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Research the history of your house: www.publications.qld.gov.au/dataset/brief-guides-at-qsa/r...
Coorparoo history: Queensland Places – Coorparoo
Chermside, a residential suburb on Gympie Road, is 11 km north of central Brisbane. Australia's first drive-in shopping centre, with 700 car spaces, opened in Chermside in 1957.
The Chermside area was originally known as Downfall Creek, the suburb's present northern boundary. Seeking a more attractive name, residents decided on Chermside when it was announced that Sir Herbert Chermside would become Governor of Queensland in 1902, with the name formally adopted the following year.
Chermside was originally an agricultural district. The sale of farm lots began slowly in 1865 and continued until 1868, most lots being 15-20 acres. Lands along Gympie Road witnessed considerable volumes of passing traffic after the opening of the Gympie goldfield in 1867, with Cobb and Co ferrying goods and prospectors to the northern workings. German immigrants established a German Quarter near the corner of Hamilton and Webster Roads. The land was unspectacular, roughly timbered and considered to be in need of improvement.
It took until the 1870s for signs of permanent settlement to appear: a general store in Gympie Road (1870), a Methodist church (1877) and a post office (1879). Blacksmiths and coachbuilders later operated along Gympie Road, and several slaughteryards began operation along Downfall Creek, in turn leading to byproduct industries including fell-mongering and leather tanning. Downfall Creek became the administrative centre of the Nundah local government division in 1884, the more populous urban area around Nundah township having constituted itself as the Toombul division.
In 1899 the soft drink manufacturer, George Marchant, acquired land along Downfall Creek, east of Gympie Road, as a spelling paddock for his horses. He later donated the land to Kedron Shire after the shire had been directed by the State Government to provide municipal open space for its community.
A local lodge built the Alliance Hall near the corner of Gympie and Rode Roads, and the building also served as a public hall and place of worship until several church faiths constructed their own buildings. In 1900, nearly opposite the hall, the Downfall Creek school opened. The Chermside School of Arts and Technical College was formed in 1909, acquiring the Alliance Hall and building up a stock of library books.
In 1911 the Australian census recorded over 400 people in Chermside, and other authorities suggest a figure of 1000 in the district (including Aspley and Chermside West). A horse-bus service from Aspley to the Wooloowin railway station began in 1912, converting to a motorised service in 1923. From a different direction, the city tram service advanced toward Chermside from Kedron Park to the Lutwyche Cemetery from 1925. The decisive and final extension was along Gympie Road to Hamilton Road in the middle of Chermside in 1947.
A Church of England was constructed in 1914, and a more commercial place of assembly – the Dawn picture theatre – opened in 1928. Motor cars as well as buses used the Gympie Road, persuading a Chermside butcher to rent part of a local farrier's premises and install petrol pumps and a roadside mechanic.
From World War I land along Downfall Creek, east of Marchant Park, was used for military exercises. In 1941 the Commonwealth acquired the land for the Chermside Army Camp, bringing a huge influx of population and associated services. At the end of the war some of the military barracks were used to relieve the housing shortage, and the military's presence is remembered with the naming of the 7th Brigade Park, east of Marchant Park.
The 1947 extension of the tramline opened Chermside to residential expansion, and in that year the census recorded a population of nearly 4500 people. Many new homes were built by the Queensland Housing Commission and the War Service Homes Commission to accommodate the growth. A short way west of the tram terminus temporary prefabricated wards were constructed in 1952 for the Brisbane Chest Hospital, servicing tuberculosis patients. Seven years later a high-rise chest hospital opened, later diversifying into cardiac and other services and being renamed the Prince Charles Hospital.
By then Chermside was on the metropolitan map. Right at the end of the tram line the Allan and Stark department store opened Australia's first private-enterprise drive-in, free standing shopping centre, preceding Myer's Chadstone centre (Melbourne) by two years. The opening was given state-wide publicity and national reportage by the Melbourne columnist, Keith Dunstan. The drive-in centre, enlarged several times and reinforced by a Kmart centre (1971) 1 km northwards, is classified as a regional shopping centre. Today it includes a three-story department store, hundreds of specialty shops, cinemas and a bowling alley, as well as a major bus station. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s Chermside's community infrastructure was completed with several new churches, a municipal library, a service reservoir, fire station and additional local reserves. Rose gardens along Gympie Road succumbed to road widening in 1968. Hamilton Road was upgraded in 2008 allowing motorists to travel a direct route from Chermside to McDowell complete with a purpose-built 'fauna bridge' for possums and wallabies to use.
Wavell Heights State school, located in Chermside, was severely damaged by fire in 2011.
Queensland's first children's hospice, Hummingbird House, was constructed on the campus of Wesley Mission Brisbane's Wheller Gardens site in Chermside, and scheduled for opening in 2016.
Chermside history: Queensland Places – Chermside
Commercialising Eros
A discussion with Jacob Appelbaum (us), Zach Blas (us), Liad Hussein Kantorowicz (il/de) and Aliya Rakhmetova (hu)
Moderated by Gaia Novati (it/de)
Includes the live performance / Mit der Performance Watch Me Work by Liad Hussein Kantorowicz and Kate Erhardt (za)
Saturday, Feb 4, 13:30–15:30, K1
This panel sheds light on the interferences and tensions between sex and business, analysing practices and strategies of technology entrepreneurship and networking models, online sexual imagery and queer virality. Moreover, it stresses the aspect of conscious reflection on bodily practices as opposed to simply consuming, focusing on how queer communities and sex workers use IT in their communication and how they try to break usual stereotypes through online and offline actions. A conscious reflection and practice of sexuality can be the way to imagine a different model of “commercialising eros”, mobilising communities, generating advocacy, and more broadly, shaping culture.
The panel is part of reSource Sex, which reflects on the interference and overlapping between sex business and ‘alternative’ porn, aiming to explore and discuss the open interzona which exists in between the often male-oriented mainstream porn, and the more narrow scene of queer and alt porn communities.
Zach Blas is an artist and writer working at the intersections of networked media, queerness, and the political. His on-going project, Queer Technologies, is a collective that produces critical applications, tools, and situations for queer technological agency, interventions, and social formation. Zach has exhibited at the Foundation for Art and Creative Technology in Liverpool, England, Highways Performance Space in Santa Monica, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Fe Arts gallery in Pittsburgh, File Electronic Language International Festival in Brazil, and the 2010 Arse Elektronika Festival in San Francisco, where he was the recipient of a Prixxx Arse Elektronika. He has participated in residencies on “Art and Resistance” at the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics, Chiapas, Mexico, “On the Commons; or, Believing-Feeling- Acting Together” at the Banff Centre, Alberta, Canada, and “Devisualize” at the Medialab Prado, Madrid, Spain. Rhizome.org has recently interviewed him, and he has published in a Mínima, E-misférica, Version, and Schlossplatz³ and has articles forthcoming in The Fibreculture Journal, Women’s Studies Quarterly, Reclamations Journal, and networkpolitics.org. His work has been written about in Wired, Canon Magazine, and the South Atlantic Quarterly. He is one of the founding members of the Public School Durham and a PhD student in Literature, Information Science + Information Studies, Visual Studies, and Women?s Studies at Duke University. He also holds an MFA from UCLA, a Post-Baccalaureate certificate from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and a BS from Boston University. Visit www.zachblas.info or www.queertechnologies.info for more information.
Helicopters come and go in the continuing aerial application of straw to mitigate soil and ash runoff from the mountainous terrain leading to Seaman Reservoir, drinking water resource for the City of Greeley, on Friday, July 20, 2012, near Fort Collins, Colorado. A Bell UH-1H (2-blade rotor) and A-Star Model B (3-blade rotor) take turns picking up loads of straw from the landing zone at the foot of the reservoir spillway. The 100-150- cables hold and release loads of certified straw weighing 1,400 – 2,000 pounds. Forest service lands received straw, while private and other lands receive a seed mix and straw to promote ground cover plant growth on ash-covered lands. In total, 1,800 tons of straw will be applied during the 14-day operation. One quarter of the cost was paid by the City of Greeley and the U.S. Department of Agriculture funded the remainder. The Hewlett Gulch Fire was started by a camper’s alcohol stove, on May 14, at the saddle of a picturesque mountain ridge along the Hewlett Gulch Trail of Poudre Canyon, in the Roosevelt National Forest, 60 miles north of Denver. At it’s more than 400 firefighters were battling fires being pushed by 50 mph winds that helped blacken over 12-square-miles of dry ground cover, brush and trees. Many of the trees were already dead and tinder dry from beetle-kill. The water in the reservoir remains clean and clear, while downstream water flow has gone from famous Colorado clear water to nearly black flows of water heavily laden with ash, silt, and burnt debris that recent thunderstorms have already washed down from the mountainsides. USDA Photo by Lance Cheung.
Commercialising Eros
A discussion with Jacob Appelbaum (us), Zach Blas (us), Liad Hussein Kantorowicz (il/de) and Aliya Rakhmetova (hu)
Moderated by Gaia Novati (it/de)
Includes the live performance / Mit der Performance Watch Me Work by Liad Hussein Kantorowicz and Kate Erhardt (za)
Saturday, Feb 4, 13:30–15:30, K1
This panel sheds light on the interferences and tensions between sex and business, analysing practices and strategies of technology entrepreneurship and networking models, online sexual imagery and queer virality. Moreover, it stresses the aspect of conscious reflection on bodily practices as opposed to simply consuming, focusing on how queer communities and sex workers use IT in their communication and how they try to break usual stereotypes through online and offline actions. A conscious reflection and practice of sexuality can be the way to imagine a different model of “commercialising eros”, mobilising communities, generating advocacy, and more broadly, shaping culture.
The panel is part of reSource Sex, which reflects on the interference and overlapping between sex business and ‘alternative’ porn, aiming to explore and discuss the open interzona which exists in between the often male-oriented mainstream porn, and the more narrow scene of queer and alt porn communities.
Zach Blas is an artist and writer working at the intersections of networked media, queerness, and the political. His on-going project, Queer Technologies, is a collective that produces critical applications, tools, and situations for queer technological agency, interventions, and social formation. Zach has exhibited at the Foundation for Art and Creative Technology in Liverpool, England, Highways Performance Space in Santa Monica, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Fe Arts gallery in Pittsburgh, File Electronic Language International Festival in Brazil, and the 2010 Arse Elektronika Festival in San Francisco, where he was the recipient of a Prix Ars Elektronica. He has participated in residencies on “Art and Resistance” at the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics, Chiapas, Mexico, “On the Commons; or, Believing-Feeling- Acting Together” at the Banff Centre, Alberta, Canada, and “Devisualize” at the Medialab Prado, Madrid, Spain. Rhizome.org has recently interviewed him, and he has published in a Mínima, E-misférica, Version, and Schlossplatz³ and has articles forthcoming in The Fibreculture Journal, Women’s Studies Quarterly, Reclamations Journal, and networkpolitics.org. His work has been written about in Wired, Canon Magazine, and the South Atlantic Quarterly. He is one of the founding members of the Public School Durham and a PhD student in Literature, Information Science + Information Studies, Visual Studies, and Women?s Studies at Duke University. He also holds an MFA from UCLA, a Post-Baccalaureate certificate from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and a BS from Boston University. Visit www.zachblas.info or www.queertechnologies.info for more information.
Architect: Unknown
Location: Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada
Don't know anything about this place. It just caught my eye as I was driving by. It looks like it may have been a school at one time, and has now been converted into a resource centre for job training, public assistance, etc. Not sure, though. It was Sunday and closed when I was there.
A lightweight simulator version of NASA's Resource Prospector undergoes a mobility test in a regolith bin at the agency's Kennedy Space center in Florida. The Resource Prospector mission aims to be the first mining expedition on another world. Operating on the moon’s poles, the robot is designed to use instruments to locate elements at a lunar polar regions, then excavate and sample resources such as hydrogen, oxygen and water. These resources could support human explores on their way to destinations such as farther into the solar system.
Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett
One of my buttons from the 90s. I came out as bisexual in the 1970s. In the 1980s I belonged to the Boston Bisexual Women's Network. This button is from the Bisexual Resource Center.
Some folks find the term confusing (or think bisexual folks are "confused"). As with everything else, different individuals define the term differently. In my case it means I look not at the gender but at the person when it comes to a relationship.
Research the history of your house: www.publications.qld.gov.au/dataset/brief-guides-at-qsa/r...
Grovely is a suburban locality on the south side of Kedron Brook, 9 km north-west of central Brisbane. The Grovely railway station is on the Ferny Grove line.
In 1864 John Nicholson acquired a farm allotment generally bounded by today's Church Road, Kedron Brook and Kedron Avenue, Mitchelton. He named his property Groveley Lodge, presumably after Groveley Wood near his previous home in England. An Anglican church was built on a hill on Nicholson's land in 1869, near the western end of today's Grovely Terrace. The church, at first known as Upper Kedron, was named St Matthews in 1909. Its cemetery's first burial was in 1869. The primary school, with an entrance on Samford Road, Michelton, was opened in 1916 with the spelling 'Groveley'. In 1923 the school's name was changed to Michelton.
In 1918 the Catholic Order of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer – the Redemptorists – acquired Groveley Lodge for a monastery. It was on the west side of Church Road. A larger three-storey brick monastery was built in 1928. The Redemptorists ran a dairy herd and leased out a site on Dawson Parade for market gardening. There were several other dairy and poultry farms in the area in the early postwar years.
In 1945 'Little India' flourished at the Grovely military camp where Indian officers and men, released from Japanese prison camps in Papua New Guinea by Australian forces, underwent convalescence before being repatriated to India. Many were taught modern farming methods by experts from the Department of Agriculture who set up a training farm.
In 1950 the Queensland Housing Commission began a housing estate at Grovely. A second Grovely primary school, in Dawson Parade, opened in 1956 and the Catholic St Williams school opened the following year. Grovely's country railway station was discarded and a new building was constructed in 1951. (It, too, has since been replaced, and moved to a museum site at Samford.)
Grovely's western neighbour was Keperra, and by the mid-1970s Grovely had become a locality in the suburb of Keperra. The Redemptorists' market garden was sold in 1973, and later became the site for Brisbane Institute of TAFE, Grovely Campus. Their monastery site became the Oxford Park retirement village (1993). Oxford Park is a locality in Mitchelton, the eastern neighbouring suburb, which incidentally encompasses Grovely Terrace and the 1869 Anglican church.
Grovely's census population in 1921 was 133. Later census records put Grovely's population in Keperra, Mitchelton or both.
Grovely history: Queensland Places – Grovely
1980's - Unknown Cheerleaders - Lincoln High School - Front left = Michelle Swanson - Reverse "BBB".
More at pchs.org/resources/1997-064-057
Natural Resource Officer Edgar Hermosillo is out checking contract workers employed to reduce fuels and prevent invasive growth to ensure the health of the San Bernardino National Forest in San Bernardino, Calif. Feb. 10, 2023.
Hermosillo has been with the Forest Service for three-and-a-half years permanently.
Previously he was Pathways Intern for a season and a Resource Assistant a season before bing hired on full-time.
Having grown up in Southern California and loving the outdoors, he didn’t realize there were careers in the Forest Service.
After becoming disabled after a bicycle accident, he went on to get a masters degree in Environmental Studies from Cal State Fullerton.
(USDA Forest Service photo by Preston Keres)
linux virgin, 2005
Karla Grundick und Mistress Koyo
Video, 14:30 min is shown in the exhibition Dark Drives: Uneasy Energies in Technological Times
The Sexuality of Machines
is a discussion with Sergio Messina (it), Karla Grundick (de) and Julianne Pierce (uk)
Moderated by Gabriella Coleman (us)
Saturday, Feb 4, 2012, 11:00–12:30
Since the 1990s, some experiences in the queer and activist scene showed how to transfer an experimental hacker and DIY attitude from technology to the body and to the broader concept of sexuality. The hacker ideas of sharing, openness, and the hands-on imperative all became a challenge to imagine a different kind of sexuality – and pornography – beyond rigid dichotomies and patriarchal structures. With the increasing use of social media and chan boards, the reflection of sexuality and the experimentation on pornography is entering progressively into the realms of abstraction: bodies become fetishes, identity is objectified into an anonymous “sign”, and the interaction via machines is the tool of desire. However, DIY porn is becoming an aesthetics and practice open to everyone rather than a field of study among specialists – or a successful niche market within the porn business. Digital amateur porn disrupts social codes to unpredictable effects.
The discussion is part of reSource Sex, wich reflects on the interference and overlapping between sex business and ‘alternative’ porn, aiming to explore and discuss the open interzona which exists in between the often male-oriented mainstream porn, and the more narrow scene of queer and alt porn communities.
linux virgin, 2005
Karla Grundick und Mistress Koyo
Video, 14:30 min is shown in the exhibition Dark Drives: Uneasy Energies in Technological Times
The Sexuality of Machines
is a discussion with Sergio Messina (it), Karla Grundick (de) and Julianne Pierce (uk)
Moderated by Gabriella Coleman (us)
Saturday, Feb 4, 2012, 11:00–12:30
Since the 1990s, some experiences in the queer and activist scene showed how to transfer an experimental hacker and DIY attitude from technology to the body and to the broader concept of sexuality. The hacker ideas of sharing, openness, and the hands-on imperative all became a challenge to imagine a different kind of sexuality – and pornography – beyond rigid dichotomies and patriarchal structures. With the increasing use of social media and chan boards, the reflection of sexuality and the experimentation on pornography is entering progressively into the realms of abstraction: bodies become fetishes, identity is objectified into an anonymous “sign”, and the interaction via machines is the tool of desire. However, DIY porn is becoming an aesthetics and practice open to everyone rather than a field of study among specialists – or a successful niche market within the porn business. Digital amateur porn disrupts social codes to unpredictable effects.
The discussion is part of reSource Sex, wich reflects on the interference and overlapping between sex business and ‘alternative’ porn, aiming to explore and discuss the open interzona which exists in between the often male-oriented mainstream porn, and the more narrow scene of queer and alt porn communities.
*A Joyful Visit with the Grannies*
*and Children in Xi'an*
by Rita Taddonio, Director of Spence-Chapin's Adoption Resource Center
For the past five years, Spence-Chapin has been sponsoring a granny program
at the Child Welfare Institute in Xi'an, China. I have visited four times to
offer trainings to the grannies that would enable them to help with the
children's development. This summer I returned with Susan Campbell, an
occupational therapist and Joan Radigan, a special educator. I was extremely
excited because one of our goals was to support an additional granny program
for children between the ages of three and five.
It was a joy to return to Xi'an and see the children sitting on their
grannies laps to hear a story read or grabbing their grannies' hand to pull
them to see the new toys we brought. The obvious signs of attachment the
children have with the grannies and the sense of comfort they derive from
their presence makes me aware of the meaning and power of this program. It
is particularly moving because I am conscious that most of these children
will remain at the orphanage and so having an adult who lights up when they
come into the room or is completely interested in their painting is most
important.
The success of the first granny program for infants to age three is the
reason we were determined to extend the granny program to cover children who
are between the ages of three to five. Continuity in care and attention is
so important that it was clearly the right thing to do. We found children we
recognized as having been in our Birth to Three Program now happily playing
with grannies hired for the new program.
Our visit in July 2006 lasted two weeks. The first week we spent training
the grannies and staff in the Birth to Three Program. Eleven out of fifteen
grannies were new to the program so we reviewed basic developmental stages,
how to encourage age appropriate skills and basics about how attachment
forms
The second week we focused on training the grannies and staff who work with
the three to five year olds. Again, we reviewed basic child development, how
to encourage creative play, interaction between the children, language and
other age appropriate skills. Every time we passed the children's room, they
started clapping and waving because the activities we did with them were so
much fun.
When we asked the grannies to evaluate the training, their responses were
very positive. One granny said, "I am so happy that I know how to help my
baby. Before all I could do was hold her because I thought she could not
move on her own but now I am able to get her to crawl to me." The grannies
were particularly interested in how to stimulate infants and how to help
special needs children.
I had the opportunity to meet with government officials, notably the head of
Child Welfare for Shaanxi Province. He was very impressed with our program
and asked that Spence-Chapin consider opening more granny programs in his
province. When I asked how many he thought were needed he said he thought
every orphanage in his province should have a program such as ours. That was
quite a compliment and offer of support especially since it came from a
government official. He suggested that I visit a more remote orphanage to
see the kind of need he was describing. So I took myself to AnKam— a days
train ride followed by a long car ride—to see the orphanage.
I found AnKam to be a fairly typical rural orphanage, situated in a new
building which provides light and space for the children. However, there
were only two caretakers for 38 children and no developmental toys or
activities in their daily routine. A perfect place for us to consider
establishing a granny program..
Returning every year to China to support and train and grow the Granny
Program has been one of the most rewarding things I have ever done. A
personal thank you to everyone who has enabled Spence Chapin to make such a
profound difference in the lives of children.
Students Miriam Tellez and Carlos Rodriguez study in the Titan Dreamer’s Resource Center before finals.
linux virgin, 2005
Karla Grundick und Mistress Koyo
Video, 14:30 min is shown in the exhibition Dark Drives: Uneasy Energies in Technological Times
The Sexuality of Machines
is a discussion with Sergio Messina (it), Karla Grundick (de) and Julianne Pierce (uk)
Moderated by Gabriella Coleman (us)
Saturday, Feb 4, 2012, 11:00–12:30
Since the 1990s, some experiences in the queer and activist scene showed how to transfer an experimental hacker and DIY attitude from technology to the body and to the broader concept of sexuality. The hacker ideas of sharing, openness, and the hands-on imperative all became a challenge to imagine a different kind of sexuality – and pornography – beyond rigid dichotomies and patriarchal structures. With the increasing use of social media and chan boards, the reflection of sexuality and the experimentation on pornography is entering progressively into the realms of abstraction: bodies become fetishes, identity is objectified into an anonymous “sign”, and the interaction via machines is the tool of desire. However, DIY porn is becoming an aesthetics and practice open to everyone rather than a field of study among specialists – or a successful niche market within the porn business. Digital amateur porn disrupts social codes to unpredictable effects.
The discussion is part of reSource Sex, wich reflects on the interference and overlapping between sex business and ‘alternative’ porn, aiming to explore and discuss the open interzona which exists in between the often male-oriented mainstream porn, and the more narrow scene of queer and alt porn communities.
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) Disaster Household Distribution Program (DHHDP) activities by Genesee County Community Action Resource Department (GCCARD), helps those in need in Flint, Michigan, a city known for its role in the automotive industry, on Wednesday, October 5, 2016. USDA Foods are being packaged and delivered to 17,000 households eligible for The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) in the Flint area to help address the ongoing water crisis. DHHDP packages are prepositioned in shopping carts in the onsite distribution area that includes receptionists, commodity shelves, assistants, and checkout counters. The DHHDP consists of an additional 14-pound nutrient-targeted food package, containing foods rich in calcium, iron, and Vitamin C â which are believed to help limit the absorption of lead in the body. This number of boxes will be distributed each month for four months. The food is in addition to the regular allotment that TEFAP recipients currently receive. The packing line team included Michigan government employees volunteering their personal time produced hundreds of Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP) and TEFAP packages. CSFP works to improve the health of low- income elderly persons at least 60 years of age by supplementing their diets with nutritious USDA Foods. USDA photo by Lance Cheung.
For more information about USDA -- www.usda.gov
For more information about FNS -- www.fns.usda.gov
For more information about Disaster Nutrition Assistance Programs, including DHHDP -- www.fns.usda.gov/sites/default/files/disaster/Disaster-Br...
For more information about CSFP -- www.fns.usda.gov/csfp/commodity-supplemental-food-program...
For more information about TEFAP -- www.fns.usda.gov/tefap/emergency-food-assistance-program-...
@USDA
Certified Human Resource Professionals & Certified Human Resource Managers (CHRPs & CHRMs), Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia, April 2015 batch.
UN Iraq Press Release
Baghdad Water Conference: UN calls for action to improve water resources management, critical to Iraq’s future prosperity and to global food security
Baghdad, 13 March 2021 - Growing water scarcity requires immediate action to improve local and national resource management as well as enhance regional cooperation, the UN warned at the 1st Baghdad International Water Conference. Modern technology, public awareness on conservation and improved resource management can help overcome the increasing challenges in the future.
The two-day conference, organized by the Iraqi Ministry of Water Resources, brings together senior officials from the Government of Iraq, representatives from international organizations including the UN, as well as international experts and diplomats. It aims to find ways to overcome future challenges relating to water availability, exchange scientific and policy expertise on water resource management, promote exchange of modern technologies, and raise awareness on conservation. Discussions will also focus on Iraq’s water situation and cooperation with neighboring countries, as well as capacity building in Iraq for improved management of water resources, the role of international organizations in implementing Sustainable Development Goal 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation), and planning and investment in the sector.
Speaking at the opening session today, Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Iraq/Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator Irena Vojackova-Sollorano emphasized that water is not only a critical source of livelihood for Iraq but also an important driver of peace, sustainable development and future prosperity.
“This international conference is important for Iraq and the region. Water must be shared at all levels: globally; regionally; between countries; and between men and women at the community level. It must be a source of cooperation rather than conflict,” she said.
Known in ancient times as Mesopotamia, the land between the Rivers Tigris and Euphrates, Iraq’s history and civilizations were built around water. This heritage is being imperiled today by population growth, increased consumption, decrease in availability of fresh surface water and other factors, including conflicts.
Addressing the conference through a video link, the Director-General of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Dr. QU Dongyu, stated that the transformation of agri-food systems is at the heart of FAO’s mandate to provide safer, more affordable and healthier diets for the world’s rapidly growing population. Noting that “Water is the essence of life and at the core of the agri-food systems," he highlighted three related concepts of paramount importance: Water Governance Frameworks, Innovation and Capacity Development.
Stating that FAO strongly advocates for the adoption of science-based natural resource management practices that harness the power of innovation and digital technologies, he noted “Innovation is not only about new technologies, it is also about financing, networking and new business models to accelerate the transformation process. It combines human creativity, technology, science and entrepreneurship by engaging all stakeholders, from national and regional authorities, civil society, academia and the private sectors.”
In her remarks, Ms. Vojackova-Sollorano outlined UN engagement with the Government of Iraq on several strands of work covering water, sanitation, hygiene, water resources management, water quality and management of water-related disasters. The UN is further responding to the humanitarian needs of refugees, Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and returnees and other vulnerable citizens as well as helping the government address structural problems and facilitate regional cooperation.
Dwindling water reserves call for immediate action, Ms. Vojackova-Sollorano said, adding: The UN family in Iraq stands ready to provide advice and technical support to help improve water management for all Iraqis.
****************
For more information, please contact:
UNAMI Public Information Office: unami-information@un.org
Photos by UNAMI PIO.
Photos by UNAMI PIO
Voortrekker Monument, pretoria/tshwane
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
DesignerGerard Moerdijk
MaterialGranite
Length40 metres (130 ft)
Width40 metres (130 ft)
Height40 metres (130 ft)
Beginning date1937-07-13
Opening date1949-12-16
Dedicated toVoortrekkers
The Voortrekker Monument is located just south of Pretoria in South Africa. This massive granite structure is prominently located on a hilltop, and was raised to commemorate the Voortrekkers who left the Cape Colony between 1835 and 1854.
On 8 July 2011 the Voortrekker Monument, designed by the architect Gerard Moerdijk, was declared a National Heritage Site by the South African Heritage Resource Agency.[1]
History[edit]
Wounded voortrekker at Vegkop, detail of the historical frieze
The idea to build a monument in honour of God was first discussed on 16 December 1888, when President Paul Kruger of the South African Republic attended the Day of the Covenant celebrations at Blood River in Natal. However, the movement to actually build such a monument only started in 1931 when the Sentrale Volksmonumentekomitee (SVK) (Central People's Monuments Committee) was formed to bring this idea to fruition.
Construction started on 13 July 1937 with a sod turning ceremony performed by chairman of the SVK, Advocate Ernest George Jansen, on what later became known as Monument Hill. On 16 December 1938 the cornerstone was laid by three descendants of some of the Voortrekker leaders: Mrs. J.C. Muller (granddaughter of Andries Pretorius), Mrs. K.F. Ackerman (great-granddaughter of Hendrik Potgieter) and Mrs. J.C. Preller (great-granddaughter of Piet Retief).
The Monument was inaugurated on 16 December 1949 by the then-prime minister D. F. Malan.[citation needed] The total construction cost of the Monument was about £ 360,000, most of which was contributed by the South African government.
A large amphitheatre, which seats approximately 20,000 people, was erected to the north-east of the Monument in 1949.
Main features[edit]
The Voortrekker Monument is 40 metres high, with a base of 40 metres by 40 metres.[citation needed] The building shares architectural resemblance with European monuments such the Dôme des Invalides in France and the Völkerschlachtdenkmal in Germany but also contain African influences.[2] The two main points of interest inside the building are the Historical Frieze and the Cenotaph.
South window and frieze
Historical Frieze[edit]
The main entrance of the building leads into the domed Hall of Heroes. This massive space, flanked by four huge arched windows made from yellow Belgian glass, contains the unique marble Historical Frieze which is an intrinsic part of the design of the monument. It is the biggest marble frieze in the world.[citation needed] The frieze consists of 27 bas-relief panels depicting the history of the Great Trek, but incorporating references to every day life, work methods and religious beliefs of the Voortrekkers. The set of panels illustrates key historical scenes starting from the first voortrekkers of 1835, up to the signing of the Sand River Convention in 1852. In the centre of the floor of the Hall of Heroes is a large circular opening through which the Cenotaph in the Cenotaph Hall can be viewed.
The Cenotaph
Cenotaph[edit]
The Cenotaph, situated in the centre of the Cenotaph Hall, is the central focus of the monument. In addition to being viewable from the Hall of Heroes it can also be seen from the dome at the top of the building, from where much of the interior of the monument can be viewed. Through an opening in this dome a ray of sunlight shines at twelve o'clock on 16 December annually, falling onto the centre of the Cenotaph, striking the words 'Ons vir Jou, Suid-Afrika' (Afrikaans for 'Us for you, South Africa'). The ray of light is said to symbolise God's blessing on the lives and endeavours of the Voortrekkers. 16 December 1838 was the date of the Battle of Blood River, commemorated in South Africa before 1994 as the Day of the Vow.
The Cenotaph Hall is decorated with the flags of the different Voortrekker Republics and contains wall tapestries depicting the Voortrekkers as well as several display cases with artefacts from the Great Trek. Against the northern wall of the hall is a niche with a lantern in which a flame has been kept burning ever since 1938. It was in that year that the Symbolic Ox Wagon Trek, which started in Cape Town and ended at Monument Hill where the Monument's foundation stone was laid, took place.
The wagon laager wall features 64 wagons
Other features[edit]
Visitors to the monument enter through a black wrought iron gate with an assegai (spear) motif.
After passing through the gate one finds oneself inside a big laager consisting of 64 ox-wagons made out of decorative granite. The same number of wagons were used at the Battle of Blood River to form the laager.[citation needed]
Voortrekker woman and children by Anton van Wouw
Statue of Piet Retief
At the foot of the Monument stands Anton van Wouw's bronze sculpture of a Voortrekker woman and her two children, paying homage to the strength and courage of the Voortrekker women. On both sides of this sculpture black wildebeest are chiselled into the walls of the Monument. The wildebeest symbolically depicts the dangers of Africa and their symbolic flight implies that the woman, carrier of Western civilisation, is triumphant.
On each outside corner of the Monument there is a statue, respectively representing Piet Retief, Andries Pretorius, Hendrik Potgieter and an "unknown" leader (representative of all the other Voortrekker leaders). Each statue weighs approximately 6 tons.[citation needed]
At the eastern corner of the monument, on the same level as its entrance, is the foundation stone.
Under the foundation stone is buried: A copy of the Trekker Vow on 16 December 1838. A copy of the anthem "Die Stem". A copy of the land deal between the Trekkers under Piet Retief and the Zulus under king Dingane.
German links[edit]
According to Dr Alta Steenkamp, the masonic subtext of the Völkerschlachtdenkmal is reflected in the Voortrekker Monument because the architect, Gerard Moerdijk, had used the geometric order and spatial proportions of the Völkerschlachtdenkmal.[3] This Germanisation of the Voortrekker Monument occurred, after Moerdijk's initial design had caused a public outcry in the South African press for its resemblance to an Egyptian temple.[4]:128
In Moerdijk's initial design, the monument consisted of a causeway linking two Egyptian obelisks.[3][4]:128
Finalising his design of the Voortrekker Monument, Moerdijk visited Egypt in 1936, including the Karnak Temple Complex in Thebes.[4]:105 In Thebes, the pharaoh Akhenaten, Nefertiti's husband, had erected three sun sanctuaries, including the Hwt-benben ('mansion of the Benben').
Sun disc illumination on encrypted stone.
The most prominent aspect of Moerdijk's monument is the annual mid noon sun illumination of the Benben stone, the encrypted cenotaph.
In the years preceding WWII, several Afrikaner nationalists travelled to Germany for academic, political and cultural studies. In 1928 Moerdijk visited Germany, and viewed the Amarna bust of Nefertiti on public display in Berlin.
By 1934 Chancellor Hitler had decided that Germany would not return the Amarna bust of Nefertiti to Egypt. He instead announced the intention to use the Amarna bust as the central show piece of the thousand years Third Reich, in a revitalised Berlin to be renamed Germania.[1]
Likewise Moerdijk's thousand years monument with Amarna sun symbol at its centre, became Afrikaner nationalists' centre show piece of their capital Pretoria.
Round floor opening[edit]
Looking from the sky dome downwards, 32 sun rays can be counted
Looking from the sky dome downwards, a chevron pattern on the floor of the Hall of Heroes, radiates outwards like 32 sun rays. In Moerdijk's architecture, the natural sun forms the 33rd ray through the floor opening.
Moerdijk said the chevron pattern on the floor depicts water,[5] as does the double chevron hieroglyph from the civilization of ancient Egypt.
Moerdijk stated that all roads on the terrain of building art lead back to ancient Egypt.[4]:47
Based on Moerdijk's reference to the watery floor of the Hall of Heroes, as well as his statements about ancient Egypt, the floor opening may be identified with the watery abyss, as in the creation theology of ancient African civilization. Rising out of this watery abyss, was the primeval mound, the Benben stone, to symbolize a new creation.
Religious sun ray[edit]
Gerard Moerdijk was the chief architect of 80 Protestant churches in South Africa. Moerdijk adhered to Reformed church tradition and thus his Renaissance trademark, the Greek-cross floorplan, always focused on the pulpit and preacher. In Protestant theology, the word of God is central.[4]:39,122 Moerdijk created a similar central focus in the Voortrekker Monument, but in vertical instead of horizontal plane, and in African instead of European style.
The monument's huge upper dome features Egyptian backlighting[4]:133 to simulate the sky, the heavenly abode of God. Through the dome a sun ray penetrates downwards, highlighting words on 16 December at noon.
The sky oriented words: "US FOR YOU SOUTH AFRICA", are Moerdijk's focus point. These words are taken from an anthem, Die Stem: "We will live, we will die, we for thee South-Africa". The same anthem ends: "It will be well, God reigns."
Thus the sun ray simulates a connection between the words on the Cenotaph and the heavenly abode above, a communication between God and man.
The actual sun ray itself forms a 33rd sun ray shining onto the stone in the midst of floor opening.
Heavenly vow[edit]
In Moerdijk's biblical theology, God communicates in two ways: through scripture and nature.[6] Moerdijk merges both methods, by using the sun in his simulation.
View from the garden perimeter
The Vow of the Trekkers was commemorated on 16 December as the Day of the Vow. On 16 December, the appearance of an illuminating sun disc on the wording of the Cenotaph stone, transform their meaning as per the Philosophers Stone of the alchemists.
Instead of man below making an earthly vow, the sun shifts the focus upwards to the trinitarian god of the Trekkers, as it is God who communicates through Moerdijk's sun architecture, making Himself a heavenly vow with the words: WE - as in GOD - FOR THEE SOUTH-AFRICA.
Thus God in the trinitarian tradition of the Trekkers, speaks a vow within the sun disc illuminating the words on the Cenotaph.
The Trekker belief that God was for South Africa, originates from the 9–16 December 1838 vow of Trekker leader Andries Pretorius at Blood river, who at around the same time made military and political alliances with Christian Zulus like prince Mpande.
Egyptian origin[edit]
Moerdijk was an outspoken supporter of ancient Egyptian architecture.[7]
Moerdijk referred to Africa's greatness as imparted by ancient Egyptian constructions at the inauguration of the Voortrekker Monument.[5]
Before his Voortrekker Monument proposal was accepted, Moerdijk and Anton van Wouw had been working in alliance for many years on their "dream castle" project:[8] a modern African-Egyptian Voortrekker Temple in South-Africa. Van Wouw and Frans Soff had earlier employed the Egyptian obelisk, a petrified ray of the African Aten, as central motif for the National Women's Monument in Bloemfontein, South Africa, itself likewise inaugurated on the Day of the Vow, 16 December 1913.
Whilst finalising the design of the Voortrekker Monument in 1936,[4]:105 Moerdijk went on a research trip to Egypt. There he visited the Karnak Temple Complex at Thebes,[4]:106 where an African Renaissance had flourished under Pharaoh Akhenaten, Nefertiti's husband.
The open air temples of Akhenaten to the Aten incorporated the Heliopolitan tradition of employing sun rays in architecture, as well as realistic wall reliefs or friezes.
Moerdijk also visited the Cairo Museum, where a copy of the Great Hymn to the Aten is on display, some verses of which remind of Psalm 104.
Moerdijk's wife Sylva related that he was intimately acquainted with ancient Egyptian architecture,[4]:106 and was strongly influenced architecturally by his visit to Egypt.[4]:105
Architectural purpose[edit]
Looking upwards at mid noon on 16 December reveals a dot within a circle, the ancient African-Egyptian hieroglyph for the monotheistic creator God Aten
Looking downwards from the dome
The architect, Gerard Moerdijk, stated that the purpose of a building had to be clearly visible.[4]:133 The aspect of the sun at mid-noon in Africa, was during Nefertiti's time known as Aten. In Egyptian hieroglyphics, Aten was written as a sun dot enclosed by a circle.
The Aten-hieroglyph is depicted in the Voortrekker Monument when the sun shines through an aperture in the top dome.
Likewise, looking downwards from the top dome walkway, the round floor opening is seen to encircle the sun disc illumination.
Moerdijk's message as implied by the wall frieze: by exodus out of the British Cape Colony, God created a new civilization inland.
In order to give thanks to this new creation of civilization, Moerdijk, recalling Abraham of old, outwardly designed the Voortrekker Monument as an altar.[4]:130
Monument complex[edit]
In the years following its construction, the monument complex was expanded several times and now includes:
* An indigenous garden that surrounds the monument.
*
The Wall of Remembrance dedicated to those who lost their lives while serving in the South African Defence Force.
* Fort Schanskop, a nearby fort built in 1897 by the government of the South African Republic after the Jameson Raid and now a museum.
* The Schanskop open-air amphitheatre with seating for 357 people that was officially opened on 30 January 2001.
* A garden of remembrance.
* A nature reserve was declared on 3.41 km² around the Monument in 1992. Game found on the reserve include Zebras, Blesbok, Mountain Reedbuck, Springbok and Impala.
* A Wall of Remembrance that was constructed near the Monument in 2009. It was built to commemorate the members of the South African Defence Force who died in service of their country between 1961 and 1994.
* An Afrikaner heritage centre, which was built in order to preserve the heritage of the Afrikaans-speaking portion of South Africa's population and their contribution to the history of the country.
Tables and book shelves (stacks) on the 3rd floor of the Heldman Learning and Resource Center at West Los Angeles College (Los Angeles Community College District) in Culver City, California.
This area is fantastic for good views and relaxing with sculptures and beautiful landscaping all around. In all directions are tall buildings that are icons for Sacramento's skyline. I always enjoy visiting this park area finding improved compositions. This time of year the fall colors are filling the scene with beauty.
A student resource booklet and guide to gender-based violence prevention and response is held at Help & Shelter in Georgetown, Guyana on Dec. 11, 2017. Photo Credit: Joshua Yospyn
RESOURCE
Woolwich
Heading up the river Thames have picked the containers up from Northumberland Wharf.
linux virgin, 2005
Karla Grundick und Mistress Koyo
Video, 14:30 min is shown in the exhibition Dark Drives: Uneasy Energies in Technological Times
The Sexuality of Machines
is a discussion with Sergio Messina (it), Karla Grundick (de) and Julianne Pierce (uk)
Moderated by Gabriella Coleman (us)
Saturday, Feb 4, 2012, 11:00–12:30
Since the 1990s, some experiences in the queer and activist scene showed how to transfer an experimental hacker and DIY attitude from technology to the body and to the broader concept of sexuality. The hacker ideas of sharing, openness, and the hands-on imperative all became a challenge to imagine a different kind of sexuality – and pornography – beyond rigid dichotomies and patriarchal structures. With the increasing use of social media and chan boards, the reflection of sexuality and the experimentation on pornography is entering progressively into the realms of abstraction: bodies become fetishes, identity is objectified into an anonymous “sign”, and the interaction via machines is the tool of desire. However, DIY porn is becoming an aesthetics and practice open to everyone rather than a field of study among specialists – or a successful niche market within the porn business. Digital amateur porn disrupts social codes to unpredictable effects.
The discussion is part of reSource Sex, wich reflects on the interference and overlapping between sex business and ‘alternative’ porn, aiming to explore and discuss the open interzona which exists in between the often male-oriented mainstream porn, and the more narrow scene of queer and alt porn communities.
Watch Me Work
Performance by Liad Hussein Kantorowicz and Kate Erhardt
Saturday, Feb 4, 13:30 – 15:30, K1
Minimum age for admission 18 years!
Liad works as an erotic performer at an Israeli sex chat site. The usage of cameras, computers and projectors enables the viewers to peer into the live exchange of cyber sex work between sex worker and client, and compare between the sex worker's actual experience and what is projected to the client. The performance seeks to de-exotify sex work, opting for a realistic perspective, and investigates the discrepancy between the hyped discussion about sex work as compared to the actual sex work experience.
The performance will be held in the context of the panel Commercialising Eros followed by a discussion with Jacob Appelbaum, Zach Blas, Liad Hussein Kantorowicz and Aliya Rakhmetova, and is moderated by Gaia Novati.
The performance is part of reSource Sex, which reflects on the interference and overlapping between sex business and ‘alternative’ porn, aiming to explore and discuss the open interzona which exists in between the often male-oriented mainstream porn, and the more narrow scene of queer and alt porn communities.
A lightweight simulator version of NASA's Resource Prospector undergoes a mobility test in a regolith bin at the agency's Kennedy Space center in Florida. The Resource Prospector mission aims to be the first mining expedition on another world. Operating on the moon’s poles, the robot is designed to use instruments to locate elements at a lunar polar regions, then excavate and sample resources such as hydrogen, oxygen and water. These resources could support human explores on their way to destinations such as farther into the solar system.
Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett
Law.Gov lawn signs have arrived. These can be used outside of Law.Gov workshops as well as in your booth at a trade show or convention.
The Joseph Wosk Library & Resource Centre, located inside VanDusen's 'Living Building' Visitor Centre is the largest public access botanical and horticultural library in western Canada.
Photo credit: N. Wong
Photo taken: July 5, 2013
Quileute Tribal Council Vice Chair Tony Foster, talks with U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) Tribal Liaison for Washington State Robin Slate, and Quileute Tribal Water Quality Biologist Nicole Rasmussen after they used a Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) boat to travel along the Quillayute River looking for signs of erosion (risk erosion) of the bank at and about Smith Sough, the source of water that flows through the culverts of the NRCS Thunder Road project, that addresses four fish barriers that block more than 22 acres of fish habitat, in La Push, Washington, Aug 22, 2018. This conservation planning effort lead to an unusual partnership where the Quileute Tribe requested access to WDWF fish passage biologist and engineers through a NRCS/WDFW Contribution agreement. This partnership resulted in a coordinated effort to bring conservation actions to life in a remote location. The Thunder Road Project addressed the need for floodplain connectivity to restore natural flow of water across floodplain, restore access to off-channel fish habitat in wetlands and stream complex. The project also improved the roadway and reduced sediment runoff from tribal members using road to access the river during the wet season (peak fishing season). The conservation plans identified aquatic habitat, water quality, and plant pest resource concerns, along with a social resource concern related to the Tribe’s use of the degraded Thunder Road for fishing and recreational access. Additionally, conservation planning determined soils information was needed and resulted in a Soil Survey mapping effort on the Reservation. Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) funding in two successive years was used to provide the Tribe financial assistance. The tribe used State Salmon Recovery Funding Board funding to provide the balance of the implementation cost. EQIP 2015 contract included invasive species control aquatic organism passage and access road improvement=$60,964. EQIP 2016 contract included aquatic organism passage and access road improvement = $117,101. USDA Photo by Lance Cheung.
From the Canadian Design Resource (http://www.canadiandesignresource.ca/):
"The flag was first used by Metis fighters in 1816. It is the oldest Canadian patriotic flag indigenous to Canada. As a symbol of nationhood, the Metis flag predates Canada’s Maple Leaf flag by about 150 years.
Both flags use a horizontal figure eight, or infinity symbol. This represents the coming together of two distinct and vibrant cultures, European and indigenous, to produce a distinctly new culture, the Metis. It symbolizes the creation of a new society with roots in both Aboriginal and European cultures and traditions. The sky blue background emphasizes the infinity symbol and suggests that the Metis people will exist forever."
ABOUT THE COLOUR ECONOMY:
What if pixels were free? What if they could trade their computer-given red, green, and blue values in pursuit of a profit?
The Colour Economy imagines an artificial economy of pixels, in which individual 'traders' exchange colour.
The Colour Economy is a project by Jer Thorp (http://www.blprnt.com) and was built with Processing v. 0135.
This is a frame from a video. You can watch it on Vimeo.
Voortrekker Monument, pretoria/tshwane
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
DesignerGerard Moerdijk
MaterialGranite
Length40 metres (130 ft)
Width40 metres (130 ft)
Height40 metres (130 ft)
Beginning date1937-07-13
Opening date1949-12-16
Dedicated toVoortrekkers
The Voortrekker Monument is located just south of Pretoria in South Africa. This massive granite structure is prominently located on a hilltop, and was raised to commemorate the Voortrekkers who left the Cape Colony between 1835 and 1854.
On 8 July 2011 the Voortrekker Monument, designed by the architect Gerard Moerdijk, was declared a National Heritage Site by the South African Heritage Resource Agency.[1]
History[edit]
Wounded voortrekker at Vegkop, detail of the historical frieze
The idea to build a monument in honour of God was first discussed on 16 December 1888, when President Paul Kruger of the South African Republic attended the Day of the Covenant celebrations at Blood River in Natal. However, the movement to actually build such a monument only started in 1931 when the Sentrale Volksmonumentekomitee (SVK) (Central People's Monuments Committee) was formed to bring this idea to fruition.
Construction started on 13 July 1937 with a sod turning ceremony performed by chairman of the SVK, Advocate Ernest George Jansen, on what later became known as Monument Hill. On 16 December 1938 the cornerstone was laid by three descendants of some of the Voortrekker leaders: Mrs. J.C. Muller (granddaughter of Andries Pretorius), Mrs. K.F. Ackerman (great-granddaughter of Hendrik Potgieter) and Mrs. J.C. Preller (great-granddaughter of Piet Retief).
The Monument was inaugurated on 16 December 1949 by the then-prime minister D. F. Malan.[citation needed] The total construction cost of the Monument was about £ 360,000, most of which was contributed by the South African government.
A large amphitheatre, which seats approximately 20,000 people, was erected to the north-east of the Monument in 1949.
Main features[edit]
The Voortrekker Monument is 40 metres high, with a base of 40 metres by 40 metres.[citation needed] The building shares architectural resemblance with European monuments such the Dôme des Invalides in France and the Völkerschlachtdenkmal in Germany but also contain African influences.[2] The two main points of interest inside the building are the Historical Frieze and the Cenotaph.
South window and frieze
Historical Frieze[edit]
The main entrance of the building leads into the domed Hall of Heroes. This massive space, flanked by four huge arched windows made from yellow Belgian glass, contains the unique marble Historical Frieze which is an intrinsic part of the design of the monument. It is the biggest marble frieze in the world.[citation needed] The frieze consists of 27 bas-relief panels depicting the history of the Great Trek, but incorporating references to every day life, work methods and religious beliefs of the Voortrekkers. The set of panels illustrates key historical scenes starting from the first voortrekkers of 1835, up to the signing of the Sand River Convention in 1852. In the centre of the floor of the Hall of Heroes is a large circular opening through which the Cenotaph in the Cenotaph Hall can be viewed.
The Cenotaph
Cenotaph[edit]
The Cenotaph, situated in the centre of the Cenotaph Hall, is the central focus of the monument. In addition to being viewable from the Hall of Heroes it can also be seen from the dome at the top of the building, from where much of the interior of the monument can be viewed. Through an opening in this dome a ray of sunlight shines at twelve o'clock on 16 December annually, falling onto the centre of the Cenotaph, striking the words 'Ons vir Jou, Suid-Afrika' (Afrikaans for 'Us for you, South Africa'). The ray of light is said to symbolise God's blessing on the lives and endeavours of the Voortrekkers. 16 December 1838 was the date of the Battle of Blood River, commemorated in South Africa before 1994 as the Day of the Vow.
The Cenotaph Hall is decorated with the flags of the different Voortrekker Republics and contains wall tapestries depicting the Voortrekkers as well as several display cases with artefacts from the Great Trek. Against the northern wall of the hall is a niche with a lantern in which a flame has been kept burning ever since 1938. It was in that year that the Symbolic Ox Wagon Trek, which started in Cape Town and ended at Monument Hill where the Monument's foundation stone was laid, took place.
The wagon laager wall features 64 wagons
Other features[edit]
Visitors to the monument enter through a black wrought iron gate with an assegai (spear) motif.
After passing through the gate one finds oneself inside a big laager consisting of 64 ox-wagons made out of decorative granite. The same number of wagons were used at the Battle of Blood River to form the laager.[citation needed]
Voortrekker woman and children by Anton van Wouw
Statue of Piet Retief
At the foot of the Monument stands Anton van Wouw's bronze sculpture of a Voortrekker woman and her two children, paying homage to the strength and courage of the Voortrekker women. On both sides of this sculpture black wildebeest are chiselled into the walls of the Monument. The wildebeest symbolically depicts the dangers of Africa and their symbolic flight implies that the woman, carrier of Western civilisation, is triumphant.
On each outside corner of the Monument there is a statue, respectively representing Piet Retief, Andries Pretorius, Hendrik Potgieter and an "unknown" leader (representative of all the other Voortrekker leaders). Each statue weighs approximately 6 tons.[citation needed]
At the eastern corner of the monument, on the same level as its entrance, is the foundation stone.
Under the foundation stone is buried: A copy of the Trekker Vow on 16 December 1838. A copy of the anthem "Die Stem". A copy of the land deal between the Trekkers under Piet Retief and the Zulus under king Dingane.
German links[edit]
According to Dr Alta Steenkamp, the masonic subtext of the Völkerschlachtdenkmal is reflected in the Voortrekker Monument because the architect, Gerard Moerdijk, had used the geometric order and spatial proportions of the Völkerschlachtdenkmal.[3] This Germanisation of the Voortrekker Monument occurred, after Moerdijk's initial design had caused a public outcry in the South African press for its resemblance to an Egyptian temple.[4]:128
In Moerdijk's initial design, the monument consisted of a causeway linking two Egyptian obelisks.[3][4]:128
Finalising his design of the Voortrekker Monument, Moerdijk visited Egypt in 1936, including the Karnak Temple Complex in Thebes.[4]:105 In Thebes, the pharaoh Akhenaten, Nefertiti's husband, had erected three sun sanctuaries, including the Hwt-benben ('mansion of the Benben').
Sun disc illumination on encrypted stone.
The most prominent aspect of Moerdijk's monument is the annual mid noon sun illumination of the Benben stone, the encrypted cenotaph.
In the years preceding WWII, several Afrikaner nationalists travelled to Germany for academic, political and cultural studies. In 1928 Moerdijk visited Germany, and viewed the Amarna bust of Nefertiti on public display in Berlin.
By 1934 Chancellor Hitler had decided that Germany would not return the Amarna bust of Nefertiti to Egypt. He instead announced the intention to use the Amarna bust as the central show piece of the thousand years Third Reich, in a revitalised Berlin to be renamed Germania.[1]
Likewise Moerdijk's thousand years monument with Amarna sun symbol at its centre, became Afrikaner nationalists' centre show piece of their capital Pretoria.
Round floor opening[edit]
Looking from the sky dome downwards, 32 sun rays can be counted
Looking from the sky dome downwards, a chevron pattern on the floor of the Hall of Heroes, radiates outwards like 32 sun rays. In Moerdijk's architecture, the natural sun forms the 33rd ray through the floor opening.
Moerdijk said the chevron pattern on the floor depicts water,[5] as does the double chevron hieroglyph from the civilization of ancient Egypt.
Moerdijk stated that all roads on the terrain of building art lead back to ancient Egypt.[4]:47
Based on Moerdijk's reference to the watery floor of the Hall of Heroes, as well as his statements about ancient Egypt, the floor opening may be identified with the watery abyss, as in the creation theology of ancient African civilization. Rising out of this watery abyss, was the primeval mound, the Benben stone, to symbolize a new creation.
Religious sun ray[edit]
Gerard Moerdijk was the chief architect of 80 Protestant churches in South Africa. Moerdijk adhered to Reformed church tradition and thus his Renaissance trademark, the Greek-cross floorplan, always focused on the pulpit and preacher. In Protestant theology, the word of God is central.[4]:39,122 Moerdijk created a similar central focus in the Voortrekker Monument, but in vertical instead of horizontal plane, and in African instead of European style.
The monument's huge upper dome features Egyptian backlighting[4]:133 to simulate the sky, the heavenly abode of God. Through the dome a sun ray penetrates downwards, highlighting words on 16 December at noon.
The sky oriented words: "US FOR YOU SOUTH AFRICA", are Moerdijk's focus point. These words are taken from an anthem, Die Stem: "We will live, we will die, we for thee South-Africa". The same anthem ends: "It will be well, God reigns."
Thus the sun ray simulates a connection between the words on the Cenotaph and the heavenly abode above, a communication between God and man.
The actual sun ray itself forms a 33rd sun ray shining onto the stone in the midst of floor opening.
Heavenly vow[edit]
In Moerdijk's biblical theology, God communicates in two ways: through scripture and nature.[6] Moerdijk merges both methods, by using the sun in his simulation.
View from the garden perimeter
The Vow of the Trekkers was commemorated on 16 December as the Day of the Vow. On 16 December, the appearance of an illuminating sun disc on the wording of the Cenotaph stone, transform their meaning as per the Philosophers Stone of the alchemists.
Instead of man below making an earthly vow, the sun shifts the focus upwards to the trinitarian god of the Trekkers, as it is God who communicates through Moerdijk's sun architecture, making Himself a heavenly vow with the words: WE - as in GOD - FOR THEE SOUTH-AFRICA.
Thus God in the trinitarian tradition of the Trekkers, speaks a vow within the sun disc illuminating the words on the Cenotaph.
The Trekker belief that God was for South Africa, originates from the 9–16 December 1838 vow of Trekker leader Andries Pretorius at Blood river, who at around the same time made military and political alliances with Christian Zulus like prince Mpande.
Egyptian origin[edit]
Moerdijk was an outspoken supporter of ancient Egyptian architecture.[7]
Moerdijk referred to Africa's greatness as imparted by ancient Egyptian constructions at the inauguration of the Voortrekker Monument.[5]
Before his Voortrekker Monument proposal was accepted, Moerdijk and Anton van Wouw had been working in alliance for many years on their "dream castle" project:[8] a modern African-Egyptian Voortrekker Temple in South-Africa. Van Wouw and Frans Soff had earlier employed the Egyptian obelisk, a petrified ray of the African Aten, as central motif for the National Women's Monument in Bloemfontein, South Africa, itself likewise inaugurated on the Day of the Vow, 16 December 1913.
Whilst finalising the design of the Voortrekker Monument in 1936,[4]:105 Moerdijk went on a research trip to Egypt. There he visited the Karnak Temple Complex at Thebes,[4]:106 where an African Renaissance had flourished under Pharaoh Akhenaten, Nefertiti's husband.
The open air temples of Akhenaten to the Aten incorporated the Heliopolitan tradition of employing sun rays in architecture, as well as realistic wall reliefs or friezes.
Moerdijk also visited the Cairo Museum, where a copy of the Great Hymn to the Aten is on display, some verses of which remind of Psalm 104.
Moerdijk's wife Sylva related that he was intimately acquainted with ancient Egyptian architecture,[4]:106 and was strongly influenced architecturally by his visit to Egypt.[4]:105
Architectural purpose[edit]
Looking upwards at mid noon on 16 December reveals a dot within a circle, the ancient African-Egyptian hieroglyph for the monotheistic creator God Aten
Looking downwards from the dome
The architect, Gerard Moerdijk, stated that the purpose of a building had to be clearly visible.[4]:133 The aspect of the sun at mid-noon in Africa, was during Nefertiti's time known as Aten. In Egyptian hieroglyphics, Aten was written as a sun dot enclosed by a circle.
The Aten-hieroglyph is depicted in the Voortrekker Monument when the sun shines through an aperture in the top dome.
Likewise, looking downwards from the top dome walkway, the round floor opening is seen to encircle the sun disc illumination.
Moerdijk's message as implied by the wall frieze: by exodus out of the British Cape Colony, God created a new civilization inland.
In order to give thanks to this new creation of civilization, Moerdijk, recalling Abraham of old, outwardly designed the Voortrekker Monument as an altar.[4]:130
Monument complex[edit]
In the years following its construction, the monument complex was expanded several times and now includes:
* An indigenous garden that surrounds the monument.
*
The Wall of Remembrance dedicated to those who lost their lives while serving in the South African Defence Force.
* Fort Schanskop, a nearby fort built in 1897 by the government of the South African Republic after the Jameson Raid and now a museum.
* The Schanskop open-air amphitheatre with seating for 357 people that was officially opened on 30 January 2001.
* A garden of remembrance.
* A nature reserve was declared on 3.41 km² around the Monument in 1992. Game found on the reserve include Zebras, Blesbok, Mountain Reedbuck, Springbok and Impala.
* A Wall of Remembrance that was constructed near the Monument in 2009. It was built to commemorate the members of the South African Defence Force who died in service of their country between 1961 and 1994.
* An Afrikaner heritage centre, which was built in order to preserve the heritage of the Afrikaans-speaking portion of South Africa's population and their contribution to the history of the country.
Photo by Ian Cockburn
Preservation Resource Center
Shotgun House Tour
Goes to Upper Audubon
Saturday, March 29 . 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Headquarters: 200 Broadway Street
Buy tickets online:
prcno.org/events/calendar/1300
161 Broadway Street, Anonymous & 157 Broadway Street, Marc Hall
By Philippa Eden
Originally built as worker housing by the Bisso Towboat Company on land owned by the Bisso family since the 1880s, these matching single shotguns share a number of features in common – like the mirror-image bungalow style entrance ways and vaulted ceilings with exposed beams, - but demonstrate the versatility of the shotgun house with their unique floorplans and individualized decorating style.
161 Broadway
The owner of 161 Broadway returned home after evacuating from Hurricane Katrina in early October 2005 to find that a mini-tornado had touched down in her neighborhood and damaged her house substantially. She was greeted by shattered skylights, blown-out windows, a damaged roof and large portions of the Lambeth House rooftop gazebo in the backyard. With a major renovation now necessary, the owner remodeled the kitchen and master bath and added a walk-in closet and screened-in back porch.
Design choices throughout the home represent New Orleans and the local environment to make this home unique. Brightly painted walls reflect the city’s Caribbean ties and works by local artists abound. Light streaming in through skylights and large windows illuminates the works of local artists: a wall sculpture of dancers by Steve Lohman sways and greets guests at the entrance; paintings by Linda Rosamano, other Louisiana artists, and family members, line the wall leading into the kitchen; and tiles by New Orleans local pottery artist, Mark Derby, are used in the design of the kitchen counter and stove’s backsplash. Furnishings include a desk built by the owner’s father, Col. Al Sutton, which sits alongside early 1800s colonial dye pots that the owner’s dog found when digging in the backyard. The mid century modern mural painted by Sandor Furedi beneath the front gabled roof remains the home’s most distinguishing feature.
157 Broadway
Marc Hall found original cypress siding and longleaf pine wood flooring when he purchased 157 Broadway Street in April 2002. Marc prefers the old feel of his home and besides leveling the house, adding new brick piers, and removing the florescent lighting, he changed the house only minimally. Initially, he did not even want to live in a shotgun. Over time, he changed his mind and now he wonders if he could live happily in another house type without asking himself “Why do I have all these walls?”
The Tucson Unified School District has five of these centers to give families info. about important District policies and provide other resources such as clothing banks, classes, and bilingual services.
6855 S. Mark Rd., Tucson, AZ
Workforce Readiness Day at Austin Human Resource Management Association (AHRMA). May monthly luncheon.
Wendy Chance, Evins Personnel.
twitter.com/DarkMortadelle/status/1530028591521611777
This resource posted is for digital art and design, personal and commercial projects, digital learning, and more. All design content is from external sources from around the web.
The WORLD is going bankrupt, (what ever that means) because of this idea called debt, which doesnt even exist in the physical reality, its only part of a game we've invented. And yet, the well-being of BILLIONS of people is now being compromised. Extreme layoffs, tent cities, accelerating poverty austerity measures imposed, schools shutting down, child hunger and other levels of familial deprivation...ALL because of this elaborate fiction..WHAT ARE WE FUCKING STUPID!?- Peter Joseph
"I have watched the social values of society be reduced into a base artificiality of materialism and mindless consumption. And I have watched, as the monetary powers control the political structure of supposedly free societies. I'm 94 years old now, and I'm afraid my disposition is the same as it was 75 years ago. This shit's got to go." -Jacque Fresco
The youth of humanity all around our planet are intuitively revolting from all sovereignties and political ideologies
When the power of love
overcomes the love of power
the world will know peace
Jack Namaste: www.facebook.com/Jacknamaste
1988-9's - Unknown Cheerleaders - Lincoln High School - Reverse = "Wrestling".
More at pchs.org/resources/1997-064-058
Voortrekker Monument, pretoria/tshwane
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
DesignerGerard Moerdijk
MaterialGranite
Length40 metres (130 ft)
Width40 metres (130 ft)
Height40 metres (130 ft)
Beginning date1937-07-13
Opening date1949-12-16
Dedicated toVoortrekkers
The Voortrekker Monument is located just south of Pretoria in South Africa. This massive granite structure is prominently located on a hilltop, and was raised to commemorate the Voortrekkers who left the Cape Colony between 1835 and 1854.
On 8 July 2011 the Voortrekker Monument, designed by the architect Gerard Moerdijk, was declared a National Heritage Site by the South African Heritage Resource Agency.[1]
History[edit]
Wounded voortrekker at Vegkop, detail of the historical frieze
The idea to build a monument in honour of God was first discussed on 16 December 1888, when President Paul Kruger of the South African Republic attended the Day of the Covenant celebrations at Blood River in Natal. However, the movement to actually build such a monument only started in 1931 when the Sentrale Volksmonumentekomitee (SVK) (Central People's Monuments Committee) was formed to bring this idea to fruition.
Construction started on 13 July 1937 with a sod turning ceremony performed by chairman of the SVK, Advocate Ernest George Jansen, on what later became known as Monument Hill. On 16 December 1938 the cornerstone was laid by three descendants of some of the Voortrekker leaders: Mrs. J.C. Muller (granddaughter of Andries Pretorius), Mrs. K.F. Ackerman (great-granddaughter of Hendrik Potgieter) and Mrs. J.C. Preller (great-granddaughter of Piet Retief).
The Monument was inaugurated on 16 December 1949 by the then-prime minister D. F. Malan.[citation needed] The total construction cost of the Monument was about £ 360,000, most of which was contributed by the South African government.
A large amphitheatre, which seats approximately 20,000 people, was erected to the north-east of the Monument in 1949.
Main features[edit]
The Voortrekker Monument is 40 metres high, with a base of 40 metres by 40 metres.[citation needed] The building shares architectural resemblance with European monuments such the Dôme des Invalides in France and the Völkerschlachtdenkmal in Germany but also contain African influences.[2] The two main points of interest inside the building are the Historical Frieze and the Cenotaph.
South window and frieze
Historical Frieze[edit]
The main entrance of the building leads into the domed Hall of Heroes. This massive space, flanked by four huge arched windows made from yellow Belgian glass, contains the unique marble Historical Frieze which is an intrinsic part of the design of the monument. It is the biggest marble frieze in the world.[citation needed] The frieze consists of 27 bas-relief panels depicting the history of the Great Trek, but incorporating references to every day life, work methods and religious beliefs of the Voortrekkers. The set of panels illustrates key historical scenes starting from the first voortrekkers of 1835, up to the signing of the Sand River Convention in 1852. In the centre of the floor of the Hall of Heroes is a large circular opening through which the Cenotaph in the Cenotaph Hall can be viewed.
The Cenotaph
Cenotaph[edit]
The Cenotaph, situated in the centre of the Cenotaph Hall, is the central focus of the monument. In addition to being viewable from the Hall of Heroes it can also be seen from the dome at the top of the building, from where much of the interior of the monument can be viewed. Through an opening in this dome a ray of sunlight shines at twelve o'clock on 16 December annually, falling onto the centre of the Cenotaph, striking the words 'Ons vir Jou, Suid-Afrika' (Afrikaans for 'Us for you, South Africa'). The ray of light is said to symbolise God's blessing on the lives and endeavours of the Voortrekkers. 16 December 1838 was the date of the Battle of Blood River, commemorated in South Africa before 1994 as the Day of the Vow.
The Cenotaph Hall is decorated with the flags of the different Voortrekker Republics and contains wall tapestries depicting the Voortrekkers as well as several display cases with artefacts from the Great Trek. Against the northern wall of the hall is a niche with a lantern in which a flame has been kept burning ever since 1938. It was in that year that the Symbolic Ox Wagon Trek, which started in Cape Town and ended at Monument Hill where the Monument's foundation stone was laid, took place.
The wagon laager wall features 64 wagons
Other features[edit]
Visitors to the monument enter through a black wrought iron gate with an assegai (spear) motif.
After passing through the gate one finds oneself inside a big laager consisting of 64 ox-wagons made out of decorative granite. The same number of wagons were used at the Battle of Blood River to form the laager.[citation needed]
Voortrekker woman and children by Anton van Wouw
Statue of Piet Retief
At the foot of the Monument stands Anton van Wouw's bronze sculpture of a Voortrekker woman and her two children, paying homage to the strength and courage of the Voortrekker women. On both sides of this sculpture black wildebeest are chiselled into the walls of the Monument. The wildebeest symbolically depicts the dangers of Africa and their symbolic flight implies that the woman, carrier of Western civilisation, is triumphant.
On each outside corner of the Monument there is a statue, respectively representing Piet Retief, Andries Pretorius, Hendrik Potgieter and an "unknown" leader (representative of all the other Voortrekker leaders). Each statue weighs approximately 6 tons.[citation needed]
At the eastern corner of the monument, on the same level as its entrance, is the foundation stone.
Under the foundation stone is buried: A copy of the Trekker Vow on 16 December 1838. A copy of the anthem "Die Stem". A copy of the land deal between the Trekkers under Piet Retief and the Zulus under king Dingane.
German links[edit]
According to Dr Alta Steenkamp, the masonic subtext of the Völkerschlachtdenkmal is reflected in the Voortrekker Monument because the architect, Gerard Moerdijk, had used the geometric order and spatial proportions of the Völkerschlachtdenkmal.[3] This Germanisation of the Voortrekker Monument occurred, after Moerdijk's initial design had caused a public outcry in the South African press for its resemblance to an Egyptian temple.[4]:128
In Moerdijk's initial design, the monument consisted of a causeway linking two Egyptian obelisks.[3][4]:128
Finalising his design of the Voortrekker Monument, Moerdijk visited Egypt in 1936, including the Karnak Temple Complex in Thebes.[4]:105 In Thebes, the pharaoh Akhenaten, Nefertiti's husband, had erected three sun sanctuaries, including the Hwt-benben ('mansion of the Benben').
Sun disc illumination on encrypted stone.
The most prominent aspect of Moerdijk's monument is the annual mid noon sun illumination of the Benben stone, the encrypted cenotaph.
In the years preceding WWII, several Afrikaner nationalists travelled to Germany for academic, political and cultural studies. In 1928 Moerdijk visited Germany, and viewed the Amarna bust of Nefertiti on public display in Berlin.
By 1934 Chancellor Hitler had decided that Germany would not return the Amarna bust of Nefertiti to Egypt. He instead announced the intention to use the Amarna bust as the central show piece of the thousand years Third Reich, in a revitalised Berlin to be renamed Germania.[1]
Likewise Moerdijk's thousand years monument with Amarna sun symbol at its centre, became Afrikaner nationalists' centre show piece of their capital Pretoria.
Round floor opening[edit]
Looking from the sky dome downwards, 32 sun rays can be counted
Looking from the sky dome downwards, a chevron pattern on the floor of the Hall of Heroes, radiates outwards like 32 sun rays. In Moerdijk's architecture, the natural sun forms the 33rd ray through the floor opening.
Moerdijk said the chevron pattern on the floor depicts water,[5] as does the double chevron hieroglyph from the civilization of ancient Egypt.
Moerdijk stated that all roads on the terrain of building art lead back to ancient Egypt.[4]:47
Based on Moerdijk's reference to the watery floor of the Hall of Heroes, as well as his statements about ancient Egypt, the floor opening may be identified with the watery abyss, as in the creation theology of ancient African civilization. Rising out of this watery abyss, was the primeval mound, the Benben stone, to symbolize a new creation.
Religious sun ray[edit]
Gerard Moerdijk was the chief architect of 80 Protestant churches in South Africa. Moerdijk adhered to Reformed church tradition and thus his Renaissance trademark, the Greek-cross floorplan, always focused on the pulpit and preacher. In Protestant theology, the word of God is central.[4]:39,122 Moerdijk created a similar central focus in the Voortrekker Monument, but in vertical instead of horizontal plane, and in African instead of European style.
The monument's huge upper dome features Egyptian backlighting[4]:133 to simulate the sky, the heavenly abode of God. Through the dome a sun ray penetrates downwards, highlighting words on 16 December at noon.
The sky oriented words: "US FOR YOU SOUTH AFRICA", are Moerdijk's focus point. These words are taken from an anthem, Die Stem: "We will live, we will die, we for thee South-Africa". The same anthem ends: "It will be well, God reigns."
Thus the sun ray simulates a connection between the words on the Cenotaph and the heavenly abode above, a communication between God and man.
The actual sun ray itself forms a 33rd sun ray shining onto the stone in the midst of floor opening.
Heavenly vow[edit]
In Moerdijk's biblical theology, God communicates in two ways: through scripture and nature.[6] Moerdijk merges both methods, by using the sun in his simulation.
View from the garden perimeter
The Vow of the Trekkers was commemorated on 16 December as the Day of the Vow. On 16 December, the appearance of an illuminating sun disc on the wording of the Cenotaph stone, transform their meaning as per the Philosophers Stone of the alchemists.
Instead of man below making an earthly vow, the sun shifts the focus upwards to the trinitarian god of the Trekkers, as it is God who communicates through Moerdijk's sun architecture, making Himself a heavenly vow with the words: WE - as in GOD - FOR THEE SOUTH-AFRICA.
Thus God in the trinitarian tradition of the Trekkers, speaks a vow within the sun disc illuminating the words on the Cenotaph.
The Trekker belief that God was for South Africa, originates from the 9–16 December 1838 vow of Trekker leader Andries Pretorius at Blood river, who at around the same time made military and political alliances with Christian Zulus like prince Mpande.
Egyptian origin[edit]
Moerdijk was an outspoken supporter of ancient Egyptian architecture.[7]
Moerdijk referred to Africa's greatness as imparted by ancient Egyptian constructions at the inauguration of the Voortrekker Monument.[5]
Before his Voortrekker Monument proposal was accepted, Moerdijk and Anton van Wouw had been working in alliance for many years on their "dream castle" project:[8] a modern African-Egyptian Voortrekker Temple in South-Africa. Van Wouw and Frans Soff had earlier employed the Egyptian obelisk, a petrified ray of the African Aten, as central motif for the National Women's Monument in Bloemfontein, South Africa, itself likewise inaugurated on the Day of the Vow, 16 December 1913.
Whilst finalising the design of the Voortrekker Monument in 1936,[4]:105 Moerdijk went on a research trip to Egypt. There he visited the Karnak Temple Complex at Thebes,[4]:106 where an African Renaissance had flourished under Pharaoh Akhenaten, Nefertiti's husband.
The open air temples of Akhenaten to the Aten incorporated the Heliopolitan tradition of employing sun rays in architecture, as well as realistic wall reliefs or friezes.
Moerdijk also visited the Cairo Museum, where a copy of the Great Hymn to the Aten is on display, some verses of which remind of Psalm 104.
Moerdijk's wife Sylva related that he was intimately acquainted with ancient Egyptian architecture,[4]:106 and was strongly influenced architecturally by his visit to Egypt.[4]:105
Architectural purpose[edit]
Looking upwards at mid noon on 16 December reveals a dot within a circle, the ancient African-Egyptian hieroglyph for the monotheistic creator God Aten
Looking downwards from the dome
The architect, Gerard Moerdijk, stated that the purpose of a building had to be clearly visible.[4]:133 The aspect of the sun at mid-noon in Africa, was during Nefertiti's time known as Aten. In Egyptian hieroglyphics, Aten was written as a sun dot enclosed by a circle.
The Aten-hieroglyph is depicted in the Voortrekker Monument when the sun shines through an aperture in the top dome.
Likewise, looking downwards from the top dome walkway, the round floor opening is seen to encircle the sun disc illumination.
Moerdijk's message as implied by the wall frieze: by exodus out of the British Cape Colony, God created a new civilization inland.
In order to give thanks to this new creation of civilization, Moerdijk, recalling Abraham of old, outwardly designed the Voortrekker Monument as an altar.[4]:130
Monument complex[edit]
In the years following its construction, the monument complex was expanded several times and now includes:
* An indigenous garden that surrounds the monument.
*
The Wall of Remembrance dedicated to those who lost their lives while serving in the South African Defence Force.
* Fort Schanskop, a nearby fort built in 1897 by the government of the South African Republic after the Jameson Raid and now a museum.
* The Schanskop open-air amphitheatre with seating for 357 people that was officially opened on 30 January 2001.
* A garden of remembrance.
* A nature reserve was declared on 3.41 km² around the Monument in 1992. Game found on the reserve include Zebras, Blesbok, Mountain Reedbuck, Springbok and Impala.
* A Wall of Remembrance that was constructed near the Monument in 2009. It was built to commemorate the members of the South African Defence Force who died in service of their country between 1961 and 1994.
* An Afrikaner heritage centre, which was built in order to preserve the heritage of the Afrikaans-speaking portion of South Africa's population and their contribution to the history of the country.