View allAll Photos Tagged cladding
Grade II listed, first half 19th century warehouse block. Brown brick with red brick dressings. Hipped slate roof with red tile clad ridges. five storeys and basement, ten bays with door ranks each side. Ground floor doors have massive stone surround. Windows with red brick segmental arches and red painted sills; all with glazing bars. Iron hoists beside to floor doors. 'A', 'B', 'C' and 'D'
The river front has a more monumental elevational treatment with a giant pilastrade rising from stylobate ground floor,. frieze with brick corbel string, cornice and blocking course. Segmental arched windows, those on ground floor contained in segmental arched recesses. Loading bays in ground floor below the hatch ranks have same granite surrounds as on street front. Large wall mounted lattice jibbed crane to centre of first floor and smaller one to second floor right.
I found an interesting description of the London Dock, given in 1851 by Henry Mayhew. 'As you pass along this quay the air is pungent with tobacco, at that it overpowers you with the fumes of rum. Then you are nearly sickened with the stench of hides and huge bins of horns, and shortly afterwards the atmosphere is fragrant with coffee and spice.'
Looking downstream towards Limehouse.
Iron-clad feather-feet pounding the dust
An October's day, towards evening
Sweat embossed veins standing proud to the plough
Salt on a deep chest seasoning
Last of the line at an honest day's toil
Turning the deep sod under
Flint at the fetlock, chasing the bone
Flies at the nostrils plunder.
The Suffolk, the Clydesdale, the Percheron vie
with the Shire on his feathers floating
Hauling soft timber into the dusk
to bed on a warm straw coating.
Heavy Horses, move the land under me
Behind the plough gliding --- slipping and sliding free
Now you're down to the few
And there's no work to do
The tractor's on its way.
"Jethro Tull"
One of my all time favourite songs and a fitting tribute, to these fine animals, this is Prince and Beauty a pair of competition winning Shires seen doing ploughing demonstrations at the NVTEC Notts Working Weekend. Personally I could have watced these all day.
Mademoiselle Eden is wearing jeans from Earth Angel Eden Blair, top is from an OOAK DB fashion, cardigan is Dagamoart, handbag is Little Day Ensemble Véronique Perrin. Earring are JamieShow.
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.
The Victory Column on the Großer Stern in the Großer Tiergarten is one of the most important national monuments in Germany and the most important sights in Berlin . Built between 1864 and 1873 by Heinrich Strack on Königsplatz to commemorate the Wars of Unification , it was moved to its current location between 1938 and 1939 together with the monuments of Bismarck , Roon and Moltke . The crowning Victoria by Friedrich Drake is known in Berlin as “Goldelse”.
Column
The Victory Column stands in the middle of the Great Star, which is designed as a roundabout, and can be reached to the west and east via T-shaped pedestrian tunnels below the road. Four neoclassical gatehouses, designed by Johannes Huntemüller, provide access to these tunnels north and south of the Straße des 17. Juni . The green area around the monument is 34 m above sea level. NHN .
The structure of the Victory Column, designed by court architect Heinrich Strack , consists of a base clad in polished red granite and four column drums made of Obernkirchen sandstone that taper towards the top . On the base there is a circular colonnade with a glass mosaic on the back wall. The Venetian company Antonio Salviati made it in 1876 based on a cardboard box created by Anton von Werner . At the inauguration only the cardboard box was attached. As desired by Wilhelm I , the picture depicts the founding of the German Empire as a result of the victory over France . In its fluting , the column in the lower three drums bears 60 gold-plated cannon barrels captured in the three wars of unification . For the colonnade, Schinkel's student Strack was inspired by the Great Curiosity in Glienicke Park. The column shaft above the hypostyle hall was increased to its current size by a fourth column drum at the bottom as part of the relocation. The cannon barrels were each moved down one column drum, with the now free fluting on the top column drum receiving gold-plated laurel festoons .
Through an entrance on the south side of the base, visitors can reach the interior of the base, where there is a small museum on the eventful history of the Victory Column. From there, a spiral staircase with 285 steps inside the column leads to the 50.66 meter high viewing platform. This offers a good view over the Großer Tiergarten, Potsdamer Platz , the Brandenburg Gate and the surrounding city area. From a structural point of view, the Peace Monument in Munich, the July Column in Paris and the Independence Monument in Mexico City are similar to the Victory Column.
Victoria
The column supports a gilded bronze sculpture created by Friedrich Drake in the form of a female figure, Victoria . She holds up a laurel wreath in her right hand and a standard with the Iron Cross in her left . An eagle sits on her helmet. Victoria is known as the goddess of victory in Roman mythology and corresponds to Nike in Greek mythology . Both are shown winged. Her eagle helmet also makes Victoria appear on the Victory Column as Borussia , the personification of Prussia .
Drake designed the character after the features of Victoria of Great Britain and Ireland , who was crown princess in Prussia at the time. The 8.32 meter high and 35 ton heavy bronze figure was made by the Berlin sculptor Hermann Gladenbeck . At its original location on Königsplatz, the Viktoria looked south towards Siegesallee , but since its implementation in 1939 it has looked west towards Ernst-Reuter-Platz . She got the name “Goldelse” because of her gilding and the title of the novel Goldelse by E. Marlitt , which the magazine Die Gartenlaube published in 1866 as a popular serialized story.
Reliefs
The base is decorated with four bronze reliefs depicting the most important battles of the German wars of unification - the Battle of Düppel in the German-Danish War (1864), the Battle of Königgrätz in the German-German War (1866), the Battle of Sedan in the German- French War (1870) - and the victorious entry of the allied troops into Berlin (1871). The reliefs are described in detail: Excerpt from the Danish campaign and storming of the Düppeler Schanzen by the sculptor Alexander Calandrelli , Battle of Königgrätz and events of the German War by Moritz Schulz , Franco-German War with Battle of Sedan and entry into Paris by Karl Keil and Finally the troops enter Berlin by Albert Wolff . Above this relief there was originally the dedication “The grateful fatherland to the victorious army”, of which only the traces of the fortification are visible today.
On the Königsplatz the reliefs were arranged like this: The relief Entry into Berlin with the dedication was on the front (south), the Battle of Düppel on the right side (east), the Battle of Sedan on the left side (west) and the Battle of Königgrätz with the entrance at the back (north). On the Great Star, the reliefs are arranged differently: the Battle of Düppel relief is on the front (west), the Battle of Königgrätz with the entrance on the right side (south), the entry into Berlin without the dedication on the left side (north) and the Battle of Sedan to the rear (east). Calandrelli's Düppel relief is considered "the best of the four reliefs" according to Meyer's Conversation Lexicon .
Construction
In 1864, after the German-Danish War, the Prussian King Wilhelm I suggested that monuments be erected on the battlefields and in Berlin. He commissioned the court building officer Heinrich Strack to carry out all the projects . Funds amounting to 330,000 thalers were approved for this in 1867. After about two years of construction, 38,652 and 33,300 thalers were incurred for the Düppel monument and Arnkiel monument , respectively. This meant that only 258,000 thalers remained for the Victory Column, which was to be built on Königsplatz . Within a few years there were two more victorious wars, the German War against Austria in 1866 and the Franco-Prussian War in 1870–1871 . The three segments of the Victory Column and the crowning bronze sculpture of Victoria were intended to commemorate the victories in these wars.
After nine years of construction, the Victory Column was completed in 1873. Stylistically it can be assigned to the Neo-Renaissance . The Victory Column was inaugurated to celebrate Sedan Day on September 2, 1873, the third anniversary of the victorious Battle of Sedan . The Königsplatz was lined with the General Staff Building to the north , the Kroll Opera to the west and the Palais Raczyński gallery building to the east, which had to make way for the Reichstag building in the 1880s . Immediately before the inauguration of the column, a 750 meter long avenue was laid out as a line of sight south through the Tiergarten to Kemperplatz . Kemperplatz received the Wrangel Fountain in 1877 , which was replaced by the Roland Fountain in 1902 . Wilhelm II had the avenue expanded into Victory Allee from 1895 .
Transfer
As part of the transformation of Berlin into the “ World Capital Germania ” that began during the National Socialist era , the column was moved to the Großer Stern in 1938–1939 on behalf of the General Building Inspector for the Reich Capital Albert Speer by the construction company Philipp Holzmann , whose diameter was increased from 80 to 200 meter was enlarged. In order to enhance the urban development effect of the monument as part of the east-west axis and to achieve an appropriate size ratio to the diameter of the square, the base was widened by 6.5 meters and the column was raised by 6.5 meters using a fourth drum. A further increase of around one meter was created by raising the portico, which is concealed by the roof connection to the widened base. As a result of these changes, the monument reached its current height of around 67 meters (original height 60.5 meters). During the new installation, the base entrance was also moved from the north to the south side. Together with the Victory Column, the monuments for Otto von Bismarck , Albrecht von Roon and Helmuth von Moltke were also moved to the northern edge of the Großer Stern, which was to be understood as the forum of the Second Reich , and the groups of the Siegesallee were moved to the Große Sternallee, which branched off to the southeast .
During the Second World War, the Victory Column survived the air raids and the Battle of Berlin largely undamaged. On the day of Berlin's surrender on May 2, 1945, Polish soldiers raised the Polish flag on the Victory Column before marching off to Nauen . According to their own statements, they later regretted not having blown up the monument because they were unaware of its significance. The Victory Column was a building that was built before August 1, 1914. This date, the beginning of the First World War , was the deadline that decided on the preservation or removal of “militaristic monuments” according to the Allied Control Council Directive No. 30 of May 1946. Nevertheless, Werner , the SED-dominated magistrate appointed by the Soviet occupying power , decided to demolish the Victory Column by August 1946. It could be delayed until the magistrate, who was democratically elected in October 1946, no longer came back to it. On November 26, 1946, the French occupying forces requested the demolition of the Victory Column in the Allied Command . The British and Americans rejected this , and the Soviet representatives abstained.
Development
In 1945 the reliefs were removed at the request of the French occupying forces . While the German War relief remained in the Spandau Citadel , the other three were initially considered lost. Investigations by the Foreign Office revealed that they were camped in the courtyard of the Musée de l'Armée in Paris. France initially demanded an exchange with the painting Napoleon's Crossing the Alps in order to return it , but the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation rejected this. After President François Mitterrand returned the reliefs during a visit to West Berlin in May 1987 on the occasion of Berlin's 750th anniversary , all four were reinstalled after restoration in the anniversary year of 1987. The reliefs on the south and west sides of the base have only been preserved in fragments.
On January 15, 1991, the left-wing extremist terrorist group Revolutionary Cells carried out an explosive attack on the Victory Column. The partial explosion of an explosive device weighing at least two kilograms on the viewing platform only damaged one of the Viktoria's supports. No people were injured as no one was on the observation deck at the time of the explosion. During the repair work, the viewing platform was closed to visitors for ten months. In the years that followed, the Victory Column was the center of major events such as the Love Parade , Christopher Street Day , demonstrations by citizens and rallies by politicians. In 1984, the gay city magazine Victory Column was named after the monument. On July 24, 2008, as part of the presidential election campaign in the United States, then-candidate Barack Obama gave a speech in front of the Victory Column to an audience of more than 200,000.
The Victory Column was last extensively renovated from March 2010 to May 2011. Among other things, the Victoria and other components were re-gilded with 1.2 kg of gold leaf . In addition, the two pedestrian tunnels and the surrounding gatehouses, the bronze reliefs, the glass mosaic, the gold-plated cannon barrels, the staircase as well as the sandstone column and the Victoria itself were extensively renovated. A new lighting concept shows it at night with an illuminated round hall and reliefs. After the reopening, it has been accessible to visitors again for a fee since May 21, 2011, still only via steps. Since October 2011, bilingual information boards about the history of the monument have been set up at the four gatehouses. The granite panels that closed the relief fields until 1987, as well as an interactive light installation, are installed in the pedestrian tunnels. The Victory Column is one of the most important sights and one of the most famous landmarks in Berlin.
Street of Monuments
Since 2008, the Victory Column has been part of the Street of Monuments , a network of important German monuments and places of remembrance founded on the initiative of the Leipzig City History Museum . The aim of the network is to “connect the places of remembrance as former focal points of the past more closely and to make them more tangible as a whole through joint marketing measures.”
Literature
Reinhard Alings: The Berlin Victory Column . Parthas Verlag, 2000, ISBN 3-932529-71-5 .
Matthias Braun: The Victory Column . Berlin Edition, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-8148-0026-5 .
Alexander Markschies: The Victory Column. Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-7861-2381-0 .
Dieter Vorsteher , Silke Bittkow: Berlin Victory Column. Monuments tell history. Monument Tales, Berlin 2007.
The Großer Stern is the central square of the Großer Tiergarten in the Tiergarten district of Berlin .
History
The square was under Elector Friedrich III. (from 1701 Frederick I , King of Prussia ) created around 1698 by the court hunter Hemmrich as a hunting star . From 1742 onwards, the Großer Stern was expanded into a representative square as part of the redesign of the zoo by Knobelsdorff and from 1833 to 1840 by Peter Joseph Lenné . From the mid-18th to early 19th centuries, a group of sandstone statues of ancient gods, called The Dolls , stood there .
Today's expansion
Today several of the city's major traffic axes meet here:
the Street of June 17th
to the west over Ernst-Reuter-Platz , as Bismarckstrasse or Kaiserdamm to Theodor-Heuss-Platz and further as Heerstrasse
to the east over the Brandenburg Gate at Pariser Platz and the Boulevard Unter den Linden to the Palace Bridge at the Berlin Cathedral
Altonaer Straße to the northwest over Hansaplatz to the Gotzkowsky Bridge
the Spreeweg to the northeast to Bellevue Castle at the Luther Bridge
the Hofjägerallee to the south via Lützowplatz and Nollendorfplatz to Winterfeldtplatz
The Großer Stern is designed as a large, multi-lane spiral roundabout that is used by around 180,000 cars every day.
In the middle of the square stands the Victory Column with the gilded bronze sculpture of Victoria with a laurel wreath called Goldelse by the Berliners . The square got its current appearance in 1938. Its diameter was greatly enlarged and the Victory Column was moved from Königsplatz, today's Republic Square directly in front of the Reichstag building , and increased it - also for reasons of proportion - by a column drum. As part of the widening of the Great Star, the Hubertus Fountain by Cuno von Uechtritz-Steinkirch on the northern edge of the square was demolished in 1938. The Siegesallee, which was relocated to Große Sternallee in May 1938, ran back towards the Victory Column , only now in the direction of the Großer Stern . The monuments of the victors from 1864–1871, which had previously surrounded the Victory Column, were again placed in a semicircle: Bismarck National Monument , Albrecht von Roon and Helmuth Karl Bernhard von Moltke . The inauguration of the ensemble took place on April 20, 1939, Hitler's 50th birthday, when a gigantic military parade also rolled over the Großer Stern.
Tiergarten is a district in the Mitte district of Berlin . It was created during the administrative reform in 2001 by dividing the former Tiergarten district , which also included the Hansaviertel and Moabit . In today's usage, Tiergarten often stands for the Tiergarten district, the former Tiergarten district or the Großer Tiergarten city park . The area of today's district south of the Großer Tiergarten is also called Tiergarten Süd in contrast to the former Tiergarten district .
Geography
The Tiergarten district is bordered in the north by the Spree . In the northwest, north and northeast it borders on the districts of Hansaviertel, Moabit and Mitte , all of which - like Tiergarten - belong to the Mitte district. To the west it borders on the Charlottenburg district in the Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf district , to the south it is connected to the Schöneberg district in the Tempelhof-Schöneberg district , and to the southeast is the Kreuzberg district in the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg district .
A considerable part of the Tiergarten district is occupied by the Großer Tiergarten , Berlin's second largest park after Tempelhofer Feld ; the Kleiner Tiergarten, on the other hand, is located in the Moabit district.
History
Tiergarten district (before 1920)
The areas outside the Berlin customs wall between the Großer Tiergarten and the Spree were incorporated into Berlin in 1861. Since 1884, this area has been officially designated as the new Tiergarten district .The western part originally consisted of the “Schöneberger Wiesen”, on which the Hansaviertel was created in 1877. There was originally a large parade ground on the Spree bend further east . The representative Königsplatz (today's Platz der Republik ) was built there with the Victory Column , the Reichstag building and the Kroll Opera . The noble Alsenviertel with the Swiss Embassy was built on the northern edge of the Spree bend . In 1910 the Tiergarten district had 24,717 inhabitants.
Tiergarten District (1920–2000)
In 1920, the new Tiergarten district was formed from the Berlin districts of Tiergarten, Moabit, Untere Friedrichsvorstadt and Schöneberger Vorstadt . In 1938 the area south of Kurfürstenstrasse was ceded to the Schöneberg district ; At the same time, Martinikenfelde, which had previously belonged to Charlottenburg, was added to Tiergarten.
The developments south of the Spree and north of the Landwehr Canal were almost completely destroyed in the Second World War . In the Alsenviertel, north of the Reichstag building, numerous buildings had already been demolished as part of Hitler's “Germania” plans and many embassies had been relocated to the southern Tiergarten. The Great Hall was originally supposed to be built here. The Second World War put an end to these plans. During the division of Berlin the area lay fallow . After the political change and the federal government's move to Berlin, the former Alsenviertel became part of the new government district and several large-scale new buildings were built for the federal government's institutions. The only surviving building from before the First World War is the Swiss Embassy , which today stands like a memorial in an open area on the edge of the Spreebogenpark , which was created in 2005 .
Severe destruction also occurred in the Tiergartenviertel , a villa colony from the first half of the 19th century, west of Potsdamer Platz . As in the Alsenviertel, several villas had already been demolished before the war to make room for Hitler's new building plans. Numerous Jewish owners had previously been expropriated and expelled from their homes. A few buildings in the district survived the Second World War, such as St. Matthäus Church , some historic embassy buildings and the Bendlerblock , today's Federal Ministry of Defense . Due to the division of Berlin, many of the historic cultural cities were located in the political east of the city, separated from West Berlin . As a result, the Kulturforum was built in the area of the former Tiergartenviertel from 1958 as the new cultural center of the western part of Berlin.
Potsdamer Platz, one of the busiest squares in Europe in the Roaring Twenties with numerous restaurants, hotels and variety shows , was also in ruins after the Second World War and subsequently became a border area in the divided city due to its close proximity to the Berlin Wall . Only after the fall of the Berlin Wall did a planned new development take place in the 1990s, which was intended to continue the old tradition.
The Hansaviertel on the northern edge of the Tiergarten was also severely affected by the Allied air raids and was rebuilt by the most renowned architects as part of the Interbau International Building Exhibition in 1957.
In Moabit and south of the Landwehr Canal, however, large parts of the old buildings were preserved despite severe war damage.
The population of the Tiergarten district was 283,581 in 1925, 110,620 in 1946 and 86,380 in 1987.
Tiergarten district (since 2001)
The Tiergarten district was merged with the neighboring districts of Wedding and Mitte in 2001 to form today's new Mitte district . By decision of the district council , this new district was divided into the districts of Mitte, Wedding, Gesundbrunnen , Moabit, Hansaviertel and Tiergarten.
Berlin is the capital and a state of the Federal Republic of Germany . With around 3.8 million inhabitants, the city is the most populous and, with 892 square kilometers, the largest municipality in Germany and the most populous city in the European Union . The city has the third highest population density in the country. Around 4.8 million people live in the Berlin agglomeration and around 6.3 million in the Berlin-Brandenburg metropolitan region . The city-state consists of twelve districts . In addition to the rivers Spree , Havel and Dahme, there are smaller rivers and numerous lakes and forests in the urban area.
Berlin was first mentioned in documents in the 13th century . The city was the capital of the March of Brandenburg , Prussia and Germany . Over the course of the 19th and early 20th centuries, Berlin developed into the world's third largest city. After the end of the Second World War, the city was subject to four-power status in 1945 ; From 1949 , East Berlin served as the capital of the German Democratic Republic , while West Berlin became part of the Federal Republic . With the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and German reunification in 1990, the two halves of the city grew together again and Berlin regained its role as the pan-German capital. Since 1999, the city has been the seat of the federal government , the Federal President , the German Bundestag , the Bundesrat as well as most federal ministries , numerous federal authorities and embassies .
Berlin is one of the economic centers in Europe. Among the important branches of the city's economy are tourism , the creative and cultural industries , the biotechnology and health industry with medical technology and the pharmaceutical industry , information and communication technology , the construction and real estate industry , the financial industry , trade , and optoelectronics , energy technology , logistics as well as trade fairs and congresses . The city is a European transport hub for road , rail and air transport . Berlin is an international location for innovative company founders and has recorded high growth rates in the number of employed people since 2010 .
Berlin is considered a global city of culture , media and science . The city's universities, research institutions , sporting events and museums enjoy an international reputation. The metropolis holds the UNESCO title of City of Design and is one of the most visited destinations on the continent. Berlin's music, architecture , festivals , top gastronomy , nightlife and urban quality of life are known worldwide.
Built in 1903, this Prairie-style house was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright for his friend, Robert “Robie” M. Lamp, being considered Wright’s first true “Prairie School” building, and his first major departure from his Shingle-style roots towards the more radical and organic designs he would come to be known for. The house still has some overtures to Wright’s earlier work with leaded glass diamond pane casement windows, but features a painted brick exterior rather than wooden shingle cladding, and a low-slope roof enclosed by a parapet, much more common at the time on commercial buildings than residential ones. The house’s original owner, Robert “Robie” M. Lamp, was one year older than Wright, and the two had become friends, evidently following a fight stemming from their differing ethnic backgrounds, in 1879 at the ages of 12 and 13, respectively, with both of them sharing the same birthday in June. Lamp was a realtor, insurance agent, and the Treasurer for the city of Madison, and he enjoyed boating on Lake Mendota, with Wright having designed an earlier lake cottage and boathouse on an island in the lake for Lamp known as “Rocky Roost”, combining several structures into a single building in 1901-1903, with the Shingle-style building being destroyed by a fire sometime in late 1934. The house was the residence of Lamp, and he remained friends with Wright, until he died at the age of 49 in 1916, likely a result of his multiple chronic health conditions that made walking difficult. The house was designed and built with Lamp’s love of boating on the lakes in mind.
The two-story house features a painted brick exterior with brick piers at the corners, “English-style” leaded glass diamond pane casement windows, a low-slope roof enclosed by a parapet with a penthouse addition featuring ribbon windows and a stucco-clad parapet, brick corbeling, a terrace wrapping around the house to the north and west, enclosed by a low brick wall, an enclosed one-story sun porch on the facade facing Lake Mendota, and a fire escape mounted on the facade above the sun porch. The house was built rather rapidly, so the attention to detail on the exterior facade treatment is less evident than in other Wright projects, yet it does still demonstrate several characteristics that came to define his Prairie School style. The interior of the house features a square “open” floor plan without walls between the living room and dining room, which was devised by Walter Burley Griffin, and was a feature reused in many of Wright’s Prairie School houses. The interior also features a triangular-shaped fireplace in the middle of the house, and a staircase located between the dining room and kitchen, leading to four bedrooms and a bathroom arranged around a central hallway. The roof originally was an open terrace with a roof garden and pergola, which afforded sweeping views of the Wisconsin State Capitol, the Downtown Madison Isthmus, Lake Mendota, and Lake Monona, though this was enclosed during the 1960s by a later owner to create additional interior living space, and the views from the house are now blocked by mid-rise development that has been constructed to the house’s west, south, and east, leaving only the view towards Lake Mendota to the north unimpeded. The house sits far back from the street in the middle of the block, surrounded on all sides by other buildings, and is hard to view from most angles, made even more apparent by the construction of large buildings around the periphery of the yard in recent decades. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978, and is one of Wright’s most significant early works in that it shows the transition between his earlier Shingle and Chicago School work to his more abstract Prairie School work. The house today remains a private residence, and sits in an area that has been zoned for denser, taller development, though the house is protected by local historic landmark designation.
before the addition of The Birch Logs in the storage area to the left.
Blogged about here!
remodelista.com/posts/architectural-detail-steel-fireplac...
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.
══════════════════════════════════
NOTE: I've updated the comment below to add material
on an article and a radio interview by Alex Andreou; and
a podcast with Setha Low. (February and March 2015)
══════════════════════════════════
Above: Benches outside the Royal Courts of Justice in The Strand London WC2
Portland stone clad benches where you can sit. But probably not sleep because of the metal dividers.
They are part of the "security measures around the perimeter of the Royal Courts of Justice". The phrase comes from the report by Westminster City Council on 15 October 2012, which approved this and other measures.
"The City’s Barbed Cruelty"
But "Defensive Architecture" isn't only about protecting the public courts.
Alex Andreou wrote a powerful and thoughtful article about the issue, which deserves to be read carefully. Its title is: "The Anti-homeless spikes: Sleeping rough opened my eyes to the city’s barbed cruelty." The Guardian: 18 February 2015. Here's the link to read the article online or download it.
As you might expect from the title, Alex Andreou makes a strong plea against the practice of "designing against" homeless people and its deliberate unkindness.
"... from ubiquitous protrusions on window ledges to bus-shelter seats that pivot forward, from water sprinklers and loud muzak to hard tubular rests, from metal park benches with solid dividers to forests of pointed cement bollards under bridges, urban spaces are aggressively rejecting soft, human bodies."
But, he says, it's not simply against homeless people. Because we are all damaged by this.
"When we make it impossible for the dispossessed to rest their weary bodies at a bus shelter, we also make it impossible for the elderly, for the infirm, for the pregnant woman who has had a dizzy spell. By making the city less accepting of the human frame, we make it less welcoming to all humans. By making our environment more hostile, we become more hostile within it".
§ Alex Andreou "You’ll Never Live Like Common People". New Statesman 6 March 2013.
§ Alex Andreou refers to the historian Ocean Howell. Both were interviewed about defensive architecture in a radio programme on 17 March 2015, on CBC Radio Toronto.
Setha Low: "A Just City and a Vibrant Public Space"
Alex Andreou's Guardian article also references Setha Low of City University New York (CUNY) . Professor Low was interviewed on 21 February 2015 by KCBS Radio San Francisco. Listen to or download a 6 minute podcast here. Here's the final minute.
KCBS interviewer : Are there also some other unintended consequences? For example, benches provided for somebody who's elderly. And maybe really just needs to sit down because they're tired?
Setha Low : I should be very clear. This kind of defensive architecture is anti-human. It's not just anti-homeless. It's anti-everyone; it's anti-elderly; anti-children.
It's really not thinking about trying to build a just city and a vibrant public space.
And that the increasing use of architecture - it was very popular in the seventies - and then it went away. And now it's coming back again.
It has to do with the cleaning-up and the, sort of, sanitising of our public spaces. And their increasing privatisation. And decisions being made of who should be in those public spaces.
These ordinances and changing in rules doesn't just keep away people who are homeless and have no place to go. But also does not provide for youth of colour. And doesn't provide for elderly. Doesn't provide for anyone with disabilities. It has wide ranging impact on the vitality of our public space today.
And doesn't bode well for the future."
_____________
Oranges and Lemons
The building on the left of my photo is the Christopher Wren church of St Clement Danes. Walking past I was disappointed not hear the bells chime the tune of the nursery rhyme "Oranges and Lemons ". Though this is not the only St Clements which claims to be the church mentioned.
_______________________________
§ Website of St Clement Danes Church.
§ The nursery rhyme Oranges and Lemons may refer to this church or to St Clements Eastcheap.
External cladding working its way up the South Central Tower in Southside, Birmingham city centre, August 2023
Gangasagar Mela 2017
The river Ganga (Ganges) which originates in the Gangotri glacier in the snow clad high Himalayas, descends down the mountains, reaches the plains, flows through ancient pilgrimage sites, and drains into the Bay of Bengal. A dip in the ocean, where the Ganga meets the sea is considered to be of great religious significance particularly on the Makara Sankranti day (January 14/15), when the sun makes a transition to Capricorn from Sagittarius. Almost a million of Hindu devotees from all over India gather at Gangasagar for a holy dip and perform rituals and prayer (puja) with a belief that it will cleanse and purify their souls.
Ganga Sagar - pain, bliss and sanctification
The Ganga Sagar Mela continues to throb with life, with the energy of millions of pilgrims. The pilgrimage may be extremely tough, but the pilgrims know that the visit will purify their souls. The visit fulfils their lifelong desire and often one can see tears of joy rolling down their cheeks. That is the magic of religion!
Images of Bengal, India