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Built in 1923, this Renaissance Revival-style twenty-story skyscraper was designed by George B. Post and Sons to house the Buffalo Statler Hotel, part of the Statler Hotel chain that was headquartered in Buffalo. The second permanent hotel that the Statler family built in Buffalo, the building replaced an earlier hotel that stood on the site, housed in the former Millard Fillmore mansion, known as the Castle Inn, and an earlier flagship Statler Hotel, which was built in 1907, and located at the southeast corner of Swan Street and Washington Street in a building that was heavily influenced by the nearby Guaranty Building. Ellsworth Milton Statler, whom owned the business, had started in the hospitality industry with a restaurant in the basement of the Ellicott Square building in 1896, expanding with a 2,000-room temporary hotel at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, and a 2,200 room hotel at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, which were so successful that Statler, a former bellhop, decided to re-enter the Hotel business permanently. The present building was the flagship hotel for the chain, which was based in Buffalo, but had hotels all around the United States, which featured amenities that are commonly expected today, including private bathrooms, telephones in each room, and free stationery and newspapers, and were priced at a moderate cost for more average travelers, rather than being targeted at wealthy clientele. Statler also wanted to attract the city’s elite to his establishment, and thus bought the nearby Iroquois Hotel, a longstanding center of social life for Buffalo’s elite and business class, in 1923, and closed it a day after his new hotel opened. Arguably, the original Hotel Statler was more architecturally significant, as it was one of the largest ever Art Nouveau buildings constructed in the United States, and featured a far more unique and distinctive interior and exterior, as well as being the first hotel to have all the innovative features that Statler became known for. Like the similarly significant Larkin Building, however, the original Statler Hotel Buffalo was demolished in 1968 to make way for a “shovel-ready” development site, with no regard for the non-monetary value of the building. Private development never materialized on the site, and it sat as a barren parking lot until a baseball stadium and plaza were built on the site in the late 20th Century.
The building features a tripartite composition, with a four-story base, which extends to the rear (east) of the tower along Genesee Street and Mohawk Street to Franklin Street, which contains many of the hotel’s major public spaces, including meeting rooms, ballrooms, lobbies, and retail spaces. Above the base rises a tower, twenty stories tall and E-shaped, with two light wells on the western side of the building that extend deep into the block to the east, with a largely unadorned red brick-clad section between the sill line of the windows on the sixth floor to the sill line of the windows on the eighteenth floor, forming the “shaft” of the composition. At the top is a more richly detailed three-story section of the building, forming the “capital” of the composition, drawing the eye upwards and emphasizing the verticality of the building. The first floor is clad in stone with rustication, with the second and third floors sharing large window bays with decorative surrounds, which include decorative keystones, broken pediments with cartouches, triple arched window openings flanked by doric pilasters and recessed niches on the western facade, paired arched windows facing Niagara Square, separated by doric pilasters, and smaller windows at the east end of the building along Franklin Street and Mohawk Street. Above the arched window bays are low-slope roofs enclosed by decorative balustrades, with smaller window openings on the fourth floor featuring decorative stone trim, with the window bays around the perimeter of the base of the tower portion of the building being flanked by doric pilasters, with an architrave with triglyphs and decorative reliefs above the pilasters, and a cornice featuring modillions running around the sill line of the fifth floor windows, marking the base of the transition from the base to the shaft. The fifth floor features windows with decorative surrounds and keystones with busts, and is topped with a cornice, which is the last strong horizontal datum before the building becomes an unadorned brick shaft for the next twelve floors. The building features double-hung and fixed windows, some of which are original, and others of which are replacements, with two-over-two windows being predominant between the sixth and eighteenth floors. On the eighteenth floor, the sill line of the windows is a line of stone belt coursing, with decorative window trim at the window openings, and a cornice with dentils above the windows, originally extending further out from the facade, but having been chiseled away due to structural issues in the late 20th Century. The nineteenth and twentieth floors feature decorative trim once again, with the outermost bays of the individual north and south facades, as well as the west facade, featuring single windows flanked by doric pilasters with decorative window trim, including busts on the keystones, and the middle bays being recessed, flanked by ionic pilasters, with copper spandrel panels. The top of the twentieth floor windows is a line of belt coursing, above which are a few courses of brick, with decorative reliefs above the doric pilasters on the east and west facades, which sits below the building’s cornice, which features brackets, and runs around the base of the brick parapet that encloses the building’s low-slope roof. Atop the parapet above the doric pilasters are decorative urns. The rear of the building also features a large circulation tower, housing the building’s main stairways and elevators, which features a largely unadorned facade with four oxeye openings with stone trim at the top, with this being the least detailed section of the building’s exterior.
Inside, the building features many original semi-public spaces that have been partially preserved from the original period of construction and function as a hotel. These include the “palm room”, the main lobby that is themed after a tropical garden, which sits just outside the hotel’s main dining room, a two-story space with a vaulted ceiling, decorative archways, paired arched second-story openings with balustrades and columns, arched windows above the dining room entrance, an entrance portico at the dining room with ionic columns, a decorative cornice, a broken pediment with a cartouche, and a decorative balustrade atop the portico, and a fountain surrounded by greco-roman statues. There is also the Terrace Room, which features a decorative beam ceiling, ionic columns, and a section of the ceiling that is vaulted, the golden ballroom, formerly the hotel’s main dining room, which features a cantilevered second-story balcony with ionic columns featuring capitals and accents clad in gold leaf, decorative trim and panels clad in gold leaf, a wooden parquet floor, and a vaulted ceiling, and a room in the mezzanine with well-preserved carved wood paneling and black marble fireplace surrounds. Other spaces, including the lounge, tea room, cafeteria, swimming pool, and turkish baths, have not been preserved in as intact of a condition.
The hotel began to see a decline in occupancy with the onset of the Great Depression, with several of its 1,100 rooms regularly sitting vacant. As a result, it began to see portions of its interior converted into office space, which accelerated after the opening of the WBEN TV studio in the building. The Statler hotel chain was bought out by Hilton in 1954, which continued to use the Statler brand on hotels that the chain had already built, but eventually phased it out. The hotel finally shuttered in 1984, with the building being renamed the Statler Towers. The building became largely vacant, with only the lower floors being occupied, with the highest occupancy being in the street-facing retail spaces. In the 2000s, the building was slated for conversion into a hotel and condominium, but this proved unsuccessful when the entity that owned the building went bankrupt, leading to a foreclosure and the building being threatened with demolition. Preservationists worked hard to save the building, leading to it being auctioned to a developer in 2010, whom started to stabilize the structure and address its deferred maintenance, reopening the event spaces on the lower floors in 2011, with plans to eventually renovate the rest of the building with an incremental, multi-phased approach. After that developer died, the building was sold to another developer, whom has announced plans to convert the base into a combination of parking, meeting and event space, amenity space, and retail space, with 600 apartments on the upper levels, with work being well underway in 2022.
River Dargle Flood Defence Scheme.
These images were taken during the third full week of July, 2016.
We took a trip down to the Harbour area, just to acquaint ourselves with the works here. This is a section of the flood protection scheme that I have pretty much ignored -- it's inconvenient for me to access, and others cover it much better.
Moving upriver slightly, to a newly constructed walkway, close to Seapoint Court. Nice work done by the guys from Wills Bros Ltd.
However the cynic in me wonders how long it will be before the local druggies shift locations. Although, perhaps it's a wee bit too exposed for them?
In the foreground is the Railway bridge, and in the distance we can see some construction works taking place on the Ravenswell Road, temporarily closed due to on-going works.
That is the site of the old Bray Golf Club -- hotly contested as a (potentially) poorly considered site for a shopping centre development complex, and still an area of ground that has to act as a flood plain in the event of tidal surges.
Drain tunnel access port. With 'remote controlled' robot to allow easy-visibility into the tunnel/channel.
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"The main work items on the project consisted of the construction of a reinforced earth embankment with 11m long "cut-off Sheet pile wall" within this embankment and a 90m long Sheet Piled Retaining wall (15m long sheet piles) which were anchored for stability using 16.0m long anchors inclined at a various angles. This Sheet Piled Retaining wall was then clad with Granite Randon Rubble stone and resulted in an impressive 5.0m high stone wall along the river. A reinforced concrete flood defence wall complete with stone cladding was also constructed as well as erosion protection measures including underpinning and rock armour installation within the river during low tides. The scheme was completed with the construction of a footpath complete with railings and street lighting along the entire length."
(Wills Bros. Ltd).
Contract Value: €1.1m
Now in its' 11th year, Improv Everywhere's No Pants Subway Ride has exposed New York City, and eventually, the world to cold breeze of mass transit buy inviting the riders to drop trousers! From it's first ride with seven people to over seven thousand in New York alone, not to mention thousands of others around the world, the No Pants Subway Ride has grown from prank into to a barely clad movement!
Along a quiet coastal lane at The Sea Ranch, this cedar-clad residence captures the essence of the community’s founding principles: simplicity, natural materials, and harmony with the landscape. The home’s sharply angled rooflines rise like sails against the vivid blue of the Pacific sky, framing floor-to-ceiling windows that reflect the surrounding cypress and meadow.
Designed in the spirit of The Sea Ranch’s original architectural vision, the house uses unpainted wood siding to age gracefully with the elements. The geometry is clean and deliberate—two asymmetric roof planes meeting in a central ridge that balances openness with protection from coastal winds. A gravel path and unmanicured native grasses reinforce the ideal of living lightly on the land, where boundaries blur between architecture and environment.
Set against a backdrop of forest and ocean air, the house’s restraint becomes its beauty. The proportions, materials, and siting echo the work of designers like Charles Moore and William Turnbull Jr., who helped define The Sea Ranch ethos in the 1960s. This residence feels both timeless and deeply local—a quiet conversation between structure, texture, and terrain.
39402 Sea Ranch is a cedar-clad modernist home defined by minimalist geometry, natural light, and an enduring dialogue with the Northern California coastline.
Text Copyright www.serpentinegalleries.org 2018
“Serpentine Pavilion 2018 designed by Frida Escobedo
Summary:
Architect Frida Escobedo, celebrated for dynamic projects that reactivate urban space, has been commissioned to design the Serpentine Pavilion 2018. Harnessing a subtle interplay of light, water and geometry, her atmospheric courtyard-based design draws on both the domestic architecture of Mexico and British materials and history, specifically the Prime Meridian line at London’s Royal Observatory in Greenwich.
Detail:
Escobedo (b. 1979, Mexico City) is the 18th and youngest architect yet to accept the invitation to design a temporary Pavilion on the Serpentine Gallery lawn in Kensington Gardens. This pioneering commission, which began in 2000 with Zaha Hadid, has presented the first UK buildings of some of the biggest names in international architecture. In recent years, it has grown into a hotly anticipated showcase for emerging talent, from Sou Fujimoto of Japan to selgascano of Spain and Bjarke Ingels of Denmark. Serpentine Galleries Artistic Director Hans Ulrich Obrist and CEO Yana Peel selected this year’s architect, with advisors David Adjaye and Richard Rogers.
Escobedo’s Pavilion takes the form of an enclosed courtyard, comprised of two rectangular volumes positioned at an angle. While the outer walls are aligned with the Serpentine Gallery’s eastern façade, the axis of the internal courtyard aligns directly to the north. Internal courtyards are a common feature of Mexican domestic architecture, while the Pavilion’s pivoted axis refers to the Prime Meridian, which was established in 1851 at Greenwich and became the global standard marker of time and geographical distance.
British-made materials have been used in the Pavilion’s construction, chosen for their dark colours and textured surfaces. A celosia – a traditional breeze wall also common to Mexican architecture – is here composed of a lattice of cement roof tiles that diffuse the view out into the park, transforming it into a vibrant blur of greens and blues from within. Two reflecting elements emphasise the movement of light and shadow inside the Pavilion over the course of the day. The curved underside of the canopy is clad with mirrored panels, and a triangular pool cast into the Pavilion floor traces its boundary directly beneath the edge of the roof, along the north axis of the Meridian. As the sun moves across the sky, reflected and refracted by these features, visitors may feel a heightened awareness of time spent in play, improvisation and contemplation over the summer months.
Escobedo’s prize-winning work in urban reactivation ranges from housing and community centres to hotels and galleries. In 2006, she founded her practice in Mexico City, with significant national projects including the Librería del Fondo Octavio Paz and an extension of La Tallera Siqueiros gallery in Cuernavaca. Her designs have featured at the Venice Architecture Biennale (2012 and 2014), the Lisbon Architecture Triennale (2013), and in San Francisco, London and New York. Recent projects include Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business and social housing projects in Guerrero and Saltillo, Mexico. She lectures nationally and internationally, and has won multiple awards and accolades.
The Serpentine Pavilion 2018 will once again be a platform for Park Nights, the Serpentine’s annual programme of experimental and interdisciplinary evenings on selected Fridays. Practitioners in the fields of art, architecture, music, film, theory and dance will be commissioned to create new, site-specific works in response to Escobedo’s design, offering unique ways of experiencing architecture and performance, sponsored by COS. Building on its 2017 success, Radical Kitchen also returns to the Pavilion on selected Thursday lunchtimes, inviting community groups, artists, activists, writers and architects to form connections through food. This programme of workshops, performances and talks will address geological time, empire and movements, inspired by the ideas behind Escobedo’s Pavilion design. The Architecture Family Pack and Programme, sponsored by COS, will give children and their families the chance to explore the Serpentine Pavilion from playful and original perspectives.
"I think one needs to plan for change. Make everything more flexible in every way, so that the building become more like a palm tree and less like a completely rigid structure, because that’s the one that will fall down. Rigid things collapse. The rest can move, yes, it transforms, it may lose sections, but its spirit will remain." Frida Escobedo in an interview with The Fabulist. On the occasion of the 2018 Serpentine Pavilion, the Serpentine has partnered with Aesop to co-present a special issue of The Fabulist that explores the themes of the Serpentine’s summer season and celebrates Aesop’s support of Live Programmes at the Serpentine.
Serpentine Pavilion Architect's Statement
The design for the Serpentine Pavilion 2018 is a meeting of material and historical inspirations inseparable from the city of London itself and an idea which has been central to our practice from the beginning: the expression of time in architecture through inventive use of everyday materials and simple forms. For the Serpentine Pavilion, we have added the materials of light and shadow, reflection and refraction, turning the building into a timepiece that charts the passage of the day. “
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based on historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
Buffalo Airways is a family-run airline based in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada, established in 1970. Buffalo Airways was launched by Bob Gauchie and later sold to one of his pilots, Joe McBryan (aka "Buffalo Joe"). It operates charter passenger, charter cargo, firefighting, and fuel services, and formerly operated scheduled passenger service. Its main base is at Yellowknife Airport (CYZF). It has two other bases at Hay River/Merlyn Carter Airport (CYHY) and Red Deer Regional Airport (CYQF). The Red Deer base is the main storage and maintenance facility. The company slogan is “Your passage to the North”.
Buffalo also operates a courier service as Buffalo Air Express which started in 1982-1983. It offers service throughout the Northwest Territories (NWT) and Northern Alberta. In association with Global Interline Network it can ship around the world from bases in Yellowknife, Edmonton and Hay River.
Under contract for the NWT Government, Buffalo Airways also operates and maintains aircraft used in the aerial firefighting program. The waterbombers are assisted by smaller aircraft known as "bird dogs" which are used to help spot wildfires as well as guide waterbombers during operations.
One of these aircraft were two Noorduyn Norseman bush planes, also known as the C-64, a Canadian single-engine shoulder wing aircraft designed to operate from unimproved surfaces. Distinctive stubby landing gear protrusions from the lower fuselage made it easily recognizable. Norseman aircraft are known to have been registered and/or operated in 68 countries and also have been based and flown in the Arctic and Antarctic regions.
Designed by Robert B.C. Noorduyn, the Noorduyn Norseman was produced from 1935 to 1959, more than 900 were sold. With the experience of working on many ground-breaking designs at Fokker, Bellanca and Pitcairn-Cierva, Noorduyn decided to create his own design in 1934. Along with his colleague, Walter Clayton, Noorduyn created his original company, Noorduyn Aircraft Limited, in early 1933 at Montreal while a successor company was established in 1935, bearing the name Noorduyn Aviation. Noorduyn's vision of an ideal bush plane began with a high-wing monoplane airframe to facilitate loading and unloading passengers and cargo at seaplane docks and airports; next, a Canadian operator utilizing existing talents, equipment and facilities should be able to make money using it; last, it should be all-around superior to those already in use there. From the outset, Noorduyn designed his transport to have interchangeable wheel, ski or twin-float landing gear. Unlike most aircraft designs, the Norseman was first fitted with floats, then skis and, finally, fixed landing gear.
The final design looked much like Noorduyn's earlier Fokker designs: a robust high-wing braced monoplane with an all-welded steel tubing fuselage. Attached wood stringers carried a fabric skin. Its wing was all fabric covered wood, except for steel tubing flaps and ailerons. The divided landing gear were fitted to fuselage stubs; legs were secured with two bolts each to allow the alternate arrangement of floats or skis. The tail strut could be fitted with a wheel or tail skid, and sometimes a fin was added in this place on aircraft of floats to improve directional stability.
Until 1940, the Noorduyn company had sold only 17 aircraft in total, primarily to commercial operators in Canada's north and to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. With the outbreak of war in Europe, demand for a light utility transport and liaison aircraft that could operate on unprepared airfields close to the European frontlines led to major military orders. The Royal Canadian Air Force and the United States Army Air Forces became the two largest operators, and several versions, the Norseman Mk. II-IV, which primarily differed in their powerplants, were produced.
In postwar production, the Canada Car and Foundry in Fort William, Ontario acquired rights to the Norseman design, producing a version known as the Norseman Mk V, a civilian version of the wartime Mk IV. To exploit the market further, the "Can Car" factory designed and built the Norseman Mk VII. This version had a bigger engine, a new all-metal wing and greater cargo capacity but was fated never to go into production. With large Korean War commitments at that time, the company put it into temporary storage where it was destroyed in a hangar fire in September 1951.
In 1953, Noorduyn headed a group of investors who bought back the jigs and equipment from Canada Car and Foundry and started a new company called Noorduyn Norseman Aircraft Ltd. Bob Noorduyn became ill and died at his home in South Burlington, Vermont, on 22 February 1959. The company continued to provide support for operating Norseman aircraft and built three new Mk Vs before selling its assets in 1982 to Norco Associates. Norco provided support services only, as Norseman aircraft manufacture was labor-intensive and very expensive, and this ended the production of the rugged aircraft after almost 30 years.
The last Noorduyn Norseman to be built was sold and delivered to a commercial customer on January 19, 1959. A total of 903 Norseman aircraft (Mk I - Mk V) were produced and delivered to various commercial and military customers. The two aircraft operated by Buffalo Airways (CF-NMD and -NME) were refurbished WWII USAAF machines that had formerly flown in Alaska and on the Aleutian Islands. They were initially procured by the company only as light transport and feederliner passenger aircraft for regional traffic around the Great Slave Lake. During this early please the Norsemen carried an overall white livery with pastel green trim.
However, with the company’s commitment to aerial firefighting the robust machines were from 1987 on primarily used for aerial fire patrol in the Yellowknife region during summertime, and for postal service in wintertime. Occasionally, the Buffalo Airways Norsemen were used as air ambulance, too. To reflect their new role the machines received a striking and highly visible new livery in deep orange and dark green, which they carried for the rest of their career. In the firefighting role they operated in unison with other Bird Dogs and Buffalo Airways’ Air Tractor 802 Fireboss and specially converted Lockheed L-188 Electra waterbombers. CF-NME was eventually grounded in 1996 after a severe engine damage and sold (but later revived with a replacement engine), while CF-NMD, nicknamed ‘Anna Louise’ by its crews, soldiered on with Buffalo Airways until 2004.
General characteristics:
Crew: 1
Capacity: up to 10 passengers
Length: 32 ft 4 in (9.86 m)
Wingspan: 51 ft 6 in (15.70 m)
Height: 10 ft 1 in (3.07 m)
Wing area: 325 sq ft (30.2 m²)
Airfoil: NACA 2412
Empty weight: 4,240 lb (1,923 kg)
Max takeoff weight: 7,400 lb (3,357 kg) ;7,540 lb (3,420 kg) with floats
Fuel capacity: 100 imp gal (120 US gal; 450 L) in two wing root tanks,
plus optional 37.4 imp gal (44.9 US gal; 170 L) or 2x 101.6 imp gal
(122.0 US gal; 462 L) auxiliary tanks in the cabin
Powerplant:
1× Pratt & Whitney R-1340-AN1 9 cylinder air cooled radial piston engine, 600 hp (450 kW),
driving a 3-bladed Hamilton Standard, 9 ft 0.75 in (2.7623 m) diameter constant-speed propeller
Performance:
Maximum speed: 155 mph (249 km/h, 135 kn) as landplane with standard wheels
138 miles per hour (120 kn; 222 km/h) on skis
134 miles per hour (116 kn; 216 km/h) on floats
Cruise speed: 130 mph (210 km/h, 110 kn) KTAS at 10,000 ft (3,000 m)
Stall speed: 68 mph (109 km/h, 59 kn)
Range: 932 mi (1,500 km, 810 nmi) at 10,000 ft (3,000 m)
Service ceiling: 17,000 ft (5,200 m)
Rate of climb: 591 ft/min (3.00 m/s) at 100 miles per hour (87 kn; 161 km/h)
Wing loading: 22.8 lb/sq ft (111 kg/m²)
Power/mass: 0.08 hp/lb (0.13 kW/kg)
Maximum - Flaps extended (Vfe): 108 miles per hour (94 kn; 174 km/h)
The kit and its assembly:
This project was spawned when, some years ago, I came across a picture of PBV-5A Canso/Catalina CF-NJE/ C-FNJE (ex RCAF 11094) during its use with Buffalo Airways between 1996 and 2004, where it AFAIK flew as a tanker/mobile gas station for other firefighting aircraft. The Canso carried a bright and highly attractive livery in deep orange and dark green with high-contrast white trim on wings and fuselage, and I immediately decided to apply this pretty scheme to another aircraft one day. And what could be more Canadian and an epitome of a bush aircraft than the stubby Noorduyn Norseman (well, O.K., an Otter, a Beaver…) which is available as a 1:72 kit from Matchbox (since 1981, re-released by Revell)? An alternative is AFAIK a full resin kit from Choroszy Modelbud, even though it only offers floats.
Several years after the project’s inception I was able to hunt down a relatively cheap kit (2009 Revell re-boxing), but it rested some more years in The Stash™ until the time was ripe and I collected enough mojo to tackle it. Since this would only be a livery whif and not involve any major conversions, the Norseman kit was basically built OOB, using the optional floats as most suitable landing gear.
The only addition is a scratched semi-elliptic stabilizing fin under the tail, sometimes seen on real world Norsemen with floats. A technical change I made is a metal axis for the propeller with an internal styrene tube adapter behind the engine. Unusual for a Matchbox kit: it comes with separate rudders and flaps, and I mounted the latter in a downward position. For eventual flight scenes I integrated a vertical styrene tube behind the rear cabin bulkhead, as a rigid adapter for a steel rod display holder.
To avoid masking and the danger of losing one or more of the side windows during the assembly or while painting the model, I left them all away and recreated them after painting with Humbrol ClearFix – only the windscreen is an OOB piece. The risk of pushing one of the windows into the hull is IMHO very high, because each pane is a separate piece and none of them have any support to increase the contact area with the hull. This also makes the use of glue to mount and fix them rather hazardous. The ClearFix stunt went better than expected, but I guess that the Norseman’s window might be the limit of what can be created with the gooey stuff.
Overall fit of the kit is good, even though some PSR is needed along seams (esp. at the wing/fuselage intersections) and for some sinkholes along the fuselage seam. A feature Matchbox always did well is the surface structure of fabric-clad areas, and the Norseman is no exception. Mounting the delicate float arrangement was challenging, though, it takes a lot of patience and thorough drying phases to assemble. Because I wanted to paint the floats and the respective struts in aluminum (from a rattle can) I assembled and lacquered them separately, for a final “marriage”.
As additional details I added PE boarding ladders between the floats and the side doors instead of the minimal OOB plastic steps, and some rigging between the fin and the stabilizers as well as between the floats’ struts, created with heated grey styrene material.
Painting and markings:
The real highlight of the model: the bright firefighting livery! I adapted the paint scheme as good as possible from the benchmark Catalina (the same livery was also carried by CL-215 waterbombers) onto the stubby Norseman and used Humbrol 3 (Brunswick Green) and 132 (Red Satin, a rather orange-red tone) as basic colors. A personal addition/deviation is the black belly, and because of the separate cowling I ended the jagged white cheatline behind it and added a white front ring to the cowling.
The wing supports were painted white, similar to the real Canso. Since the floats are an optional landing gear, they were painted (separately) in white aluminum (from a rattle can), with dark gray walkways and black tips. The model did not receive an overall black ink washing, because I wanted to present a clean look, but I did some very subtle post-shading with slightly lightened basic tones along the internal braces. It’s barely noticeable, though.
Most of the white trim was created with generic decal stripe material from TL Modellbau, a very convenient solution, even though a LOT of material (more than 1m in total!) went into the decoration. Aligning all the stripes on the stabilizers and the wings was not as easy as it seems, due to the rib structure of the surfaces. The registration codes on wings and fuselage were created with single white letters (also from TL Modellbau) in different sizes.
The model was sealed with semi-gloss acrylic varnish (Italeri) for a clean and fresh look, the floats received a coat with matt (effectively a bit shiny) varnish from a rattle can, before the model was finally assembled and final struts and the PE boarding ladders were added. The anti-glare panel in front of the windscreen became matt, too.
As one of the final steps, the windowpanes were created with ClearFix (see above) – quite a stunt. Due to their size and square shape, I had to carve some individual tools from chopsticks to apply the thick material properly. Filling the openings this way was quite a challenge, but eventually worked better than expected (or suspected).
A pretty outcome! The firefighting livery suits the Norseman well, it’s a bright spotlight – as intended in real life! :D Building the model took a while, though, mostly because I had to take time for the paint to dry and the extensive use of decal stripes, and I took part in the 2023 “One Week” group build at whatifmodellers.com in the meantime, too. The Matchbox kit is also not to be taken lightly. While things mostly go together well, the delicate floats and the windows are a serious challenge, and I think that replacing the clear parts mostly with Clearfix was not a bad move to avoid other/long-term trouble.
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Today however we have headed south-west across London, away from Cavendish Mews and Mayfair, over Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens to the comfortably affluent Kensington High Street. Here, amidst the two and three storey buildings that line either side of the street, Edith, Lettice’s maid, walks amidst the other pedestrians with purpose. Dressed in her three-quarter length black coat which she bought from a Petticoat Lane* second-hand clothes stall and remodelled herself, and wearing the black straw cloche decorated with purple satin roses and black feathers she picked up from Mrs. Minkin’s - a Whitechapel haberdasher recommended by Lettice’s char**, Mrs. Boothby – she tries to blend in with the other affluent local women on pleasant pre-Christmas shopping outings. However, if she is concerned about how fashionably she is dressed, no-one else around her seems to give it a thought. Christmas is not far away now, with only a few weeks until Christmas Day, and signs of festive cheer abound with bright and gaudy tinsel*** garlands and stars cut from metallic paper hanging in shop windows on either side of the busy thoroughfare. The windows themselves are full of the latest fashions, toys and gadgets for the ladies of Kensington to choose their perfect Christmas gifts from. The shops are busy, and the pavement is crowded with meandering shoppers and window shoppers alike. Yet as her heels clip along the footpath, Edith has no time to tarry admiring window displays. She has an important errand to run in Kensington on her Wednesday off before heading north to the working-class London suburb of Harlesden, where she will pay her usual weekly visit to her parents.
Finally Edith reaches the splendid blue and white tile decorated façade she has been walking brusquely towards. Stylised and elegant gilt lettering on the windows to either side of the central double doors reads: ‘Langham’s – meat, fish, poultry, game and ice’. She peers through the large plate glass window at the splendid Christmas fare on display. A huge turkey sits in pride of place on a large silver platter, decorated with ornamental feathers and surrounded by greenery and raw vegetables. She sighs and walks quickly through the door of the butcher’s shop. The shop bell releases a cheery tingle as the wood and glass door closes behind her, shutting out the constant chugging of the engines of passing traffic and red double-decker London motorbuses, and the burble of human traffic passing by, and enveloping her in serene silence. Edith closes her eyes for a moment before opening them again. As her eyes adjust to being indoors the now familiar layout of the butcher’s shop emerges. Edith remembers with awkward embarrassment the first time Frank had brought her into Mr. Langham’s butcher’s shop and how intimidated she was by it. Unlike Mr. Chapman’s, the local butcher’s shop in Harlesden where she grew up, which has a warm and cosy feel to it, Mr. Langham’s establishment is spacious, stylish all about show. The floors are tiled in luxurious black and white chequered linoleum, just like the kitchen floor at Cavendish Mews, with not a wood shaving**** in sight, as most of the butchering is done by Mr. Langham and his sons out of sight of customers in a back room. The walls are lined from floor to ceiling with white tiles with a few bands of decorative green ones, and hung with brightly painted metal signs advertising condiments. Rather than a wooden counter like Mr. Chapman’s, which encouraged shoppers to lean in and tarry for a gossip, Mr. Langham’s counter is made of panelled glass and filled with the most wonderful displays of meat, fish and poultry. Yet as soon as Frank introduced Edith to his friend Percy, dressed in a uniform of a navy blue vest and a blue and white striped apron just like Mr. Chapman’s, her nerves fell away. He smiled at her broadly and welcomed her warmly, even if she was most likely the only girl from Harlesden ever to be served by him in his establishment. A mature, rather portly man with a jolly disposition to match his apple cheeks, Mr. Langham was delighted to meet his friend Frank’s young lady, and was only too happy to be of service to her once Frank explained what Edith’s plans were. And ever since then, a fortnightly ritual had occurred where she visited Mr. Langham before going on to see her parents on her Wednesdays off.
“Well, if it isn’t my favourite maid from Mayfair!” Mr. Langham remarks with his usual smile and easy manner from behind the counter as he sees Edith walk through the door.
“Oh Mr. Langham!” Edith blushes at his compliment. “You do know how to make a maid feel like a lady!”
“Come to get away from the Christmas rush out there then, have you, Miss Watsford?” the butcher chortles as he carefully adjusts the position of a fat turkey on a white raised platter on his counter, fussing over several large feathers used to decorate it until they fan out perfectly.
“Oh yes,” remarks Edith with a timid chuckle. “It’s so busy out there this week.”
“Never get between a Kensington housewife and her Christmas shopping, Miss Watsford.” Mr. Langham says jovially. “That’s my advice.”
“And very wise and welcome it is too, Mr. Langham.” Edith replies with a sigh as she walks up to the counter.
Over the ensuing months since Frank first brought her to Mr. Langham’s butcher’s shop in Kensington, Edith has discovered, much to her delight, that whilst it might be glass and used for the successful display and promotion of his fare, Mr. Langham’s counter is every bit as welcoming as a place to perch and chat as Mr. Chapman’s is in Harlesden. Edith places her green leather handbag across the glass countertop and hooks her black umbrella over the slightly raised maple edging and she leans in to peer at what lies under the glass. Trays of fat sausages and rich beef mince sit alongside steaks and chops, whilst a whole boar’s head with an apple stuck in his mouth peers back at her from another raised platter with squinted eyes and a broad smile.
“Fancy having that sitting in the middle of your Christmas table, Miss Watsford?” the butcher says in an ebullient voice, noting where Edith’s eyes have strayed to.
“No fear, Mr. Langham!” Edith replies, holding up her purple glove clad hands in defence. “I’d rather not have my meal looking at me as Dad prepares to carve it!”
“Well,” Mr. Langham says, looking down upon the boar. “He’s destined for a house in Rosary Gardens in Chelsea next week for a pre-Christmas dinner party. Mrs. Phyllida Cavendish is hosting a cocktail party, and he is to be the centre of her light buffet supper. To amuse her guests, he will be sporting a festive Christmas crown that she is making for him,” He sniffs. “Or so I have been told by Mrs. Cavendish several times.”
“That sounds positively frightful, Mr. Langham!” Edith pulls a face.
“Quite so, Miss Watsford.” agrees the butcher. “But then again, Phyllida Cavendish is an artist, so no doubt she and her odd bohemian friends will find some macabre humour in it. Perhaps they shall dance some pagan rights with him in her rear garden after midnight.”
“You do have some odd customers, Mr. Langham.” Edith remarks, clasping at the scarf at her throat.
“Only the ones from bohemian Chelsea.” he replies with a chuckle.
“Well, I think I’ll just stick to a nice old fashioned and succulent turkey from your shop this Christmas, Mr. Langham.”
“Come to pay off the final instalment have you, Miss Watsford?”
“Just as we agreed, Mr. Langham.” Edith nods cheerfully.
“I’ll just go and fetch my accounts book from the office.” he replies as he moves away from Edith, almost gliding across his elegant black and white linoleum floors as befits the owner of this elegant establishment.
As he does, Edith smiles to herself. How surprised her whole family will be when a fine, fat turkey arrives at her home in Harlesden just before Christmas, big enough to feed her parents, her brother – who will be home for Christmas on shore leave, Frank, Frank’s Scottish grandmother Mrs. McTavish and herself, and have leftovers for after Christmas. Christmas in the Watsford household has never been a lean one, even during the Great War with rationing, especially with her father’s canny ability to procure certain foods at a reasonable price, like the smaller turkey he acquired two Christmases ago, and her mother’s ability to make a feast out of anything left laying around her kitchen. However, even with those skills, George and Ada have expressed concerns about being able to feed everyone sufficiently on Christmas Day, even with Mrs. McTavish suphome-madee of her homemade Christmas puddings. Edith had caught her mother looking through old recipe books for imitation foodstuffs to supplement or replace real ones usually used by her at Christmas, and seen her carefully count the housekeeping money, scrimping and saving where she feels she can, to allow for extra expenditures for Christmas. Despite her mother’s refusal to take any of her wages from her, Edith wanted to contribute to Christmas this year especially since it was she who had suggested inviting Frank and his grandmother to Christmas lunch. When Frank mentioned how Mr. Langham was a butcher friend he had, and it was from him that he procured a small roast chicken for he and his grandmother every year, Edith knew immediately how she was going to contribute to Christmas 1923.
“Well, Miss Watsford,” Mr. Langham announces as he returns with her account. “I’m very pleased to accept your final payment for your family’s Christmas turkey. And a fine one he is too, if I may say!”
“Thank you, Mr. Langham. You may.” Edith replies with pride in her voice as she fetches out her small reticule***** from her handbag and counts out the last few shillings payment for the turkey.
“No, thank you, Miss Watsford, for being such a polite and promptly paying customer. I wish more of my customers were like you.”
“Oh I’m sure the likes of Mrs. Cavendish spend far more than I do.” Edith replies, indicating to the boar’s head.
“Oh, Phyllida Cavendish is very good at filling up my account book, but she is far less prompt paying what she owes.” Mr. Langham says with a cocked eyebrow and a knowing look. “No,” the butcher continues cheerfully as he accepts Edith’s shillings and pops them with a clink into his gleaming brass till. “I wish I had a daughter like you. It isn’t every day a daughter buys a turkey for her whole family for Christmas.”
“Well,” Lettice replies, blushing again. “Langham and Sons sounds and looks far more impressive over the front door than Langham and daughter.”
“Be that as it may, I’d give anything for my lads to offer to pay for our Christmas turkey, Miss Watsford, let me assure you!”
“Will you be supplying your own turkey then, Mr. Langham?”
“If not me, then who else, Miss Watsford? Mrs. Langham is expecting a fine turkey this year, and that is what she shall have if I know what’s good for me and want a peaceable festive season.”
“Oh you are a wag, Mr. Langham!” Edith laughs, flapping her hand at the middle-aged butcher. “I’m sure Mrs. Langham is the most charming and delightful wife in Kensington.”
“That she is, Miss Watsford,” agrees the older man. “But if you don’t mind me saying, she isn’t half as pretty as you.”
“Oh Mr. Langham!” Edith puts her hands to her cheeks as she feels the warmth of the colour filling them.
“I know! I know!” Mr. Langham raises his hands in defence. “You’re spoken for. That Frank Leadbetter is a lucky chap, stepping out with a girl as thoughtful and beautiful as you.”
In an effort to change the subject, Edith asks, “So the turkey will be delivered on what day, Mr. Langham?”
“Friday the twenty-third, Miss Watsford,” the butcher replies. “To the address you’ve given me here.” He taps George and Ada’s address in Harlesden on the top of Edith’s account with his grey lead pencil. “When will you tell your Mum?”
“Well, now that it’s paid off, I might tell her today.” Edith contemplates. “I’m off to visit her now. And,” she adds. “If I tell her and Dad today, then Dad won’t go and organise something else in the meantime, like he usually does.”
“Good thinking, Miss Watsford.” Mr. Langham replies cheerily, tapping his nose in a knowing fashion.
“Well, I must be going, Mr. Langham.” Edith announces, taking up her handbag and umbrella from the shop counter. “I have to get over to Harlesden, and that’s no short trip from here.”
“Well, you must take a slice of Mrs. Langham’s Christmas fruit cake for the journey.” the butcher replies, indicating to four thick slices of cake encased in a thick layer of white royal icing sitting on a tray directly below one of his wife’s beautifully decorated Christmas cakes on a raised platter sitting on the counter next to the till.
“Oh I couldn’t possibly, Mr. Langham!” Edith declines vehemently. “They are for your customers to promote your wife’s excellent baking skills. Have you sold many of Mrs. Langham’s Christmas cakes this year?”
“Quite a few as a matter of fact.” he announces proudly. “Certainly enough to have had her baking a few extra cakes in the last few months.” He smiles at Edith. “But at this late stage in the lead up to Christmas, no-one is going to want to buy one of her cakes now. Those slices will only go to the children who visit me with their parents, or go to waste as they dry out sitting there.” He goes on, “And since this will be the last time I see you before Christmas, Miss Watsford, consider it a Christmas present, and a small token of both mine, and my wife’s esteem.”
He picks up the square silver dish and holds it out to Edith.
“Well…” Edith acquiesces hesitantly.
“That’s my girl!” Mr. Langham’s eyes light up. “Take a slice for your Mum too. I’m sure it isn’t every day she gets the treat of a cake baked by someone other than her.”
“Indeed no, Mr. Langham. She taught me how to bake, but even I don’t dare serve her one of my cakes. She’s a seasoned baker is my Mum.”
“Well, so is Mrs. Langham, Miss Watsford.” He smiles broadly. “I’ll just wrap them up in some brown paper and twine. Merry Christmas Miss Watsford.”
“Merry Christmas, Mr. Langham.” Edith answers happily.
*Petticoat Lane Market is a fashion and clothing market in Spitalfields, London. It consists of two adjacent street markets. Wentworth Street Market and Middlesex Street Market. Originally populated by Huguenots fleeing persecution in France, Spitalfields became a center for weaving, embroidery and dying. From 1882, a wave of Jewish immigrants fleeing persecution in eastern Europe settled in the area and Spitalfields then became the true heart of the clothing manufacturing district of London. 'The Lane' was always renowned for the 'patter' and showmanship of the market traders. It was also known for being a haven for the unsavoury characters of London’s underworld and was rife with prostitutes during the late Victorian era. Unpopular with the authorities, as it was largely unregulated and in some sense illegal, as recently as the 1930s, police cars and fire engines were driven down ‘The Lane’, with alarm bells ringing, to disrupt the market.
**A charwoman, chargirl, or char, jokingly charlady, is an old-fashioned occupational term, referring to a paid part-time worker who comes into a house or other building to clean it for a few hours of a day or week, as opposed to a maid, who usually lives as part of the household within the structure of domestic service. In the 1920s, chars usually did all the hard graft work that paid live-in domestics would no longer do as they looked for excuses to leave domestic service for better paying work in offices and factories.
***One of the most famous Christmas decorations that people love to use at Christmas is tinsel. You might think that using it is an old tradition and that people in Britain have been adorning their houses with tinsel for a very long time. However that is not actually true. Tinsel is in fact believed to be quite a modern tradition. Whilst the idea of tinsel dates back to Germany in 1610 when wealthy people used real strands of silver to adorn their Christmas trees (also a German invention). Silver was very expensive though, so being able to do this was a sign that you were wealthy. Even though silver looked beautiful and sparkly to begin with, it tarnished quite quickly, meaning it would lose its lovely, bright appearance. Therefore it was swapped for other materials like copper and tin. These metals were also cheaper, so it meant that more people could use them. However, when the Great War started in 1914, metals like copper were needed for the war. Because of this, they couldn't be used for Christmas decorations as much, so a substitute was needed. It was swapped for aluminium, but this was a fire hazard, so it was switched for lead, but that turned out to be poisonous.
****Regardless of where the butchers shop was, whether a suburban or up-market shop or a small concern in a village, the standard practice was to dust the wooden floorboards of the shop behind the counter where the butchering was done with sawdust. The idea was that the sawdust would sop up any spilled blood or dropped offcuts of meat that was easy to sweep away and helped prevent slips.
*****A reticule also known as a ridicule or indispensable, was a type of small handbag or purse, typically having a drawstring and decorated with embroidery or beading, similar to a modern evening bag, used mainly from 1795 to before the Great War.
This smart and stylish upper-class Edwardian butchers is not all it seems to be at first glance, for it is made up of part of my 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures collection.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
The dressed turkey on the counter and the stuffed pig’s head and trays of cuts of meat inside the counter come from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop in the United Kingdom. The joints of meat in the background, on the bench, in the meat safe and hanging from hooks above it also come from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop.
The cranberry glass footed platter on the counter is made of real, finely spun glass, and comes from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in the United Kingdom. The beautifully decorated Christmas cake atop it is a 1:12 artisan miniature which also comes from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures. The slices of fruitcake in front of it on the silver plate is a 1:12 artisan miniature I acquired from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop in the United Kingdom.
To the left of the photo is a food safe. In the days before refrigeration, or when refrigeration was expensive, perishable foods such as meat, butter, milk and eggs were kept in a food safe. Winter was easier than summer to keep food fresh and butter coolers and shallow bowls of cold water were early ways to keep things like milk and butter cool. A food safe was a wooden cupboard with doors and sides open to the air apart from a covering of fine galvinised wire mesh. This allowed the air to circulate while keeping insects out. There was usually an upper and a lower compartment, normally lined with what was known as American cloth, a fabric with a glazed or varnished wipe-clean surface. Refrigerators, like washing machines were American inventions and were not commonplace in even wealthy upper-class households until well after the Second World War.
The shiny metal cash register comes from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in the United Kingdom. The red and black painted scales and weights, I have had since I was a teenager.
Edith’s handbag handmade from soft leather is part of a larger collection of hats and bags that I bought from an American miniature collector Marilyn Bickel. The black umbrella came from an online stockist of 1:12 miniatures on E-Bay.
The advertising signs in the background come from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop in the United Kingdom.
K190 has recently had new boiler cladding applied. Apprentice Fitter Tim takes a well-earned rest amongst the humidity to have a chat to the Secretary.
Foel Goch on a grey overcast day, the photo reminds me of the pen and ink drawings that Alfred Wainwright used to illustrate his famous Pictorial Guides to the Lakeland Fells.
Used a newly purchased Panasonic TZ80 borrowed from my wife to take the photo, pleased with the result.
Cod Cladding - one from a year ago in the lovely fishing village of Nusforjd in the Lofoten, Norway. These salted Cod were pinned to the side of a house to dry, like cladding.
Grade II* listed Bedfont House, built in 1740.
Chipping Campden is a small market town in the Cotswold district of Gloucestershire. It is notable for its elegant terraced High Street, dating from the 14th to the 17th century. "Chipping" is from the Old English 'ceping', "a market or market-place", the same element is found in other towns such as Chipping Norton, Chipping Sodbury and Chipping (now High) Wycombe.
A rich wool trading centre in the Middle Ages, the town is now a popular Cotswold tourist destination, with honey-coloured limestone buildings. At its centre stands the Market Hall, built in 1627.
Clad in a DKNY advert, LT621 on route 27 is about to turn onto Euston Road, from Hampstead Road, on its way to Hammersmith Grove.
All photographs in my photostream are Copyrighted © Dave Kirwin. All Rights Reserved.
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Minimalist blue of metal cladding on a building.
Trademarks of Tibet .
Pious pilgrims and saffron clad monks , spiritual home of the Dalai Lama , Chinese occupation , yak meat and momos , High altitude and low oxygen sky burials .
In through the door slipped Martinez, still clad in the leather suit. He unzipped the mouth and crouched down in front of me.
"Hello, sweets. Enjoy the little experiment? Hrmm?" He gives me a condescending smile.
"F-fuck you." I croak and use the last of my saliva to spit in his eye.
The little shit, Martinez chuckles and wipes the spit from the leather mask.
"I'm guessing you'd like to know why you're here, yes? That is if you don't die of exhaustion which looks highly probable." I don't say anything, and he continues.
"My wee little beasties, which I believe you no doubt witnessed... they need perfection, needless to say."
"The fuck do I have to do with them?" I gasp. "What did you do to me?"
"Oh-hoh! I did nothing to you! You see, I designed this room to stretch you past the boundaries of your physical and mental strength. The mildew... there's a clean freak in everyone.Stuff MUST be neat and tidy in SOME way or another, right? The deprivation of food and water? Knowing how long we mortals can go without what we need most is essential for the perfect soldier. The reflective walls, well-"
"Wait... what? Soldiers? The hell're you doing here?" I yell.
"The favelas. They're filled with scum. I grew up here, the very favela right below us, in fact. My father... he used to beat me in this very suit here, whenever I fucked up. But then he'd pick me up and hold me. He'd tell me the world was tough, you had to be tougher. I decided I'd be the tougher one by letting the tougher ones do my dirty work-"
"But the kids... why?"
"Every kid wants to be a superhero. I was merely... fulfilling their dreams. But with your information, I can perfect them, make them perfect. My father would finally be proud of me. Wanna know why I wear this damned suit? Because for all the crap my father did to me, I loved him. This suit is my last reminder of him. He vanished when I was seven. I want my army to know his scent. They WILL bring me back my father. He WILL know that I loved him and he WILL know that I AM tougher than the world. This suit... it will bring him back to me! When the army's complete... every favela dwelling scumbag will be wiped from the planet by the very children they victimized."
"You... you BUTCHERED hundreds... of children. How can you excuse killing children?"
"They simply fell in the line of duty in my war against the favela."
"How DARE you!" I boom. I stagger to my feet. "I can't let you continue this."
"Ha ha ha!" He laughs, and it sounds like a choking goose. "You're much too weak to fight me in your state!" He slams his foot into my stomach. He's weak and normally it wouldn't hurt, but it feels like I just got hit with a battering ram. He punches me in the face and rains punches down, chuckling.
"RAAAAHHH!" I raise my leg and crane kick him, straight in the chin and he sprawls. I then bring my arms over and under my legs so they are in front of me again. Martinez stands again, spewing blood, tears fill his eyes. He charges and I dodge. My survival instinct kicks in, and I charge, tackle him and wrap the chains around his wretched throat.
"This is for little Marko, you little fuck." I hiss in Martinez's ear. I feel the air coming out, but no. He deserves a slow death. He planned to kill thousands of innocents, and had already killed and messed up hundreds of children. Grabbing him by the skull, I hurl him into the wall, stunning him. I see the keys for my chains on his waist. I grab them and unlock them. I'm walking for the door, when he gets up again.
"Y-you WHORE! YOU'LL PAY!" He's staggering and looks unfit to run. My adrenaline's dying, and with it, my strength. I walk up behind him and tuck an arm under his chin, the other on his right temple. I twist and tug until he lets out a vile scream and a sickening *CRAAACK!* fills the room. He slumps to the ground, dead. The room grows silent, and I exit.
My gear; my mask, spear and gloves are inside a steel crate. I take the spear and mask and fall onto the floor. I put the mask in front of my face and look into the face of one of Gotham's most notorious future vigilantes.
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End of the Brazil arc. What'd all y'all think?