Day 272 of Project 365...

Before WW1, it was full of French luxury makes and Delaunay-Belleville was as famous as Rolls-Royce and Hispano. In addition to the luxury of their coachwork (created on this car by the Carrosserie Rothschild), the Delaunay-Belleville were noted for their solidity.

4.400 cc

4 in-line

Pre-War Preservation Unrestored Cars

Presented by François Cointreau

Chantilly Arts & Elegance Richard Mille

Château de Chantilly

Chantilly

France - Frankrijk

June 2019

Édouard Manet, Paris 1832 - 1883

Moosrosen in einer Vase – Moss roses in a vase (1882)

Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA, USA

Manet painted a series of small still lifes in his later years, when illness made working on a larger scale difficult. The flowers and leaves in this image are painted in quick strokes of color, and light reflecting off the surface of the vase conveys a sense of the solidity and weight of the glass. The apparent casualness of the composition and the confident handling of oil paint give the work a striking directness.

Source: Clark Art Institute

This is a 5 image HDR.

St. Francis Xavier is the first Catholic Church in Geraldton and is considered by many to be Hawes' greatest work. The cathedral was built of stone from nearby Chapman Valley and local Catholic tradesmen donated their services along with school boys. A £10 donation enabled station owners to have their names of their properties engraved on the massive circular columns on either side of the nave.

Hawes designed the Cathedral intending to 'avoid any slavish imitation of past 'styles' (and) to give character and expression to the building by austere simplicity of design and by the harmonius proportions of the several parts....Solidity and massiveness have been chosen rather than prettiness and elegance'. The idea of 'Zebra Striping' of the interior came largely from Italy, where Hawes was studying for priesthood.

The first portion of the Cathedral, completed from the towers to the first big arch, was opened in 1918.

New building works began on the Cathedral in 1926 and continued until 1938. Hawes' original plans were adapted during this period. A four day program of functions and ceremonies marked the opening of the second stage of the Cathedral. The Archbishop of Perth remarked that, 'It was beautiful in every way. It was worthy of Geraldton, worthy of the initiative and zeal of the Bishop and his able lieutenant, Monsignor Hawes'.

El Puente romano de Córdoba es un puente situado sobre el río Guadalquivir a su paso por Córdoba, que une la zona del Campo de la Verdad con el Barrio de la Catedral. También conocido como "el Puente Viejo" fue el único puente con que contó la ciudad durante 20 siglos, hasta la construcción del Puente de San Rafael, a mediados del siglo XX. El 9 de enero de 2008 se inauguró la mayor remodelación que el Puente Romano ha tenido en su historia.

Construido a principios del siglo I d. C., durante la época de dominación romana en Córdoba, sobre el río Guadalquivir (probablemente sustituyendo a uno más primitivo de madera), tiene una longitud de unos 331 metros y está compuesto por 16 arcos, aunque originalmente tuvo 17. Fue un importante medio de entrada a la ciudad desde la zona sur de la península Ibérica por ser el único punto para cruzar el río sin utilizar ningún tipo de embarcación. Probablemente la Vía Augusta que iba desde Roma hasta Cádiz pasaba por él.

Desde la época de la dominación musulmana encontramos en un extremo la torre defensiva de la Calahorra y en el otro la Puerta del Puente. Ésta es también llamada erróneamente Arco del Triunfo, aunque nunca fue un Arco del Triunfo como tal, sino que era la puerta de la antigua muralla. La actual puerta fue realizada por el arquitecto Hernán Ruiz II en 1572. En el centro del puente podemos encontrar un triunfo de San Rafael, que data de 1651, obra del escultor Bernabé Gómez del Río.

En siglos recientes, el Puente Romano se convirtió en el acceso de entrada a la ciudad para los viajeros que acudían desde el sur de la misma. No en vano, se situaba al final del puente, en la Puerta del Puente, el fielato sur de la ciudad (Oficina a la entrada de las poblaciones en la cual se pagaban los derechos de consumo). Además, el Puente Romano fue parte integrante de la Nacional IV, siendo atravesado por aquellos viajeros que bajaban desde el centro de España hacia la zona sur y viceversa. El 1 de mayo de 2004 fue convertido en un puente peatonal, vedándose al tráfico vehicular.

The Roman bridge which, according to the Arab geographer, Al-drisi 'surpasses all other bridges in beauty and solidity' yet reflects little of its Roman roots, owing to frequent reconstruction over many decades. In the centre of the east stone hand rails there is an little shrine to St Raphael at whose feet the devout burn candles.

It is of course unlikely that much of the original structure stands. The present structure is a medieval reconstruction though the 19th Century cobbled paving does give a roman feel. There is an irregular pattern to the 16 arches in size and abutment protections.

After long wait and search she is finally here! It has the 2.8 Planar with a little bit of separation (without any effect on the pictures) and working light meter. Difficult to describe with words the feeling of quality and solidity. I will post some scans of the pictures it takes.

St Edmund, Southwold, Suffolk

I kept meaning to come back to Southwold - the church, I mean, for I found myself in the little town from time to time. I finally kept my promise to myself in the summer of 2017, tipping up on a beautiful sunny day only to find the church closed for extensive repairs. The days got shorter, and by the time the church reopened it was too late in the year for me to try again. In fact, it was not until late October 2018 that I made it back there, on another beautiful day.

Southwold is well-known to people who have never even been there I suppose, signifying one side of Suffolk to which Ipswich is perhaps the counter in the popular imagination. Some thirty years ago, the comedian Michael Palin made a film for television called East of Ipswich. It was a memoir of his childhood in the 1950s, and the basic comic premise behind the film was that in those days families would go on holiday to seaside resorts on the East Anglian coast. In the child Palin's case, it was Southwold.

The amusement came from the idea that people in those days would sit in deckchairs beside the grey north sea, or shelter from the drizzle in genteel teashops or the amusement arcade on the pier. In the Costa Brava package tour days of the 1980s, the quaintness of this image made it seem like something from a different world.

I remember Southwold in the 1980s. It was one of those agreeable little towns distant enough from anywhere bigger to maintain a life of its own. It still had its genteel tea shops, its dusty grocers, its quaint hotels and pubs all owned by Adnams, the old-fashioned and unfashionable local brewery. In the white heat of the Thatcherite cultural revolution, it seemed a place that would soon die on its feet quietly and peaceably.

And then, in the 1990s, the colour supplements discovered the East Anglian coast, and fell in love with it. The new fashions for antique-collecting, cooking with local produce and general country living, coupled with a snobbishness about how vulgar foreign package trips had become, conspired to make places like Southwold very sought after. Before Nigel Lawson's boom became a bust, the inflated house prices of London and the home counties gave people money to burn. And in their hoards, they came out of the big city to buy holiday homes in East Anglia.

Although they are often lumped together, the coasts of Norfolk and Suffolk are very different to each other (Cambridgeshire and North Essex are also culturally part of East Anglia, but the North Essex coast is too close to London to have ever stopped being cheap and cheerful, and Cambridgeshire has no coastline). Norfolk's beaches are wide and sandy, with dunes and cliffs and rock pools to explore. Towns like Cromer and Hunstanton seem to have stepped out of the pages of the Ladybird Book of the Seaside. Tiny villages along the Norfolk coast have secret little beaches of their own.

Suffolk's coast is wilder. Beaches are mainly pebbles rather than sand, and the marshes stretch inland, cutting the coast off from the rest of the county. Unlike Norfolk, Suffolk has no coast road, and so the settlements on the coast are isolated from each other, stuck at the ends of narrow lanes which snake away from the A12 and peter out in the heathland above the sea. There are fewer of them too. It is still quicker to get from Walberswick to Southwold by water than by land. Because they are isolated from each other, they take on individual personalities and characteristics. Because they are isolated from the land, they become bastions of polite civilisation.

Between Felixstowe in the south, which no outsiders like (and consequently is the favourite of many Suffolk people) and Lowestoft in the north, which is basically an industrial town-on-sea (but which still has the county's best beaches - shhh, don't tell a soul) are half a dozen small towns that vie with each other for trendiness. Southwold is the biggest, and today it is also the most expensive place to live in all East Anglia. Genteel tea shops survive, but are increasingly shouldered by shops that specialise in ski-wear and Barbour jackets, delicatessens that stock radicchio and seventeen different kinds of olive, jewellery shops and kitchen gadget shops and antique furniture shops where prices are exquisitely painful. Worst of all, the homely, shabby, smoke-filled Sole Bay Inn under the lighthouse has been converted by the now-trendy Adnams Brewery into a chrome and glass filled wine bar.

If you see someone in Norfolk driving a truck, they are probably wearing a baseball cap and carrying a shotgun. in Suffolk, they've more likely just bought a Victorian pine dresser from an antique shop, and they're taking it back to Islington. Does this matter? The fishing industry was dying anyway. The tourist industry was also dying. If places like Southwold, Aldeburgh and Orford become outposts of north London, at least they will still provide jobs for local people. But the local people won't be able to afford to live there, of course. They'll be bussed in from Reydon, Leiston and Melton to provide services for people in holiday cottages which are the former homes they grew up in, but can no longer afford to buy. Does this seriously annoy me? Not as much as it does them, I'll bet.

So, lets go to Southwold, turning off the A12 at the great ship of Blythburgh church, the wide marshes of the River Blyth spreading aimlessly beyond the road. We climb and fall over ancient dunes, and then the road opens out into the flat marshes, the town spreads out beyond. We enter through Reydon (now actually bigger than Southwold, with houses at half the price) and over the bridge into the town of Southwold itself.

Having been so critical, I need to say here that Southwold is beautiful. It is quite the loveliest small town in all East Anglia. None of the half-timbered houses here that you find in places like Long Melford and Lavenham. Here, the town was completely destroyed by fire in the 17th century, and so we have fine 18th and 19th century municipal buildings. One of the legacies of the fire was the creation of wide open spaces just off of the high street, called greens. The best one of all is Gun Hill Green, overlooking the bay where the last major naval battle in British waters was fought. The cannons still point out to sea. The houses here are stunning, gobsmacking, jaw-droppingly wonderful. If I could afford to buy one of them as a weekend retreat, then you bet your life I would, and to hell with the people who moaned about it.

At the western end of the High Street is St Bartholomew's Green, and beyond it sits what is, for my money, Suffolk's single most impressive building. This is the great church of St Edmund, a vast edifice built all in one go in the second half of the 15th century. Only Lavenham can compete with it for scale and presence. Unlike the massing at St Peter and St Paul at Lavenham, St Edmund is defined by a long unbroken clerestory and aisles beneath - where St Peter and St Paul looks full of tension, ready to spring, St Edmund is languid and floating, a ship at ease.

Southwold church was just one of several vast late medieval rebuildings in this area. Across the river at Walberswick and a few miles upriver at Blythburgh the same thing happened. Blythburgh still survives, but Walberswick was derelicted to make a smaller church, as were Covehithe and Kessingland. Dunwich All Saints was lost to the sea. But Southwold was the biggest. Everything about it breathes massive permanence, from the solidity of the tower to the turreted porch, from the wide windows to the jaunty sanctus bell fleche.

Along the top of the aisles, grimacing faces look down. All of them are different. The pedestals atop the clerestory were intended for statues as at Blythburgh, but were probably never filled before the Reformation intervened. At the west end, above the great west window, you can see the vast inscription SAncT EDMUND ORA P: NOBIS ('Saint Edmund, pray for us') as bold a record of the mindset of late medieval East Anglian Catholicism as you'll find.

As at Lavenham and Long Melford, the interior has been extensively restored, but not in as heavy or blunt a manner as at those two churches. St Edmund has, it must be said, benefited from the attentions of German bombers who put out all the dull Victorian glass with blast damage during World War II. Here, the interior is vast, light and airy, and much of the restoration is 20th century work, not 19th century.

Perhaps because of this, more medieval interior features have survived. Unlike Long Melford, Southwold does not have surviving medieval glass (Mr Dowsing saw to that in 1644), but it does have what is the finest screen in the county.

It stretches right the way across the church, and is effectively three separate screens. There is a rood screen across the chancel arch, and parclose screens across the north and south chancel aisles. All retain their original dado figures. There are 36 of them, more than anywhere else in Suffolk. They have been restored, particularly in the central range, but are fascinating because they retain a lot of original gesso work, where plaster of Paris is applied to wood and allowed to dry. It is then carved to produce intricate details.

The central screen shows the eleven remaining disciples and St Paul. They are, from left to right, Philip, Bartholomew, James the Less, Thomas, Andrew, Peter, Paul, John, James, Simon, Jude and Matthew.

The south chancel chapel is light and open. The bosses above are said to represent Mary Tudor and her second husband Charles, Duke of Brandon. The screen here is painted with twelve Old Testament prophets, and Mortlock suggests that they are by a different hand to the images on the other two screens. Here on the south screen, some of the figures have surviving naming inscriptions, and Mortlock surmises that the complete sequence, from left to right, is Baruch, Hosea, Nahum, Jeremiah, Elias, Moses, David, Isaiah, Amos, Jonah and Ezekiel. Further, he observes that the subject is a usual one for the English Midlands, but rare for East Anglia, and that perhaps this part of the screen came from elsewhere. The same may be true of the other two parts - it is hard to think that the central screen was deliberately made too wide for the two arcades.

The north aisle chapel is reserved as the blessed sacrament chapel. The screen is harder to explore, because the northern side is curtailed by a large chest, but it features angels. Unlike the screens at Hitcham and Blundeston, which show angels holding instruments of the passion, these are the nine orders of angels, with Gabriel at their head, and flanked by angels holding symbols of the Trinity and the Eucharist. Mortlock says that they are so similar to the ones at Barton Turf in Norfolk that they may be by the same hand, in which case the central screen is also by that person. They are, from left to right, the Holy Trinity, Gabriel, Archangels, Powers, Dominions, Cherubim, Seraphim, Thrones, Principalities, Virtues, Messengers, and finally the Eucharist. The Holy Trinity angel still has part of the original dedicatory inscription beneath his feet.

If part or all of this screen came from elsewhere, where did it come from? Possibly either Walberswick, Covehithe or Kessingland, the three downsized churches mentioned earlier. More excitingly, it might have come from one of the churches along this coast that was lost to the sea, perhaps neighbouring St Nicholas at Easton Bavents, or, just to the south, St Peter or St John the Baptist, the two Dunwich churches lost in the 16th and 17th centuries. We'll never know.

If you turn back at the screen and face westwards, your eyes are automatically drawn to the towering font cover, part of the extensive 1930s redecoration of the building. The clerestory is almost like a glass atrium intended to house it. Also the work of the period is the repainting and regilding of the 15th century pulpit (a lot of people blanch at this, but I think it is gorgeous) and the lectern. Beneath the font cover, the font is clearly one of the rare seven sacraments series, and part of the same group as Westhall, Blythburgh and Wenhaston. As at Blythburgh and Wenhaston, the panels are completely erased, probably in the 19th century, an act of barbarous vandalism. Given that Westhall is probably the best of all in the county, we must assume that three major medieval art treasures were wiped out. Astonishingly, vague shadows survive of the former reliefs; you can easily make out the Mass panel, facing east as at Westhall, the Penance panel and even what may be the Baptism of Christ.

Stepping through the screen, the reredos ahead is by Benedict Williamson and the glass above by Ninian Comper, familiar names in the Anglo-catholic pantheon, and evidence of an enthusiasm here that still survives in High Church form. There is a good engraved glass image of St Edmund to the north of the sanctuary, very much in the 1960s fashion, but curiously placed. On the wall of the chancel to the west of it, the high organ case is also painted and gilded enthusiastically.

As well as the screen, Southwold's other great medieval survival is the set of return stalls either side of the eastern face of the chancel screen. They have misericord seats, but the best feature are the handrests between the seats. On the south side, carvings include a man with a horn-shaped hat and sinners being drawn into the mouth of hell. On the north side are a man playing two pipes, a monkey preaching and a beaver biting its own genitals, a tale from the medieval bestiary, apparently.

What else is there to see? Well, the church is full of delights, and rewards further visits which always seem to turn up something previously unnoticed. St George rides full tilt at a dragon on an old chest at the west end of the north aisle. There is good 19th century glass in the porch and at the west end of the nave. A clock jack stands, axe and bell in hand, at the west end, a twin to the one upriver at Blythburgh. This one has a name, he's called Southwold Jack, and he is one of the symbols of the Adnams brewery.

As Mortlock notes, there are very few surviving memorials. This is partly because St Edmund was not in the patronage of a great landed family, but it may also suggest that they were largely removed at the time of the 19th century restoration, as at Brandon. One moving one is for the child of a vicar, and there are some interesting pre-Oxford Movement 19th century brasses in the south aisle.

High, high above all this, the roofs are models of Anglo-Catholic melodrama, the canopy of honour to the rood and the chancel ceilure in particular. But there is a warmth about it all that is missing from, say, Eye, which underwent a similar makeover. This church feels full of life, and not a museum piece at all. I remember attending evensong here late one winter Saturday afternoon, and it was magical. On another visit, I came on one of the first days of spring that was truly warm and bright, with not a cloud in the sky. As we drove into town, a cold fret off of the sea was condensing the steam of the brewery, sending it in swirls and skeins around the tower of St Edmund like low cloud. It was so atmospheric that I almost forgave them for what they have done to the Sole Bay Inn.

Chassis n° V8C0L15040

Zoute Sale - Bonhams

Estimated : € 150.000 - 200.000

Sold for € 166.750

Zoute Grand Prix 2021

Knokke - Zoute

België - Belgium

October 2021

Aston Martin had always intended the DBS to house its new V8 engine, but production difficulties meant that the car first appeared with the DB6's 4.0-liter six. Bigger and more luxuriously appointed than the DB6, the heavyweight DBS disappointed some by virtue of its slightly reduced performance, but there were no complaints when the V8 finally arrived in 1969. With an estimated 315bhp available from its 5,340cc four-cam engine, the DBS V8 could reach 160km/h in under 14 seconds, running on to a top speed of 250km/h, a staggering performance in those days and one which fully justified the claim that it was the fastest production car in the world. After Aston Martin's acquisition by Company Developments in 1972, production resumed with the Series 2, now known as the Aston Martin V8 and distinguishable by a restyled front end recalling the looks of earlier Astons. The most successful Aston Martin ever, the V8 survived the changes of ownership and financial upheavals of the 1970s, enjoying a record-breaking production run lasting from 1969 to 1988, with 2,919 cars sold.

Described by former Aston Martin Chairman Victor Gauntlett as 'a stylish thoroughbred, beautifully built, luxurious, fast and immensely safe,' the V8 was built in several variants, one of the most exclusive being the Volante Convertible. Introduced in response to customer demand for such a car, the Volante first appeared in June 1978. Arguably the ultimate in soft-top luxury, the newcomer boasted a lined, power-operated top which, when erected, endowed the walnut embellished interior with all the solidity and refinement associated with the saloon version. Although its open-car aerodynamics meant that top speed suffered with the top down, the Volante's 240km/h maximum nevertheless ranked it among the world's fastest convertibles. V8 Volante and Vantage Volante chassis numbers ran from '15001' to '15849', a total of 849 cars.

The motorcar offered :

According to copies of Aston Martin's factory build records, this elegant V8 Volante was hand built at Aston Martin's Newport Pagnell plant during the fall of 1978 and is titled as 1979. The car received the final inspections in January 1979, and then shipped from the UK to its destination, the US. The car was equipped with left-hand-drive steering and the desirable 5-speed manual transmission. It was finished in Cambridge Blue over a Natural coloured leather interior, Onslow brown carpeting, just as it appears today. It was the 40th V8 Volante built and as such an early example it received the elegant chrome bumpers, neatly fitted tightly to the Volante body. It is believed that only a maximum of 10 of these 40 early cars were fitted with the desirable manual transmission.

The car's first owner was a FedEx executive and from the 1990s until 2016 the car was retained by Aston Martin enthusiast Mr. Jack Miller of Pittsburg, PA, who would display the beautiful V8 Volante at various Aston Martin gatherings. The car's extensive history and maintenance file includes much service work performed during Mr. Miller's ownership, including the installment of a new exhaust by renowned Aston Martin shop Steel Wings and a rebuilt braking system.

Today this well restored Aston Martin on a highly original basis shows less than 25,000 miles on the odometer, a figure that is indeed believed to be original and can be traced in the history file. Acquired by the vendor in 2017 the car was imported to Europe where restoration work for a total of approximately CHF100,000 was carried out on mechanicals, the body and paint, new trim and was recently fitted with a new convertible top in dark blue, with the work done to exacting factory standards. A solid and very well cared for car, close inspection of the V8 reveals many original finishes throughout. Complete with jack and tools, an owner's handbook with an original warranty booklet and a history file containing correspondence with Aston Martin and copies of the factory build records, this fine V8 Volante must be considered well-pedigreed. The car is EU duty paid and comes with its US title and EU duty paid import certificate. Bonhams recommends close inspection of this fine example of a true drophead V8 'British Bulldog'.

Poem.

Like a military parade of trees,

Commercial Spruce, in bottle-green uniform,

stand to attention on the lower slopes, mile upon mile.

Golden Larch, like Red-Hot Pokers,

frame plantations in spectacular contrast,

acting as expendable fire-breaks in order to sustain the bulk of the forest.

Delicate fronds of the Silver Birch droop and waiver in the breeze.

Lower branches speckled by what seems countless golden doubloons “sparkle” with an iridescent glow.

Millions of leaves metamorphose into their Autumnal apparel.

The deeper, richer bronze of the bracken adds to this awesome, multi-coloured tapestry, but Broom and Gorse hang on to their now, flowerless, green foliage.

Blacks and greys of leafless bushes and the scaffolding of straight, deeply grooved pine-tree-trunks, gives an architectural solidity to the scene.

The richness of colour and texture is momentous, mesmeric and moving.

It is a joy to behold.

I met Carlo a few months ago as I was looking for some honey and I discovered this passionate beekeeper lived only half a mile from my home.

As we got to know each other over time, I found out that this amazing 84 years old was a true genius in building anything out of wood and metal in his well-equipped workshops.

I asked him to help me tame the biggest and heaviest lens I own, so that I could finally mount it onto a 4x5 camera and give it some use.

A few years ago I actually devised a way to mount this beastly lens, but I was never entirely satisfied with the results, as they lacked the solidity such a heavy piece of glass demands.

Carlo was able to quickly solder together a metal cone, permanently attached to a clone of a Plaubel lens board (which he cut and carved by hand !) where the heavy 12 Inch Aero Ektar f2.5lens would snugly fit.

The lens was to be further supported by a metal bracket that Carlo created, inspired by a plastic telescope lens bracket I had showed him earlier, but much, much sturdier than the original one.

Now came the shutter: we opted to drill a hole in a pine wooden board the size of the large packard shutter we were going to use (1/10th of a second maximum speed !!!).

To attach the “shutter board” to the lens Carlo hand-carved a slot of exactly the same diameter of the lens front element rim on the back. Once the rim slid into this groove, a couple of elastic bands were sufficient to stabilize and firmly attach the entire contraption to the camera body.

The heavy 12Inch Aero Ektar Lens can be a wonderful tool, giving you a very Shallow Depth Of Field and a Creamy Bokeh at a great Focal Length for portraiture (at 12 Inch FL this lens does cover 8x10 although I prefer using it on 4x5 and even 6x9, something I am able to do on the old Plaubel Supra camera by just changing the back).

It’s just that the lens is freakin’ big and heavy to mount anywhere but on a military aircraft!

Carlo was able to find a really good and elegant solution (in a retro-post-industrial style) that I truly love !!

My heartfelt THANK YOU to this wonderful, genial, inventor friend of mine!

Bauhaus Museum Weimar, Germany

German architect Heike Hanada designed a minimalist concrete museum to celebrate the Bauhaus in Weimar, where the design school was founded 100 years ago. The building is dedicated to the design school creates a physical cultural presence for the Bauhaus in the German city where it was based between 1919 and 1925. Located near the Nazi-era Gauforum square and the Neue Museum Weimar, the Bauhaus Museum is a simple five-storey concrete box broken only with its entrance and a couple of windows. The enclosing shell of light-grey concrete lends the cube stability and dynamic solidity. Equally spaced horizontal grooves run around the facades of the museum, with the words "bauhaus museum" repeated in a band near the top of the building. Hanada designed the museum to be a public building for the city and has attempted to clearly connect it to the neighbouring park. With elements such as plinths, fasciae, portals, stairways and a terrace to the park, the architecture incorporates classical themes that underscore its public character.

The museum contains 2,000 m2 of exhibition space, which will be used to display around 1,000 items from the Weimar Bauhaus collection. A shop and entrance hall is located on the ground floor, with a cafe and toilets below, and three floors dedicated to telling the story of the Bauhaus above. Each of the galleries overlooks double-height spaces and are accessed from a long ceremonial staircase that stretches the height of the building. The visitors ascend a succession of interchanging open spaces and staircases until they finally arrive at the top floor where they are presented with an unobstructed view of the park. The cascading staircases are encased by ceiling-high walls and function as free-standing, enclosed bodies in the interior space. The collection is arranged to inform visitors about the history of the design school, with the gallery on the first floor dedicated to its origins in Weimar and the Bauhaus manifesto that Walter Gropius wrote in 1919. The second floor has exhibits that show how these ideas were implemented, with galleries dedicated to each of the Bauhaus directors – Gropius, Hannes Meyer and Mies van der Rohe – at the top of the building.

The museum in Weimar has opened to coincide with the centenary of the Bauhaus, which was established in the city in 1919. The school was forced to relocate from Weimar to Dessau in 1925, where Gropius designed a new school building for the institution. Following a short time based in Berlin the school closed for good in 1933. Although only open for just over a decade, the Bauhaus is the most influential art and design school in history. The ideas and people associated with the school had an incredible impact on design and architecture, and to mark its centenary we created a series exploring its key works and figures.

Description in english below.

More photos on my page.

Plus de photos sur ma page.

Modèle uniquement utilisé par les pilotes de l’Amiral Zsinj.

Parlons du gars. Si Timothy Zhan s’est inspiré de Sherlock Holmes pour le grand Amiral Zahn, je suspecte fortement l’auteur responsable de la création de Zsinj (Aaron Alston ?) de s’être inspiré d’Hercule Poirot. Petit, moustachu et ventripotent, adepte du ridicule pour être sous-estimé, et redoutablement intelligent et cultivé. Moi ça me fait furieusement penser à Hercule Poirot.

Bref, Zsinj a peut-être été responsable du design du Tie Raptor. Objectivement, c’est le design de Tie le plus logique que je connaisse. Mieux armé que le Tie classique (4 blasters, 2 lances missiles) il est plus rapide (entre le Tie classique et l’interceptor) et tout aussi maniable. Autre point fort du Raptor : La disposition et la taille de ses ailes, donnent un meilleur champ de vision au pilote, tout en offrant une cible plus petite à l’adversaire. De plus certains modèles furent équipés d’un boulier, mais pas d’Hyperdrive cependant.

Si la forme en x des ailes peut rappeler les X-wing, celles-ci ne sont cependant pas mobiles contrairement au X-wing.

Concernant le moc proprement dit. J’ai un peu galéré. Ce qui passe sur le logiciel studio, ne passe pas nécessairement irl. La boule centrale dut facile à faire, mais les ailes étaient trop en pression contre la courbure du cockpit, j’ai du modifier mes plan initiaux.

Question solidité : Pas terrible…

Cela tient en place, mais il ne faut pas trop remuer l’engin sous peine de voir les ailes se décrocher.

Model only used by Admiral Zsinj's pilots.

Let's talk about the guy. If Timothy Zhan was inspired by Sherlock Holmes for the great Admiral Zahn, I strongly suspect that the author responsible for the creation of Zsinj (Aaron Alston?) was inspired by Hercule Poirot. Short, mustachioed and a little fat, adept at ridicule to be underestimated, and fearfully intelligent and cultured. It makes me furiously think of Hercule Poirot.

In short, Zsinj may have been responsible for the design of the Tie Raptor. Objectively, it's the most logical Tie design I know. Better armed than the classic Tie (4 blasters, 2 missiles launchers) it is faster (between the classic Tie and the interceptor) and just as easy to handle. Another strong point of the Raptor : The layout and the size of its wings, give a better field of vision to the pilot, while offering a smaller target to the opponent. In addition, some models were equipped with an shield, but no Hyperdrive however.

If the x-shape of the wings can remind the X-wing, they are not mobile unlike the X-wing.

Concerning the moc itself. I had a little trouble. What goes on the studio software, does not necessarily go well irl. The center ball was easy to make, but the wings were too much pressure against the cockpit curvature, I had to modify my initial plan.

Concerning the moc Solidity : Not so good...

This holds in place, but you shouldn't shake the gear too much or the wings will fall.

This is a very early example of a lathe made by Richard Roberts of Manchester.

In 1816, after two years working with Henry Maudsley, Roberts moved to Manchester and established his own business. he had learned the importance of accuracy from Maudsley and took to his to new levels with his own machine tools.

Roberts was a highly-inventive engineer and inventor who led the way for production and precise engineering. He built a wide range of machine tools and also pioneered standard gauges. His designs contributed significantly to the process of mechanisation and his machine tools helped the growth of factories, the textile industry and the railways.

Lathes rotate a piece of metal or wood so that it can be shaped by a cutting tool. This lathe, powered by a foot-operated pedal, could work larger pieces of metal at greater speeds and with greater accuracy than ever before.

Lathes are the first recorded machine tools. Being able to make machine tools meant being able to make parts for other machines. Manchester led the world in creating machine tools by the mid-19th century.

This example is typical of Roberts' thoughtful approach to machine construction and is designed for turning shafts or similar components. Its remarkable solidity ensured accuracy under load.

Despite being considered a pioneer of modern mechanical mechanisms he lacked business sense and Roberts died in poverty.

Seen in the Making the Modern World Hall at the Science Museum, South Kensington.

Once again used a 16:9 frame and tried to capture the movement of the water. However, unlike the previous shot, this shot was tonemapped with Photomatix. I slightly desaturated the foreground since it was lit with sodium-vapor street lamps. I didn't specifically go over to the park for photography so nothing super mindblowing will follow. Just went on a walk with no destination in mind with my wife; started out on Centre Street and ended up in Brooklyn. When I see the tide in this photo I think about the following E.B. White quote:

"There are roughly three New Yorks. There is, first, the New York of the man or woman who was born here, who takes the city for granted and accepts its size and its turbulence as natural and inevitable. Second, there is the New York of the commuter — the city that is devoured by locusts each day and spat out each night. Third, there is the New York of the person who was born somewhere else and came to New York in quest of something.

...Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness; natives give it solidity and continuity; but the settlers give it passion. "

— E.B. White

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_%E2%80%93_Fulton_Ferry_State...

Empire–Fulton Ferry State Park is a state park in Brooklyn, New York, United States. The park is located next to the East River, extending north and south of the Brooklyn Bridge. It was created in 1978 with the purchase of nine run-down warehouses from Con Edison.[1]

"The original Police car, it was phased out in favour of the Bakar. Many of them were sold, and - because of their rugged but lightweight design and solid engines that could be easily modified - soon became a favourite amongst car enthusiasts." - Jupiter State Museum.

"The AV1 is comparable to the Sherman tank, especially when compared to the other models on IO. The greatest aspect of this machine lies in its solidity and reliability." - UbiSoft French POD Site.

The human condition can be warped like flesh in the same light as Benjamin Paul Blood's “The Poetry of the Alphabet":

ā. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Vastness, space, plane.

ă. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Flatness.

b. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Beating, bearing, bringing.

c. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .(Soft) as s; (hard) as k.

d. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .(Final) solidity, completeness.

d. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .(Initial) violence.

e. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Concentration, convergence.

f, h, t. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Ethereality.

g. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Hardness.

i. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Thinness, slimness, fineness.

k. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Fineness of lights and sounds.

l. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Metallic, chill, polish.

m. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Monotony.

n. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Denial, contempt.

o. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Solemnity, nobility, devotion, volume.

p. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Voluptuousness.

r. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Roughness, vibration.

gr. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Grit.

s. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Moisture.

sh. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Confusion.

u. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Crudity, absurdity, humor.

v. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Vehemence.

z. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Haze, dreamy confusion.

...in the same relationship as alphabetics, text, sentences, paragraphs, &c. Books leave their mark just as well as scabs and scars and protrusions leave their marks...

Bauhaus Museum Weimar, Germany

German architect Heike Hanada designed a minimalist concrete museum to celebrate the Bauhaus in Weimar, where the design school was founded 100 years ago. The building is dedicated to the design school creates a physical cultural presence for the Bauhaus in the German city where it was based between 1919 and 1925. Located near the Nazi-era Gauforum square and the Neue Museum Weimar, the Bauhaus Museum is a simple five-storey concrete box broken only with its entrance and a couple of windows. The enclosing shell of light-grey concrete lends the cube stability and dynamic solidity. Equally spaced horizontal grooves run around the facades of the museum, with the words "bauhaus museum" repeated in a band near the top of the building. Hanada designed the museum to be a public building for the city and has attempted to clearly connect it to the neighbouring park. With elements such as plinths, fasciae, portals, stairways and a terrace to the park, the architecture incorporates classical themes that underscore its public character.

The museum contains 2,000 m2 of exhibition space, which will be used to display around 1,000 items from the Weimar Bauhaus collection. A shop and entrance hall is located on the ground floor, with a cafe and toilets below, and three floors dedicated to telling the story of the Bauhaus above. Each of the galleries overlooks double-height spaces and are accessed from a long ceremonial staircase that stretches the height of the building. The visitors ascend a succession of interchanging open spaces and staircases until they finally arrive at the top floor where they are presented with an unobstructed view of the park. The cascading staircases are encased by ceiling-high walls and function as free-standing, enclosed bodies in the interior space. The collection is arranged to inform visitors about the history of the design school, with the gallery on the first floor dedicated to its origins in Weimar and the Bauhaus manifesto that Walter Gropius wrote in 1919. The second floor has exhibits that show how these ideas were implemented, with galleries dedicated to each of the Bauhaus directors – Gropius, Hannes Meyer and Mies van der Rohe – at the top of the building.

The museum in Weimar has opened to coincide with the centenary of the Bauhaus, which was established in the city in 1919. The school was forced to relocate from Weimar to Dessau in 1925, where Gropius designed a new school building for the institution. Following a short time based in Berlin the school closed for good in 1933. Although only open for just over a decade, the Bauhaus is the most influential art and design school in history. The ideas and people associated with the school had an incredible impact on design and architecture, and to mark its centenary we created a series exploring its key works and figures.

Oil on panel; 67 x 51.5 cm.

Modigliani was born into a Jewish family of merchants. As a child he suffered from pleurisy and typhus, which prevented him from receiving a conventional education. In 1898 he began to study painting. After a brief stay in Florence in 1902, he continued his artistic studies in Venice, remaining there until the winter of 1906, when he left for Paris. His early admiration for Italian Renaissance painting—especially that of Siena—was to last throughout his life. In Paris Modigliani became interested in the Post-Impressionist paintings of Paul Cézanne. His initial important contacts were with the poets André Salmon and Max Jacob, with the artist Pablo Picasso, and—in 1907—with Paul Alexandre, a friend of many avant-garde artists and the first to become interested in Modigliani and to buy his works. In 1908 the artist exhibited five or six paintings at the Salon des Indépendants. In 1909 Modigliani met the Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi, on whose advice he seriously studied African sculpture. To prepare himself for creating his own sculpture, he intensified his graphic experiments. In his drawings Modigliani tried to give the function of limiting or enclosing volumes to his contours. In 1912 he exhibited at the Salon d’Automne eight stone heads whose elongated and simplified forms reflect the influence of African sculpture. Modigliani returned entirely to painting about 1915, but his experience as a sculptor had fundamental consequences for his painting style. The characteristics of Modigliani’s sculptured heads—long necks and noses, simplified features, and long oval faces—became typical of his paintings. He reduced and almost eliminated chiaroscuro (the use of gradations of light and shadow to achieve the illusion of three-dimensionality), and he achieved a sense of solidity with strong contours and the richness of juxtaposed colors.

The outbreak of World War I in 1914 increased the difficulties of Modigliani’s life. Alexandre and some of his other friends were at the front, his paintings did not sell, and his already delicate health was deteriorating because of his poverty, feverish work ethic, and abuse of alcohol and drugs. He was in the midst of a troubled affair with the South African poet Beatrice Hastings, with whom he lived for two years, from 1914 to 1916. He was assisted, however, by the art dealer Paul Guillaume and especially by the Polish poet Leopold Zborowski, who bought or helped him to sell a few paintings and drawings.

Modigliani was not a professional portraitist; for him the portrait was only an occasion to isolate a figure as a kind of sculptural relief through firm and expressive contour drawing. He painted his friends, usually personalities of the Parisian artistic and literary world (such as the artists Juan Gris and Jacques Lipchitz, the writer and artist Jean Cocteau, and the poet Max Jacob), but he also portrayed unknown people, including models, servants, and girls from the neighborhood. In 1917 he began painting a series of about 30 large female nudes that, with their warm, glowing colors and sensuous, rounded forms, are among his best works. In December of that year Berthe Weill organized a solo show for him in her gallery, but the police judged the nudes indecent and had them removed.

In 1917 Modigliani began a love affair with the young painter Jeanne Hébuterne, with whom he went to live on the Côte d’Azur. Their daughter, Jeanne, was born in November 1918. His painting became increasingly refined in line and delicate in colour. A more tranquil life and the climate of the Mediterranean, however, did not restore the artist’s undermined health. After returning to Paris in May 1919, he became ill in January 1920; 10 days later he died of tubercular meningitis. Little-known outside avant-garde Parisian circles, Modigliani had seldom participated in official exhibitions. Fame came after his death, with a solo exhibition at the Bernheim-Jeune Gallery in 1922 and later with a biography by André Salmon. For decades critical evaluations of Modigliani’s work were overshadowed by the dramatic story of his tragic life, but he is now acknowledged as one of the most significant and original artists of his time.

THE STATUE WAS COMMISSIONED AS A TRIBUTE TO THE BRAVERY OF THOSE WHO WORKED IN THE GREAT LAXEY MINES HAS BEEN UNVEILED IN THE ISLE OF MAN.

THE ONE-TONNE STONE STRUCTURE, WHICH HAS BEEN ERECTED ON A PLINTH IN THE HEART OF LAXEY, WAS MADE IN BALI BY SCULPTOR ONGKY WIJANA.

CO-ORDINATOR IVOR HANKINSON SAID THE STATUE IS DEDICATED TO THE MINERS WHO WORKED IN VERY DIFFICULT CONDITIONS.

THE GREAT LAXEY MINE EMPLOYED MORE THAN 600 MINERS BETWEEN 1825 AND 1929.

AT ITS PEAK, IT PRODUCED A FIFTH OF ZINC EXTRACTED IN THE UK.

MR HANKINSON ADDED: "THEY WERE AN EXTREMELY HARDY MEN, VERY TOUGH INDEED AND THE SCULPTOR HAS MANAGED TO CONVEY THAT IN HIS WORK VERY EFFECTIVELY.

"WE HAVE ALSO HAD A PLAQUE MADE IN MEMORY OF THOSE WHO LOST THEIR LIVES DOWN THE MINES".

ABOUT 30 MEN WERE KILLED IN MINING ACCIDENTS BETWEEN THE YEARS OF 1831 AND 1912.

SOME DROWNED, SOME WERE CRUSHED IN ROCK FALLS AND OTHERS DIED IN DYNAMITE EXPLOSIONS.

"THE WORKING CONDITIONS WERE INCREDIBLY DIFFICULT," SAID MR HANKINSON.

"SOME OF THE MEN HAD TO WALK MILES TO GET TO WORK IN THE FIRST PLACE. ONCE THERE, THEY HAD A TWO-HOUR JOURNEY ON LADDERS DOWN INTO THE MINES - SOME OF THE SHAFTS WERE A THIRD OF A MILE DEEP."

SCULPTOR ONKY WIJANA SAID HE WANTED TO CAPTURE THE STRENGTH AND DETERMINATION OF THE LAXEY MINERS

THE STATUE, CARVED FROM A FIVE-TONE BLOCK OF CARLOW BLUE LIMESTONE, TOOK MR WIJANA 10 MONTHS TO COMPLETE IN HIS STUDIO IN BANJAR SILAKARANG, INDONESIA.

"THESE GUYS WERE TOUGH BUT OFTEN LOOKED WEATHER-BEATEN, SUNKEN-CHEEKED AND WORN OUT," SAID MR WIJANA.

"HOWEVER, THEY ALSO HAD A SOLIDITY TO THEM AND ALWAYS A DETERMINATION IN THEIR EYES THAT I WANTED TO CAPTURE."

ONCE ERECTED ON ITS PLINTH, THE STONE MINER STATUE STANDS 13FT (4M) HIGH.

Francesco del Cossa (1436-1478)

St. Peter and St. John the Baptist, 1470-3

Tempera on panel

cm 112 x 55

The painting constitutes one of the wings of a large altarpiece executed around 1473 to a commission from the merchant Floriano Griffoni and intended for the family chapel in the Bolognese church of San Petronio. The polyptych, dedicated to St. Vincent Ferrer, was ordered just a few years after the saint’s canonization (1458) and painted by the artist in collaboration with Ercole de’ Roberti, who executed the small panels of the predella. The work remained in the Griffoni Chapel until 1725-30, when the individual panels were sold separately on the antique market and dispersed: the panels in Brera were acquired by the collector Giuseppe Cavalieri in 1893, at the suggestion of Adolfo Venturi, but was only through the insight of Roberto Longhi that, in 1934, the fragments in Brera, the National Gallery in London and the National Gallery in Washington were identified as parts of single, imposing structure, one of the cornerstones of Cossa’s production and Ferrarese Renaissance painting.

The two saints, displaying all the solidity of wooden sculpture, stand on rocky outcrops which serve to isolate them, almost like the base of a statue, from the bizarre landscape where arches with unstable keystones frame plains criss-crossed by rivers and dotted with buildings.

THE STATUE WAS COMMISSIONED AS A TRIBUTE TO THE BRAVERY OF THOSE WHO WORKED IN THE GREAT LAXEY MINES HAS BEEN UNVEILED IN THE ISLE OF MAN.

THE ONE-TONNE STONE STRUCTURE, WHICH HAS BEEN ERECTED ON A PLINTH IN THE HEART OF LAXEY, WAS MADE IN BALI BY SCULPTOR ONGKY WIJANA.

CO-ORDINATOR IVOR HANKINSON SAID THE STATUE IS DEDICATED TO THE MINERS WHO WORKED IN VERY DIFFICULT CONDITIONS.

THE GREAT LAXEY MINE EMPLOYED MORE THAN 600 MINERS BETWEEN 1825 AND 1929.

AT ITS PEAK, IT PRODUCED A FIFTH OF ZINC EXTRACTED IN THE UK.

MR HANKINSON ADDED: "THEY WERE AN EXTREMELY HARDY MEN, VERY TOUGH INDEED AND THE SCULPTOR HAS MANAGED TO CONVEY THAT IN HIS WORK VERY EFFECTIVELY.

"WE HAVE ALSO HAD A PLAQUE MADE IN MEMORY OF THOSE WHO LOST THEIR LIVES DOWN THE MINES".

ABOUT 30 MEN WERE KILLED IN MINING ACCIDENTS BETWEEN THE YEARS OF 1831 AND 1912.

SOME DROWNED, SOME WERE CRUSHED IN ROCK FALLS AND OTHERS DIED IN DYNAMITE EXPLOSIONS.

"THE WORKING CONDITIONS WERE INCREDIBLY DIFFICULT," SAID MR HANKINSON.

"SOME OF THE MEN HAD TO WALK MILES TO GET TO WORK IN THE FIRST PLACE. ONCE THERE, THEY HAD A TWO-HOUR JOURNEY ON LADDERS DOWN INTO THE MINES - SOME OF THE SHAFTS WERE A THIRD OF A MILE DEEP."

SCULPTOR ONKY WIJANA SAID HE WANTED TO CAPTURE THE STRENGTH AND DETERMINATION OF THE LAXEY MINERS

THE STATUE, CARVED FROM A FIVE-TONE BLOCK OF CARLOW BLUE LIMESTONE, TOOK MR WIJANA 10 MONTHS TO COMPLETE IN HIS STUDIO IN BANJAR SILAKARANG, INDONESIA.

"THESE GUYS WERE TOUGH BUT OFTEN LOOKED WEATHER-BEATEN, SUNKEN-CHEEKED AND WORN OUT," SAID MR WIJANA.

"HOWEVER, THEY ALSO HAD A SOLIDITY TO THEM AND ALWAYS A DETERMINATION IN THEIR EYES THAT I WANTED TO CAPTURE."

ONCE ERECTED ON ITS PLINTH, THE STONE MINER STATUE STANDS 13FT (4M) HIGH.

Henri Rousseau commemorated the one-hundredth anniversary of the proclamation of the first French Republic in 1792. Peasants dance the farandole, a popular southern French dance, around three liberty trees and two female figures representing the First and Third Republics. Rousseau copied the dancers from a French magazine illustration but added waving banners, the liberty poles, and the allegorical figures. A wagon in the background is full of costumed musicians, reminiscent of parades the artist had seen. He used brilliant colours and solid forms to express the happiness of the scene symbolising good government. To the right, the erect posture of the dignified republican leaders signals the solidity of the French Republic.

[Oil on canvas, 44 x 71.875 inches]

gandalfsgallery.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/henri-rousseau-cen...

Conversation, painted in the artist's country house in the summer of 1909, is one of the important works Matisse produced during the highly productive period 1908-1913. The central figures of Matisse and his wife Amelie are schematic, while still retaining a portrait likeness. Most importantly, whilst depicting a moment in real life, Matisse "captures the truer and more profound meaning behind it, which serves the artist as a point of departure for a more consistent interpretation of reality," as he himself wrote in 1908. We enter into the blue world of the Conversation, sink deep into the atmosphere of colour. The blue colour does not represent solidity; this is not the colour of the carpet or the colour of the wall. Filling a large part of the painting space, the blue bears the concept of space through the force of the associations it gives rise to. It is cold; it is emotional and significant; it excites us with its profundity. Submitting to the blue's dominance, the green becomes not only the colour of the meadow but a symbol of the earth, a symbol of Life, an image which is reinforced by the straight, strong trunk of "the tree of life". In this ideal world of pure light-colour we find two figure-symbols embodying the two eternal sources of Life. In the contrast and mutual attraction of the straight lines (male) and the soft, emotional, lines curving (female) lies one of the mysteries of existence.

[Oil on canvas, 177 x 217 cm]

gandalfsgallery.blogspot.com/2010/07/henri-matisse-conver...

The pair of windows in St Catherine & St John the Baptist's chapel off the south ambulatory were reglazed in 2002 with stunning new glass by Tom Denny. They were created by to celebrate the 900th anniversary of the monks’ arrival at the Abbey, the theme being the Benedictine motto ‘to work is to pray’.

www.thomasdenny.co.uk/tewkesbury-abbey-two-windows

The attractive town of Tewkesbury has been dominated by its superb abbey church since the beginning of the 12th century, and we can be forever grateful to its townspeople for purchasing the monastic church in 1540 for £453 for use as their parish church, saving it from the fate that befell countless similar great churches across the land during the turmoil of the Dissolution. It reminds us both how lucky we are to still marvel at it today, yet also how great a loss to our heritage the period wrought when many more such buildings were so utterly plundered as to have gone without trace (the fate of the monastic buildings here and even the lady chapel of the church whose footings are laid out in the grass at the east end).

Tewkesbury Abbey is thus rightly celebrated as one of our greatest non-cathedral churches, and remarkably much of the original Norman church remains substantially intact, most apparently in the great central tower, a fine example of Romanesque architecture adorned with rows of blind-arcading. The west front is dominated by a massive Norman-arched recess (enclosing the somewhat later west window) and the nave and transepts remain largely as originally built, though this is less clear externally owing to the changes made to the windows, nearly all of which were enlarged in the 14th century in the Decorated Gothic style. This century also saw the complete rebuilding of the eastern limb of the church, of a form less common in England with radiating chapels surrounding the eastern apse of the choir (the central lady chapel sadly missing since 1540).

The interior reveals far more of the Romanesque structure with mighty columns supporting the round Norman arches of the nave arcades giving the building a great sense of solidity. The space is further enlivened by the changes made during the 14th century by the stunning vault over the nave (adorned with a rewarding series of figurative bosses) which sits surprisingly well with the Norman work below. Beyond the apsidal choir beckons, and both this and the space below the tower are enriched with stunningly complex vaulted ceilings (replete with further bosses and gilded metal stars), all ablaze with colour and gilding.

There is much to enjoy in glass here, most remarkably a complete set of 14th century glazing in the clerestorey of the choir, seven windows filled with saints and prophets (and most memorably two groups of knights in the westernmost windows on each side). A few of the figures have fared less well over the centuries but on the whole this is a wonderfully rare and well preserved scheme. There is much glass from the 19th century too, with an extensive scheme in the nave of good quality work by Hardman's, and more recently a pair of rich windows by Tom Denny were added in one of the polygonal chapels around the east end.

Some of the most memorable features are the monuments with many medieval tombs of note, primarily the effigies and chantry chapels of members of the Despenser family around the choir (two of the chantries being miniature architectural gems in their own right with exquisite fan-vaulting). In one of the apsidal chapels is the unusual cenotaph to Abbot Wakeman with his grisly cadaver effigy, a late medieval reminder of earthly mortality.

Tewkesbury Abbey is not to be missed and is every bit as rewarding as many of our cathedrals (superior in fact to all but the best). It is normally kept open and welcoming to visitors on a daily basis. I have also had the privilege of working on this great building several times over the years (as part of the team at the studio I once worked for), and have left my mark in glass in a few discreet places.

www.tewkesburyabbey.org.uk/

Photo Copyright 2012, dynamo.photography.

All rights reserved, no use without license

The Taipei 101 / TAIPEI 101[1], formerly known as the Taipei World Financial Center – is a landmark supertall skyscraper in Xinyi District, Taipei, Taiwan. The building was officially classified as the world's tallest in 2004, and remained such until the completion of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai in 2010. In 2011, the building was awarded the LEED platinum certification, the highest award according to the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system, and became the tallest and largest green building in the world.[11][12] It used to have the fastest elevator in the world, traveling at 60.6 km/h and transporting passengers from the 5th to 89th floor in 37 seconds.[13] In 2016, the title for the fastest elevator was given to the Shanghai Tower in Shanghai, China.[14]

Construction on the 101-story tower started in 1999 and finished in 2004. The tower has served as an icon of modern Taiwan ever since its opening. The building was architecturally created as a symbol of the evolution of technology and Asian tradition. Its postmodernist approach to style incorporates traditional design elements and gives them modern treatments. The tower is designed to withstand typhoons and earthquakes. A multi-level shopping mall adjoining the tower houses hundreds of stores, restaurants and clubs. Fireworks launched from Taipei 101 feature prominently in international New Year's Eve broadcasts and the structure appears frequently in travel literature and international media.

Taipei 101 is owned by Taipei Financial Center Corporation. The name that was originally planned for the building, Taipei World Financial Center, until 2003, was derived from the name of the owner.

Contents

1 Features

1.1 Height

1.2 Structural design

1.3 Structural façade

1.4 Symbolism

1.5 Interior

1.5.1 Floor directory

1.6 Observation Deck

1.7 Art

2 History

2.1 Construction

2.2 Chronology

2.3 Events

2.4 New Year's Eve fireworks displays

2.5 Developments

3 References

4 External links

Features

Height

Base of the tower

Taipei 101 comprises 101 floors above ground, as well as 5 basement levels. It was not only the first building in the world to break the half-kilometer mark in height,[3] but also the world's tallest building from March 2004 to 10 March 2010.[15][16] As of 28 July 2011, it is still the world's largest and highest-use green building.[11][12]

Upon its completion, Taipei 101 was the world's tallest inhabited building, at 509.2 m (1,671 ft) as measured to its height architectural top (spire), exceeding the Petronas Towers, which were previously the tallest inhabited skyscraper at 451.9 m (1,483 ft). The height to the top of the roof, at 449.2 m (1,474 ft), and highest occupied floor, at 439.2 m (1,441 ft), surpassed the previous records of 442 m (1,450 ft) and 412.4 m (1,353 ft), respectively; the Willis Tower had previously held that distinction.[3][17][18][19][20] It also surpassed the 85-story, 347.5 m (1,140 ft) Tuntex Sky Tower in Kaohsiung as the tallest building in Taiwan and the 51-story, 244.15 m (801 ft) Shin Kong Life Tower as the tallest building in Taipei.[21][22] Taipei 101 claimed the official records for the world's tallest sundial and the world's largest New Year's Eve countdown clock.[23]

Various sources, including the building's owners, give the height of Taipei 101 as 508 m (1,667 ft), roof height and top floor height as 448 m (1,470 ft) and 438 m (1,437 ft). This lower figure is derived by measuring from the top of a 1.2 m (4 ft) platform at the base.[1][3] CTBUH standards, though, include the height of the platform in calculating the overall height, as it represents part of the man-made structure and is above the level of the surrounding pavement.[17][19][18][20] Taipei 101 displaced the Petronas Towers as the tallest building in the world by 57.3 m (188 ft).[19][24] The record it claimed for greatest height from ground to pinnacle was surpassed by the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, which is 829.8 m (2,722 ft) in height. Taipei 101's records for roof height and highest occupied floor briefly passed to the Shanghai World Financial Center in 2008, which in turn yielded these records as well to the Burj.[17][19]

Structural design

Location of Taipei 101's largest tuned mass damper

Tuned mass damper

Taipei 101 is designed to withstand the typhoon winds and earthquake tremors that are common in the area east of Taiwan. Evergreen Consulting Engineering, the structural engineer, designed Taipei 101 to withstand gale winds of 60 metres per second (197 ft/s), (216 km/h or 134 mph), as well as the strongest earthquakes in a 2,500-year cycle.[25]

Taipei 101 was designed to be flexible as well as structurally resistant, because while flexibility prevents structural damage, resistance ensures comfort for the occupants and for the protection of glass, curtain walls, and other features.[26] Most designs achieve the necessary strength by enlarging critical structural elements such as bracing. Because of the height of Taipei 101, combined with the surrounding area's geology—the building is located just 660 ft (200 m) away from a major fault line[27]—Taipei 101 used high-performance steel construction and 36 columns, including eight "mega-columns" packed with 10,000 psi (69 MPa) concrete.[28] Outrigger trusses, located at eight-floor intervals, connect the columns in the building's core to those on the exterior.[29]

These features, combined with the solidity of its foundation, made Taipei 101 one of the most stable buildings ever constructed.[30] The foundation is reinforced by 380 piles driven 80 m (262 ft) into the ground, extending as far as 30 m (98 ft) into the bedrock. Each pile is 1.5 m (5 ft) in diameter and can bear a load of 1,000–1,320 tonnes (1,100–1,460 short tons).[28] During construction, on 31 March 2002, a 6.8-magnitude earthquake rocked Taipei; two construction cranes from the 56th floor, the highest floor at the time, toppled. Five people died in the accident, but an inspection showed no structural damage to the building, and construction soon resumed.[29]

RWDI designed a 660-tonne (728-short-ton)[31][32][33] steel pendulum that serves as a tuned mass damper, at a cost of NT$132 million (US$4 million).[34] Suspended from the 92nd to the 87th floor, the pendulum sways to offset movements in the building caused by strong gusts. Its sphere, the largest damper sphere in the world, consists of 41 circular steel plates of varying diameters, each 125 mm (4.92 in) thick, welded together to form a 5.5 m (18 ft) diameter sphere. Two additional tuned mass dampers, each weighing 6 tonnes (7 short tons), are installed at the tip of the spire which help prevent damage to the structure due to strong wind loads.[34][35] On 8 August 2015, strong winds from Typhoon Soudelor swayed the main damper by 100 centimetres (39 in) – the largest movement ever recorded by the damper.[36]

The damper has become such a popular tourist attraction, the city contracted Sanrio to create a mascot: the Damper Baby. Four versions of the Damper Baby: "Rich Gold", "Cool Black", "Smart Silver" and "Lucky Red" were designed and made into figurines and souvenirs sold in various Taipei 101 gift shops. Damper Baby, with its cute all-ages appeal, has become a popular local icon, with its own comic book and website.[37][38][39]

Structural façade

Taipei 101 during a typhoon

View from the base of the tower, looking up

Ruyi figure over one of the building's entrances

Shadow of the tower in the late afternoon; the adjoining park (circular feature, bottom) acts as the face of a sundial.

Feng shui fountain outside Taipei 101

Taipei 101's characteristic blue-green glass curtain walls are double paned and glazed, offer heat and UV protection sufficient to block external heat by 50 percent, and can sustain impacts of 7 tonnes (8 short tons).[25] The façade system of glass and aluminum panels installed into an inclined moment-resisting lattices contributes to overall lateral rigidity by tying back to the mega-columns with one-story high trusses at every eighth floor. This façade system is therefore able to withstand up to 95 mm (4 in) of seismic lateral displacements without damage.[40]

The original corners of the façade were tested at RWDI in Ontario. A simulation of a 100-year storm at RWDI revealed a vortex that formed during a 3-second 105 miles per hour (169 km/h) wind at a height of 10 meters, or equivalent to the lateral tower sway rate causing large crosswind oscillations. A double chamfered step design was found to dramatically reduce this crosswind oscillation, resulting in the final design's "double stairstep" corner façade.[41] Architect C.Y. Lee also used extensive façade elements to represent the symbolic identity he pursued. These façade elements included the green tinted glass for the indigenous slender bamboo look, eight upper outwards inclined tiers of pagoda each with eight floors, a Ruyi and a money box symbol between the two façade sections among others.[42]

Taipei 101's own roof and façade recycled water system meets 20 to 30 percent of the building's water needs. In July 2011, Taipei 101 was certified "the world's tallest green building" under LEED standards.[43]

Symbolism

Taipei 101 in the skyline.

The height of 101 floors commemorates the renewal of time: the new century that arrived as the tower was built (100+1) and all the new years that follow (1 January = 1-01). It symbolizes high ideals by going one better on 100, a traditional number of perfection. The number also evokes the binary numeral system used in digital technology.[28]

The main tower features a series of eight segments of eight floors each. In Chinese-speaking cultures the number eight is associated with abundance, prosperity and good fortune.[44][45]

The repeated segments simultaneously recall the rhythms of an Asian pagoda (a tower linking earth and sky, also evoked in the Petronas Towers), a stalk of bamboo (an icon of learning and growth), and a stack of ancient Chinese ingots or money boxes (a symbol of abundance). Popular humor sometimes likens the building's shape to a stack of take-out boxes as used in Western-style Chinese food; of course, the stackable shape of such boxes is likewise derived from that of ancient money boxes.[46] The four discs mounted on each face of the building where the pedestal meets the tower represent coins. The emblem placed over entrances shows three gold coins of ancient design with central holes shaped to imply the Arabic numerals 1-0-1.[28] The structure incorporates many shapes of squares and circles to reach a balance between yin and yang.

Curled ruyi figures appear throughout the structure as a design motif. Though the shape of each ruyi at Taipei 101 is traditional, its rendering in industrial metal is plainly modern. The ruyi is a talisman of ancient origin associated in art with heavenly clouds. It connotes healing, protection and fulfillment. It appears in celebrations of the attainment of new career heights.[47][48] The sweeping curved roof of the adjoining mall culminates in a colossal ruyi that shades pedestrians.[48] Each ruyi ornament on the exterior of the Taipei 101 tower stands at least 8 m (26 ft) tall.[49]

At night the bright yellow gleam from its pinnacle casts Taipei 101 in the role of a candle or torch upholding the ideals of liberty and welcome. From 6:00 to 10:00 each evening[50] the tower's lights display one of seven colours in the spectrum. The colors coincide with the days of the week:[51]

Day Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday

Color red orange yellow green blue violet purple

The adjoining Taipei 101 on the east side connects the landmark further with the symbolism of time. The design of the circular park doubles as the face of a giant sundial. The tower itself casts the shadow to mark afternoon hours for the building's occupants. The park's design is echoed in a clock that stands at its entrance. The clock runs on energy drawn from the building's wind shear.[52]

Taipei 101, like many of its neighbours, shows the influence of feng shui philosophy. An example appears in the form of a large granite fountain at the intersection of Songlian Road and Xinyi Road near the tower's east entrance.[53] A ball at the fountain's top spins toward the tower. As a work of public art the fountain offers a contrast to the tower in texture even as its design echoes the tower's rhythms. The fountain also serves a practical function in feng shui philosophy. A T intersection near the entrance of a building represents a potential drain of positive energy, or ch'i, from a structure and its occupants.[54][55] Placing flowing water at such spots is thought to help redirect the flow of ch'i.[56][57]

Interior

Taipei 101 is the first record-setting skyscraper to be constructed in the 21st century. It exhibits a number of technologically advanced features as it provides a center for business and recreation.[3]

The original 2004 fiber-optic and satellite Internet connections permitted transfer speeds up to a gigabit per second.[26]

The double-deck elevators built by the Japanese Toshiba Elevator and Building Systems Corporation (TELC) set a new record in 2004 with the fastest ascending speeds in the world. At 60.6 kilometres (37.7 mi) per hour, 16.83 m (55.22 ft) per second, or 1010 m/min,[34] the speed of Taipei 101's elevators is 34.7 percent faster than the previous record holders of the Yokohama Landmark Tower elevator, Yokohama, Japan, which reaches speeds of 12.5 m (41 ft) per second (45.0 km/h, 28.0 mi/h). Taipei 101's elevators sweep visitors from the fifth floor to the 89th-floor observatory in only 37 seconds.[58] Each elevator features an aerodynamic body, full pressurization, state-of-the art emergency braking systems, and the world's first triple-stage anti-overshooting system. The cost for each elevator is NT$80 million (US$2.4 million).[59][60][61][62]

A 660-tonne (728-short-ton) tuned mass damper (TMD), located between the 87th and 91st floors,[34] stabilizes the tower against movements caused by high winds.[41] The damper can reduce up to 40 percent of the tower's movements.[63][64] The TMD is visible to all visitors on the 87th through 91st floors.[34]

Two restaurants have opened on the 85th floor: Diamond Tony's, which offers European-style seafood and steak, and Shin Yeh 101 (欣葉), which offers Taiwanese-style cuisine. Occupying all of the 86th floor is Taiwanese restaurant Ding Xian 101.[65] Din Tai Fung, several international dining establishments and retail outlets also operate in the adjoining mall. The multi-story retail mall adjoining the tower is home to hundreds of fashionable stores, restaurants, clubs and other attractions. The mall's interior is modern in design even as it makes use of traditional elements. The curled ruyi symbol is a recurring motif inside the mall. Many features of the interior also observe feng shui traditions.[57]

Floor directory

The 101st floor is home to a private VIP club named Summit 101, according to the observatory brochure. Before 2014, no information about this club was ever made public.[66] In 2014, photos of the exclusive club were shown on TV for the first time. A Taipei Financial Center Corporation spokesman said that only foreign dignitaries, Hollywood film actors, and high spenders in the Taipei 101 Mall (over NT $1 million in purchases) had been invited to the VIP club.[67]

Access to the 101st floor requires two elevator transfers on the 89th and 93rd floors, respectively. There is only one service elevator that facilitates access to the top 9 floors (93-101). The 101st floor is divided into three levels: 101F (lower), 101MF (mezzanine) and 101RF (roof). The VIP club exists on the lower level, while 101RF, a mechanical floor, provides access to the 60-metre tall spire, which has 24 levels (numbered R1 through R24) that can only be accessed via ladder.[citation needed]

The 92nd through 100th floors are officially designated as communication floors, although it's unknown if there are any radio or TV stations currently broadcasting from the top of Taipei 101. The 91st-floor observatory is the highest floor that is open to the public, but unlike the leased/private floors from 7~90F, there is no sign of even a visible access point to the topmost floors on Level 91. The top 10 floors are to have stated on their website to contain a radio and television relay station, Emergency system receiving/signaling relay station, telecommunications stations, and an outdoor antenna frame on 96F, which offers power, fire protection, telecom systems, and security related systems, according to their website.[citation needed]

4 is considered an unlucky number in Chinese culture,[45] so what would have been the 44th floor has been replaced by Level 43, with 42A replacing the actual 43 to compensate for the skipped floor number.[citation needed]

There is a freight elevator that facilitates access to every level from B5 to 91, with a button for every floor.[citation needed]

A tenant directory is posted in the first-floor lobby (from the Xinyi entrance.) As of 1 January 2011, the highest occupied office floor (excluding the observatory and restaurants) is 75. The building appears to be at least 70 percent occupied at this point. All publicly accessible floors have wheelchair accessibility support.[citation needed]

Taipei 101, fourth from left, compared with other tallest buildings in Asia.

101st floor Summit 101 (Private VIP Club)[68]

92nd – 100th floor Communication

91st floor Outdoor Observatory Deck

88th – 89th floor Indoor Observatory Deck

85th – 86th floor Observatory Restaurant[2]

59th – 84th floor High Zone Office

59th – 60th floor Sky lobbies

35th – 58th floor Mid Zone Office

36th floor Taipei 101 Conference Center[2]

35th – 36th floor Sky lobbies

35th floor Amenities [2]

9th – 34th floor Low Zone Office

B1st – 5th floor Taipei 101 Mall[2]

B5th - B2nd floor Parking Levels[2]

Observation Deck

On the 91F outdoor observatory at 391.8 m (1,285 ft).

Art work outside the mall at night.

Taipei 101's east park as seen from the Indoor Observatory at noon.

Taipei 101 features an Indoor Observation deck (88th and 89th floor) and an Outdoor Observation deck (91st floor). Both offer 360-degree views and attract visitors from around the world. The Indoor Observatory stands 383.4 m (1,258 ft) above ground, offering a comfortable environment, large windows with UV protection, recorded voice tours in eight languages, and informative displays and special exhibits. Here one may view the skyscraper's main damper, which is the world's largest and heaviest visible damper, and buy food, drinks and gift items. Two more flights of stairs take visitors up to the Outdoor Observatory. The Outdoor Observatory, at 391.8 m (1,285 ft) above ground,[3][69] is the second-highest observation deck ever provided in a skyscraper and the highest such platform in Taiwan.[21][70]

The Indoor Observatory is open thirteen hours a day (9:00 am–10:00 pm) throughout the week as well as on special occasions; the Outdoor Observatory is open during the same hours as weather permits. Tickets may be purchased on site in the shopping mall (5th floor) or in advance through the Observatory's website.[71] Tickets cost NT$500 (US$17, as of 9 September 2013) and allow access to the 88th through 91st floors via high-speed elevator.[72]

Art

Many works of art appear in and around Taipei 101. These include: German artist Rebecca Horn's Dialogue between Yin and Yang in 2002 (steel, iron), American artist Robert Indiana's 1-0 in 2002 and Love in 2003 (aluminum), French artist Ariel Moscovici's Between Earth and Sky in 2002 (rose de la claret granite), Taiwanese artist Chung Pu's Global Circle In 2002 (black granite, white marble), British artist Jill Watson's City Composition in 2002 (Bronze), and Taiwanese artist Kang Mu Hsiang's Infinite Life in 2013 (aluminum).[28] Moreover, the Indoor Observatory hosts a regular series of exhibitions. The artists represented have included Wu Ching (gold sculpture), Ping-huang Chang (traditional painting) and Po-lin Chi (aerial photography).[73]

History

Construction

Taipei 101 near the end of construction during 2003, showing the concrete tower at the top still incomplete. The height of the building was still 449.2 meters at the time.

Planning for Taipei 101 began in July 1997[2] during Chen Shui-bian's term as Taipei mayor. Talks between merchants and city government officials initially centered on a proposal for a 66-story tower to serve as an anchor for new development in Taipei's 101 business district. Planners were considering taking the new structure to a more ambitious height only after an expat suggested it, along with many of the other features used in the design of the building. It wasn't until the summer of 2001 that the city granted a license for the construction of a 101-story tower on the site. In the meantime, construction proceeded and the first tower column was erected in the summer of 2000.[2][64]

A major earthquake took place in Taiwan during 31 March 2002 destroying a construction crane at the rooftop, which was at floor number 47. The crane fell down onto the Xinyi Road beneath the tower, crushing several vehicles and causing five deaths – two crane operators and three workers who were not properly harnessed. However, an inspection showed no structural damage to the building, and construction work was able to restart within a week.[29]

Taipei 101's roof was completed three years later on 1 July 2003. Ma Ying-jeou, in his first term as Taipei mayor, fastened a golden bolt to signify the achievement.[3] The formal opening of the tower took place on New Year's Eve 2004. President Chen Shui-bian, Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou and Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng cut the ribbon. Open-air concerts featured a number of popular performers, including singers A-Mei and Stefanie Sun. Visitors rode the elevators to the Observatory for the first time. A few hours later the first fireworks show at Taipei 101 heralded the arrival of a new year.[74][23][75][76]

Chronology

Important dates in the planning and construction of Taipei 101 include the following:[28]

Date Event

20 October 1997 Development and operation rights agreement signed with Taipei City government.

13 January 1999 Ground-breaking ceremony.

7 June 2000 First tower column erected.

13 April 2001 Design change to 509.2 m height approved by Taipei City government.

13 June 2001 Taipei 101 Mall topped out.

10 August 2001 Construction license awarded for 101 stories.

31 March 2002 Partially constructed building survives 6.8 magnitude earthquake undamaged.

13 May 2003 Taipei 101 Mall obtains occupancy permit.

1 July 2003 Taipei 101 Tower roof completed.

17 October 2003 Pinnacle placed.

14 November 2003 Taipei 101 Mall opens.[2]

15 April 2004 Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) certifies Taipei 101 as world's tallest building.

12 November 2004 Tower obtains occupancy permit.

31 December 2004 Tower opens to the public.[2]

1 January 2005 First New Year fireworks show begins at midnight.

Events

E=mc2 lighting on 19 April 2005.

Taipei 101 is the site of many special events. Art exhibits, as noted above, regularly take place in the Observatory. A few noteworthy dates since the tower's opening include these.

On 28 February 2005, Former President of the United States Bill Clinton visited and signed copies of his autobiography.[77] On 19 April 2005, the tower displayed the formula "E=mc2" in lights to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the publication of Einstein's theory of relativity. The display, the largest of 65,000 such displays in 47 countries, was part of the international celebration Physics Enlightens the World.[73] On 20 October 2006, the tower displayed a pink ribbon in lights to promote breast cancer awareness. The ten-day campaign was sponsored by Taipei 101's ownership and Estée Lauder.[73]

On 25 December 2004, French rock and urban climber Alain Robert made an authorized climb to the top of the pinnacle in four hours.[78] On 12 December 2007, Austrian base jumper Felix Baumgartner survived an unauthorized parachute jump from the 91st floor.[79] On 20 November 2005, the First annual Taipei 101 Run Up featured a race up the 2,046 steps from floors 1 to 91. Proceeds were to benefit Taiwan's Olympic teams. The men's race was won by Paul Crake of Australia (10 minutes, 29 seconds), and the women's race by Andrea Mayr of Austria (12 minutes, 38 seconds).[73] On 15 June 2008, Taipei 101 Run Up featured 2,500 participants. The men's race was won by Thomas Dold of Germany (10 minutes, 53 seconds); 2007 champion Marco De Gasperi of Italy finished second and Chen Fu-tsai of Taiwan finished third. The women's race was won by Lee Hsiao-yu of Taiwan (14 minutes, 53 seconds).[80][81] On 6 December 2014, Japanese idol group AKT48 went up to the outdoor observatory on 91st floor of the building, and held a small concert there as the premiere of their tour in Taiwan.[82][83]

New Year's Eve fireworks displays

New Year fireworks at Taipei 101, then show the "2008 ♥ TAIWAN" symbol Image.

The New Year's Eve show in Taipei is hosted at the Taipei City Hall, which also provides a view of Taipei 101 which is lit up with fireworks. Another popular location for crowds to gather to see the fireworks display is the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall. For the first three years (2004–2006), the annual fireworks show at Taipei 101 was preceded by the sequential display of numerals in lights on each section to count down the last eight seconds to midnight. Since 2007 the building has been completely darkened, then fireworks begin to launch sequentially from the lower to upper sections.

2003–2004: Building still under construction. Spinning lights on the Outdoor Observatory (floor 91) provided a display of sound and lights, but no fireworks were launched.

2004–2005: Grand opening of Taipei 101 celebrated with the first fireworks display. The show lasted 35 seconds. Rockets were launched from section balconies. Festivities included all-day performances by popular entertainers and ceremonial visits by national dignitaries.

2005–2006: Show extended to 128 seconds. Sony sponsored the show, which concluded with a display of the brand name in lights.

2006–2007: Show extended to 188 seconds; 9,000 rockets were launched. This was Sony's second time sponsoring the event.

2007–2008: Show same length but featuring 12,000 rockets. Event Sponsor Taiwan Tourism Bureau ended the show with a display, in lights, of a heart over the word 'Taiwan'.

2008–2009: A conspicuously more modest show than those which preceded it. The theme was "Love Taiwan With Your Heart In 2009". The show ended with the four sides of the building displaying lights in four colours (red, blue, green and yellow) to represent happiness, vision, sustainability and passion.

2009–2010: The display regained some of the dazzle of 2005–2008 shows but remained more brief in duration. The theme was "Taiwan Up."

2010–2011: Show extended to 288 seconds (100 sec. for flash effects and 188 sec. for fireworks), and designed by Cai Guo-Qiang, the artist also responsible for Beijing Olympics and World Expo Shanghai's fireworks. The theme was "100 ROC" (100th anniversary of the Republic of China) which extended on the "Love Taiwan" theme. 2010 was also the year the Floral Expo was held in Taipei, and at Dajia Riverside Park there was another New Year's Eve event. It was a VIP event, but was broadcast simultaneously with the City Hall event. The display on the building was accompanied by fireworks going off other buildings in the Xinyi financial district. One concept was for fireworks to spiral up and down the building like dragon crawling, but technical difficulties caused some disappointment with what was anticipated (reported by the media to be more like "a worm"). It also took 30 seconds for the host to realize the fireworks were over.

2011–2012: The show was shortened to 202 seconds and was considered to be more conservative than that of the previous year, but featuring the largest number of rockets launched to date, totalling at 30,000. The theme coincided with the 101st anniversary of the ROC. It also gained attention on YouTube, where viewers noticed an apparent "UFO" in the seconds before the fireworks started, later determined to be a radio-controlled glider with flashing lights.

2012–2013: The show was designed by the French pyrotechnics company Groupe F and was 198 seconds in length, featuring 22,000 rockets launched to an adaptation of Igor Stravinsky's The Firebird. The theme was "Swing for the Future." The words "Time for Taiwan" (both in English and Mandarin Chinese) were displayed in lights at the building to promote Taiwan Tourism Bureau's current advertising campaign.

2013–2014: The show lasted 218 seconds and a thematic music was created for the first time by local musicians to commemorate Taipei 101's 10th anniversary.

2014–2015: Marked 10th anniversary since the official opening on December 31, 2004. The show kept up to perform for 218 seconds. iSee Taiwan Foundation sponsored the fireworks to promote the beauty of Taiwanese culture and creativity. The firework music was arranged by Taiwanese Golden Melody award winner - Mr. Lee, Che-Yi, blended with the famous classical song The four seasons by Vivaldi and many Taiwanese folk music. Performed and recorded by Taipei Symphony Orchestra.

2015–2016: It's the fourth time Group F designed the firework show for Taipei 101, with a green theme "Nature is Future" this year. The 238-second display was considered the longest performance ever. In addition to the most various and natural patterns of flowers, birds, seahorses, fishes, etc. were projected, 30,000 effects were one of the most to show. It's also the first time to have professional climbers to settle the firework racks onto the building façades. Mr. Lee, Chi-Yi once again arranged the music mixed with international and Taiwanese rhythms reflecting the nature-related theme and Evergreen Symphony Orchestra played the role of performance. A young Taiwanese IT design company BungBungame became the exclusive sponsor supporting a symbolic event showing Taiwan to the world.

Developments

The Taipei Financial Center Corporation (TFCC) announced plans on 2 November 2009 to make Taipei 101 "the world's tallest green building" by summer of 2011 as measured by LEED standards. The structure is already designed to be energy-efficient, with double-pane windows blocking external heat by 50 percent and recycled water meeting 20–30 percent of the building's needs. LEED certification would entail inspections and upgrades in wiring, water and lighting equipment at a cost of NT$60 million (US$1.8 million). Estimates show the savings resulting from the modifications would pay for the cost of making them within three years.[84] The project was carried out under the guidance of an international team composed of Siemens Building Technologies, architect and interior designer Steven Leach Group and the LEED advisory firm EcoTech International.[85] The company applied for a platinum-degree certification with LEED in early 2011.[86] On 28 July 2011, Taipei 101 received LEED platinum certification under "Existing Buildings: Operations and Maintenance". It displaced the Bank of America Tower in Manhattan as the world's tallest and highest-use green building in addition to the Environmental Protection Agency building in Florida as the world's largest green building. Although the project cost NT$60 million (US$2.08 million), it is expected to save 14.4 million kilowatt-hours of electricity, or an 18 percent energy-saving, equivalent to NT$36 million (US$1.2 million) in energy costs each year.[11][87] In 2012, the shopping center at the base is expected to be remodeled.[88]

References

Scene from the Life of Christ, roof boss in the 14th century vault of the nave.

The attractive town of Tewkesbury has been dominated by its superb abbey church since the beginning of the 12th century, and we can be forever grateful to its townspeople for purchasing the monastic church in 1540 for £453 for use as their parish church, saving it from the fate that befell countless similar great churches across the land during the turmoil of the Dissolution. It reminds us both how lucky we are to still marvel at it today, yet also how great a loss to our heritage the period wrought when many more such buildings were so utterly plundered as to have gone without trace (the fate of the monastic buildings here and even the lady chapel of the church whose footings are laid out in the grass at the east end).

Tewkesbury Abbey is thus rightly celebrated as one of our greatest non-cathedral churches, and remarkably much of the original Norman church remains substantially intact, most apparently in the great central tower, a fine example of Romanesque architecture adorned with rows of blind-arcading. The west front is dominated by a massive Norman-arched recess (enclosing the somewhat later west window) and the nave and transepts remain largely as originally built, though this is less clear externally owing to the changes made to the windows, nearly all of which were enlarged in the 14th century in the Decorated Gothic style. This century also saw the complete rebuilding of the eastern limb of the church, of a form less common in England with radiating chapels surrounding the eastern apse of the choir (the central lady chapel sadly missing since 1540).

The interior reveals far more of the Romanesque structure with mighty columns supporting the round Norman arches of the nave arcades giving the building a great sense of solidity. The space is further enlivened by the changes made during the 14th century by the stunning vault over the nave (adorned with a rewarding series of figurative bosses) which sits surprisingly well with the Norman work below. Beyond the apsidal choir beckons, and both this and the space below the tower are enriched with stunningly complex vaulted ceilings (replete with further bosses and gilded metal stars), all ablaze with colour and gilding.

There is much to enjoy in glass here, most remarkably a complete set of 14th century glazing in the clerestorey of the choir, seven windows filled with saints and prophets (and most memorably two groups of knights in the westernmost windows on each side). A few of the figures have fared less well over the centuries but on the whole this is a wonderfully rare and well preserved scheme. There is much glass from the 19th century too, with an extensive scheme in the nave of good quality work by Hardman's, and more recently a pair of rich windows by Tom Denny were added in one of the polygonal chapels around the east end.

Some of the most memorable features are the monuments with many medieval tombs of note, primarily the effigies and chantry chapels of members of the Despenser family around the choir (two of the chantries being miniature architectural gems in their own right with exquisite fan-vaulting). In one of the apsidal chapels is the unusual cenotaph to Abbot Wakeman with his grisly cadaver effigy, a late medieval reminder of earthly mortality.

Tewkesbury Abbey is not to be missed and is every bit as rewarding as many of our cathedrals (superior in fact to all but the best). It is normally kept open and welcoming to visitors on a daily basis. I have also had the privilege of working on this great building several times over the years (as part of the team at the studio I once worked for), and have left my mark in glass in a few discreet places.

www.tewkesburyabbey.org.uk/

From San Blas in Nadur, Gozo.

ABOUT

This article is from livinginmalta.com

The Maltese Girna, or corbelled stone hut, is perhaps the most primitive vernacular structure in the Maltese Islands. It is normally found in the Maltese countryside, and is basically a single room erected using undressed unplastered stones, with the aim of providing shelter for farmers and herdsmen and/or their livestock. The ‘girna’ is generally very small, having only one single plain room. Many ‘giren’ are even incorporated into rubble walls surrounding fields.

The ‘girnas’ ceiling is generally shaped like a dome, while the external wall is usually circular, though in rare cases it can also be square, rectangular or oval-shaped. The convex-shaped roof is covered with fragments of rotten rock, stone and sand. It usually has a single entrance facing East, in order to get as much sunlight as possible, and generally has no windows.

The stones used to build the ‘girna’ are usually local stones found in the vicinity of the field; loose coralline limestone rocks. ‘Giren’ are built without having any foundations, but are still quite solid as this solidity depends on the skilful laying of the stones.

The ‘girnas’ style of architecture is known as corbelling (‘kileb’ in Maltese), in that the weight of the stones of the upper course rests on those of the lower ones, precluding any need for the use of plaster or any other kind of cementing agent. Corbelled stone-huts often have double walls whereby the space in between is usually filled with rubble and gravel, in order not to let any rain water seep on its inner side. Some ‘giren’ may even have stone steps leading up to the roof of the structure, in order to provide a vantage point to survey the land and crops.

The interior of the ‘girna’ is usually very spartan, comprising perhaps of a bench to sit on, niches for lamps, and at most, space for a small built-in shelf. Despite the total lack of sanitary facilities, some ‘giren’ have even been used for human habitation, whereby cooking was usually carried out in a separate hovel, or using a portable stove.

Establishing the origins of the Maltese ‘girna’ is not easy, however it is a fact that the ‘girna’ is not only typical of Malta, since it is also found in countries like Italy, Sardinia, Spain, Portugal, France, and even Ireland and the Hebrides. Only the corbelled stone-huts of Italy and Malta are flat-roofed, as the rest have conical roofs.

One must appreciate the need for these simple, yet also intricately-constructed shelters, in that farmers would not only use them as shady resting places during the hot scorching Maltese summer, but also as shelter for their livestock during the rainy season. They could also serve as a place of storage for crops, or else to dry certain kinds of fruit and vegetables before selling them at the market, like figs, tomatoes or carobs.

Although the ‘girna’ looks extremely plain, its beauty lies in the skill of its construction. Some of the largest circular ‘giren’ in Malta can be found between Mellieħa and Ċirkewwa, while the largest square ‘giren’ are found at the limits of Manikata.

Today, the ‘giren’ no longer have any practical use. Many of them have degenerated into mere rubble or simply caved in due to weather, erosion, or neglect. Yet, the ‘girna’ is definitely an important feature of the Maltese landscape, one which should be cherished and protected.

Photo Copyright © Kappa Vision / Jean-Paul Borg

For all my latest photos, please visit and like Kappa Vision on Facebook.

(In English Below)

Enfin complet !

Le Tie Crawler Version 2. Je préfère cette version.

Un de Tie mes préférés, encore une fois par son côté ridicule et peu pratique.

Le Tie Crawler (aussi connu comme Tie Century ou Tie Tank) est un véhicule blindé léger. Armé de deux blasters Tie classique, et d’un blaster anti-personnel (donc plus léger). Un seul pilote qui fait aussi office de tireur.

Idées dans le Lore

Il était simple à produire, et c’est à peu près tout. J’ai aussi le souvenir d’avoir lu quelque part que les recrues de l’Empire échouant au test pour devenir pilote de chasseur Tie, pouvaient se reconvertir plus facilement en pilote de Tie Crawler. Mais je n’ai pas pu retrouver la source. Et de toute façon l’idée que ce soit plus facile de devenir pilote de char plutôt que pilote de cargo quand on échoue à devenir pilote de chasse est stupide.

Limites

Tel que décrit, l’engin est limité. Les armes sont trop basses. Les deux blasters de Tie classique ne peuvent pas pivoter et du fait de son emplacement, le blaster antipersonnel ne peut pas pivoter verticalement avec un angle très grand. Les trois sont donc quasi inutiles sur n’importe quel terrain accidenté. De plus, la forme des chenilles me fait dire qu’un bloc de béton, d’environ un mètre de haut, suffirait à bloquer le Tie. Et puis c’est un Tie, donc pas de bouclier énergétique, donc peu blindé. L’unique pilote est à la merci de n’importe quel armement anti-char ou chasseur spatial. Il a aussi un gros point faible évident : les quatre réservoirs visibles de fuel. Bon déjà, c’est un point faible évident que n’importe quel rebelle mal armé essaiera de viser. Mais aussi, pourquoi les avoir mis là ? Vous avez vu la taille des chenilles ? Et la tailles des réservoirs ? Il suffisait de les mettre quelque part dans les chenilles où ils auraient été mieux protégés, mais aussi plus proche des moteurs. Sans compter qu’en cas d’explosion, les éloigner un peu du pilote augmenterait ses chances de survie. Et l’Empire a à cœur la sécurité de ses employés…

Amélioration de Lego 7664

Lego a amélioré le concept en rendant les ailes pivotantes et indépendantes. Le Tie crawler devenant tout à coup vraiment tout terrain. De plus, ils ont ajouté des lance-missiles planqués dans les ailes. Ce que j’avais maladroitement fait dans ma première version. Cette version n’en a pas. Les idées que j’ai testées en la matière manquaient tous de solidité. Et pour être franc, une fois sur l’étagère, les missiles cachés le resteraient.

Utilisation possible.

L’engin a quand même son utilité, surtout avec les améliorations lego. Ok, il n’a pas de boucliers, mais même la partie la plus faible (le cockpit) résiste au vide spatial, ce n’est pas non plus une voiture en plastique. En cas de guérilla, il peut être pratique. Il est relativement rapide (90km/h), et contrairement au AT-Walkers (toute la série des AT-AT, AT-ST, AT-DP, AT-RT…), il ne risque pas de tomber. D’ailleurs, même si on le retournait, ce ne serait pas un problème, ce serait même un avantage d’avoir les canons en haut. Il est aussi plus simple à stocker que des AT-AT et AT-ST, probablement aussi plus simple d’entretien.

Je vois aussi un avantage en tant qu’escorte de fantassin lors de patrouille à pied en zone de guérilla. En cas d’escarmouche, une demi-douzaine de soldats pourraient s’abriter derrière un mur de chenille. Concernant le point faible à l’arrière, c’est aussi un défaut de certains char IRL, donc on ne peut pas vraiment lui en tenir rigueur.

Il se trouve que j'ai trouvé un autre usage au Tie Crawler, en effet le mode « tourelle », avec les deux chenilles en position verticale.

Imaginez l'Empire arrive sur une nouvelle planète, ils explorent le terrain, et trouvent un endroit pour monter une base temporaire. Le temps de monter la base, le Tie Crawler pourrait monter la garde en mode tourelle. J’ai pas mal joué à Star Wars Battleground à l’époque (pour ceux qui ne connaissent pas, imaginez Age of Empire, mais version Star Wars). Imaginer un peu l’utilité d’une unité qui ferait à la fois tourelle et Tank.

Concernant le modèle en lui-même.

Le cockpit est bien solide, j’en suis très content, d’autant que j’ai réussi à y ajouter une ouverture de toit fonctionnelle, avec un passage. Alors soyons clair, vous n’y feriez pas passer une minifig, le trou ne fait que 1x2, mais c’est suffisant pour y positionner le conducteur en mode vigie (un pilote AT-AT piqué dans un set micro-fighter).

Les stickers viennent de lego, le TIE classique UCS que j’ai démonté depuis longtemps, mais dont j’avais gardé les pièces « stickers » pour cet usage.

Les chenilles aussi sont solides, je regrette de n’avoir pu y intégrer un lance-missiles dissimulé comme le set lego, mais mes tentatives tenaient sur lego studio, mais pas sur IRL. Et si j’aimais l’idée de lego, je n’aimais l’exécution lego. J’ai donc laissé tomber.

Le seul point faible étant qu’avec le poids des chenilles, leur fixation au cockpit peut lâcher sous une contrainte trop grande. Contrairement au set lego, je déconseille de tenir le tout par les réservoirs. Il vaut mieux tenir le modèle par les deux chenilles en même temps.

Finally complete!

The Tie Crawler Version 2. I prefer this version.

One of my favorite Tie, again for its ridiculousness and impracticality.

The Tie Crawler (also known as Tie Century or Tie Tank) is a light armored vehicle. Armed with two classic Tie blasters, and one anti-personnel blaster (so, lighter). A single pilot who also acts as a gunner.

Ideas in the Lore

It was simple to produce, and that's about it. I also remember reading somewhere that Empire recruits who fail the test to become Tie fighter pilots could more easily be converted to Tie Crawler pilots. But I couldn't find the source. And anyway the idea that it's easier to become a tank pilot than a freighter pilot when you fail to become a fighter pilot is stupid.

Limitations

As described, the machine is limited. The weapons are too low. The two classic Tie blasters cannot rotate and because of its location, the anti-personnel blaster cannot rotate vertically at a very large angle. All three are therefore almost useless on any rough terrain. Also, the shape of the tracks tells me that a concrete block, about a meter high, would be enough to block the Tie. And it's a Tie, so it has no energy shield, so it's not very armored. The single pilot is at the mercy of any anti-tank weapon or space fighter. It also has an obvious weak point: the four visible fuel tanks. Now, this is an obvious weak point that any poorly armed rebel will try to target. But also, why put them there? Have you seen the size of the tracks? And the size of the tanks? They could have been put somewhere in the tracks where they would have been better protected, but also closer to the engines. Not to mention that in the event of an explosion, moving them a little further away from the pilot would increase his chances of survival. And the Empire cares about the safety of its employees...

Improvement of Lego 7664

Lego has improved the concept by making the wings swivel and independent. The Tie crawler suddenly becoming truly all terrain. Moreover, they added missile launchers hidden in the wings. Which I had clumsily done in my first version. This version does not have them. The ideas I tested in this area all lacked solidity. And to be honest, once on the shelf, the hidden missiles would stay there.

Possible use.

The thing still has its uses, especially with the lego upgrades. Ok, it doesn't have shields, but even the weakest part (the cockpit) resists the vacuum of space, it's not a plastic car either. In case of guerrilla warfare, it can be handy. It is relatively fast (90km/h), and unlike the AT-Walkers (the whole series of AT-AT, AT-ST, AT-DP, AT-RT...), it does not risk falling. Moreover, even if it was turned over, it would not be a problem, it would even be an advantage to have the guns on top. It is also easier to store than AT-ATs and AT-STs, probably also easier to maintain.

I also see an advantage as an infantryman escort when on foot patrol in a guerrilla zone. In case of a skirmish, half a dozen soldiers could take shelter behind a track wall. Regarding the weak point at the rear, this is also a flaw of some IRL tanks, so you can't really hold it against it.

I happened to find another use for the Tie Crawler, the " tower " mode, with the two tracks in vertical position.

Imagine the Empire arrives on a new planet, they explore the terrain, and find a place to set up a temporary base. By the time the base is set up, the Tie Crawler could stand guard in a tower mode. I played a lot of Star Wars Battleground at the time (for those who don't know, imagine Age of Empire, but Star Wars version). Imagine the usefulness of a unit that would be both tower and tank.

About the model itself.

This cockpit is very solid, I'm very happy with it, especially since I managed to add a functional roof opening, with a passage. So let's be clear, you wouldn't fit a minifig through it, the hole is only 1x2, but it's enough to position the driver in lookout mode (an AT-AT pilot nicked from a micro-fighter set).

The stickers come from lego, the classic UCS TIE that I disassembled a long time ago, but I kept the "sticker" parts for this purpose.

The tracks are also solid, I regret not having been able to integrate a concealed missile launcher like the lego set, my attempts were successful on lego studio, but not on IRL. And if I liked the lego idea, I didn't like the lego execution. So I gave up.

The only weak point is that with the weight of the tracks, their fixation to the cockpit can break under too much stress. Contrary to the lego set, I don't recommend to hold the whole thing by the tanks. It is better to hold the model by both tracks at the same time.

Oil on canvas; 65.4 x 46.3 cm.

Modigliani was born into a Jewish family of merchants. As a child he suffered from pleurisy and typhus, which prevented him from receiving a conventional education. In 1898 he began to study painting. After a brief stay in Florence in 1902, he continued his artistic studies in Venice, remaining there until the winter of 1906, when he left for Paris. His early admiration for Italian Renaissance painting—especially that of Siena—was to last throughout his life. In Paris Modigliani became interested in the Post-Impressionist paintings of Paul Cézanne. His initial important contacts were with the poets André Salmon and Max Jacob, with the artist Pablo Picasso, and—in 1907—with Paul Alexandre, a friend of many avant-garde artists and the first to become interested in Modigliani and to buy his works. In 1908 the artist exhibited five or six paintings at the Salon des Indépendants. In 1909 Modigliani met the Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi, on whose advice he seriously studied African sculpture. To prepare himself for creating his own sculpture, he intensified his graphic experiments. In his drawings Modigliani tried to give the function of limiting or enclosing volumes to his contours. In 1912 he exhibited at the Salon d’Automne eight stone heads whose elongated and simplified forms reflect the influence of African sculpture. Modigliani returned entirely to painting about 1915, but his experience as a sculptor had fundamental consequences for his painting style. The characteristics of Modigliani’s sculptured heads—long necks and noses, simplified features, and long oval faces—became typical of his paintings. He reduced and almost eliminated chiaroscuro (the use of gradations of light and shadow to achieve the illusion of three-dimensionality), and he achieved a sense of solidity with strong contours and the richness of juxtaposed colors.

The outbreak of World War I in 1914 increased the difficulties of Modigliani’s life. Alexandre and some of his other friends were at the front, his paintings did not sell, and his already delicate health was deteriorating because of his poverty, feverish work ethic, and abuse of alcohol and drugs. He was in the midst of a troubled affair with the South African poet Beatrice Hastings, with whom he lived for two years, from 1914 to 1916. He was assisted, however, by the art dealer Paul Guillaume and especially by the Polish poet Leopold Zborowski, who bought or helped him to sell a few paintings and drawings.

Modigliani was not a professional portraitist; for him the portrait was only an occasion to isolate a figure as a kind of sculptural relief through firm and expressive contour drawing. He painted his friends, usually personalities of the Parisian artistic and literary world (such as the artists Juan Gris and Jacques Lipchitz, the writer and artist Jean Cocteau, and the poet Max Jacob), but he also portrayed unknown people, including models, servants, and girls from the neighborhood. In 1917 he began painting a series of about 30 large female nudes that, with their warm, glowing colors and sensuous, rounded forms, are among his best works. In December of that year Berthe Weill organized a solo show for him in her gallery, but the police judged the nudes indecent and had them removed.

In 1917 Modigliani began a love affair with the young painter Jeanne Hébuterne, with whom he went to live on the Côte d’Azur. Their daughter, Jeanne, was born in November 1918. His painting became increasingly refined in line and delicate in colour. A more tranquil life and the climate of the Mediterranean, however, did not restore the artist’s undermined health. After returning to Paris in May 1919, he became ill in January 1920; 10 days later he died of tubercular meningitis. Little-known outside avant-garde Parisian circles, Modigliani had seldom participated in official exhibitions. Fame came after his death, with a solo exhibition at the Bernheim-Jeune Gallery in 1922 and later with a biography by André Salmon. For decades critical evaluations of Modigliani’s work were overshadowed by the dramatic story of his tragic life, but he is now acknowledged as one of the most significant and original artists of his time.

The Renault Express, nicknamed "Fourgonnette" in Burkina Faso, is a vehicle that has proven itself in terms of solidity and reliability. It is particularly popular with companies and individuals who organise coffee and meal breaks during meetings and social events. Here is an example of an Express from the third series (1994-2000) that came to the commune of Kordié via a bad road to provide a meal service.

La Renault Express surnommée "Fourgonnette" au Burkina Faso est un véhicule qui a fait ses preuves en termes de solidité et de fiabilité. Il est notamment très apprécié par les sociétés et particuliers qui organisent des pause-café et pauses repas lors de rencontres et d'événements sociaux. Ici un exemple d'Express de la troisième série (1994-2000) venue dans la commune de Kordié par une mauvaise piste pour une prestation de repas.

[This photograph is part of the black-and-white re-processings I have been recently uploading to Flickr, because I do not have any new content to show, owing to the fact that I am presently only shooting for a photo-book that will be published by the Fondation du Patrimoine towards the end of 2023. I cannot show any of those photos, obviously, as I do not know yet which ones will be in the book. Thank you for your understanding and I hope you enjoy revisiting some older photos in their new, black-and-white look!

I also reproduce below the caption I wrote when I first uploaded the concerned photo, sometimes with slight adaptations.]

Poitiers, capital city of the old province of Poitou in western central France.

In this area of the city, the first church was built in the 500s by Radegonde, queen of the Franks, and dedicated to the Virgin Mary. It was renamed in honor of Radegonde herself in 587 after she was sanctified. She had been interred within and, in 1012, after her sanctification, her bones were exhumed on order from Abbess Béliarde and placed in a stone sarcophagus that to this day lies in the crypt, as we will see. The church also served as a burial place for the nuns of the Holy Cross Abbey, the first abbey for women ever created in Gaul, which had been founded by the same Radegonde and which Béliarde headed.

During the early Middle Ages, churches and other buildings often perished by fire: candles and oil lamps were the only way to light buildings that were often quite dark, therefore a number of them were needed —and of course, the opus Dei went on after sunset and before sunrise, and candles were needed for that, too. So, at any time, a number of open flame devices were live, and there were many wood items inside. Also, most churches were then timber-roofed... You can imagine the rest. The Sainte-Radegonde church fell victime to such a fire and was rebuilt in the late 1000s, having been consecrated in 1099. It was then a collegiate church, the prior being appointed by the abbess of Holy Cross Abbey.

From that old Romanesque church, the lower part of the bell tower, as well as the whole eastern end (choir and apse) have survived. The nave is 13th century Romanesque, and was re-vaulted in Gothic style in the 1300s.

The three-sided choir is tall and quite narrow, and bears many traces of its very old age. I did the best I could with the wide-angle tilt-shift lens, without being totally able to respect the perspectives... Look how narrow the arches are, and how thick the columns...! They opened large windows in the upper part of the walls but the massive and closely grouped columns tell us how scared they were for the solidity of the whole edifice...

The paintings are all 19th century, supposed to imitate what existed in the Middle Ages, even though in this case, no one knows about that...

Train and locomotive unidentified, but established by negative sequence to have been taken on Tuesday 26th November 1974. Now I'm confused. I'd thought that those unsightly courses of concrete block appeared here and at other bridges along this line as part of the strengthening work in advance of the introduction of HSTs. The South Wales main line was closed between Wootton Bassett and Westerleigh for six months commencing May 1975 for the work to be carried out. OK, this was west of Westerleigh on a stretch that had to be kept open for the north-east to south-west cross-country trains; but still; today I find myself unable to piece together the precise chronology. The other thing that strikes me in this view is that the two columns of stone, left and right of the bridge ...locally quarried "pennant" sandstone... are for appearances only. We can see here that they are a single thickness, giving merely the semblance of solidity; structurally they are entirely unnecessary. Good old Ilford HP4, so plenty of grain. This useful vantage-point is inaccessible today, barred at road level by Network Rail's horrid "palisade" fencing.

After the Brazillian Karmann Ghia, this Mk3 Golf in the cars for sale section was probably my favourite at VWNW this year, largely for nostalgic reasons. It was in excellent shape, as you'd expect for a mere 20k on the clock, probably the best Mk3 I've seen for a long time. The MOT history shows it spent 6 years off the road prior to last year, which probably helped the mileage and condition. I was very tempted.

This car prompted me to think about the Mk3 a bit and why it's one of the least popular marks of Golf. If you've got the time, have a read of the following.

In defence of the Mk3...

The Mk3 isn't the most popular Golf amongst enthusiasts, the 1.4 was accused of being too slow and the GTi as underpowered (particularly in 8 valve guise). Driving dynamics were criticised and people complain that they suffer heavily from rust.

I lived with a base Mk3 1.4 for 5 years. No, it wasn’t the fastest car in the world and yes the handling was rather stodgy in comparison with the best rivals. The 1.4 had 60 bhp and a heavy body to lug around, however in real world driving it felt much quicker than the magazine 0-60 times suggested. The engine on mine loosened up nicely and I once recorded a 0-60 time (I was young) 3 seconds quicker than the 16 or so seconds suggested in the magazines, bringing it on par with 1.4 litre rivals of similar power output. Quentin Willson bucked the trend of criticism of the 1.4 at the time, recommending it in a used car supplement and suggesting that this was a car that would cruise at 90 all day long. Which it would.

I do admit that in comparison a 306 or ZX were better driver’s cars, but I don’t agree the Golf was as bad to drive as some have made out. Driving dynamics were probably the Mk3’s weakest point, but then (ZX and 306 aside) none of the rivals were especially cutting edge at this time; remember these were pre-Focus days.

The criticism of the Mk3’s driving dynamics overshadow the considerable strength this car had over all its rivals of the early 90’s: build quality. I can’t think of another car in the class that felt as solid as the Mk3 at the time. The Astra was quite well built by this point, but somehow lacked that feeling of solidity. Others just couldn’t compete. The Escort felt like it was from a different era in comparison and even the excellent 306 felt flimsy – the one I owned seemed to lose a new piece of interior trim on an almost weekly basis (and I say that as a huge fan of the 306). In an age where the gap in quality between manufactures has narrowed considerably, it’s difficult to put into context the difference between say an Escort or Rover 214 and the Golf Mk3.

This brings us onto the GTi. The 2.0 8v GTi had 115bhp, which sounds weak nowadays. In comparison to the much-loved Mk2 it was accused of being ‘soft’. However, this was a post 80’s era where the three letters ‘GTi’ immediately spelled a massive insurance premium. Most manufactures responded to this by toning down their hot hatches into mere ‘warm’ hatches. I rather suspect that without this backdrop the Mk3 GTi would have been a lot warmer. Ant Anstead recently wrote a rather good piece in Modern Classics magazine defending the Mk3 GTi neatly recalling the car in the context of the mid 90’s. And anyway, it could have been much worse – Toyota saddled their ‘fast’ Corolla with a puny 1.3 litre engine…

Finally, rust. The Mk3 is now an old car. The newest are 18 years old. I sold my L-reg Mk3 at 9 years old and at that time in 2003 it had one small spot of rust on the tailgate, where they all seemed to go. The 306 I later owned was 4 years old when I bought it and it had far more rust bubbling through in the same place on the tailgate. Yes, I’ve seen plenty of rusty and some very rusty Mk3s in recent years, but I don’t recall this being a problem until most were over ten years old. All old cars will rust eventually…

So in conclusion, I think the MK3 is unfairly derided. It was a decent quality product which although not as sharp to drive as some of its rivals was far better built than most and which drove other manufactures to up their game in this respect, something which has continued to the present day.

"A super sports car soul and the functionality typical for an SUV: this is Lamborghini Urus, the world’s first Super Sport Utility Vehicle. Identifiable as an authentic Lamborghini with its unmistakable DNA, Urus is at the same time a groundbreaking car: the extreme proportions, the pure Lamborghini design and the outstanding performance make it absolutely unique. Urus’ distinctive silhouette with a dynamic flying coupé line shows its super sports origins, while its outstanding proportions convey strength, solidity and safety. Urus’ success factors are definitely the design, the driving dynamics and the performance. All these features allowed Lamborghini to launch a Super Sport Utility Vehicle remaining loyal to its DNA."

Source: Lamborghini Official

Photographed at Blenheim Palace during event called: Supercars at the Palace - the annual event which returned to the spectacular setting of Blenheim Palace and following the tremendous success of last year’s event, the very best in classic & modern supercars were once again descend on Blenheim Palace for what is sure to was a sensational day for owners, collectors and enthusiasts alike.

____________________________________________________

Marcin Wojciechowski Photography

Marcinek_55 Instagram

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Taipei 101

台北101[1]

Taipei 101

Record height

Tallest in the world from 2004 to 2010[I]

Preceded byPetronas Towers

Surpassed byBurj Khalifa

General information

TypeMixed use: communication, conference, fitness center, library, observation, office, restaurant, retail

LocationXinyi District, Taipei, Republic of China

Coordinates25°2′1″N 121°33′54″ECoordinates: 25°2′1″N 121°33′54″E

Construction started1999[2]

Completed2004[2]

OpeningDecember 31, 2004

CostNT$ 58 billion

(US$ 1.80 billion)[3]

Height

Architectural509 m (1,669.9 ft)[2]

Roof449.2 m (1,473.8 ft)

Top floor439 m (1,440.3 ft)[2]

Observatory391.8 m (1,285.4 ft)[2]

Technical details

Floor count101 (+5 basement floors)[2]

Floor area193,400 m2 (2,081,700 sq ft)[2]

Elevators61 Toshiba/KONE elevators, including double-deck shuttles and 2 high speed observatory elevators)

Design and construction

OwnerTaipei Financial Center Corporation[2]

ManagementUrban Retail Properties Co.

ArchitectC.Y. Lee & partners[2]

Structural engineerThornton Tomasetti[2]

Main contractorKTRT Joint Venture [4]

Website

taipei-101.com.tw

References

[2][5]

Taipei 101 (Chinese: 台北101 / 臺北101), formerly known as the Taipei World Financial Center, is a landmark skyscraper located in Xinyi District, Taipei, Taiwan. The building ranked officially as the world's tallest from 2004 until the opening of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai in 2010. In July 2011, the building was awarded LEED Platinum certification, the highest award in the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system and became the tallest and largest green building in the world.[6] Taipei 101 was designed by C.Y. Lee & partners and constructed primarily by KTRT Joint Venture. The tower has served as an icon of modern Taiwan ever since its opening, and received the 2004 Emporis Skyscraper Award.[7] Fireworks launched from Taipei 101 feature prominently in international New Year's Eve broadcasts and the structure appears frequently in travel literature and international media.

Taipei 101 comprises 101 floors above ground and 5 floors underground. The building was architecturally created as a symbol of the evolution of technology and Asian tradition (see Symbolism). Its postmodernist approach to style incorporates traditional design elements and gives them modern treatments. The tower is designed to withstand typhoons and earthquakes. A multi-level shopping mall adjoining the tower houses hundreds of fashionable stores, restaurants and clubs.

Taipei 101 is owned by the Taipei Financial Center Corporation (TFCC) and managed by the International division of Urban Retail Properties Corporation based in Chicago. The name originally planned for the building, Taipei World Financial Center, until 2003, was derived from the name of the owner. The original name in Chinese was literally, Taipei International Financial Center (Chinese: 臺北國際金融中心).

Height

The Taipei 101 tower has 101 stories above ground and five underground. Upon its completion Taipei 101 claimed the official records for:[5]

Ground to highest architectural structure (spire): 508 metres (1,667 ft)[2]. Previously held by the Petronas Towers 451.9 m (1,483 ft).

Ground to roof: 449.2 m (1,474 ft). Formerly held by the Willis Tower 442 m (1,450 ft).

Ground to highest occupied floor: 438 m (1,437 ft). Formerly held by the Willis Tower 412.4 m (1,353 ft).

Fastest ascending elevator speed: designed to be 1010 meters per minute, which is 16.83 m/s (55.22 ft/s) (60.6 km/h, 37.7 mi/h).

Largest countdown clock: Displayed on New Year's Eve.

Tallest sundial. (See 'Symbolism' below.)

Taipei 101 is the first building in the world to break the half-kilometer mark in height.[5] The record it claimed for greatest height from ground to pinnacle now rests with the Burj Khalifa in Dubai (UAE): 829.8 m (2,722 ft). Taipei 101's records for roof height and highest occupied floor briefly passed to the Shanghai World Financial Center in 2009, which in turn yielded these records as well to the Burj.

Taipei 101 displaced the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, as the tallest building in the world by 56.1 m (184 ft).[8] It also displaced the 85-story, 347.5 m (1,140 ft) Tuntex Sky Tower in Kaohsiung as the tallest building in Taiwan and the 51-story, 244.2 m (801 ft) Shin Kong Life Tower as the tallest building in Taipei.[9]

Various sources, including the building's owners, give the height of Taipei 101 as 508.0 m (1,667 ft), roof height and top floor height as 448.0 m (1,470 ft) and 438.0 m (1,437 ft). This lower figure is derived by measuring from the top of a 1.2 m (4 ft) platform at the base. CTBUH standards, though, include the height of the platform in calculating the overall height, as it represents part of the man-made structure and is above the level of the surrounding pavement.[10][11]

Structural design

Taipei 101 is designed to withstand the typhoon winds and earthquake tremors common in its area of the Asia-Pacific. Planners aimed for a structure that could withstand gale winds of 60 m/s (197 ft/s, 216 km/h, 134 mph) and the strongest earthquakes likely to occur in a 2,500 year cycle.[12]

Skyscrapers must be flexible in strong winds yet remain rigid enough to prevent large sideways movement (lateral drift). Flexibility prevents structural damage while resistance ensures comfort for the occupants and protection of glass, curtain walls and other features. Most designs achieve the necessary strength by enlarging critical structural elements such as bracing. The extraordinary height of Taipei 101 combined with the demands of its environment called for additional innovations. The design achieves both strength and flexibility for the tower through the use of high-performance steel construction. Thirty-six columns support Taipei 101, including eight "mega-columns" packed with 10,000 psi (69 MPa) concrete.[13] Every eight floors, outrigger trusses connect the columns in the building's core to those on the exterior.

These features combine with the solidity of its foundation to make Taipei 101 one of the most stable buildings ever constructed. The foundation is reinforced by 380 piles driven 80 m (262 ft) into the ground, extending as far as 30 m (98 ft) into the bedrock. Each pile is 1.5 m (5 ft) in diameter and can bear a load of 1,000–1,320 tonnes (1,100–1,460 short tons).[13] The stability of the design became evident during construction when, on March 31, 2002, a 6.8-magnitude earthquake rocked Taipei. The tremor was strong enough to topple two construction cranes from the 56th floor, then the highest. Five people died in the accident, but an inspection showed no structural damage to the building, and construction soon resumed.

Thornton-Tomasetti Engineers along with Evergreen Consulting Engineering designed a 660 tonnes (728 short tons)[14] steel pendulum that serves as a tuned mass damper, at a cost of NT$132 million (US$4 million).[15] Suspended from the 92nd to the 87th floor, the pendulum sways to offset movements in the building caused by strong gusts. Its sphere, the largest damper sphere in the world, consists of 41 circular steel plates, each with a height of 125 mm (4.92 in) being welded together to form a 5.5 m (18 ft) diameter sphere.[16] Another two tuned mass dampers, each weighing 6 tonnes (7 short tons),[15] sit at the tip of the spire. These prevent damage to the structure due to strong wind loads.

[edit]Structural facade

Taipei 101's characteristic blue-green glass curtain walls are double paned and glazed, offer heat and UV protection sufficient to block external heat by 50 percent, and can sustain impacts of 7 tonnes (8 short tons).[12] The facade system of glass and aluminum panels installed into an inclined moment-resisting lattices contributes to overall lateral rigidity by tying back to the mega-columns with one-story high trusses and at every eighth floor. This facade system is therefore able to withstand up to 95mm of seismic lateral displacements without damage.[17]

The original corners of the façade was tested at RWDI in Guelph, Ontario, Canada and revealed an alarming vortex that formed during a 3s 105 mph wind at a height of 10 meters (a 100-year-storm) simulation. This was equivalent to the lateral tower sway rate causing large crosswind oscillations. A double champfered step design was found to dramatically reduce this crosswind oscillation resulting in Taipei 101’s unique “double stairstep” corner façade. Architect C.Y. Lee also used extensive façade elements to represent the symbolic identity he pursued. These façade elements included the green tinted glass for the indigenous slender bamboo look, eight upper outwards inclined tiers of pagoda each with eight floors, A Ruyi and a money box symbol between the two façade sections among others.[18]

Taipei 101's own roof and façade recycled water system meets 20–30 percent of the building's water needs. These features culminated in Taipei 101 obtaining the honour of "the world's tallest green building" by LEED standards in July 2011.[19]

Taiwan,officially the Republic of China (ROC; Chinese: 中華民國; pinyin: Zhōnghuá Mínguó), is a state in East Asia. Originally based in mainland China, the Republic of China now governs the island of Taiwan (formerly known as Formosa), which makes up over 99% of its territory,[f] as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu, and other minor islands...

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Mewata Armoury, also known as the Mewata Drill Hall, occupies a site in downtown Calgary. It is a large, low-massed structure in the Tudor Gothic style, and is set around a large central drill hall. Constructed of red brick with stone and sandstone trim, its rugged battlemented façade conveys a strong image of solidity and impregnability. The main entrance is a low central troop door flanked by projecting three-storey crenellated towers in the manner of fortress architecture. The building has small narrow windows, bartizans, and small turrets complete with firing slits. The designation is confined to the footprint of the building.

En 1817, durante el periodo de independencia de Chile de la Monarquía española, el Ejército de Los Andes, liderado por el militar José de San Martín y contando con la colaboración del militar chileno Bernardo O’Higgins, declara en Mendoza a la Virgen del Carmen como patrona y protectora de la liberación de América. Asimismo, el 11 de febrero, anterior a la batalla de Chacabuco, O’Higgins la nombró como patrona y generalísima de las Armas de Chile.

El 14 de marzo de 1818, en una misa realizada en la Catedral de Santiago, en la cual asistieron los militares Bernardo O’Higgins y José de San Martín, acompañados del clérigo, monseñor José Ignacio Cienfuegos. En esta, se ratifica el juramento realizado en Mendoza, mencionando también la construcción del templo en honor a la Virgen del Carmen.

La victoria ocurrió durante la Batalla de Maipú, hito histórico que aseguró la independencia de Chile2​. El 7 de mayo de 1818, Bernardo O'Higgins, en su cargo de Director Supremo de la Nación, decreta la construcción del templo, dejando a cargo a Juan Agustín Alcalde y a Agustín de Eyzaguirre5​para su ejecución. Sin embargo, no es hasta 1821 que O'Higgins ordena a enajenar los terrenos en el cuál se contemplaba destinar parte de estos en la construcción de la parroquia.

Es así como el 15 de noviembre de 1818, comienza la construcción de la iglesia que cumpliría el voto a la Virgen del Carmen. La primera piedra se colocó durante una ceremonia a la que asistió Bernardo O’Higgins, acompañado del militar José de San Martín.

Desde 1818, el avance de la construcción de la capilla se postergaba cada vez más. A esto se le sumó la abdicación de Bernardo O’Higgins en su mandato como Director Supremo en el año 1823,3​2​ lo cual terminó por paralizar las obras y convirtió el espacio destinado a la iglesia, en pesebreras para el ganado.

No fue hasta el gobierno de Domingo Santa María, en 1885 que se destinaron esfuerzos para la culminación de la obra que ya llevaba más de 66 años inconclusa. Es así como en 1895 pudo ser inaugurada y bendecida durante el mandato del presidente Jorge Montt.

En 1942, durante el Congreso Mariano que ocurrió en Santiago, se decretó la construcción de un nuevo templo que reemplazaría a la Capilla de la Victoria de Maipú. Ya en 1948, el Arzobispo José María Caro, ordenó la iniciación de la nueva obra que más adelante se convertiría en el actual Templo Votivo de Maipú.

La capilla se trataba de una construcción de arquitectura de estilo románico y neoclásico; contemplaba también un campanario y una torre de reloj.​ En el exterior de la iglesia se conserva una estatua que representa al Cristo peregrino, acompañada de una placa con los versos del poeta Felix Lope de Vega.

El terremoto de 1906, provocó daños críticos en la estructura de la capilla, a eso se sumó un posterior temblor en el año 1927 que provocó un derrumbe parcial en el campanario, teniendo que ser reemplazado por uno de madera. Se mantuvo su estructura hasta 1974, año en la que fue demolida, conservando sus muros laterales por su importancia histórica en el proceso de independencia de Chile.​ En la actualidad, los muros pueden ser observados frente al Templo Votivo de Maipú, sin acceso al interior de ella debido a la poca solidez de su construcción.

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In 1817, during the period of independence of Chile from the Spanish Monarchy, the Army of the Andes, led by the soldier José de San Martín and with the collaboration of the Chilean soldier Bernardo O'Higgins, declared the Virgen del Carmen in Mendoza as patroness and protector of the liberation of America. Likewise, on February 11, before the battle of Chacabuco, O'Higgins named her as patron saint and generalissima of the Arms of Chile.

On March 14, 1818, at a mass held in the Cathedral of Santiago, attended by the soldiers Bernardo O'Higgins and José de San Martín, accompanied by the clergyman, Monsignor José Ignacio Cienfuegos. In this, the oath made in Mendoza is ratified, also mentioning the construction of the temple in honor of the Virgen del Carmen.

The victory occurred during the Battle of Maipú, a historical milestone that ensured the independence of Chile2. On May 7, 1818, Bernardo O'Higgins, in his position as Supreme Director of the Nation, decreed the construction of the temple, leaving Juan Agustín Alcalde and Agustín de Eyzaguirre5 in charge of its execution. However, it was not until 1821 that O'Higgins ordered the alienation of the land, in which it was contemplated to allocate part of it to the construction of the parish.

This is how on November 15, 1818, the construction of the church that would fulfill the vow to the Virgen del Carmen began. The first stone was laid during a ceremony attended by Bernardo O'Higgins, accompanied by military officer José de San Martín.

From 1818, the progress of the construction of the chapel was postponed more and more. To this was added the abdication of Bernardo O'Higgins in his mandate as Supreme Director in the year 1823,3​2​ which ended up paralyzing the works and converted the space destined for the church into mangers for cattle.

It was not until the government of Domingo Santa María, in 1885, that efforts were made to complete the work that had already been unfinished for more than 66 years. This is how in 1895 it could be inaugurated and blessed during the mandate of President Jorge Montt.

In 1942, during the Marian Congress that took place in Santiago, the construction of a new temple was decreed to replace the Maipú Victory Chapel. Already in 1948, Archbishop José María Caro ordered the initiation of the new work that would later become the current Maipú Votive Temple.

The chapel was a construction of Romanesque and neoclassical style architecture; It also contemplated a bell tower and a clock tower. Outside the church there is a statue that represents the pilgrim Christ, accompanied by a plaque with the verses of the poet Felix Lope de Vega.

The 1906 earthquake caused critical damage to the structure of the chapel, to which was added a subsequent tremor in 1927 that caused a partial collapse of the bell tower, having to be replaced by a wooden one. Its structure was maintained until 1974, the year in which it was demolished, preserving its side walls due to its historical importance in the Chilean independence process. Currently, the walls can be seen in front of the Votive Temple of Maipú, without access to the inside of it due to the lack of solidity of its construction.

n. *Strength:

1. Power to resist force; solidity or toughness; the quality of bodies by which they endure the application of force without breaking or yielding;

2. The quality or state of being strong;

3. Power of resisting attacks; impregnability.

Resting Snow on a wild plant, St-Donat. Quebec, Canada

Note: Size is less than 1 cm.

Castelvecchio Bridge

The Castel Vecchio Bridge (Italian: Ponte di Castel Vecchio) or Scaliger Bridge (Italian: Ponte Scaligero) is a fortified bridge in Verona, northern Italy, over the Adige River. The segmental arch bridge featured the world's largest span at the time of its construction (48.70 m).

History

It was built (most likely in 1354-1356) by Cangrande II della Scala, to grant him a safe way of escape from the annexed eponymous castle in the event of a rebellion of the population against his tyrannic rule. The solidity of the construction allowed it to resist untouched until, in the late 18th century, the French troops destroyed the tower on the left bank (although it probably dated from the occupation of Verona by the Visconti or the Republic of Venice).

The bridge was however totally destroyed, along with the Ponte Pietra, by the retreating German troops on April 24, 1945. A faithful reconstruction begun in 1949 and was finished in 1951, with the exception of the left tower.

Architecture

The bridge is in red brick in the upper part, as are all landmarks in Verona from the Scaliger era, and in white marble in the lower one. It includes three spans of decreasing length starting from pentagonal towers. The largest span, measuring 48.70 m, meant that the bridge featured at the time of its construction the world's largest bridge arch (the others measure 29.15 and 24.11 meters). The two pylons are 12.10 x 19.40 and 6.30 x 17.30 meters respectively.

The bridge has a total length of 120 m.

Legends

According to a legend, Cangrande awarded the designer of the bridge, Guglielmo Bevilacqua, with a sword which had belonged to Saint Martin.

Another legend tells that the designer presented himself at the inauguration riding a horse, ready to flee away in case the bridge had crumbled down.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castelvecchio_Bridge

Part of the complete sequence of seven early 14th century windows preserving most of their original glass in the choir clerestorey.

The attractive town of Tewkesbury has been dominated by its superb abbey church since the beginning of the 12th century, and we can be forever grateful to its townspeople for purchasing the monastic church in 1540 for £453 for use as their parish church, saving it from the fate that befell countless similar great churches across the land during the turmoil of the Dissolution. It reminds us both how lucky we are to still marvel at it today, yet also how great a loss to our heritage the period wrought when many more such buildings were so utterly plundered as to have gone without trace (the fate of the monastic buildings here and even the lady chapel of the church whose footings are laid out in the grass at the east end).

Tewkesbury Abbey is thus rightly celebrated as one of our greatest non-cathedral churches, and remarkably much of the original Norman church remains substantially intact, most apparently in the great central tower, a fine example of Romanesque architecture adorned with rows of blind-arcading. The west front is dominated by a massive Norman-arched recess (enclosing the somewhat later west window) and the nave and transepts remain largely as originally built, though this is less clear externally owing to the changes made to the windows, nearly all of which were enlarged in the 14th century in the Decorated Gothic style. This century also saw the complete rebuilding of the eastern limb of the church, of a form less common in England with radiating chapels surrounding the eastern apse of the choir (the central lady chapel sadly missing since 1540).

The interior reveals far more of the Romanesque structure with mighty columns supporting the round Norman arches of the nave arcades giving the building a great sense of solidity. The space is further enlivened by the changes made during the 14th century by the stunning vault over the nave (adorned with a rewarding series of figurative bosses) which sits surprisingly well with the Norman work below. Beyond the apsidal choir beckons, and both this and the space below the tower are enriched with stunningly complex vaulted ceilings (replete with further bosses and gilded metal stars), all ablaze with colour and gilding.

There is much to enjoy in glass here, most remarkably a complete set of 14th century glazing in the clerestorey of the choir, seven windows filled with saints and prophets (and most memorably two groups of knights in the westernmost windows on each side). A few of the figures have fared less well over the centuries but on the whole this is a wonderfully rare and well preserved scheme. There is much glass from the 19th century too, with an extensive scheme in the nave of good quality work by Hardman's, and more recently a pair of rich windows by Tom Denny were added in one of the polygonal chapels around the east end.

Some of the most memorable features are the monuments with many medieval tombs of note, primarily the effigies and chantry chapels of members of the Despenser family around the choir (two of the chantries being miniature architectural gems in their own right with exquisite fan-vaulting). In one of the apsidal chapels is the unusual cenotaph to Abbot Wakeman with his grisly cadaver effigy, a late medieval reminder of earthly mortality.

Tewkesbury Abbey is not to be missed and is every bit as rewarding as many of our cathedrals (superior in fact to all but the best). It is normally kept open and welcoming to visitors on a daily basis. I have also had the privilege of working on this great building several times over the years (as part of the team at the studio I once worked for), and have left my mark in glass in a few discreet places.

www.tewkesburyabbey.org.uk/

Passerelle Léopold-Sédar-Senghor 11/09/2022 19h58

People on a Summer evening in September 2022 on the Passerelle Léopold-Sédar-Senghor, the footbridge that was till 2006 named the passerelle Solférino.

Passerelle Léopold-Sédar-Senghor

The passerelle Léopold-Sédar-Senghor, formerly known as passerelle Solférino (or pont de Solférino), is a footbridge over the River Seine in the 7th arrondissement of Paris. It is served by the Metro station Assemblée Nationale.

For a century, a cast iron bridge inaugurated by Napoleon III in 1861 allowed vehicles to cross between quai Anatole-France and quai des Tuileries. Built by the engineers of the Pont des Invalides, Paul-Martin Gallocher de Lagalisserie and Jules Savarin, it was named after the June 1859 French victory of the Battle of Solferino. Having weakened over time (particularly due to barges crashing into it), it was demolished and replaced in 1961 with a steel footbridge, which was demolished in 1992.

The new passerelle de Solférino linking the Musée d'Orsay and the Jardin des Tuileries (Tuileries Gardens) was built between 1997 and 1999 under the direction of the engineer and architect Marc Mimram. Crossing the Seine with a single span and no piers, this metallic bridge is architecturally unique and covered in exotic woods (ipê, a Brazilian tree also used for outdoor flooring[1] at the Bibliothèque nationale de France) which gives it a light and warm appearance. Its solidity is, however, never in doubt - at either end, its foundations are in the form of concrete pillars extending 15m into the ground, and the structure itself is made up of six 150 tonne components built by the Eiffel engineering company, Eiffel Constructions métalliques. Its innovative architecture brought Marc Mimram the award "Prix de l'Équerre d'Argent" for the year 1999.

The bridge also has benches and lampposts for promenaders who can reach the Jardin des Tuileries through a subterranean passage on the Rive Droite.

The bridge was renamed after Léopold Sédar Senghor on 9 October 2006 on the centenary of his birth.

FACTS & FIGURES

Crosses: River Seine

Next upstream: Pont Royal

Next downstream: Pont de la Concorde

Design: Marc Mimram

Total length: 106m

Width: 15m

Opened: 1999

[ Wikipedia - Passerelle Léopold-Sédar-Senghor ]

Modigliani was born into a Jewish family of merchants. As a child he suffered from pleurisy and typhus, which prevented him from receiving a conventional education. In 1898 he began to study painting. After a brief stay in Florence in 1902, he continued his artistic studies in Venice, remaining there until the winter of 1906, when he left for Paris. His early admiration for Italian Renaissance painting—especially that of Siena—was to last throughout his life. In Paris Modigliani became interested in the Post-Impressionist paintings of Paul Cézanne. His initial important contacts were with the poets André Salmon and Max Jacob, with the artist Pablo Picasso, and—in 1907—with Paul Alexandre, a friend of many avant-garde artists and the first to become interested in Modigliani and to buy his works. In 1908 the artist exhibited five or six paintings at the Salon des Indépendants. In 1909 Modigliani met the Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi, on whose advice he seriously studied African sculpture. To prepare himself for creating his own sculpture, he intensified his graphic experiments. In his drawings Modigliani tried to give the function of limiting or enclosing volumes to his contours. In 1912 he exhibited at the Salon d’Automne eight stone heads whose elongated and simplified forms reflect the influence of African sculpture. Modigliani returned entirely to painting about 1915, but his experience as a sculptor had fundamental consequences for his painting style. The characteristics of Modigliani’s sculptured heads—long necks and noses, simplified features, and long oval faces—became typical of his paintings. He reduced and almost eliminated chiaroscuro (the use of gradations of light and shadow to achieve the illusion of three-dimensionality), and he achieved a sense of solidity with strong contours and the richness of juxtaposed colors.

The outbreak of World War I in 1914 increased the difficulties of Modigliani’s life. Alexandre and some of his other friends were at the front, his paintings did not sell, and his already delicate health was deteriorating because of his poverty, feverish work ethic, and abuse of alcohol and drugs. He was in the midst of a troubled affair with the South African poet Beatrice Hastings, with whom he lived for two years, from 1914 to 1916. He was assisted, however, by the art dealer Paul Guillaume and especially by the Polish poet Leopold Zborowski, who bought or helped him to sell a few paintings and drawings.

Modigliani was not a professional portraitist; for him the portrait was only an occasion to isolate a figure as a kind of sculptural relief through firm and expressive contour drawing. He painted his friends, usually personalities of the Parisian artistic and literary world (such as the artists Juan Gris and Jacques Lipchitz, the writer and artist Jean Cocteau, and the poet Max Jacob), but he also portrayed unknown people, including models, servants, and girls from the neighborhood. In 1917 he began painting a series of about 30 large female nudes that, with their warm, glowing colors and sensuous, rounded forms, are among his best works. In December of that year Berthe Weill organized a solo show for him in her gallery, but the police judged the nudes indecent and had them removed.

In 1917 Modigliani began a love affair with the young painter Jeanne Hébuterne, with whom he went to live on the Côte d’Azur. Their daughter, Jeanne, was born in November 1918. His painting became increasingly refined in line and delicate in colour. A more tranquil life and the climate of the Mediterranean, however, did not restore the artist’s undermined health. After returning to Paris in May 1919, he became ill in January 1920; 10 days later he died of tubercular meningitis. Little-known outside avant-garde Parisian circles, Modigliani had seldom participated in official exhibitions. Fame came after his death, with a solo exhibition at the Bernheim-Jeune Gallery in 1922 and later with a biography by André Salmon. For decades critical evaluations of Modigliani’s work were overshadowed by the dramatic story of his tragic life, but he is now acknowledged as one of the most significant and original artists of his time.

The IIIg was the last of the screw-mount Leicas. It was manufactured until 1960 in parallel to the much more expensive, and of course more modern bayonet-equipped M3 that many people see as the best Leica ever.

This particular body was manufactured in 1958. It has significantly more bulk than my pre-war IIIa, but the changes in handling are, at best, incremental. The larger finder is useful, and so are the parallax-corrected frames, but to me, the camera feels less "just right" than the 2 decades older model. But that is just my personal feeling.

Yes, of course she's complicated to use. Her design was obsolete even when she was new, But her build quality is beyond doubt and also, almost, beyond belief. Just go for a waltz with one of these ladies and you'll see what I mean.

That's just talking about the body. The lens ...quite frankly, I could never quite warm for the collapsibles. There is something missing there. The feeling of absolute, unflagging solidity. One thing is for sure, the glass is very easily scratched. Watch out for that if you consider buying an old Summicron. Always do the old flashlight test.

St. Joseph's Hospital, Victoria, B. C. - Post Card.

VII 1811 Barber Bros., Victoria, B. C.

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St. Joseph's Hospital, built in 1876 with additions in 1888, 1897, and 1908, is valued for its association with the Sisters of St. Ann, its connection with the health care of Victoria's citizens, its architecture and architect, and its grounds.

Architecturally, the historic place was designed and built in stages, but it is the 1908 addition by Thomas Hooper and C. Elwood Watkins that is most prominent in today's configuration. The first phase of St. Joseph's Hospital was built on Collinson Street (now renamed Fairfield Road) in 1876 under the leadership of Sister Mary Providence and Dr. John Sebastian Helmcken. In 1888, an additional 48 beds were added, and in 1897, another 67, bringing the total to 150. The 1908 addition was designed to face Humboldt Street. With its Edwardian solidity and strong Neoclassical features, it serves as a foil to the Hooper wing at St. Ann's Academy and further reinforces the significance of the Order in Victoria's development. A historic chapel on the northeast of the structure has been preserved and provides a visual link to the religious past. Several interior features have been retained, further enhancing the historic importance of this building. It has been rehabilitated for use as seniors' housing with units for transient accommodation.

In addition, the grounds contribute to Victoria's natural environment. The building is surrounded by a manicured lawn with mature plantings that create a park-like setting. The presence of this greenspace so close to downtown Victoria, coupled with the St. Ann's Academy grounds and Beacon Hill Park just to the south, provides a counterpoint to the hard urban landscape of the city core.

Ihantola (Wonderful World) designed by master builder O. E. Koskinen and built by a housing company owned by workers. The façade of Ihantola is lively, with references to vegetal and national-romantic motifs that were in vogue among art nouveau architects. The plaster cladding is painted pink. The castle-like solidity is softened by the many natural and geometric elements on the façade made of natural stones embedded in the plaster. One of the motifs on the façade is the construction year of the building, 1906.

Helsinki

Oil on canvas; 144.5 x 113 cm.

Massimo Campigli, born Max Ihlenfeld, was an Italian painter and journalist. He was born in Berlin, but spent most of his childhood in Florence. His family moved to Milan in 1909, and here he worked on the Letteratura magazine, frequenting avant-garde circles and making the acquaintance of Boccioni and Carrà. During World War I Campigli was captured and deported to Hungary where he remained a prisoner of war from 1916–18. At the end of the war he moved to Paris where he worked as foreign correspondent for the Milanese daily newspaper. Although he had already produced some drawings, it was only after he arrived in Paris that he started to paint. At the Café du Dôme he consorted with artists including Giorgio de Chirico, Alberto Savinio, Gino Severini and Filippo De Pisis. Extended visits to the Louvre deepened Campigli's interest in ancient Egyptian art.

His first figurative works applied geometrical designs to the human figure, reflecting the influence of Pablo Picasso and Fernand Léger as well as the Purism of "L’Esprit Nouveau". In 1923, he organized his first personal exhibition at the Bragaglia Gallery in Rome. During the next five years his figures developed a monumental quality, often with stylized poses and the limbs interwoven into a sculptural solidity. The importance given to order and tradition, the atmosphere of serenity and eternity were in line with the post-war reconstruction and the program of the “Twentieth Century” artists with whom Campigli frequently exhibited both in Milan from 1926–29 and abroad from 1927–31. In 1926 he joined the "Paris Italians" together with Giorgio de Chirico, Filippo de Pisis, Renato Paresce, Savinio, Severini and Mario Tozzi. In 1928, year of his debut at the Venice Biennial, he was very much taken by the Etruscan collection when visiting the National Etruscan Museum in Rome. He then broke away from the compact severity of his previous works in favor of a plane with subdued tones and schematic forms rich in archaisms.

During a journey in Romania he started a new cycle of works portraying women employed in domestic tasks and agricultural labor. These figures were arranged in asymmetrical and hieratic compositions, hovering on a rough textured plane, inspired by ancient fresco. These works were enthusiastically received by the critics at the exhibition held in the Jeanne Bucher gallery, Paris, in 1929 and at the Milione Gallery, Milan, in 1931. During the ‘thirties he held a series of solo exhibitions in New York, Paris and Milan which brought him international acclaim. In 1933 Campigli returned to Milan where he worked on projects of vast dimensions. In the same year he signed Mario Sironi’s Mural Art Manifesto and painted a fresco of mothers, country-women, working women, for the V Milan Triennial which unfortunately was later destroyed. In the following ten years other works were commissioned: I costruttori ("The builders") for the Geneva League of Nations in 1937; Non uccidere ("Do not kill") for the Milan Courts of Justice in 1938, an enormous 300 square metre fresco for the entrance hall, designed by Gio Ponti, of the Liviano, Padua which he painted during 1939–40. He spent the war years in Milan and in Venice, then after the war they divided his time between Rome, Paris and Saint-Tropez. In a personal exhibition at the Venice Biennial in 1948 he displayed his new compositions: female figures inserted in complicated architectonic structures. During the 60s his figures were reduced to colored markings in a group of almost abstract canvasses. In 1967 a retrospective exhibition was dedicated to Campigli at the Palazzo Reale in Milan.

Oil on canvas; 65 x 54 cm.

Modigliani was born into a Jewish family of merchants. As a child he suffered from pleurisy and typhus, which prevented him from receiving a conventional education. In 1898 he began to study painting. After a brief stay in Florence in 1902, he continued his artistic studies in Venice, remaining there until the winter of 1906, when he left for Paris. His early admiration for Italian Renaissance painting—especially that of Siena—was to last throughout his life. In Paris Modigliani became interested in the Post-Impressionist paintings of Paul Cézanne. His initial important contacts were with the poets André Salmon and Max Jacob, with the artist Pablo Picasso, and—in 1907—with Paul Alexandre, a friend of many avant-garde artists and the first to become interested in Modigliani and to buy his works. In 1908 the artist exhibited five or six paintings at the Salon des Indépendants. In 1909 Modigliani met the Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi, on whose advice he seriously studied African sculpture. To prepare himself for creating his own sculpture, he intensified his graphic experiments. In his drawings Modigliani tried to give the function of limiting or enclosing volumes to his contours. In 1912 he exhibited at the Salon d’Automne eight stone heads whose elongated and simplified forms reflect the influence of African sculpture. Modigliani returned entirely to painting about 1915, but his experience as a sculptor had fundamental consequences for his painting style. The characteristics of Modigliani’s sculptured heads—long necks and noses, simplified features, and long oval faces—became typical of his paintings. He reduced and almost eliminated chiaroscuro (the use of gradations of light and shadow to achieve the illusion of three-dimensionality), and he achieved a sense of solidity with strong contours and the richness of juxtaposed colors.

The outbreak of World War I in 1914 increased the difficulties of Modigliani’s life. Alexandre and some of his other friends were at the front, his paintings did not sell, and his already delicate health was deteriorating because of his poverty, feverish work ethic, and abuse of alcohol and drugs. He was in the midst of a troubled affair with the South African poet Beatrice Hastings, with whom he lived for two years, from 1914 to 1916. He was assisted, however, by the art dealer Paul Guillaume and especially by the Polish poet Leopold Zborowski, who bought or helped him to sell a few paintings and drawings.

Modigliani was not a professional portraitist; for him the portrait was only an occasion to isolate a figure as a kind of sculptural relief through firm and expressive contour drawing. He painted his friends, usually personalities of the Parisian artistic and literary world (such as the artists Juan Gris and Jacques Lipchitz, the writer and artist Jean Cocteau, and the poet Max Jacob), but he also portrayed unknown people, including models, servants, and girls from the neighborhood. In 1917 he began painting a series of about 30 large female nudes that, with their warm, glowing colors and sensuous, rounded forms, are among his best works. In December of that year Berthe Weill organized a solo show for him in her gallery, but the police judged the nudes indecent and had them removed.

In 1917 Modigliani began a love affair with the young painter Jeanne Hébuterne, with whom he went to live on the Côte d’Azur. Their daughter, Jeanne, was born in November 1918. His painting became increasingly refined in line and delicate in colour. A more tranquil life and the climate of the Mediterranean, however, did not restore the artist’s undermined health. After returning to Paris in May 1919, he became ill in January 1920; 10 days later he died of tubercular meningitis. Little-known outside avant-garde Parisian circles, Modigliani had seldom participated in official exhibitions. Fame came after his death, with a solo exhibition at the Bernheim-Jeune Gallery in 1922 and later with a biography by André Salmon. For decades critical evaluations of Modigliani’s work were overshadowed by the dramatic story of his tragic life, but he is now acknowledged as one of the most significant and original artists of his time.

Poem.

Like a military parade of trees,

Commercial Spruce, in bottle-green uniform,

stand to attention on the lower slopes, mile upon mile.

Golden Larch, like Red-Hot Pokers,

frame plantations in spectacular contrast,

acting as expendable fire-breaks in order to sustain the bulk of the forest.

Delicate fronds of the Silver Birch droop and waiver in the breeze.

Lower branches speckled by what seems countless golden doubloons “sparkle” with an iridescent glow.

Millions of leaves metamorphose into their Autumnal apparel.

The deeper, richer bronze of the bracken adds to this awesome, multi-coloured tapestry, but Broom and Gorse hang on to their now, flowerless, green foliage.

Blacks and greys of leafless bushes and the scaffolding of straight, deeply grooved pine-tree-trunks, gives an architectural solidity to the scene.

The richness of colour and texture is momentous, mesmeric and moving.

It is a joy to behold.

Oil on canvas; 55 x 38 cm.

Modigliani was born into a Jewish family of merchants. As a child he suffered from pleurisy and typhus, which prevented him from receiving a conventional education. In 1898 he began to study painting. After a brief stay in Florence in 1902, he continued his artistic studies in Venice, remaining there until the winter of 1906, when he left for Paris. His early admiration for Italian Renaissance painting—especially that of Siena—was to last throughout his life. In Paris Modigliani became interested in the Post-Impressionist paintings of Paul Cézanne. His initial important contacts were with the poets André Salmon and Max Jacob, with the artist Pablo Picasso, and—in 1907—with Paul Alexandre, a friend of many avant-garde artists and the first to become interested in Modigliani and to buy his works. In 1908 the artist exhibited five or six paintings at the Salon des Indépendants. In 1909 Modigliani met the Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi, on whose advice he seriously studied African sculpture. To prepare himself for creating his own sculpture, he intensified his graphic experiments. In his drawings Modigliani tried to give the function of limiting or enclosing volumes to his contours. In 1912 he exhibited at the Salon d’Automne eight stone heads whose elongated and simplified forms reflect the influence of African sculpture. Modigliani returned entirely to painting about 1915, but his experience as a sculptor had fundamental consequences for his painting style. The characteristics of Modigliani’s sculptured heads—long necks and noses, simplified features, and long oval faces—became typical of his paintings. He reduced and almost eliminated chiaroscuro (the use of gradations of light and shadow to achieve the illusion of three-dimensionality), and he achieved a sense of solidity with strong contours and the richness of juxtaposed colors.

The outbreak of World War I in 1914 increased the difficulties of Modigliani’s life. Alexandre and some of his other friends were at the front, his paintings did not sell, and his already delicate health was deteriorating because of his poverty, feverish work ethic, and abuse of alcohol and drugs. He was in the midst of a troubled affair with the South African poet Beatrice Hastings, with whom he lived for two years, from 1914 to 1916. He was assisted, however, by the art dealer Paul Guillaume and especially by the Polish poet Leopold Zborowski, who bought or helped him to sell a few paintings and drawings.

Modigliani was not a professional portraitist; for him the portrait was only an occasion to isolate a figure as a kind of sculptural relief through firm and expressive contour drawing. He painted his friends, usually personalities of the Parisian artistic and literary world (such as the artists Juan Gris and Jacques Lipchitz, the writer and artist Jean Cocteau, and the poet Max Jacob), but he also portrayed unknown people, including models, servants, and girls from the neighborhood. In 1917 he began painting a series of about 30 large female nudes that, with their warm, glowing colors and sensuous, rounded forms, are among his best works. In December of that year Berthe Weill organized a solo show for him in her gallery, but the police judged the nudes indecent and had them removed.

In 1917 Modigliani began a love affair with the young painter Jeanne Hébuterne, with whom he went to live on the Côte d’Azur. Their daughter, Jeanne, was born in November 1918. His painting became increasingly refined in line and delicate in colour. A more tranquil life and the climate of the Mediterranean, however, did not restore the artist’s undermined health. After returning to Paris in May 1919, he became ill in January 1920; 10 days later he died of tubercular meningitis. Little-known outside avant-garde Parisian circles, Modigliani had seldom participated in official exhibitions. Fame came after his death, with a solo exhibition at the Bernheim-Jeune Gallery in 1922 and later with a biography by André Salmon. For decades critical evaluations of Modigliani’s work were overshadowed by the dramatic story of his tragic life, but he is now acknowledged as one of the most significant and original artists of his time.

Chassis n° V8COL/15191

Les Grandes Marques du Monde au Grand Palais

Bonhams

Parijs - Paris

Frankrijk - France

February 2019

Estimated : € 225.000 - 265.000

Aston Martin had always intended the DBS to house its new V8 engine, but production difficulties meant that the car first appeared with the DB6's 4.0-liter six. Bigger and more luxuriously appointed than the DB6, the heavyweight DBS disappointed some by virtue of its slightly reduced performance, but there were no complaints when the V8 finally arrived in 1969. With an estimated 315 bhp available from its 5.340 cc four-cam engine, the DBS V8 could reach 100 mph in under 14 seconds, running on to a top speed of 160 mph, a staggering performance in those days and one which fully justified the claim that it was the fastest production car in the world. After Aston Martin's acquisition by Company Developments in 1972, production resumed with the Series 2, now known as the Aston Martin V8 and distinguishable by a restyled front end recalling the looks of earlier Astons. The most successful Aston Martin ever, the V8 survived the changes of ownership and financial upheavals of the 1970s, enjoying a record-breaking production run lasting from 1969 to 1988, with 2.919 cars sold.

Described by former Aston Martin Chairman Victor Gauntlett as 'a stylish thoroughbred, beautifully built, luxurious, fast and immensely safe', the V8 was built in several variants, one of the more exclusive being the Volante convertible. Introduced in response to customer demand for such a car, the Volante first appeared in June 1978. Arguably the ultimate in soft-top luxury, the newcomer boasted a lined, power-operated top which, when erected, endowed the walnut embellished interior with all the solidity and refinement associated with the saloon version. The 5,340cc DOHC V8 Engine with 4 Dual-Throat Weber Carburetors produced 300bhp at 6,000rpm. Although its open-car aerodynamics meant that top speed suffered with the top down, the Volante's 240km/h maximum nevertheless ranked it among the world's fastest convertibles. V8 Volante and Vantage Volante chassis numbers ran from '15001' to '15849', a total of only 849 cars.

According to copies of Aston Martin's factory build records, this V8 Volante was shipped from the UK on 23rd May 1980 to Aston Martin Sales Inc of New Rochelle, New York. Left-hand drive and equipped with the five-speed manual transmission and a Vantage front air dam, it was finished in Jubilee Silver with black leather interior, black carpeting, and a black Everflex convertible top, as it is today.

Sold in July 1981 to its first owner, the Aston was transported to California where it would remain until it was sold to the second owner six years later with only 14,000 miles recorded. For the following three decades, this superb V8 Volante was driven sparingly and is today presented with only 43.106 miles showing on the odometer. The immediately preceding owner purchased the car from Doc Severinsen, former bandleader on 'The Tonight Show', and before Mr Severinsen's ownership it resided in Palm Springs.

The current vendor, specifically looking for this rare (Volante, early series with carburation, left-hand drive, ZF 5-speed manual gearbox) version purchased the Aston in the USA in August 2016, since when it has been re-commissioned and converted to EU specification with correct bumpers, etc. In addition, the engine has been checked over, a new convertible hood installed, and the interior detailed. Close to € 30.000 has been spent and the car now looks wonderful with a nicely patinated interior.

Offered here with its owner's manual, parts book, workshop manual, copy of factory built sheet,

tools, invoices and car cover, this V8 Volante must be one of the best preserved examples currently available. As a well-cared for California car, it has a wonderful patina and originality that is difficult to replicate. The car's maintenance and service records are exceptionally comprehensive, running to several hundred invoices.

Left-hand drive and equipped with the desirable and rare ZF five-speed transmission from new, this beautiful V8 Volante is definitely 'the one to have'.