6,000 cars. In 1963 production was moved to Volvo's Lundby Plant in Gothenburg and the car's name was changed to 1800S (S standing for Sverige, or in English : Sweden). The engine was improved with an additional 8 hp (6 kW). In 1966 the four-cylinder engine was updated to 115 hp (86 kW). Top speed was 175 km/h (109 mph).[3] In 1969 the B18 engine was replaced with the 2-litre B20B variant of the B20 giving 118 bhp (89 kW), though it kept the designation 1800S.

 

[Text from Wikipedia]

 

This Lego miniland-scale Volvo P1800 Coupe has been created for Flickr LUGNut's 88th Build Challenge, - "Let's Break Some Records", - a challenge focused on creating vehicles that set some benchmark for biggness, fastness or other extreme of some specification. The Volvo model shown here claim, by far, the farthermost distance ever traveled by an automobile, at over 3,000,000 miles (4,800,00 kilometres).

Sihanoukville (Khmer: ក្រុងព្រះសីហនុ, Krong Preah Sihanouk), also known as 'Kompong Som' (Khmer: កំពង់សោម), is a coastal city in Cambodia and the capital city of Sihanoukville Province, located at the tip of an elevated peninsula in the country's south-west at the Gulf of Thailand. The city is flanked by an almost uninterrupted string of beaches along its entire coastline and coastal marshlands bordering the Ream National Park in the East. A number of thinly inhabited islands - under Sihanoukville's administration - are in the city's proximity, where in recent years moderate development has helped to attract a sizable portion of Asia's individual travelers, young students and back-packers.

 

The city, which was named in honour of former king Norodom Sihanouk, had a population of around 89.800 people and approximately 66.700 in its urban center in 2008. Sihanoukville city encompasses the greater part of four of the five communes (Sangkats) of Sihanoukville provinces' Mittakpheap District. A relatively young city, it has evolved parallel to the construction of the Sihanoukville Autonomous Port, which commenced in June 1955, as the country's gateway to direct and unrestricted international sea trade. The only deep water port in Cambodia includes a mineral oil terminal and a transport logistics facility. As a consequence, the city grew to become a leading national center of trade, commerce, transport and process manufacturing.

 

Sihanoukville's many beaches and nearby islands make it Cambodia's premier seaside resort with steadily rising numbers of national visitors and international tourists since the late 20th century. As a result of its economic diversity, the region's natural beauty and the considerable recreational potential, a constantly increasing number of seasonal and permanent foreign residents make Sihanoukville one of the culturally most varied and dynamic population centers in Cambodia. As of 2014 the tourism sector remains insignificant in comparison with neighboring Thailand. Sihanoukville's future will largely be defined by the authorities' capability of a successfully balanced management in order to protect and conserve natural resources on the one hand and the necessities of island - and urban development, increasing visitor numbers, expanding infrastructure, the industrial sector and population growth on the other.

 

Despite being the country’s premier sea side destination, after decades of war and upheaval the town and its infrastructure remain very much disjointed and architecturally unimpressive. Infrastructure problems persist, in particular related to water and power supply, while international standard health facilities remain limited.

 

ETYMOLOGY

The official name of the city in Khmer is: Krong (city) Preah (holy) Sihanouk (name of the former king), which adds up to: "City of the holy Sihanouk" or "Honorable Sihanouk City". King Norodom Sihanouk (reigned 1941-1955, 1993-2004) was and still is revered as father of the (modern) nation. The name "Sihanouk" is derived from Sanskrit through two Pali words: Siha (lion), and Hanu (jaws).

 

The alternative name, Kompong Saom (also romanized as Kompong Som and Kampong Som), (Khmer: កំពង់សោម) means "Port of the Moon" or "Shiva's Port". Saom is derived from the Sanskrit word "saumya", the original (Rig Vedic) meaning of which was "Soma, the juice or sacrifice of the moon-god", but evolved into Pali "moon", "moonlike" "name of Shiva". The word Kampong or Kompong is of Malayan origin and means village or hamlet. Its meaning underwent extension towards pier or river landing bridge.

 

HISTORY

CLASSICAL PERIOD (BEFORE 1700)

Prior to the ports' and city's foundation works of 1955, the port of Kompong Som must have been only of regional significance - due to the absence of navigable waterways that connect the port with the kingdom's settlement centers. During the many centuries of pre-Angkorian and Angkorian history – from Funan to Chenla and during the Khmer Empire, regional trade was centered at O Keo (Vietnamese: Óc Eo) in the Mekong Delta, now the province of Rạch Giá in Vietnam. The township of Prei Nokor (Saigon) was a commercial center of the Khmer Empire. The Chronicle of Samtec Cauva Vamn Juon - one of the 18th and 19th century Cambodian Royal Chronicles - briefly mentions the region as the country was split into 3 parts during a 9-year civil war from 1476 to 1485: "In 1479, Dhammaraja took on the throne at Catumukh (Phnom Penh) and controlled the provinces of Samraong Tong, Thbong, Kompong Saom, Kampot up to the Bassak, Preah Trapeang, Kramuon Sah, Koh Slaket and Peam"[mouth of the Mekong].

 

EARLY MODERN PERIOD (AROUND 1700-1863)

From the end of the seventeenth century, Cambodia lost control of the Mekong River route as Vietnamese power expanded into the lower Mekong. During the Nguyen-Siamese War (1717–18) a Siamese fleet burned the port of Kompong Som in 1717 but was defeated by the Vietnamese at Banteay Meas/Ha Tien.[20] A Cambodian king of the late eighteenth century, Outey-Reachea III allied with a Chinese pirate, Mac-Thien-Tu, who had established an autonomous polity based in Ha Tien and controlled the maritime network on the eastern part of the Gulf of Thailand. Ha Tien was located at a point where a river linking to the Bassac River flows into the Gulf of Thailand. Landlocked Cambodia tried to keep its access to maritime trade through Ha Tien. In 1757 Ha Tien acquired the ports of Kampot and Kompong Som as a reward for Mac's military support to the King of Cambodia. Until its destruction in 1771 the port developed into an independent duty-free entrepot - linked with several Chinese trading networks.

 

Alexander Hamilton, who traveled on the Gulf of Thailand in 1720, wrote that "Kompong Som and Banteay Meas (later Ha Tien) belonged to Cambodia, as Cochin-China was divided from Cambodia by a river (Bassac river) of three leagues broad." and "King Ang Duong constructed a road from his capital of Oudong to Kampot". Kampot remained the only international seaport of Cambodia. "The traveling time between Udong and Kampot was eight days by oxcart and four days by elephants." French Résident Adhemard Leclère wrote: "...Until 1840s, the Vietnamese governed Kampot and Péam [Mekong Delta], but Kompong Som belonged to Cambodia. The Vietnamese constructed a road from Ha Tien to Svai village - on the border with Kompong-Som - via Kampot."

 

The British Empire followed a distinct policy by the 1850s, seeking to consolidate its influence. Eye witness reports give rare insights, as Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston's agent John Crawfurd reports: "Cambodia was...the Keystone of our policy in these countries, - the King of that ancient Kingdom is ready to throw himself under the protection of any European nation...The Vietnamese were interfering with the trade at Kampot, and this would be the basis of an approach..." Palmerston concluded: "The trade at Kampot - one of the few remaining ports, could never be considerable, in consequence of the main entrance to the country, the Mekong, with all its feeders flowing into the Sea through the territory of Cochin China The country, too, had been devastated by recent Siam - Vietnam wars. Thus, without the aid of Great Britain, Kampot or any other port in Cambodia, can never become a commercial Emporium." Crawfurd later wrote: "The Cambodians... sought to use intervals of peace in the Siam - Vietnam wars to develop intercourse with outside nations. The trade at Kampot which they sought to foster was imperiled by pirates. Here is a point where the wedge might be inserted, that would open the interior of the Indo-Chinese Peninsula to British Commerce, as the great River of the Cambodians traverses its entire length and even affords communication into the heart of Siam".

 

FRENCH RULE (1863-1954)

Under French rule Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia became a single administrative and economic unit. The coastal region Circonscription Résidentielle with Kampot as its capital contained the Arrondissements of Kampot, Kompong Som, Trang and Kong-Pisey. The establishment of another international trading center near the existing city of Saigon was not considered necessary. Focus remained the Mekong and the idea to establish an alternative route to Chinese and Thai internal markets along an uninterrupted navigable waterway from the Red River to the Mekong Delta.

 

INSURRECTION

An insurrection that took place from 1885 to 1887 further discouraged French ambition. It started in Kampot and quickly spread to Veal Rinh, Kampong Seila, and Kompong Som, where the insurgents were led by a Chinese pirate named Quan-Khiem. He managed to control the northern part of Preah Sihanouk for some time until he - an old man - was arrested by Preah Sihanouk's governor.

 

The most notable infrastructural improvements of this period were the construction of Route Coloniale No.17, later renamed National Road No.3 and the national railway system, although work on the "Southern Line" - from Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville - only began in 1960.

 

AFTER INDIPENDENCE (SINCE 1954)

The city's and province's alternative name Kampong som (Kampong Som) was adopted from the local indigenous community. After the dissolution of French Indochina in 1954, it became apparent that the steadily tightening control of the Mekong Delta by Vietnam required a solution to gain unrestricted access to the seas. Plans were made to construct an entirely new deep-water port. Kompong Saom (Kampong Som) was selected for water depth and ease of access. In August 1955, a French/Cambodian construction team cut a base camp into the unoccupied jungle in the area that is now known as Hawaii Beach. Funds for construction of the port came from France and the road was financed by the USA.

 

During the Vietnam War the port became an intensive military facility on both sides, in the service of National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam and after 1970, under the government of Lon Nol, in the service of the United States.

 

The port was the last place to be evacuated by the US Army, only days before Khmer Rouge guerrillas took control of the government in April 1975. The events surrounding the taking of the US container ship SS Mayaguez and its crew on 12 May by the Khmer Rouge and the subsequent rescue operation by US Marines played out on the waters of Koh Tang off the coast of Sihanoukville. During the two days of action, the US commenced air strikes on targets on the mainland of Sihanoukville including the port, the Ream Naval Base, an airfield, the railroad yard and the petroleum refinery in addition to strikes and naval gun fire on several islands.

 

After the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime in 1979 and the subsequent opening of the economy, the port of Sihanoukville resumed its importance in the development and recovery of the country. With the further opening of new markets in 1999, the city regained its role in the economic growth of Cambodia.

 

In 1993, the Ream National Park was established per royal decree of former King Sihanouk.

 

The Sihanoukville Municipality was elevated to a regular province on 22 December 2008 after King Norodom Sihamoni signed a Royal Decree converting the municipalities of Kep, Pailin and Sihanoukville into provinces.

 

In 2006 the Koh Puos (Cambodia) Investment Group submitted an application, planning to invest $276 million in converting the 116-hectare Koh Puos - Snake island into a luxury residential - and resort complex. After the completion of certain elements of the infrastructure, the investor announced alterations of the original blueprints, as "Reapplying for permission will happen in 2014..." according to the Council of the Development of Cambodia.

 

On 26 May 2011 Preah Sihanouk area joined the Paris-based club Les Plus Belles Baies Du Monde (The most Beautiful Bays in the World). The organisation officially accepts the Bay of Cambodia as one of its members at the 7th General Assembly.

 

BEACHES

Sihanoukville's beaches are one of the city's most valuable ecological and economic resource with varying degrees of commercial exploitation. The beaches listed in this section do not include any of the island's beaches.

 

- Ochheuteal Beach, ឆ្នេរអូរឈើទាល: is a 3.3 km long strip of white sand beach and although the name translates to "Creek/Estuary of the Tiel tree" it is lined with Casuarina and Tamarisk trees. Grass umbrellas, rental chairs in front of around 30 standardized beach huts serve meals, drinks and entertainment. Well established middle class hotels and high-profile residences flank the beach along its Northern part. The sustainability of Ochheuteal beach was a primary consideration of various stakeholders, which brought about the development of a tourism development and management plan in 2005. The Southern half remains - apart from some hotels at its far end - essentially undeveloped.

 

- Serendipity Beach: Technically the western end (roughly one fifth or 600 m) of Ochheuteal beach, is very popular with Western tourists and has a few small guesthouses right on the beach. It has been named by an American fellow, who came here in the Nineties. Struck by its (then) unspoiled beauty and pristine condition, he came up with the term, which quickly entered common vocabulary.

 

- Otres Beach, ្នេរអូរត្រេស: is around 4.6 km long and beyond the small "Queen hill" headland at the southern end of Ochheuteal Beach. Its long white sand strip, also completely lined with Casuarina and Tamarisk trees, is far less developed and commercialized than Ochheuteal Beach and has developed into a preferred lodging place for Western visitors. From 2004 to 2011 this beach was occupied by numerous bungalows and dormitories, run by Western people. Due to the element of illegality of on-beach accommodation, among other reasons, police cleaned up the area in May 2011, removing the greater part of the beach-side bungalows. Permanent structures beyond the beach road supplement the remaining places since 2012. It is a very popular, well established holiday retreat – where prices have risen considerably over the course of the last years.

 

- Sokha Beach: Sokha Beach is around 1.2 km long and located west of Serendipity Beach. The beach is privately owned by - and its southern half occupied by the Sokha Beach Hotel, the first five-star luxury beach hotel in Cambodia. While the beach is well kept and many facilities are provided, visitors have to pay for their use and beach vendors are not allowed.

 

- Independence Beach: Independence Beach is around 1.3 km long and located north-west of Sokha Beach. The beach is named after the Independence Hotel, another example of New Khmer Architecture, towering on top of a rock at the beaches northern end.

 

- Victory Beach: Victory beach is around 300 m long and situated at the furthest north of the peninsula of Sihanoukville. It was heavily used by backpackers and is still popular with budget travelers. The deep water port is located at the northern end of the beach. A consortium of Russian business people undertook large scale development here. The beach is regularly maintained.

 

- Lamherkay/Hawaii Beach: is the southern succession of Victory Beach, situated north of Independence Beach. It is a strip of similar length as Victory Beach - around 300 m. Here is the very place where the French/Cambodian construction team's groundwork began for the construction of the Sihanoukville Autonomous Port in 1955.

 

- Treasure Island Beach south of Lamherkay/Hawaii Beach is less than 50 m long and its entire length is fringed with concrete steps and wooden pavilions of a big Cambodian seafood restaurant.

 

- Hun Sen (Prek Treng) Beach, ឆ្នេរព្រែកត្រែង: is the northernmost beach of the city with a length of around 1.5 km, situated behind the local port and essentially empty without beach huts and bars, it sees only weekend - and holiday visitors. The water is very shallow, but the area is lacking favorable infrastructure and is not regularly cleaned.

 

WIKIPEDIA

NOOSA/QLD (16th March, 2012): The penultimate and semi finals day of competition commenced, with inspirational action taking place from the very first heat. Although an insignificant drop of swell occurred overnight, it was complimented by a decrease in wind and more favourable direction blessed the contest arena with manicured waves running across the mid-tide sand bank.

 

Junior divisions abound for the quartet of opening heats, the Pacific Longboarder Under 18s rapidly followed by the Under 15 Boys semi final, sponsored by Humid.

 

The Jones brothers had a fantastic morning, older brother Nic, a team rider for event sponsor Classic Malibu, gleaning nine well-earned points from his opening wave, and a mid-range score very late in the piece securing a justified victory in the first heat of the day. His younger sibling Harri had more of a challenge in the Humid Under 15s, putting all his efforts in to narrowly qualify for tomorrow’s final.

 

Nathan Strom was untouchable in heat one of the Under 15s, leading from the commencement and indefatigable throughout to register a superb win.

 

Light showers came down on the heads of the spectators clamouring for position along the shoreline of First Point’s natural amphitheatre, as the inaugural Laguna Bay Longboards Logger Pro launched into its first semi final.

 

Matt Chojnacki, from Sydney’s Northern Beaches was world-class in his performance, his very traditional stylings the epitome of panache and the perfect example of the skills required for the event. 16 points even garnished Cojnacki with a convincing win in heat one, whilst the second heat was dominated once again by the local superhuman surfer, Harrison Roach.

 

Only three waves were ridden by Roach, his opening ride, an impressive 6.75, looking shabby next to his very high following scores. Roach’s faultless talent gave him a near-perfect score to set the bar for the final tomorrow.

 

Another traditional event ensued, the Old Mal division, sponsored by RACV Noosa Resort. Matt Cuddihy remained in the water after taking a qualifying second place in the previous division, and backed it up with a healthy twelve points, a touch of Sage Joske’s influence in his crouched rail-grab bottom turns, Joske an outstanding participant in previous years.

 

Cuddihy surfed outstandingly and, alongside Matt Cojnacki, was a definitive surfer in this event, featuring exclusively boards all made before 1967. Cojnacki channeled the spirits of yesteryear, emulating the surfers of a decade in which he was not even born.

 

Both surfers will take their well-earned places in tomorrow’s final.

 

The Old Guys Ruled once again, with the Over 55 and Over 60 Men’s events taking to the water.

 

These semis were the last opportunities for surfers to earn a berth in tomorrow’s finals, the top three of each heat advancing. This do-or-die challenge drew some outstanding performances from the surfers, Albe Curtis particularly of note, posting two very solid rides to lead from start to finish. Nipping at his heels though was Pacific Longboarder chief editor, John ‘JB’ Brasen. JB’s best was the heat’s highest score, a 7.25, but he was unable to match it and relinquishing the top spot, but not his ticket to the final.

 

Mike Pimm, too, was a standout, two massive 7.5 waves giving him a fantastic victory.

 

And then to the noserider. The Golden Breed Noserider, always a thrilling crowd-pleaser, failed to disappoint and, with little surprise, Harrison Roach again was head-and-shoulders above his adversaries.

 

Local knowledge paid dividends and three of the four surfers tip-timing their ways into the finals. Roach went from the sublime to ridiculous, with again very closely a minute perched on the front end of his board. But today he was in closer company, Matt Cuddihy and Beau Nixon both around ten seconds off the pace. All three were indisputable finalists, but the fourth and last remaining place was a nail-biter. With just seven seconds separating the remaining contestants, it was young Noosa local, Zye Norris who won the coveted fourth.

 

With so much action taking place throughout the day, it is very nearly impossible to hone the highlights, like needles in a needle stack of exceptional moments.

 

To précis a wonderful day of semi finals, Nic Jones was phenomenal in both the Under 18 and the Open Amateur Men’s, claiming outstanding victories in both, amounting almost 17 points of a possible twenty in his heat, making for a very busy finals day tomorrow.

 

The PJ Burns Under 18 Girls second semi was far too close to call. A very lethargic ocean providing little opportunity in the heat’s first half reduced the action to ten minutes. The surfers added to this compression of scores, matching each other evenly right up until the dying minutes. An overabundance of very late scores left the judges sweating for a full five minutes after the final horn, but it was Rosain Carolan who emerged victorious, Rachel Fleming set to join her in the final.

 

The SeaGlass Project Finless Challenge was again Harrison Roach’s feeding ground, but Fred Branger dominated the second heat and it will be very interesting watching the pair go head to head in tomorrow’s final.

 

Final competing was done by the Senior Women, for the John Madill Toyota semi final.

 

An interference call denied local favourite, Keena Wilson a berth in the first heat, Leanne ‘Bluey’ Gilkes taking the heat, and in the second semi, visiting Taiwanese surfer, BayBay Niu surfed an exquisite round, but with a breath-taking 8.25 points scored on a perfectly executed wave, Yvette Kordick tipped the balance.

 

Both surfers, though, will have their rematch in the final.

 

The greatest crowd of the day was drawn in the dying hours of daylight. Wrapping up the day was a fantastic display of surfing-meets-gymnastics, with five tandem couples paddling out and gaining the largest cheers and greatest appreciation of the festival so far.

 

All the action of the last day of the festival tomorrow, as finals fill the day for all divisions. Exceptional talent, thrilling tension, nail-biting finishes – the day is poised to be an unmissable event, all taking place right on the beach at First Point, Noosa.

 

All results for the day, and the week, are available on the event website, as well as draws for Thursday’s competition.

 

Visit www.noosafestivalofsurfing.com for further information and images of the daily events.#

 

Photos: Geoff Fanning / Noosa Festival Of Surfing

In spring of 2007, the Albertina also received the previously based in Salzburg "Batliner Collection" as unrestricted permanent loan. The collection of Rita and Herbert Batliner includes important works by modern masters, from French impressionism to German expressionism of the "Blue Rider" and the "bridge" to works of the Fauvist or the Russian avant-garde from Chagall to Malevich.

de.wikipedia.org / wiki / Albertina_ (Vienna)

 

 

The Albertina

The architectural history of the Palais

(Pictures you can see by clicking on the link at the end of page!)

Image: The oldest photographic view of the newly designed Palais Archduke Albrecht, 1869

"It is my will that ​​the expansion of the inner city of Vienna with regard to a suitable connection of the same with the suburbs as soon as possible is tackled and at this on Regulirung (regulation) and beautifying of my Residence and Imperial Capital is taken into account. To this end I grant the withdrawal of the ramparts and fortifications of the inner city and the trenches around the same".

This decree of Emperor Franz Joseph I, published on 25 December 1857 in the Wiener Zeitung, formed the basis for the largest the surface concerning and architecturally most significant transformation of the Viennese cityscape. Involving several renowned domestic and foreign architects a "master plan" took form, which included the construction of a boulevard instead of the ramparts between the inner city and its radially upstream suburbs. In the 50-years during implementation phase, an impressive architectural ensemble developed, consisting of imperial and private representational buildings, public administration and cultural buildings, churches and barracks, marking the era under the term "ring-street style". Already in the first year tithe decided a senior member of the Austrian imperial family to decorate the facades of his palace according to the new design principles, and thus certified the aristocratic claim that this also "historicism" said style on the part of the imperial house was attributed.

Image: The Old Albertina after 1920

It was the palace of Archduke Albrecht (1817-1895), the Senior of the Habsburg Family Council, who as Field Marshal held the overall command over the Austro-Hungarian army. The building was incorporated into the imperial residence of the Hofburg complex, forming the south-west corner and extending eleven meters above street level on the so-called Augustinerbastei.

The close proximity of the palace to the imperial residence corresponded not only with Emperor Franz Joseph I and Archduke Albert with a close familial relationship between the owner of the palace and the monarch. Even the former inhabitants were always in close relationship to the imperial family, whether by birth or marriage. An exception here again proves the rule: Don Emanuel Teles da Silva Conde Tarouca (1696-1771), for which Maria Theresa in 1744 the palace had built, was just a close friend and advisor of the monarch. Silva Tarouca underpins the rule with a second exception, because he belonged to the administrative services as Generalhofbaudirektor (general court architect) and President of the Austrian-Dutch administration, while all other him subsequent owners were highest ranking military.

In the annals of Austrian history, especially those of military history, they either went into as commander of the Imperial Army, or the Austrian, later kk Army. In chronological order, this applies to Duke Carl Alexander of Lorraine, the brother-of-law of Maria Theresa, as Imperial Marshal, her son-in-law Duke Albert of Saxe-Teschen, also field marshal, whos adopted son, Archduke Charles of Austria, the last imperial field marshal and only Generalissimo of Austria, his son Archduke Albrecht of Austria as Feldmarschalil and army Supreme commander, and most recently his nephew Archduke Friedrich of Austria, who held as field marshal from 1914 to 1916 the command of the Austro-Hungarian troops. Despite their military profession, all five generals conceived themselves as patrons of the arts and promoted large sums of money to build large collections, the construction of magnificent buildings and cultural life. Charles Alexander of Lorraine promoted as governor of the Austrian Netherlands from 1741 to 1780 the Academy of Fine Arts, the Théâtre de Ja Monnaie and the companies Bourgeois Concert and Concert Noble, he founded the Academie royale et imperial des Sciences et des Lettres, opened the Bibliotheque Royal for the population and supported artistic talents with high scholarships. World fame got his porcelain collection, which however had to be sold by Emperor Joseph II to pay off his debts. Duke Albert began in 1776 according to the concept of conte Durazzo to set up an encyclopedic collection of prints, which forms the core of the world-famous "Albertina" today.

Image : Duke Albert and Archduchess Marie Christine show in family cercle the from Italy brought along art, 1776. Frederick Henry Füger.

1816 declared to Fideikommiss and thus in future indivisible, inalienable and inseparable, the collection 1822 passed into the possession of Archduke Carl, who, like his descendants, it broadened. Under him, the collection was introduced together with the sumptuously equipped palace on the Augustinerbastei in the so-called "Carl Ludwig'schen fideicommissum in 1826, by which the building and the in it kept collection fused into an indissoluble unity. At this time had from the Palais Tarouca by structural expansion or acquisition a veritable Residenz palace evolved. Duke Albert of Saxe-Teschen was first in 1800 the third floor of the adjacent Augustinian convent wing adapted to house his collection and he had after 1802 by his Belgian architect Louis de Montoyer at the suburban side built a magnificent extension, called the wing of staterooms, it was equipped in the style of Louis XVI. Only two decades later, Archduke Carl the entire palace newly set up. According to scetches of the architect Joseph Kornhäusel the 1822-1825 retreaded premises presented themselves in the Empire style. The interior of the palace testified from now in an impressive way the high rank and the prominent position of its owner. Under Archduke Albrecht the outer appearance also should meet the requirements. He had the facade of the palace in the style of historicism orchestrated and added to the Palais front against the suburbs an offshore covered access. Inside, he limited himself, apart from the redesign of the Rococo room in the manner of the second Blondel style, to the retention of the paternal stock. Archduke Friedrich's plans for an expansion of the palace were omitted, however, because of the outbreak of the First World War so that his contribution to the state rooms, especially, consists in the layout of the Spanish apartment, which he in 1895 for his sister, the Queen of Spain Maria Christina, had set up as a permanent residence.

Picture: The "audience room" after the restoration: Picture: The "balcony room" around 1990

The era of stately representation with handing down their cultural values ​​found its most obvious visualization inside the palace through the design and features of the staterooms. On one hand, by the use of the finest materials and the purchase of masterfully manufactured pieces of equipment, such as on the other hand by the permanent reuse of older equipment parts. This period lasted until 1919, when Archduke Friedrich was expropriated by the newly founded Republic of Austria. With the republicanization of the collection and the building first of all finished the tradition that the owner's name was synonymous with the building name:

After Palais Tarouca or tarokkisches house it was called Lorraine House, afterwards Duke Albert Palais and Palais Archduke Carl. Due to the new construction of an adjacently located administration building it received in 1865 the prefix "Upper" and was referred to as Upper Palais Archduke Albrecht and Upper Palais Archduke Frederick. For the state a special reference to the Habsburg past was certainly politically no longer opportune, which is why was decided to name the building according to the in it kept collection "Albertina".

Picture: The "Wedgwood Cabinet" after the restoration: Picture: the "Wedgwood Cabinet" in the Palais Archduke Friedrich, 1905

This name derives from the term "La Collection Albertina" which had been used by the gallery Inspector Maurice von Thausing in 1870 in the Gazette des Beaux-Arts for the former graphics collection of Duke Albert. For this reason, it was the first time since the foundation of the palace that the name of the collection had become synonymous with the room shell. Room shell, hence, because the Republic of Austria Archduke Friedrich had allowed to take along all the movable goods from the palace in his Hungarian exile: crystal chandeliers, curtains and carpets as well as sculptures, vases and clocks. Particularly stressed should be the exquisite furniture, which stems of three facilities phases: the Louis XVI furnitures of Duke Albert, which had been manufactured on the basis of fraternal relations between his wife Archduchess Marie Christine and the French Queen Marie Antoinette after 1780 in the French Hofmanufakturen, also the on behalf of Archduke Charles 1822-1825 in the Vienna Porcelain Manufactory by Joseph Danhauser produced Empire furnitures and thirdly additions of the same style of Archduke Friedrich, which this about 1900 at Portois & Ffix as well as at Friedrich Otto Schmidt had commissioned.

The "swept clean" building got due to the strained financial situation after the First World War initially only a makeshift facility. However, since until 1999 no revision of the emergency equipment took place, but differently designed, primarily the utilitarianism committed office furnitures complementarily had been added, the equipment of the former state rooms presented itself at the end of the 20th century as an inhomogeneous administrative mingle-mangle of insignificant parts, where, however, dwelt a certain quaint charm. From the magnificent state rooms had evolved depots, storage rooms, a library, a study hall and several officed.

Image: The Albertina Graphic Arts Collection and the Philipphof after the American bombing of 12 März 1945.

Image: The palace after the demolition of the entrance facade, 1948-52

Worse it hit the outer appearance of the palace, because in times of continued anti-Habsburg sentiment after the Second World War and inspired by an intolerant destruction will, it came by pickaxe to a ministerial erasure of history. In contrast to the graphic collection possessed the richly decorated facades with the conspicuous insignia of the former owner an object-immanent reference to the Habsburg past and thus exhibited the monarchial traditions and values ​​of the era of Francis Joseph significantly. As part of the remedial measures after a bomb damage, in 1948 the aristocratic, by Archduke Albert initiated, historicist facade structuring along with all decorations was cut off, many facade figures demolished and the Hapsburg crest emblems plunged to the ground. Since in addition the old ramp also had been cancelled and the main entrance of the bastion level had been moved down to the second basement storey at street level, ended the presence of the old Archduke's palace after more than 200 years. At the reopening of the "Albertina Graphic Collection" in 1952, the former Hapsburg Palais of splendour presented itself as one of his identity robbed, formally trivial, soulless room shell, whose successful republicanization an oversized and also unproportional eagle above the new main entrance to the Augustinian road symbolized. The emocratic throw of monuments had wiped out the Hapsburg palace from the urban appeareance, whereby in the perception only existed a nondescript, nameless and ahistorical building that henceforth served the lodging and presentation of world-famous graphic collection of the Albertina. The condition was not changed by the decision to the refurbishment because there were only planned collection specific extensions, but no restoration of the palace.

Image: The palace after the Second World War with simplified facades, the rudiment of the Danubiusbrunnens (well) and the new staircase up to the Augustinerbastei

This paradigm shift corresponded to a blatant reversal of the historical circumstances, as the travel guides and travel books for kk Residence and imperial capital of Vienna dedicated itself primarily with the magnificent, aristocratic palace on the Augustinerbastei with the sumptuously fitted out reception rooms and mentioned the collection kept there - if at all - only in passing. Only with the repositioning of the Albertina in 2000 under the direction of Klaus Albrecht Schröder, the palace was within the meaning and in fulfillment of the Fideikommiss of Archduke Charles in 1826 again met with the high regard, from which could result a further inseparable bond between the magnificent mansions and the world-famous collection. In view of the knowing about politically motivated errors and omissions of the past, the facades should get back their noble, historicist designing, the staterooms regain their glamorous, prestigious appearance and culturally unique equippment be repurchased. From this presumption, eventually grew the full commitment to revise the history of redemption and the return of the stately palace in the public consciousness.

Image: The restored suburb facade of the Palais Albertina suburb

The smoothed palace facades were returned to their original condition and present themselves today - with the exception of the not anymore reconstructed Attica figures - again with the historicist decoration and layout elements that Archduke Albrecht had given after the razing of the Augustinerbastei in 1865 in order. The neoclassical interiors, today called after the former inhabitants "Habsburg Staterooms", receiving a meticulous and detailed restoration taking place at the premises of originality and authenticity, got back their venerable and sumptuous appearance. From the world wide scattered historical pieces of equipment have been bought back 70 properties or could be returned through permanent loan to its original location, by which to the visitors is made experiencable again that atmosphere in 1919 the state rooms of the last Habsburg owner Archduke Frederick had owned. The for the first time in 80 years public accessible "Habsburg State Rooms" at the Palais Albertina enable now again as eloquent testimony to our Habsburg past and as a unique cultural heritage fundamental and essential insights into the Austrian cultural history. With the relocation of the main entrance to the level of the Augustinerbastei the recollection to this so valuable Austrian Cultural Heritage formally and functionally came to completion. The vision of the restoration and recovery of the grand palace was a pillar on which the new Albertina should arise again, the other embody the four large newly built exhibition halls, which allow for the first time in the history of the Albertina, to exhibit the collection throughout its encyclopedic breadh under optimal conservation conditions.

Image: The new entrance area of the Albertina

64 meter long shed roof. Hans Hollein.

The palace presents itself now in its appearance in the historicist style of the Ringstrassenära, almost as if nothing had happened in the meantime. But will the wheel of time should not, cannot and must not be turned back, so that the double standards of the "Albertina Palace" said museum - on the one hand Habsburg grandeur palaces and other modern museum for the arts of graphics - should be symbolized by a modern character: The in 2003 by Hans Hollein designed far into the Albertina square cantilevering, elegant floating flying roof. 64 meters long, it symbolizes in the form of a dynamic wedge the accelerated urban spatial connectivity and public access to the palace. It advertises the major changes in the interior as well as the huge underground extensions of the repositioned "Albertina".

 

Christian Benedictine

Art historian with research interests History of Architecture, building industry of the Hapsburgs, Hofburg and Zeremonialwissenschaft (ceremonial sciences). Since 1990 he works in the architecture collection of the Albertina. Since 2000 he supervises as director of the newly founded department "Staterooms" the restoration and furnishing of the state rooms and the restoration of the facades and explores the history of the palace and its inhabitants.

 

www.wien-vienna.at/albertinabaugeschichte.php

Large view is almost mandatory for this one ... :)

03/10 Insignificant Secret @ Legacy Taipei

Sihanoukville (Khmer: ក្រុងព្រះសីហនុ, Krong Preah Sihanouk), also known as 'Kompong Som' (Khmer: កំពង់សោម), is a coastal city in Cambodia and the capital city of Sihanoukville Province, located at the tip of an elevated peninsula in the country's south-west at the Gulf of Thailand. The city is flanked by an almost uninterrupted string of beaches along its entire coastline and coastal marshlands bordering the Ream National Park in the East. A number of thinly inhabited islands - under Sihanoukville's administration - are in the city's proximity, where in recent years moderate development has helped to attract a sizable portion of Asia's individual travelers, young students and back-packers.

 

The city, which was named in honour of former king Norodom Sihanouk, had a population of around 89.800 people and approximately 66.700 in its urban center in 2008. Sihanoukville city encompasses the greater part of four of the five communes (Sangkats) of Sihanoukville provinces' Mittakpheap District. A relatively young city, it has evolved parallel to the construction of the Sihanoukville Autonomous Port, which commenced in June 1955, as the country's gateway to direct and unrestricted international sea trade. The only deep water port in Cambodia includes a mineral oil terminal and a transport logistics facility. As a consequence, the city grew to become a leading national center of trade, commerce, transport and process manufacturing.

 

Sihanoukville's many beaches and nearby islands make it Cambodia's premier seaside resort with steadily rising numbers of national visitors and international tourists since the late 20th century. As a result of its economic diversity, the region's natural beauty and the considerable recreational potential, a constantly increasing number of seasonal and permanent foreign residents make Sihanoukville one of the culturally most varied and dynamic population centers in Cambodia. As of 2014 the tourism sector remains insignificant in comparison with neighboring Thailand. Sihanoukville's future will largely be defined by the authorities' capability of a successfully balanced management in order to protect and conserve natural resources on the one hand and the necessities of island - and urban development, increasing visitor numbers, expanding infrastructure, the industrial sector and population growth on the other.

 

Despite being the country’s premier sea side destination, after decades of war and upheaval the town and its infrastructure remain very much disjointed and architecturally unimpressive. Infrastructure problems persist, in particular related to water and power supply, while international standard health facilities remain limited.

 

ETYMOLOGY

The official name of the city in Khmer is: Krong (city) Preah (holy) Sihanouk (name of the former king), which adds up to: "City of the holy Sihanouk" or "Honorable Sihanouk City". King Norodom Sihanouk (reigned 1941-1955, 1993-2004) was and still is revered as father of the (modern) nation. The name "Sihanouk" is derived from Sanskrit through two Pali words: Siha (lion), and Hanu (jaws).

 

The alternative name, Kompong Saom (also romanized as Kompong Som and Kampong Som), (Khmer: កំពង់សោម) means "Port of the Moon" or "Shiva's Port". Saom is derived from the Sanskrit word "saumya", the original (Rig Vedic) meaning of which was "Soma, the juice or sacrifice of the moon-god", but evolved into Pali "moon", "moonlike" "name of Shiva". The word Kampong or Kompong is of Malayan origin and means village or hamlet. Its meaning underwent extension towards pier or river landing bridge.

 

HISTORY

CLASSICAL PERIOD (BEFORE 1700)

Prior to the ports' and city's foundation works of 1955, the port of Kompong Som must have been only of regional significance - due to the absence of navigable waterways that connect the port with the kingdom's settlement centers. During the many centuries of pre-Angkorian and Angkorian history – from Funan to Chenla and during the Khmer Empire, regional trade was centered at O Keo (Vietnamese: Óc Eo) in the Mekong Delta, now the province of Rạch Giá in Vietnam. The township of Prei Nokor (Saigon) was a commercial center of the Khmer Empire. The Chronicle of Samtec Cauva Vamn Juon - one of the 18th and 19th century Cambodian Royal Chronicles - briefly mentions the region as the country was split into 3 parts during a 9-year civil war from 1476 to 1485: "In 1479, Dhammaraja took on the throne at Catumukh (Phnom Penh) and controlled the provinces of Samraong Tong, Thbong, Kompong Saom, Kampot up to the Bassak, Preah Trapeang, Kramuon Sah, Koh Slaket and Peam"[mouth of the Mekong].

 

EARLY MODERN PERIOD (AROUND 1700-1863)

From the end of the seventeenth century, Cambodia lost control of the Mekong River route as Vietnamese power expanded into the lower Mekong. During the Nguyen-Siamese War (1717–18) a Siamese fleet burned the port of Kompong Som in 1717 but was defeated by the Vietnamese at Banteay Meas/Ha Tien.[20] A Cambodian king of the late eighteenth century, Outey-Reachea III allied with a Chinese pirate, Mac-Thien-Tu, who had established an autonomous polity based in Ha Tien and controlled the maritime network on the eastern part of the Gulf of Thailand. Ha Tien was located at a point where a river linking to the Bassac River flows into the Gulf of Thailand. Landlocked Cambodia tried to keep its access to maritime trade through Ha Tien. In 1757 Ha Tien acquired the ports of Kampot and Kompong Som as a reward for Mac's military support to the King of Cambodia. Until its destruction in 1771 the port developed into an independent duty-free entrepot - linked with several Chinese trading networks.

 

Alexander Hamilton, who traveled on the Gulf of Thailand in 1720, wrote that "Kompong Som and Banteay Meas (later Ha Tien) belonged to Cambodia, as Cochin-China was divided from Cambodia by a river (Bassac river) of three leagues broad." and "King Ang Duong constructed a road from his capital of Oudong to Kampot". Kampot remained the only international seaport of Cambodia. "The traveling time between Udong and Kampot was eight days by oxcart and four days by elephants." French Résident Adhemard Leclère wrote: "...Until 1840s, the Vietnamese governed Kampot and Péam [Mekong Delta], but Kompong Som belonged to Cambodia. The Vietnamese constructed a road from Ha Tien to Svai village - on the border with Kompong-Som - via Kampot."

 

The British Empire followed a distinct policy by the 1850s, seeking to consolidate its influence. Eye witness reports give rare insights, as Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston's agent John Crawfurd reports: "Cambodia was...the Keystone of our policy in these countries, - the King of that ancient Kingdom is ready to throw himself under the protection of any European nation...The Vietnamese were interfering with the trade at Kampot, and this would be the basis of an approach..." Palmerston concluded: "The trade at Kampot - one of the few remaining ports, could never be considerable, in consequence of the main entrance to the country, the Mekong, with all its feeders flowing into the Sea through the territory of Cochin China The country, too, had been devastated by recent Siam - Vietnam wars. Thus, without the aid of Great Britain, Kampot or any other port in Cambodia, can never become a commercial Emporium." Crawfurd later wrote: "The Cambodians... sought to use intervals of peace in the Siam - Vietnam wars to develop intercourse with outside nations. The trade at Kampot which they sought to foster was imperiled by pirates. Here is a point where the wedge might be inserted, that would open the interior of the Indo-Chinese Peninsula to British Commerce, as the great River of the Cambodians traverses its entire length and even affords communication into the heart of Siam".

 

FRENCH RULE (1863-1954)

Under French rule Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia became a single administrative and economic unit. The coastal region Circonscription Résidentielle with Kampot as its capital contained the Arrondissements of Kampot, Kompong Som, Trang and Kong-Pisey. The establishment of another international trading center near the existing city of Saigon was not considered necessary. Focus remained the Mekong and the idea to establish an alternative route to Chinese and Thai internal markets along an uninterrupted navigable waterway from the Red River to the Mekong Delta.

 

INSURRECTION

An insurrection that took place from 1885 to 1887 further discouraged French ambition. It started in Kampot and quickly spread to Veal Rinh, Kampong Seila, and Kompong Som, where the insurgents were led by a Chinese pirate named Quan-Khiem. He managed to control the northern part of Preah Sihanouk for some time until he - an old man - was arrested by Preah Sihanouk's governor.

 

The most notable infrastructural improvements of this period were the construction of Route Coloniale No.17, later renamed National Road No.3 and the national railway system, although work on the "Southern Line" - from Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville - only began in 1960.

 

AFTER INDIPENDENCE (SINCE 1954)

The city's and province's alternative name Kampong som (Kampong Som) was adopted from the local indigenous community. After the dissolution of French Indochina in 1954, it became apparent that the steadily tightening control of the Mekong Delta by Vietnam required a solution to gain unrestricted access to the seas. Plans were made to construct an entirely new deep-water port. Kompong Saom (Kampong Som) was selected for water depth and ease of access. In August 1955, a French/Cambodian construction team cut a base camp into the unoccupied jungle in the area that is now known as Hawaii Beach. Funds for construction of the port came from France and the road was financed by the USA.

 

During the Vietnam War the port became an intensive military facility on both sides, in the service of National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam and after 1970, under the government of Lon Nol, in the service of the United States.

 

The port was the last place to be evacuated by the US Army, only days before Khmer Rouge guerrillas took control of the government in April 1975. The events surrounding the taking of the US container ship SS Mayaguez and its crew on 12 May by the Khmer Rouge and the subsequent rescue operation by US Marines played out on the waters of Koh Tang off the coast of Sihanoukville. During the two days of action, the US commenced air strikes on targets on the mainland of Sihanoukville including the port, the Ream Naval Base, an airfield, the railroad yard and the petroleum refinery in addition to strikes and naval gun fire on several islands.

 

After the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime in 1979 and the subsequent opening of the economy, the port of Sihanoukville resumed its importance in the development and recovery of the country. With the further opening of new markets in 1999, the city regained its role in the economic growth of Cambodia.

 

In 1993, the Ream National Park was established per royal decree of former King Sihanouk.

 

The Sihanoukville Municipality was elevated to a regular province on 22 December 2008 after King Norodom Sihamoni signed a Royal Decree converting the municipalities of Kep, Pailin and Sihanoukville into provinces.

 

In 2006 the Koh Puos (Cambodia) Investment Group submitted an application, planning to invest $276 million in converting the 116-hectare Koh Puos - Snake island into a luxury residential - and resort complex. After the completion of certain elements of the infrastructure, the investor announced alterations of the original blueprints, as "Reapplying for permission will happen in 2014..." according to the Council of the Development of Cambodia.

 

On 26 May 2011 Preah Sihanouk area joined the Paris-based club Les Plus Belles Baies Du Monde (The most Beautiful Bays in the World). The organisation officially accepts the Bay of Cambodia as one of its members at the 7th General Assembly.

 

BEACHES

Sihanoukville's beaches are one of the city's most valuable ecological and economic resource with varying degrees of commercial exploitation. The beaches listed in this section do not include any of the island's beaches.

 

- Ochheuteal Beach, ឆ្នេរអូរឈើទាល: is a 3.3 km long strip of white sand beach and although the name translates to "Creek/Estuary of the Tiel tree" it is lined with Casuarina and Tamarisk trees. Grass umbrellas, rental chairs in front of around 30 standardized beach huts serve meals, drinks and entertainment. Well established middle class hotels and high-profile residences flank the beach along its Northern part. The sustainability of Ochheuteal beach was a primary consideration of various stakeholders, which brought about the development of a tourism development and management plan in 2005. The Southern half remains - apart from some hotels at its far end - essentially undeveloped.

 

- Serendipity Beach: Technically the western end (roughly one fifth or 600 m) of Ochheuteal beach, is very popular with Western tourists and has a few small guesthouses right on the beach. It has been named by an American fellow, who came here in the Nineties. Struck by its (then) unspoiled beauty and pristine condition, he came up with the term, which quickly entered common vocabulary.

 

- Otres Beach, ្នេរអូរត្រេស: is around 4.6 km long and beyond the small "Queen hill" headland at the southern end of Ochheuteal Beach. Its long white sand strip, also completely lined with Casuarina and Tamarisk trees, is far less developed and commercialized than Ochheuteal Beach and has developed into a preferred lodging place for Western visitors. From 2004 to 2011 this beach was occupied by numerous bungalows and dormitories, run by Western people. Due to the element of illegality of on-beach accommodation, among other reasons, police cleaned up the area in May 2011, removing the greater part of the beach-side bungalows. Permanent structures beyond the beach road supplement the remaining places since 2012. It is a very popular, well established holiday retreat – where prices have risen considerably over the course of the last years.

 

- Sokha Beach: Sokha Beach is around 1.2 km long and located west of Serendipity Beach. The beach is privately owned by - and its southern half occupied by the Sokha Beach Hotel, the first five-star luxury beach hotel in Cambodia. While the beach is well kept and many facilities are provided, visitors have to pay for their use and beach vendors are not allowed.

 

- Independence Beach: Independence Beach is around 1.3 km long and located north-west of Sokha Beach. The beach is named after the Independence Hotel, another example of New Khmer Architecture, towering on top of a rock at the beaches northern end.

 

- Victory Beach: Victory beach is around 300 m long and situated at the furthest north of the peninsula of Sihanoukville. It was heavily used by backpackers and is still popular with budget travelers. The deep water port is located at the northern end of the beach. A consortium of Russian business people undertook large scale development here. The beach is regularly maintained.

 

- Lamherkay/Hawaii Beach: is the southern succession of Victory Beach, situated north of Independence Beach. It is a strip of similar length as Victory Beach - around 300 m. Here is the very place where the French/Cambodian construction team's groundwork began for the construction of the Sihanoukville Autonomous Port in 1955.

 

- Treasure Island Beach south of Lamherkay/Hawaii Beach is less than 50 m long and its entire length is fringed with concrete steps and wooden pavilions of a big Cambodian seafood restaurant.

 

- Hun Sen (Prek Treng) Beach, ឆ្នេរព្រែកត្រែង: is the northernmost beach of the city with a length of around 1.5 km, situated behind the local port and essentially empty without beach huts and bars, it sees only weekend - and holiday visitors. The water is very shallow, but the area is lacking favorable infrastructure and is not regularly cleaned.

 

WIKIPEDIA

To the unaided eye, an insignificant white flower, but the macro lens reveals this beautiful "bearded" structure of the petals of the small-leafed bearded heath (Leucopogon microphyllus), now flowering in Manly Dam.

NOOSA/QLD (16th March, 2012): The penultimate and semi finals day of competition commenced, with inspirational action taking place from the very first heat. Although an insignificant drop of swell occurred overnight, it was complimented by a decrease in wind and more favourable direction blessed the contest arena with manicured waves running across the mid-tide sand bank.

 

Junior divisions abound for the quartet of opening heats, the Pacific Longboarder Under 18s rapidly followed by the Under 15 Boys semi final, sponsored by Humid.

 

The Jones brothers had a fantastic morning, older brother Nic, a team rider for event sponsor Classic Malibu, gleaning nine well-earned points from his opening wave, and a mid-range score very late in the piece securing a justified victory in the first heat of the day. His younger sibling Harri had more of a challenge in the Humid Under 15s, putting all his efforts in to narrowly qualify for tomorrow’s final.

 

Nathan Strom was untouchable in heat one of the Under 15s, leading from the commencement and indefatigable throughout to register a superb win.

 

Light showers came down on the heads of the spectators clamouring for position along the shoreline of First Point’s natural amphitheatre, as the inaugural Laguna Bay Longboards Logger Pro launched into its first semi final.

 

Matt Chojnacki, from Sydney’s Northern Beaches was world-class in his performance, his very traditional stylings the epitome of panache and the perfect example of the skills required for the event. 16 points even garnished Cojnacki with a convincing win in heat one, whilst the second heat was dominated once again by the local superhuman surfer, Harrison Roach.

 

Only three waves were ridden by Roach, his opening ride, an impressive 6.75, looking shabby next to his very high following scores. Roach’s faultless talent gave him a near-perfect score to set the bar for the final tomorrow.

 

Another traditional event ensued, the Old Mal division, sponsored by RACV Noosa Resort. Matt Cuddihy remained in the water after taking a qualifying second place in the previous division, and backed it up with a healthy twelve points, a touch of Sage Joske’s influence in his crouched rail-grab bottom turns, Joske an outstanding participant in previous years.

 

Cuddihy surfed outstandingly and, alongside Matt Cojnacki, was a definitive surfer in this event, featuring exclusively boards all made before 1967. Cojnacki channeled the spirits of yesteryear, emulating the surfers of a decade in which he was not even born.

 

Both surfers will take their well-earned places in tomorrow’s final.

 

The Old Guys Ruled once again, with the Over 55 and Over 60 Men’s events taking to the water.

 

These semis were the last opportunities for surfers to earn a berth in tomorrow’s finals, the top three of each heat advancing. This do-or-die challenge drew some outstanding performances from the surfers, Albe Curtis particularly of note, posting two very solid rides to lead from start to finish. Nipping at his heels though was Pacific Longboarder chief editor, John ‘JB’ Brasen. JB’s best was the heat’s highest score, a 7.25, but he was unable to match it and relinquishing the top spot, but not his ticket to the final.

 

Mike Pimm, too, was a standout, two massive 7.5 waves giving him a fantastic victory.

 

And then to the noserider. The Golden Breed Noserider, always a thrilling crowd-pleaser, failed to disappoint and, with little surprise, Harrison Roach again was head-and-shoulders above his adversaries.

 

Local knowledge paid dividends and three of the four surfers tip-timing their ways into the finals. Roach went from the sublime to ridiculous, with again very closely a minute perched on the front end of his board. But today he was in closer company, Matt Cuddihy and Beau Nixon both around ten seconds off the pace. All three were indisputable finalists, but the fourth and last remaining place was a nail-biter. With just seven seconds separating the remaining contestants, it was young Noosa local, Zye Norris who won the coveted fourth.

 

With so much action taking place throughout the day, it is very nearly impossible to hone the highlights, like needles in a needle stack of exceptional moments.

 

To précis a wonderful day of semi finals, Nic Jones was phenomenal in both the Under 18 and the Open Amateur Men’s, claiming outstanding victories in both, amounting almost 17 points of a possible twenty in his heat, making for a very busy finals day tomorrow.

 

The PJ Burns Under 18 Girls second semi was far too close to call. A very lethargic ocean providing little opportunity in the heat’s first half reduced the action to ten minutes. The surfers added to this compression of scores, matching each other evenly right up until the dying minutes. An overabundance of very late scores left the judges sweating for a full five minutes after the final horn, but it was Rosain Carolan who emerged victorious, Rachel Fleming set to join her in the final.

 

The SeaGlass Project Finless Challenge was again Harrison Roach’s feeding ground, but Fred Branger dominated the second heat and it will be very interesting watching the pair go head to head in tomorrow’s final.

 

Final competing was done by the Senior Women, for the John Madill Toyota semi final.

 

An interference call denied local favourite, Keena Wilson a berth in the first heat, Leanne ‘Bluey’ Gilkes taking the heat, and in the second semi, visiting Taiwanese surfer, BayBay Niu surfed an exquisite round, but with a breath-taking 8.25 points scored on a perfectly executed wave, Yvette Kordick tipped the balance.

 

Both surfers, though, will have their rematch in the final.

 

The greatest crowd of the day was drawn in the dying hours of daylight. Wrapping up the day was a fantastic display of surfing-meets-gymnastics, with five tandem couples paddling out and gaining the largest cheers and greatest appreciation of the festival so far.

 

All the action of the last day of the festival tomorrow, as finals fill the day for all divisions. Exceptional talent, thrilling tension, nail-biting finishes – the day is poised to be an unmissable event, all taking place right on the beach at First Point, Noosa.

 

All results for the day, and the week, are available on the event website, as well as draws for Thursday’s competition.

 

Visit www.noosafestivalofsurfing.com for further information and images of the daily events.#

 

Photos: Geoff Fanning / Noosa Festival Of Surfing

Modern cars can do over 100,000 miles without pausing for breath. If you really pile on the miles, you might have 200,000 or even 300,000 miles on the clock. If the car Gods are really shining on you, you might have managed more than half a million.

 

Prepare to feel insignificant. Irv Gordon from East Patchogue, New York, together with his Volvo P1800, a 1966 1800S, has completed over three million miles--a new world record for the highest number of miles driven by a single person in the same car. If you're after an arbitrary comparison to offer some perspective, that's around six round-trips to the moon, or 120 circumnavigations of Earth.

 

Gordon hit the three million miles mark on September 18 while driving near the village of Girdwood, on the Seward Highway, south of Anchorage, Alaska; one of the two remaining states where Irv and his famous car had not been together until now.

 

”It was all rather undramatic,” said Irv. ”We just cruised along and I kept an eye on the odometer in order not to miss the great moment”.

 

Gordon first bought his 1800S on a Friday back in 1966 and immediately fell in love. He simply couldn't stop driving the car and over the course of the weekend he had already covered 1,500 miles, causing him to return to the dealership he bought it the following Monday in order for its first service.

 

With a 125-mile round-trip daily commute, a fanatical dedication to vehicle maintenance and a passion for driving, Gordon logged 500,000 miles in 10 years. In 1987, he celebrated his one-millionth mile by driving a loop around the Tavern on the Green in Central Park, and in 2002 he drove the car's two-millionth mile down Times Square. Since then, Gordon has broken his record every time he gets behind the wheel of his beloved Volvo.

 

[Text from MotorAuthority]

 

www.motorauthority.com/news/1087353_irv-gordon-reaches-3-...

 

History

 

The project was started in 1957 because Volvo wanted a sports car, despite the fact that their previous attempt, the P1900, had been a disaster, with only 68 cars sold. The man behind the project was an engineering consultant to Volvo, Helmer Petterson, who in the 1940s was responsible for the Volvo PV444. The design work was done by Helmer's son Pelle Petterson, who worked at Pietro Frua at that time. Volvo insisted it was an Italian design by Frua and only officially recognized that Pelle Petterson designed it in 2009. The Italian Carrozzeria Pietro Frua design firm (then a recently acquired subsidiary of Ghia) built the first three prototypes between September 1957 and early 1958, later designated by Volvo in September 1958: P958-X1, P958-X2 and P958-X3 (P:Project 9:September 58:Year 1958 = P958).

 

In December 1957 Helmer Petterson drove X1, (the first hand-built P1800 prototype) to Osnabrück, West Germany, headquarters of Karmann. Petterson hoped that Karmann would be able to take on the tooling and building of the P1800. Karmann's engineers had already been preparing working drawings from the wooden styling buck at Frua. Petterson and Volvo chief engineer Thor Berthelius met there, tested the car and discussed the construction with Karmann. They were ready to build it and this meant that the first cars could hit the market as early as December 1958. But in February, Karmann's most important customer, Volkswagen VAG, forbade Karmann to take on the job.[citation needed] They feared that the P1800 would compete with the sales of their own cars, and threatened to cancel all their contracts with Karmann if they took on this car. This setback almost caused the project to be abandoned.

 

Other German firms, NSU, Drautz and Hanomag, were contacted but none was chosen because Volvo did not believe they met Volvo's manufacturing quality-control standards.

 

It began to appear that Volvo might never produce the P1800. This motivated Helmer Petterson to obtain financial backing from two financial firms with the intention of buying the components directly from Volvo and marketing the car himself. At this point Volvo had made no mention of the P1800 and the factory would not comment. Then a press release surfaced with a photo of the car, putting Volvo in a position where they had to acknowledge its existence. These events influenced the company to renew its efforts: the car was presented to the public for the first time at the Brussels Motor Show in January 1960 and Volvo turned to Jensen Motors, whose production lines were under-utilised, and they agreed a contract for 10,000 cars. The Linwood, Scotland, body plant of manufacturer Pressed Steel was in turn sub-contracted by Jensen to create the unibody shells, which were then taken by rail to be assembled at Jensen in West Bromwich, England. In September 1960, the first production P1800 (for the 1961 model year) left Jensen for an eager public.

 

P1800

 

The engine was the B18 (B for the Swedish word for gasoline: Bensin; 18 for 1800 cc displacement) with dual SU carburettors, producing 100 hp (75 kW). This variant (named B18B) had a higher compression ratio than the slightly less powerful twin-carb B18D used in the contemporary Amazon 122S, as well as a different camshaft. The 'new' B18 was actually developed from the existing B36 V8 engine used in Volvo trucks at the time. This cut production costs, as well as furnishing the P1800 with a strong engine boasting five main crankshaft bearings. The B18 was matched with the new and more robust M40 manual gearbox through 1963. From 1963 to 1972 the M41 gearbox with electrically actuated overdrive was a popular option. Two overdrive types were used, the D-Type through 1969, and the J-type through 1973. The J-type had a slightly shorter ratio of 0.797:1 as opposed to 0.756:1 for the D-type. The overdrive effectively gave the 1800 series a fifth gear, for improved fuel efficiency and decreased drivetrain wear. Cars without overdrive had a numerically lower-ratio differential, which had the interesting effect of giving them a somewhat higher top speed (just under 120 mph (193 km/h)) than the more popular overdrive models. This was because the non-overdrive cars could reach the engine's redline in top gear, while the overdrive-equipped cars could not, giving them a top speed of roughly 110 mph (177 km/h).

 

1800S

 

As time progressed, Jensen had problems with quality control, so the contract was ended early at 6,000 cars. In 1963 production was moved to Volvo's Lundby Plant in Gothenburg and the car's name was changed to 1800S (S standing for Sverige, or in English : Sweden). The engine was improved with an additional 8 hp (6 kW). In 1966 the four-cylinder engine was updated to 115 hp (86 kW). Top speed was 175 km/h (109 mph).[3] In 1969 the B18 engine was replaced with the 2-litre B20B variant of the B20 giving 118 bhp (89 kW), though it kept the designation 1800S.

 

[Text from Wikipedia]

 

This Lego miniland-scale Volvo P1800 Coupe has been created for Flickr LUGNut's 88th Build Challenge, - "Let's Break Some Records", - a challenge focused on creating vehicles that set some benchmark for biggness, fastness or other extreme of some specification. The Volvo model shown here claim, by far, the farthermost distance ever traveled by an automobile, at over 3,000,000 miles (4,800,00 kilometres).

Mydolling Heeah

1 Year seems insignificant date, but believe it is a small anniversary

not always as smooth as I had hoped. This was the "first eye" and I have thought about fixing the somewhat jerky transitions. But when you stp back, it is insignificant.

Also my first acrylic painting ever.

It all depends on the point of view. - Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

 

10/365

 

One of my favorite quotes***

 

Spofforth Castle was originally an 11th century fortified manor house, founded by William de Percy. In the early 13th century, the Percy family added a stone hall house, of which the undercroft remains, set against a sandstone outcrop.

 

In 1309, King Edward II granted, Henry, Lord Percy of Alnwick, a licence to crenellate and he founded the quadrangle castle. Sadly only the west range remains, of two storeys, with a hall and a chamber block, flanked by a polygonal stair turret.

 

The first floor hall, was modernised in the 15th century and leads directly on to the low eastern platform, which supports the buried remains of the other ranges.

 

The castle is owned by English Heritage but is free to visit and open daily.

 

Spofforth Castle History by R. J. A. Bunnett

 

In 1067, the year before the earliest visit of William the Conqueror to York, William de Percy, the first of the English line (nicknamed ‘Aux Gernons' - the Bewhiskered: Algernon has since been a favourite name in the family), arrived in this country from Normandy. De Percy was a man of powerful physique and strength of mind and greatly esteemed by the King, who gave him no less than 86 Lordships in Yorkshire, including Spofforth, Bolton Percy, Tadcaster, Cowthorpe and Wetherby.

 

The Spofforth parish covered a very large area, and here the young Norman established his headquarters, which thus became the original English home of the famous de Percy family. Within ten years, William converted a desolate waste into a fertile pasture. Doomsday book related that ‘Spawford' (i.e. the ford by the Spaw) was a manor held by Gamelbar, and that William de Percy had 4 ‘carucates' of land, 9 ‘villanes', and 10 ‘bordars'. The name of Gamelbar appears on several occasions in doomsday, and he undoubtedly must have been a man of some substance as he held extensive possessions in the Forest of Knaresborough. These were fortified at the conquest and a number of his manors were granted to Giselbert of Gilbert Tyson, another follower of William I and ‘great standard-bearer of England'.

 

At Spofforth, where for 300 years the family led the life of feudal barons, de Percy built a manor house probably rather by way of residence than for defence. This would probably have consisted of a hall surrounded by a wooden palisade, with one or two outbuildings.

 

There is an unconfirmed tradition that Richard de Percy, the head of the house, and one of the leading signatories of Magna Carta, held a meeting of the insurgent barons at Spofforth where the provisions of the Charter were drawn up in 1215. In 1224 Henry III granted license to William de Percy of the day to hold a market every Friday in the town of Spofforth.

 

Towards the close of the thirteenth century, the direct Percy line became extinct, and the present branch of the family owes its descent to the union of Lady Agnes de Percy, sole inheritor of the vast family estates and Josceline de Louvain, Duke of Brabant, a direct descendant of Charlemagne. The marriage was arranged, however, only on the prospective bridegroom agreeing to take the name of Percy.

 

Their son Henry, the first of a long line of de Percy ‘Henries', obtained from Edward II in 1308 a licence to fortify his house at Spofforth and probably at this time he began the extensive alterations and additions visible in the present building. The next year Henry purchased the Manor of Alnwick, Northumberland, from the Bishop of Durham. The family had then been established in Yorkshire for nearly 250 years before they began their more northern connection, and such place names as Bolton-Percy, Kilnwick Percy and Wharram Percy, and the exquistily sculptured Percy shrine in Beverly Minster, testify to their power and influence, and to the once vast extent of their possessions in the country. Henry de Percy also built a residence in Topcliffe, near Thirsk, the earthworks of which can still be clearly seen, alongside the Norman motte and baily castle.

 

It seems as if the Percies always preferred comfort and convenience to military strength and thus they lavished their wealth on building manor houses. Spofforth, of which there is no further record of renovation until 1559, was never more than a fortified residence, in contrast with the grim fortresses which other Yorkshire barons erected for their defence of the fiefs e.g. Pontefract, Consiborough, Helmsley, and Richmond. Wressle Castle was the greatest of their Yorkshire dwellings - a magnificent palace built by Sir Thomas Percy between 1370 and 1390, where the family, when in residence, kept almost royal state until the sixteenth century. As they obtained prominence and power in Northumberland, the importance of Spofforth as a residence gradually declined.

 

In 1377 Henry, Baron Percy, 4th Lord of Alnwick, was created Earl of Northumberland. Thirty-one years later the family lost possession of Alnwick and also of Spofforth, when the Earl, in a fruitless endeavour to retrieve the fallen fortunes of his son, the renowned Harry Hotspur, was killed at Bramham Moor in rebellion against Henry IV. His estates were conferred upon Sir Thomas Rokeby, Sheriff of Yorkshire, who commanded the royal forces. Hotspur, who was slain at the battle of Shrewsbury in 1403, is said to have been born at Spofforth.

 

A little later the Percies recovered their properties, but the 3rd Earl with Sir Richard, his brother and Sir William Plumpton, the Chief Steward of the Lordships at Spofforth, lost the lives at Towton in 1461, among thousands of other Lancastrians.

 

The Yorkists under the Earl of Warwick marched to Spofforth, plundered the countryside and burnt the castle. Leland states in his intineary, ‘The manor house was sore defaced in the time of the Civil War between Henry the Sixth, and Edward Fourth by the Earl of Warwick, and the Marquis of Montacute'.

 

The story runs that the heir to the now hunted Percies, a minor, was smuggled away and brought up by peasants (a similar tale is told of the heir of the clifford of Skipton Castle); but nine years after Towton, the family were reinstated in their possessions, which had meanwhile been held by the earl of Warwick.

 

The young heir later married the daughter of Lord Herbert, 1st Earl of Pembroke; but in 1489 he was murdered at his home at Topcliffe by an angry mob, and for close on one hundred years Spofforth Castle remained neglected. In 1559 however, it was restored by another Henry, Lord Percy, who made the place an occasional residence. Probably by this time it was regarded as too insignificant for the growing importance of the family, and Alnwick being now the main Percy seat, they practically deserted Yorkshire.

 

Spofforth, c 1600, was the home of Sampson Ingleby, steward of the family; but after his death, four years later , there is no record of further habitation, and the castle was finally reduced to ruins during he civil war.

 

In 1670 on the death of Joceline, 11th Earl of Northumberland, Spofforth with the other ‘Percy' Yorkshire estates passed into the possession of his daughter, the Duchess of Somerset. Her eventual descendant dying without male issue, the inheritance came to his nephew Sir Charles Wyndham.

 

The Percy arms are to be seen on the chancel wall of the village church.

 

Not Really a Castle ...

 

The Ministry of works taking responsibility for the Castle in 1925 described it merely as a Fortified Manor. The ‘manor House' would have been primarily for residence rather than defence; a wooden balustrade would have surrounded the hall with one or two outbuildings forming a courtyard

 

‘Indeed it seems likely from the general Percy practice and evidence of the irregular surface of what I still called Manor Garth that the present building is only one side of original four square enclosure!!' (extract from The History of Spofforth by William Grange Topographer 181-1896)

 

A short history of the Percy Family

1067: William de Percy, one of William the Conquers favourites was given 86 Lordships in Yorkshire, including Spofforth, which he established as his headquarters.

1124: Henry III granted a licence to william de Percy of the day to hold a market every Friday in the town of Spofforth

 

1125: Richard de Percy and insurgent Barons meet at the Castle to reputedly draw up the provisions of the Magna Carta

 

1308: William de Percy obtained a licence from Edward II to fortify his house at Spofforth

 

1403: Harry Hotspur Baron of Spofforth who was born at Spofforth was killed at the Battle of Shrewsbury

 

1408: Henry Baron Percy was killed at Braham Moor in rebellion against Henry VI. Estates conferred to Sir Thomas Rokely Sheriff of Yorkshire

 

Description by O. J. Weaver and R. Gilyard-Beer

 

The castle stands on the west side of the village, on a small plateau of slightly higher ground that slopes gently towards Castle Street on the east side but, on the west, ends abruptly in a rocky outcrop against which part of the castle has been built. Also, on the west side are two small streams, one very close to the castle itself, which no doubt afforded a measure of protection, but the original aspect on this side has been changed out of recognition by the massive embankment of a now disused railway line.

 

Originally, the castle would probably have consisted of a number of buildings grouped round a courtyard. All that remains now is a western range, a two-storeyed building which, owing to the difference in levels appears from the east to be of one storey only. This range contained the principal apartments of the castle, the hall at the south end and the private chambers of the lord and his family at the north.

 

The oldest surviving part of the castle, however, is the undercroft below the hall, dating probably form the first half of the thirteenth century. It uses the rocky outcrop as its fourth wall and has four single light windows in the west wall, one in both the north and south walls and two opposing entrances, also in the north and south walls. There is a third doorway at the north end of the east wall, reached through means of steps from the courtyard cut through the rock and originally there was a similar stairway, now blocked, at the south end.

 

In the fourteenth century, a stone vault was inserted in the undercroft. This has since disappeared but the stumps of its supporting columns survive as well as a number of wall corbels, two of which are built into masonry blocking original windows. At the same time as this alteration, the hall above was either wholly or partly rebuilt and, at the north end, a large solar block was added, thereby blocking a window at the north wall of the undercroft.

 

The principal room on the ground floor of this new building is on the north side and has the remains of a stone vault, a fireplace in the centre of its north wall and windows in its north and west walls, the one in the west wall having been altered subsequently to form a doorway. At the north east corner there is a doorway to a smaller, subsidiary chamber, and a second doorway at the south-west corner leads to the adjoining room on the south, which is also vaulted and must have served as a form of lobby. Originally, it had a doorway in the west wall with a window above, the doorway being later blocked and the window altered. The third and smaller doorway in the large chamber leads to a newel staircase in the corner turret giving access to the rooms above.

 

On the upper floor of the solar block there is, as below, a large chamber on the north side with three handsome two-light windows and a doorway in the north east corner to a subsidiary chamber containing a garderobe at the north end of its east wall. The pit of this garderobe may be seen at the foot of the wall. There is no evidence now of a fireplace but this may have been in the vanished south wall of the main chamber or, alternatively there may have been a central hearth.

 

The room between this large chamber and the hall was probably at first a chapel with a richly moulded window in its west wall, but there is evidence that it was converted later into a chamber with a garderobe in the thickness of the east wall. Also on the east side is a passage, now mostly destroyed, which gave access from the hall to the upper rooms of the solar block.

 

The hall in its present form is mainly fifteenth century. Nothing survives of the original hall, which is probably smaller in width, and all that remain of the fourteenth-century alterations are the south wall and the doorway and adjoining masonry in the north east corner. The east and west walls with their large two light windows are fifteenth century and so is the greater part of the north wall which has the remains of a fireplace at its centre. At the north end of the west wall is a garderobe reached by means of a wall passage from the most northerly of the four windows.

 

The entrance to the hall is at the south end of the east wall and, next to this, there is a doorway of sixteenth century date, which probably led to the now vanished buttery and kitchens.

 

On the east wall of the solar block are the marks of later farm buildings, now removed, which represent the last phase of the castle's occupation.

 

East again, the ground is generally uneven and here there may be foundations of other buildings of which ate present nothing is known.

  

Rudolf von Alt (Wien 1812 - 1905 Wien)

View of Vienna from "Südbahnhof" (Southern Railway Station), 1843

Blick auf Wien vom Südbahnhof aus

Bleistift, Aquarell

Pencil, watercolour

Albertina, Wien

 

The Art of the Viennese Watercolor

Till 13. May 2018

Transparent lightness, brilliant colours, and a generally atmospheric impression are the special qualities of 19th-century Viennese watercolor painting. Virtuosic city views and landscapes, detail-rich portraits, genre paintings, and floral works comprise the rich motivic repertoire featured in this glorious blossoming of Austrian art.

The Viennese watercolor’s heyday was the Biedermeier era: Jakob Alt, Matthäus Loder, Thomas Ender, and Peter Fendi number among its most important artistic figures.

Likewise outstanding are the exquisite works by Rudolf von Alt from his over 70-year career. His masterful watercolours run from the Biedermeier era all the way to the rise of the Secession movement around 1900.

This exhibition presents a veritable parade of exceptionally beautiful pictures, including the ALBERTINA’s own treasures as well as important loan works, all of which pay impressive tribute to the high standing of the Viennese watercolor in the context of 19th century art.

www.albertina.at/en/exhibitions/viennese_watercolour/

 

On view from 16 February until 13 May 2018.

 

The Albertina

The architectural history of the Palais

 

"It is my will that ​​the expansion of the inner city of Vienna with regard to a suitable connection of the same with the suburbs as soon as possible is tackled and at this on Regulirung (regulation) and beautifying of my Residence and Imperial Capital is taken into account. To this end I grant the withdrawal of the ramparts and fortifications of the inner city and the trenches around the same".

This decree of Emperor Franz Joseph I, published on 25 December 1857 in the Wiener Zeitung, formed the basis for the largest the surface concerning and architecturally most significant transformation of the Viennese cityscape. Involving several renowned domestic and foreign architects a "master plan" took form, which included the construction of a boulevard instead of the ramparts between the inner city and its radially upstream suburbs. In the 50-years during implementation phase, an impressive architectural ensemble developed, consisting of imperial and private representational buildings, public administration and cultural buildings, churches and barracks, marking the era under the term "ring-street style". Already in the first year tithe decided a senior member of the Austrian imperial family to decorate the facades of his palace according to the new design principles, and thus certified the aristocratic claim that this also "historicism" said style on the part of the imperial house was attributed.

It was the palace of Archduke Albrecht (1817-1895), the Senior of the Habsburg Family Council, who as Field Marshal held the overall command over the Austro-Hungarian army. The building was incorporated into the imperial residence of the Hofburg complex, forming the south-west corner and extending eleven meters above street level on the so-called Augustinerbastei.

The close proximity of the palace to the imperial residence corresponded not only with Emperor Franz Joseph I and Archduke Albert with a close familial relationship between the owner of the palace and the monarch. Even the former inhabitants were always in close relationship to the imperial family, whether by birth or marriage. An exception here again proves the rule: Don Emanuel Teles da Silva Conde Tarouca (1696-1771), for which Maria Theresa in 1744 the palace had built, was just a close friend and advisor of the monarch. Silva Tarouca underpins the rule with a second exception, because he belonged to the administrative services as Generalhofbaudirektor (general court architect) and President of the Austrian-Dutch administration, while all other him subsequent owners were highest ranking military.

In the annals of Austrian history, especially those of military history, they either went into as commander of the Imperial Army, or the Austrian, later kk Army. In chronological order, this applies to Duke Carl Alexander of Lorraine, the brother-of-law of Maria Theresa, as Imperial Marshal, her son-in-law Duke Albert of Saxe-Teschen, also field marshal, whos adopted son, Archduke Charles of Austria, the last imperial field marshal and only Generalissimo of Austria, his son Archduke Albrecht of Austria as Feldmarschalil and army Supreme commander, and most recently his nephew Archduke Friedrich of Austria, who held as field marshal from 1914 to 1916 the command of the Austro-Hungarian troops. Despite their military profession, all five generals conceived themselves as patrons of the arts and promoted large sums of money to build large collections, the construction of magnificent buildings and cultural life. Charles Alexander of Lorraine promoted as governor of the Austrian Netherlands from 1741 to 1780 the Academy of Fine Arts, the Théâtre de Ja Monnaie and the companies Bourgeois Concert and Concert Noble, he founded the Academie royale et imperial des Sciences et des Lettres, opened the Bibliotheque Royal for the population and supported artistic talents with high scholarships. World fame got his porcelain collection, which however had to be sold by Emperor Joseph II to pay off his debts. Duke Albert began in 1776 according to the concept of conte Durazzo to set up an encyclopedic collection of prints, which forms the core of the world-famous "Albertina" today.

1816 declared to Fideikommiss and thus in future indivisible, inalienable and inseparable, the collection 1822 passed into the possession of Archduke Carl, who, like his descendants, it broadened. Under him, the collection was introduced together with the sumptuously equipped palace on the Augustinerbastei in the so-called "Carl Ludwig'schen fideicommissum in 1826, by which the building and the in it kept collection fused into an indissoluble unity. At this time had from the Palais Tarouca by structural expansion or acquisition a veritable Residenz palace evolved. Duke Albert of Saxe-Teschen was first in 1800 the third floor of the adjacent Augustinian convent wing adapted to house his collection and he had after 1802 by his Belgian architect Louis de Montoyer at the suburban side built a magnificent extension, called the wing of staterooms, it was equipped in the style of Louis XVI. Only two decades later, Archduke Carl the entire palace newly set up. According to scetches of the architect Joseph Kornhäusel the 1822-1825 retreaded premises presented themselves in the Empire style. The interior of the palace testified from now in an impressive way the high rank and the prominent position of its owner. Under Archduke Albrecht the outer appearance also should meet the requirements. He had the facade of the palace in the style of historicism orchestrated and added to the Palais front against the suburbs an offshore covered access. Inside, he limited himself, apart from the redesign of the Rococo room in the manner of the second Blondel style, to the retention of the paternal stock. Archduke Friedrich's plans for an expansion of the palace were omitted, however, because of the outbreak of the First World War so that his contribution to the state rooms, especially, consists in the layout of the Spanish apartment, which he in 1895 for his sister, the Queen of Spain Maria Christina, had set up as a permanent residence.

The era of stately representation with handing down their cultural values ​​found its most obvious visualization inside the palace through the design and features of the staterooms. On one hand, by the use of the finest materials and the purchase of masterfully manufactured pieces of equipment, such as on the other hand by the permanent reuse of older equipment parts. This period lasted until 1919, when Archduke Friedrich was expropriated by the newly founded Republic of Austria. With the republicanization of the collection and the building first of all finished the tradition that the owner's name was synonymous with the building name:

After Palais Tarouca or tarokkisches house it was called Lorraine House, afterwards Duke Albert Palais and Palais Archduke Carl. Due to the new construction of an adjacently located administration building it received in 1865 the prefix "Upper" and was referred to as Upper Palais Archduke Albrecht and Upper Palais Archduke Frederick. For the state a special reference to the Habsburg past was certainly politically no longer opportune, which is why was decided to name the building according to the in it kept collection "Albertina".

This name derives from the term "La Collection Albertina" which had been used by the gallery Inspector Maurice von Thausing in 1870 in the Gazette des Beaux-Arts for the former graphics collection of Duke Albert. For this reason, it was the first time since the foundation of the palace that the name of the collection had become synonymous with the room shell. Room shell, hence, because the Republic of Austria Archduke Friedrich had allowed to take along all the movable goods from the palace in his Hungarian exile: crystal chandeliers, curtains and carpets as well as sculptures, vases and clocks. Particularly stressed should be the exquisite furniture, which stems of three facilities phases: the Louis XVI furnitures of Duke Albert, which had been manufactured on the basis of fraternal relations between his wife Archduchess Marie Christine and the French Queen Marie Antoinette after 1780 in the French Hofmanufakturen, also the on behalf of Archduke Charles 1822-1825 in the Vienna Porcelain Manufactory by Joseph Danhauser produced Empire furnitures and thirdly additions of the same style of Archduke Friedrich, which this about 1900 at Portois & Ffix as well as at Friedrich Otto Schmidt had commissioned.

The "swept clean" building got due to the strained financial situation after the First World War initially only a makeshift facility. However, since until 1999 no revision of the emergency equipment took place, but differently designed, primarily the utilitarianism committed office furnitures complementarily had been added, the equipment of the former state rooms presented itself at the end of the 20th century as an inhomogeneous administrative mingle-mangle of insignificant parts, where, however, dwelt a certain quaint charm. From the magnificent state rooms had evolved depots, storage rooms, a library, a study hall and several officed.

Worse it hit the outer appearance of the palace, because in times of continued anti-Habsburg sentiment after the Second World War and inspired by an intolerant destruction will, it came by pickaxe to a ministerial erasure of history. In contrast to the graphic collection possessed the richly decorated facades with the conspicuous insignia of the former owner an object-immanent reference to the Habsburg past and thus exhibited the monarchial traditions and values ​​of the era of Francis Joseph significantly. As part of the remedial measures after a bomb damage, in 1948 the aristocratic, by Archduke Albert initiated, historicist facade structuring along with all decorations was cut off, many facade figures demolished and the Hapsburg crest emblems plunged to the ground. Since in addition the old ramp also had been cancelled and the main entrance of the bastion level had been moved down to the second basement storey at street level, ended the presence of the old Archduke's palace after more than 200 years. At the reopening of the "Albertina Graphic Collection" in 1952, the former Hapsburg Palais of splendour presented itself as one of his identity robbed, formally trivial, soulless room shell, whose successful republicanization an oversized and also unproportional eagle above the new main entrance to the Augustinian road symbolized. The emocratic throw of monuments had wiped out the Hapsburg palace from the urban appeareance, whereby in the perception only existed a nondescript, nameless and ahistorical building that henceforth served the lodging and presentation of world-famous graphic collection of the Albertina. The condition was not changed by the decision to the refurbishment because there were only planned collection specific extensions, but no restoration of the palace.

This paradigm shift corresponded to a blatant reversal of the historical circumstances, as the travel guides and travel books for kk Residence and imperial capital of Vienna dedicated itself primarily with the magnificent, aristocratic palace on the Augustinerbastei with the sumptuously fitted out reception rooms and mentioned the collection kept there - if at all - only in passing. Only with the repositioning of the Albertina in 2000 under the direction of Klaus Albrecht Schröder, the palace was within the meaning and in fulfillment of the Fideikommiss of Archduke Charles in 1826 again met with the high regard, from which could result a further inseparable bond between the magnificent mansions and the world-famous collection. In view of the knowing about politically motivated errors and omissions of the past, the facades should get back their noble, historicist designing, the staterooms regain their glamorous, prestigious appearance and culturally unique equippment be repurchased. From this presumption, eventually grew the full commitment to revise the history of redemption and the return of the stately palace in the public consciousness.

The smoothed palace facades were returned to their original condition and present themselves today - with the exception of the not anymore reconstructed Attica figures - again with the historicist decoration and layout elements that Archduke Albrecht had given after the razing of the Augustinerbastei in 1865 in order. The neoclassical interiors, today called after the former inhabitants "Habsburg Staterooms", receiving a meticulous and detailed restoration taking place at the premises of originality and authenticity, got back their venerable and sumptuous appearance. From the world wide scattered historical pieces of equipment have been bought back 70 properties or could be returned through permanent loan to its original location, by which to the visitors is made experiencable again that atmosphere in 1919 the state rooms of the last Habsburg owner Archduke Frederick had owned. The for the first time in 80 years public accessible "Habsburg State Rooms" at the Palais Albertina enable now again as eloquent testimony to our Habsburg past and as a unique cultural heritage fundamental and essential insights into the Austrian cultural history. With the relocation of the main entrance to the level of the Augustinerbastei the recollection to this so valuable Austrian Cultural Heritage formally and functionally came to completion. The vision of the restoration and recovery of the grand palace was a pillar on which the new Albertina should arise again, the other embody the four large newly built exhibition halls, which allow for the first time in the history of the Albertina, to exhibit the collection throughout its encyclopedic breadh under optimal conservation conditions.

The palace presents itself now in its appearance in the historicist style of the Ringstrassenära, almost as if nothing had happened in the meantime. But will the wheel of time should not, cannot and must not be turned back, so that the double standards of the "Albertina Palace" said museum - on the one hand Habsburg grandeur palaces and other modern museum for the arts of graphics - should be symbolized by a modern character: The in 2003 by Hans Hollein designed far into the Albertina square cantilevering, elegant floating flying roof. 64 meters long, it symbolizes in the form of a dynamic wedge the accelerated urban spatial connectivity and public access to the palace. It advertises the major changes in the interior as well as the huge underground extensions of the repositioned "Albertina".

Christian Benedictine

 

Art historian with research interests History of Architecture, building industry of the Hapsburgs, Hofburg and Zeremonialwissenschaft (ceremonial sciences). Since 1990 he works in the architecture collection of the Albertina. Since 2000 he supervises as director of the newly founded department "Staterooms" the restoration and furnishing of the state rooms and the restoration of the facades and explores the history of the palace and its inhabitants.

 

www.wien-vienna.at/albertinabaugeschichte.php

26 by 26 Challenge #14:

Photograph something you consider insignificant.

– Riitta Ikonen & Karoline Hjorth

 

I find significance in most things, so this was a pretty hard assignment for me!

I looked for the blandest and least interesting thing I could find on my walk, and settled on a row of garden fences, which looked suitably uninteresting and featureless. My quest was then to produce something which is purely pleasing on a visual level, as opposed to looking for meaning or symbolism or anything deeper. These are the marks left behind by ivy.

Sihanoukville (Khmer: ក្រុងព្រះសីហនុ, Krong Preah Sihanouk), also known as 'Kompong Som' (Khmer: កំពង់សោម), is a coastal city in Cambodia and the capital city of Sihanoukville Province, located at the tip of an elevated peninsula in the country's south-west at the Gulf of Thailand. The city is flanked by an almost uninterrupted string of beaches along its entire coastline and coastal marshlands bordering the Ream National Park in the East. A number of thinly inhabited islands - under Sihanoukville's administration - are in the city's proximity, where in recent years moderate development has helped to attract a sizable portion of Asia's individual travelers, young students and back-packers.

 

The city, which was named in honour of former king Norodom Sihanouk, had a population of around 89.800 people and approximately 66.700 in its urban center in 2008. Sihanoukville city encompasses the greater part of four of the five communes (Sangkats) of Sihanoukville provinces' Mittakpheap District. A relatively young city, it has evolved parallel to the construction of the Sihanoukville Autonomous Port, which commenced in June 1955, as the country's gateway to direct and unrestricted international sea trade. The only deep water port in Cambodia includes a mineral oil terminal and a transport logistics facility. As a consequence, the city grew to become a leading national center of trade, commerce, transport and process manufacturing.

 

Sihanoukville's many beaches and nearby islands make it Cambodia's premier seaside resort with steadily rising numbers of national visitors and international tourists since the late 20th century. As a result of its economic diversity, the region's natural beauty and the considerable recreational potential, a constantly increasing number of seasonal and permanent foreign residents make Sihanoukville one of the culturally most varied and dynamic population centers in Cambodia. As of 2014 the tourism sector remains insignificant in comparison with neighboring Thailand. Sihanoukville's future will largely be defined by the authorities' capability of a successfully balanced management in order to protect and conserve natural resources on the one hand and the necessities of island - and urban development, increasing visitor numbers, expanding infrastructure, the industrial sector and population growth on the other.

 

Despite being the country’s premier sea side destination, after decades of war and upheaval the town and its infrastructure remain very much disjointed and architecturally unimpressive. Infrastructure problems persist, in particular related to water and power supply, while international standard health facilities remain limited.

 

ETYMOLOGY

The official name of the city in Khmer is: Krong (city) Preah (holy) Sihanouk (name of the former king), which adds up to: "City of the holy Sihanouk" or "Honorable Sihanouk City". King Norodom Sihanouk (reigned 1941-1955, 1993-2004) was and still is revered as father of the (modern) nation. The name "Sihanouk" is derived from Sanskrit through two Pali words: Siha (lion), and Hanu (jaws).

 

The alternative name, Kompong Saom (also romanized as Kompong Som and Kampong Som), (Khmer: កំពង់សោម) means "Port of the Moon" or "Shiva's Port". Saom is derived from the Sanskrit word "saumya", the original (Rig Vedic) meaning of which was "Soma, the juice or sacrifice of the moon-god", but evolved into Pali "moon", "moonlike" "name of Shiva". The word Kampong or Kompong is of Malayan origin and means village or hamlet. Its meaning underwent extension towards pier or river landing bridge.

 

HISTORY

CLASSICAL PERIOD (BEFORE 1700)

Prior to the ports' and city's foundation works of 1955, the port of Kompong Som must have been only of regional significance - due to the absence of navigable waterways that connect the port with the kingdom's settlement centers. During the many centuries of pre-Angkorian and Angkorian history – from Funan to Chenla and during the Khmer Empire, regional trade was centered at O Keo (Vietnamese: Óc Eo) in the Mekong Delta, now the province of Rạch Giá in Vietnam. The township of Prei Nokor (Saigon) was a commercial center of the Khmer Empire. The Chronicle of Samtec Cauva Vamn Juon - one of the 18th and 19th century Cambodian Royal Chronicles - briefly mentions the region as the country was split into 3 parts during a 9-year civil war from 1476 to 1485: "In 1479, Dhammaraja took on the throne at Catumukh (Phnom Penh) and controlled the provinces of Samraong Tong, Thbong, Kompong Saom, Kampot up to the Bassak, Preah Trapeang, Kramuon Sah, Koh Slaket and Peam"[mouth of the Mekong].

 

EARLY MODERN PERIOD (AROUND 1700-1863)

From the end of the seventeenth century, Cambodia lost control of the Mekong River route as Vietnamese power expanded into the lower Mekong. During the Nguyen-Siamese War (1717–18) a Siamese fleet burned the port of Kompong Som in 1717 but was defeated by the Vietnamese at Banteay Meas/Ha Tien.[20] A Cambodian king of the late eighteenth century, Outey-Reachea III allied with a Chinese pirate, Mac-Thien-Tu, who had established an autonomous polity based in Ha Tien and controlled the maritime network on the eastern part of the Gulf of Thailand. Ha Tien was located at a point where a river linking to the Bassac River flows into the Gulf of Thailand. Landlocked Cambodia tried to keep its access to maritime trade through Ha Tien. In 1757 Ha Tien acquired the ports of Kampot and Kompong Som as a reward for Mac's military support to the King of Cambodia. Until its destruction in 1771 the port developed into an independent duty-free entrepot - linked with several Chinese trading networks.

 

Alexander Hamilton, who traveled on the Gulf of Thailand in 1720, wrote that "Kompong Som and Banteay Meas (later Ha Tien) belonged to Cambodia, as Cochin-China was divided from Cambodia by a river (Bassac river) of three leagues broad." and "King Ang Duong constructed a road from his capital of Oudong to Kampot". Kampot remained the only international seaport of Cambodia. "The traveling time between Udong and Kampot was eight days by oxcart and four days by elephants." French Résident Adhemard Leclère wrote: "...Until 1840s, the Vietnamese governed Kampot and Péam [Mekong Delta], but Kompong Som belonged to Cambodia. The Vietnamese constructed a road from Ha Tien to Svai village - on the border with Kompong-Som - via Kampot."

 

The British Empire followed a distinct policy by the 1850s, seeking to consolidate its influence. Eye witness reports give rare insights, as Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston's agent John Crawfurd reports: "Cambodia was...the Keystone of our policy in these countries, - the King of that ancient Kingdom is ready to throw himself under the protection of any European nation...The Vietnamese were interfering with the trade at Kampot, and this would be the basis of an approach..." Palmerston concluded: "The trade at Kampot - one of the few remaining ports, could never be considerable, in consequence of the main entrance to the country, the Mekong, with all its feeders flowing into the Sea through the territory of Cochin China The country, too, had been devastated by recent Siam - Vietnam wars. Thus, without the aid of Great Britain, Kampot or any other port in Cambodia, can never become a commercial Emporium." Crawfurd later wrote: "The Cambodians... sought to use intervals of peace in the Siam - Vietnam wars to develop intercourse with outside nations. The trade at Kampot which they sought to foster was imperiled by pirates. Here is a point where the wedge might be inserted, that would open the interior of the Indo-Chinese Peninsula to British Commerce, as the great River of the Cambodians traverses its entire length and even affords communication into the heart of Siam".

 

FRENCH RULE (1863-1954)

Under French rule Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia became a single administrative and economic unit. The coastal region Circonscription Résidentielle with Kampot as its capital contained the Arrondissements of Kampot, Kompong Som, Trang and Kong-Pisey. The establishment of another international trading center near the existing city of Saigon was not considered necessary. Focus remained the Mekong and the idea to establish an alternative route to Chinese and Thai internal markets along an uninterrupted navigable waterway from the Red River to the Mekong Delta.

 

INSURRECTION

An insurrection that took place from 1885 to 1887 further discouraged French ambition. It started in Kampot and quickly spread to Veal Rinh, Kampong Seila, and Kompong Som, where the insurgents were led by a Chinese pirate named Quan-Khiem. He managed to control the northern part of Preah Sihanouk for some time until he - an old man - was arrested by Preah Sihanouk's governor.

 

The most notable infrastructural improvements of this period were the construction of Route Coloniale No.17, later renamed National Road No.3 and the national railway system, although work on the "Southern Line" - from Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville - only began in 1960.

 

AFTER INDIPENDENCE (SINCE 1954)

The city's and province's alternative name Kampong som (Kampong Som) was adopted from the local indigenous community. After the dissolution of French Indochina in 1954, it became apparent that the steadily tightening control of the Mekong Delta by Vietnam required a solution to gain unrestricted access to the seas. Plans were made to construct an entirely new deep-water port. Kompong Saom (Kampong Som) was selected for water depth and ease of access. In August 1955, a French/Cambodian construction team cut a base camp into the unoccupied jungle in the area that is now known as Hawaii Beach. Funds for construction of the port came from France and the road was financed by the USA.

 

During the Vietnam War the port became an intensive military facility on both sides, in the service of National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam and after 1970, under the government of Lon Nol, in the service of the United States.

 

The port was the last place to be evacuated by the US Army, only days before Khmer Rouge guerrillas took control of the government in April 1975. The events surrounding the taking of the US container ship SS Mayaguez and its crew on 12 May by the Khmer Rouge and the subsequent rescue operation by US Marines played out on the waters of Koh Tang off the coast of Sihanoukville. During the two days of action, the US commenced air strikes on targets on the mainland of Sihanoukville including the port, the Ream Naval Base, an airfield, the railroad yard and the petroleum refinery in addition to strikes and naval gun fire on several islands.

 

After the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime in 1979 and the subsequent opening of the economy, the port of Sihanoukville resumed its importance in the development and recovery of the country. With the further opening of new markets in 1999, the city regained its role in the economic growth of Cambodia.

 

In 1993, the Ream National Park was established per royal decree of former King Sihanouk.

 

The Sihanoukville Municipality was elevated to a regular province on 22 December 2008 after King Norodom Sihamoni signed a Royal Decree converting the municipalities of Kep, Pailin and Sihanoukville into provinces.

 

In 2006 the Koh Puos (Cambodia) Investment Group submitted an application, planning to invest $276 million in converting the 116-hectare Koh Puos - Snake island into a luxury residential - and resort complex. After the completion of certain elements of the infrastructure, the investor announced alterations of the original blueprints, as "Reapplying for permission will happen in 2014..." according to the Council of the Development of Cambodia.

 

On 26 May 2011 Preah Sihanouk area joined the Paris-based club Les Plus Belles Baies Du Monde (The most Beautiful Bays in the World). The organisation officially accepts the Bay of Cambodia as one of its members at the 7th General Assembly.

 

BEACHES

Sihanoukville's beaches are one of the city's most valuable ecological and economic resource with varying degrees of commercial exploitation. The beaches listed in this section do not include any of the island's beaches.

 

- Ochheuteal Beach, ឆ្នេរអូរឈើទាល: is a 3.3 km long strip of white sand beach and although the name translates to "Creek/Estuary of the Tiel tree" it is lined with Casuarina and Tamarisk trees. Grass umbrellas, rental chairs in front of around 30 standardized beach huts serve meals, drinks and entertainment. Well established middle class hotels and high-profile residences flank the beach along its Northern part. The sustainability of Ochheuteal beach was a primary consideration of various stakeholders, which brought about the development of a tourism development and management plan in 2005. The Southern half remains - apart from some hotels at its far end - essentially undeveloped.

 

- Serendipity Beach: Technically the western end (roughly one fifth or 600 m) of Ochheuteal beach, is very popular with Western tourists and has a few small guesthouses right on the beach. It has been named by an American fellow, who came here in the Nineties. Struck by its (then) unspoiled beauty and pristine condition, he came up with the term, which quickly entered common vocabulary.

 

- Otres Beach, ្នេរអូរត្រេស: is around 4.6 km long and beyond the small "Queen hill" headland at the southern end of Ochheuteal Beach. Its long white sand strip, also completely lined with Casuarina and Tamarisk trees, is far less developed and commercialized than Ochheuteal Beach and has developed into a preferred lodging place for Western visitors. From 2004 to 2011 this beach was occupied by numerous bungalows and dormitories, run by Western people. Due to the element of illegality of on-beach accommodation, among other reasons, police cleaned up the area in May 2011, removing the greater part of the beach-side bungalows. Permanent structures beyond the beach road supplement the remaining places since 2012. It is a very popular, well established holiday retreat – where prices have risen considerably over the course of the last years.

 

- Sokha Beach: Sokha Beach is around 1.2 km long and located west of Serendipity Beach. The beach is privately owned by - and its southern half occupied by the Sokha Beach Hotel, the first five-star luxury beach hotel in Cambodia. While the beach is well kept and many facilities are provided, visitors have to pay for their use and beach vendors are not allowed.

 

- Independence Beach: Independence Beach is around 1.3 km long and located north-west of Sokha Beach. The beach is named after the Independence Hotel, another example of New Khmer Architecture, towering on top of a rock at the beaches northern end.

 

- Victory Beach: Victory beach is around 300 m long and situated at the furthest north of the peninsula of Sihanoukville. It was heavily used by backpackers and is still popular with budget travelers. The deep water port is located at the northern end of the beach. A consortium of Russian business people undertook large scale development here. The beach is regularly maintained.

 

- Lamherkay/Hawaii Beach: is the southern succession of Victory Beach, situated north of Independence Beach. It is a strip of similar length as Victory Beach - around 300 m. Here is the very place where the French/Cambodian construction team's groundwork began for the construction of the Sihanoukville Autonomous Port in 1955.

 

- Treasure Island Beach south of Lamherkay/Hawaii Beach is less than 50 m long and its entire length is fringed with concrete steps and wooden pavilions of a big Cambodian seafood restaurant.

 

- Hun Sen (Prek Treng) Beach, ឆ្នេរព្រែកត្រែង: is the northernmost beach of the city with a length of around 1.5 km, situated behind the local port and essentially empty without beach huts and bars, it sees only weekend - and holiday visitors. The water is very shallow, but the area is lacking favorable infrastructure and is not regularly cleaned.

 

WIKIPEDIA

Being so close to a volcano that has destroyed so much makes you feel so insignificant

A pair of prosthetic hip implants, made of a titanium/vanadium alloy. If you wanted to buy one of these new, they would cost you about $7000-9000. Each.

Random postings of photos I have taken over the last few years. Explore the photo set to find other work by the artist or of the same theme or event.

 

All photos © Ian Cox. If you would like to use this image please ask first. Best viewed as a set here

 

Follow Wallkandy on Instagram to see photos as they are posted. These images are also being posted on the Wallkandy facebook page and Tumblr.

Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska

The Humble Instrument

Sister Faustina was a young, uneducated, nun in a convent of the Congregation of Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy in Cracow, Poland during the 1930's. She came from a very poor family that struggled on their little farm during the years of World War I. She had only three years of very simple education, so hers were the humblest tasks in the convent, usually in the kitchen or garden. However, she received extraordinary revelations or messages from Our Lord Jesus. Jesus asked Sr. Faustina to record these experiences, which she compiled in notebooks. These notebooks are known today as the Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska and the words contained within are God's loving message of Divine Mercy.

 

Though the Divine Mercy message is not new to the teachings of the Church, Sr. Faustina's Diary sparked a great movement, and a strong and significant focus on the mercy of Christ. Pope John Paul II canonized Sr. Faustina in 2000 making her the "first saint of the new millennium." Speaking of Sr. Faustina and the importance of the message contained in her Diary, the Pope call her "the great apostle of Divine Mercy in our time."

 

Today, we continue to rely of Saint Faustina as a constant reminder of the message to trust in Jesus' endless mercy, and to live life mercifully toward others. We also turn to her in prayer and request her intercession to our merciful Savior on our behalf. At the National Shrine of The Divine Mercy, we include the following in our 3 o'clock prayers:

 

Saint Faustina,

You told us that your mission would continue after your death and that you would not forget us. Our Lord also granted you a great privilege, telling you to "distribute graces as you will, to who you will, and when you will." Relying on this, we ask your intercession for the graces we need, especially for the intentions just mentioned. Help us, above all, to trust in Jesus as you did and thus to glorify His mercy every moment of our lives. Amen

 

thedivinemercy.org/message/stfaustina/

 

The Biography of Saint Mary Faustina Kowalska of the Most Blessed Sacrament

(August 25, 1905 – October 5, 1938)

An excerpt from Apostle of Divine Mercy, a biography published by the Vatican.

 

Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska, an apostle of Divine Mercy, belongs today to the group of the most popular and well-known saints of the Church.

 

Through her the Lord Jesus communicates to the world the great message of God's mercy and reveals the pattern of Christian perfection based on trust in God and on the attitude of mercy toward one's neighbors.

 

Sr. Faustina was born on August 25, 1905 in Glogowiec in Poland of a poor and religious family of peasants, the third of ten children. She was baptized with the name Helena in the parish church of Swinice Warckie. From a very tender age she stood out because of her love of prayer, work, obedience, and also her sensitivity to the poor. At the age of seven she had already felt the first stirrings of a religious vocation. Helen made her first Holy Communion at the age of nine, which was very profound moment in her awareness of the presence of the Divine Guest within her soul. She attended school for three years. After finishing school, she wanted to enter the convent but her parents would not give her permission. Being of age at sixteen, Helen left home and went to work as a housekeeper in Aleksandrów, Lodi, and Ostrówek in order to find the means of supporting herself and of helping her parents.

 

Helen joins Sister of Our Lady of Mercy

Helen never lost her desire for a religious vocation. After being called during a vision of the Suffering Christ, she entered the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy on August 1, 1925, and took the name Sr. Maria Faustina of the Most Blessed Sacrament. She lived in the Congregation for thirteen years in several religious houses. She spent time at Krakow, Plock and Vilnius, where she worked as a cook, gardener, and porter.

 

Externally nothing revealed her rich mystical interior life. She zealously performed her tasks and faithfully observed the rule of religious life. She was recollected and at the same time very natural, serene, and full of kindness and disinterested love for her neighbor. Although her life was apparently insignificant, monotonous and dull, she hid within herself an extraordinary union with God.

 

It is the mystery of the Mercy of God which she contemplated in the word of God as well as in the everyday activities of her life that forms the basis of her spirituality. The process of contemplating and getting to know the mystery of God's mercy helped develop within Sr. Maria Faustina the attitude of child-like trust in God as well as mercy toward her neighbors.

 

Sister Faustina was a faithful daughter of the Church which she loved like a Mother and the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ. Conscious of her role in the Church, she cooperated with God's mercy in the task of saving lost souls. At the specific request of and following the example of the Lord Jesus, she made a sacrifice of her own life for this very goal. In her spiritual life she also distinguished herself with a love of the Eucharist and a deep devotion to the Mother of Mercy.

 

The Secretary of God's Mercy

The Lord Jesus chose Sr. Maria Faustina as the Apostle and "Secretary" of His Mercy, so that she could tell the world about His great message, which Sr. Faustina recorded in a diary she titled Divine Mercy in My Soul. In the Old Covenant He said to her:

 

"I sent prophets wielding thunderbolts to My people. Today I am sending you with My mercy to the people of the whole world. I do not want to punish aching mankind, but I desire to heal it, pressing it to My Merciful Heart." (Diary 1588)

 

In an extraordinary way, Sr. Maria Faustina's work sheds light on the mystery of the Divine Mercy. It delights not only the simple and uneducated people, but also scholars who look upon it as an additional source of theological research. The Diary has been translated into many languages, among others, English, German, Italian, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Arabic, Russian, Hungarian, Czech, and Slovak.

 

Sr. Maria Faustina, consumed by tuberculosis and by innumerable sufferings which she accepted as a voluntary sacrifice for sinners, died in Krakow at the age of just 33 on October 5, 1938, with a reputation for spiritual maturity and a mystical union with God. The reputation of the holiness of her life grew as did the cult to the Divine Mercy and the graces she obtained from God through her intercession. In the years 1965-67, the Investigative Process into her life and heroic virtues was undertaken in Krakow and in the year 1968, the Beatification Process was initiated in Rome. The latter came to an end in December 1992.

 

On April 18, 1993 our Holy Father, John Paul II raised St. Faustina to the glory of the altars. She was canonized on April 30, 2000. St. Maria Faustina's remains rest at the Sanctuary of the Divine Mercy in Krakow-Lagiewniki.

 

Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska

Revelations

The years Sr. Faustina spent at the convent were filled with extraordinary gifts, such as revelations, visions, hidden stigmata, participation in the Passion of the Lord, the gift of bilocation, the reading of human souls, the gift of prophecy, and the rare gift of mystical engagement and marriage.

 

The living relationship with God, the Blessed Mother, the angels, the saints, the souls in Purgatory — with the entire supernatural world — was as equally real for her as was the world she perceived with her senses. In spite of being so richly endowed with extraordinary graces, Sr. Maria Faustina knew that they do not in fact constitute sanctity. In her Diary she wrote:

 

"Neither graces, nor revelations, nor raptures, nor gifts granted to a soul make it perfect, but rather the intimate union of the soul with God. These gifts are merely ornaments of the soul, but constitute neither its essence nor its perfection. My sanctity and perfection consist in the close union of my will with the will of God."

 

(Diary 1107)

 

The Mission of St. Faustina

The mission of St. Faustina was recorded in her Diary which she kept at the specific request of the Lord Jesus and her confessors. In it, she recorded faithfully all of the Lord Jesus' wishes and also described the encounters between her soul and Him.

 

"Secretary of My most profound mystery," the Lord Jesus said to Sr. Faustina, "know that your task is to write down everything that I make known to you about My mercy, for the benefit of those who by reading these things will be comforted in their souls and will have the courage to approach Me." (Diary 1693)

 

Task One

Reminding the world of the truth of our faith revealed in the Holy Scripture about the merciful love of God toward every human being.

 

Task Two

Entreating God's mercy for the whole world and particularly for sinners, among others through the practice of new forms of devotion to the Divine Mercy presented by the Lord Jesus, such as: the veneration of the image of the Divine Mercy with the inscription: "Jesus, I Trust in You," the feast of the Divine Mercy celebrated on the first Sunday after Easter, chaplet to the Divine Mercy and prayer at the Hour of Mercy (3 pm). The Lord Jesus attached great promises to the above forms of devotion, provided one entrusted one's life to God and practiced active love of one's neighbor.

 

Task Three

The third task in Sr. Mary Faustina's mission consists in initiating the apostolic movement of the Divine Mercy which undertakes the task of proclaiming and entreating God's mercy for the world and strives for Christian perfection, following the precepts laid down by the Blessed Sr. Mary Faustina. The precepts in question require the faithful to display an attitude of child-like trust in God which expresses itself in fulfilling His will, as well as in the attitude of mercy toward one's neighbors. Today, this movement within the Church involves millions of people throughout the world; it comprises religious congregations, lay institutes, religious, brotherhoods, associations, various communities of apostles of the Divine Mercy, as well as individual people who take up the tasks which the Lord Jesus communicated to them through Sr. Mary Faustina.

 

Graces and Miracles Received

Miracles attributed to the intercession of Sr. Maria Faustina lead to her canonization on April 30, 2000. Today, people from around the world rely on St. Faustina to interceed on their behalf to Our Lord.

 

Miracle received by Maureen Digan

Innerly she heard Sister Faustina say: "If you ask for my help, I will give it to you."

Before the age of 15, Maureen Digan enjoyed a normal healthy life. Then she was struck down with a very serious, slowly progressive but terminal disease called lymphedima. This is a disease that does not respond to medication and does not go into remission. Within the next ten years Maureen had fifty operations and had lengthy confinements in the hospital of up to a year at a time.

 

Friends and relations suggested she should pray and put her trust in God. But Maureen could not understand why God had allowed her to get this disease in the first place, and had lost her faith completely. Eventually her deteriorating condition would require the amputation of one leg.

 

One evening while Maureen was in the hospital her husband Bob watched a film on Divine Mercy and there he became convinced of the healing powers of intercession by Sr. Faustina. Bob persuaded Maureen and the doctors that she should go to the tomb of Sr. Faustina in Poland. Together with her husband, son, and Fr. Seraphim Michalenko, MIC (a priest of the Congregation of Marians of the Immaculate Conception), they traveled to St. Faustina's tomb at the Shrine of The Divine Mercy outside Krakow, Poland. They arrived in Poland on March 23, 1981 and Maureen went to confession for the first time since she was a young girl.

 

At the tomb Maureen remembers saying "Okay, Faustina I came a long way, now do something." Innerly she heard Sr. Faustina say: "If you ask for my help, I will give it to you." Suddenly she thought she was losing her mind. All the pain seemed to drain out of her body and her swollen leg, which was due to be amputated shortly, went back to its normal size. When she returned to the USA she was examined by five independent doctors who came to the conclusion that she was completely healed. They had no medical explanation for the sudden healing of this incurable disease.

 

The accumulated evidence of this miracle was examined in consultation by five doctors appointed by the Sacred Congregation for the Causes of Saints. Having passed this test it was examined by a team of theologians, and finally by a team of cardinals and bishops. The cure was accepted by all as a miracle caused by Sr. Faustina's intercession to the Divine Mercy. Sr. Faustina was beatified on April 18, 1993.

 

Miracle received by Fr. Ron Pytel

"I know in my heart that Faustina put in a word with Jesus, and His Heart touched mine. It's as simple as that."

On Oct. 5, 1995, the Feast Day of St. Faustina (who was then a blessed), Fr. Ron Pytel and some friends gathered for prayer at Holy Rosary Church, which is also the Baltimore archdiocesan Shrine of The Divine Mercy. After a time of prayer for the healing of his heart through Sr. Faustina's intercession, Fr. Ron venerated a relic of St. Faustina and collapsed. He felt paralyzed, but was completely at peace. A subsequent visit to his cardiologist showed that his heart had been healed.

 

Although he was healed through St. Faustina's intercession, Fr. Ron is quick to point out that Jesus healed him. "I know in my heart that Faustina put in a word with Jesus, and His Heart touched mine. It's as simple as that," he explained.

 

After almost three years of examining Fr. Ron and his medical records, doctors and theologians from the Congregation for the Cause of Saints concluded an exhaustive investigation of the healing. And on Dec. 20, 1999, Pope John Paul II ordered publication of the fact of the healing as a miracle through Sr. Faustina's intercession, leading to her canonization on Mercy Sunday, April 30, in St. Peter's Square.

 

Grace of Healing received by Ugo Festa

"Entrust yourself to Him and pray to my Sr. Faustina to intercede."

Ugo Festa was born in Vicenza, Italy, in 1951. He was struck down at an early age with multiple sclerosis. Gradually his health deteriorated. This led to many other problems in his young life. By the age of 39 he was suffering from muscular dystrophy and epilepsy. Early in 1990 his spine was becoming distorted and he was having seizures daily. He had been continually attending doctors since he first contracted the disease, but they could not do nothing for him. He decided there was nothing left to try but prayer.

 

On April 28, 1990, Ugo went with a pilgrimage to Rome. In his unfortunate situation he was introduced to Mother Teresa who was in Rome at the time with a group whom he also became acquainted with. Ugo was invited along with this group to a retreat at the Shrine of Divine Mercy in Trent, but he refused. On leaving, one of the group, a nun, gave him five copies of the Divine Mercy Image and a Divine Mercy medal.

 

The following day, April 29, 1990, Ugo wore the medal and carried in his arms the images to be blessed by the Holy Father. At the bottom of the steps to St. Peter's the Holy Father passed by. Ugo asked him to bless his Divine Mercy images. After blessing the images the Pope asked him how he was. Ugo told him he felt very despondent and was at a crisis in his life. The Holy Father said, "How could you have a crisis with Jesus the Divine Mercy in your arms? Entrust yourself to Him and pray to my Sr. Faustina to intercede."

 

With this advice Ugo changed his mind and decided that he would go to the Divine Mercy shrine in Trent. At the side altar in the Villa O'Santissima Villazzano, Trent, there is a Shrine to the Divine Mercy with a life size icon of the Divine Image. On the fourth day of praying in front of this icon Ugo suddenly noticed the arms of the image stretched out to him and a tremendous warmth flowed through his body.

 

He found himself standing on his feet with his arms outstretched to the Lord and he heard himself loudly praising Jesus the Divine Mercy. He saw Jesus coming down to him, His white garment blowing as if in a breeze. He thought: 'My God, this is the Man from Galilee coming towards me.' He heard Jesus say in a clear voice, "Rise up and walk." Ugo began to walk. All his ailments were at that instant cured and he was more physically perfect than he had ever been in his life.

 

On August 19, 1990, Ugo returned to the Vatican and during a Papal Audience at Paul VI Hall, was taken to meet John Paul II. He told him about the great grace he had received and thanked him for the words of inspiration which led him to Trent, and resulted in this great miracle on that day.

 

Today Ugo Festa devotes his life to Jesus, voluntarily working in a hospital and spreading the Message of Divine Mercy throughout Italy.

 

History of the Message and Devotion to Divine Mercy

The Message of the Divine Mercy that Sr. Faustina received from the Lord was not only directed toward her personal growth in faith but also toward the good of the people. With the command of our Lord to paint an image according to the pattern that Sr. Faustina had seen, came also a request to have this image venerated, first in the Sisters' chapel, and then throughout the world. The same is true with the revelations of the Chaplet. The Lord requested that this Chaplet be said not only by Sr. Faustina, but by others: "Encourage souls to say the Chaplet that I have given you."

 

The same is true of the revelation of the Feast of Mercy. "The Feast of Mercy emerged from my very depths of tenderness. It is my desire that it solemnly be celebrated on the first Sunday after Easter. Mankind will not have peace until it turns to the fount of My Mercy."

 

These requests of the Lord given to Sr. Faustina between 1931 and 1938 can be considered the beginning of the Divine Mercy Message and Devotion in the new forms.

 

Through the efforts of Sr. Faustina’s spiritual directors, Fr. Michael Sopocko, and Fr. Joseph Andrasz, SJ, and others—including the Marians of the Immaculate Conception—this message began to spread throughout the world.

 

However, it is important to remember that this message of The Divine Mercy, revealed to St. Faustina and to our present generation is not new. It is a powerful reminder of who God is and has been from the very beginning. This truth that God is in His very nature Love and Mercy Itself, is given to us by our Judeo-Christian faith and God’s self-revelation. The veil that has hidden the mystery of God from eternity was lifted by God Himself. In His goodness and love God chose to reveal Himself to us, His creatures, and to make known His eternal plan of salvation. This He had done partly through the Old Testament Patriarchs, Moses and the Prophets, and fully through His only Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. In the person of Jesus Christ, conceived through power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary, the unseen God was made visible.

 

Jesus reveals God as Merciful Father

The Old Testament speaks frequently and with great tenderness about God’s mercy. Yet, it was Jesus, who through His words and actions, revealed to us in an extraordinary way, God as a loving Father, rich in mercy and abounding in great kindness and love. In Jesus’ merciful love and care for the poor, the oppressed, the sick and the sinful, and especially in His freely choosing to take upon Himself the punishment for our sins (a truly horrible suffering and death on the Cross), so that all may be freed from destructive consequences and death, He manifested in a superabundant and radical way the greatness of God’s love and mercy for humanity. In His person as God-Man, one in being with the Father, Jesus both reveals and is God’s Love and Mercy Itself.

 

The message of God’s Love and Mercy is especially made known by the Gospels.

The good news revealed through Jesus Christ is that God’s love for each person knows no bounds, and no sin or infidelity, no matter how horrible, will separate us from God and His love when we turn to Him in confidence, and seek his mercy. God’s will is our salvation. He has done all on our behalf, but since He made us free, He invites us to choose Him and partake of His divine life. We become partakers of His divine life when we believe in His revealed truth and trust Him, when we love Him and remain true to His word, when we honor Him and seek His Kingdom, when we receive Him in Communion and turn away from sin; when we are mutually carrying and forgiving.

 

August 25, 1905 Helena Kowalska was born in Glogowiec, Poland; the third of ten children living off a small farm and her father's carpentry work.

 

August 27, 1905 Helana is baptized at St. Casimirís church in Swinice Warckie.

 

1912 At the age of seven, Helana hears a voice calling her to religious life.

 

1914 Helena receives first Holy Communion.

 

1917 Helena begins her primary education, which lasts only two and a half years.

 

1920 At age 15, Helena begins domestic work to support her large family.

 

1922 Helena returns home, announces a desire to enter convent; her parents oppose; she works two years to help support her family.

 

July 1924 Helena sees a vision of the scourged Christ who calls her to religious life.

 

Helena goes to Warsaw to search for a convent, and she works to support herself.

 

August 1925 Helena is accepted by the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy; one month later she wants to leave for a stricter order.

 

April 30, 1926 Helena receives habit and her religious name Maria Faustina.

 

April 3, 1927 Sr. Faustina experiences spiritual dark night during novitiate.

 

April 16, 1928 On Good Friday, she is engulfed by the flame of Divine Love.

 

April 30, 1928 Sr. Faustina makes her first profession of temporary vows.

 

December 1928 Newly elected Mother General Michaela Moraczewska is source of help and comfort to Sr. Faustina during her religious life.

 

October 1928-30 Easily adaptable, Sr. Faustina is sent to work at various houses.

 

February 22, 1931 Sr. Faustina sees a vision of Jesus who tells her to paint His image.

 

May 1, 1933 Sr. Faustina takes her perpetual vows.

 

May 25, 1933 Sr. Faustina goes to Vilnius where she receives many mystical experiences and is assisted by Fr. Michael Sopocko, a wise spiritual director.

 

January 2, 1934 Sr. Faustina visits the artist Kazimirowski, who is to paint the image.

 

March 29, 1934 Sr. Faustina offers herself for sinners, especially those who lack trust.

 

June 1934 The painting of Divine Mercy is completed, but Sr. Faustina does not like it.

 

July 1934 Beginning of Sr. Faustina's illness; she begins writing the Diary under obedience.

 

April 28, 1935 (Feast of Mercy) Divine Mercy image is publicly venerated in Vilnius for the conclusion of the Jubilee Year of Redemption: January 8, 1936. Sr. Faustina informs the Bishop that Jesus requests the founding of an order.

 

May 11, 1936 Sr. Faustina goes to Krakow; guided by Fr. Andrasz SJ; her health deteriorates.

 

September 1937 Holy cards with the Divine Mercy image printed for first time.

 

September 1938 Sr. Faustina prepares herself for death, and she asks pardon of the Congregation.

 

October 5, 1938 Sr. Faustina makes final confession, and dies late in the evening.

 

October 7, 1938 Funeral of Sr. Faustina, burial at the convent cemetery.

 

1940-1941 Divine Mercy message spreads first among the victims of WWII.

 

April 1941 Fr. Joseph Jarzebowski, MIC, brings the Divine Mercy message to the USA and the Congregation of Marians of the Immaculate Conception begins to spread the message in Polish.

 

1942-1959 The Divine Mercy message spreads worldwide through the efforts of the Marians, who publish images and literature in many languages.

 

March 6, 1959 Holy Office issues a notification banning Divine Mercy devotion.

 

October 21, 1965 Informative Process of Sr. Faustina's life and virtues is opened by Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, Archbishop of Krakow, encouraged by Cardinal Ottaviani, the Prefect of the Holy Office.

 

September 1967 Informative Process closes; Cardinal Wojtyla sends acts to Rome, January 31, 1968. The process of Beatification of Sr. Faustina is inaugurated.

 

April 15, 1978 Prefect of Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith declares the Notification ban no longer binding.

 

October 16, 1978 Cardinal Karol Wojtyla becomes Pope John Paul II.

 

July 12, 1979 Marians receive an authoritative explanation of the Notification issued by the Prefect for the Doctrine of Faith stating that no impediments exist in the spread of the message and devotion to the Divine Mercy in the forms proposed by Sr. Faustina.

 

May 1980 Marians publish critical edition of Sr. Faustina's Diary in Polish.

 

November 30, 1980 Pope John Paul II issues encyclical on the Divine Mercy.

 

November 22, 1981 Pope John Paul II visits the Shrine of Merciful Love in Collevalenza near Todi, Italy, stating that, "Right from the beginning of my ministry in St. Peter's See in Rome, I considered this message (of Divine Mercy) my special task."

 

1986 Marians publish critical edition of Sr. Faustina's Diary in English.

 

April 10, 1991 Pope John Paul II links the encyclical's message to Sr. Faustina.

 

March 7, 1992 Decree of Heroic Virtues of Sr. Faustina is promulgated.

 

December 1992 Miracle through intercession of Sr. Faustina is accepted.

 

April 18, 1993 Sr. Faustina beatified in Rome on Second Sunday of Easter.

 

January 2000 Second miracle through Bl. Faustina intercession is accepted.

 

April 30, 2000 Bl. Faustina is canonized in Rome on Divine Mercy Sunday and Divine Mercy Sunday is proclaimed.

 

May 5, 2000 Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments issues a Decree proclaiming the Second Sunday of Easter also as Divine Mercy Sunday.

 

December 2000 The Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments listed the Devotion to the Divine Mercy in its Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy: Principles and Guidelines.

 

April 22, 2001 Divine Mercy Sunday is celebrated officially for the first time by the universal Church.

 

May 13, 2001 Congregation For The Clergy issues a document: "Priest of God, you embody the Mystery of Mercy."

 

August 18, 2002 John Paul II consecrates the whole world to the Divine Mercy from The Divine Mercy Sanctuary in Krakow-Lagiewniki, the site of St. Faustina's tomb.

 

August 21, 2002 Decree of the Apostolic Penitentiary issued on Indulgences attached to devotions in honor of Divine Mercy.

 

History of the Message and Devotion to Divine Mercy

The Marian Connection

The Divine Mercy devotion was brought to the USA from Poland by Fr. Joseph Jarzebowski, MIC, a member of the Congregation of Marians of the Immaculate Conception.

In 1941, hardly three years after the death of Sr. Faustina, The Divine Mercy devotion was brought to the USA from Poland by Fr. Joseph Jarzebowski, MIC, a member of the Congregation of Marians of the Immaculate Conception. Fr. Jarzebowski had at first been skeptical about the great graces received by those who entrusted themselves to The Divine Mercy. But, in the spring of 1940, he vowed that if he were able to safely reach his fellow Marians in America, he would spend the rest of his life spreading the Divine Mercy message and devotion. Before his departure Fr. Michael Sopocko, St. Faustina’s spiritual director, gave Fr. Jarzebowski materials on Divine Mercy that he prepared. With these materials and seemingly insurmountable obstacles, Fr. Jarzebowski set out for the journey.

 

By 1953, some 25 million pieces of Divine Mercy literature had been distributed around the world.

After an extraordinary journey from Poland into Lithuania, then across Russia and Siberia to Vladivostok, and from there to Japan, he arrived on American soil a year later. True to his vow, he immediately began distributing information about the message and devotion with the help of the Felician Sisters in Michigan and Connecticut. His Marian confreres soon became intensely involved as well. After several years of this activity, in 1944 Fr. Walter Pelczynski, MIC, established the "Mercy of God Apostolate" on Eden Hill in Stockbridge, MA, now home of the National Shrine of The Divine Mercy and the Marian Helpers Center, a modern, religious publishing house that has become the international center for the Divine Mercy message and devotion. By 1953, some 25 million pieces of Divine Mercy literature had been distributed around the world.

 

Banned by the Church

Then, in 1958 and 1959, Sr. Faustina’s prophecy about the apparent destruction of the Divine Mercy work (Diary, 378) began to be fulfilled. The Holy See, having received erroneous and confusing translations of Diary entries, which it was unable to verify due to existing political conditions, forbade the spreading of the Divine Mercy message and devotion in the forms proposed by Sr. Faustina’s writings.

 

During the period of the ban, the Marians continued to spread devotion to God’s mercy, but, in obedience to Rome, they based the message and devotion regarding Divine Mercy on Sacred Scripture, the Liturgy, the teachings of the Church, and Our Lady’s revelations at Fatima.

 

The Lifting of the Ban

Twenty years later (in 1978), the ban was completely lifted, thanks to the intervention of the Archbishop of Krakow, Cardinal Karol Wojtyla. Through his efforts, an informative process relating to the life and virtues of Sister Faustina was begun in 1965. Its successful outcome led to the inauguration of her Beatification cause in 1968.

 

In a new "Notification" on April 15, 1978, the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, having reviewed many original documents that were not made available to it in 1959, reversed its earlier decision and declared the 1959 prohibition 'no longer binding.'

 

Six months later, Cardinal Karol Wojtyla became Pope John Paul II.

 

Prompted by the pastoral concern of His Excellency, Joseph F. Maguire, Bishop of Springfield, MA, with regard to the resuming of efforts to make the Divine Mercy message and devotion known, the Congregation of Marians asked for an authoritative explanation of the Notification of 1978. On July 12, 1979, they received a reply from the Prefect of the Sacred Congregation, stating that ‘there no longer exists, on the part of this Sacred Congregation, any impediment to the spreading of the devotion to The Divine Mercy in the authentic forms proposed by the religious Sister mentioned above [Sister Faustina Kowalska]."

 

Thus, in 1979 — with the local bishop’s permission — the Marians resumed their work of spreading the Divine Mercy message and devotion in the forms proposed by Sr. Faustina. The response from laity, priests, and bishops all over the world has been overwhelming, and the devotion has grown faster than anyone ever expected.

 

Pope John Paul II

One of the reasons for this is certainly the continued support of the Holy Father. In 1981, he published an encyclical letter entitled Rich in Mercy, in which he speaks of Christ as the "incarnation of mercy — the inexhaustible source of mercy."(8) He goes on to emphasize that "Christ’s messianic program, the program of mercy" must become "the program of His people, the program of the Church."(8)

 

Throughout the encyclical, the Holy Father stresses that the Church — especially in our modern times — has the "right and the duty" to "profess and proclaim God’s mercy," to "introduce it and make it incarnate" in the lives of all people, and "to call upon the mercy of God," imploring it for the whole world. (See Rich in Mercy, 12-15.)

 

A year after publishing Rich in Mercy, the Pope visited the Shrine of Merciful Love in Collevalenza, Italy, during his first pilgrimage outside Rome after the attempt on his life. There he emphasized that spreading the message of mercy was his "special task."

 

Beatification

On April 18, 1993, Pope John Paul II beatified Sr. Faustina at St. Peter’s Square in Rome. It was the first Sunday after Easter — the very day that is to be celebrated as Divine Mercy Sunday, according to the Merciful Savior’s revelations to Sr. Faustina. And it was precisely John Paul II who beatified her, the very one who had initiated the Informative Process for her cause in 1965 when he was Archbishop of Krakow, Poland. The event that contributed to her beatification was Maureen Digan’s miraculous healing. Fr. Seraphim Michalenko, MIC, a Marian priest, both witnessed the miracle, as well as assisted in the beatification process by serving as Vice Postulator for her cause.

 

O Faustina... you were chosen by Christ to remind people of this great mystery of Divine Mercy!

In his homily, The Holy Father said: "I salute you, Sr. Faustina. Beginning today the Church calls you Blessed." O Faustina, how extraordinary your life is! Precisely you, the poor and simple daughter of Mazovia, of the Polish people, chosen by Christ to remind people of this great mystery of Divine Mercy! You bore this mystery within yourself, leaving this world after a short life filled with suffering. However, at the same time, this mystery has become a prophetic reminder to the world.

 

"I feel certain that my mission will not come to an end upon my death, but will begin," Sr. Faustina wrote in her diary (Diary, 281). And it truly did! Her mission continues and is yielding astonishing fruit. It is truly marvelous how her devotion to the merciful Jesus is spreading in our contemporary world and gaining so many human hearts! This is undoubtedly a sign of the times — a sign of our 20th century. The balance of this century which is now ending, in addition to the advances which have often surpassed those of preceding eras, presents a deep restlessness and fear of the future. Where, if not in The Divine Mercy, can the world find refuge and the light of hope? Believers understand that perfectly.

 

Canonization

On April 30, 2000, Pope John Paul II canonized Sr. Faustina as the first saint of the Great Jubilee Year.

Once again through the efforts of Fr. Seraphim Michalenko, MIC, the second miracle, the healing of Fr. Ronald Pytel, was attributed to Bl. Faustina's intercession. On April 30, 2000, Pope John Paul II canonized Sr. Faustina as the first saint of the Great Jubilee Year. And again, it was on Divine Mercy Sunday. In fact, the Holy Father also announced during his homily that the Second Sunday of Easter would now be celebrated as Divine Mercy Sunday throughout the universal Church.

 

In his homily, the Holy Father said: "Today my joy is truly great in presenting the life and witness of Sr. Faustina Kowalska to the whole Church as a gift of God for our time. By Divine Providence, the life of this humble daughter of Poland was completely linked with the history of the 20th century, the century we have just left behind."

 

"In fact, it was between the First and Second World Wars that Christ entrusted His message of mercy to her. Those who remember, who were witnesses and participants in the events of those years and the horrible sufferings they caused for millions of people, know well how necessary was the message of mercy.

 

"Mankind will not have peace until it turns with trust to My mercy."

(Diary, 300)

"Jesus told Sr. Faustina: 'Mankind will not have peace until it turns with trust to My mercy,' (Diary, 300). Through the work of the Polish religious, this message has become linked forever to the 20th century, the last of the second millennium and the bridge to the third. It is not a new message but can be considered a gift of special enlightenment that helps us to relive the Gospel of Easter more intensely, to offer it as a ray of light to the men and women of our time.

 

"What will the years ahead bring us? We are not given to know. But the light of Divine Mercy, which the Lord in a way wished to return to the world through Sr. Faustina’s charism, will illumine the way for the men and women of the third Millennium. Sr. Faustina’s canonization has a particular eloquence: '... by this act I intend today to pass this message on to the new millennium.'

 

Special Papal blessing bestowed on the Marians

On the 70th anniversary of the revelation of the image and 60th anniversary of the Congregation of Marians’ involvement in the spread of the Message and Devotion to the Divine Mercy, the Holy Father, John Paul II sent a special apostolic blessing and a renewed call to be apostles of the Divine Mercy under the maternal guidance of Our Lady.

 

Now, inspired by the Mercy Pope, it is our task to spread the message of Divine Mercy in the third millennium.

 

Divine Mercy Sunday

Divine Mercy Sunday is the Second Sunday of the Easter season. It was named by Pope John Paul II at the canonization of St. Maria Faustina on April 30, 2000, and then officially decreed by the Vatican.

 

Divine Mercy Sunday can be seen as the convergence of all the mysteries and graces of Holy Week and Easter Week. It is like a multi-exposure photograph of Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Sunday, and Easter Week. Or we can think of it as a converging lens that focuses the light of the Risen Christ into a radiant beam of merciful love and grace for the whole world.

 

In fact, Jesus revealed in various revelations to St. Faustina that it was His desire that we celebrate this special feast. The Feast of Mercy emerged from My very depths of tenderness. It is My desire that it be solemnly celebrated on the first Sunday after Easter. Mankind will not have peace until it turns to the Fount of My Mercy. (Diary, 699)

 

Our Lord revealed to St. Faustina His desire to literally flood us with His graces on that day. Just consider each of the promises and desires that He expressed about Mercy Sunday, which are recorded in the main passage of the Diary — passage 699 — about Mercy Sunday:

 

On that day the very depths of My tender Mercy are open.

 

I pour out a whole ocean of graces upon these souls who approach the Fount of My mercy [the Sacraments of Reconciliation and Holy Eucharist].

 

The soul that will go to Confession [beforehand] and receive Holy Communion [on that day] shall obtain complete forgiveness of sins and punishment.

 

On that day all the divine floodgates through which grace flow are opened.

 

Let no soul fear to draw near to Me, even though its sins be as scarlet.

 

The Feast of Mercy emerged from My very depths of tenderness.

 

It is My desire that it be solemnly celebrated on the first Sunday after Easter.

 

Forms of Devotion

The Hour of Great Mercy

In His revelations to St. Faustina, Our Lord asked for a special prayer and meditation on His Passion each afternoon at the three o’clock hour, the hour that recalls His death on the cross.

 

At three o’clock, implore My mercy, especially for sinners; and, if only for a brief moment, immerse yourself in My Passion, particularly in My abandonment at the moment of agony. This is the hour of great mercy. In this hour, I will refuse nothing to the soul that makes a request of Me in virtue of My Passion (Diary, 1320).

 

As often as you hear the clock strike the third hour, immerse yourself completely in My mercy, adoring and glorifying it; invoke its omnipotence for the whole world, and particularly for poor sinners; for at that moment mercy was opened wide for every soul. In this hour you can obtain everything for yourself and for others for the asking; it was the hour of grace for the whole world — mercy triumphed over justice. (1572)

 

My daughter, try your best to make the Stations of the Cross in this hour, provided that your duties permit it; and if you are not able to make the Stations of the Cross, then at least step into the chapel for a moment and adore, in the Most Blessed Sacrament, My Heart, which is full of mercy; and should you be unable to step into the chapel, immerse yourself in prayer there where you happen to be, if only for a very brief instant. (1572)

 

From these detailed instructions, it’s clear that Our Lord wants us to turn our attention to His Passion at the three o’clock hour to whatever degree our duties allow, and He wants us to ask for His mercy.

 

In Genesis 18:16-32, Abraham begged God to reduce the conditions necessary for Him to be merciful to the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. Here, Christ Himself offers a reduction of conditions because of the varied demands of our life’s duties, and He begs us to ask, even in the smallest way, for His mercy, so that He will be able to pour His mercy upon us all.

 

We may not all be able to make the Stations or adore Him in the Blessed Sacrament, but we can all mentally pause for a "brief instant," think of His total abandonment at the hour of agony, and say a short prayer such as "Jesus, Mercy," or "Jesus, for the sake of Your Sorrowful Passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world."

 

This meditation, however brief, on Christ’s Passion brings us face-to-face with the cross, and, as Pope John Paul II writes in Rich in Mercy, "It is in the cross that the revelation of merciful love attains its culmination" (8). God invites us, the Holy Father continues, "to have ‘mercy’ on His only Son, the crucified one" (8). Thus, our reflection on the Passion should lead to a type of love for Our Lord which is "not only an act of solidarity with the suffering Son of man, but also a kind of ‘mercy’ shown by each one of us to the Son of the Eternal Father."

 

What are Novenas?

From an article in MARIAN HELPER magazine, Fall 1993.

If you mention novenas, you’re likely to get mixed reactions, with extremes at both ends of the scale.

 

Some view novenas as extraordinarily powerful prayers with guaranteed results — like a legal contract with God: if you fulfill the conditions, God grants your request.

 

Others feel that novenas are simply a waste of time — an outdated form of prayer practiced by overly pious people looking for spiritual magic.

 

As is often the case, neither extreme is accurate, though each reflects some truth. Making a novena is indeed a valid, powerful way to pray, but if misunderstood can become an act of superstition rather than prayer.

 

What It Is

The word “novena” comes from the Latin meaning “nine each.” It is a prayer or Holy Mass that is offered for nine consecutive days.

 

Scripturally, novenas take their origin from the nine days of prayer before Pentecost. After the Ascension, the apostles and disciples, in obedience to the Lord, gathered in the upper room and devoted themselves to constant prayer, together with Mary, the Mother of Jesus (Acts 1:4-5).

 

The nine days of prayer can also be considered as a representation of the nine months of Jesus in the womb of Mary. Like Jesus our Head, we His Body are also to be born of Mary and the Holy Spirit. The nine days of prayer were gestation prior to the birth of the Church on Pentecost. Since then, each novena can be considered as a time of gestation before a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

 

What It Is Not

Over the centuries, the practice of making novenas grew in popularity, and inevitably, abuses developed like weeds in a garden.

 

One abuse is absolute guarantees of positive results. There are no absolute guarantees. Prayer must always be made according to the will of God. Even Christ Himself prayed, “Not my will, Father, but Yours be done.”

 

We pray with trust that God will give us what He knows is best for us.

 

Another abuse is the guarantee that a particular novena will never fail if we publish the novena prayer. These mistaken ideas can often cause great confusion and lead to superstition.

 

Persistent Prayer

Novenas should be considered persistent prayer. Jesus exhorted us to continually ask, seek, and knock for what we need (Lk 11:10), and he gave us strong examples of the value of persistence in prayer — like the widow who kept pleading with the judge (Lk 18:1-8) and the man who woke his neighbor in the middle of the night to give him bread (Lk 11:5-9).

 

St. Faustina also gives us a powerful example of persistence in prayer. Novenas were an important and regular part of her spiritual life. She made novenas of different kinds and for various needs. For her they were times of intense and persevering prayer.

 

For us, too, novenas can be times of persevering prayer for special needs and of preparation for solemn feasts.

 

Novenas also can help us to focus our intentions so that we can more effectively give thanks for God’s response to our needs — whatever they are — placing ever greater trust in the Lord Jesus.

   

thedivinemercy.org/

  

Gainesville, Florida

August 28,2014

1982 Bar

In the St. Burchardi church, otherwise insignificant and not at all prominent, day and night you can hear orgues. There, the slowest and longest composition in the world is being played. The piece of John Cage "As Slow As Possible" should be played for 639 years, since 2001, when it started (with a pause), till 2640.

NOOSA/QLD (16th March, 2012): The penultimate and semi finals day of competition commenced, with inspirational action taking place from the very first heat. Although an insignificant drop of swell occurred overnight, it was complimented by a decrease in wind and more favourable direction blessed the contest arena with manicured waves running across the mid-tide sand bank.

 

Junior divisions abound for the quartet of opening heats, the Pacific Longboarder Under 18s rapidly followed by the Under 15 Boys semi final, sponsored by Humid.

 

The Jones brothers had a fantastic morning, older brother Nic, a team rider for event sponsor Classic Malibu, gleaning nine well-earned points from his opening wave, and a mid-range score very late in the piece securing a justified victory in the first heat of the day. His younger sibling Harri had more of a challenge in the Humid Under 15s, putting all his efforts in to narrowly qualify for tomorrow’s final.

 

Nathan Strom was untouchable in heat one of the Under 15s, leading from the commencement and indefatigable throughout to register a superb win.

 

Light showers came down on the heads of the spectators clamouring for position along the shoreline of First Point’s natural amphitheatre, as the inaugural Laguna Bay Longboards Logger Pro launched into its first semi final.

 

Matt Chojnacki, from Sydney’s Northern Beaches was world-class in his performance, his very traditional stylings the epitome of panache and the perfect example of the skills required for the event. 16 points even garnished Cojnacki with a convincing win in heat one, whilst the second heat was dominated once again by the local superhuman surfer, Harrison Roach.

 

Only three waves were ridden by Roach, his opening ride, an impressive 6.75, looking shabby next to his very high following scores. Roach’s faultless talent gave him a near-perfect score to set the bar for the final tomorrow.

 

Another traditional event ensued, the Old Mal division, sponsored by RACV Noosa Resort. Matt Cuddihy remained in the water after taking a qualifying second place in the previous division, and backed it up with a healthy twelve points, a touch of Sage Joske’s influence in his crouched rail-grab bottom turns, Joske an outstanding participant in previous years.

 

Cuddihy surfed outstandingly and, alongside Matt Cojnacki, was a definitive surfer in this event, featuring exclusively boards all made before 1967. Cojnacki channeled the spirits of yesteryear, emulating the surfers of a decade in which he was not even born.

 

Both surfers will take their well-earned places in tomorrow’s final.

 

The Old Guys Ruled once again, with the Over 55 and Over 60 Men’s events taking to the water.

 

These semis were the last opportunities for surfers to earn a berth in tomorrow’s finals, the top three of each heat advancing. This do-or-die challenge drew some outstanding performances from the surfers, Albe Curtis particularly of note, posting two very solid rides to lead from start to finish. Nipping at his heels though was Pacific Longboarder chief editor, John ‘JB’ Brasen. JB’s best was the heat’s highest score, a 7.25, but he was unable to match it and relinquishing the top spot, but not his ticket to the final.

 

Mike Pimm, too, was a standout, two massive 7.5 waves giving him a fantastic victory.

 

And then to the noserider. The Golden Breed Noserider, always a thrilling crowd-pleaser, failed to disappoint and, with little surprise, Harrison Roach again was head-and-shoulders above his adversaries.

 

Local knowledge paid dividends and three of the four surfers tip-timing their ways into the finals. Roach went from the sublime to ridiculous, with again very closely a minute perched on the front end of his board. But today he was in closer company, Matt Cuddihy and Beau Nixon both around ten seconds off the pace. All three were indisputable finalists, but the fourth and last remaining place was a nail-biter. With just seven seconds separating the remaining contestants, it was young Noosa local, Zye Norris who won the coveted fourth.

 

With so much action taking place throughout the day, it is very nearly impossible to hone the highlights, like needles in a needle stack of exceptional moments.

 

To précis a wonderful day of semi finals, Nic Jones was phenomenal in both the Under 18 and the Open Amateur Men’s, claiming outstanding victories in both, amounting almost 17 points of a possible twenty in his heat, making for a very busy finals day tomorrow.

 

The PJ Burns Under 18 Girls second semi was far too close to call. A very lethargic ocean providing little opportunity in the heat’s first half reduced the action to ten minutes. The surfers added to this compression of scores, matching each other evenly right up until the dying minutes. An overabundance of very late scores left the judges sweating for a full five minutes after the final horn, but it was Rosain Carolan who emerged victorious, Rachel Fleming set to join her in the final.

 

The SeaGlass Project Finless Challenge was again Harrison Roach’s feeding ground, but Fred Branger dominated the second heat and it will be very interesting watching the pair go head to head in tomorrow’s final.

 

Final competing was done by the Senior Women, for the John Madill Toyota semi final.

 

An interference call denied local favourite, Keena Wilson a berth in the first heat, Leanne ‘Bluey’ Gilkes taking the heat, and in the second semi, visiting Taiwanese surfer, BayBay Niu surfed an exquisite round, but with a breath-taking 8.25 points scored on a perfectly executed wave, Yvette Kordick tipped the balance.

 

Both surfers, though, will have their rematch in the final.

 

The greatest crowd of the day was drawn in the dying hours of daylight. Wrapping up the day was a fantastic display of surfing-meets-gymnastics, with five tandem couples paddling out and gaining the largest cheers and greatest appreciation of the festival so far.

 

All the action of the last day of the festival tomorrow, as finals fill the day for all divisions. Exceptional talent, thrilling tension, nail-biting finishes – the day is poised to be an unmissable event, all taking place right on the beach at First Point, Noosa.

 

All results for the day, and the week, are available on the event website, as well as draws for Thursday’s competition.

 

Visit www.noosafestivalofsurfing.com for further information and images of the daily events.#

 

Photos: Geoff Fanning / Noosa Festival Of Surfing

Georg Baselitz - selection of works from the cycle REMIX

With the extensive, in 2005 began cycle "remix" Georg Baselitz from the viewpoint of "theme and variation" once more deals with his early, long since legendary image creations.

Through the turn upside down of the images, Georg Baselitz himself has recorded in the history of the 20th Century. The artist who since 1968 groups of works of this type realizes, declares this approach as "the best way to free the painted from the content" and "turn to painting per se".

 

Georg Baselitz - Werkauswahl aus dem Zyklus REMIX

Mit dem umfangreichen, 2005 begonnenen Zyklus "Remix", setzt sich Georg Baselitz unter dem Gesichtspunkt von "Thema und Variation" noch einmal mit seinen frühen, längst legendären Bildfindungen auseinander.

Durch das Auf-den-Kopf-Stellen der Bildmotive hat sich Georg Baselitz in die Kunstgeschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts eingeschrieben. Der Künstler, der seit 1968 Werkgruppen dieser Art realisiert, bezeichnet dieses Vorgehen als "besten Weg, das Gemalte vom Inhalt zu befreien" und "sich der Malerei an sich zuzuwenden".

 

The Albertina

The architectural history of the Palais

(Pictures you can see by clicking on the link at the end of page!)

Image: The oldest photographic view of the newly designed Palais Archduke Albrecht, 1869

"It is my will that ​​the expansion of the inner city of Vienna with regard to a suitable connection of the same with the suburbs as soon as possible is tackled and at this on Regulirung (regulation) and beautifying of my Residence and Imperial Capital is taken into account. To this end I grant the withdrawal of the ramparts and fortifications of the inner city and the trenches around the same".

This decree of Emperor Franz Joseph I, published on 25 December 1857 in the Wiener Zeitung, formed the basis for the largest the surface concerning and architecturally most significant transformation of the Viennese cityscape. Involving several renowned domestic and foreign architects a "master plan" took form, which included the construction of a boulevard instead of the ramparts between the inner city and its radially upstream suburbs. In the 50-years during implementation phase, an impressive architectural ensemble developed, consisting of imperial and private representational buildings, public administration and cultural buildings, churches and barracks, marking the era under the term "ring-street style". Already in the first year tithe decided a senior member of the Austrian imperial family to decorate the facades of his palace according to the new design principles, and thus certified the aristocratic claim that this also "historicism" said style on the part of the imperial house was attributed.

Image: The Old Albertina after 1920

It was the palace of Archduke Albrecht (1817-1895), the Senior of the Habsburg Family Council, who as Field Marshal held the overall command over the Austro-Hungarian army. The building was incorporated into the imperial residence of the Hofburg complex, forming the south-west corner and extending eleven meters above street level on the so-called Augustinerbastei.

The close proximity of the palace to the imperial residence corresponded not only with Emperor Franz Joseph I and Archduke Albert with a close familial relationship between the owner of the palace and the monarch. Even the former inhabitants were always in close relationship to the imperial family, whether by birth or marriage. An exception here again proves the rule: Don Emanuel Teles da Silva Conde Tarouca (1696-1771), for which Maria Theresa in 1744 the palace had built, was just a close friend and advisor of the monarch. Silva Tarouca underpins the rule with a second exception, because he belonged to the administrative services as Generalhofbaudirektor (general court architect) and President of the Austrian-Dutch administration, while all other him subsequent owners were highest ranking military.

In the annals of Austrian history, especially those of military history, they either went into as commander of the Imperial Army, or the Austrian, later kk Army. In chronological order, this applies to Duke Carl Alexander of Lorraine, the brother-of-law of Maria Theresa, as Imperial Marshal, her son-in-law Duke Albert of Saxe-Teschen, also field marshal, whos adopted son, Archduke Charles of Austria, the last imperial field marshal and only Generalissimo of Austria, his son Archduke Albrecht of Austria as Feldmarschalil and army Supreme commander, and most recently his nephew Archduke Friedrich of Austria, who held as field marshal from 1914 to 1916 the command of the Austro-Hungarian troops. Despite their military profession, all five generals conceived themselves as patrons of the arts and promoted large sums of money to build large collections, the construction of magnificent buildings and cultural life. Charles Alexander of Lorraine promoted as governor of the Austrian Netherlands from 1741 to 1780 the Academy of Fine Arts, the Théâtre de Ja Monnaie and the companies Bourgeois Concert and Concert Noble, he founded the Academie royale et imperial des Sciences et des Lettres, opened the Bibliotheque Royal for the population and supported artistic talents with high scholarships. World fame got his porcelain collection, which however had to be sold by Emperor Joseph II to pay off his debts. Duke Albert began in 1776 according to the concept of conte Durazzo to set up an encyclopedic collection of prints, which forms the core of the world-famous "Albertina" today.

Image : Duke Albert and Archduchess Marie Christine show in family cercle the from Italy brought along art, 1776. Frederick Henry Füger.

1816 declared to Fideikommiss and thus in future indivisible, inalienable and inseparable, the collection 1822 passed into the possession of Archduke Carl, who, like his descendants, it broadened. Under him, the collection was introduced together with the sumptuously equipped palace on the Augustinerbastei in the so-called "Carl Ludwig'schen fideicommissum in 1826, by which the building and the in it kept collection fused into an indissoluble unity. At this time had from the Palais Tarouca by structural expansion or acquisition a veritable Residenz palace evolved. Duke Albert of Saxe-Teschen was first in 1800 the third floor of the adjacent Augustinian convent wing adapted to house his collection and he had after 1802 by his Belgian architect Louis de Montoyer at the suburban side built a magnificent extension, called the wing of staterooms, it was equipped in the style of Louis XVI. Only two decades later, Archduke Carl the entire palace newly set up. According to scetches of the architect Joseph Kornhäusel the 1822-1825 retreaded premises presented themselves in the Empire style. The interior of the palace testified from now in an impressive way the high rank and the prominent position of its owner. Under Archduke Albrecht the outer appearance also should meet the requirements. He had the facade of the palace in the style of historicism orchestrated and added to the Palais front against the suburbs an offshore covered access. Inside, he limited himself, apart from the redesign of the Rococo room in the manner of the second Blondel style, to the retention of the paternal stock. Archduke Friedrich's plans for an expansion of the palace were omitted, however, because of the outbreak of the First World War so that his contribution to the state rooms, especially, consists in the layout of the Spanish apartment, which he in 1895 for his sister, the Queen of Spain Maria Christina, had set up as a permanent residence.

Picture: The "audience room" after the restoration: Picture: The "balcony room" around 1990

The era of stately representation with handing down their cultural values ​​found its most obvious visualization inside the palace through the design and features of the staterooms. On one hand, by the use of the finest materials and the purchase of masterfully manufactured pieces of equipment, such as on the other hand by the permanent reuse of older equipment parts. This period lasted until 1919, when Archduke Friedrich was expropriated by the newly founded Republic of Austria. With the republicanization of the collection and the building first of all finished the tradition that the owner's name was synonymous with the building name:

After Palais Tarouca or tarokkisches house it was called Lorraine House, afterwards Duke Albert Palais and Palais Archduke Carl. Due to the new construction of an adjacently located administration building it received in 1865 the prefix "Upper" and was referred to as Upper Palais Archduke Albrecht and Upper Palais Archduke Frederick. For the state a special reference to the Habsburg past was certainly politically no longer opportune, which is why was decided to name the building according to the in it kept collection "Albertina".

Picture: The "Wedgwood Cabinet" after the restoration: Picture: the "Wedgwood Cabinet" in the Palais Archduke Friedrich, 1905

This name derives from the term "La Collection Albertina" which had been used by the gallery Inspector Maurice von Thausing in 1870 in the Gazette des Beaux-Arts for the former graphics collection of Duke Albert. For this reason, it was the first time since the foundation of the palace that the name of the collection had become synonymous with the room shell. Room shell, hence, because the Republic of Austria Archduke Friedrich had allowed to take along all the movable goods from the palace in his Hungarian exile: crystal chandeliers, curtains and carpets as well as sculptures, vases and clocks. Particularly stressed should be the exquisite furniture, which stems of three facilities phases: the Louis XVI furnitures of Duke Albert, which had been manufactured on the basis of fraternal relations between his wife Archduchess Marie Christine and the French Queen Marie Antoinette after 1780 in the French Hofmanufakturen, also the on behalf of Archduke Charles 1822-1825 in the Vienna Porcelain Manufactory by Joseph Danhauser produced Empire furnitures and thirdly additions of the same style of Archduke Friedrich, which this about 1900 at Portois & Ffix as well as at Friedrich Otto Schmidt had commissioned.

The "swept clean" building got due to the strained financial situation after the First World War initially only a makeshift facility. However, since until 1999 no revision of the emergency equipment took place, but differently designed, primarily the utilitarianism committed office furnitures complementarily had been added, the equipment of the former state rooms presented itself at the end of the 20th century as an inhomogeneous administrative mingle-mangle of insignificant parts, where, however, dwelt a certain quaint charm. From the magnificent state rooms had evolved depots, storage rooms, a library, a study hall and several officed.

Image: The Albertina Graphic Arts Collection and the Philipphof after the American bombing of 12 März 1945.

Image: The palace after the demolition of the entrance facade, 1948-52

Worse it hit the outer appearance of the palace, because in times of continued anti-Habsburg sentiment after the Second World War and inspired by an intolerant destruction will, it came by pickaxe to a ministerial erasure of history. In contrast to the graphic collection possessed the richly decorated facades with the conspicuous insignia of the former owner an object-immanent reference to the Habsburg past and thus exhibited the monarchial traditions and values ​​of the era of Francis Joseph significantly. As part of the remedial measures after a bomb damage, in 1948 the aristocratic, by Archduke Albert initiated, historicist facade structuring along with all decorations was cut off, many facade figures demolished and the Hapsburg crest emblems plunged to the ground. Since in addition the old ramp also had been cancelled and the main entrance of the bastion level had been moved down to the second basement storey at street level, ended the presence of the old Archduke's palace after more than 200 years. At the reopening of the "Albertina Graphic Collection" in 1952, the former Hapsburg Palais of splendour presented itself as one of his identity robbed, formally trivial, soulless room shell, whose successful republicanization an oversized and also unproportional eagle above the new main entrance to the Augustinian road symbolized. The emocratic throw of monuments had wiped out the Hapsburg palace from the urban appeareance, whereby in the perception only existed a nondescript, nameless and ahistorical building that henceforth served the lodging and presentation of world-famous graphic collection of the Albertina. The condition was not changed by the decision to the refurbishment because there were only planned collection specific extensions, but no restoration of the palace.

Image: The palace after the Second World War with simplified facades, the rudiment of the Danubiusbrunnens (well) and the new staircase up to the Augustinerbastei

This paradigm shift corresponded to a blatant reversal of the historical circumstances, as the travel guides and travel books for kk Residence and imperial capital of Vienna dedicated itself primarily with the magnificent, aristocratic palace on the Augustinerbastei with the sumptuously fitted out reception rooms and mentioned the collection kept there - if at all - only in passing. Only with the repositioning of the Albertina in 2000 under the direction of Klaus Albrecht Schröder, the palace was within the meaning and in fulfillment of the Fideikommiss of Archduke Charles in 1826 again met with the high regard, from which could result a further inseparable bond between the magnificent mansions and the world-famous collection. In view of the knowing about politically motivated errors and omissions of the past, the facades should get back their noble, historicist designing, the staterooms regain their glamorous, prestigious appearance and culturally unique equippment be repurchased. From this presumption, eventually grew the full commitment to revise the history of redemption and the return of the stately palace in the public consciousness.

Image: The restored suburb facade of the Palais Albertina suburb

The smoothed palace facades were returned to their original condition and present themselves today - with the exception of the not anymore reconstructed Attica figures - again with the historicist decoration and layout elements that Archduke Albrecht had given after the razing of the Augustinerbastei in 1865 in order. The neoclassical interiors, today called after the former inhabitants "Habsburg Staterooms", receiving a meticulous and detailed restoration taking place at the premises of originality and authenticity, got back their venerable and sumptuous appearance. From the world wide scattered historical pieces of equipment have been bought back 70 properties or could be returned through permanent loan to its original location, by which to the visitors is made experiencable again that atmosphere in 1919 the state rooms of the last Habsburg owner Archduke Frederick had owned. The for the first time in 80 years public accessible "Habsburg State Rooms" at the Palais Albertina enable now again as eloquent testimony to our Habsburg past and as a unique cultural heritage fundamental and essential insights into the Austrian cultural history. With the relocation of the main entrance to the level of the Augustinerbastei the recollection to this so valuable Austrian Cultural Heritage formally and functionally came to completion. The vision of the restoration and recovery of the grand palace was a pillar on which the new Albertina should arise again, the other embody the four large newly built exhibition halls, which allow for the first time in the history of the Albertina, to exhibit the collection throughout its encyclopedic breadh under optimal conservation conditions.

Image: The new entrance area of the Albertina

64 meter long shed roof. Hans Hollein.

The palace presents itself now in its appearance in the historicist style of the Ringstrassenära, almost as if nothing had happened in the meantime. But will the wheel of time should not, cannot and must not be turned back, so that the double standards of the "Albertina Palace" said museum - on the one hand Habsburg grandeur palaces and other modern museum for the arts of graphics - should be symbolized by a modern character: The in 2003 by Hans Hollein designed far into the Albertina square cantilevering, elegant floating flying roof. 64 meters long, it symbolizes in the form of a dynamic wedge the accelerated urban spatial connectivity and public access to the palace. It advertises the major changes in the interior as well as the huge underground extensions of the repositioned "Albertina".

 

Christian Benedictine

Art historian with research interests History of Architecture, building industry of the Hapsburgs, Hofburg and Zeremonialwissenschaft (ceremonial sciences). Since 1990 he works in the architecture collection of the Albertina. Since 2000 he supervises as director of the newly founded department "Staterooms" the restoration and furnishing of the state rooms and the restoration of the facades and explores the history of the palace and its inhabitants.

 

www.wien-vienna.at/albertinabaugeschichte.php

the grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.

- jose addison

Modern cars can do over 100,000 miles without pausing for breath. If you really pile on the miles, you might have 200,000 or even 300,000 miles on the clock. If the car Gods are really shining on you, you might have managed more than half a million.

 

Prepare to feel insignificant. Irv Gordon from East Patchogue, New York, together with his Volvo P1800, a 1966 1800S, has completed over three million miles--a new world record for the highest number of miles driven by a single person in the same car. If you're after an arbitrary comparison to offer some perspective, that's around six round-trips to the moon, or 120 circumnavigations of Earth.

 

Gordon hit the three million miles mark on September 18 while driving near the village of Girdwood, on the Seward Highway, south of Anchorage, Alaska; one of the two remaining states where Irv and his famous car had not been together until now.

 

”It was all rather undramatic,” said Irv. ”We just cruised along and I kept an eye on the odometer in order not to miss the great moment”.

 

Gordon first bought his 1800S on a Friday back in 1966 and immediately fell in love. He simply couldn't stop driving the car and over the course of the weekend he had already covered 1,500 miles, causing him to return to the dealership he bought it the following Monday in order for its first service.

 

With a 125-mile round-trip daily commute, a fanatical dedication to vehicle maintenance and a passion for driving, Gordon logged 500,000 miles in 10 years. In 1987, he celebrated his one-millionth mile by driving a loop around the Tavern on the Green in Central Park, and in 2002 he drove the car's two-millionth mile down Times Square. Since then, Gordon has broken his record every time he gets behind the wheel of his beloved Volvo.

 

[Text from MotorAuthority]

 

www.motorauthority.com/news/1087353_irv-gordon-reaches-3-...

 

History

 

The project was started in 1957 because Volvo wanted a sports car, despite the fact that their previous attempt, the P1900, had been a disaster, with only 68 cars sold. The man behind the project was an engineering consultant to Volvo, Helmer Petterson, who in the 1940s was responsible for the Volvo PV444. The design work was done by Helmer's son Pelle Petterson, who worked at Pietro Frua at that time. Volvo insisted it was an Italian design by Frua and only officially recognized that Pelle Petterson designed it in 2009. The Italian Carrozzeria Pietro Frua design firm (then a recently acquired subsidiary of Ghia) built the first three prototypes between September 1957 and early 1958, later designated by Volvo in September 1958: P958-X1, P958-X2 and P958-X3 (P:Project 9:September 58:Year 1958 = P958).

 

In December 1957 Helmer Petterson drove X1, (the first hand-built P1800 prototype) to Osnabrück, West Germany, headquarters of Karmann. Petterson hoped that Karmann would be able to take on the tooling and building of the P1800. Karmann's engineers had already been preparing working drawings from the wooden styling buck at Frua. Petterson and Volvo chief engineer Thor Berthelius met there, tested the car and discussed the construction with Karmann. They were ready to build it and this meant that the first cars could hit the market as early as December 1958. But in February, Karmann's most important customer, Volkswagen VAG, forbade Karmann to take on the job.[citation needed] They feared that the P1800 would compete with the sales of their own cars, and threatened to cancel all their contracts with Karmann if they took on this car. This setback almost caused the project to be abandoned.

 

Other German firms, NSU, Drautz and Hanomag, were contacted but none was chosen because Volvo did not believe they met Volvo's manufacturing quality-control standards.

 

It began to appear that Volvo might never produce the P1800. This motivated Helmer Petterson to obtain financial backing from two financial firms with the intention of buying the components directly from Volvo and marketing the car himself. At this point Volvo had made no mention of the P1800 and the factory would not comment. Then a press release surfaced with a photo of the car, putting Volvo in a position where they had to acknowledge its existence. These events influenced the company to renew its efforts: the car was presented to the public for the first time at the Brussels Motor Show in January 1960 and Volvo turned to Jensen Motors, whose production lines were under-utilised, and they agreed a contract for 10,000 cars. The Linwood, Scotland, body plant of manufacturer Pressed Steel was in turn sub-contracted by Jensen to create the unibody shells, which were then taken by rail to be assembled at Jensen in West Bromwich, England. In September 1960, the first production P1800 (for the 1961 model year) left Jensen for an eager public.

 

P1800

 

The engine was the B18 (B for the Swedish word for gasoline: Bensin; 18 for 1800 cc displacement) with dual SU carburettors, producing 100 hp (75 kW). This variant (named B18B) had a higher compression ratio than the slightly less powerful twin-carb B18D used in the contemporary Amazon 122S, as well as a different camshaft. The 'new' B18 was actually developed from the existing B36 V8 engine used in Volvo trucks at the time. This cut production costs, as well as furnishing the P1800 with a strong engine boasting five main crankshaft bearings. The B18 was matched with the new and more robust M40 manual gearbox through 1963. From 1963 to 1972 the M41 gearbox with electrically actuated overdrive was a popular option. Two overdrive types were used, the D-Type through 1969, and the J-type through 1973. The J-type had a slightly shorter ratio of 0.797:1 as opposed to 0.756:1 for the D-type. The overdrive effectively gave the 1800 series a fifth gear, for improved fuel efficiency and decreased drivetrain wear. Cars without overdrive had a numerically lower-ratio differential, which had the interesting effect of giving them a somewhat higher top speed (just under 120 mph (193 km/h)) than the more popular overdrive models. This was because the non-overdrive cars could reach the engine's redline in top gear, while the overdrive-equipped cars could not, giving them a top speed of roughly 110 mph (177 km/h).

 

1800S

 

As time progressed, Jensen had problems with quality control, so the contract was ended early at 6,000 cars. In 1963 production was moved to Volvo's Lundby Plant in Gothenburg and the car's name was changed to 1800S (S standing for Sverige, or in English : Sweden). The engine was improved with an additional 8 hp (6 kW). In 1966 the four-cylinder engine was updated to 115 hp (86 kW). Top speed was 175 km/h (109 mph).[3] In 1969 the B18 engine was replaced with the 2-litre B20B variant of the B20 giving 118 bhp (89 kW), though it kept the designation 1800S.

 

[Text from Wikipedia]

 

This Lego miniland-scale Volvo P1800 Coupe has been created for Flickr LUGNut's 88th Build Challenge, - "Let's Break Some Records", - a challenge focused on creating vehicles that set some benchmark for biggness, fastness or other extreme of some specification. The Volvo model shown here claim, by far, the farthermost distance ever traveled by an automobile, at over 3,000,000 miles (4,800,00 kilometres).

Triple Coconut Cream Pie on smittenkitchen.com

03/10 Insignificant Secret @ Legacy Taipei

a walk with Nikos and Nana to check a broken lens.

(Spring 2015)

[contrasted @ yellows, cropped]

From a distance, these flowers appear rather insignificant, but take a closer look and their delicate beauty becomes apparent.

 

Euphrasia sp.

Their size is a reminder of how small and insignificant we are.

I feel insignificant when I'm under here.

Sometimes we realize how insignificant we are.