View allAll Photos Tagged Solidity
Here is my third very solid solution to the Reverse Engineering 3's week 7 tie-break.
I've been looking for a solution that connects everything with studs. This one comes closest, using a couple flex tubes for additional rigidity. This one is probably not stronger than my version 2, but is no weaker either.
The exploded view is color-coded. The black bricks are travis bricks, the lime ones are 1x1 technic, and the grey one is a plain 1x1. The two travis-technic-travis units are held together with flex tube.
The travis and technic bricks hold 10 of the 12 side plates and one of the "pyramids".
There are two kinds of 1x1 plate with horizontal rod holders in this -- the one with the thin loop and the one with the thick loop. Here the thin loop is light pink and the thick loop is dark pink.
The thick loop is one plate thick and puts the dark-red 1x1 plates flush to the top. Unfortunately, it also puts the one to the side slightly down from the top. This works fine for a connection to a 1x2 tile. So this connects the last two side tiles and two of the end plates of the second pyramid.
These plates will not fit on the other two travis bricks because that offset would make them run into the technic bricks.
Luckily we have the thin-loop ones. These are proportioned so that the red 1x1 plates on their loops line up with the side of their plate. They are connected to the other two end plates of the pyramid, and also to the same side tile as the technic bricks.
And to even further stiffen it, a pin-stud and regular 1x1 connect the plates through the center. (In the IRL model the center brick is round since I really seem to have lost my entire container of 1x1s.)
--An assembly note - notice the thin loop plate does not actually push into the travis brick. (The front corner of the bottom right inset.) This does not affect solidity in the least as it is securely connected in three other ways. However, it is best to connect it to the end plate first, and then assemble it in.
River Dargle Flood Defence Scheme.
These images were taken in the last full week of January 2017.
These are the critical stabilisation works at the Silverbridge site, adjacent to the N11 dual-carriageway:
Back in November 2014, we observed bank stabilisation works here involving excavation, repair and building of a support wall structure -- carried out by JONS Construction on behalf of the National Roads Authority.
We would occasionally catch sight of this work in the distance. Quite an impressive little piece of structural engineering.
Having built a retaining concave wall, backfilled for solidity, they were also drilling, fixing and sealing ground anchors to pin the entire structure together.
Now we see that further works are being undertaken.
Word has it that extra ‘stabilisation work’ has to be done to protect the integrity of the riverbank. At the section here we can see that there’s not much space between the edge of the rock face and the Armco at the side of the dual-carriageway.
Have yet to determine what precisely that will entail. Serious work to reinforce the side access ramp down to the river.
The N11 carriageway runs adjacent to this sunken side of the riverbank -- barely 2 (large) paces divide the two. Even with twin strips of Armco along the roadside, it's perilously close. Traffic speeds along this stretch (maximum speed 100 kmp). Only needs a touch from a heavy vehicle to cause secondary impact, which (worst possible scenario) could result in something going airborne.
Working in these confined spaces puts a premium of safety and communication.
The guys have hard-filled a working shelf on the riverbed, to allow machinery access to the rockface. Obviously some serious drilling is called for before a form of extra 'pinning' is put in place.
They have sunk a series of hollowed tubes/casings -- obviously to form the foundations of a more extensive structure.
And some investigative work around the transverse buttress of the access bridge, parallel to the heavy-duty pipeline carrying water down from the Vartry reservoir.
At a (rough) guess -- I'd say the foundations were sunk to a depth of approx 4+m.
With such secure foundations in place, they would then look to construct a substantial bank of material, and/or retaining wall (similar to that in place further along the roadside bank).
=================================================
Previously the guys drilled and sunk 4+metre deep reinforced tubing and rods along a newly laid concrete base. Those stubs were then used to attach steel rod cradles -- which, in turn, were filled with poured concrete. Result - the wall quickly rises. Variation on the method they've used elsewhere along this stretch of the river.
A continuous stretch of protective wall has now been poured, and joined up with the section originally erected back in 2014.
As we can see from the side-on shot, the base of the wall has pre-cut openings for the retaining pins that have been driven into the side wall of the roadside cliff. These will be sealed and capped.
River Dargle Flood Defence Scheme.
These images were taken towards the end of the third week of February 2017.
These are the critical stabilisation works at the Silverbridge site, adjacent to the N11 dual-carriageway:
Back in November 2014, we'd observed bank stabilisation works here involving excavation, repair and building of a support wall structure -- carried out by JONS Construction on behalf of the National Roads Authority.
We would occasionally catch sight of this work in the distance. Quite an impressive little piece of structural engineering.
Having built a retaining concave wall, backfilled for solidity, they were also drilling, fixing and sealing ground anchors to pin the entire structure together.
Now we see that further works are being undertaken.
Word has it that extra ‘stabilisation work’ had to be done to protect the integrity of the riverbank.
At the section here we can see that there’s not much space between the edge of the rock face and the Armco at the side of the dual-carriageway.
Have yet to determine what precisely that will entail. Serious work to reinforce the side access ramp down to the river.
The N11 carriageway runs adjacent to this sunken side of the riverbank -- barely 2 (large) paces divide the two. Even with twin strips of Armco along the roadside, it's perilously close. Traffic speeds along this stretch (maximum speed 100 kmp). Only needs a touch from a heavy vehicle to cause secondary impact, which (worst possible scenario) could result in something going airborne.
Working in these confined spaces puts a premium of safety and communication.
The guys have hard-filled a working shelf on the riverbed, to allow machinery access to the rockface. Obviously some serious drilling is called for before a form of extra 'pinning' is put in place.
They have sunk a series of hollowed tubes/casings -- obviously to form the foundations of a more extensive structure.
And some investigative work around the transverse buttress of the access bridge, parallel to the heavy-duty pipeline carrying water down from the Vartry reservoir.
At a (rough) guess -- I'd say the foundations were sunk to a depth of approx 4+m.
With such secure foundations in place, they would then look to construct a substantial bank of material, and/or retaining wall (similar to that in place further along the roadside bank).
=================================================
Previously the guys drilled and sunk 4+metre deep reinforced tubing and rods along a newly laid concrete base. Those stubs were then used to attach steel rod cradles -- which, in turn, were filled with poured concrete. Result - the wall quickly rises. Variation on the method they've used elsewhere along this stretch of the river.
A continuous stretch of protective wall has now been poured, and joined up with the section originally erected back in 2014.
As we can see from the side-on shot, the base of the wall has pre-cut openings for the retaining pins that have been driven into the side wall of the roadside cliff. These have been sealed and capped.
Progress has been rapid, the full stretch of wall is completed, and the guys are now working on back-filling the empty space between the protective wall and the roadside rock face. You don't just throw in a few trucks loads of soil and hope for the best. You load, layer, level and compress.
And, at the same time, the guys are clearing away material used to build access ramps down into the riverbed.
The thought crossed my mind -- in doing so (removing the stone-filled gabions etc,) are they potentially exposing the river bank on that side to erosion, slippage etc?
We know the destructive force of fast running waters. Hell, this is precisely why the protective works have been carried out along the rest of the stretch, down to the Bray Harbour. Unless they have other plans to stabilise it, what is going to be left here is loose soil -- very close to the access road into the halting site itself.
Some repair/reinforcing work is going on here to protect the (old) buttress that supports the pipework carrying water to the Bray region.
River Dargle Flood Defence Scheme.
These images were taken in the last full week of January 2017.
These are the critical stabilisation works at the Silverbridge site, adjacent to the N11 dual-carriageway:
Back in November 2014, we observed bank stabilisation works here involving excavation, repair and building of a support wall structure -- carried out by JONS Construction on behalf of the National Roads Authority.
We would occasionally catch sight of this work in the distance. Quite an impressive little piece of structural engineering.
Having built a retaining concave wall, backfilled for solidity, they were also drilling, fixing and sealing ground anchors to pin the entire structure together.
Now we see that further works are being undertaken.
Word has it that extra ‘stabilisation work’ has to be done to protect the integrity of the riverbank. At the section here we can see that there’s not much space between the edge of the rock face and the Armco at the side of the dual-carriageway.
Have yet to determine what precisely that will entail. Serious work to reinforce the side access ramp down to the river.
The N11 carriageway runs adjacent to this sunken side of the riverbank -- barely 2 (large) paces divide the two. Even with twin strips of Armco along the roadside, it's perilously close. Traffic speeds along this stretch (maximum speed 100 kmp). Only needs a touch from a heavy vehicle to cause secondary impact, which (worst possible scenario) could result in something going airborne.
Working in these confined spaces puts a premium of safety and communication.
The guys have hard-filled a working shelf on the riverbed, to allow machinery access to the rockface. Obviously some serious drilling is called for before a form of extra 'pinning' is put in place.
They have sunk a series of hollowed tubes/casings -- obviously to form the foundations of a more extensive structure.
And some investigative work around the transverse buttress of the access bridge, parallel to the heavy-duty pipeline carrying water down from the Vartry reservoir.
At a (rough) guess -- I'd say the foundations were sunk to a depth of approx 4+m.
With such secure foundations in place, they would then look to construct a substantial bank of material, and/or retaining wall (similar to that in place further along the roadside bank).
=================================================
Previously the guys drilled and sunk 4+metre deep reinforced tubing and rods along a newly laid concrete base. Those stubs were then used to attach steel rod cradles -- which, in turn, were filled with poured concrete. Result - the wall quickly rises. Variation on the method they've used elsewhere along this stretch of the river.
A continuous stretch of protective wall has now been poured, and joined up with the section originally erected back in 2014.
As we can see from the side-on shot, the base of the wall has pre-cut openings for the retaining pins that have been driven into the side wall of the roadside cliff. These will be sealed and capped.
Large empty space, for now, between the wall and the existing roadside rock face.
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.
River Dargle Flood Defence Scheme.
These images were taken during the first week of October 2014. We tended to loose sight of the fact that (more) critically important has been on-going near the Silverbridge site, adjacent to the N11 carriageway.
Bank stabilisation works involving excavation, repair and building of a support wall structure are being carried out by JONS Construction also on behalf of the National Roads Authority.
We would occasionally catch sight of this work in the distance. One Friday afternoon I took a trip up there, walking back to the site along the side of the carriageway! Recognised some old faces. Quite an impressive little piece of structural engineering.
Having built a retaining concave wall, backfilled for solidity, they were also drilling, fixing and sealing ground anchors to pin the entire structure together.
Gerard David, Oudewater ca. 1450/1460 - Brügge 1523
Virgo inter virgines / Virgin among the Virgins (1509)
Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen
The altarpiece of the Virgo inter Virgines was donated in 1509 to the convent of the Carmelites of Sion in Bruges. Mary, enthroned between two musical angels, holds the Baby Jesus, who is picking grapes off a bunch – a symbol of the Eucharist. She is receiving the homage of a gathering of martyrs with a child-like charm, recognisable by their attributes, each depicted in the manner of precious ornaments.
From left to right :
Dorothy with her basket of roses (the lawyer Theophilus had promised to convert to Christianity if she sent him roses and apples from the Garden of Christ)
Catherine of Alexandria with a crown adorned with the Catherine Wheel (which miraculously broke instead of killing her)
Agnes, with a lamb at her feet (the saint was killed aged 14 because she refused to marry a pagan),
Behind her, an anonymous woman
Fausta with a saw (the instrument of her martyrdom) Apollonia with a set of tongs (which were used to pull out her teeth)
Godelina with a scarf (which her husband used to have her strangled)
Cecilia beside an organ (she sang praises to the Lord until her dying breath)
Barbara, whose headdress is adorned with a tower (her father had her locked away there)
Lucy holding her eyes (which some maintain were gouged out while others assert that she gouged them out herself)
The man, in the upper left corner is the painter Gérard David himself, and the woman on the right in the white cornet is most probably his wife, Cornelia.
The saints stand out against a neutral background with a visual force reminiscent of a bas-relief, but which is animated by the faces and the beauty of the materials. In this dense ensemble, the unusually accentuated upright stance of the Virgin, in its almost statuesque solidity, seems to echo the Madonna of Bruges of Michelangelo, who arrived in the city in 1506.
The east tower of the former Whiteside bakery, built in 1908.
1400 West Broadway, Louisville, Kentucky.
From the 1979 application to be a Nationally Registered Historic Place:
"Whiteside Bakery was built in 1908 by Louisville architect Arthur Loomis. His choice of the Mission Style for the project is a curious one, since the style was not well represented in the Louisville area. Loomis's use of this contemporary California mode, however, provided a particularly happy solution for the structure's location with in a transitional zone. The bold, low massing of the Mission Style catered to the height of the bakery's residential neighbors, while the strength and solidity of the style justified its use as a commercial structure.
Asymmetrical square towers dominate each corner of the building, anchoring it to its site. The left tower is slightly taller than the one to the right for stylistic purposes. This tower commands the southwest corner of Broadway and 14th Streets, and was originally highly visible from the downtown direction. The crowning glory of this tower, no longer extant, was a large electric clock which tolled upon the hour. At dusk, we are told, “the characters describing the circle and declaring the hours stand forth in letters of fire and read 'Mother's Bread'." Unfortunately, this magnificent timepiece has met an ignominious end … A tile roof supported by piers caps the tower. Deep, bracketed wooden eaves protect recessed arched windows on each side to the tower, creating the visual effect of an open loggia from the street. Limestone rolled trim edges the base of the loggia, while gargoyles commanding each corner peer menacingly down upon passersby.
The lower tower to the right of the building has been designed in deliberate contrast to its taller counterpart on the left. In the first instance, the emphasis has been upon height and lightness; here, the stress is upon weight and mass. The tile roof sits firmly upon shorter piers, which appear more massive because of their reduced height. Squat columns recessed into the depths of the heavily-bracketed eaves support a low arch which enframes the windows on each tower face.
With the exception of the tower clock and the rooftop garden, the exterior of the bakery has changed little since 1908. The low, open pavilion to the far right of the structure, featured in an earliest photograph, is presently enclosed."
River Dargle Flood Defence Scheme.
These images were taken during the first week of November 2016.
Meanwhile, at the Silverbridge site, adjacent to the N11 dual-carriageway:
We last visited here 2 years ago in November 2014, where bank stabilisation works involving excavation, repair and building of a support wall structure were being carried out by JONS Construction on behalf of the National Roads Authority.
We would occasionally catch sight of this work in the distance. Quite an impressive little piece of structural engineering.
Having built a retaining concave wall, backfilled for solidity, they were also drilling, fixing and sealing ground anchors to pin the entire structure together.
Now we see that further works are being undertaken.
Word has it that extra ‘stabilisation work’ has to be done to protect the integrity of the riverbank. At the section here we can see that there’s not much space between the edge of the rock face and the Armco at the side of the dual-carriageway.
Have yet to determine what precisely that will entail. Serious work to re-inforce the side access ramp down to the river.
Gabions consist of steel ‘baskets’ filled with rock pieces. They are filled and then fixed together to provide protection and strength to the existing river bank. They allow ground water to flow through them which helps prevent waterlogging of the bank behind them. Existing examples of these were used, back in 2012, to line the north bank of the existing riverbank adjacent to The Slang/Rehills stretch.
The N11 carriageway runs adjacent to this sunken side of the riverbank -- barely 2 (large) paces divide the two. Even with twin strips of Armco along the roadside, it's perilously close. Traffic speeds along this stretch (maximum speed 100 kmp). Only needs a touch from a heavy veicle to cause secondary impact, which (worst possible scenario) could result in something going airborne.
Working in these confined spaces puts a premium of safety and communication.
The guys have hard-filled a working shelf on the riverbed, to allow machinery access to the rockface. Obviously some serious drilling is called for before some form of extra 'pinning' is put in place.
They have sunk a series of hollowed tubes/casings -- obviously to form the basis for . . . . . .?
And some investigative work around the transverse buttress of the access bridge, parallel to the heavy-duty pipeline carrying water down from the Vartry reservoir.
Entrance foyer, the Plaza Theatre, which was below the Regent, Collins Street, Melbourne, opened on 10 May, 1929. It seated 1235 in its single-level Spanish-style auditorium, with its entrance adjacent to that of the Regent.
"Seating only twelve hundred people, and furnished in true old-world Spanish style, the Plaza provides the acme of comfort for every patron. Every seat is a luxurious lounge armchair. The entire floor space is covered with deep rich carpets. At every turn an objet d'art, never obtrusive but bringing a dash of old-world adventure and romance to the new world masterpiece of theatre construction." [Plaza Theatre advertisement (full-page), The Herald, 10 May, 1929, p. 11].
"Following the recent practice of designing theatres in accordance with the style of some particular period, the Plaza is Spanish in its decorative scheme. Entrance from Collins Street is by way of stairs leading to a court constructed after the manner of a Spanish close. the floor simulates the rough paving of a courtyard, and on one side a fountain pays. Through archways to the right is a rockery with orange trees, and here furniture of the appropriate Spanish period has been placed.
The auditorium also is decorated in a Spanish scheme, in which atmosphere rather than any particular period is suggested. On the roof a variegated design in which red, yellow and green are prominent, gives an appearance of solidity, and the scheme is extended to the leather chairs...
The 'talkies' provide their own accompaniment, and consequently an orchestra is unnecessary. An organ had been installed, however, to supplement the pictures when that is called for, and for solo items." [The Argus, 11 May, 1929]
In February, 1959, a new Cinerama screen and projection system were installed in the Plaza. The Regent Plaza Theatre is cited as one of the few cinemas adapted for Cinerama outside of North America.
The Cinerama screen was well forward of the proscenium, in front of the pit and the organ chambers. Although the organ was no longer able to be played in public, it was still operable, and was used by organists playing at the Regent for practice between the Cinerama sessions.
The Plaza closed in November, 1970. In December that year an auction was held at the theatre where everything that was not bolted down was auctioned off, raising a few thousand dollars.
Entrepreneur David Marinner earmarked the Regent for restoration when he established a revival movement for classical performing arts theatres in Melbourne during 1991. The Plaza Theatre was also fully and magnificently restored to its original ballroom format and reopened in 1996.
Ferstel
(Pictures you can see by clicking on the link at the end of page!)
Ferstel and Café Central, by Rudolf von Alt, left the men's alley (Herrengasse - Street of the Lords), right Strauchgasse
Danube mermaid fountain in a courtyard of the Palais Ferstel
Shopping arcade of the Freyung to Herrengasse
Entrance to Ferstel of the Freyung, right the Palais Harrach, left the palace Hardegg
The Ferstel is a building in the first district of Vienna, Inner City, with the addresses Strauchgasse 2-4, 14 Lord Street (Herrengasse) and Freyung 2. It was established as a national bank and stock exchange building, the denomination Palais is unhistoric.
History
In 1855, the entire estate between Freyung, Strauchgasse and Herrengasse was by Franz Xaver Imperial Count von Abensperg and Traun to the k.k. Privileged Austrian National Bank sold. This banking institution was previously domiciled in the Herrengasse 17/ Bankgasse. The progressive industrialization and the with it associated economic expansion also implied a rapid development of monetary transactions and banking, so that the current premises soon no longer have been sufficient. This problem could only be solved by a new building, in which also should be housed a stock exchange hall.
According to the desire of the then Governor of the National Bank, Franz von Pipitz, the new building was supposed to be carried out with strict observance of the economy and avoiding a worthless luxury with solidity and artistic as well as technical completion. The building should offer room for the National Bank, the stock market, a cafe and - a novel idea for Vienna - a bazaar.
The commissioned architect, Heinrich von Ferstel, demonstrated in the coping with the irregular surface area with highest conceivable effective use of space his state-of-the art talent. The practical requirements combine themselves with the actually artistic to a masterful composition. Ferstel has been able to lay out the rooms of the issuing bank, the two trading floors, the passage with the bazar and the coffee house in accordance with their intended purpose and at the same time to maintain a consistent style.
He was an advocate of the "Materialbaues" (material building) as it clearly is reflected in the ashlar building of the banking institution. Base, pillars and stairs were fashioned of Wöllersdorfer stone, façade elements such as balconies, cornices, structurings as well as stone banisters of the hard white stone of Emperor Kaiser quarry (Kaisersteinbruch), while the walls were made of -Sankt Margarethen limestone. The inner rooms have been luxuriously formed, with wood paneling, leather wallpaper, Stuccolustro and rich ornamental painting.
The facade of the corner front Strauchgasse/Herrengasse received twelve sculptures by Hanns Gasser as decoration, they symbolized the peoples of the monarchy. The mighty round arch at the exit Freyung were closed with wrought-iron bare gates, because the first used locksmith could not meet the demands of Ferstel, the work was transferred to a silversmith.
1860 the National Bank and the stock exchange could move into the in 1859 completed construction. The following year was placed in the glass-covered passage the Danube mermaid fountain, whose design stems also of Ferstel. Anton von Fernkorn has created the sculptural decoration with an artistic sensitivity. Above the marble fountain basin rises a column crowned by a bronze statue, the Danube female with flowing hair, holding a fish in its hand. Below are arranged around the column three also in bronze cast figures: merchant, fisherman and shipbuilder, so those professions that have to do with the water. The total cost of the building, the interior included, amounted to the enormous sum of 1.897.600 guilders.
The originally planned use of the building remained only a few years preserved. The Stock Exchange with the premises no longer had sufficient space: in 1872 it moved to a provisional solution, 1877 at Schottenring a new Stock Exchange building opened. The National Bank moved 1925 into a yet 1913 planned, spacious new building.
The building was in Second World War battered gravely particularly on the main facade. In the 1960s was located in the former Stock Exchange a basketball training hall, the entire building appeared neglected.
1971 dealt the President of the Federal Monuments Office, Walter Frodl, with the severely war damaged banking and stock exchange building in Vienna. The Office for Technical Geology of Otto Casensky furnished an opinion on the stone facade. On the facade Freyung 2 a balcony was originally attached over the entire 15.4 m long front of hard Kaiserstein.
(Usage of Leith lime: Dependent from the consistence and structure of the Leitha lime the usage differed from „Reibsand“ till building material. The Leitha lime stone is a natural stone which can be formed easily and was desired als beautiful stone for buildings in Roman times. The usage of lime stone from Eggenburg in the Bronze age already was verified. This special attribute is the reason why the Leitha lime was taken from sculptors and masons.
The source of lime stone in the Leitha Mountains was important for Austria and especially for Vienna from the cultur historical point of view during the Renaissance and Baroque. At the 19th century the up to 150 stone quarries of the Leitha mountains got many orders form the construction work of the Vienna „Ring road“.
At many buildings of Graz, such as the castle at the Grazer castle hill, the old Joanneum and the Cottage, the Leitha lime stone was used.
Due to the fact that Leitha lime is bond on carbonate in the texture, the alteration through the actual sour rain is heavy. www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC2HKZ9_leithagebirge-leithak...)
This balcony was no longer present and only close to the facade were remnants of the tread plates and the supporting brackets recognizable. In July 1975, followed the reconstruction of the balcony and master stonemason Friedrich Opferkuh received the order to restore the old state am Leithagebirge received the order the old state - of Mannersdorfer stone, armoured concrete or artificial stone.
1975-1982, the building was renovated and re-opened the Café Central. Since then, the privately owned building is called Palais Ferstel. In the former stock exchange halls now meetings and presentations take place; the Café Central is utilizing one of the courtyards.
Ferstel
(Pictures you can see by clicking on the link at the end of page!)
Ferstel and Café Central, by Rudolf von Alt, left the men's alley (Herrengasse - Street of the Lords), right Strauchgasse
Danube mermaid fountain in a courtyard of the Palais Ferstel
Shopping arcade of the Freyung to Herrengasse
Entrance to Ferstel of the Freyung, right the Palais Harrach, left the palace Hardegg
The Ferstel is a building in the first district of Vienna, Inner City, with the addresses Strauchgasse 2-4, 14 Lord Street (Herrengasse) and Freyung 2. It was established as a national bank and stock exchange building, the denomination Palais is unhistoric.
History
In 1855, the entire estate between Freyung, Strauchgasse and Herrengasse was by Franz Xaver Imperial Count von Abensperg and Traun to the k.k. Privileged Austrian National Bank sold. This banking institution was previously domiciled in the Herrengasse 17/ Bankgasse. The progressive industrialization and the with it associated economic expansion also implied a rapid development of monetary transactions and banking, so that the current premises soon no longer have been sufficient. This problem could only be solved by a new building, in which also should be housed a stock exchange hall.
According to the desire of the then Governor of the National Bank, Franz von Pipitz, the new building was supposed to be carried out with strict observance of the economy and avoiding a worthless luxury with solidity and artistic as well as technical completion. The building should offer room for the National Bank, the stock market, a cafe and - a novel idea for Vienna - a bazaar.
The commissioned architect, Heinrich von Ferstel, demonstrated in the coping with the irregular surface area with highest conceivable effective use of space his state-of-the art talent. The practical requirements combine themselves with the actually artistic to a masterful composition. Ferstel has been able to lay out the rooms of the issuing bank, the two trading floors, the passage with the bazar and the coffee house in accordance with their intended purpose and at the same time to maintain a consistent style.
He was an advocate of the "Materialbaues" (material building) as it clearly is reflected in the ashlar building of the banking institution. Base, pillars and stairs were fashioned of Wöllersdorfer stone, façade elements such as balconies, cornices, structurings as well as stone banisters of the hard white stone of Emperor Kaiser quarry (Kaisersteinbruch), while the walls were made of -Sankt Margarethen limestone. The inner rooms have been luxuriously formed, with wood paneling, leather wallpaper, Stuccolustro and rich ornamental painting.
The facade of the corner front Strauchgasse/Herrengasse received twelve sculptures by Hanns Gasser as decoration, they symbolized the peoples of the monarchy. The mighty round arch at the exit Freyung were closed with wrought-iron bare gates, because the first used locksmith could not meet the demands of Ferstel, the work was transferred to a silversmith.
1860 the National Bank and the stock exchange could move into the in 1859 completed construction. The following year was placed in the glass-covered passage the Danube mermaid fountain, whose design stems also of Ferstel. Anton von Fernkorn has created the sculptural decoration with an artistic sensitivity. Above the marble fountain basin rises a column crowned by a bronze statue, the Danube female with flowing hair, holding a fish in its hand. Below are arranged around the column three also in bronze cast figures: merchant, fisherman and shipbuilder, so those professions that have to do with the water. The total cost of the building, the interior included, amounted to the enormous sum of 1.897.600 guilders.
The originally planned use of the building remained only a few years preserved. The Stock Exchange with the premises no longer had sufficient space: in 1872 it moved to a provisional solution, 1877 at Schottenring a new Stock Exchange building opened. The National Bank moved 1925 into a yet 1913 planned, spacious new building.
The building was in Second World War battered gravely particularly on the main facade. In the 1960s was located in the former Stock Exchange a basketball training hall, the entire building appeared neglected.
1971 dealt the President of the Federal Monuments Office, Walter Frodl, with the severely war damaged banking and stock exchange building in Vienna. The Office for Technical Geology of Otto Casensky furnished an opinion on the stone facade. On the facade Freyung 2 a balcony was originally attached over the entire 15.4 m long front of hard Kaiserstein.
(Usage of Leith lime: Dependent from the consistence and structure of the Leitha lime the usage differed from „Reibsand“ till building material. The Leitha lime stone is a natural stone which can be formed easily and was desired als beautiful stone for buildings in Roman times. The usage of lime stone from Eggenburg in the Bronze age already was verified. This special attribute is the reason why the Leitha lime was taken from sculptors and masons.
The source of lime stone in the Leitha Mountains was important for Austria and especially for Vienna from the cultur historical point of view during the Renaissance and Baroque. At the 19th century the up to 150 stone quarries of the Leitha mountains got many orders form the construction work of the Vienna „Ring road“.
At many buildings of Graz, such as the castle at the Grazer castle hill, the old Joanneum and the Cottage, the Leitha lime stone was used.
Due to the fact that Leitha lime is bond on carbonate in the texture, the alteration through the actual sour rain is heavy. www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC2HKZ9_leithagebirge-leithak...)
This balcony was no longer present and only close to the facade were remnants of the tread plates and the supporting brackets recognizable. In July 1975, followed the reconstruction of the balcony and master stonemason Friedrich Opferkuh received the order to restore the old state am Leithagebirge received the order the old state - of Mannersdorfer stone, armoured concrete or artificial stone.
1975-1982, the building was renovated and re-opened the Café Central. Since then, the privately owned building is called Palais Ferstel. In the former stock exchange halls now meetings and presentations take place; the Café Central is utilizing one of the courtyards.
From the museum label:
Sean Scully says that his stripes "push out into the world, trying to be more than paintings." He thinks of color and light as expressions of life, and his thick, multipaneled works are meant to create an experience that is at once physical and spiritual.
Made with bolted canvases and housepainter's brushes, Scully's paintings evoke the solidity of architecture. Yet Maesta also conjures a more transcendent realm. The work is titled after a famous multipaneled altarpiece by Duccio, the late thirteenth-century Italian painter. The power of Duccio's Maestà (1308-11) emanates from the unbroken rows of angels and saints surrounding the Virgin Mary, much as Scully's stripes, in contrasting lights and darks, appear to vibrate outward into the viewer's space.
River Dargle Flood Defence Scheme.
These images were taken during the first week of October 2014. We tended to loose sight of the fact that (more) critically important has been on-going near the Silverbridge site, adjacent to the N11 carriageway.
Bank stabilisation works involving excavation, repair and building of a support wall structure are being carried out by JONS Construction also on behalf of the National Roads Authority.
We would occasionally catch sight of this work in the distance. One Friday afternoon I took a trip up there, walking back to the site along the side of the carriageway! Recognised some old faces. Quite an impressive little piece of structural engineering.
Having built a retaining concave wall, backfilled for solidity, they were also drilling, fixing and sealing ground anchors to pin the entire structure together.
River Dargle Flood Defence Scheme.
These images were taken in the second week of January 2017.
These are the critical stabilisation works at the Silverbridge site, adjacent to the N11 dual-carriageway:
Back in November 2014, we observed bank stabilisation works here involving excavation, repair and building of a support wall structure -- carried out by JONS Construction on behalf of the National Roads Authority.
We would occasionally catch sight of this work in the distance. Quite an impressive little piece of structural engineering.
Having built a retaining concave wall, backfilled for solidity, they were also drilling, fixing and sealing ground anchors to pin the entire structure together.
Now we see that further works are being undertaken.
Word has it that extra ‘stabilisation work’ has to be done to protect the integrity of the riverbank. At the section here we can see that there’s not much space between the edge of the rock face and the Armco at the side of the dual-carriageway.
Have yet to determine what precisely that will entail. Serious work to reinforce the side access ramp down to the river.
The N11 carriageway runs adjacent to this sunken side of the riverbank -- barely 2 (large) paces divide the two. Even with twin strips of Armco along the roadside, it's perilously close. Traffic speeds along this stretch (maximum speed 100 kmp). Only needs a touch from a heavy vehicle to cause secondary impact, which (worst possible scenario) could result in something going airborne.
Working in these confined spaces puts a premium of safety and communication.
The guys have hard-filled a working shelf on the riverbed, to allow machinery access to the rockface. Obviously some serious drilling is called for before a form of extra 'pinning' is put in place.
They have sunk a series of hollowed tubes/casings -- obviously to form the foundations of a more extensive structure.
And some investigative work around the transverse buttress of the access bridge, parallel to the heavy-duty pipeline carrying water down from the Vartry reservoir.
At a (rough) guess -- I'd say the foundations were sunk to a depth of approx 4+m.
With such secure foundations in place, they would then look to construct a substantial bank of material, and/or retaining wall (similar to that in place further along the roadside bank).
=================================================
Previously the guys drilled and sunk 4+metre deep reinforced tubing and rods along a newly laid concrete base. Those stubs were then used to attach steel rod cradles -- which, in turn, were filled with poured concrete. Result - the wall quickly rises. Variation on the method they've used elsewhere along this stretch of the river.
At this time of year, it's not a particularly nice place to be working in.
River Dargle Flood Defence Scheme.
These images were taken on the last day of January 2017.
These are the critical stabilisation works at the Silverbridge site, adjacent to the N11 dual-carriageway:
Back in November 2014, we observed bank stabilisation works here involving excavation, repair and building of a support wall structure -- carried out by JONS Construction on behalf of the National Roads Authority.
We would occasionally catch sight of this work in the distance. Quite an impressive little piece of structural engineering.
Having built a retaining concave wall, backfilled for solidity, they were also drilling, fixing and sealing ground anchors to pin the entire structure together.
Now we see that further works are being undertaken.
Word has it that extra ‘stabilisation work’ has to be done to protect the integrity of the riverbank. At the section here we can see that there’s not much space between the edge of the rock face and the Armco at the side of the dual-carriageway.
Have yet to determine what precisely that will entail. Serious work to reinforce the side access ramp down to the river.
The N11 carriageway runs adjacent to this sunken side of the riverbank -- barely 2 (large) paces divide the two. Even with twin strips of Armco along the roadside, it's perilously close. Traffic speeds along this stretch (maximum speed 100 kmp). Only needs a touch from a heavy vehicle to cause secondary impact, which (worst possible scenario) could result in something going airborne.
Working in these confined spaces puts a premium of safety and communication.
The guys have hard-filled a working shelf on the riverbed, to allow machinery access to the rockface. Obviously some serious drilling is called for before a form of extra 'pinning' is put in place.
They have sunk a series of hollowed tubes/casings -- obviously to form the foundations of a more extensive structure.
And some investigative work around the transverse buttress of the access bridge, parallel to the heavy-duty pipeline carrying water down from the Vartry reservoir.
At a (rough) guess -- I'd say the foundations were sunk to a depth of approx 4+m.
With such secure foundations in place, they would then look to construct a substantial bank of material, and/or retaining wall (similar to that in place further along the roadside bank).
=================================================
Previously the guys drilled and sunk 4+metre deep reinforced tubing and rods along a newly laid concrete base. Those stubs were then used to attach steel rod cradles -- which, in turn, were filled with poured concrete. Result - the wall quickly rises. Variation on the method they've used elsewhere along this stretch of the river.
A continuous stretch of protective wall has now been poured, and joined up with the section originally erected back in 2014.
As we can see from the side-on shot, the base of the wall has pre-cut openings for the retaining pins that have been driven into the side wall of the roadside cliff. These have been sealed and capped.
Progress has been rapid, the full stretch of wall is completed, and the guys are now working on back-filling the empty space between the protective wall and the roadside rock face. You don't just throw in a few trucks loads of soil and hope for the best. You load, layer, level and compress.
Bréton brut had as a style been established for a short while prior to this buildings inception, but it was its somewhat trend setting architect that gave widespread acceptability and validity to the movement. It captured the imagination of architects reacting against the recoil of New Humanism and restricted by the economics of the time.
The Unité d'Habitation built in Marseille, France in 1952 is absolutely of its time. Every tower block in the immediate vacinity appears to pay homage to the Unité, They are unashamed of their debt, aesthetic or otherwise, and yet even with benefit hindsight do not appear to be 'better buildings', mere pale imitations.
Steel being consumed in the war effort and the lack of skilled labour in France lead to the choice of concrete, with a more honest and rough finish. Banham says it is ever the more successful due to Corbusiers abandonment of the “pre-war fiction that reinforced concrete was a precise, ‘machine-age’ material”. This notion which had been maintained by extravagant and un-necessary means, such as “lavishing on it skilled labour and specialised equipment beyond anything the economics of the building industry normally permitted”. That is equipment that would give rise to the exacting edges and if these were not achieved then the “roughness and inaccuracies” were plastered over to give a more crisp image, hardly accepting the ‘realities of the situation’. The situation was firmly one of a “messy soup” with “dust, grits and slumpy aggregates, mixed and poured under conditions subject to the vagaries of weather and human fallibility”, hardly an image of high-technology.
The war had also changed Corbusiers perspective of technology’s place in architecture, compare for example the machine for living in, the Ville Savoye (Paris, 1929), compared with schemes such as (although later than the Unité) Notre Dame du Haut built at Ronchamp in 1954. The Unité had been described as “the first modern building that has room for cockroaches”, retort to Le Corbusier stating in a letter to Madame Savoye that “‘Home life today is being paralysed by the deplorable notion that we must have furniture” and that “This notion should be rooted out and replaced by that of equipment”. Banham in his book ‘The New Brutalism’ notes the Unité’s “originalities in sectional organisation”, with its rue Intérieure, apartments with double height spaces all of which in section span the entire width of the block. He also suggests “few buildings anywhere in the world had such a hold on the imagination of young architects especially in England”. Corbusier described his rough concrete style as béton brut, words which (rightly or wrongly) would come to be misinterpreted as representing the New Brutalist style as well as that of béton brut. The solidity of the Unité is furthered from mere concrete security by the setting back of “user-scale elements such as windows and doors” into the concrete frame of the building, giving a sense of a secondary boundary further to the superstructure of the building. As Banham describes it, a building where “word and building stand together in the psychological history of post-war architecture” . He attributes further its success to the “hard glare of the Mediterranean sun” . Something which does not quite translate so well in the greyer skies of Britain, something of the disappointment of driving a new car out of a showroom and home, notwithstanding your home being an equally apt setting.
Ferstel
(Pictures you can see by clicking on the link at the end of page!)
Ferstel and Café Central, by Rudolf von Alt, left the men's alley (Herrengasse - Street of the Lords), right Strauchgasse
Danube mermaid fountain in a courtyard of the Palais Ferstel
Shopping arcade of the Freyung to Herrengasse
Entrance to Ferstel of the Freyung, right the Palais Harrach, left the palace Hardegg
The Ferstel is a building in the first district of Vienna, Inner City, with the addresses Strauchgasse 2-4, 14 Lord Street (Herrengasse) and Freyung 2. It was established as a national bank and stock exchange building, the denomination Palais is unhistoric.
History
In 1855, the entire estate between Freyung, Strauchgasse and Herrengasse was by Franz Xaver Imperial Count von Abensperg and Traun to the k.k. Privileged Austrian National Bank sold. This banking institution was previously domiciled in the Herrengasse 17/ Bankgasse. The progressive industrialization and the with it associated economic expansion also implied a rapid development of monetary transactions and banking, so that the current premises soon no longer have been sufficient. This problem could only be solved by a new building, in which also should be housed a stock exchange hall.
According to the desire of the then Governor of the National Bank, Franz von Pipitz, the new building was supposed to be carried out with strict observance of the economy and avoiding a worthless luxury with solidity and artistic as well as technical completion. The building should offer room for the National Bank, the stock market, a cafe and - a novel idea for Vienna - a bazaar.
The commissioned architect, Heinrich von Ferstel, demonstrated in the coping with the irregular surface area with highest conceivable effective use of space his state-of-the art talent. The practical requirements combine themselves with the actually artistic to a masterful composition. Ferstel has been able to lay out the rooms of the issuing bank, the two trading floors, the passage with the bazar and the coffee house in accordance with their intended purpose and at the same time to maintain a consistent style.
He was an advocate of the "Materialbaues" (material building) as it clearly is reflected in the ashlar building of the banking institution. Base, pillars and stairs were fashioned of Wöllersdorfer stone, façade elements such as balconies, cornices, structurings as well as stone banisters of the hard white stone of Emperor Kaiser quarry (Kaisersteinbruch), while the walls were made of -Sankt Margarethen limestone. The inner rooms have been luxuriously formed, with wood paneling, leather wallpaper, Stuccolustro and rich ornamental painting.
The facade of the corner front Strauchgasse/Herrengasse received twelve sculptures by Hanns Gasser as decoration, they symbolized the peoples of the monarchy. The mighty round arch at the exit Freyung were closed with wrought-iron bare gates, because the first used locksmith could not meet the demands of Ferstel, the work was transferred to a silversmith.
1860 the National Bank and the stock exchange could move into the in 1859 completed construction. The following year was placed in the glass-covered passage the Danube mermaid fountain, whose design stems also of Ferstel. Anton von Fernkorn has created the sculptural decoration with an artistic sensitivity. Above the marble fountain basin rises a column crowned by a bronze statue, the Danube female with flowing hair, holding a fish in its hand. Below are arranged around the column three also in bronze cast figures: merchant, fisherman and shipbuilder, so those professions that have to do with the water. The total cost of the building, the interior included, amounted to the enormous sum of 1.897.600 guilders.
The originally planned use of the building remained only a few years preserved. The Stock Exchange with the premises no longer had sufficient space: in 1872 it moved to a provisional solution, 1877 at Schottenring a new Stock Exchange building opened. The National Bank moved 1925 into a yet 1913 planned, spacious new building.
The building was in Second World War battered gravely particularly on the main facade. In the 1960s was located in the former Stock Exchange a basketball training hall, the entire building appeared neglected.
1971 dealt the President of the Federal Monuments Office, Walter Frodl, with the severely war damaged banking and stock exchange building in Vienna. The Office for Technical Geology of Otto Casensky furnished an opinion on the stone facade. On the facade Freyung 2 a balcony was originally attached over the entire 15.4 m long front of hard Kaiserstein.
(Usage of Leith lime: Dependent from the consistence and structure of the Leitha lime the usage differed from „Reibsand“ till building material. The Leitha lime stone is a natural stone which can be formed easily and was desired als beautiful stone for buildings in Roman times. The usage of lime stone from Eggenburg in the Bronze age already was verified. This special attribute is the reason why the Leitha lime was taken from sculptors and masons.
The source of lime stone in the Leitha Mountains was important for Austria and especially for Vienna from the cultur historical point of view during the Renaissance and Baroque. At the 19th century the up to 150 stone quarries of the Leitha mountains got many orders form the construction work of the Vienna „Ring road“.
At many buildings of Graz, such as the castle at the Grazer castle hill, the old Joanneum and the Cottage, the Leitha lime stone was used.
Due to the fact that Leitha lime is bond on carbonate in the texture, the alteration through the actual sour rain is heavy. www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC2HKZ9_leithagebirge-leithak...)
This balcony was no longer present and only close to the facade were remnants of the tread plates and the supporting brackets recognizable. In July 1975, followed the reconstruction of the balcony and master stonemason Friedrich Opferkuh received the order to restore the old state am Leithagebirge received the order the old state - of Mannersdorfer stone, armoured concrete or artificial stone.
1975-1982, the building was renovated and re-opened the Café Central. Since then, the privately owned building is called Palais Ferstel. In the former stock exchange halls now meetings and presentations take place; the Café Central is utilizing one of the courtyards.
The Praktik Metropol Hotel has been remodelled according to state-of-the-art criteria for comfort and style, safe-keeping the integrity and beauty of the original building while adding the practical, luxurious simplicities of the 21st century. Over 60 comfortable rooms with wi-fi, safe deposit boxes, hair dryer and telephone as well as the elegant solidity that is synonymous to Praktik Hotels; Hotel Praktik Metropol is proud to open its doors and invite you on a trip to enjoy Madrid with all your senses, starting with your hotel, at an incomparably affordable cost.
River Dargle Flood Defence Scheme.
These images were taken during the first week of November 2016.
Meanwhile, at the Silverbridge site, adjacent to the N11 dual-carriageway:
We last visited here 2 years ago in November 2014, where bank stabilisation works involving excavation, repair and building of a support wall structure were being carried out by JONS Construction on behalf of the National Roads Authority.
We would occasionally catch sight of this work in the distance. Quite an impressive little piece of structural engineering.
Having built a retaining concave wall, backfilled for solidity, they were also drilling, fixing and sealing ground anchors to pin the entire structure together.
Now we see that further works are being undertaken.
Word has it that extra ‘stabilisation work’ has to be done to protect the integrity of the riverbank. At the section here we can see that there’s not much space between the edge of the rock face and the Armco at the side of the dual-carriageway.
Have yet to determine what precisely that will entail. Serious work to re-inforce the side access ramp down to the river.
Gabions consist of steel ‘baskets’ filled with rock pieces. They are filled and then fixed together to provide protection and strength to the existing river bank. They allow ground water to flow through them which helps prevent waterlogging of the bank behind them. Existing examples of these were used, back in 2012, to line the north bank of the existing riverbank adjacent to The Slang/Rehills stretch.
The N11 carriageway runs adjacent to this sunken side of the riverbank -- barely 2 (large) paces divide the two. Even with twin strips of Armco along the roadside, it's perilously close. Traffic speeds along this stretch (maximum speed 100 kmp). Only needs a touch from a heavy veicle to cause secondary impact, which (worst possible scenario) could result in something going airborne.
Working in these confined spaces puts a premium of safety and communication.
The guys have hard-filled a working shelf on the riverbed, to allow machinery access to the rockface. Obviously some serious drilling is called for before some form of extra 'pinning' is put in place.
They have sunk a series of hollowed tubes/casings -- obviously to form the basis for . . . . . .?
And some investigative work around the transverse buttress of the access bridge, parallel to the heavy-duty pipeline carrying water down from the Vartry reservoir.
Main auditorium, the Plaza Theatre, which was below the Regent, Collins Street, Melbourne, opened on 10 May, 1929. It seated 1235 in its single-level Spanish-style auditorium, with its entrance adjacent to that of the Regent.
"Seating only twelve hundred people, and furnished in true old-world Spanish style, the Plaza provides the acme of comfort for every patron. Every seat is a luxurious lounge armchair. The entire floor space is covered with deep rich carpets. At every turn an objet d'art, never obtrusive but bringing a dash of old-world adventure and romance to the new world masterpiece of theatre construction." [Plaza Theatre advertisement (full-page), The Herald, 10 May, 1929, p. 11].
"Following the recent practice of designing theatres in accordance with the style of some particular period, the Plaza is Spanish in its decorative scheme. Entrance from Collins Street is by way of stairs leading to a court constructed after the manner of a Spanish close. the floor simulates the rough paving of a courtyard, and on one side a fountain pays. Through archways to the right is a rockery with orange trees, and here furniture of the appropriate Spanish period has been placed.
The auditorium also is decorated in a Spanish scheme, in which atmosphere rather than any particular period is suggested. On the roof a variegated design in which red, yellow and green are prominent, gives an appearance of solidity, and the scheme is extended to the leather chairs...
The 'talkies' provide their own accompaniment, and consequently an orchestra is unnecessary. An organ had been installed, however, to supplement the pictures when that is called for, and for solo items." [The Argus, 11 May, 1929]
In February, 1959, a new Cinerama screen and projection system were installed in the Plaza. The Regent Plaza Theatre is cited as one of the few cinemas adapted for Cinerama outside of North America.
The Cinerama screen was well forward of the proscenium, in front of the pit and the organ chambers. Although the organ was no longer able to be played in public, it was still operable, and was used by organists playing at the Regent for practice between the Cinerama sessions.
The Plaza closed in November, 1970. In December that year an auction was held at the theatre where everything that was not bolted down was auctioned off, raising a few thousand dollars.
Entrepreneur David Marinner earmarked the Regent for restoration when he established a revival movement for classical performing arts theatres in Melbourne during 1991. The Plaza Theatre was also fully and magnificently restored to its original ballroom format and reopened in 1996.
River Dargle Flood Defence Scheme.
These images were taken in the second week of January 2017.
These are the critical stabilisation works at the Silverbridge site, adjacent to the N11 dual-carriageway:
Back in November 2014, we observed bank stabilisation works here involving excavation, repair and building of a support wall structure -- carried out by JONS Construction on behalf of the National Roads Authority.
We would occasionally catch sight of this work in the distance. Quite an impressive little piece of structural engineering.
Having built a retaining concave wall, backfilled for solidity, they were also drilling, fixing and sealing ground anchors to pin the entire structure together.
Now we see that further works are being undertaken.
Word has it that extra ‘stabilisation work’ has to be done to protect the integrity of the riverbank. At the section here we can see that there’s not much space between the edge of the rock face and the Armco at the side of the dual-carriageway.
Have yet to determine what precisely that will entail. Serious work to reinforce the side access ramp down to the river.
The N11 carriageway runs adjacent to this sunken side of the riverbank -- barely 2 (large) paces divide the two. Even with twin strips of Armco along the roadside, it's perilously close. Traffic speeds along this stretch (maximum speed 100 kmp). Only needs a touch from a heavy vehicle to cause secondary impact, which (worst possible scenario) could result in something going airborne.
Working in these confined spaces puts a premium of safety and communication.
The guys have hard-filled a working shelf on the riverbed, to allow machinery access to the rockface. Obviously some serious drilling is called for before a form of extra 'pinning' is put in place.
They have sunk a series of hollowed tubes/casings -- obviously to form the foundations of a more extensive structure.
And some investigative work around the transverse buttress of the access bridge, parallel to the heavy-duty pipeline carrying water down from the Vartry reservoir.
At a (rough) guess -- I'd say the foundations were sunk to a depth of approx 4+m.
With such secure foundations in place, they would then look to construct a substantial bank of material, and/or retaining wall (similar to that in place further along the roadside bank).
=================================================
Previously the guys drilled and sunk 4+metre deep reinforced tubing and rods along a newly laid concrete base. Those stubs were then used to attach steel rod cradles -- which, in turn, were filled with poured concrete. Result - the wall quickly rises. Variation on the method they've used elsewhere along this stretch of the river.
At this time of year, it's not a particularly nice place to be working in.
As we can see from the side-on shot, the base of the wall has pre-cut openings for the retaining pins that have been driven into the side wall of the roadside cliff. These will be sealed and capped.
There's something depressing about all these old mansions. Their egomaniacal solidity, compulsive symmetry, and stone-cold materials weigh me down. I never feel the powerful legacy their robber barons wanted me to feel. I just feel drained and dispirited.
This particular human attempt to stave off Chaos is called Greystone. It occupies most of a pretty hillside above Beverly Hills. It is grey, and stone. Edward L. Doheny, the L.A. oil baron, built it as a wedding gift for his son, successor, and new head of the family empire. This was one Edward L. Doheny Jr., who everyone called "Ned."
Ned lived there for about 4 months in 1929, as the legal cesspool of Teapot Dome was still smelling up his father. Then, one night, people heard shots. Ned was dead, in a large pool of his own blood, wearing a robe and pajamas. Also dead, with a gun under his body where it couldn't have fallen by gravity, was a "friend" (some think lover) and business associate named Hugh. No, not me. I wasn't born yet. Good alibi. I didn't kill Ned Doheny. I just take the pictures.
The case was quickly closed, in a most unsatisfactory "investigation," just like all those other famous old L.A. murders.
Officially, it's a murder-suicide. That's it. An unfortunate mental illness by the working guy, who supposedly whacked his rich boss and himself, despite the gun being in altogether the wrong place. Nothing to see here. Go home, Jake. And all the other Chandlerisms. (Chandler, of course, having been inspired to create the L.A. Noir genre by his brief, scary brush with the oil industry. Ditto Upton Sinclair, whose brief, unpleasant experience in the Signal Hill patch inspired his raking of muck.)
Before Hollywood, oil MADE L.A.. It turned a dusty, violent, boring, little barrio into a dusty, ultra-violent, somewhat less boring, big city. And thus came the Doheny family, which begat Doheny Drive, Doheny Road, Doheny State Beach, and the darkness on the mountain.
The murder ruined Greystone's feng shui. Murder will do that. The widow lived there, unhappily, but eventually another robber baron bought it. Mostly, he rented it out for movie shoots and then tried to tear it down for a REAL mansion. After all, the super-rich continue to get richer and more superior - in their own minds anyway - and now they can afford even bigger digs.
Beverly Hills was able to take it over as a historical landmark. That's why it's now a city park. The American Film Institute used it for a time. It's still extremely popular for movie locations.
It was appropriately enough used for There Will Be Blood, a very altered take on Sinclair's Oil!, itself a fictionalized Doheny bio. The murder at the end was filmed in the bowling alley.
Greystone, if you don't think too much, has become a perfectly nice place to wander around, put on Porsche concourses, take the docent tour, or do many other fun things. It has a great view, diminished somewhat by an even larger baronage in 21st Century Flamboyant American Las Vegas PoMo architectural style, currently being perpetrated on far too many acres next door.
After all, as a nation, we have elected by our apathy to let the robber barons rule us again. But, at night, after closing time, this particular baronage remains as ever: dark, still, cold, unhappy, and overlooking a singularly unhappy city.
Bréton brut had as a style been established for a short while prior to this buildings inception, but it was its somewhat trend setting architect that gave widespread acceptability and validity to the movement. It captured the imagination of architects reacting against the recoil of New Humanism and restricted by the economics of the time.
The Unité d'Habitation built in Marseille, France in 1952 is absolutely of its time. Every tower block in the immediate vacinity appears to pay homage to the Unité, They are unashamed of their debt, aesthetic or otherwise, and yet even with benefit hindsight do not appear to be 'better buildings', mere pale imitations.
Steel being consumed in the war effort and the lack of skilled labour in France lead to the choice of concrete, with a more honest and rough finish. Banham says it is ever the more successful due to Corbusiers abandonment of the “pre-war fiction that reinforced concrete was a precise, ‘machine-age’ material”. This notion which had been maintained by extravagant and un-necessary means, such as “lavishing on it skilled labour and specialised equipment beyond anything the economics of the building industry normally permitted”. That is equipment that would give rise to the exacting edges and if these were not achieved then the “roughness and inaccuracies” were plastered over to give a more crisp image, hardly accepting the ‘realities of the situation’. The situation was firmly one of a “messy soup” with “dust, grits and slumpy aggregates, mixed and poured under conditions subject to the vagaries of weather and human fallibility”, hardly an image of high-technology.
The war had also changed Corbusiers perspective of technology’s place in architecture, compare for example the machine for living in, the Ville Savoye (Paris, 1929), compared with schemes such as (although later than the Unité) Notre Dame du Haut built at Ronchamp in 1954. The Unité had been described as “the first modern building that has room for cockroaches”, retort to Le Corbusier stating in a letter to Madame Savoye that “‘Home life today is being paralysed by the deplorable notion that we must have furniture” and that “This notion should be rooted out and replaced by that of equipment”. Banham in his book ‘The New Brutalism’ notes the Unité’s “originalities in sectional organisation”, with its rue Intérieure, apartments with double height spaces all of which in section span the entire width of the block. He also suggests “few buildings anywhere in the world had such a hold on the imagination of young architects especially in England”. Corbusier described his rough concrete style as béton brut, words which (rightly or wrongly) would come to be misinterpreted as representing the New Brutalist style as well as that of béton brut. The solidity of the Unité is furthered from mere concrete security by the setting back of “user-scale elements such as windows and doors” into the concrete frame of the building, giving a sense of a secondary boundary further to the superstructure of the building. As Banham describes it, a building where “word and building stand together in the psychological history of post-war architecture” . He attributes further its success to the “hard glare of the Mediterranean sun” . Something which does not quite translate so well in the greyer skies of Britain, something of the disappointment of driving a new car out of a showroom and home, notwithstanding your home being an equally apt setting.
River Dargle Flood Defence Scheme.
These images were taken on the last day of January 2017.
These are the critical stabilisation works at the Silverbridge site, adjacent to the N11 dual-carriageway:
Back in November 2014, we observed bank stabilisation works here involving excavation, repair and building of a support wall structure -- carried out by JONS Construction on behalf of the National Roads Authority.
We would occasionally catch sight of this work in the distance. Quite an impressive little piece of structural engineering.
Having built a retaining concave wall, backfilled for solidity, they were also drilling, fixing and sealing ground anchors to pin the entire structure together.
Now we see that further works are being undertaken.
Word has it that extra ‘stabilisation work’ has to be done to protect the integrity of the riverbank. At the section here we can see that there’s not much space between the edge of the rock face and the Armco at the side of the dual-carriageway.
Have yet to determine what precisely that will entail. Serious work to reinforce the side access ramp down to the river.
The N11 carriageway runs adjacent to this sunken side of the riverbank -- barely 2 (large) paces divide the two. Even with twin strips of Armco along the roadside, it's perilously close. Traffic speeds along this stretch (maximum speed 100 kmp). Only needs a touch from a heavy vehicle to cause secondary impact, which (worst possible scenario) could result in something going airborne.
Working in these confined spaces puts a premium of safety and communication.
The guys have hard-filled a working shelf on the riverbed, to allow machinery access to the rockface. Obviously some serious drilling is called for before a form of extra 'pinning' is put in place.
They have sunk a series of hollowed tubes/casings -- obviously to form the foundations of a more extensive structure.
And some investigative work around the transverse buttress of the access bridge, parallel to the heavy-duty pipeline carrying water down from the Vartry reservoir.
At a (rough) guess -- I'd say the foundations were sunk to a depth of approx 4+m.
With such secure foundations in place, they would then look to construct a substantial bank of material, and/or retaining wall (similar to that in place further along the roadside bank).
=================================================
Previously the guys drilled and sunk 4+metre deep reinforced tubing and rods along a newly laid concrete base. Those stubs were then used to attach steel rod cradles -- which, in turn, were filled with poured concrete. Result - the wall quickly rises. Variation on the method they've used elsewhere along this stretch of the river.
A continuous stretch of protective wall has now been poured, and joined up with the section originally erected back in 2014.
As we can see from the side-on shot, the base of the wall has pre-cut openings for the retaining pins that have been driven into the side wall of the roadside cliff. These have been sealed and capped.
Progress has been rapid, the full stretch of wall is completed, and the guys are now working on back-filling the empty space between the protective wall and the roadside rock face. You don't just throw in a few trucks loads of soil and hope for the best. You load, layer, level and compress.
Looking down-river towards the Riversdale bend.
River Dargle Flood Defence Scheme.
These images were taken during the first week of October 2014. We tended to loose sight of the fact that (more) critically important has been on-going near the Silverbridge site, adjacent to the N11 carriageway.
Bank stabilisation works involving excavation, repair and building of a support wall structure are being carried out by JONS Construction also on behalf of the National Roads Authority.
We would occasionally catch sight of this work in the distance. One Friday afternoon I took a trip up there, walking back to the site along the side of the carriageway! Recognised some old faces. Quite an impressive little piece of structural engineering.
Having built a retaining concave wall, backfilled for solidity, they were also drilling, fixing and sealing ground anchors to pin the entire structure together.
Ceiling, main auditorium, the Plaza Theatre, which was below the Regent, Collins Street, Melbourne, opened on 10 May, 1929. It seated 1235 in its single-level Spanish-style auditorium, with its entrance adjacent to that of the Regent.
"Seating only twelve hundred people, and furnished in true old-world Spanish style, the Plaza provides the acme of comfort for every patron. Every seat is a luxurious lounge armchair. The entire floor space is covered with deep rich carpets. At every turn an objet d'art, never obtrusive but bringing a dash of old-world adventure and romance to the new world masterpiece of theatre construction." [Plaza Theatre advertisement (full-page), The Herald, 10 May, 1929, p. 11].
"Following the recent practice of designing theatres in accordance with the style of some particular period, the Plaza is Spanish in its decorative scheme. Entrance from Collins Street is by way of stairs leading to a court constructed after the manner of a Spanish close. the floor simulates the rough paving of a courtyard, and on one side a fountain pays. Through archways to the right is a rockery with orange trees, and here furniture of the appropriate Spanish period has been placed.
The auditorium also is decorated in a Spanish scheme, in which atmosphere rather than any particular period is suggested. On the roof a variegated design in which red, yellow and green are prominent, gives an appearance of solidity, and the scheme is extended to the leather chairs...
The 'talkies' provide their own accompaniment, and consequently an orchestra is unnecessary. An organ had been installed, however, to supplement the pictures when that is called for, and for solo items." [The Argus, 11 May, 1929]
In February, 1959, a new Cinerama screen and projection system were installed in the Plaza. The Regent Plaza Theatre is cited as one of the few cinemas adapted for Cinerama outside of North America.
The Cinerama screen was well forward of the proscenium, in front of the pit and the organ chambers. Although the organ was no longer able to be played in public, it was still operable, and was used by organists playing at the Regent for practice between the Cinerama sessions.
The Plaza closed in November, 1970. In December that year an auction was held at the theatre where everything that was not bolted down was auctioned off, raising a few thousand dollars.
Entrepreneur David Marinner earmarked the Regent for restoration when he established a revival movement for classical performing arts theatres in Melbourne during 1991. The Plaza Theatre was also fully and magnificently restored to its original ballroom format and reopened in 1996.
中国工商银行. No. 37, 7 Jingjie 七經街.
Another well preserved Japanese building. The neo-classical façade with eight pilasters made of natural stone served to suggest the solidity of the Japanese bank. An additional floor has been added.
massive azolla - 'duckweed' - bloom creates a false impression of solidity during flooding of the loch luna game reserve, 19-12-16
riverland, south australia
Paul Cézanne French, 1839-1906
The Pond, c. 1877-1879
oil on canvas
collections.mfa.org/objects/33152/the-pond?ctx=ecab7869-1...
Tempkins Collection-Arthur Gordon Tompkins Fund, 2948, 48.244
From far off one often gets an entirely different idea of things. But likewise when one is too close one sees nothing; you can't see a Cézanne by holding it against your nose. Camille Pissarro
Paul Cézanne exhibited in two of the eight Impressionist exhibitions, including the first one, held in Paris from April 15 to May 15, 1874. He worked closely alongside his elder colleague Camille Pissarro in the 1870s and emulated his technique of using regular, directional brushwork. The rhythmic. even brushstrokes of The Pond, particularly visible in the hillside and the tree at right, create a feeling of solidity rather than depth or movement.
In the early 1870s, Cézanne was living in Auvers, a small town outside Paris, and learning to work directly from nature. The Pond is painted in small, parallel strokes of blues and greens, an early version of the distinctive brushwork that plays a key role in the construction of Cézanne's mature paintings. Here, figures are placed boldly against the landscape. Cézanne would more fully integrate figure and landscape in his many later paintings of bathers.
PROVENANCE
Probably about 1870s-1880s, sold by the artist to Gustave Caillebotte (b. 1848 - d. 1894), Paris [see note 1]; at his death, by inheritance to his brother, Martial Caillebotte, Paris [see note 2]; by descent to Gustave Caillebotte's nephew, G. Chardeau, Paris; sold by Chardeau to André Weil Gallery, Paris and Matignon Art Galleries, New York [see note 3]; 1948, sold by André Weil and Matignon Art Galleries to the MFA for $35,000. (Accession Date: February 12, 1948)
Top left - walking along Manchester Road it is not hard to find the entrance to the former booking hall at Denton Station. The tell tale signs are in the changes in colour and the rough nature of the brickwork that now fills up the gap where in times gone by many hundreds will have passed through to buy their tickets and walk down the old staircase long since removed to the platforms below.
Top right - looking at platform level towards the direction of Reddish and Stockport, on the ground below the more recent metal staircase are the brick foundations of a former goods lift for taking parcels and luggage down to the platforms. At the far end of the bridge there once stood Denton signal box and to the left the former Denton Goods Yard.
Bottom left - when Denton was once served by four rail tracks many locomotives will have passed under the bridge to the far left. Up above is where the former booking hall one stood supported on a framework that will have included the projecting brick buttress seen in the foreground. It is also likely that the remains of another platform that once existed lie hidden somewhere in the undergrowth - job for Tony Robinson and Time Team? Can I hear the ghostly sounds of former steam locomotives when I pass here at night?
Bottom right - although the former station gardens and buildings have long since been removed to be replaced by a plain coat of tarmac, the platform edges still in use have not given up their large edging stones that continue to provide a sense of solidity. Some fine original coloured brickwork still remains on the far side of the track which continues to be supported by wooden sleepers.
The copyright for these images remains with denton_ian unless otherwise indicated and is displayed for enjoyment, comment and feedback. Please contact me first of all by FlickrMail if you wish to use images for your own purposes and I shall be pleased to assist.
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.
River Dargle Flood Defence Scheme.
These images were taken in the second week of January 2017.
These are the critical stabilisation works at the Silverbridge site, adjacent to the N11 dual-carriageway:
Back in November 2014, we observed bank stabilisation works here involving excavation, repair and building of a support wall structure -- carried out by JONS Construction on behalf of the National Roads Authority.
We would occasionally catch sight of this work in the distance. Quite an impressive little piece of structural engineering.
Having built a retaining concave wall, backfilled for solidity, they were also drilling, fixing and sealing ground anchors to pin the entire structure together.
Now we see that further works are being undertaken.
Word has it that extra ‘stabilisation work’ has to be done to protect the integrity of the riverbank. At the section here we can see that there’s not much space between the edge of the rock face and the Armco at the side of the dual-carriageway.
Have yet to determine what precisely that will entail. Serious work to reinforce the side access ramp down to the river.
The N11 carriageway runs adjacent to this sunken side of the riverbank -- barely 2 (large) paces divide the two. Even with twin strips of Armco along the roadside, it's perilously close. Traffic speeds along this stretch (maximum speed 100 kmp). Only needs a touch from a heavy vehicle to cause secondary impact, which (worst possible scenario) could result in something going airborne.
Working in these confined spaces puts a premium of safety and communication.
The guys have hard-filled a working shelf on the riverbed, to allow machinery access to the rockface. Obviously some serious drilling is called for before a form of extra 'pinning' is put in place.
They have sunk a series of hollowed tubes/casings -- obviously to form the foundations of a more extensive structure.
And some investigative work around the transverse buttress of the access bridge, parallel to the heavy-duty pipeline carrying water down from the Vartry reservoir.
At a (rough) guess -- I'd say the foundations were sunk to a depth of approx 4+m.
With such secure foundations in place, they would then look to construct a substantial bank of material, and/or retaining wall (similar to that in place further along the roadside bank).
=================================================
Previously the guys drilled and sunk 4+metre deep reinforced tubing and rods along a newly laid concrete base. Those stubs were then used to attach steel rod cradles -- which, in turn, were filled with poured concrete. Result - the wall quickly rises. Variation on the method they've used elsewhere along this stretch of the river.
At this time of year, it's not a particularly nice place to be working in.
As we can see from the side-on shot, the base of the wall has pre-cut openings for the retaining pins that have been driven into the side wall of the roadside cliff. These will be sealed and capped.
I'm working on the design proposal following the jury responses and reactions the other day. The text and ideas that that I presented for the jury are outlined below:
--------------------------------
THE RECEPTACLE
A temporary architectural urban intervention
THE INTEREST
Architecture and buildings make up solid, slow moving urban landscapes. Buildings are designed to last 30 years, 50 years, 200 years. There is solidity, a permanency in the existence of architecture and the built environment. Cities do not change overnight, they evolve over time. Often, this change is in-perceptible to the user or inhabitant of the city. It is a part of the subconscious.
My project will investigate this relationship between architecture, consciousness and memory. The investigation will have a local relevance, focussing on the city of Perth, and our urban inhabitation of it.
THE IDEA OF TEMPORARY
The evolution and change in urban environment is recorded as a memory, a recollection of time passed. This memory is stored in photographs, moving images, stories, and, the mind.
Reflecting upon this, it becomes apparent that cities themselves also become repositories of memory. As the buildings and urban form experience time, they also record it. Paint jobs, renovations, additions, subtractions and demolitions all mark moments of history within our urban environment. Buildings and urban space become markers for personal and collective memory as the inhabitants of the city occupy them.
My interest is to see what happens when the life-cycle of a building or a piece of architecture is shortened. Instead of being built to last 30 years, what happens if a piece of architecture is built to last 30 hours?
Instead of being considered “permanent”, what happens when architecture is thought of as “temporary”? Can we consider the outcomes to be architecture?
CRITIQUE AND TIME
How does the critic judge the success of a building?
To follow the zeitgeist, architecture needs function. It needs a purpose. Shelter, enclosure, reason, inhabitation. As such, temporary architecture also needs function.
This project will assume that a temporary building be judged with the same methodology as a “permanent” building. The temporary building will be subjected to critique of its functional aims, historical, social, ethical and site specific contextual relevance, aesthetic qualities and detail, and the level of engagement it has with its inhabitants.
These are all methodologies and techniques for criticism that we know and understand as practitioners in the field of architecture. However, the temporary building is subject to another element of judgement. This element is its relationship to time, its temporal qualities.
So, I am interested in exploring the temporal qualities of architecture.
Does a temporary building question the relationship between inhabitant of urban space and their environment? Is the fact that the building exists for a short period of time a catalyst to spark the consciousness towards inhabitation of a built environment?
Does a temporary building actually awaken the city dweller, heightening their sense of awareness of the environment in which they live? Its temporal existence may cause the user of the city to step back, look at the city, and, perhaps, consider their relationship to it. The fleeting presence of an architectural object as an urban intervention could spark interest, activity and conscious thought about the urban realm. The temporary building can exist as a moment, a brief performance, a memory of the urban environment that passes us by.
This project will attempt to document and develop an understanding of how we might measure and critique the short-term temporal existence of architecture
THE PROJECT
The proposal is to design a small exhibition space, a temporary piece of architecture.
Its existence in the urban environment will provoke interaction and interest in the surrounding built context. The temporary piece of architecture will be a receptacle, a store of information about the urban environment in which it exists. And, as quickly as it appears, the piece of architecture will disappear, remembered only as a photograph, a movie, a memory.
The exhibition space will exhibit images of the city: historical, present day and proposed. The specific location of the pavilion becomes important then as it enhances the relationship between the viewer or occupant and the surrounding urban realm. For example, the exhibition pavilion could exist in Forrest Place, and show images of the architectural and built development of that site over the last 200 years. The location of the pavilion then becomes relevant to the internal content, and the design of the exhibition pavilion can respond to historical lessons and ideas.
THE LOCATION
The urban environment: Perth.
If we consider Perth to be a city created by a boom and bust cycle, then we assume that the city has a modern veneer, and an erased memory. Old buildings that once were are reduced to images of the past, stored in libraries and books. We imagine that the public awareness and collective memory fades. The temporary building, the receptacle, can be a source of memory, a moment where people stop, look inside and see what the city once was.
The receptacle can enliven underused urban spaces, provide activation and interaction of inhabitants to their urban environment, and exhibit time passed. Then, as with the buildings in the photographs, the receptacle itself is removed from the environment and consigned to memory.
OBJECTIVES AND OUTCOMES
The project will research the relationships between architecture, consciousness and memory.
The project will deliver a piece of temporary architecture, designed as an exhibition pavilion. It will exist in the city of Perth.
The pavilion will need to be relevant to site, historical, cultural, spatial and theoretical contexts.
It will temporarily occupy an urban space in Perth, with reactions, interactions and inhabitation of the space recorded, documented and published online. Through this process, a further public awareness of urban and architectural history of the city will hopefully occur.
The project will also research methods and techniques for judging the success of architectural notions and concepts such as activation, interaction, awareness and inhabitation.
SOME PRAGMATICS
The temporary pavilion will be researched and designed throughout the course of the semester, 100 days.
The object will be dismantled or destroyed once it is no longer needed, and should be constructed from recycled materials to save money, and to test notions of architectural sustainability.
To be temporary, the pavilion needs to be restricted in the time it takes to install and uninstall. As such, the pavilion should be able to be assembled in 72 hours and disassembled in 24 hours. To enable installation in the urban environment, the pavilion will need to be transportable.
The temporary pavilion should be used and adaptable as a small exhibition space, with room for up to eight people (the number of honours design students). The intimacy of the space will make the design and construction of the pavilion realistic.
River Dargle Flood Defence Scheme.
These images were taken during the first week of October 2014. We tended to loose sight of the fact that (more) critically important has been on-going near the Silverbridge site, adjacent to the N11 carriageway.
Bank stabilisation works involving excavation, repair and building of a support wall structure are being carried out by JONS Construction also on behalf of the National Roads Authority.
We would occasionally catch sight of this work in the distance. One Friday afternoon I took a trip up there, walking back to the site along the side of the carriageway! Recognised some old faces. Quite an impressive little piece of structural engineering.
Having built a retaining concave wall, backfilled for solidity, they were also drilling, fixing and sealing ground anchors to pin the entire structure together.
Columns today [...] simply disappear into the floor. But there are situations where a widened section of the column just above the floor offers interesting extra advantages. At the entrance to a nursery school, e.g., parents gather to wait for their children to take them home. It would be a bit exaggerated to install special benches just for these waiting parents, and it is even doubtful whether they would be really wanted. [...] During the children's recess the discs are used to leave coats and bags on - a better place for them than on the ground in a corner, surely...And last but by no means least this column inevitably serves as 'home' to hide-and-seek players.
- Herman Hertzberger, Lessons For Students In Architecture p. 184, quoting a piece of his from Forum 1983.
Note how the half-glass-block stair serves to enclose and shelter the entry while keeping it from being dark and dingy - while the concrete half of the stair reinforces the sense of safety and solidity.
River Dargle Flood Defence Scheme.
These images were taken during the first week of November 2016.
Meanwhile, at the Silverbridge site, adjacent to the N11 dual-carriageway:
We last visited here 2 years ago in November 2014, where bank stabilisation works involving excavation, repair and building of a support wall structure were being carried out by JONS Construction on behalf of the National Roads Authority.
We would occasionally catch sight of this work in the distance. Quite an impressive little piece of structural engineering.
Having built a retaining concave wall, backfilled for solidity, they were also drilling, fixing and sealing ground anchors to pin the entire structure together.
Now we see that further works are being undertaken.
Word has it that extra ‘stabilisation work’ has to be done to protect the integrity of the riverbank. At the section here we can see that there’s not much space between the edge of the rock face and the Armco at the side of the dual-carriageway.
Have yet to determine what precisely that will entail. Serious work to re-inforce the side access ramp down to the river.
Gabions consist of steel ‘baskets’ filled with rock pieces. They are filled and then fixed together to provide protection and strength to the existing river bank. They allow ground water to flow through them which helps prevent waterlogging of the bank behind them. Existing examples of these were used, back in 2012, to line the north bank of the existing riverbank adjacent to The Slang/Rehills stretch.
The N11 carriageway runs adjacent to this sunken side of the riverbank -- barely 2 (large) paces divide the two. Even with twin strips of Armco along the roadside, it's perilously close. Traffic speeds along this stretch (maximum speed 100 kmp). Only needs a touch from a heavy veicle to cause secondary impact, which (worst possible scenario) could result in something going airborne.
Working in these confined spaces puts a premium of safety and communication.
The guys have hard-filled a working shelf on the riverbed, to allow machinery access to the rockface. Obviously some serious drilling is called for before some form of extra 'pinning' is put in place.
They have sunk a series of hollowed tubes/casings -- obviously to form the basis for . . . . . .?
And some investigative work around the transverse buttress of the access bridge, parallel to the heavy-duty pipeline carrying water down from the Vartry reservoir.
After the first black-and-white test film of my Rolleiflex 3.5F model-3 (or « K4F », see details given below), I decided to do a negative-color film with a roll of Kodak Ektar 100. I expected for some weather improvements but finally it was essentially overcast during the session giving a very soft light to the scene. The sun came after on my way back for a moment only.
For all the frames, the Rolleiflex was equipped with the Rollei RII protecting filters (UV) on both lenses and the taking lens additionally equipped with the Rollei RII original shade hood. The film was exposed for 100 ISO. Light-metering was done using a Minolta Autometer III equipped with a 10° finder for selective measures privileging the shadow areas or with the integrating white dome for incident light metering. The camera was held using the brand-new leather neck strap for the Rolleiflex that I received from China.
Documentary smartphone picture.
March 25, 2025
Parc de la Tête d'Or
69006 Lyon
France
After the view #12 exposed, the film was fully rolled to the taking spool and was developed using the C41 protocol by a local laboratory service (one-hour service).
Digitizing was made using a Sony A7 camera (ILCE-7, 24MP) held on a Minolta vertical macro stative device and adapted to a Minolta MD Macro lens 1:3.5 f=50mm. The light source was a LED panel (approx. 4x5') CineStill Cine-lite fitted with film holder "Lobster" to maintain flat the film.
The RAW files obtained were inverted within the latest version available of Adobe software Lightroom Classic (14.2) and edited to the final jpeg pictures without intermediate file. They are presented either as printed files with frame or the full size JPEG together with some documentary smartphone pictures.
About the camera
I got this stunning Rolleiflex 3.5F from a French artist near Paris, France. The camera came in it original box and leather bag with accessories and a reference book year 1955. The whole kit is in a remarkable state of conservation.
The Rolleiflex 3.5F is the model-3 that Rollei-Werke Franke & Heidecke produced in about 50.000 units in Germany from 1960 to 1965. The Rolleiflex originates from 1928 for the very first model and was produced still in a limited number until the years 2000’s. The 3.5F model 3 was available etheir with a Schneider-Kreuznak Xenotar taking lens or the Call Zeiss Planar 1:3.5 f=75mm as this camera. The Rolleiflex, that was a quality reference for many professional photographers in the 50’s for the medium-format 6X6 camera’s. Many worked both with the Leica M3 (starting from 1954) as small-format 24x36mm camera and the Rolleiflex for other appliances. The Rolleiflex remained one of the most iconic and trusted camera of all the times.
This specific 3.5F is labelled on the right side with nice badge made of enameled brass « T » « Telos » that was the exclusive first French importer of Rollei to France until 1972.
The Rolleiflex 3,5 F model 3 is equipped with the Synchro-Compur central shutter MXV CR00 with cone-wheel differential. The distance scale is only in meters here with automatic DOF indication.
Serial number with ‘3,5F’ prefix on of top name shield.
I detailed the camera and accessories and studied carefully the user manual and the book to be more familiar with this beauty before waiting for a quiet moment to prepare for a test film. I did not trust the solidity of the old leather original neck strap to carry this precious machine on the field to avoid the real risk to drop the camera. I first used my modern Peak-Design Leach safe strap before using a Chinese nice remake of the original leather strap, reproducing even the famous « crocodile » connectors.
Entrance foyer, the Plaza Theatre, which was below the Regent, Collins Street, Melbourne, opened on 10 May, 1929. It seated 1235 in its single-level Spanish-style auditorium, with its entrance adjacent to that of the Regent.
"Seating only twelve hundred people, and furnished in true old-world Spanish style, the Plaza provides the acme of comfort for every patron. Every seat is a luxurious lounge armchair. The entire floor space is covered with deep rich carpets. At every turn an objet d'art, never obtrusive but bringing a dash of old-world adventure and romance to the new world masterpiece of theatre construction." [Plaza Theatre advertisement (full-page), The Herald, 10 May, 1929, p. 11].
"Following the recent practice of designing theatres in accordance with the style of some particular period, the Plaza is Spanish in its decorative scheme. Entrance from Collins Street is by way of stairs leading to a court constructed after the manner of a Spanish close. the floor simulates the rough paving of a courtyard, and on one side a fountain pays. Through archways to the right is a rockery with orange trees, and here furniture of the appropriate Spanish period has been placed.
The auditorium also is decorated in a Spanish scheme, in which atmosphere rather than any particular period is suggested. On the roof a variegated design in which red, yellow and green are prominent, gives an appearance of solidity, and the scheme is extended to the leather chairs...
The 'talkies' provide their own accompaniment, and consequently an orchestra is unnecessary. An organ had been installed, however, to supplement the pictures when that is called for, and for solo items." [The Argus, 11 May, 1929]
In February, 1959, a new Cinerama screen and projection system were installed in the Plaza. The Regent Plaza Theatre is cited as one of the few cinemas adapted for Cinerama outside of North America.
The Cinerama screen was well forward of the proscenium, in front of the pit and the organ chambers. Although the organ was no longer able to be played in public, it was still operable, and was used by organists playing at the Regent for practice between the Cinerama sessions.
The Plaza closed in November, 1970. In December that year an auction was held at the theatre where everything that was not bolted down was auctioned off, raising a few thousand dollars.
Entrepreneur David Marinner earmarked the Regent for restoration when he established a revival movement for classical performing arts theatres in Melbourne during 1991. The Plaza Theatre was also fully and magnificently restored to its original ballroom format and reopened in 1996.
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.
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.
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.
Caesarea was developed over a period of 12 Years into a grand city and major seaport and he dedicated it to Roman Emperor Caesar Augustus, who had returned it to Herod after wresting it away from Cleopatra. It left a spectacular Roman amphitheater that is still used as a performance venue today. Caesarea, often simplified to Keisarya, and Qaysaria, is an affluent town in north-central Israel, which inherits its name and much of its territory from the ancient city of Caesarea Maritima. Located midway between Tel Aviv and Haifa. The ancient city of Caesarea Maritima was built by Herod the Great about 25–13 BCE as a major port. It served as an administrative center of the province of Judaea in the Roman Empire, and later as the capital of the Byzantine province of Palaestina Prima. During the Muslim conquest in the 7th century, it was the last city of the Holy Land to fall to the Arabs. The city degraded to a small village after the provincial capital was moved from here to Ramla and had an Arab majority until Crusader conquest. Under the Crusaders it became once again a major port and a fortified city. It was diminished after the Mamluk conquest. In 1884, Bosniak immigrants settled there establishing a small fishing village. Hellenistic and early Roman periods - In 90 BCE, Jewish ruler Alexander Jannaeus captured Straton's Tower as part of his policy of developing the shipbuilding industry and enlarging the Hasmonean kingdom. Straton's Tower remained a Jewish settlement for two more generations, until the area became dominated by the Romans in 63 BCE, when they declared it an autonomous city. Herodian city of Caesarea Maritima (22 BCE – 6CE) - Caesarea Maritima was built in Roman-ruled Judea under the Jewish client King Herod the Great during c. 22-10/9 BCE near the ruins of the small naval station of Straton's Tower. The site, along with all of Judea, was awarded by Rome to Herod the Great in 30 BCE. The pagan city underwent vast changes under Herod, who renamed it Caesarea in honor of the Roman emperor, Caesar Augustus. Caesarea Maritima was known as the administrative, economic, and cultural capital of the Palestinian province from this time. In 22 BCE, Herod began construction of a deep-sea harbor named Sebastos and built storerooms, markets, wide roads, baths, temples to Rome and Augustus, and imposing public buildings. Herod built his palace on a promontory jutting out into the sea, with a decorative pool surrounded by stoas. Every five years, the city hosted major sports competitions, gladiator games, and theatrical productions in its theatre overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. Construction of Sebastos Harbor / King Herod built the two jetties of the harbor between 22 and 15 BCE, and in 10/9 BCE he dedicated the city and harbor to Emperor Augustus (Sebastos is Greek for Augustus). The pace of construction was impressive considering the project's size and complexity. At its height, Sebastos was one of the most impressive harbors of its time. It had been constructed on a coast that had no natural harbors and served as an important commercial harbor in antiquity, rivaling Cleopatra's harbor at Alexandria. Josephus wrote: "Although the location was generally unfavorable, [Herod] contended with the difficulties so well that the solidity of the construction could not be overcome by the sea, and its beauty seemed finished off without impediment." When it was built in the 1st century BCE, the harbor of Sebastos ranked as the largest artificial harbor built in the open sea, enclosing around 100,000 m2. The breakwaters were made of lime and pozzolana, a type of volcanic ash, set into an underwater concrete. Herod imported over 24,000 m3 of pozzolana from the name-giving town of Puteoli, today Pozzuoli in Italy, to construct the two breakwaters: the southern one 500 meter, and the northern one 275 meter long. A shipment of this size would have required at least 44 shiploads of 400 tons each. Herod also had 12,000 m3 of local kurkar stone quarried to make rubble and 12,000 m3 of slaked lime mixed with the pozzolana. Architects had to devise a way to lay the wooden forms for the placement of concrete underwater. One technique was to drive stakes into the ground to make a box and then fill it with pozzolana concrete bit by bit. However, this method required many divers to hammer the planks to the stakes underwater and large quantities of pozzolana were necessary. Another technique was a double planking method used in the northern breakwater. On land, carpenters would construct a box with beams and frames on the inside and a watertight, double-planked wall on the outside. This double wall was built with a 23 cm (9 in) gap between the inner and outer layer. Although the box had no bottom, it was buoyant enough to float out to sea because of the watertight space between the inner and outer walls. Once it was floated into position, pozzolana was poured into the gap between the walls and the box would sink into place on the seafloor and be staked down in the corners. The flooded inside area was then filled by divers bit by bit with pozzolana-lime mortar and kurkar rubble until it rose above sea level. On the southern breakwater, barge construction was used. The southern side of Sebastos was much more exposed than the northern side, requiring sturdier breakwaters. Instead of using the double planked method filled with rubble, the architects sank barges filled with layers of pozzolana concrete and lime sand mortar. The barges were similar to boxes without lids, and were constructed using mortise and tenon joints, the same technique used in ancient boats, to ensure they remained watertight. The barges were ballasted with 0.5 meters of pozzolana concrete and floated out to their position. With alternating layers, pozzolana-based and lime-based concretes were hand-placed inside the barge to sink it and fill it up to the surface. However, there were underlying problems that led to its demise. Studies of the concrete cores of the moles have shown that the concrete was much weaker than similar pozzolana hydraulic concrete used in ancient Italian ports. For unknown reasons, the pozzolana mortar did not adhere as well to the kurkar rubble as it did to other rubble types used in Italian harbors. Small but numerous holes in some of the cores also indicate that the lime was of poor quality and stripped out of the mixture by strong waves before it could set. Also, large lumps of lime were found in all five of the cores studied at Caesarea, which shows that the mixture was not mixed thoroughly. However, stability would not have been seriously affected if the harbor had not been constructed over a geological fault line that runs along the coast. Seismic action gradually took its toll on the breakwaters, causing them to tilt down and settle into the seabed. Studies of seabed deposits at Caesarea have shown that a tsunami struck the area sometime during the 1st or 2nd century. Although it is unknown if this tsunami simply damaged or completely destroyed the harbor, it is known that by the 6th century the harbor was unusable and today the jetties lie more than 5 meters underwater. During the Byzantine period, Caesarea became the capital of the new province of Palaestina Prima in 390. As the capital of the province, Caesarea was also the metropolitan see, with ecclesiastical jurisdiction over Jerusalem, when rebuilt after the destruction in the year 70. In 451, however, the Council of Chalcedon established Jerusalem as a patriarchate, with Caesarea as the first of its three subordinate metropolitan sees. Caesarea remained the provincial capital throughout the 5th and 6th centuries. It fell to Sassanid Persia in the Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628, in 614, and was re-conquered by Byzantium in 625.
In Roccalumera there is an ancient guard-tower which is commonly called Tower of Sollima, from the name of the noble family of Messina owner of the building in the XVI century.The Tower is also called Saracen even if there are no recorded information about Arab origins of the building. The structure, cylindrical shaped and about 13 metres high, showed a conical roof, two windows with modest size and a small door. It was part of the guard and defensive system of Ionian coast against danger of enemy invasions.Outposts communicated to each other by smoke signallings during the day and fire signallings in the night. In the cases of extreme emergency were rung at the same time also alarm bells: people were in this way alarmed and began to escape among near heights. The tower of Roccalumera was considered by the then military architects the best of the area both for its strategical position and the solidity of its structure.After the end of Arab incursions the structure has undergone many changes: windows and the door became larger and was built a wide battlemented terrace which took the place of the previous conical roof.
Antica torre di guardia, comunemente detta “Torre Saracena”. La costruzione risale probabilmente all’inizio del ‘400 e non è improbabile che l’aggettivo “saracena” stia per significare “torre antica”.Le funzioni della torre, costruita nei pressi della spiaggia, erano di avvistamento, di prima difesa e all’occorrenza offriva rifugio ai contadini qualora ci fossero incursioni dei pirati. Le segnalazioni di pericolo si effettuavano di giorno con il fumo, e di notte con il fuoco acceso in apposite padelle. Alla torre si accedeva tramite una scala a corda. Scomparso il pericolo dei pirati, la torre fu adibita a torre telegrafo e metteva in comunicazione la contrada detta “Zia Paola”, nome derivato dalla locanda dove i viandanti solevano fermarsi per rifocillarsi, posta sulla Marina di Pagliara, con la cittadina di Barcellona, poco distante da Messina.el 1578 la “Torre saracena” presentava una struttura con un tetto conico, due lucernari sulla parte superiore, una porticina d’ingresso al di sopra della zoccolatura e, di fianco, alla stalla per il “cavallaio”, visibile ancora oggi.Dopo il 1830 furono aperte, nella parte superiore, due finestre a sesto acuto in pietra bianca e il tetto fu arricchito da una notevole merlatura che fungeva da terrazzo. La “Torre saracena” è divenuta nel tempo il simbolo di Roccalumera.Salvatore Quasimodo le fu particolarmente legato, dedicandole la poesia “Vicino ad una Torre Saracena per il fratello morto”, riprodotta su una lapide di marmo posta alla base della torre.
River Dargle Flood Defence Scheme.
These images were taken in the second week of January 2017.
These are the critical stabilisation works at the Silverbridge site, adjacent to the N11 dual-carriageway:
Back in November 2014, we observed bank stabilisation works here involving excavation, repair and building of a support wall structure -- carried out by JONS Construction on behalf of the National Roads Authority.
We would occasionally catch sight of this work in the distance. Quite an impressive little piece of structural engineering.
Having built a retaining concave wall, backfilled for solidity, they were also drilling, fixing and sealing ground anchors to pin the entire structure together.
Now we see that further works are being undertaken.
Word has it that extra ‘stabilisation work’ has to be done to protect the integrity of the riverbank. At the section here we can see that there’s not much space between the edge of the rock face and the Armco at the side of the dual-carriageway.
Have yet to determine what precisely that will entail. Serious work to reinforce the side access ramp down to the river.
The N11 carriageway runs adjacent to this sunken side of the riverbank -- barely 2 (large) paces divide the two. Even with twin strips of Armco along the roadside, it's perilously close. Traffic speeds along this stretch (maximum speed 100 kmp). Only needs a touch from a heavy vehicle to cause secondary impact, which (worst possible scenario) could result in something going airborne.
Working in these confined spaces puts a premium of safety and communication.
The guys have hard-filled a working shelf on the riverbed, to allow machinery access to the rockface. Obviously some serious drilling is called for before a form of extra 'pinning' is put in place.
They have sunk a series of hollowed tubes/casings -- obviously to form the foundations of a more extensive structure.
And some investigative work around the transverse buttress of the access bridge, parallel to the heavy-duty pipeline carrying water down from the Vartry reservoir.
At a (rough) guess -- I'd say the foundations were sunk to a depth of approx 4+m.
With such secure foundations in place, they would then look to construct a substantial bank of material, and/or retaining wall (similar to that in place further along the roadside bank).
=================================================
Previously the guys drilled and sunk 4+metre deep reinforced tubing and rods along a newly laid concrete base. Those stubs were then used to attach steel rod cradles -- which, in turn, were filled with poured concrete. Result - the wall quickly rises. Variation on the method they've used elsewhere along this stretch of the river.
At this time of year, it's not a particularly nice place to be working in.
At the northern end of the north transept was formerly a large chapel (possibly an earlier Lady Chapel?) which consisted of a nave and chancel divided by an open arch with slender 'Y' tracery supported by a slender column. Following the Dissolution the 'nave' part of this chapel was demolished but the eastern part beyond the arch was retained with the archway partially blocked with the remainder glazed to form a large window. This fine vaulted room is at present closed to visitors, being used as the Abbey's choir room.
In 2005 I was still working for Norgrove Studios who were commissioned to reglaze the arch with quarries in handmade glass. I thus got to not only get inside a part of the Abbey not normally seen by the public but also had the rare chance to see the openings of the arch re-opened while it was reglazed, return to its original state, if only for a mere few hours.
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.
River Dargle Flood Defence Scheme.
These images were taken during the first week of October 2014. We tended to loose sight of the fact that (more) critically important has been on-going near the Silverbridge site, adjacent to the N11 carriageway.
Bank stabilisation works involving excavation, repair and building of a support wall structure are being carried out by JONS Construction also on behalf of the National Roads Authority.
We would occasionally catch sight of this work in the distance. One Friday afternoon I took a trip up there, walking back to the site along the side of the carriageway! Recognised some old faces. Quite an impressive little piece of structural engineering.
Having built a retaining concave wall, backfilled for solidity, they were also drilling, fixing and sealing ground anchors to pin the entire structure together.
River Dargle Flood Defence Scheme.
These images were taken in the second week of January 2017.
These are the critical stabilisation works at the Silverbridge site, adjacent to the N11 dual-carriageway:
Back in November 2014, we observed bank stabilisation works here involving excavation, repair and building of a support wall structure -- carried out by JONS Construction on behalf of the National Roads Authority.
We would occasionally catch sight of this work in the distance. Quite an impressive little piece of structural engineering.
Having built a retaining concave wall, backfilled for solidity, they were also drilling, fixing and sealing ground anchors to pin the entire structure together.
Now we see that further works are being undertaken.
Word has it that extra ‘stabilisation work’ has to be done to protect the integrity of the riverbank. At the section here we can see that there’s not much space between the edge of the rock face and the Armco at the side of the dual-carriageway.
Have yet to determine what precisely that will entail. Serious work to reinforce the side access ramp down to the river.
The N11 carriageway runs adjacent to this sunken side of the riverbank -- barely 2 (large) paces divide the two. Even with twin strips of Armco along the roadside, it's perilously close. Traffic speeds along this stretch (maximum speed 100 kmp). Only needs a touch from a heavy vehicle to cause secondary impact, which (worst possible scenario) could result in something going airborne.
Working in these confined spaces puts a premium of safety and communication.
The guys have hard-filled a working shelf on the riverbed, to allow machinery access to the rockface. Obviously some serious drilling is called for before a form of extra 'pinning' is put in place.
They have sunk a series of hollowed tubes/casings -- obviously to form the foundations of a more extensive structure.
And some investigative work around the transverse buttress of the access bridge, parallel to the heavy-duty pipeline carrying water down from the Vartry reservoir.
At a (rough) guess -- I'd say the foundations were sunk to a depth of approx 4+m.
With such secure foundations in place, they would then look to construct a substantial bank of material, and/or retaining wall (similar to that in place further along the roadside bank).
=================================================
Previously the guys drilled and sunk 4+metre deep reinforced tubing and rods along a newly laid concrete base. Those stubs were then used to attach steel rod cradles -- which, in turn, were filled with poured concrete. Result - the wall quickly rises. Variation on the method they've used elsewhere along this stretch of the river.
At this time of year, it's not a particularly nice place to be working in.
Organ grilles, main auditorium, the Plaza Theatre, which was below the Regent, Collins Street, Melbourne, opened on 10 May, 1929. It seated 1235 in its single-level Spanish-style auditorium, with its entrance adjacent to that of the Regent on Collins St.
An organ was installed in two chambers, behind very elaborate grilles, at either side of the proscenium, with the console in the centre of the "orchestra pit":
"Seating only twelve hundred people, and furnished in true old-world Spanish style, the Plaza provides the acme of comfort for every patron. Every seat is a luxurious lounge armchair. The entire floor space is covered with deep rich carpets. At every turn an objet d'art, never obtrusive but bringing a dash of old-world adventure and romance to the new world masterpiece of theatre construction." [Plaza Theatre advertisement (full-page), The Herald, 10 May, 1929, p. 11].
"Following the recent practice of designing theatres in accordance with the style of some particular period, the Plaza is Spanish in its decorative scheme. Entrance from Collins Street is by way of stairs leading to a court constructed after the manner of a Spanish close. the floor simulates the rough paving of a courtyard, and on one side a fountain pays. Through archways to the right is a rockery with orange trees, and here furniture of the appropriate Spanish period has been placed.
The auditorium also is decorated in a Spanish scheme, in which atmosphere rather than any particular period is suggested. On the roof a variegated design in which red, yellow and green are prominent, gives an appearance of solidity, and the scheme is extended to the leather chairs...
The 'talkies' provide their own accompaniment, and consequently an orchestra is unnecessary. An organ had been installed, however, to supplement the pictures when that is called for, and for solo items." [The Argus, 11 May, 1929]
In February, 1959, a new Cinerama screen and projection system were installed in the Plaza. The Regent Plaza Theatre is cited as one of the few cinemas adapted for Cinerama outside of North America.
The Cinerama screen was well forward of the proscenium, in front of the pit and the organ chambers. Although the organ was no longer able to be played in public, it was still operable, and was used by organists playing at the Regent for practice between the Cinerama sessions.
The Plaza closed in November, 1970. In December that year an auction was held at the theatre where everything that was not bolted down was auctioned off, raising a few thousand dollars.
Entrepreneur David Marinner earmarked the Regent for restoration when he established a revival movement for classical performing arts theatres in Melbourne during 1991. The Plaza Theatre was also fully and magnificently restored to its original ballroom format and reopened in 1996.