In the Piazza della Signoria, adjoining the Uffizi Palace, there is a masterpiece of Medieval architecture: the Loggia della Signoria, built in about 1380, to host public ceremonies and assemblies, during the republican period.

 

It is called Loggia dei Lanzi, because it is said that landsknechts (lanzichenecchi or lanzi in Italian) encamped here in 1527, while they were going to Rome. According to another version, landsknechts – who were German mercenary soldiers – formed the guard of the Duke Alessandro de’ Medici and they stayed in the loggia to occupy an important and symbolic place for the republic, that was dead.

 

The Loggia is also called “dell’Orcagna”, because it was once thought that Andrea di Cione, called the Orcagna, built it: actually his brother Benci with Simone Talenti made it. Maybe Orcagna worked on the project of the building.

 

Built during the 14th century, the loggia is a Gothic style building, but its three big rounded arches paved the way to the great Renaissance architecture: it seems that Brunelleschi took inspiration for his Spedale degli Innocenti from it. During the 16th century, the Loggia lose its original function and became an open air museum.

 

It hosts some ancient Roman sculptures and some masterpieces from the 16th century: the Perseus with the Head of Medusa by Benvenuto Cellini, the Rape of the Sabine Women and the Hercules and Nessus by Giambologna, and from the 19th century, like the Rape of Polyxena by Pio Fedi.

 

In 1850 the Minister of the Education put a thermometer and a barometer in the Loggia, to explain to the community the scientific measuring: by this way the open air museum retook his public function. Some years before, in Munich, the Feldherrnhalle was built on the model of the Loggia dei Lanzi.

 

Now the Loggia is one the most beautiful and characteristic elements in Piazza della Signoria. The terrace built on it is part of the Uffizi itinerary: can you imagine what kind of panorama you can admire from there?

Architect: Edward Killingsworth (1955)

Location: 3827 Long Beach Blvd., Long Beach, CA

 

Now occupied by Kelly Sutherlin McLeod Architecture

 

The interior of the building features eleven foot ceiling heights, walls of glass, and free-flowing space with a large exterior reflection pool embellishing Killingsworth’s innovative architectural style. The building won one of the coveted Honor Awards in the National American Institute of Architects (AIA) Architectural Competition and has been featured in many architectural journals throughout the world.

Church of St Lawrence. More in my photostream, take a look :)

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St. Lawrence's Church, is a Grade I Listed Parish Church, Gotham, Nottinghamshire. It has Norman Transitional style of architecture, The Parish Church dates from C12, C13, C14, C15, restored 1789, repaired 1869. One of its earliest incumbents was Robert de Nottingham (year unknown), in 1303 it was John de Gotham.

The east end is on a deeper plinth and has a single restored arched 3 light C15 window with cusped panel tracery, hood mould and label stops. Over is a plaque inscribed "Repaired in MDCCLXXXIX IK" (1789 UK). The Roman numeral MDCCLXXXIX corresponds to the Arabic number 1789.

 

For more information follow these links.

www.nottshistory.org.uk/articles/tts/tts1924/summer/gotha...

southwellchurches.nottingham.ac.uk/gotham/hhistory.php

 

Gotham is actually pronounced Goat-em and not, as many would presume, in the same way as the fictional city Batman calls home.

Read more here:

www.visit-nottinghamshire.co.uk/explore/rural-nottinghams...

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No Group Banners, thanks.

Doge’s Palace Venice Italy

A masterpiece of Gothic architecture, the Doge’s Palace is an impressive structure composed of layers of building elements and ornamentation, from its 14th and 15th century original foundations to the significant Renaissance and opulent Mannerist adjunctions. The structure is made up of three large blocks, incorporating previous constructions. The wing towards the St. Mark’s Basin is the oldest, rebuilt from 1340 onwards. The wing towards St. Mark’s Square was built in its present form from 1424 onwards. The canal-side wing, housing the Doge’s apartments and many government offices, dates from the Renaissance and was built between 1483 and 1565.

 

Our Lady of Victories Church was constructed by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Brisbane in 1924 - 1925 as a Memorial to Roman Catholic soldiers and sailors who fell during World War I. The church was designed by prolific Brisbane architects Messrs TR Hall and GG Prentice.

 

Our Lady of Victories was the first Church built for the newly created Bowen Hills parish during a period of unprecedented growth in building stock of the Roman Catholic Church in Queensland after James Duhig was appointed as Archbishop in 1917. Duhig had served as Co-adjator Archbishop to his aging predecessor, Archbishop Dunne since 1912 and it was from this time that Duhig planned immense growth within the Church. This growth was manifest by the large number of churches, schools, convents and presbyteries built increasing the church's presence in Queensland. In the 16 years between 1912 and 1928 over 100 Roman Catholic churches were constructed in the Brisbane Archdiocese.

 

In November 1917 Duhig purchased part of an old estate known as Folkstone belonging to William Perry. In 1866 Perry bought the property which contained an early 1860s timber bungalow thought to have been built for a Mr Keand. The property initially belonged to James Gibbon who acquired a deed of grant from the New South Wales Government over the land in 1857. After acquisition by the Perry family numerous changes were made to the bungalow and it was given the name Folkstone. The Perry family were well known in Brisbane as ironmongers since 1860 and a building, Perry House, at the corner of Albert and Elizabeth Streets in Brisbane still bears the family name. In about 1912 the bungalow was destroyed by fire and subsequently the block was sub-divided allowing the Archbishop to purchase the land and propose the construction of a church in the newly created parish.

 

The foundation stone for the memorial church was laid on the 24th of August 1919 by the Apostolic Delegate, Bishop Cattaneo "to the Glory of God and in memory of the Catholic Sailors and Soldiers of Queensland who fought and died in the Great European War 1914 - 1919". A publication detailing the development of the Catholic Church in Queensland, Catholic Progress 1912 - 1919, contained a lengthy article on the Soldiers Memorial Church at Bowen Hills then in planning stages. The article was illustrated with plans and elevations of a large brick and cement Gothic church featuring an enormous tower and spire extending some 124 feet. The plans were drawn by Messrs Hall and Prentice. The reason for the alteration in building design is unknown; though obviously the Spanish mission building constructed was much less expensive than the elaborate and massive building initially intended for the site.

 

The church which was eventually blessed and opened on 26 April of 1925 by Archbishop Duhig was constructed by H. Cheetham costing £9435, which included £400 for the architects, Messrs Hall and Prentice. The church, called Our Lady of Victories Church, was designed in a manner incorporating many Spanish mission elements, a style of influence and popularity in Australia during the inter-war period. Popularised by movies from Hollywood during the 1920s and 1930s, the Spanish mission style was inspired by picturesque Californian Spanish missions. Many of the external details on the Bowen Hills church suggest a strong influence of this style, most obviously in the baroque parapeted gables, groups of round-headed arched openings, textured stucco render and several semi-octagonal projections. The interior of the church does not exhibit the strong stylistic intention apparent externally.

 

Hall and Prentice formed when TR Hall formed a partnership with GG Prentice in 1919. The partnership was responsible for several notable examples of Spanish mission inspired architecture in south-east Queensland. Examples include two bathing pavilions (1934) and a surf life saving club (1936) at Southport and Breffney, a large house in Clayfield (1929). The Spanish mission style was used for other Queensland churches, thought to be an appropriate style for sub-tropical weather and an appropriate use of what was an ecclesiastical inspired style. Churches with Spanish Mission features include St Peters Roman Catholic Church in Rockhampton (1937); Our Lady of the Chain Roman Catholic Church, Mareeba (1936) designed by VM Brown; Holy Trinity Church at Woolloongabba (1930) designed by Chambers and Ford and St Anne's at Kalinga, designed in 1934 by Hennessey and Hennessey.

 

When the church was opened, Our Lady of Victories was regarded as quite unique. The report in a local Catholic newspaper, The Age, regarded "its mission type of architecture...the first of its kind in Australia". The report continued on to describe the large electrically illuminated cross which surmounted the tower, as a perpetual light commemorating the armed forces of World War I. Many other details in the church manifested its intention as the principal Roman Catholic war memorial in Brisbane; the coloured glass panels depicting the AIF symbol of the rising sun; and an honour roll at the base of the tower (since removed).

 

The first parish priest appointed to Bowen Hills was Reverend Father ES Barry, a former Armed Forces chaplain. In 1920 land, also part of the Perry Estate, was purchased adjacent to the church block by James Duhig for the construction of a presbytery. A school was constructed to the north west of the church, the foundations stone for which was laid on the 18th of September 1921 by Duhig.

 

It is suggested that the Bowen Hills parish was never particularly large and this was a principal reason explaining why Archbishop Duhig handed the church and parish over to the Polish Community in Brisbane in 1955. In October of that year Franciscan Brothers of the Capuchin Order in Australia were appointed to the parish of Bowen Hills and undertook to provide services in both English and Polish, a tradition which continues today.

 

The Polish community remain at the church and have made very little changes to the building fabric. A shrine to Our Lady of Czestochowa was erected near the altar in 1962 to commemorate 1000 years of Christianity in Poland (966 - 1966). A memorial plaque was attached to the eastern facade of the building in 1980 to honour the "memory of 14 000 Polish Prisoners of War massacred by Soviet Forces at Katyn and elsewhere in USSR in 1940." Another cairn memorial was moved from the Polish Community Centre in Capalaba to the southern side of the building, commemorating Polish soldiers who fought during World War II.

 

Source: Queensand Heritage Register.

The Stadsfeestzaal is a large hall originally built at the beginning of the twentieth century as a permanent site for official festivities. After it was destroyed by fire in 2000, the glass-vaulted hall was renovated and reopened in 2007 as a modern shopping center.

 

At the turn of the twentieth century the city of Antwerp was in need of a large hall to hold the many festivities it organized during the year. The festivities were held at many different locations, sometimes even in the stock exchange building or in a theater. At the end of the nineteenth century it was finally decided that a large hall would be built near the newly expanded Meir (now Antwerp's prime shopping street).

 

The large sumptuous hall, designed by architects Hargot and Hennebique featured an impressive glass-iron vault, a large marble staircase and gilded decorations. The hall was connected to the Meir street by a large building designed by the city architect Alexis Van Mechelen, who was also responsible for the coordination of the whole complex. The front building, eclectic in style, is in harmony with the adjacent Innovation warehouse, which was completed the same year.

 

The new hall, known as the Stadsfeestzaal (City Festival Hall), was an immediate success. It was used as a multifunctional complex and hosted all sorts of events. Important statesmen such as the country's king were welcomed here, but the hall was also used for much more mundane activities such as exhibits and even markets.

 

It was during such a market - a Christmas market - that disaster struck in December 2000 when a fire destroyed the hall, leaving only an iron skeleton.

 

Since the building was protected as a historic monument in 1983 developers were fortunately not allowed to tear down the building's skeleton. Instead it was decided to reconstruct the building following the original 1906 plans and adapt it for use as an upscale shopping center. Construction started in 2004 and in October 2007 the new Stadsfeestzaal reopened.

 

Even for those averse to shopping the Stadsfeestzaal is still a great attraction thanks to its architecture. The building successfully combines the marble staircase, mosaic floor, gilded facades and glass-domed vault with modern elements such as decorative LED-panels.

 

The shopping center is ideally located between the Meir - the city's central shopping street - and Hopland, an increasingly upscale shopping street. The complex is home to about forty stores, spread out over 20,000 sq m (215,000 sq ft).

 

www.aviewoncities.com/antwerp

 

Worms cathedral romanesque architecture, the medieval west front of Worms Cathedral with the typically German feature of having a westwerk apse on the front of the cathedral. Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Sony Nex3

"The Dalum area was first settled by ranchers. In 1916, Dansk Folkesamfund, a group started in 1887 by Danish-American immigrants, made contact with the Canadian Pacific Railway and began negotiations to obtain a tract of land for a Danish colony. Danish immigrants began settling the area in 1917, most arriving in the spring of 1918. Once the colony was in place, the Bethlehem Lutheran Congregation was established. In September 1936, Dalum's most unique piece of architecture, the Bethlehem Lutheran Church of Dalum, was dedicated."

 

www.wheatlandcounty.ca/living-in-wheatland-county/communi...

 

Wow, what a day I had yesterday, 5 August 2019! For a few decades, I had longed to get out east of the city again, to the Badlands of Alberta. I had been a few times in more recent years, either on botany trips to Horseshoe Canyon, or a couple of times for the Christmas Bird Count. However, we always carpooled and we never went to the places I really, really wanted to go to. Finally, in 2014, I took my daughter out there, taking the main highway into Drumheller. She has an amazing sense of direction and is great at navigating, so I knew I wouldn't get lost.

 

This time, though, I wanted to avoid Drumheller itself, so I took a back way to the few places and things I wanted to see and photograph. Each year, I try and make a new, long drive that I have never done before. Trust me, a real challenge to someone with a driving phobia!! Now, there are a handful of places that I make myself get back to each summer, to make sure I don't lose the courage to make the drive by myself.

 

Maps had been made, a few 'drives' taken along a few bits of road on Google Earth, so I was well-prepared. Still, I felt sick to the stomach at the thought of doing the last half of the drive. If I happened to take one wrong road, would i ever get out of the Badlands?

 

When I checked the weather forecast, I noticed that rain was expected on some upcoming days, but not for yesterday, so I knew I needed to go. It was still quite hazy all day. When I was almost ready to leave home, I suddenly realized that yesterday was a public holiday! Never a good time to visit anywhere, with so many people everywhere. Normally, I would have stayed home. Left home at 8:45 am and got back home at 7:15 pm, after driving 402 km.. In this time, I was able to see my favourite hoodoos (with so many cars parked along the road and endless people climbing all over the hoodoos), a little almost-ghost town, and one of my absolute favourite old grain elevators. My route also took me past the Bethlehem Lutheran Church of Dalum - I had seen photos of this church before and I had always wanted to photograph a church like this. One other stop had been on my mental list, but, even though I would have had time to get there, my big concern was running out of gas on the way home.

 

There was only one unpleasant thing that happened yesterday and it still keeps coming to mind. Along one of the paved roads on the way to the Badlands, I had noticed a very scruffy looking hawk standing on the road. I turned around and drove back to see if I could check if it was OK. Just when I was going to pull over so that I could slowly walk back, I looked in the rear view mirror and there was a car coming behind me. Not sure if the driver tried to position his wheels so that they were either side of the hawk, or not. Anyway, the bird tried to fly and got caught up by the car, which ripped and mangled it. I could see it being tossed and caught back. I walked back to see if I could tell if it was still alive. I couldn't tell, but it was a real mess. Much as I would have liked to move it to the ditch, I couldn't. Trying to convince myself that, because it had looked so scruffy to start with, and stayed on the road, maybe it had been sick. I have seen plenty of dead wildlife of all kinds, but never before have I had to witness something actually being killed. Still haunts me.

 

Today, 6 August 2019, my daughter and I had planned to spend the day together but decided to cancel, as the forecast is for rain and it's no fun taking photos in the rain. Such a shame, as I had been looking forward to being out with her. Her free days are so few and far between.

[A set of 5 photos of a Tudor style home] This is a creative commons image, which you may freely use by linking to this page. Please respect the photographer and his work.

 

Built in 1935. the Harold C. Foreman House, situated on the Pasquotank River in Elizabeth City (Pasquotank County), North Carolina, is a fine a fine example of the Tudor Revival style house in architecture. The most prominent feature is the garage with a steeply pitched roof, a front wing of the house; it is not a separate building but is an integral part of the home, perhaps indicating the social significance of the automobile. The house is asymmetrical, 1 1/2 stories tall with a main cross gable with a combination of windows--many of the dormers in pairs; a pair of Tudor diamond windows is on the garage, facing the street. Three large chimneys accent the roofline. Throughout is the use of skintled brick, that is bricks projected or recessed beyond the wall surface. It appears the skintling on this house consists of projecting bricks in an irregular placement. [ www.bricksalvage.com/blog/skintled-brick--a-style-from-th... ] The entrance, not especially visible, is small and covered with the characteristic steeply pitched roof. At the time of the nomination form, the roof had hexagonal shingles on the roof. That doesn't exist in these photos.

 

The house was designed by nationally known architect Stratton Hammon (1904-1997) of Louisville, Kentucky. It was erected by contractor William S. Chesson, Jr. for Harold C. Foreman, a lumberman who apparently preferred brick as the building material of his home. According to Zillow, the building has 2,444 square feet on a 3/4-acre lot; it has three bedrooms and 3 baths. It's a contributing structure in the Riverside Historic District of Elizabeth City, The district was entered on the National Register of Historic Places March 11, 1994 with reference ID 94000165. A pdf file of the nomination form is found at files.nc.gov/ncdcr/nr/PK0832.pdf

 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

 

In downtown Cheyenne, Wyoming, you can find the historic Union Pacific Train Depot. The interior is just as elegant as the building itself!

 

Here is some historic info from the Depot museum website: "The Union Pacific Depot in Cheyenne, Wyoming is a nationally prominent landmark that derives its significance from two principal areas: transportation and architecture. The Depot is the last of the grand 19th century depots remaining on the transcontinental railroad and one of the best articulated examples of the Richardsonian Romanesque style in the West, designed by one of America’s most distinguished architects at a pivotal point in his practice. The Depot formed a strategic point along the Union Pacific Railroad, America’s first transcontinental rail line, and was easily the Union Pacific’s most grandiose facility west of its starting point at Council Bluffs."

  

Dating to the late 18th century, this captivating azulejo -covered church is one of Porto’s best examples of rococo architecture. The tiled panel on the facade pays tribute to Nossa Senhora (Our Lady).

 

Read more: www.lonelyplanet.com/portugal/the-north/porto/sights/reli...

 

Blink and you might miss that this is a church in its own right, snuggled as close as it is to the Igreja do Carmo. The twin churches are separated only by a 1m-wide house, once the dividing line between the monks of Carmo and the Carmelite nuns. Dating to the 17th century, its modest classical facade belies its lavishly gilded nave.

 

Read more: www.lonelyplanet.com/portugal/the-north/porto/sights/reli...

 

**BREAKING NEWS**

 

Now it's official: FANATIK announces the debut of its new retail concept in Second Life® with the opening of the FANATIK sim.

 

Located in a full sim, the store will feature the entire FANATIK product portfolio - clothes, shoes, jewelry as well as furniture and of course buildings. Serving as a gateway into the world of SL fashion, design and architecture, the new FANATIK store will celebrate an official grand opening on Saturday, January 12th 4.00 pm SL time.

 

♥ FANATIK sim

 

♥ FANATIK on Marketplace

 

♥ FANATIK Flickr group

 

♥ FANATIK on Facebook

More Essex Churches

These are more examples of Essex Church images that show the Architecture, the Interiors, the Exteriors and especially the Stained Glass Windows that I have taken over the last two to three years. Hope you enjoy them as much as I did visiting them.

Billericay is a large town of Essex of approx 35,000 people and close to the now City of Chelmsford (8.9 miles) with close ties to rail and motorway (M25).

St Mary Magdalen church is an Anglican church situated centrally in the High Street. It has origins back on the site from 1342 when the first church was erected. The only possible survivor from this early building was the bell, which was hung in the new tower completed in 1490. The bell was re-cast in the late 19th cent and still serves.

1490 is the date when the church was completely rebuilt in the ‘Perpendicular Gothic’ style and just thought to be made up of a Tower, a Nave and a chancel with north and south aisle.

The was some dispute over the dedication, it appeared the John the Baptist’s name was on a bequest however the Bishop of London dedicated it to Mary Magdalen with all the ‘usual privileges’.

In 1781 another complete rebuild, this time of Georgian influence. A red-bricked building which incorporated the 15th cent Tower.

In 1950 there was a period of restoration due to war damage and general decline. The one thing that was obvious that the church was too small for it’s congregation and in 1992 they moved to a new church, The Emmanuel Parish Church.

St Mary Magdalen underwent a new restoration, now it has special services and is a welcoming place for the local community.

 

Gare do Oriente (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈɡaɾɨ ðu oɾiˈẽtɨ]), or alternately, the Lisbon Oriente Station is one of the main Portuguese intermodal transport hubs, and is situated in the civil parish of Parque das Nações, municipality of Lisbon.

 

The station was inaugurated on 19 May 1998, as part of the celebrations marking the opening of the Expo '98 world's fair. At the time of its opening it was considered the largest intermodal station in Portugal, winning the Brunel Award on 7 October 1998, in the category of large new construction projects.

 

The concept was originally designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava in 1995, and built by Necso.

 

With some influence from Gothic architecture, the station bears considerable resemblance to Santiago Calatrava's earlier Allen Lambert Galleria within Toronto's Brookfield Place. Calatrava's objective was to realize a new space with ample room and functionality providing multiple connections between various zones in the metropolitan area of Lisbon.

 

The above information has been sourced from the Wikipedia site linked below. For more information please visit Wikipedia.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gare_do_Oriente

  

455A1554_tplrw

 

📍 St Luke & All Saints Church in Darrington, West Yorkshire, is a stunning Grade I listed parish church with deep historical roots and architectural charm.

 

Here’s a snapshot of what makes it special:

 

🏰 Architecture: The church features a Norman tower, 13th-century aisles and chancel, and a 14th-century north chapel. It was restored in 1880 by A.W. Blomfield.

 

Materials: Built from white magnesian limestone with slate roofs, it showcases medieval craftsmanship with Perpendicular windows, lancets, and a richly detailed porch.

 

️ Interior Highlights: Inside, you’ll find scalloped capitals, traceried bench ends, misericords, and even some 15th-century stained glass. There are also two 14th-century effigies and a monument to William Ferrer (d.1684).

 

🙏 Community & Worship: The church is active in the local community, offering services, baptisms, weddings, and events like the upcoming VJ Day 80th Anniversary service.

The construction of the Taj Mahal began in 1632 and was completed in 1653. It took a total of twenty two years to complete the construction of this monument.

The architecture of the Taj Mahal is a combination of Indian, Persian and Islamic styles of architecture.

The name of the architect of the Taj Mahal is Ahmed Lahauri.

The Taj Mahal was Shah Jahan’s imagination of Mumtaz’s home in paradise.

Around 20,000 people worked day and night for twenty two years to complete construction of the Taj Mahal.

The cost of construction of the Taj Mahal was around Rs.320 million.

The Taj Mahal was constructed using the best quality marble from Rajasthan, Tibet, Afghanistan and China.

At different times of the day the Taj Mahal appears to be in a different colour. Some believe that these changing colours depict the changing moods of a woman.

The Taj Mahal is one of the wonders of the world and is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

There was a popular myth that Shah Jahan was planning to construct a black Taj Mahal across the Yamuna, this is not true.

Another popular myth around the Taj Mahal is that after the construction of the Taj Mahal, Shah Jahan cut off the hands of all the workers so that such a structure could not be built again. Fortunately, this is not true.

The Taj Mahal has a mosque in its premises, which is why the Taj Mahal is closed on Fridays and only those going for customary prayers are permitted inside the Taj Mahal.

Shah Jahan approached the Taj Mahal on a boat which would sail down the River Yamuna which ran behind the Taj Mahal.

By the late 19th century, the Taj Mahal had been defaced by the British soldiers who chiseled out precious stones from the walls of the monument. At the end of the 19th century, British Viceroy, Lord Curzon, ordered a restoration of the monument and also gifted a large lamp which hangs in the interior chambers of the Taj Mahal.

In 2000, an Indian writer P.N. Oak claimed that the Taj Mahal was actually a ShivTemple and filed a petition with the Supreme Court of India to excavate the site of the Taj to look for proof. His petition was rejected by the Supreme Court.

In 2001, the UNESCO documented more than two million visitors to the Taj Mahal.

India’s’ Nobel Laureate, Rabindra Nath Tagore, referred to the Taj Mahal as a “tear drop on the cheek of time”.

Calligraphy on the tomb of Mumtaz identifies and praises her.

The four minarets of the Taj Mahal have been constructed slightly outside of the plinth so that in case the minarets fell, they would fall away and not on the main structure.

After his death, Shah Jahan was laid to rest in the Taj Mahal besides the tomb of his wife Mumtaz.

An imposing view from below.

 

Designed by architect Jeanne Gang. The tallest structure in the world designed by a woman.

 

Taken while on the Tours & Boats cruise.

Triumphal arches were constructed across the Roman Empire and remain one of the most iconic examples of Roman architecture.

 

The above arch, at the UNESCO World Heritage Site, Tyre,Lebanon dates back to 2nd century AD.

Tyre was founded around 2750 BC according to Herodotus and it appears on monuments as early as 1300 BC.

 

The commerce of the ancient world was gathered into the warehouses of Tyre. "Tyrian merchants were the first who ventured to navigate the Mediterranean waters; and they founded their colonies on the coasts and neighbouring islands of the Aegean Sea, in Greece, on the northern coast of Africa, at Carthage and other places, in Sicily and Corsica, in Spain at Tartessus.

 

In the time of King David (c. 1000 BC), a friendly alliance was entered into between the Kingdoms of Israel and Tyre, which was ruled by Hiram I.

 

The city of Tyre consisted of a mainland metropolis and a small Island that stood about half a mile offshore.

 

The city of Tyre was particularly known for the production of a rare and extraordinarily expensive sort of purple dye, produced from the murex shellfish, known as Tyrian purple. This color was, in many cultures of ancient times, reserved for the use of royalty, or at least nobility.

 

It was often attacked by Egypt, besieged by Shalmaneser V, who was assisted by the Phoenicians of the mainland, for five years, and by Nebuchadnezzar (586–573 BC) for thirteen years, without success, although a compromise peace was made in which Tyre paid tribute to the Babylonians.

 

The prophecy mentioned in the Prophecy of Ezekiel. 26:14 of the Holy Bible found its fulfilment regarding mainland Tyre under Nebuchadnezzar. Three years after Ezekiel's Prophecy Nebuchadnezzar moved in and besieged the ancient city of Tyre. He attacked the mainland city and held it besieged for about thirteen years. He then marched into the city to find it nearly deserted. The Tyrians had abandoned the mainland and fortified themselves on the Island of Tyre. The mainland was over-run and defeated, and it was thrown down and left in ruins. The Island continued to be a mighty power in the Mediterranean until many years later.It later fell under the power of the Persians.

 

In 332 BC, the city was conquered by Alexander the Great, after a siege of seven months in which he built the causeway from the mainland to the island, but it continued to maintain much of its commercial importance until the Christian era.

 

In 126 BC, Tyre regained its independence (from the Seleucids) and was allowed to keep much of its independence when the area became a Roman province in 64

 

Later History

 

Jesus Christ visited the "coasts" of Tyre and Sidon (Matthew 15:21; Mark 7:24) and from this region many came forth to hear him preaching (Mark 3:8; Gospel of Luke 6:17, Matthew 11:21-23). A congregation was founded here soon after the death of Saint Stephen, and Paul of Tarsus, on his return from his third missionary journey, spent a week in conversation with the disciples there. According to Irenaeus of Lyons in Adversus Haereses, the female companion of Simon Magus came from here.

 

After a first failed siege in 1111, it was captured by the Crusaders in 1124, becoming one of the most important cities of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. It was part of the royal domain, although there were also autonomous trading colonies there for the Italian merchant cities. The city was the site of the archbishop of Tyre, a suffragan of the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem; its archbishops often acceded to the Patriarchate. The most notable of the Latin archbishops was the historian William of Tyre.

 

After the reconquest of Acre by King Richard on July 12, 1191, the seat of the kingdom moved there, but coronations were held in Tyre. In the 13th century, Tyre was separated from the royal domain as a separate crusader lordship. In 1291, it was retaken by the Mameluks which then was followed by Ottoman rule before the modern state of Lebanon was declared in 1920.

 

Source: Wikipedia

Aalto University Espoo, Finland - The four Aalto University are based in Otaniemi in Espoo, 10 km from the center of Helsinki, on a campus. Otaniemi has the highest concentration of high technology in the Nordic countries. A unique combination of education, study and business is densely packed into this small area. Alvar Aalto designed the campus between 1949 and 1966. Aalto's buildings for the university include the main building, the library, the shopping centre, and the water tower, with a crescent-shaped auditorium at the center. The focal point of this university centre is the auditorium building with two large halls, also intended for congresses. Its staircase-like ascending rows of windows suggest from the outside and amphitheatre. All tuition rooms are in adjacent buildings grouped about small internal courts, and here are also found the smaller lecture-rooms, laboratories and professors' rooms. The centre is divided into three principal departments: general, geodetic and architectural. The chief materials are dark red brick, black granite and copper

Angkor Wat is a temple complex in Cambodia and is the largest religious monument in the world, on a site measuring 162.6 hectares (1,626,000 m2; 402 acres). Originally constructed as a Hindu temple[1] dedicated to the god Vishnu for the Khmer Empire by King Suryavarman II, it was gradually transformed into a Buddhist temple towards the end of the 12th century; as such, it is also described as a "Hindu-Buddhist" temple.

 

Angkor Wat was built at the behest of the Khmer King Suryavarman II in the early 12th century in Yaśodharapura (Khmer: យសោធរបុរៈ, present-day Angkor), the capital of the Khmer Empire, as his state temple and eventual mausoleum. Angkor Wat combines two basic plans of Khmer temple architecture: the temple-mountain and the later galleried temple. It is designed to represent Mount Meru, home of the devas in Hindu mythology: within a moat more than 5 kilometres (3 mi) long[6] and an outer wall 3.6 kilometres (2.2 mi) long are three rectangular galleries, each raised above the next. At the centre of the temple stands a quincunx of towers. Unlike most Angkorian temples, Angkor Wat is oriented to the west; scholars are divided as to the significance of this. The temple is admired for the grandeur and harmony of the architecture, its extensive bas-reliefs, and for the numerous devatas adorning its The modern name Angkor Wat, alternatively Nokor Wat, means "Temple City" or "City of Temples" in Khmer. Angkor (អង្គរ ângkôr) meaning "city" or "capital city", is a vernacular form of the word nokor (នគរ nôkôr), which comes from the Sanskrit/Pali word nagara (Devanāgarī: नगर). Wat (វត្ត vôtt) is the word for "temple grounds", also derived from Sanskrit/Pali vāṭa (Devanāgarī: वाट), meaning "enclosure".

 

The original name of the temple was Vrah Viṣṇuloka or Parama Viṣṇuloka meaning "the sacred dwelling of Vishnu."

 

Angkor Wat lies 5.5 kilometres (3+1⁄2 mi) north of the modern town of Siem Reap, and a short distance south and slightly east of the previous capital, which was centred at Baphuon. In an area of Cambodia where there is an essential group of ancient structures, it is the southernmost of Angkor's main sites.[citation needed]

 

The construction of Angkor Wat took place over a period of 28 years from 1122 – 1150 CE during the reign of King Suryavarman II (ruled 1113 – c. 1150). The brahmin by the name of Divākarapaṇḍita (1040 – c. 1120) was responsible for urging Suryavarman II to construct the temple. All of the original religious motifs at Angkor Wat derived from Hinduism. Breaking from the Shaiva tradition of previous kings, Angkor Wat was instead dedicated to Vishnu. It was built as the king's state temple and capital city. As neither the foundation stela nor any contemporary inscriptions referring to the temple have been found, its original name is unknown, but it may have been known as "Varah Vishnu-lok" after the presiding deity. Work seems to have ended shortly after the king's death, leaving some of the bas-relief decoration unfinished. The term Vrah Viṣṇuloka or Parama Viṣṇuloka literally means "The king who has gone to the supreme world of Vishnu", which refer to Suryavarman II posthumously and intend to venerate his glory and memory.

 

In 1177, approximately 27 years after the death of Suryavarman II, Angkor was sacked by the Chams, the traditional enemies of the Khmer. Thereafter the empire was restored by a new king, Jayavarman VII, who established a new capital and state temple (Angkor Thom and the Bayon, respectively), a few kilometers north, dedicated to Buddhism, because the king believed that the Hindu gods had failed him. Angkor Wat was therefore also gradually converted into a Buddhist site, and many Hindu sculptures were replaced by Buddhist art.

  

Towards the end of the 12th century, Angkor Wat gradually transformed from a Hindu centre of worship to Buddhism, which continues to the present day. Angkor Wat is unusual among the Angkor temples in that although it was largely neglected after the 16th century, it was never completely abandoned. Fourteen inscriptions dated from the 17th century, discovered in the Angkor area, testify to Japanese Buddhist pilgrims that had established small settlements alongside Khmer locals. At that time, the temple was thought by the Japanese visitors to be the famed Jetavana garden of the Buddha, which was originally located in the kingdom of Magadha, India.[19] The best-known inscription tells of Ukondayu Kazufusa, who celebrated the Khmer New Year at Angkor Wat in 1632.

 

One of the first Western visitors to the temple was António da Madalena, a Portuguese friar who visited in 1586 and said that it "is of such extraordinary construction that it is not possible to describe it with a pen, particularly since it is like no other building in the world. It has towers and decoration and all the refinements which the human genius can conceive of."

 

In 1622, The Poem of Angkor Wat composed in Khmer verse describes the beauty of Angkor Wat and creates a legend around the construction of the complex, supposedly a divine castle built for legendary Khmer king Preah Ket Mealea by Hindu god Preah Pisnukar (or Braḥ Bisṇukār, Vishvakarman), as Suryavarman II had already vanished from people's minds.

 

In 1860, with the help of French missionary Father Charles-Émile Bouillevaux, the temple was effectively rediscovered by the French naturalist and explorer Henri Mouhot, who popularised the site in the West through the publication of travel notes, in which he wrote:

One of these temples, a rival to that of Solomon, and erected by some ancient Michelangelo, might take an honorable place beside our most beautiful buildings. It is grander than anything left to us by Greece or Rome, and presents a sad contrast to the state of barbarism in which the nation is now plunged.

 

In 1861 German anthropologist Adolf Bastian undertook a four-year trip to Southeast Asia and his account of this trip, The People of East Asia ran to six volumes. When Bastian finally published the studies and observations during his Journey through Cambodia to Cochinchina in Germany in 1868 - told in detail but uninspiredly, above all without a single one of his drawings of the Angkorian sites - this work hardly made an impression, while everyone was talking about Henri Mouhot's posthumous work with vivid descriptions of Angkor, Travels in the Central Parts of Indo-China, Siam, Cambodia and Laos, published in 1864 through the Royal Geographical Society.

 

There were no ordinary dwellings or houses or other signs of settlement, including cooking utensils, weapons, or items of clothing usually found at ancient sites. Instead, there is only evidence of the monuments themselves.

 

The artistic legacy of Angkor Wat and other Khmer monuments in the Angkor region led directly to France adopting Cambodia as a protectorate on 11 August 1863 and invading Siam to take control of the ruins. This quickly led to Cambodia reclaiming lands in the northwestern corner of the country such as the areas of Siem Reap, Battambang and Sisophon which were under Siamese rule from 1795 to 1907.

 

Angkor Wat's aesthetics were on display in the plaster cast museum of Louis Delaporte called musée Indo-chinois which existed in the Parisian Trocadero Palace from c.1880 to the mid-1920s.

 

The 20th century saw a considerable restoration of Angkor Wat. Gradually teams of laborers and archeologists pushed back the jungle and exposed the expanses of stone, permitting the sun to once again illuminate the dark corners of the temple. Angkor Wat caught the attention and imagination of a wider audience in Europe when the pavilion of French protectorate of Cambodia, as part of French Indochina, recreated the life-size replica of Angkor Wat during Paris Colonial Exposition in 1931.

 

Cambodia gained independence from France on 9 November 1953 and has controlled Angkor Wat since that time. It is safe to say that from the colonial period onwards until the site's nomination as UNESCO World Heritage in 1992, this specific temple of Angkor Wat was instrumental in the formation of the modern and gradually globalised concept of built cultural heritage.

 

Restoration work was interrupted by the Cambodian Civil War and Khmer Rouge control of the country during the 1970s and 1980s, but relatively little damage was done during this period. Camping Khmer Rouge forces used whatever wood remained in the building structures for firewood, and a shoot-out between Khmer Rouge and Vietnamese forces put a few bullet holes in a bas relief. Far more damage was done after the wars, by art thieves working out of Thailand, which, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, claimed almost every head that could be lopped off the structures, including reconstructions.

 

The temple is a powerful symbol of Cambodia, and is a source of great national pride that has factored into Cambodia's diplomatic relations with France, the United States, and its neighbour Thailand. A depiction of Angkor Wat has been a part of Cambodian national flags since the introduction of the first version circa 1863. From a larger historical and even transcultural perspective, however, the temple of Angkor Wat did not become a symbol of national pride sui generis but had been inscribed into a larger politico-cultural process of French-colonial heritage production in which the original temple site was presented in French colonial and universal exhibitions in Paris and Marseille between 1889 and 1937.

 

In December 2015, it was announced that a research team from University of Sydney had found a previously unseen ensemble of buried towers built and demolished during the construction of Angkor Wat, as well as a massive structure of unknown purpose on its south side and wooden fortifications. The findings also include evidence of low-density residential occupation in the region, with a road grid, ponds, and mounds. These indicate that the temple precinct, bounded by moat and wall, may not have been used exclusively by the priestly elite, as was previously thought. The team used LiDAR, ground-penetrating radar and targeted excavation to map Angkor Wat.

 

According to a myth, the construction of Angkor Wat was ordered by Indra to serve as a palace for his son Precha Ket Mealea. According to the 13th-century Chinese traveller Zhou Daguan, some believed that the temple was constructed in a single night by a divine architect.

The four minarets standing on the corners of the platform of the Mausoleum expressed as the stairs to the foot of the sky. The use of minarets dates back to the 17th century with probably the influence of the Ottoman architecture. The mosques of the Ottoman sultans were surrounded by minarets and the numbers of minarets were signifying the rank of the mosque. However, the decoration of the minarets of the Taj Mahal is rather unique than the others. The curved marble blocks are lined with black stones.

The minarets are finished by a chhatris with a crescent on the top. The three balconies are reached by the rectangular doors. The grilled windows are intended for the light. Source ~ Wiki

New work in a series of paintings and drawings inspired by drawings of a view of 6th Avenue, New York City, made on location in 2010.

 

Amongst the amalgamation of classic and contemporary architecture the red neon lighting of Radio City Music Hall & triangular tip of Bank of America are interpreted.

 

The artist has an abiding affection and fascination with the USA & his press includes the New York Times & TIME magazine; which published his portrait tribute of Barack Obama in 2008.

 

Charcoal & chalk pastel on paper

16.5 x 11.5in/42 x 30cm

www.stephenbwhatley.com

Vijayanagara architecture is a vibrant combination of the Chalukyan, Hoysalan, Pandyan and Cholan styles. Its legacy of sculpture, architecture and painting influenced the development of the arts long after the empire came to an end. Artisans used the locally available hard granite because of its durability since the kingdom was under constant threat of invasion. While the empire's monuments are spread over the whole of Southern India, nothing surpasses the vast open air theatre of monuments at its capital at Vijayanagara.

The Grade I Listed Salisbury Cathedral one of the leading examples of Early English architecture. The main body of the cathedral was completed in only 38 years, from 1220 to 1258. In Salisbury, Wiltshire.

 

As a response to deteriorating relations between the clergy and the military at Old Sarum Cathedral, the decision was taken to re-site the cathedral and the bishopric was moved to Salisbury. The move occurred during the tenure of Bishop Richard Poore, a wealthy man who donated the land on which it was built. The new cathedral was paid for by donations, principally from the canons and vicars of southeast England who were asked to contribute a fixed annual sum until it was completed. A legend tells that the Bishop of Old Sarum shot an arrow in the direction he would build the cathedral but the arrow hit a deer that died in the place where Salisbury Cathedral is now. The cathedral crossing, Old Sarum and Stonehenge are reputed to be aligned on a ley line, though Clive L.N. Ruggles asserts that the site, on marshland, was chosen because a preferred site several miles to the west could not be obtained.

 

The foundation stone was laid on 28 April 1220. Much of the freestone for the cathedral came from Teffont Evias quarries. As a result of the high water table in the new location, the cathedral was built on only four feet of foundations, and by 1258 the nave, transepts and choir were complete.

 

Although the spire is the cathedral's most impressive feature, it has proved to be troublesome. Together with the tower, it added 6,397 tons (6,500 tonnes) to the weight of the building. Without the addition of buttresses, bracing arches and anchor irons over the succeeding centuries, it would have suffered the fate of spires on later great ecclesiastical buildings and fallen down; instead, Salisbury remains the tallest church spire in the UK. The large supporting pillars at the corners of the spire are seen to bend inwards under the stress. The addition of reinforcing tie beams above the crossing, designed by Christopher Wren in 1668, arrested further deformation.

 

Significant changes to the cathedral were made by the architect James Wyatt in 1790, including replacement of the original rood screen and demolition of a bell tower which stood about 320 feet (100 m) north west of the main building. Salisbury is one of only three English cathedrals to lack a ring of bells, the others are Norwich Cathedral and Ely Cathedral. However it does strike the time every 15 minutes with bells.

 

Information Source:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salisbury_Cathedral

 

Is the vulture hovering above Austria? Could also be a turtle.

 

The exploitation rights for this text are the property of the Vienna Tourist Board. This text may be reprinted free of charge until further notice, even partially and in edited form. Forward sample copy to: Vienna Tourist Board, Media Management, Invalidenstraße 6, 1030 Vienna; media.rel@wien.info. All information in this text without guarantee.

Author: Andreas Nierhaus, Curator of Architecture/Wien Museum

Last updated January 2014

Architecture in Vienna

Vienna's 2,000-year history is present in a unique density in the cityscape. The layout of the center dates back to the Roman city and medieval road network. Romanesque and Gothic churches characterize the streets and squares as well as palaces and mansions of the baroque city of residence. The ring road is an expression of the modern city of the 19th century, in the 20th century extensive housing developments set accents in the outer districts. Currently, large-scale urban development measures are implemented; distinctive buildings of international star architects complement the silhouette of the city.

Due to its function as residence of the emperor and European power center, Vienna for centuries stood in the focus of international attention, but it was well aware of that too. As a result, developed an outstanding building culture, and still today on a worldwide scale only a few cities can come up with a comparable density of high-quality architecture. For several years now, Vienna has increased its efforts to connect with its historical highlights and is drawing attention to itself with some spectacular new buildings. The fastest growing city in the German-speaking world today most of all in residential construction is setting standards. Constants of the Viennese architecture are respect for existing structures, the palpability of historical layers and the dialogue between old and new.

Culmination of medieval architecture: the Stephansdom

The oldest architectural landmark of the city is St. Stephen's Cathedral. Under the rule of the Habsburgs, defining the face of the city from the late 13th century until 1918 in a decisive way, the cathedral was upgraded into the sacral monument of the political ambitions of the ruling house. The 1433 completed, 137 meters high southern tower, by the Viennese people affectionately named "Steffl", is a masterpiece of late Gothic architecture in Europe. For decades he was the tallest stone structure in Europe, until today he is the undisputed center of the city.

The baroque residence

Vienna's ascension into the ranks of the great European capitals began in Baroque. Among the most important architects are Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach and Johann Lucas von Hildebrandt. Outside the city walls arose a chain of summer palaces, including the garden Palais Schwarzenberg (1697-1704) as well as the Upper and Lower Belvedere of Prince Eugene of Savoy (1714-22). Among the most important city palaces are the Winter Palace of Prince Eugene (1695-1724, now a branch of the Belvedere) and the Palais Daun-Kinsky (auction house in Kinsky 1713-19). The emperor himself the Hofburg had complemented by buildings such as the Imperial Library (1722-26) and the Winter Riding School (1729-34). More important, however, for the Habsburgs was the foundation of churches and monasteries. Thus arose before the city walls Fischer von Erlach's Karlskirche (1714-39), which with its formal and thematic complex show façade belongs to the major works of European Baroque. In colored interior rooms like that of St. Peter's Church (1701-22), the contemporary efforts for the synthesis of architecture, painting and sculpture becomes visible.

Upgrading into metropolis: the ring road time (Ringstraßenzeit)

Since the Baroque, reflections on extension of the hopelessly overcrowed city were made, but only Emperor Franz Joseph ordered in 1857 the demolition of the fortifications and the connection of the inner city with the suburbs. 1865, the Ring Road was opened. It is as the most important boulevard of Europe an architectural and in terms of urban development achievement of the highest rank. The original building structure is almost completely preserved and thus conveys the authentic image of a metropolis of the 19th century. The public representational buildings speak, reflecting accurately the historicism, by their style: The Greek Antique forms of Theophil Hansen's Parliament (1871-83) stood for democracy, the Renaissance of the by Heinrich Ferstel built University (1873-84) for the flourishing of humanism, the Gothic of the Town Hall (1872-83) by Friedrich Schmidt for the medieval civic pride.

Dominating remained the buildings of the imperial family: Eduard van der Nüll's and August Sicardsburg's Opera House (1863-69), Gottfried Semper's and Carl Hasenauer's Burgtheater (1874-88), their Museum of Art History and Museum of Natural History (1871-91) and the Neue (New) Hofburg (1881-1918 ). At the same time the ring road was the preferred residential area of mostly Jewish haute bourgeoisie. With luxurious palaces the families Ephrussi, Epstein or Todesco made it clear that they had taken over the cultural leadership role in Viennese society. In the framework of the World Exhibition of 1873, the new Vienna presented itself an international audience. At the ring road many hotels were opened, among them the Hotel Imperial and today's Palais Hansen Kempinski.

Laboratory of modernity: Vienna around 1900

Otto Wagner's Postal Savings Bank (1903-06) was one of the last buildings in the Ring road area Otto Wagner's Postal Savings Bank (1903-06), which with it façade, liberated of ornament, and only decorated with "functional" aluminum buttons and the glass banking hall now is one of the icons of modern architecture. Like no other stood Otto Wagner for the dawn into the 20th century: His Metropolitan Railway buildings made ​​the public transport of the city a topic of architecture, the church of the Psychiatric hospital at Steinhofgründe (1904-07) is considered the first modern church.

With his consistent focus on the function of a building ("Something impractical can not be beautiful"), Wagner marked a whole generation of architects and made Vienna the laboratory of modernity: in addition to Joseph Maria Olbrich, the builder of the Secession (1897-98) and Josef Hoffmann, the architect of the at the western outskirts located Purkersdorf Sanatorium (1904) and founder of the Vienna Workshop (Wiener Werkstätte, 1903) is mainly to mention Adolf Loos, with the Loos House at the square Michaelerplatz (1909-11) making architectural history. The extravagant marble cladding of the business zone stands in maximal contrast, derived from the building function, to the unadorned facade above, whereby its "nudity" became even more obvious - a provocation, as well as his culture-critical texts ("Ornament and Crime"), with which he had greatest impact on the architecture of the 20th century. Public contracts Loos remained denied. His major works therefore include villas, apartment facilities and premises as the still in original state preserved Tailor salon Knize at Graben (1910-13) and the restored Loos Bar (1908-09) near the Kärntner Straße (passageway Kärntner Durchgang).

Between the Wars: International Modern Age and social housing

After the collapse of the monarchy in 1918, Vienna became capital of the newly formed small country of Austria. In the heart of the city, the architects Theiss & Jaksch built 1931-32 the first skyscraper in Vienna as an exclusive residential address (Herrengasse - alley 6-8). To combat the housing shortage for the general population, the social democratic city government in a globally unique building program within a few years 60,000 apartments in hundreds of apartment buildings throughout the city area had built, including the famous Karl Marx-Hof by Karl Ehn (1925-30). An alternative to the multi-storey buildings with the 1932 opened International Werkbundsiedlung was presented, which was attended by 31 architects from Austria, Germany, France, Holland and the USA and showed models for affordable housing in greenfield areas. With buildings of Adolf Loos, André Lurçat, Richard Neutra, Gerrit Rietveld, the Werkbundsiedlung, which currently is being restored at great expense, is one of the most important documents of modern architecture in Austria.

Modernism was also expressed in significant Villa buildings: The House Beer (1929-31) by Josef Frank exemplifies the refined Wiener living culture of the interwar period, while the house Stonborough-Wittgenstein (1926-28, today Bulgarian Cultural Institute), built by the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein together with the architect Paul Engelmann for his sister Margarete, by its aesthetic radicalism and mathematical rigor represents a special case within contemporary architecture.

Expulsion, war and reconstruction

After the "Anschluss (Annexation)" to the German Reich in 1938, numerous Jewish builders, architects (female and male ones), who had been largely responsible for the high level of Viennese architecture, have been expelled from Austria. During the Nazi era, Vienna remained largely unaffected by structural transformations, apart from the six flak towers built for air defense of Friedrich Tamms (1942-45), made ​​of solid reinforced concrete which today are present as memorials in the cityscape.

The years after the end of World War II were characterized by the reconstruction of the by bombs heavily damaged city. The architecture of those times was marked by aesthetic pragmatism, but also by the attempt to connect with the period before 1938 and pick up on current international trends. Among the most important buildings of the 1950s are Roland Rainer's City Hall (1952-58), the by Oswald Haerdtl erected Wien Museum at Karlsplatz (1954-59) and the 21er Haus of Karl Schwanzer (1958-62).

The youngsters come

Since the 1960s, a young generation was looking for alternatives to the moderate modernism of the reconstruction years. With visionary designs, conceptual, experimental and above all temporary architectures, interventions and installations, Raimund Abraham, Günther Domenig, Eilfried Huth, Hans Hollein, Walter Pichler and the groups Coop Himmelb(l)au, Haus-Rucker-Co and Missing Link rapidly got international attention. Although for the time being it was more designed than built, was the influence on the postmodern and deconstructivist trends of the 1970s and 1980s also outside Austria great. Hollein's futuristic "Retti" candle shop at Charcoal Market/Kohlmarkt (1964-65) and Domenig's biomorphic building of the Central Savings Bank in Favoriten (10th district of Vienna - 1975-79) are among the earliest examples, later Hollein's Haas-Haus (1985-90), the loft conversion Falkestraße (1987/88) by Coop Himmelb(l)au or Domenig's T Center (2002-04) were added. Especially Domenig, Hollein, Coop Himmelb(l)au and the architects Ortner & Ortner (ancient members of Haus-Rucker-Co) ​​by orders from abroad the new Austrian and Viennese architecture made a fixed international concept.

MuseumQuarter and Gasometer

Since the 1980s, the focus of building in Vienna lies on the compaction of the historic urban fabric that now as urban habitat of high quality no longer is put in question. Among the internationally best known projects is the by Ortner & Ortner planned MuseumsQuartier in the former imperial stables (competition 1987, 1998-2001), which with institutions such as the MUMOK - Museum of Modern Art Foundation Ludwig, the Leopold Museum, the Kunsthalle Wien, the Architecture Center Vienna and the Zoom Children's Museum on a wordwide scale is under the largest cultural complexes. After controversies in the planning phase, here an architectural compromise between old and new has been achieved at the end, whose success as an urban stage with four million visitors (2012) is overwhelming.

The dialogue between old and new, which has to stand on the agenda of building culture of a city that is so strongly influenced by history, also features the reconstruction of the Gasometer in Simmering by Coop Himmelb(l)au, Wilhelm Holzbauer, Jean Nouvel and Manfred Wehdorn (1999-2001). Here was not only created new housing, but also a historical industrial monument reinterpreted into a signal in the urban development area.

New Neighborhood

In recent years, the major railway stations and their surroundings moved into the focus of planning. Here not only necessary infrastructural measures were taken, but at the same time opened up spacious inner-city residential areas and business districts. Among the prestigious projects are included the construction of the new Vienna Central Station, started in 2010 with the surrounding office towers of the Quartier Belvedere and the residential and school buildings of the Midsummer quarter (Sonnwendviertel). Europe's largest wooden tower invites here for a spectacular view to the construction site and the entire city. On the site of the former North Station are currently being built 10,000 homes and 20,000 jobs, on that of the Aspangbahn station is being built at Europe's greatest Passive House settlement "Euro Gate", the area of ​​the North Western Railway Station is expected to be developed from 2020 for living and working. The largest currently under construction residential project but can be found in the north-eastern outskirts, where in Seaside Town Aspern till 2028 living and working space for 40,000 people will be created.

In one of the "green lungs" of Vienna, the Prater, 2013, the WU campus was opened for the largest University of Economics of Europe. Around the central square spectacular buildings of an international architect team from Great Britain, Japan, Spain and Austria are gathered that seem to lead a sometimes very loud conversation about the status quo of contemporary architecture (Hitoshi Abe, BUSarchitektur, Peter Cook, Zaha Hadid, NO MAD Arquitectos, Carme Pinós).

Flying high

International is also the number of architects who have inscribed themselves in the last few years with high-rise buildings in the skyline of Vienna and make St. Stephen's a not always unproblematic competition. Visible from afar is Massimiliano Fuksas' 138 and 127 meters high elegant Twin Tower at Wienerberg (1999-2001). The monolithic, 75-meter-high tower of the Hotel Sofitel at the Danube Canal by Jean Nouvel (2007-10), on the other hand, reacts to the particular urban situation and stages in its top floor new perspectives to the historical center on the other side.

Also at the water stands Dominique Perrault's DC Tower (2010-13) in the Danube City - those high-rise city, in which since the start of construction in 1996, the expansion of the city north of the Danube is condensed symbolically. Even in this environment, the slim and at the same time striking vertically folded tower of Perrault is beyond all known dimensions; from its Sky Bar, from spring 2014 on you are able to enjoy the highest view of Vienna. With 250 meters, the tower is the tallest building of Austria and almost twice as high as the St. Stephen's Cathedral. Vienna, thus, has acquired a new architectural landmark which cannot be overlooked - whether it also has the potential to become a landmark of the new Vienna, only time will tell. The architectural history of Vienna, where European history is presence and new buildings enter into an exciting and not always conflict-free dialogue with a great and outstanding architectural heritage, in any case has yet to offer exciting chapters.

More Essex Churches

 

These are more examples of Essex Church images that show the Architecture, the Interiors, the Exteriors and especially the Stained Glass Windows that I have taken over the last year or two. Hope you enjoy them as much as I did visiting them.

St James and St Paul, known as St James the Great, is a Catholic church and the largest in Colchester, it is situated in East Hill. There is roman brickwork in the nave which signals work of a Norman origin. The lower part of the tower is 12th-13th century whilst the top half is 14th century. The church then had major renovation in the latter part of the 15th century, the Chancel was renovated. The western bays of the arcades were built and the eastern bays were matched.

In 1835 the church was thought to be in good shape but by 1870 the church was in such a bad state of repair that services were suspended. Then under the supervision of Fr. S.S. Teulon the North Porch, North Aisle, North Arcade were rebuilt. The South Aisle was restored. The windows in the South Aisle and Clerestory were replaced. A new organ was installed in the North Chapel in 1890.

Things to admire in the church.

1: The Adoration of the Shepherds, a painting by George Carter in 1778. This hangs above the north door of the Nave.

2: Two brasses of John and Alice Maynard date to the late 16th century

3: The last Supper, a painting by Sir William Archer in 1855. It hangs in the Sanctuary to the left of the High Altar.

4: In the South Chapel a Screen by T.G. Jackson 1899-1900

5: The tomb of Arthur Winsley, Alderman and Justice of the Peace. Great benefactor and was founder of 12 Charity Houses.

 

It’s impossible to describe the beauty of Córdoba’s great mosque. One of the world's greatest works of Islamic architecture, the Mezquita hints, with all its decoration, at a refined age when Muslims, Jews and Christians lived side by side and enriched Córdoba city with a heady interaction of diverse, vibrant cultures.

Victorian architecture, Eureka, California.

 

The Carson Mansion is a large Victorian house located in Old Town, Eureka, California. Considered one of the highest executions of Queen Anne Style architecture, the home is the most recognizable landmark on the California North Coast. It is one of the most written about, and photographed Victorian houses in California, and perhaps in the United States.

 

The mansion is a mix of every major style of Victorian Architecture, including but not limited to the following styles: Eastlake, Italianate, Queen Anne (primary), and Stick, depending on which expert one consults. The home "epitomizes the range of possibilities for eclectic design expression" in the use of Victorian architectural styles in a manner that is "peculiarily American." Unlike most other homes dating from the period, this property has always been meticulously maintained, therefore standing today in virtually the same condition as when it was built.

 

The Carson Mansion is included in the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) as Catalog number CA-1911. Completed in May 1964, this is the only official historical building listing of this State of California and nationally architecturally significant structure. Though it merits National Register of Historic Places status, the Ingomar - the private club that owns the home - guards the privacy of their club, and thus the mansion, allowing no possibility of outside influence. Consequently and purposefully, the home and grounds are never open to the public. (Wikipedia)

Built 1937-1938 .... Architecturally, the 1938 Sanctuary is notable for its pioneering use of concrete. The Temple was Canada's first institutional project built entirely of reinforced concrete, with the Chapman and Oxley design pushing the boundaries of 1930s engineering and design. The subtly ornate House of Prayer—which deftly combines Art Deco Romanesque flourishes with a moderne aesthetic—is one of relatively few pre-war buildings of its kind worldwide ....

Versailles, France. The site where Louis XIV lived. I say this place is way over the top in terms of architecture. The gardens are incredible!

The Grade I Listed Salisbury Cathedral, (formally known as the Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary), one of the leading examples of Early English architecture. The main body of the cathedral was completed in only 38 years, from 1220 to 1258. The cathedral is the mother church of the Diocese of Salisbury and seat of the Bishop of Salisbury. In Salisbury, Wiltshire.

 

As a response to deteriorating relations between the clergy and the military at Old Sarum Cathedral, the decision was taken to resite the cathedral and the bishopric was moved to Salisbury. The move occurred during the tenure of Bishop Richard Poore, a wealthy man who donated the land on which it was built. The new cathedral was paid for by donations, principally from the canons and vicars of southeast England who were asked to contribute a fixed annual sum until it was completed. A legend tells that the Bishop of Old Sarum shot an arrow in the direction he would build the cathedral but the arrow hit a deer that died in the place where Salisbury Cathedral is now. The cathedral crossing, Old Sarum and Stonehenge are reputed to be aligned on a ley line, though Clive L.N. Ruggles asserts that the site, on marshland, was chosen because a preferred site several miles to the west could not be obtained.

 

The foundation stone was laid on 28 April 1220. Much of the freestone for the cathedral came from Teffont Evias quarries. As a result of the high water table in the new location, the cathedral was built on only four feet of foundations, and by 1258 the nave, transepts and choir were complete. The only major sections built later were the cloisters in 1240, the chapter house in 1263, tower and spire, which at 404 feet (123 m) dominated the skyline from 1320. Because most of the cathedral was built in only 38 years, it has a single consistent architectural style, Early English Gothic.

 

Although the spire is the cathedral's most impressive feature, it has proved to be troublesome. Together with the tower, it added 6,397 tons (6,500 tonnes) to the weight of the building. Without the addition of buttresses, bracing arches and anchor irons over the succeeding centuries, it would have suffered the fate of spires on later great ecclesiastical buildings (such as Malmesbury Abbey) and fallen down; instead, Salisbury remains the tallest church spire in the UK. The large supporting pillars at the corners of the spire are seen to bend inwards under the stress. The addition of reinforcing tie beams above the crossing, designed by Christopher Wren in 1668, arrested further deformation. The beams were hidden by a false ceiling, installed below the lantern stage of the tower.

 

Significant changes to the cathedral were made by the architect James Wyatt in 1790, including replacement of the original rood screen and demolition of a bell tower which stood about 320 feet (100 m) north west of the main building. Salisbury is one of only three English cathedrals to lack a ring of bells, the others are Norwich Cathedral and Ely Cathedral. However it does strike the time every 15 minutes with bells. In total, 70,000 tons of stone, 3,000 tons of timber and 450 tons of lead were used in the construction of the cathedral.

 

Khimsar Fort, the 16th century old grand for is suspended near the splendid Thar Desert. The yellow coloured, Khimsar fort is the rare example of typical Rajasthani architecture. The fort is now converted into a heritage hotel, managed by the Welcome Heritage group of hotels.

I must admit I can't remember how I obtained this vantage point over the Durbar Square in Patan but to be fair it was 13 years ago. I'm finally getting round to uploading more photos from my trip as I only uploaded a few amongst the first uploads I made to flickr back in 2006.

 

More photos from the trip : www.flickr.com/photos/darrellg/albums/72157709610673461

 

From Wikipedia : "Patan Durbar Square is situated at the centre of the city of Lalitpur in Nepal. It is one of the three Durbar Squares in the Kathmandu Valley, all of which are UNESCO World Heritage Sites. One of its attraction is the ancient royal palace where the Malla Kings of Lalitpur resided.

 

The Durbar Square is a marvel of Newar architecture. The square floor is tiled with red bricks. There are many temples and idols in the area. The main temples are aligned opposite of the western face of the palace. The entrance of the temples faces east, towards the palace. There is also a bell situated in the alignment beside the main temples. The Square also holds old Newari residential houses. There are other temples and structures in and around Patan Durbar Square built by the Newa People."

 

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Oakwood Cemetery is a 160-acre historic cemetery located in Syracuse, New York. It was designed by Howard Daniels and built in 1859. Oakwood Cemetery was created during a time period in the nineteenth century when the rural cemetery was becoming a distinct landscape type, and is a good example of this kind of landscape architecture. The original 92 acres included about 60 acres of dense oak forest with pine, ash, hickory and maple. A crew of 60 laborers without large-scale earth moving equipment thinned and grouped the trees; today there are many 150-year old specimens.

 

Unfortunately time and of course graffiti has taken its' toll on this once beautiful avenue and entrance-way to Oakwood Cemetery. Many years ago, an elevated highway (I-81) was built across what was once a somewhat rural area. This photo was taken from I-81 Northbound.

The Barracks site at 61 Petrie Terrace Brisbane has a rich and interesting history. Developers, Property Solutions and QM Properties, have transformed a site that had laid derelict for nearly 20 years into a landmark retail and commercial precinct, successfully integrating three of Brisbane’s key heritage listed buildings with contemporary architecture. The three heritage listed buildings from the Police era remaining on the site are the stables (1912), the three storey brick barracks (1939) and the radio communications centre (1941).

 

In 2009 the efforts were rewarded when The Barracks won two prestigious UDIA Awards for Urban Renewal and best large Retail/Commercial development.

 

History of the Petrie Terrace Police Barracks:

 

The site of the Former Petrie Terrace Police Depot occupies the southwest edge of a ridge formerly known as Green Hills, which overlooks the former Roma Street railway yards and the Brisbane central business district. The place has been associated with penal and police activity in Queensland since the 1850s. The site was occupied by the second purpose-built Brisbane Gaol from November 1860 until July 1883, and functioned as a police barracks from 1885 until the mid-1980s. Within the former Petrie Terrace Police Depot, the former Police Barracks, opened in September 1939, is a highly visible and prominent landmark in Brisbane.

 

The site was early associated with a penal facility. When Moreton Bay was opened to free settlement in February 1842, the only prison accommodation available was at one end of the former military barracks in Queen Street - the remainder of the building was occupied by storekeepers. In the second half of 1847 the former female factory in Queen Street, which had served as an immigration barracks for some years, was refurbished as a gaol. This was a temporary measure until Brisbane's first purpose-built gaol was erected in 1848-49. However, within a few years the construction of a larger gaol complex was considered necessary.

 

By 1856, a gaol reserve had been proposed in the vicinity of what is now Petrie Terrace - the area known in the 1850s as Green Hills. The site was considered remote, well-drained, healthy and extendable. In 1857 the NSW colonial architect provided plans for a gaol to accommodate nearly 100 prisoners at Green Hills. The contract was let in mid-1858 to Andrew and John Petrie of Brisbane - their name being commemorated in Petrie Terrace - who submitted a tender of £25,000. Construction commenced in October 1858, and was completed by September 1860, when the complex was proclaimed as the Brisbane Gaol. The buildings were masonry, and included 2 two-storeyed cell blocks; 2 two-storeyed guard houses containing offices, warders' room and store rooms, flanking the main entrance to the gaol (which faced southeast, overlooking the town of Brisbane); kitchen block; washhouses; and lavatory blocks. The gaol reserve was enclosed by a wooden fence, which was replaced in 1862 by a 20 feet high stone wall, constructed by contractor Joshua Jeays of Brisbane. Stone for the gaol wall was obtained from the Woogaroo Quarry.

 

Almost from its inception, the Brisbane Gaol on Petrie Terrace was overcrowded. By 1865, overflow prisoners were being accommodated on the hulk Proserpine, anchored at the mouth of the Brisbane River, and in 1867 the decision was taken to convert the quarantine buildings then under construction on St Helena Island, in Moreton Bay, into gaol buildings. St Helena was gazetted as a prison in the same year, and operated in tandem with the Brisbane Gaol on Petrie Terrace. In 1870 the female prisoners at Petrie Terrace were relocated to the Toowoomba Gaol. These measures afforded only temporary solutions to the overcrowding at the Brisbane Gaol, and in the late 1870s plans for a new gaol at Boggo Road, South Brisbane, were prepared. This complex was constructed in the early 1880s and completed in 1883, with the goal on Petrie Terrace closing on 2 July 1883.

 

The colonial government initially intended that the Queensland Defence Force, which was reorganised and expanded in the mid-1880s following the 'Russian scare' of 1883, should occupy the former Petrie Terrace gaol reserve, along with the adjacent former military barracks, which had been established in 1864 to accommodate a small contingent of Imperial troops, but which had been occupied since 1874 by the Queensland Police Force.

 

However, in 1885 the gaol reserve on Petrie Terrace was divided between the newly established permanent Queensland Defence Force and the Queensland Police Force. The QDF occupied the 1864 military reserve and the northern end of the gaol reserve, the whole of which was renamed Victoria Barracks by mid-1885. The Queensland Police Force occupied the remainder of the gaol reserve on Petrie Terrace, as a police depot and training centre. At this time the former guard houses and a block which contained the chapel, kitchen and workshop, were renovated as quarters and offices for the police, but the former cell blocks were demolished. The police occupied the former gaol reserve for a century, from 1885 until the mid-1980s, although the site was not officially gazetted as a reserve for police purposes until 1901.

 

The re-use of the gaol reserve for police and military purposes necessitated the demolition of the surrounding stone wall, most of which was removed in 1885, although the arched stone entrance gate on the southeastern perimeter remained until the mid-20th century. The stone was recycled and used on various government projects in Brisbane, including the foundations supporting the iron palisade separating Queen's Park from Alice Street. It is understood that the stone base to the surviving fence along Petrie Terrace at the Former Petrie Terrace Police Depot, and the stone retaining wall between the Defence and Police Reserves, are constructed from fabric from the 1862 wall.

 

In the 1880s, as the Queensland economy boomed and new districts were opened to settlement, the number of men recruited into the Queensland police force increased significantly. Recruits received a brief period of training at the Petrie Terrace Police Depot, where facilities were strained. Along with recruits, the depot accommodated probationary officers and unmarried officers serving in the Brisbane area. In 1889, the police barracks at Petrie Terrace was described as a very bad barracks, damp in wet weather, without a washhouse or proper earth closets, and overcrowded. Despite the poor conditions, prior to 1901 only minor alterations and additions were made to the depot buildings.

 

In the period 1895 to 1925 the Queensland population almost doubled. The Queensland Police Force, while not quite matching this growth rate, increased by one third, especially after 1910, when pay and conditions for police officers improved. In the first two decades of the 20th century a number of new structures were erected at the Petrie Terrace Police Depot to accommodate the increase. These included: a washhouse near the southern boundary of the reserve (timber, 1901, since demolished); a residence for the Police Drill Instructor at the southwest corner of the reserve near the junction of Roma Street and Petrie Terrace (timber, 1907, demolished); a dormitory block at the northeastern end of the reserve, near the Victoria Barracks boundary (2-storeyed, timber, 1907, demolished); a stables building in the northern corner of the reserve, abutting Petrie Terrace and the boundary with Victoria Barracks (brick, 1912, extant); and extensive additions to No.2 dormitory block (the former gaol kitchen and chapel building) at the southern end of the reserve (1914-15, since demolished).

 

The 1912 brick stables building contained stables for 40 horses, harness room and feed room. The building was E-shaped with external dimensions of 40m by 26m. As motor vehicles gradually replaced horses in police work, alterations to the stables building were undertaken in 1927 to provide some garage accommodation, and in 1936 a substantial brick garage and workshop was erected between the 1912 brick stables building and the 1907 timber dormitory block. At this period the 1912 stables still contained 15 loose boxes and 16 stalls.

 

In the late 1930s, following decades of police complaint that the buildings at Petrie Terrace were totally unsuitable for police purposes, the Queensland Government finally resolved to address police accommodation at both the Petrie Terrace Police Depot and the Roma Street Police Station and Barracks - the latter erected in 1879, and by 1899 considered inadequate. Early in 1938, work commenced on the construction of a new three-storeyed, brick and concrete police barracks at the Petrie Terrace Police Depot, on land formerly utilised as a parade and drill ground. It was intended to accommodate recruits, probationers and single officers stationed at Petrie Terrace, Roma Street, and the Traffic and Criminal Investigation branches in Brisbane. At this period, single officers still were obliged to reside in barracks. When the new barracks were completed in 1939, however, it was occupied only by probationers and single officers - recruits were accommodated in the 1907 timber barracks.

 

The design for the new barracks was developed after extensive consultation with officers of the Queensland Police Force, with consideration given to providing commodious quarters for unmarried men, and taking advantage of the prominent ridge site to establish a distinctive and forceful presence as a sentinel building overlooking the centre of Brisbane and to the major arterial road of Petrie Terrace. The ground floor comprised offices, store, armoury, guard room, lecture theatre with folding partitions, kitchen and mess. The second and third floors contained bedrooms, bathrooms, drying rooms, and recreation rooms, and accommodated 100 unmarried officers. The first floor contained 18 two-men bedrooms and 4 three-men bedrooms and the second floor accommodated 18 two-men bedrooms and 8 three-men rooms. Every effort was made to provide maximum privacy for the occupants, and to admit as much light and air as possible. The warm Brisbane climate was accommodated with verandahs and balconies on each floor. The building was constructed largely of fire-proof materials (brick and cement and fibrous-cement roofing tiles), and enclosed escape stairs were provided at each end of the building.

 

When the barracks was officially opened on 29 September 1939, it was considered one of the best investments that the Government had made; it would enhance the reputation of the force and give dividends daily in efficient service. The Architectural and Building Journal of Queensland considered that the new barracks represented the new idea in the construction of public buildings, that they were not 'institutional' in their appearance, and that they were impressive in their architectural line and mass of brickwork, and the tiled roof makes the building a prominent landmark.

 

The Police Commissioner, in his report for the year ended 30 June 1939, stated of the new depot barracks: It is at this centre that a member of the Police force receives his early training prior to his admission as a constable, as well as his accommodation in the early years of his official life. Environment has a great influence on the future career of any person, and it is felt that the change in accommodation as well as the increased facilities for training will benefit both the public and the administration.

 

Design responsibility for the new Petrie Terrace Police Barracks was assigned to Raymond Clare Nowland, an architect in the Department of Public Works. Nowland had joined the architectural office of the Department of Public Works in November 1932, and was appointed a senior architect in this office in 1938. He produced the most significant buildings of his career between 1932 and 1942, including the Petrie Terrace Police Barracks (1939); University of Queensland Medical School (1939); Brisbane Dental Hospital and College (1941); Cairns Government Offices (1935); Rockhampton Police Court (1935); Fortitude Valley Police Station (1935); and Toowoomba Police Station (1935).

 

Construction of the barracks was the first stage of a planned remodelling of the whole of the Petrie Terrace Police Depot and grounds. The scheme provided for a square to the east and southeast of the barracks to incorporate formal gardens, tennis court, residences for senior officers and garaging for cars. In the early 1940s the former Brisbane Gaol buildings on the site, which the police had occupied since 1885, were demolished, the ground filled in and levelled, and a parade ground formed. New garaging was erected at the northeastern end of the site in the early 1950s, but not on the site of the former gaol buildings demolished c1940. It appears that no further structures were erected on this part of the site.

 

The new Petrie Terrace Police Barracks was constructed during an intensive public works building programme undertaken by the Forgan-Smith Labor Government in Queensland during the 1930s, to counter the effects of the economic depression. It was also the first stage of an ambitious building scheme proposed for the Queensland Police Force, which included the demolition of the Roma Street Police Station and Barracks and the transformation of the site into a public square as an extension of King George Square; and new police watchhouse, courthouse and centralised police headquarters buildings in William Street adjoining and incorporating the Public Library (the Library was to be relocated to a proposed new Public Library in Turbot Street). While the Petrie Terrace Police Barracks was erected in 1938-39, the advent of the Second World War diverted resources, and the remainder of the scheme did not come to fruition.

 

In 1941, just prior to the outbreak of war in the Pacific, a brick building to house the Police Wireless Transmission Station VKR was erected in the southwest corner of the police reserve, on the site of the 1907 Drill Instructor's Residence, which was removed. In conjunction with the wireless station, an aerial was erected at the top of the southern end of the 1938-39 police barracks. Two-way radio communication with wireless patrol vehicles had been established, and the station was linked to the interstate wireless police telegraphy service. Mechanised transportation and radio communication revolutionised Queensland police practices.

 

During the Second World War, military police attached to the Australian Army, Royal Australian Navy, Royal Australian Air Force, United States Army, United States Shore Patrol, and the Royal Navy, also utilised the police wireless transmission station at Petrie Terrace. The Australian Army and the Royal Australian Navy continued to operated wireless patrol vehicles from this station for some years after the cessation of hostilities in the Pacific.

 

The war created other impacts on the Petrie Terrace Police Depot. In March 1942 an observation post was established at the depot, manned by members of the Volunteer Air Observers' Corps, who occupied the billiards room on the ground floor of the police barracks. A Royal Australian Air Force hut was erected in the depot grounds to house the office staff attached to this corps. This structure was taken over by the Police in 1946-47, principally to house records and stores, but has been removed since. Also in 1941-42, the surviving stalls in the 1912 stables were removed and the place was converted into a garage.

 

In the immediate post-war years, Queensland Police acquired wireless equipment from the Civil Defence Organisation, which was installed in a number of suburban police stations to receive broadcasts from station VKR. Improvements to the two-way transmission system in 1946-47 increased the coverage to a 60 miles radius of Police Wireless Station VKR. In the late 1940s a 70 foot aerial pole was erected in the Petrie Terrace Police Depot grounds to support transmitting aerials for the interstate police wireless service, which became increasingly important as a police tool.

 

By 1945, the Police were experiencing difficulty in accommodating cadets (recruits), probationers and single officers at the Petrie Terrace Depot. Both cadets and probationers were quartered in the 1907 barracks, and in 1949-50 this building was refurbished and a separate laundry building was erected for the use of cadets and probationers.

 

A number of alterations were made to the Petrie Terrace Depot in the 1950s, reflecting the advent of new technologies and changes in policing practices.

 

In 1951 Brisbane's Central Communications Room at the Criminal Investigations Branch came into operation, taking over the handling of police radio communications from the control room at station VKR, Petrie Terrace. The new facility, which was intended as the 'nerve-centre' of police communications in Queensland, was linked to the technical services of station VKR by land lines, and staffed by junior wireless operators. Senior staff supervised all transmissions and reception at the VKR control rooms, and operated the interstate radio telegraphy services.

 

In 1953 two tennis courts near the 1907 timber barracks were demolished to make way for a large garage which housed 30 vehicles.

 

In 1956 the bedrooms on the second and third floors of the 1938-39 police barracks were converted into new office accommodation for the Commissioner of Police and Licensing and Special branches. Cadets and single probationers were still housed in the 1907 timber barracks, but single officers were no longer accommodated at the Depot. Also in 1956 the engine room at the rear of the wireless transmission station was enlarged to house a larger emergency power plant for the station. From 1956 a number of structures at the southern end of the site were demolished to create a large open space which was developed as a parade ground.

 

In the early 1960s the Police Commissioner's and several other offices accommodated at Petrie Terrace moved into the newly opened Police Headquarters Building at North Quay. At Petrie Terrace, the 1938-39 building was re-converted into barracks, necessitating only minor alterations, and the 1907 barracks was removed. By 1964 the 1938-39 building contained accommodation for probationers and cadets on the first and second floors, and offices (including Inspector and Sub-Inspector of Police), class rooms and mess on the ground floor. Also by 1964, the transmission and reception of police messages had been transferred from Petrie Terrace to the North Quay building, and the Petrie Terrace wireless transmission station was being used principally for the housing of equipment and for workshop repair rooms.

 

Use of the Petrie Terrace Police Depot as a training facility ceased in 1973 when this function was removed to the Oxley Police Academy, but the Depot continued to serve other police purposes until the mid-1980s. In 1987 the State Government sold the former police reserve and buildings to private enterprise, and approval for re-zoning was gazetted in September 1990. A number of structures have been removed from the site, including the 1953 garage building and several structures at the northeastern end of the site; the Former Police Stables functioned as a nightclub through the 1990s, and the Former Police Wireless Transmission Station was converted into a restaurant.

 

During the 1990s and the 2000s the former Police Barracks remained vacant and suffered a high level of vandalism. The open area to the east and southeast of the former Police Barracks, which contained significant sub-surface material associated with the former Brisbane Gaol (1860-1883), is now incorporated into the Barracks development, which established the site into a commercial, retail, dining, and cinema precinct. 104.5 Triple M operates its Brisbane broadcasting station from the top levels of this new development.

 

Source: The Barracks: History (www.thebarracks.info/history/) & Queensland Heritage Register.

This is my model of the First Christian Church designed by Eleil Saarinen in Columbus Indiana. It is a U.S. National Landmark and is one of the Greatest examples of modern Architecture. The church is one of 6 National Historic Landmarks in Columbus. The model is built at a 1/200 Scale and designed with LEGO

Discover the portuguese architecture, the other face of the iberian architecture. I travelled along the Atlantic in search of key elements, shapes and perspectives. Order, geometries and proportions unite with the human presencies creating an almost magical result.

 

I learned about the recent history of Portuguese architecture, the most famous works and the less- known faces of these and other important architects. From Porto to Lisbon, land, sea, landscape and architecture; from the Tajo River to the Duero, from the Iberian land to the Atlantic Ocean, I was able to discover and enjoy the magical and unforgettable cities, nearby but also unknown.

 

I have visited emblematic buildings and the latest construction projects in a country that has been at the top of the architectural world for decades, from buildings with simple lines to the precise use of light.

The white flowers surround this split-level house inspired by 20th Century modernist architecture. The SNOT windows along the livingroom and bedroom started this build and it is almost a little brother to my previous Artsand House MOC. As always, I've spent a lot of time working on the interiors and I'm pretty fond of the combined kitchen and livingroom myself. I hope you like it too!

(References:- K. Lal in his book Tarekh e Punjab & The crumbling glory of Sheikhupura Fort by Aown Ali)

 

In West Punjab (now in Pakistan), the town of Sheikhupura (about 35 km west of Lahore) is hailed a center of historically significant architecture.

 

The Hiran Minar (Minaret of the Antelope) and the Sheikhupura Fort make this stop a focal point of interest.

 

The town, now a district headquarters and one of the major industrial cities of Punjab, has grown from a village, originally called “Jahangirpura” when it was settled during the reign of the Mughal emperor, Jahangir, because of its proximity to Hiran Minar, a royal hunting resort.

 

The primary historical importance of the city relates to its Fort. It lays no claim to grandeur. Locally known as Qila Sheikhupura, it has gave its name to the town as well.

 

Construction of the fort began in the second year of Jahangir’s reign (1607). The Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri (autobiography of Jahangir) mentions that the emperor assigned the job of constructing a fort at that location to Sikandar Moeen during a hunting trip to Hiran Minar.

 

The two centuries that followed were mostly uneventful for the Fort. Neither a seat of government nor a target for invaders, it remained but a halt for imperial entourages heading on pleasure trips to Kashmir in the north, or towards Kabul in the west.

 

The Fort’s political importance did not emerge until the establishment of the Sikh Empire at the end of the 18th century.

 

A veteran historian and archeologist, Ihsan H. Nadiem, tells us that immediately before the consolidation of Punjab under the Sikhs, the Fort served as a convenient place for robbers looting the countryside.

 

The Durrani king, Shah Zaman, during his invasion of Lahore in 1797, briefly besieged the Fort, but only to purge it of the robbers. Soon after his departure, the Fort was once again occupied by the highwaymen.

 

Shortly thereafter, Lehna Singh Majithia (who also served as the Governor of Lahore. The son of General Lehna Singh, Sardar Dyal Singh, was perhaps the most significant Punjabi of the late 19th century in the British Punjab. He was the main force behind the founding of Punjab University), an ally of Ranjit Singh, invaded the fort and took occupation. After him, its ownership passed on to Bhai Singh, followed by Sahib Singh and Sahai Singh in 1808, at which point Ranjit Singh marched upon it and caused its surrender.

 

This whole story of Sheikhupura raid wrote by Hindu writer K. Lal in his book Tarekh e Punjab (Page 196-197) and it is as under:

 

“Mahraja Ranjeet was busy in handling state affairs, in the meantime a group of farmers belong to Sheikhpura came to his door, they wanted to seek help against brutal Sikh rulers Sardar Arbel Singh & Sardar Ameer Singh. These Sardars had occupied the Sheikhupura fort and land, there army looting common people up to that level that they were dying of hunger. That group of farmer said the people of Sheikhupura accepted the over lordship of the Maharaja and requested to take their territory under Mahraja rule and control to protect them from these two brutal Sardars.

Mahraja accepted the request and assigned his eldest son, the crown prince, Kharak Singh for Sheikhupura fort Campaign. He reached Sheikhupura; he has four thousand army troops and support of one Cannon artillery.

Sheikhupura fort was very well constructed with strong fortified walls, Mahraja himself selected best cannons from his cannon yard for this campaign and also assign one of his best army officer Sardar Hakma Singh for assisting Crown prince Kharak Singh in this campaign.

When this troop reached Sheikhupura, Crown Prince Kharak Singh called both the ruling Sardar’s to him, but instead of appearing in front of Prince they have further fortified the fort and get ready for war.

The Prince first sieges the fort and then orders Canon artillery to start fire on fort walls. The fort walls were strongly fortified and hold the Cannon artillery attack for days.

This result less campaign made Prince to think if he wanted to win this fight he has to reinforce his troops and artillery as well. For that purpose he wrote for help to his father Mahraja Ranjit Singh. When Maharaja saw this letter he got angry, he ordered to send biggest cannon of his artillery the Ahmad Shahi Gun. Which he forcefully took from Saheb Singh Guajarati)

(Ahmad Shahi Gun also known as zamzama gun…, The Zamzama Gun is a large bore cannon. It is also known as Kim’s Gun or Bhangianwali Taop. It was cast in 1757 in Lahore. At that time Lahore was a part of the Durrani Empire. The gun was used by Ahmed Shah in the battle of Panipat in 1761. In 1802, Ranjit Singh got hold of the gun and used it in the battles of Daska, Kasur, Sujanpur, Wazirabad and Multan. In the siege of Multan, the gun was badly damaged. It is currently on display in front of the Lahore Museum at The Mall Road, Lahore.)

The Maharaja also reached the Sheikhupura Fort with fresh troops and again the battle started.

After two days of fight, Maharaja ordered to place Ahmed Shah Gun in front of Main gate of Fort. It was tough task and took many lives of soldiers but at last it was placed there. Hundred rounds of guns were fired and main gate of fort completely destroyed. The Mahraja troops entered the fort and raise the winning flag on wall. Both Arbel & Ameer Singh were arrested.

Since the area of Sheikhupura won in name of Crown Prince Kharak Singh, the fort and “Jageer” of Sheikhupura bestowed to Prince by his father Mahraja Ranjeet Singh under the primacy of her mother Rani Datar Kaur (1801-1840), the mother of the crown prince, Kharak Singh. She was also known as Rani Raj Kaur or Mai Nakkain. She lived in the Fort till her death.”

 

She had a considerable role in the rehabilitation of this small, strategically unimportant and hitherto almost abandoned citadel. She built a wonderful haveli within it. The excellent frescoes in the distinctive Kangra style found in the parlour and in the two chambers on the first floor of this haveli, are attributed to Raj Kaur‘s excellent taste.

 

In mid-19th century, when the British invaded Punjab, they used the Fort to imprison the Sikh kingdom’s Regent, Rani Jind Kaur – “Jindaa(n)” - after taking her son, the child Emperor Duleep Singh, prisoner.

 

In a letter dated August 9, 1847 Sir Henry Montgomery Lawrence, the British Resident in Punjab suggested to the Governor General that the Queen be banished from Punjab, to prevent the populace from rising under banner.

 

The 8-year old Emperor was removed from his palace in the Lahore Fort on August 19, 1847, and taken to the Shalimar Gardens, while his mother, the Queen, was confined to the distant Sheikhupura Fort.

 

Historian Himadri Banerjee describes how Jindaan was forcibly removed from Lahore between 8 and 9 pm under a heavy military escort. Accompanied by Sardar Arjan Singh Rangharnanglia and Gurmukh Singh Lamma, she was lodged in Sheikhupura Fort in the early hours of Friday, August 20, 1847, under the charge of Sardar Boor Singh.

 

Soon after her arrival at Sheikhupura, she wrote the following letter to the Resident at Lahore, protesting the ruthless separation from her young eight-year old.

 

With the Grace of the Great Guru

From Bibi Sahib to Lawrence Sahib,

 

We have arrived safely at Sheikhupura, You should send our luggage with care, As I was sitting in the Samman (Burj - Palace in Lahore Fort), in the same way I am in Sheikhupura. Both the places are same to me; you have been very cruel to me. You have snatched my son from me … In the name of the God you worship and in the name of the king whose salt you eat, restore my son to me. I cannot bear the pain of this separation … I shall reside in Sheikhupura. I shall not go to Lahore. Send my son to me. I will come to you at Lahore only during the days when you hold darbar. On that day I will send him. A great deal (of injustice) has been done to me. A great deal (of injustice) has been done to my son also. You have accepted what other people have said. Put an end to it now. Too much has been done.

 

The Queen resided in the Sheikhupura Fort for nine months. On the afternoon of May 15, 1848, she was taken away, to be imprisoned in Chunar Fort, near Benares (in current day Uttar Pradesh, India). She made a dramatic escape from there and fled to Nepal, where she remained until, years later, almost blind and dying, was finally allowed to visit her son, who was by then exiled in England.

 

The Sheikhupura Fort was thus witness to a number of crucial turning points during the half-century of the Sikh Raj.

 

The Empire had held played a crucial role as a bulwark against ongoing invasions through the subcontinent’s porous western borders. At its peak, it held sway from Tibet in the east to the Khyber Pass in the west, to Kashmir in the north and to Sindh in the south. It also, while Ranjit Singh was alive, kept the British at bay, even though the rest of the subcontinent had collapsed under them like a row of dominoes.

 

After the annexation of Punjab, the Sheikhupura Fort was temporarily used as administrative headquarters of the Gujranwala district from 1849 to 1851. However, upon the transfer of the district headquarters to Gujranwala town, it was turned into a military outpost.

 

After a split of administration jurisdictions in 1918, a new district was created in Sheikhupura. The Fort then passed on to house the police headquarters of the newly created district.

 

After the partition of Punjab and India in 1947, it was briefly used by the immigrants from East Punjab (by then in the newly-created India) as shelter, and

later by encroachers, from whom it came into the possession of the Department of Archaeology of Pakistan in 1967.

 

Within the complex, no building from the Mughal period is left standing, except the main entrance façade. There are also some remains of sandstone columns depicting the history of the laying of the foundations of the Sheikhupura Fort.

 

Today, what we can see standing, although dilapidated, is a crumbling six-storey haveli, identical to the haveli of Naunihal Singh, which is situated inside Mori Gate in Lahore.

 

The most vibrant aspect of the beauty of the haveli in the Sheikhupura Fort is its frescoes.

 

Sadly, precious wooden doors, windows and parts of the roof have already been whisked away by raiders and the haveli has turned into a haunted house.

 

Inside the ruins and rooms occupied by bats, we can still find signs of the former lifestyle through colourful and thematic paintings and other art work in the Kangra style. Fresco art work in the haveli of Raj Kaur portrays almost all aspects of daily life – ranging from worship to romantic love to military life. Colors are still vivid, the art work is glittering, but the haveli is now, due to institutional neglect, close to the end of its physical life.

 

Despite its poor condition, no contractor or labourer agrees to work as it is believed the fort is haunted by ghosts of the queens which used to live there.

 

This fort is closed to the public due to its bad structural condition; it took me at least three years to take permission to visit this

Christchurch, New Zealand. The Art gallery is a fantastic piece of architecture. The lighting was fantastic on the evening i took this although i have tweaked the sky a bit. I have another ill post eventually after a bit more work which has light beams reflecting off the building onto the ground.

 

Camera: DMC-FZ35

Software: Version 1.0.0

Dimension: 3000 x 4000 px (12 MP, 3:4)

Focal length: 4.8 mm (equiv. 27 mm)

Aperture: F3.6

Exposure time: 1/125"

ISO speed rating: 125/22°

Program: Program

Metering Mode: Pattern

White Balance: Auto

Focus Mode: Auto

Image Stabilizer: On, Mode 2

Noise Reduction: +1 (High)

Flash: Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode

 

VIEW ON BLACK HERE

 

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The Tower of London, officially His Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress of the Tower of London, is a historic castle on the north bank of the River Thames in central London, England. It lies within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, which is separated from the eastern edge of the square mile of the City of London by the open space known as Tower Hill. It was founded toward the end of 1066 as part of the Norman Conquest. The White Tower, which gives the entire castle its name, was built by William the Conqueror in 1078 and was a resented symbol of oppression, inflicted upon London by the new Norman ruling class. The castle was also used as a prison from 1100 (Ranulf Flambard) until 1952 (Kray twins), although that was not its primary purpose. A grand palace early in its history, it served as a royal residence. As a whole, the Tower is a complex of several buildings set within two concentric rings of defensive walls and a moat. There were several phases of expansion, mainly under kings Richard I, Henry III, and Edward I in the 12th and 13th centuries. The general layout established by the late 13th century remains despite later activity on the site.

 

The Tower of London has played a prominent role in English history. It was besieged several times, and controlling it has been important to controlling the country. The Tower has served variously as an armoury, a treasury, a menagerie, the home of the Royal Mint, a public record office, and the home of the Crown Jewels of England. From the early 14th century until the reign of Charles II in the 17th century, a procession would be led from the Tower to Westminster Abbey on the coronation of a monarch. In the absence of the monarch, the Constable of the Tower is in charge of the castle. This was a powerful and trusted position in the medieval period. In the late 15th century, the Princes in the Tower were housed at the castle when they mysteriously disappeared, presumed murdered. Under the Tudors, the Tower became used less as a royal residence, and despite attempts to refortify and repair the castle, its defences lagged behind developments to deal with artillery.

 

The zenith of the castle's use as a prison was the 16th and 17th centuries, when many figures who had fallen into disgrace, such as Elizabeth I before she became queen, Sir Walter Raleigh, and Elizabeth Throckmorton, were held within its walls. This use has led to the phrase "sent to the Tower". Despite its enduring reputation as a place of torture and death, popularised by 16th-century religious propagandists and 19th-century writers, only seven people were executed within the Tower before the world wars of the 20th century. Executions were more commonly held on the notorious Tower Hill to the north of the castle, with 112 occurring there over a 400-year period. In the latter half of the 19th century, institutions such as the Royal Mint moved out of the castle to other locations, leaving many buildings empty. Anthony Salvin and John Taylor took the opportunity to restore the Tower to what was felt to be its medieval appearance, clearing out many of the vacant post-medieval structures.

 

In the First and Second World Wars, the Tower was again used as a prison and witnessed the executions of 12 men for espionage. After the Second World War, damage caused during the Blitz was repaired, and the castle reopened to the public. Today, the Tower of London is one of the country's most popular tourist attractions. Under the ceremonial charge of the Constable of the Tower, operated by the Resident Governor of the Tower of London and Keeper of the Jewel House, and guarded by the Yeomen Warders, the property is cared for by the charity Historic Royal Palaces and is protected as a World Heritage Site.

 

Architecture

The Tower was oriented with its strongest and most impressive defences overlooking Saxon London, which archaeologist Alan Vince suggests was deliberate. It would have visually dominated the surrounding area and stood out to traffic on the River Thames. The castle is made up of three "wards", or enclosures. The innermost ward contains the White Tower and is the earliest phase of the castle. Encircling it to the north, east, and west is the inner ward, built during the reign of Richard I (1189–1199). Finally, there is the outer ward which encompasses the castle and was built under Edward I. Although there were several phases of expansion after William the Conqueror founded the Tower of London, the general layout has remained the same since Edward I completed his rebuild in 1285.

 

The castle encloses an area of almost 12 acres (4.9 hectares) with a further 6 acres (2.4 ha) around the Tower of London constituting the Tower Liberties – land under the direct influence of the castle and cleared for military reasons. The precursor of the Liberties was laid out in the 13th century when Henry III ordered that a strip of land adjacent to the castle be kept clear. Despite popular fiction, the Tower of London never had a permanent torture chamber, although the basement of the White Tower housed a rack in later periods. Tower Wharf was built on the bank of the Thames under Edward I and was expanded to its current size during the reign of Richard II (1377–1399).

 

White Tower

The White Tower is a keep (also known as a donjon), which was often the strongest structure in a medieval castle, and contained lodgings suitable for the lord – in this case, the king or his representative. According to military historian Allen Brown, "The great tower [White Tower] was also, by virtue of its strength, majesty and lordly accommodation, the donjon par excellence". As one of the largest keeps in the Christian world, the White Tower has been described as "the most complete eleventh-century palace in Europe".

 

The White Tower, not including its projecting corner towers, measures 36 by 32 metres (118 by 105 ft) at the base, and is 27 m (90 ft) high at the southern battlements. The structure was originally three storeys high, comprising a basement floor, an entrance level, and an upper floor. The entrance, as is usual in Norman keeps, was above ground, in this case on the south face, and accessed via a wooden staircase which could be removed in the event of an attack. It was probably during Henry II's reign (1154–1189) that a forebuilding was added to the south side of the tower to provide extra defences to the entrance, but it has not survived. Each floor was divided into three chambers, the largest in the west, a smaller room in the north-east, and the chapel taking up the entrance and upper floors of the south-east. At the western corners of the building are square towers, while to the north-east a round tower houses a spiral staircase. At the south-east corner there is a larger semi-circular projection which accommodates the apse of the chapel. As the building was intended to be a comfortable residence as well as a stronghold, latrines were built into the walls, and four fireplaces provided warmth.

 

The main building material is Kentish ragstone, although some local mudstone was also used. Caen stone was imported from northern France to provide details in the Tower's facing, although little of the original material survives as it was replaced with Portland stone in the 17th and 18th centuries. Reigate stone was also used as ashlar and for carved details. Its location, in the lower courses of the building and at higher levels corresponding to a building break, suggest it was readily available and may have been used when access to Caen stone was restricted. As most of the Tower's windows were enlarged in the 18th century, only two original – albeit restored – examples remain, in the south wall at the gallery level.

 

The tower was terraced into the side of a mound, so the northern side of the basement is partially below ground level. As was typical of most keeps, the bottom floor was an undercroft used for storage. One of the rooms contained a well. Although the layout has remained the same since the tower's construction, the interior of the basement dates mostly from the 18th century when the floor was lowered and the pre-existing timber vaults were replaced with brick counterparts. The basement is lit through small slits.

 

The entrance floor was probably intended for the use of the Constable of the Tower, Lieutenant of the Tower of London and other important officials. The south entrance was blocked during the 17th century, and not reopened until 1973. Those heading to the upper floor had to pass through a smaller chamber to the east, also connected to the entrance floor. The crypt of St John's Chapel occupied the south-east corner and was accessible only from the eastern chamber. There is a recess in the north wall of the crypt; according to Geoffrey Parnell, Keeper of the Tower History at the Royal Armouries, "the windowless form and restricted access, suggest that it was designed as a strong-room for safekeeping of royal treasures and important documents".

 

The upper floor contained a grand hall in the west and residential chamber in the east – both originally open to the roof and surrounded by a gallery built into the wall – and St John's Chapel in the south-east. The top floor was added in the 15th century, along with the present roof. St John's Chapel was not part of the White Tower's original design, as the apsidal projection was built after the basement walls. Due to changes in function and design since the tower's construction, except for the chapel little is left of the original interior.[20] The chapel's current bare and unadorned appearance is reminiscent of how it would have been in the Norman period. In the 13th century, during Henry III's reign, the chapel was decorated with such ornamentation as a gold-painted cross, and stained glass windows that depicted the Virgin Mary and the Holy Trinity.

 

Innermost ward

The innermost ward encloses an area immediately south of the White Tower, stretching to what was once the edge of the River Thames. As was the case at other castles, such as the 11th-century Hen Domen, the innermost ward was probably filled with timber buildings from the Tower's foundation. Exactly when the royal lodgings began to encroach from the White Tower into the innermost ward is uncertain, although it had happened by the 1170s. The lodgings were renovated and elaborated during the 1220s and 1230s, becoming comparable with other palatial residences such as Windsor Castle. Construction of Wakefield and Lanthorn Towers – located at the corners of the innermost ward's wall along the river – began around 1220. They probably served as private residences for the queen and king respectively.

 

The earliest evidence for how the royal chambers were decorated comes from Henry III's reign: the queen's chamber was whitewashed, and painted with flowers and imitation stonework. A great hall existed in the south of the ward, between the two towers. It was similar to, although slightly smaller than, that also built by Henry III at Winchester Castle. Near Wakefield Tower was a postern gate which allowed private access to the king's apartments. The innermost ward was originally surrounded by a protective ditch, which had been filled in by the 1220s. Around this time, a kitchen was built in the ward. Between 1666 and 1676, the innermost ward was transformed and the palace buildings removed. The area around the White Tower was cleared so that anyone approaching would have to cross open ground. The Jewel House was demolished, and the Crown Jewels moved to Martin Tower.

 

Inner ward

The inner ward was created during Richard the Lionheart's reign, when a moat was dug to the west of the innermost ward, effectively doubling the castle's size. Henry III created the ward's east and north walls, and the ward's dimensions remain to this day. Most of Henry's work survives, and only two of the nine towers he constructed have been completely rebuilt. Between the Wakefield and Lanthorn Towers, the innermost ward's wall also serves as a curtain wall for the inner ward. The main entrance to the inner ward would have been through a gatehouse, most likely in the west wall on the site of what is now Beauchamp Tower. The inner ward's western curtain wall was rebuilt by Edward I. The 13th-century Beauchamp Tower marks the first large-scale use of brick as a building material in Britain, since the 5th-century departure of the Romans. The Beauchamp Tower is one of 13 towers that stud the curtain wall. Clockwise from the south-west corner they are: Bell, Beauchamp, Devereux, Flint, Bowyer, Brick, Martin, Constable, Broad Arrow, Salt, Lanthorn, Wakefield, and the Bloody Tower. While these towers provided positions from which flanking fire could be deployed against a potential enemy, they also contained accommodation. As its name suggests, Bell Tower housed a belfry, its purpose to raise the alarm in the event of an attack. The royal bow-maker, responsible for making longbows, crossbows, catapults, and other siege and hand weapons, had a workshop in the Bowyer Tower. A turret at the top of Lanthorn Tower was used as a beacon by traffic approaching the Tower at night.

 

As a result of Henry's expansion, St Peter ad Vincula, a Norman chapel which had previously stood outside the Tower, was incorporated into the castle. Henry decorated the chapel by adding glazed windows, and stalls for himself and his queen. It was rebuilt by Edward I at a cost of over £300[36] and again by Henry VIII in 1519; the current building dates from this period, although the chapel was refurbished in the 19th century. Immediately west of Wakefield Tower, the Bloody Tower was built at the same time as the inner ward's curtain wall, and as a water-gate provided access to the castle from the River Thames. It was a simple structure, protected by a portcullis and gate. The Bloody Tower acquired its name in the 16th century, as it was believed to be the site of the murder of the Princes in the Tower. Between 1339 and 1341, a gatehouse was built into the curtain wall between Bell and Salt Towers. During the Tudor period, a range of buildings for the storage of munitions was built along the inside of the north inner ward. The castle buildings were remodelled during the Stuart period, mostly under the auspices of the Office of Ordnance. In 1663, just over £4,000 was spent building a new storehouse (now known as the New Armouries) in the inner ward. Construction of the Grand Storehouse north of the White Tower began in 1688, on the same site as the dilapidated Tudor range of storehouses; it was destroyed by fire in 1841. The Waterloo Block, a former barracks in the castellated Gothic Revival style with Domestic Tudor details, was built on the site and remains to this day, housing the Crown Jewels on the ground floor.

 

Outer ward

A third ward was created during Edward I's extension to the Tower, as the narrow enclosure completely surrounded the castle. At the same time a bastion known as Legge's Mount was built at the castle's northwest corner. Brass Mount, the bastion in the northeast corner, was a later addition. The three rectangular towers along the east wall 15 metres (49 ft) apart were dismantled in 1843. Although the bastions have often been ascribed to the Tudor period, there is no evidence to support this; archaeological investigations suggest that Legge's Mount dates from the reign of Edward I. Blocked battlements (also known as crenellations) in the south side of Legge's Mount are the only surviving medieval battlements at the Tower of London (the rest are Victorian replacements). A new 50-metre (160 ft) moat was dug beyond the castle's new limits; it was originally 4.5 metres (15 ft) deeper in the middle than it is today. With the addition of a new curtain wall, the old main entrance to the Tower of London was obscured and made redundant; a new entrance was created in the southwest corner of the external wall circuit. The complex consisted of an inner and an outer gatehouse and a barbican, which became known as the Lion Tower as it was associated with the animals as part of the Royal Menagerie since at least the 1330s. The Lion Tower itself no longer survives.

 

Edward extended the south side of the Tower of London onto land that had previously been submerged by the River Thames. In this wall, he built St Thomas's Tower between 1275 and 1279; later known as Traitors' Gate, it replaced the Bloody Tower as the castle's water-gate. The building is unique in England, and the closest parallel is the now demolished water-gate at the Louvre in Paris. The dock was covered with arrowslits in case of an attack on the castle from the River; there was also a portcullis at the entrance to control who entered. There were luxurious lodgings on the first floor. Edward also moved the Royal Mint into the Tower; its exact location early on is unknown, although it was probably in either the outer ward or the Lion Tower. By 1560, the Mint was located in a building in the outer ward near Salt Tower. Between 1348 and 1355, a second water-gate, Cradle Tower, was added east of St Thomas's Tower for the king's private use.

 

Foundation and early history

Victorious at the Battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066, the invading Duke of Normandy, William the Conqueror, spent the rest of the year securing his holdings by fortifying key positions. He founded several castles along the way, but took a circuitous route toward London; only when he reached Canterbury did he turn towards England's largest city. As the fortified bridge into London was held by Saxon troops, he decided instead to ravage Southwark before continuing his journey around southern England. A series of Norman victories along the route cut the city's supply lines and in December 1066, isolated and intimidated, its leaders yielded London without a fight. Between 1066 and 1087, William established 36 castles, although references in the Domesday Book indicate that many more were founded by his subordinates. The Normans undertook what has been described as "the most extensive and concentrated programme of castle-building in the whole history of feudal Europe". They were multi-purpose buildings, serving as fortifications (used as a base of operations in enemy territory), centres of administration, and residences.

 

William sent an advance party to prepare the city for his entrance, to celebrate his victory and found a castle; in the words of William's biographer, William of Poitiers, "certain fortifications were completed in the city against the restlessness of the huge and brutal populace. For he [William] realised that it was of the first importance to overawe the Londoners". At the time, London was the largest town in England; the foundation of Westminster Abbey and the old Palace of Westminster under Edward the Confessor had marked it as a centre of governance, and with a prosperous port it was important for the Normans to establish control over the settlement. The other two castles in London – Baynard's Castle and Montfichet's Castle – were established at the same time. The fortification that would later become known as the Tower of London was built onto the south-east corner of the Roman town walls, using them as prefabricated defences, with the River Thames providing additional protection from the south. This earliest phase of the castle would have been enclosed by a ditch and defended by a timber palisade, and probably had accommodation suitable for William.

 

Most of the early Norman castles were built from timber, but by the end of the 11th century a few, including the Tower of London, had been renovated or replaced with stone. Work on the White Tower – which gives the whole castle its name – is usually considered to have begun in 1078, however the exact date is uncertain. William made Gundulf, Bishop of Rochester, responsible for its construction, although it may not have been completed until after William's death in 1087. The White Tower is the earliest stone keep in England, and was the strongest point of the early castle. It also contained grand accommodation for the king. At the latest, it was probably finished by 1100 when Bishop Ranulf Flambard was imprisoned there. Flambard was loathed by the English for exacting harsh taxes. Although he is the first recorded prisoner held in the Tower, he was also the first person to escape from it, using a smuggled rope secreted in a butt of wine. He was held in luxury and permitted servants, but on 2 February 1101 he hosted a banquet for his captors. After plying them with drink, when no one was looking he lowered himself from a secluded chamber, and out of the Tower. The escape came as such a surprise that one contemporary chronicler accused the bishop of witchcraft.

 

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that in 1097 King William II ordered a wall to be built around the Tower of London; it was probably built from stone and likely replaced the timber palisade that arced around the north and west sides of the castle, between the Roman wall (to the east) and the Thames (to the south). The Norman Conquest of London manifested itself not only with a new ruling class, but in the way the city was structured. Land was confiscated and redistributed amongst the Normans, who also brought over hundreds of Jews, for financial reasons. The Jews arrived under the direct protection of the Crown, as a result of which Jewish communities were often found close to castles. The Jews used the Tower as a retreat, when threatened by anti-Jewish violence.

 

The death in 1135 of Henry I left England with a disputed succession; although the king had persuaded his most powerful barons to swear support for the Empress Matilda, just a few days after Henry's death Stephen of Blois arrived from France to lay claim to the throne. The importance of the city and its Tower is marked by the speed at which he secured London. The castle, which had not been used as a royal residence for some time, was usually left in the charge of a Constable, a post held at this time by Geoffrey de Mandeville. As the Tower was considered an impregnable fortress in a strategically important position, possession was highly valued. Mandeville exploited this, selling his allegiance to Matilda after Stephen was captured in 1141 at the Battle of Lincoln. Once her support waned, the following year he resold his loyalty to Stephen. Through his role as Constable of the Tower, Mandeville became "the richest and most powerful man in England". When he tried the same ploy again, this time holding secret talks with Matilda, Stephen had him arrested, forced him to cede control of his castles, and replaced him with one of his most loyal supporters. Until then the position had been hereditary, originally held by Geoffrey de Mandeville, but the position's authority was such that from then on it remained in the hands of an appointee of the monarch. The position was usually given to someone of great importance, who might not always be at the castle due to other duties. Although the Constable was still responsible for maintaining the castle and its garrison, from an early stage he had a subordinate to help with this duty: the Lieutenant of the Tower.[70] Constables also had civic duties relating to the city. Usually they were given control of the city and were responsible for levying taxes, enforcing the law and maintaining order. The creation in 1191 of the position of Lord Mayor of London removed many of the Constable's civic powers, and at times led to friction between the two.

 

Expansion

The castle probably retained its form as established by 1100 until the reign of Richard I (1189–1199). The castle was extended under William Longchamp, King Richard's Lord Chancellor and the man in charge of England while he was on crusade. The Pipe Rolls record £2,881 1s 10d spent at the Tower of London between 3 December 1189 and 11 November 1190, from an estimated £7,000 spent by Richard on castle building in England. According to the contemporary chronicler Roger of Howden, Longchamp dug a moat around the castle and tried in vain to fill it from the Thames. Longchamp was also Constable of the Tower, and undertook its expansion while preparing for war with King Richard's younger brother, Prince John, who in Richard's absence arrived in England to try to seize power. As Longchamp's main fortress, he made the Tower as strong as possible. The new fortifications were first tested in October 1191, when the Tower was besieged for the first time in its history. Longchamp capitulated to John after just three days, deciding he had more to gain from surrender than prolonging the siege.

 

John succeeded Richard as king in 1199, but his rule proved unpopular with many of his barons, who in response moved against him. In 1214, while the king was at Windsor Castle, Robert Fitzwalter led an army into London and laid siege to the Tower. Although under-garrisoned, the Tower resisted and the siege was lifted once John signed the Magna Carta. The king reneged on his promises of reform, leading to the outbreak of the First Barons' War. Even after the Magna Carta was signed, Fitzwalter maintained his control of London. During the war, the Tower's garrison joined forces with the barons. John was deposed in 1216 and the barons offered the English throne to Prince Louis, the eldest son of the French king. However, after John's death in October 1216, many began to support the claim of his eldest son, Henry III. War continued between the factions supporting Louis and Henry, with Fitzwalter supporting Louis. Fitzwalter was still in control of London and the Tower, both of which held out until it was clear that Henry III's supporters would prevail.

 

In the 13th century, Kings Henry III (1216–1272) and Edward I (1272–1307) extended the castle, essentially creating it as it stands today. Henry was disconnected from his barons, and a mutual lack of understanding led to unrest and resentment towards his rule. As a result, he was eager to ensure the Tower of London was a formidable fortification; at the same time Henry was an aesthete and wished to make the castle a comfortable place to live. From 1216 to 1227 nearly £10,000 was spent on the Tower of London; in this period, only the work at Windsor Castle cost more (£15,000). Most of the work was focused on the palatial buildings of the innermost ward. The tradition of whitewashing the White Tower (from which it derives its name) began in 1240.

 

Beginning around 1238, the castle was expanded to the east, north, and north-west. The work lasted through the reign of Henry III and into that of Edward I, interrupted occasionally by civil unrest. New creations included a new defensive perimeter, studded with towers, while on the west, north, and east sides, where the wall was not defended by the river, a defensive ditch was dug. The eastern extension took the castle beyond the bounds of the old Roman settlement, marked by the city wall which had been incorporated into the castle's defences. The Tower had long been a symbol of oppression, despised by Londoners, and Henry's building programme was unpopular. So when the gatehouse collapsed in 1240, the locals celebrated the setback. The expansion caused disruption locally and £166 was paid to St Katherine's Hospital and the prior of Holy Trinity in compensation.

 

Henry III often held court at the Tower of London, and held parliament there on at least two occasions (1236 and 1261) when he felt that the barons were becoming dangerously unruly. In 1258, the discontented barons, led by Simon de Montfort, forced the King to agree to reforms including the holding of regular parliaments. Relinquishing the Tower of London was among the conditions. Henry III resented losing power and sought permission from the pope to break his oath. With the backing of mercenaries, Henry installed himself in the Tower in 1261. While negotiations continued with the barons, the King ensconced himself in the castle, although no army moved to take it. A truce was agreed with the condition that the King hand over control of the Tower once again. Henry won a significant victory at the Battle of Evesham in 1265, allowing him to regain control of the country and the Tower of London. Cardinal Ottobuon came to England to excommunicate those who were still rebellious; the act was deeply unpopular and the situation was exacerbated when the cardinal was granted custody of the Tower. Gilbert de Clare, 6th Earl of Hertford, marched on London in April 1267 and laid siege to the castle, declaring that custody of the Tower was "not a post to be trusted in the hands of a foreigner, much less of an ecclesiastic". Despite a large army and siege engines, Gilbert de Clare was unable to take the castle. The Earl retreated, allowing the King control of the capital, and the Tower experienced peace for the rest of Henry's reign.

 

Although he was rarely in London, Edward I undertook an expensive remodelling of the Tower, costing £21,000 between 1275 and 1285, over double that spent on the castle during the whole of Henry III's reign. Edward I was a seasoned castle builder, and used his experience of siege warfare during the crusades to bring innovations to castle building. His programme of castle building in Wales heralded the introduction of the widespread use of arrowslits in castle walls across Europe, drawing on Eastern influences. At the Tower of London, Edward filled in the moat dug by Henry III and built a new curtain wall along its line, creating a new enclosure. A new moat was created in front of the new curtain wall. The western part of Henry III's curtain wall was rebuilt, with Beauchamp Tower replacing the castle's old gatehouse. A new entrance was created, with elaborate defences including two gatehouses and a barbican. In an effort to make the castle self-sufficient, Edward I also added two watermills. Six hundred Jews were imprisoned in the Tower of London in 1278, charged with coin clipping. Persecution of the country's Jewish population under Edward began in 1276 and culminated in 1290 when he issued the Edict of Expulsion, forcing the Jews out of the country. In 1279, the country's numerous mints were unified under a single system whereby control was centralised to the mint within the Tower of London, while mints outside of London were reduced, with only a few local and episcopal mints continuing to operate.

 

Later Medieval Period

During Edward II's reign (1307–1327) there was relatively little activity at the Tower of London. However, it was during this period that the Privy Wardrobe was founded. The institution was based at the Tower and responsible for organising the state's arms. In 1321, Margaret de Clare, Baroness Badlesmere became the first woman imprisoned in the Tower of London after she refused Queen Isabella admittance to Leeds Castle and ordered her archers to target Isabella, killing six of the royal escort. Generally reserved for high-ranking inmates, the Tower was the most important royal prison in the country. However it was not necessarily very secure, and throughout its history people bribed the guards to help them escape. In 1323, Roger Mortimer, Baron Mortimer, was aided in his escape from the Tower by the Sub-Lieutenant of the Tower who let Mortimer's men inside. They hacked a hole in his cell wall and Mortimer escaped to a waiting boat. He fled to France where he encountered Edward's Queen. They began an affair and plotted to overthrow the King.

 

One of Mortimer's first acts on entering England in 1326 was to capture the Tower and release the prisoners held there. For four years he ruled while Edward III was too young to do so himself; in 1330, Edward and his supporters captured Mortimer and threw him into the Tower. Under Edward III's rule (1312–1377) England experienced renewed success in warfare after his father's reign had put the realm on the backfoot against the Scots and French. Amongst Edward's successes were the battles of Crécy and Poitiers where King John II of France was taken prisoner, and the capture of the King David II of Scotland at Neville's Cross. During this period, the Tower of London held many noble prisoners of war. Edward II had allowed the Tower of London to fall into a state of disrepair, and by the reign of Edward III the castle was an uncomfortable place. The nobility held captive within its walls were unable to engage in activities such as hunting which were permissible at other royal castles used as prisons, for instance Windsor. Edward III ordered that the castle should be renovated.

 

When Richard II was crowned in 1377, he led a procession from the Tower to Westminster Abbey. This tradition began in at least the early 14th century and lasted until 1660. During the Peasants' Revolt of 1381 the Tower of London was besieged with the King inside. When Richard rode out to meet with Wat Tyler, the rebel leader, a crowd broke into the castle without meeting resistance and looted the Jewel House. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Simon Sudbury, took refuge in St John's Chapel, hoping the mob would respect the sanctuary. However, he was taken away and beheaded on Tower Hill. Six years later there was again civil unrest, and Richard spent Christmas in the security of the Tower rather than Windsor as was more usual. When Henry Bolingbroke returned from exile in 1399, Richard was imprisoned in the White Tower. He abdicated and was replaced on the throne by Bolingbroke, who became King Henry IV. In the 15th century, there was little building work at the Tower of London, yet the castle still remained important as a place of refuge. When supporters of the late Richard II attempted a coup, Henry IV found safety in the Tower of London. During this period, the castle also held many distinguished prisoners. The heir to the Scottish throne, later King James I of Scotland, was kidnapped while journeying to France in 1406 and held in the Tower. The reign of Henry V (1413–1422) renewed England's fortune in the Hundred Years' War against France. As a result of Henry's victories, such as the Battle of Agincourt, many high-status prisoners were held in the Tower of London until they were ransomed.

 

Much of the latter half of the 15th century was occupied by the Wars of the Roses between the claimants to the throne, the houses of Lancaster and York. The castle was once again besieged in 1460, this time by a Yorkist force. The Tower was damaged by artillery fire but only surrendered when Henry VI was captured at the Battle of Northampton. With the help of Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick (nicknamed "the Kingmaker") Henry recaptured the throne for a short time in 1470. However, Edward IV soon regained control and Henry VI was imprisoned in the Tower of London, where he was probably murdered. In 1471, during the Siege of London, the Tower's Yorkist garrison exchanged fire with Lancastrians holding Southwark, and sallied from the fortress to take part in a pincer movement to attack Lancastrians who were assaulting Aldgate on London's defensive wall. During the wars, the Tower was fortified to withstand gunfire, and provided with loopholes for cannons and handguns: an enclosure called the Bulwark was created for this purpose to the south of Tower Hill, although it no longer survives.

 

Shortly after the death of Edward IV in 1483, the notorious murder of the Princes in the Tower is traditionally believed to have taken place. The incident is one of the most infamous events associated with the Tower of London. Edward V's uncle Richard, Duke of Gloucester was declared Lord Protector while the prince was too young to rule. Traditional accounts have held that the 12-year-old Edward was confined to the Tower of London along with his younger brother Richard. The Duke of Gloucester was proclaimed King Richard III in June. The princes were last seen in public in June 1483;[105] it has traditionally been thought that the most likely reason for their disappearance is that they were murdered late in the summer of 1483. Bones thought to belong to them were discovered in 1674 when the 12th-century forebuilding at the entrance to the White Tower was demolished; however, the reputed level at which the bones were found (10 ft or 3 m) would put the bones at a depth similar to that of the Roman graveyard found, in 2011, 12 ft (4 m) underneath the Minories a few hundred yards to the north. Opposition to Richard escalated until he was defeated at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 by the Lancastrian Henry Tudor, who ascended to the throne as Henry VII. As king, Henry VII built a tower for a library next to the King's Tower.

 

Changing use

The beginning of the Tudor period marked the start of the decline of the Tower of London's use as a royal residence. As 16th-century chronicler Raphael Holinshed said the Tower became used more as "an armouries and house of munition, and thereunto a place for the safekeeping of offenders than a palace roiall for a king or queen to sojourne in". Henry VII visited the Tower on fourteen occasions between 1485 and 1500, usually staying for less than a week at a time. The Yeoman Warders have been the Royal Bodyguard since at least 1509. In 1517 the Tower fired its cannon at City crowds engaged in the xenophobic Evil May Day riots, in which the properties of foreign residents were looted. It is not thought that any rioters were hurt by the gunfire, which was probably meant merely to intimidate the mob.

 

During the reign of Henry VIII, the Tower was assessed as needing considerable work on its defences. In 1532, Thomas Cromwell spent £3,593 on repairs and imported nearly 3,000 tons of Caen stone for the work. Even so, this was not sufficient to bring the castle up to the standard of contemporary military fortifications which were designed to withstand powerful artillery. Although the defences were repaired, the palace buildings were left in a state of neglect after Henry's death. Their condition was so poor that they were virtually uninhabitable. From 1547 onwards, the Tower of London was only used as a royal residence when its political and historic symbolism was considered useful, for instance each of Edward VI, Mary I, and Elizabeth I briefly stayed at the Tower before their coronations.

 

In the 16th century, the Tower acquired an enduring reputation as a grim, forbidding prison. This had not always been the case. As a royal castle, it was used by the monarch to imprison people for various reasons, however these were usually high-status individuals for short periods rather than common citizenry as there were plenty of prisons elsewhere for such people. Contrary to the popular image of the Tower, prisoners were able to make their life easier by purchasing amenities such as better food or tapestries through the Lieutenant of the Tower. As holding prisoners was originally an incidental role of the Tower – as would have been the case for any castle – there was no purpose-built accommodation for prisoners until 1687 when a brick shed, a "Prison for Soldiers", was built to the north-west of the White Tower. The Tower's reputation for torture and imprisonment derives largely from 16th-century religious propagandists and 19th-century romanticists. Although much of the Tower's reputation is exaggerated, the 16th and 17th centuries marked the castle's zenith as a prison, with many religious and political undesirables locked away. The Privy Council had to sanction the use of torture, so it was not often used; between 1540 and 1640, the peak of imprisonment at the Tower, there were 48 recorded cases of the use of torture. The three most common forms used were the infamous rack, the Scavenger's daughter, and manacles. The rack was introduced to England in 1447 by the Duke of Exeter, the Constable of the Tower; consequentially it was also known as the Duke of Exeter's daughter. One of those tortured at the Tower was Guy Fawkes, who was brought there on 6 November 1605; after torture he signed a full confession to the Gunpowder Plot.

 

Among those held and executed at the Tower was Anne Boleyn. Although the Yeoman Warders were once the Royal Bodyguard, by the 16th and 17th centuries their main duty had become to look after the prisoners. The Tower was often a safer place than other prisons in London such as the Fleet, where disease was rife. High-status prisoners could live in conditions comparable to those they might expect outside; one such example was that while Walter Raleigh was held in the Tower his rooms were altered to accommodate his family, including his son who was born there in 1605. Executions were usually carried out on Tower Hill rather than in the Tower of London itself, and 112 people were executed on the hill over 400 years.[119] Before the 20th century, there had been seven executions within the castle on Tower Green; as was the case with Lady Jane Grey, this was reserved for prisoners for whom public execution was considered dangerous. After Lady Jane Grey's execution on 12 February 1554, Queen Mary I imprisoned her sister Elizabeth, later Queen Elizabeth I, in the Tower under suspicion of causing rebellion as Sir Thomas Wyatt had led a revolt against Mary in Elizabeth's name.

 

The Office of Ordnance and Armoury Office were founded in the 15th century, taking over the Privy Wardrobe's duties of looking after the monarch's arsenal and valuables. As there was no standing army before 1661, the importance of the royal armoury at the Tower of London was that it provided a professional basis for procuring supplies and equipment in times of war. The two bodies were resident at the Tower from at least 1454, and by the 16th century they had moved to a position in the inner ward. The Board of Ordnance (successor to these Offices) had its headquarters in the White Tower and used surrounding buildings for storage. In 1855 the Board was abolished; its successor (the Military Store Department of the War Office) was also based there until 1869, after which its headquarters staff were relocated to the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich (where the recently closed Woolwich Dockyard was converted into a vast ordnance store).

 

Political tensions between Charles I and Parliament in the second quarter of the 17th century led to an attempt by forces loyal to the King to secure the Tower and its valuable contents, including money and munitions. London's Trained Bands, a militia force, were moved into the castle in 1640. Plans for defence were drawn up and gun platforms were built, readying the Tower for war. The preparations were never put to the test. In 1642, Charles I attempted to arrest five members of parliament. When this failed he fled the city, and Parliament retaliated by removing Sir John Byron, the Lieutenant of the Tower. The Trained Bands had switched sides, and now supported Parliament; together with the London citizenry, they blockaded the Tower. With permission from the King, Byron relinquished control of the Tower. Parliament replaced Byron with a man of their own choosing, Sir John Conyers. By the time the English Civil War broke out in November 1642, the Tower of London was already in Parliament's control.

 

The last monarch to uphold the tradition of taking a procession from the Tower to Westminster to be crowned was Charles II in 1661. At the time, the castle's accommodation was in such poor condition that he did not stay there the night before his coronation. Under the Stuart kings the Tower's buildings were remodelled, mostly under the auspices of the Office of Ordnance. Just over £4,000 was spent in 1663 on building a new storehouse, now known as the New Armouries in the inner ward. In the 17th century there were plans to enhance the Tower's defences in the style of the trace italienne, however they were never acted on. Although the facilities for the garrison were improved with the addition of the first purpose-built quarters for soldiers (the "Irish Barracks") in 1670, the general accommodations were still in poor condition.

 

When the Hanoverian dynasty ascended the throne, their situation was uncertain and with a possible Scottish rebellion in mind, the Tower of London was repaired. Most of the work in this period (1750 to 1770) was done by the King's Master Mason, John Deval. Gun platforms added under the Stuarts had decayed. The number of guns at the Tower was reduced from 118 to 45, and one contemporary commentator noted that the castle "would not hold out four and twenty hours against an army prepared for a siege". For the most part, the 18th-century work on the defences was spasmodic and piecemeal, although a new gateway in the southern curtain wall permitting access from the wharf to the outer ward was added in 1774. The moat surrounding the castle had become silted over the centuries since it was created despite attempts at clearing it. It was still an integral part of the castle's defences, so in 1830 the Constable of the Tower, the Duke of Wellington, ordered a large-scale clearance of several feet of silt. However this did not prevent an outbreak of disease in the garrison in 1841 caused by poor water supply, resulting in several deaths. To prevent the festering ditch posing further health problems, it was ordered that the moat should be drained and filled with earth. The work began in 1843 and was mostly complete two years later. The construction of the Waterloo Barracks in the inner ward began in 1845, when the Duke of Wellington laid the foundation stone. The building could accommodate 1,000 men; at the same time, separate quarters for the officers were built to the north-east of the White Tower. The building is now the headquarters of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. The popularity of the Chartist movement between 1828 and 1858 led to a desire to refortify the Tower of London in the event of civil unrest. It was the last major programme of fortification at the castle. Most of the surviving installations for the use of artillery and firearms date from this period.

 

During the First World War, eleven men were tried in private and shot by firing squad at the Tower for espionage. During the Second World War, the Tower was once again used to hold prisoners of war. One such person was Rudolf Hess, Adolf Hitler's deputy, albeit just for four days in 1941. He was the last state prisoner to be held at the castle. The last person to be executed at the Tower was German spy Josef Jakobs who was shot on 15 August 1941. The executions for espionage during the wars took place in a prefabricated miniature rifle range which stood in the outer ward and was demolished in 1969. The Second World War also saw the last use of the Tower as a fortification. In the event of a German invasion, the Tower, together with the Royal Mint and nearby warehouses, was to have formed one of three "keeps" or complexes of defended buildings which formed the last-ditch defences of the capital.

 

Restoration and tourism

The Tower of London has become established as one of the most popular tourist attractions in the country. It has been a tourist attraction since at least the Elizabethan period, when it was one of the sights of London that foreign visitors wrote about. Its most popular attractions were the Royal Menagerie and displays of armour. The Crown Jewels also garner much interest, and have been on public display since 1669. The Tower steadily gained popularity with tourists through the 19th century, despite the opposition of the Duke of Wellington to visitors. Numbers became so high that by 1851 a purpose-built ticket office was erected. By the end of the century, over 500,000 were visiting the castle every year.

 

Over the 18th and 19th centuries, the palatial buildings were slowly adapted for other uses and demolished. Only the Wakefield and St Thomas's Towers survived. The 18th century marked an increasing interest in England's medieval past. One of the effects was the emergence of Gothic Revival architecture. In the Tower's architecture, this was manifest when the New Horse Armoury was built in 1825 against the south face of the White Tower. It featured elements of Gothic Revival architecture such as battlements. Other buildings were remodelled to match the style and the Waterloo Barracks were described as "castellated Gothic of the 15th century". Between 1845 and 1885 institutions such as the Mint which had inhabited the castle for centuries moved to other sites; many of the post-medieval structures left vacant were demolished. In 1855, the War Office took over responsibility for manufacture and storage of weapons from the Ordnance Office, which was gradually phased out of the castle. At the same time, there was greater interest in the history of the Tower of London.

 

Public interest was partly fuelled by contemporary writers, of whom the work of William Harrison Ainsworth was particularly influential. In The Tower of London: A Historical Romance he created a vivid image of underground torture chambers and devices for extracting confessions that stuck in the public imagination. Ainsworth also played another role in the Tower's history, as he suggested that Beauchamp Tower should be opened to the public so they could see the inscriptions of 16th- and 17th-century prisoners. Working on the suggestion, Anthony Salvin refurbished the tower and led a further programme for a comprehensive restoration at the behest of Prince Albert. Salvin was succeeded in the work by John Taylor. When a feature did not meet his expectations of medieval architecture Taylor would ruthlessly remove it; as a result, several important buildings within the castle were pulled down and in some cases post-medieval internal decoration removed.

 

Although only one bomb fell on the Tower of London in the First World War (it landed harmlessly in the moat), the Second World War left a greater mark. On 23 September 1940, during the Blitz, high-explosive bombs damaged the castle, destroying several buildings and narrowly missing the White Tower. After the war, the damage was repaired and the Tower of London was reopened to the public.

 

A 1974 bombing in the White Tower Mortar Room left one person dead and 41 injured. No one claimed responsibility for the blast, but the police investigated suspicions that the IRA was behind it.

 

In the 21st century, tourism is the Tower's primary role, with the remaining routine military activities, under the Royal Logistic Corps, having wound down in the latter half of the 20th century and moved out of the castle. However, the Tower is still home to the regimental headquarters of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, and the museum dedicated to it and its predecessor, the Royal Fusiliers. Also, a detachment of the unit providing the King's Guard at Buckingham Palace still mounts a guard at the Tower, and with the Yeomen Warders, takes part in the Ceremony of the Keys each day. On several occasions through the year gun salutes are fired from the Tower by the Honourable Artillery Company, these consist of 62 rounds for royal occasions, and 41 on other occasions.

 

Since 1990, the Tower of London has been cared for by an independent charity, Historic Royal Palaces, which receives no funding from the Government or the Crown. In 1988, the Tower of London was added to the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites, in recognition of its global importance and to help conserve and protect the site. However, recent developments, such as the construction of skyscrapers nearby, have pushed the Tower towards being added to the United Nations' Heritage in Danger List. The remains of the medieval palace have been open to the public since 2006 where visitors can explore the restored chambers. Although the position of Constable of the Tower remains the highest position held at the Tower, the responsibility of day-to-day administration is delegated to the Resident Governor. The Constable is appointed for a five-year term; this is primarily a ceremonial post today but the Constable is also a trustee of Historic Royal Palaces and of the Royal Armouries. General Sir Gordon Messenger was appointed Constable in 2022.

 

At least six ravens are kept at the Tower at all times, in accordance with the belief that if they are absent, the kingdom will fall. They are under the care of the Ravenmaster, one of the Yeoman Warders. As well as having ceremonial duties, the Yeoman Warders provide guided tours around the Tower.

 

Garrison

The Yeomen Warders provided the permanent garrison of the Tower, but the Constable of the Tower could call upon the men of the Tower Hamlets to supplement them when necessary. The Tower Hamlets, aka Tower Division of Middlesex's Ossulstone Hundred was an area, significantly larger than the modern London Borough of the same name, which owed military service to the Constable in his ex officio role as Lord Lieutenant of the Tower Hamlets.

 

The earliest surviving reference to the inhabitants of the Tower Hamlets having a duty to provide a guard for the Tower of London is from 1554, during the reign of Mary I, but the relationship is thought to go back much further. Some believe the connection goes back to the time of the Conqueror. The duty is likely to have had its origin in the rights and obligations of the Manor of Stepney which covered most or all of the Hamlets area.

 

Crown Jewels

The tradition of housing the Crown Jewels in the Tower of London probably dates from the reign of Henry III (1216–1272). The Jewel House was built specifically to house the royal regalia, including jewels, plate, and symbols of royalty such as the crown, sceptre, and sword. When money needed to be raised, the treasure could be pawned by the monarch. The treasure allowed the monarch independence from the aristocracy and consequently was closely guarded. A new position for "keeper of the jewels, armouries and other things" was created, which was well rewarded; in the reign of Edward III (1327–1377) the holder was paid 12d a day. The position grew to include other duties including purchasing royal jewels, gold, and silver, and appointing royal goldsmiths and jewellers.

 

In 1649, during the English Commonwealth following Charles I's execution, the contents of the Jewel House were disposed of along with other royal properties, as decreed by Cromwell. Metal items were sent to the Mint to be melted down and re-used, and the crowns were "totallie broken and defaced".

 

When the monarchy was restored in 1660, the only surviving items of the coronation regalia were a 12th-century spoon and three ceremonial swords. (Some pieces that had been sold were later returned to the Crown.) Detailed records of old regalia survived, and replacements were made for the coronation of Charles II in 1661 based on drawings from the time of Charles I. For the coronation of Charles II, gems were rented because the treasury could not afford to replace them.

 

In 1669, the Jewel House was demolished and the Crown Jewels moved into Martin Tower (until 1841). They were displayed here for viewing by the paying public. This was exploited two years later when Colonel Thomas Blood attempted to steal them. Blood and his accomplices bound and gagged the Jewel House keeper. Although they laid their hands on the Imperial State Crown, Sceptre and Orb, they were foiled when the keeper's son turned up unexpectedly and raised the alarm.

 

Since 1994, the Crown Jewels have been on display in the Jewel House in the Waterloo Block. Some of the pieces were once regularly used by Queen Elizabeth II. The display includes 23,578 gemstones, the 800-year-old Coronation Spoon, St Edward's Crown (traditionally placed on a monarch's head at the moment of crowning) and the Imperial State Crown.

 

Royal Menagerie

There is evidence that King John (1166–1216) first started keeping wild animals at the Tower. Records of 1210–1212 show payments to lion keepers.

 

The Royal Menagerie is frequently referenced during the reign of Henry III. Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II presented Henry with three leopards, c. 1235, which were kept in the Tower. In 1252, the sheriffs were ordered to pay fourpence a day towards the upkeep of the King's polar bear, a gift from Haakon IV of Norway in the same year; the bear attracted a great deal of attention from Londoners when it went fishing in the Thames while tied to the land by a chain. In 1254 or 1255, Henry III received an African elephant from Louis IX of France depicted by Matthew Paris in his Chronica Majora. A wooden structure was built to house the elephant, 12.2 m (40 ft) long by 6.1 m (20 ft) wide. The animal died in 1258, possibly because it was given red wine, but also perhaps because of the cold climate of England.

 

In 1288, Edward I added a lion and a lynx and appointed the first official Keeper of the animals.[179] Edward III added other types of animals, two lions, a leopard and two wildcats. Under subsequent kings, the number of animals grew to include additional cats of various types, jackals, hyenas, and an old brown bear, Max, gifted to Henry VIII by Emperor Maximilian.[180] In 1436, during the time of Henry VI, all the lions died and the employment of Keeper William Kerby was terminated.

 

Historical records indicate that a semi-circular structure or barbican was built by Edward I in 1277; this area was later named the Lion Tower, to the immediate west of the Middle Tower. Records from 1335 indicate the purchase of a lock and key for the lions and leopards, also suggesting they were located near the western entrance of the Tower. By the 1500s that area was called the Menagerie. Between 1604 and 1606 the Menagerie was extensively refurbished and an exercise yard was created in the moat area beside the Lion Tower. An overhead platform was added for viewing of the lions by the royals, during lion baiting, for example in the time of James I. Reports from 1657 include mention of six lions, increasing to 11 by 1708, in addition to other types of cats, eagles, owls and a jackal.

 

Natural History Museum

By the 18th century, the menagerie was open to the public; admission cost three half-pence or a cat or dog to be fed to the lions. By the end of the century, that had increased to 9 pence. A particularly famous inhabitant was Old Martin, a large grizzly bear given to George III by the Hudson's Bay Company in 1811. An 1800 inventory also listed a tiger, leopards, a hyena, a large baboon, various types of monkeys, wolves, and "other animals". By 1822, however, the collection included only a grizzly bear, an elephant, and some birds. Additional animals were then introduced. In 1828, there were over 280 representing at least 60 species as the new keeper Alfred Copps was actively acquiring animals.

 

After the death of George IV in 1830, a decision was made to close down the Menagerie on the orders of the Duke of Wellington. In 1831, most of the stock was moved to the London Zoo which had opened in 1828. This decision was made after an incident, although sources vary as to the specifics: either a lion was accused of biting a soldier, or Ensign Seymour had been bitten by a monkey. The last of the animals left in 1835, relocated to Regent's Park. The Menagerie buildings were removed in 1852 but the Keeper of the Royal Menagerie was entitled to use the Lion Tower as a house for life. Consequently, even though the animals had long since left the building, the tower was not demolished until the death of Copps, the last keeper, in 1853.

 

In 1999, physical evidence of lion cages was found, one being 2x3 metres (6.5x10 feet) in size, very small for a lion that can grow to be 2.5 meters (approximately 8 feet) long. In 2008, the skulls of two male Barbary lions (now extinct in the wild) from northwest Africa were found in the moat area of the Tower. Radiocarbon tests dated them from 1280 to 1385 and 1420–1480. In 2011, an exhibition was hosted at the Tower with fine wire sculptures by Kendra Haste.

 

In folklore

The Tower of London has been represented in popular culture in many ways. As a result of 16th and 19th century writers, the Tower has a reputation as a grim fortress, a place of torture and execution.

 

One of the earliest traditions associated with the Tower was that it was built by Julius Caesar; the story was popular amongst writers and antiquaries. The earliest recorded attribution of the Tower to the Roman ruler dates to the mid-14th century in a poem by Sir Thomas Gray. The origin of the myth is uncertain, although it may be related to the fact that the Tower was built in the corner of London's Roman walls. Another possibility is that someone misread a passage from Gervase of Tilbury in which he says Caesar built a tower at Odnea in France. Gervase wrote Odnea as Dodres, which is close to the French for London, Londres. Today, the story survives in William Shakespeare's Richard II and Richard III, and as late as the 18th century some still regarded the Tower as built by Caesar.

 

Anne Boleyn was beheaded in 1536 for treason against Henry VIII; her ghost supposedly haunts the Church of St Peter ad Vincula in the Tower, where she is buried, and has been said to walk around the White Tower carrying her head under her arm. This haunting is commemorated in the 1934 comic song "With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm". Other reported ghosts include Henry VI, Lady Jane Grey, Margaret Pole, and the Princes in the Tower. In January 1816, a sentry on guard outside the Jewel House claimed to have witnessed an apparition of a bear advancing towards him, and reportedly died of fright a few days later. In October 1817, a tubular, glowing apparition was claimed to have been seen in the Jewel House by the Keeper of the Crown Jewels, Edmund Lenthal Swifte. He said that the apparition hovered over the shoulder of his wife, leading her to exclaim: "Oh, Christ! It has seized me!" Other nameless and formless terrors have been reported, more recently, by night staff at the Tower.

First Friday Art Walk in Baker City Oregon

 

Celebrating the arts during the First Friday Art Walk in historic downtown Baker City, Oregon, multiple gallery openings, and just exploring downtown Baker City's amazing architecture.

 

The First Friday Art Walk is one of numerous events celebrating the arts throughout Baker County. Other events include the Baker Open Artists Studio Tour in October, the monthly Thursday Art Night at the historic Eltrym Theater, the We Like ‘em Short Film Festival in August, and the Great Salt Lick Art Auction in September.

 

Visitors will find numerous art galleries throughout Baker City’s historic downtown including the Crossroads Carnegie Art center in the restored Carnegie Library building.

 

For more information about First Friday Art Walk or other art events and galleries throughout Baker County Oregon visit the Baker County Tourism website at www.travelbakercounty.com

   

With the advent of the New Year, I begin to upload photos from the trip I took mid–November 2023 through the French provinces of Languedoc and Roussillon. Covering the modern-day départements of Hérault, Aude and Pyrénées-Orientales and located along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, those provinces are in the very south of France, close to the Pyrénées mountains that mark the border with Spain. For many centuries, those lands were disputed between the kingdoms of France and Spain, and the first monument that we will visit is a symbol of such disputes.

 

With the fort of Salses, we step away, not only from religious architecture and art, but also from the Mediæval world, as this military fortress was built between 1497 and 1503 by the Spanish Catholic kings who then held the province of Roussillon. It is strategically located on the very narrow (not more than half a kilometer!) strip of flat, dry land between the foot of the Corbières hills and the salty marshes that line the sea shore, thus controlling the only safe passage between Spain and France. Troops on foot could easily go around the fortress using the footpaths of the Corbières, but the heavy horse-drawn cannons and carts of food and equipment that necessarily followed had no way to go but within range of the fortress’s own artillery.

 

This necessary threshold between south and north is attested from the Antiquity, as the Roman Via Domitia ran through here... as do today, right next to one another, Highway 9, the A9 freeway and the railroad to Spain.

 

Occupying such a strategic location, Salses was first attacked by the French troops of King Louis XII in 1503, but unsuccessfully. A peace treaty brokered in 1544 between Spanish King Charles V and French King François I brought on a century of peace, but military operations resumed during the Thirty Years War (1618–1648), during which the fortress was to be finally conquered by the French en 1642. It will never be Spanish again, and the Spaniards will be driven back to the other side of the Pyrénées. Now located far away from the border between the two countries, the fortress lost its strategic interest and was put to various non-military uses until it was listed as a Historic Landmark in 1886.

 

The vast courtyard, seen from the keep’s terrace.

First National Bank of Stuart

815 S COLORADO AVE STUART FL

Architects: Armstrong, Pryor and Associates

Built: 1961

 

Most of the fenestration is original. Unfortunately a hideous contemporary sign has been installed which is not harmonious with the architecture. The interior likewise has been "updated" in a ham-fisted way.

Tree Branching Pattern and Crown Architecture

 

The way tree branches form or split, follow the Fibonacci sequence. A main trunk will grow until it produces a branch, which creates two growth points. Then, one of the new stems branches into two, while the other one lies dormant. This pattern of branching is repeated for each of the new stems.

   

Barfrestone is a small village known since the time of the Domesday Book, when the manor was owned by Odo, the Bishop of Bayeux. In 1076, the lands were then granted to Hugh de Port, whose descendents may be connected to the erection of this church end of the 12th century, that was a site on the pilgrim route between Dover and Canterbury. This small church is a masterpiece of Norman art and architecture.

 

The carvings here of the highest order, most probably the work of master carvers and masons, based in nearby Canterbury.

  

PLEASE, NO invitations or self promotions, THEY WILL BE DELETED. My photos are FREE to use, just give me credit and it would be nice if you let me know, thanks.

 

The Rosary Basilica is the third of the churches to be completed, in 1899 and designed by architect Leopold Hardy. It was consecrated in 1901 and has a capacity of 1,500 worshippers. Its style is influenced by Byzantine architecture. The nave is open and circular, surmounted by a dome. The exterior of the dome is surmounted by a dramatic gilded crown and cross, which were a gift from the people of Ireland in 1924.

(References:- K. Lal in his book Tarekh e Punjab & The crumbling glory of Sheikhupura Fort by Aown Ali)

 

In West Punjab (now in Pakistan), the town of Sheikhupura (about 35 km west of Lahore) is hailed a center of historically significant architecture.

 

The Hiran Minar (Minaret of the Antelope) and the Sheikhupura Fort make this stop a focal point of interest.

 

The town, now a district headquarters and one of the major industrial cities of Punjab, has grown from a village, originally called “Jahangirpura” when it was settled during the reign of the Mughal emperor, Jahangir, because of its proximity to Hiran Minar, a royal hunting resort.

 

The primary historical importance of the city relates to its Fort. It lays no claim to grandeur. Locally known as Qila Sheikhupura, it has gave its name to the town as well.

 

Construction of the fort began in the second year of Jahangir’s reign (1607). The Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri (autobiography of Jahangir) mentions that the emperor assigned the job of constructing a fort at that location to Sikandar Moeen during a hunting trip to Hiran Minar.

 

The two centuries that followed were mostly uneventful for the Fort. Neither a seat of government nor a target for invaders, it remained but a halt for imperial entourages heading on pleasure trips to Kashmir in the north, or towards Kabul in the west.

 

The Fort’s political importance did not emerge until the establishment of the Sikh Empire at the end of the 18th century.

 

A veteran historian and archeologist, Ihsan H. Nadiem, tells us that immediately before the consolidation of Punjab under the Sikhs, the Fort served as a convenient place for robbers looting the countryside.

 

The Durrani king, Shah Zaman, during his invasion of Lahore in 1797, briefly besieged the Fort, but only to purge it of the robbers. Soon after his departure, the Fort was once again occupied by the highwaymen.

 

Shortly thereafter, Lehna Singh Majithia (who also served as the Governor of Lahore. The son of General Lehna Singh, Sardar Dyal Singh, was perhaps the most significant Punjabi of the late 19th century in the British Punjab. He was the main force behind the founding of Punjab University), an ally of Ranjit Singh, invaded the fort and took occupation. After him, its ownership passed on to Bhai Singh, followed by Sahib Singh and Sahai Singh in 1808, at which point Ranjit Singh marched upon it and caused its surrender.

 

This whole story of Sheikhupura raid wrote by Hindu writer K. Lal in his book Tarekh e Punjab (Page 196-197) and it is as under:

 

“Mahraja Ranjeet was busy in handling state affairs, in the meantime a group of farmers belong to Sheikhpura came to his door, they wanted to seek help against brutal Sikh rulers Sardar Arbel Singh & Sardar Ameer Singh. These Sardars had occupied the Sheikhupura fort and land, there army looting common people up to that level that they were dying of hunger. That group of farmer said the people of Sheikhupura accepted the over lordship of the Maharaja and requested to take their territory under Mahraja rule and control to protect them from these two brutal Sardars.

Mahraja accepted the request and assigned his eldest son, the crown prince, Kharak Singh for Sheikhupura fort Campaign. He reached Sheikhupura; he has four thousand army troops and support of one Cannon artillery.

Sheikhupura fort was very well constructed with strong fortified walls, Mahraja himself selected best cannons from his cannon yard for this campaign and also assign one of his best army officer Sardar Hakma Singh for assisting Crown prince Kharak Singh in this campaign.

When this troop reached Sheikhupura, Crown Prince Kharak Singh called both the ruling Sardar’s to him, but instead of appearing in front of Prince they have further fortified the fort and get ready for war.

The Prince first sieges the fort and then orders Canon artillery to start fire on fort walls. The fort walls were strongly fortified and hold the Cannon artillery attack for days.

This result less campaign made Prince to think if he wanted to win this fight he has to reinforce his troops and artillery as well. For that purpose he wrote for help to his father Mahraja Ranjit Singh. When Maharaja saw this letter he got angry, he ordered to send biggest cannon of his artillery the Ahmad Shahi Gun. Which he forcefully took from Saheb Singh Guajarati)

(Ahmad Shahi Gun also known as zamzama gun…, The Zamzama Gun is a large bore cannon. It is also known as Kim’s Gun or Bhangianwali Taop. It was cast in 1757 in Lahore. At that time Lahore was a part of the Durrani Empire. The gun was used by Ahmed Shah in the battle of Panipat in 1761. In 1802, Ranjit Singh got hold of the gun and used it in the battles of Daska, Kasur, Sujanpur, Wazirabad and Multan. In the siege of Multan, the gun was badly damaged. It is currently on display in front of the Lahore Museum at The Mall Road, Lahore.)

The Maharaja also reached the Sheikhupura Fort with fresh troops and again the battle started.

After two days of fight, Maharaja ordered to place Ahmed Shah Gun in front of Main gate of Fort. It was tough task and took many lives of soldiers but at last it was placed there. Hundred rounds of guns were fired and main gate of fort completely destroyed. The Mahraja troops entered the fort and raise the winning flag on wall. Both Arbel & Ameer Singh were arrested.

Since the area of Sheikhupura won in name of Crown Prince Kharak Singh, the fort and “Jageer” of Sheikhupura bestowed to Prince by his father Mahraja Ranjeet Singh under the primacy of her mother Rani Datar Kaur (1801-1840), the mother of the crown prince, Kharak Singh. She was also known as Rani Raj Kaur or Mai Nakkain. She lived in the Fort till her death.”

 

She had a considerable role in the rehabilitation of this small, strategically unimportant and hitherto almost abandoned citadel. She built a wonderful haveli within it. The excellent frescoes in the distinctive Kangra style found in the parlour and in the two chambers on the first floor of this haveli, are attributed to Raj Kaur‘s excellent taste.

 

In mid-19th century, when the British invaded Punjab, they used the Fort to imprison the Sikh kingdom’s Regent, Rani Jind Kaur – “Jindaa(n)” - after taking her son, the child Emperor Duleep Singh, prisoner.

 

In a letter dated August 9, 1847 Sir Henry Montgomery Lawrence, the British Resident in Punjab suggested to the Governor General that the Queen be banished from Punjab, to prevent the populace from rising under banner.

 

The 8-year old Emperor was removed from his palace in the Lahore Fort on August 19, 1847, and taken to the Shalimar Gardens, while his mother, the Queen, was confined to the distant Sheikhupura Fort.

 

Historian Himadri Banerjee describes how Jindaan was forcibly removed from Lahore between 8 and 9 pm under a heavy military escort. Accompanied by Sardar Arjan Singh Rangharnanglia and Gurmukh Singh Lamma, she was lodged in Sheikhupura Fort in the early hours of Friday, August 20, 1847, under the charge of Sardar Boor Singh.

 

Soon after her arrival at Sheikhupura, she wrote the following letter to the Resident at Lahore, protesting the ruthless separation from her young eight-year old.

 

With the Grace of the Great Guru

From Bibi Sahib to Lawrence Sahib,

 

We have arrived safely at Sheikhupura, You should send our luggage with care, As I was sitting in the Samman (Burj - Palace in Lahore Fort), in the same way I am in Sheikhupura. Both the places are same to me; you have been very cruel to me. You have snatched my son from me … In the name of the God you worship and in the name of the king whose salt you eat, restore my son to me. I cannot bear the pain of this separation … I shall reside in Sheikhupura. I shall not go to Lahore. Send my son to me. I will come to you at Lahore only during the days when you hold darbar. On that day I will send him. A great deal (of injustice) has been done to me. A great deal (of injustice) has been done to my son also. You have accepted what other people have said. Put an end to it now. Too much has been done.

 

The Queen resided in the Sheikhupura Fort for nine months. On the afternoon of May 15, 1848, she was taken away, to be imprisoned in Chunar Fort, near Benares (in current day Uttar Pradesh, India). She made a dramatic escape from there and fled to Nepal, where she remained until, years later, almost blind and dying, was finally allowed to visit her son, who was by then exiled in England.

 

The Sheikhupura Fort was thus witness to a number of crucial turning points during the half-century of the Sikh Raj.

 

The Empire had held played a crucial role as a bulwark against ongoing invasions through the subcontinent’s porous western borders. At its peak, it held sway from Tibet in the east to the Khyber Pass in the west, to Kashmir in the north and to Sindh in the south. It also, while Ranjit Singh was alive, kept the British at bay, even though the rest of the subcontinent had collapsed under them like a row of dominoes.

 

After the annexation of Punjab, the Sheikhupura Fort was temporarily used as administrative headquarters of the Gujranwala district from 1849 to 1851. However, upon the transfer of the district headquarters to Gujranwala town, it was turned into a military outpost.

 

After a split of administration jurisdictions in 1918, a new district was created in Sheikhupura. The Fort then passed on to house the police headquarters of the newly created district.

 

After the partition of Punjab and India in 1947, it was briefly used by the immigrants from East Punjab (by then in the newly-created India) as shelter, and

later by encroachers, from whom it came into the possession of the Department of Archaeology of Pakistan in 1967.

 

Within the complex, no building from the Mughal period is left standing, except the main entrance façade. There are also some remains of sandstone columns depicting the history of the laying of the foundations of the Sheikhupura Fort.

 

Today, what we can see standing, although dilapidated, is a crumbling six-storey haveli, identical to the haveli of Naunihal Singh, which is situated inside Mori Gate in Lahore.

 

The most vibrant aspect of the beauty of the haveli in the Sheikhupura Fort is its frescoes.

 

Sadly, precious wooden doors, windows and parts of the roof have already been whisked away by raiders and the haveli has turned into a haunted house.

 

Inside the ruins and rooms occupied by bats, we can still find signs of the former lifestyle through colourful and thematic paintings and other art work in the Kangra style. Fresco art work in the haveli of Raj Kaur portrays almost all aspects of daily life – ranging from worship to romantic love to military life. Colors are still vivid, the art work is glittering, but the haveli is now, due to institutional neglect, close to the end of its physical life.

 

Despite its poor condition, no contractor or labourer agrees to work as it is believed the fort is haunted by ghosts of the queens which used to live there.

 

This fort is closed to the public due to its bad structural condition; it took me at least three years to take permission to visit this place.

 

The Sultan Hassan Mosque is considered stylistically the most compact and unified of all Cairo monuments. It is one of the masterpieces of Mamluk architecture. The building was commissioned by Sultan Hassan bin Al-Nasir Muhammad bin Qalawun in 1356 AD as a mosque and religious school for all four juristic branches of Sunni Islam. It was designed so that each of the four schools of thought - Shafi, Maliki, Hanafi and Hanbali - has its own area while sharing the mosque.[1].

 

Construction started in 1356 AD and ended 7 years later in 1363 AD. Building materials used were harvested from the casing stones of the Giza Necropolis. One of the minarets collapsed during construction killing 300 people. The state was able to fund the massive structure through the properties that were left behind by the victims of the Black Death. The Sultan was assassinated before the mosque was completed and his body was never recovered. The magnificent burial chamber that was intended for him holds his two sons instead.

 

The facade is 76 meters long and 36 meters high. The cornices, the entrance portal, the burial chamber, and the monumental staircase are particularly noteworthy. Verses from the Quran in elegant Kufic and Thuluth scripts adorn the inner walls.

 

Source. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosque-Madrassa_of_Sultan_Hassan