Completion, Cheung Kong Center II, Harcourt Road. 2024.

Harvest completion is a satisfing feeling, but only for a short while. There is next season planting to get the ground ready for, probably some equipment to be repaired and if you are raising livestock well, they get hungry just like kids. Harvest completion also means the holidays are approaching and that means time with family and friends.

 

An image may be purchased at fineartamerica.com/featured/harvest-completion-ed-peterso...

Almost there! 66905 nears completion.

At the Funeral site

171/365

 

Yeah, I'm taking myself for a little too wise 'n' awesome once more. However, here's a more or less full shot of the current Batcave! Please COMMENT!

St. Basil's Cathedral (Moscow, Russia).

 

The famous St. Basil's Cathedral was commissioned by Ivan the Terrible and built on the edge of Red Square between 1555 and 1561. Legend has it that on completion of the church the Tsar ordered the architect, Postnik Yakovlev, to be blinded to prevent him from ever creating anything to rival its beauty again. The cathedral was built to commemorate Ivan the Terrible's successful military campaign against the Tartar Mongols in 1552 in the besieged city of Kazan. Victory came on the feast day of the Intercession of the Virgin, so the Tsar chose to name his new church the Cathedral of the Intercession of the Virgin on the Moat, after the moat that ran beside the Kremlin. The church was given the nickname "St. Basil's" after the "holy fool" Basil the Blessed (1468-1552), who was hugely popular at that time with the Muscovites masses and even with Ivan the Terrible himself. St. Basil's was built on the site of the earlier Trinity Cathedral, which at one point gave its name to the neighboring square. St. Basil's is a delightful array of swirling colors and redbrick towers. Its design comprises nine individual chapels, each topped with a unique onion dome and each commemorating a victorious assault on the city of Kazan. In 1588 the ninth chapel was erected to house the tomb of the church's namesake, Basil the Blessed. The church's design is based on deep religious symbolism and was meant to be an architectural representation of the New Jerusalem - the Heavenly Kingdom described in the Book of Revelation of St. John the Divine. The eight onion dome-topped towers are positioned around a central, ninth spire, forming an eight-point star. The number eight carries great religious significance; it denotes the day of Christ's Resurrection (the eighth day by the ancient Jewish calendar) and the promised Heavenly Kingdom - the kingdom of the eighth century, which will begin after the second coming of Christ. The eight-point star itself symbolizes the Christian Church as a guiding light to mankind, showing us the way to the Heavenly Jerusalem and it represents the Virgin Mary, depicted in Orthodox iconography with a veil decorated with three eight-pointed stars. The cathedral's star-like plan carries yet more meaning - the star consisting of two superimposed squares, which represent the stability of faith, the four corners of the earth, the four Evangelists and the four equal-sided walls of the Heavenly City. The extravagant and brightly colored domes of the cathedral's exterior mask a much more modestly decorated and somewhat less spectacular interior. Small dimly lit chapels and maze-like corridors fill the inside of the church and the walls are covered with delicate floral designs in subdued pastel colors dating from the 17th century. Visitors can climb up a narrow, wooden spiral staircase, set in one of the walls and discovered only in the 1970s during restoration work, and marvel at the Chapel of the Intercession's priceless iconostasis, dating back to the 16th century. There was so little room inside the church to accommodate worshippers, that on special feast days services were held outside on Red Square where the clergy communicated their sermons to the milling masses from Lobnoye Mesto, using St. Basil's as an outdoor altar. The church has narrowly escaped destruction a number of times during the city's tumultuous history. Legend has it that Napoleon was so impressed with St. Basil's that he wanted to take it back to Paris with him, but lacking to the technology to do so, ordered instead that it be destroyed with the French retreat from the city. The French set up kegs of gunpowder and lit their fuses, but a sudden, miraculous shower helped to extinguish the fuses and prevent the explosion. Early in this century the cathedral almost fell prey to the atheist principles of the Bolshevik regime. In 1918 the communist authorities shot the church's senior priest, Ioann Vostorgov, confiscated its property, melted down its bells and closed the cathedral down. In the 1930s Lazar Kaganovich, a close colleague of Stalin and director of the Red Square reconstruction plan, suggested that St. Basil's be knocked down to create space and ease the movement of public parades and vehicle movement on the square. Thankfully Stalin rejected his proposal as he did a second plan to destroy the cathedral. This time the courage of the architect and devotee of Russian culture, P. Baranovsky, saved the church. When ordered to prepare the cathedral for destruction he refused and threatened to cut his own throat on the steps of the church, then sent a bluntly worded telegram to the leader of the party himself relating the above. For some reason Stalin cancelled the decision to knock the church down and for his efforts Baranovsky was rewarded with five years in jail. An extensive program of renovation is still being carries out on both the exterior and interior of the church, but will not spoil that essential visit to St. Basil's Cathedral, Moscow's moat famous and arguably most beautiful ecclesiastical building. In the small garden outside St. Basil's stands an impressive bronze Statue to Minin and Pozharsky, who rallied Russia's volunteer army during the Time of Troubles and drove out the invading Polish forces. They were an interesting duo - Dmitry Pozharsky was a prince, while Kuzma Minin was a butcher from Nizhny Novgorod. The statue was designed by the artist I. Martos and erected in 1818 as the city's first monumental sculpture. It originally stood in the center of Red Square in front of what is now the GUM Department Store, with Minin symbolically indicating to Pozharsky that the Poles were occupying the Kremlin and calling for its liberation. The Soviet authorities felt that the statue had become an obstacle during parades and after the construction of the Lenin Mausoleum Red Square, its position was considered rather ambiguous and was eventually moved to the garden in front of St. Basil's in 1936.

 

The large unfinished Roman Catholic church in Barcelona, designed by Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí (1852–1926). Gaudí's work on the building is part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The construction of Sagrada Família started In 1882 under architect Francisco de Paula del Villar. In 1883, when Villar resigned, Gaudí took over as chief architect, transforming the project with his architectural and engineering style, combining Gothic and curvilinear Art Nouveau forms. When Gaudí died in 1926, less than a quarter of the project was complete. Work on completions has been ongoing since then.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoni_Gaud%C3%AD

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagrada_Fam%C3%ADlia

 

Between 1984 and 2005, seven works of Gaudí were declared World Heritage Sites by UNESCO: "Works of Antoni Gaudí", ref: 320bis.

whc.unesco.org/en/list/

 

Group Description Window Wedesday (WW):

Great shots of windows and window views

And only six at Wednesday every week

View Large On Black

 

likes and share plz

 

www.facebook.com/pages/Abdullah-Almerbatti-photography/12...

Standing at the Derwent Mouth having completed our journey from Ladybower Reservoir, 55 miles later. Now to find a new adventure that will keep us going!

A folly Pyramid in the grounds of Doddington Hall a grade I listed Elizabethan mansion complete with walled courtyards and a gabled gatehouse. In Doddington, North Kesteven, Lincolnshire.

 

Designed so that it can be seen from the rear of the House, drawing the eye along the symmetry of the Gardens, the completion of the pyramid was coincided with the opening of the Hall’s biennial garden sculpture exhibition. The pyramid is permanent and will be a lasting mark by the Jarvis and Birch family on Doddington Hall’s enduring history.

 

James Birch explains: “In 1595 Robert Smythson, the architect of Doddington Hall, lined up the East Front of the house to face Lincoln Cathedral. The pyramid now lines up with the West Front of the house. It’s a true twenty first century folly, designed by my father-in-law Antony Jarvis. It has been several years in the planning and we are thrilled it is finally ready for everyone to enjoy whether they want to see it from the Gardens, from the top floor Long Gallery windows or up close from the ground via our nature trails.”

 

The pyramid has been built from recycled concrete and is ten metres (33 feet) tall. It has a built-in shelter for walkers, an owl roost and a bat chamber. It was built remarkably quickly in just 11 weeks. The driving force behind the project was Antony Jarvis, who passed the Hall to daughter Claire and her husband James Birch in 2007. A retired architect, Antony Jarvis has a passion for buildings and adds the pyramid to his other projects at Doddington including the Temple of the Winds, built in the memory of his parents. The project was helped by architects Steven Dunn Ltd.

 

Doddington Hall was built between 1593 and 1600 by Robert Smythson for Thomas Tailor, who was the registrar to the Bishop of Lincoln. In the 12th century the manor of Doddington was owned by the Pigot family who sold it to Sir Thomas Burgh in 1450, and eventually to John Savile of Howley Hall in Leeds. In 1593, he sold the manor house to Thomas Tailor who commissioned the present house. It was inherited by his son, and then his granddaughter Elizabeth Anton who married Sir Edward Hussey of Honington in Lincolnshire.

 

Their son Sir Thomas Hussey inherited in 1658. Sir Thomas's three daughters were his co-heiresses when he died in 1706. Mrs Sarah Apreece was the surviving heiress and on her death in 1749, her daughter Rhoda, wife of Captain Francis Blake Delaval of Seaton Delaval Hall in Northumberland, inherited. It then passed to her second son, Sir John Hussey-Delaval, and he had improvements made to the Hall in 1761 by Thomas and William Lumby of Lincoln. John's younger brother Edward inherited in 1808, and his daughter, Mrs Sarah Gunman, who inherited on her father's death in 1814, left the Hall to Lieutenant Colonel George Jarvis in 1829. On his death it passed to his cousin the Rev Robert Eden Cole, and it remains in private ownership today. In the mid 20th century the Hall was restored by Laurence Bond and Francis Johnston.

 

The Hall's contents, including textiles, ceramics, porcelain, furniture and pictures, reflect 400 years of unbroken family occupation. It is surrounded by 6 acres (24,000 m2) of walled and wild gardens with flowering from early spring until autumn.

 

The Hall and Gardens are open to the public, with facilities for private tours and school visits. A temple designed by Anthony Jarvis in 1973 stands in the gardens. Summer concerts and occasional exhibitions are held in the Long Gallery. Other businesses have been developed on the estate such as the sale of Christmas trees, weddings and a farm shop selling local produce.

 

Following completion of requested works on former North Western Road Car Reliance RDB 846, it was taken on an outing with Simon Gill from Bus & Coach Preservation magazine for a feature. The magazine is now out, so here's a photo which I took on the day with the bus pictured up in the hills between Biddulph Moor, Rudyard and Bosley.

The Alexander bodied 'Dp' Reliance was owned in the past by two former customers of ours, but it then fell into the hands of a well known acquirer of buses in whose ownership it steadily degenerated to being practically scrap. In fact, the bus had a few near death experiences before being acquired by its present owner who put up a substantial sum of money for us to re-commission it.

Its first trip out in new ownership was to the well known May Bank Holiday transport event at Llandudno (2025).

Nearing completion is this 1/43 Land Rover Discovery 4 in the livery of Essex Police used at stansted Airport.

Somehow Murphy got the dimensions of the Death Star wrong

Just a few more things to do, skirting boards, pictures on the walls. Also waiting on a chair and rug that I ordered from Etsy

Name: De Vogelhorst

City: Barneveld

Architect(s): DVUA (De Vries Urban Architecture)

Completion: 2010

 

A Christian Primary school for (special) children with small psychological problems. The inside of the building therefore is very calm end easy going. The outside on the other hand is spectacular lighting between two big churches. At the same time it's designed as a gate to a new part of the city. By using green aluminium for the façade the school did get a strong own identity. At the same time the colour is part of the history of this location. Here was growing corn for many years. Corn, green on the outside, yellow on the inside.

text: www.mimoa.eu

 

With thanks to the director of the school for giving me permission to photograph.

website: devogelhorst.nl

This image from April of 2007. Car is in basement of Calderwood building, and almost ready to be installed in "hidden" chamber.

I'm done! I'm done! I don't know if there are many things in my life that I feel more of a sense of accomplishment for than this. It's actually been nearly a week since I finished and I gotta say, I don't really miss it. I still want photography to be habitual for me but it's nice not having the day's photo in the back of the brain at all times. It's nice sometimes going someplace and NOT taking the camera. Or, not walking through the grocery store and trying to think of things that might photograph well.

 

And yet, I am SO GLAD I did it. To mark a full year in photos. I may even do it again sometime, just not this year.

 

Time to get back in to my 100 Strangers Project a bit more.

 

112 in 2012: 13. Achievement

Excerpt from Wikipedia:

 

The Basilica-Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador is the metropolitan cathedral of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. John's, Newfoundland and the mother church and symbol of Roman Catholicism in Newfoundland.

 

The Basilica-Cathedral was the largest building project to its date in Newfoundland history. Construction lasted from the excavation of the ground in May 1839, through the laying of the cornerstone in May 1841, until the completion and consecration on September 9, 1855. At this time, it was the largest church building in North America and remains the second largest in Canada behind Saint Joseph's Oratory in Montreal.

 

Built between 1839–1855, the basilica is located on the highest ridge overlooking the city of St. John's. The church is not oriented on the liturgically correct east-west axis, but faces toward the narrows that form the entrance to St. John's harbour.

 

The Basilica-Cathedral of St. John the Baptist is built in the form of a Latin cross and in the Lombard Romanesque style of a Roman basilica. It was designed for Bishop Michael Anthony Fleming by the German architect Ole Joergen Schmidt, though Fleming also seems to have had plans prepared by the distinguished Irish architect John Philpot Jones of Clonmel, County Tipperary, Ireland, and also consulted with James Murphy, a native of Dublin, Ireland on the final plans for the cathedral. Construction was initially supervised by the Waterford contractor Michael McGrath, but later superintended by stonemason and sculptor James Purcell of Cork, Ireland, who also designed and built a small wooden church, Christchurch, for the community of Quidi Vidi near St. John's.

 

Construction took place under the watchful eye of the Irish-born Bishop Michael Anthony Fleming, the Vicar-Apostolic and first Bishop of Newfoundland and later under the eye of his successor, Bishop John Mullock. The Basilica-Cathedral of St. John the Baptist is unusual among North America's 19th century public buildings in that it was constructed using limestone and granite imported from Galway and Dublin, Ireland, as well as 400,000 bricks from Hamburg, as well as local sandstone quarried from St. John's and Kelly's Island in Conception Bay, giving the Cathedral its characteristic grey colour. During its centenary celebration in 1955, Pope Pius XII raised the cathedral to the rank of minor Basilica.

 

The St. John's Basilica-Cathedral was contemporary with and part of the great boom in church construction which surrounded the era of Daniel O'Connell and Catholic emancipation in Ireland and Newfoundland. For its day, the St. John's Basilica was the largest Irish cathedral anywhere outside Ireland. No other Irish building in North America can boast of such intimate influences from or upon Ireland, and no other building had such an international reputation in its day.

 

The Basilica was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1983, to recognize its architectural uniqueness as one of the earliest North American examples of the Romanesque revival style, and its central role as the spiritual and cultural home of Newfoundland Roman Catholics. The building has also been designated as a Registered Heritage Structure and Provincial Historic Site by the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador.

 

Architectural features

 

The Basilica is built in the Lombard Romanesque style, based on visual features typically associated with the churches of northern Italy.

The Basilica is built of grey limestone and white granite quarried in Galway and Dublin, Ireland and grey sandstone from St. John's and Kelly's Island, Conception Bay, Newfoundland. The exterior is 260 ft (85 m) long and 220 ft (65 m) wide; the two towers rise 150 ft (48 m) from street level. The total capacity of the Basilica is around 2,500 people, though during the visit of Pope John Paul II in September 1984, 3600 educators gathered in the Basilica-Cathedral to greet the Roman Pontiff.

The Altar of Sacrifice, which stands at the front of the Sanctuary, enshrines one of the most revered and valuable pieces of statuary in the Basilica, the The Dead Christ", sculpted in Carrara marble by renowned Irish sculptor John Hogan in 1854. Bishop Fleming left funds and directions in his last will and testament that a "Dead Christ by Hogan" be purchased for the Cathedral, and Bishop Mullock commissioned the statue and had it placed beneath the table of the High Altar on March 19, 1855. The statue is Hogan's greatest masterpiece and is the final of three similar statues created by Hogan in the early 19th century and the only one presently located outside Ireland. The Basilica also features works by Ireland's most eminent expatriate sculptor, John Edward Carew, whose bas-relief The Death of Nelson may be seen on the plinth at the base of Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square, London.

The Altar of St. Patrick and Altar of St. Brigid, located in the west and east ambulatorys, respectively, are constructed from the same Egyptian travertine that was used by Pope Gregory XVI, to decorate the high altar of the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls in Rome. A small quantity of this stone remained in Rome and, of this, two portions were offered by the Pope to Bishop Mullock, who subsequently brought the stone to St. John's in 1856 to complete the interior of the Basilica.

The East Tower contains nine bells including the largest bell, the St. John Bell, currently in the possession of the Basilica. This two-ton bell was purchased by Bishop Mullock in February, 1850. Struck by James Murphy of Dublin, it was the largest ever cast in Ireland at that time, and won a Gold Medal at the Dublin Exhibition of Irish Manufacturers.

There are eight bells in the West Tower. The three largest bells were cast by James Murphy in 1854 and 1857. The five smaller bells were cast in 1906 by Matthew O'Byrne of the Fountain Head Bell Foundry in Dublin, Ireland.

The Basilica contains twenty-eight beautiful stained glass windows which adorn the upper walls and are of Irish, English and French workmanship. All the windows were the gifts of religious societies, such as the Benevolent Irish Society and mainly date back to the 1850s and 1870s.

In 1955 a great pipe organ from the world-renowned Casavant Frères firm of St-Hyacinthe, Québec was installed as a memorial to the parishioners who died in World War I and World War II. The 66 stop organ with 4,050 pipes is the largest instrument in Newfoundland, and is one of the largest pipe organs east of Montreal.

When completed in 1855, the Basilica of St. John The Baptist was the largest church building in all of North America.

The Basilica is one of the few buildings in St. John's to survive The Great Fire of 1892.

Shortly after their completion, these ships were transferred to Port Arthur on the Pacific Ocean. The Russians had recently “rented” this harbour to the Chinese but Japan considered their presence there a threat (more info about this “mess” on my Youtube documentaries about the First Sino Japanese War).

www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlJXvg2rFqA&t=40s

 

When the Russo-Japanese War started in 1904, the three Petropavlovsks were the core of the Russian Battleship Fleet and they were widely used in combat. The name ship, Petropavlovsk sunk after striking a Japanese mine on 13 of April, 1904, taking with it the Commander of the Russian Pacific Fleet (Admiral Makarov) and almost 700 men of its crew.

Sevastopol also hit a mine shortly after, but survived and returned to port.

 

The two surviving ships fought against the Japanese Combined Fleet during the inconclusive Battle of the Yellow Sea and were forced to return to the Port Arthur, were Poltava was destroyed by the massive 280mm Siege guns that the Imperial Japanese Army deployed there.

 

Sevastopol was moved to a position out of range of those guns but was frequently attacked by Japanese Torpedo-boats for weeks. When Port Arthur surrendered to the Japanese, the crew of the Sevastopol scuttled the ship in deep waters.

Poltava was repaired by the Japanese and renamed Tango, serving with the IJN until 1916 when it was sold back to Russia and renamed “Chesma”. It was destroyed by the British at Murmansk in 1919 during the Russian Revolution.

 

To know more about the LEGO model, click here for the next photo:

www.flickr.com/photos/einon/50954236142

 

Eínon

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_building

  

The Reichstag building (German: Reichstagsgebäude; officially: Plenarbereich Reichstagsgebäude) is a historical edifice in Berlin, Germany, constructed to house the Imperial Diet (German: Reichstag), of the German Empire. It was opened in 1894 and housed the Diet until 1933, when it was severely damaged in a fire. After World War II, the building fell into disuse; the parliament of the German Democratic Republic (the Volkskammer) met in the Palast der Republik in East Berlin, while the parliament of the Federal Republic of Germany (the Bundestag) met in the Bundeshaus in Bonn.

 

The ruined building was made safe against the elements and partially refurbished in the 1960s, but no attempt at full restoration was made until after German reunification on 3 October 1990, when it underwent a reconstruction led by architect Norman Foster. After its completion in 1999, it once again became the meeting place of the German parliament: the modern Bundestag.

 

The term Reichstag, when used to connote a diet, dates back to the Holy Roman Empire. The building was built for the Diet of the German Empire, which was succeeded by the Reichstag of the Weimar Republic. The latter would become the Reichstag of Nazi Germany, which left the building (and ceased to act as a parliament) after the 1933 fire and never returned; the term Reichstag has not been used by German parliaments since World War II. In today's usage, the German word Reichstag (Imperial Diet Building) refers mainly to the building, while Bundestag (Federal Diet) refers to the institution.

  

History of the building

  

Construction of the building began well after the unification of Germany in 1871. Previously, the parliament had assembled in several other buildings in Leipziger Straße in Berlin but these were generally considered too small, so in 1872 an architectural contest with 103 participating architects was carried out to erect a new building. After a short survey of possible sites, a parliamentary committee recommended the east side of the Königsplatz (today, Platz der Republik), which however was occupied by the palace of a Polish-Prussian aristocrat, Athanasius Raczyński.

 

Work did not start until ten years later though, owing to various problems with purchasing the property and arguments between Wilhelm I, Otto von Bismarck, and the members of the Reichstag about how the construction should be performed. After lengthy negotiations, the Raczyński Palace was purchased and demolished, making way for the new building.

 

In 1882, another architectural contest was held, with 200 architects participating. This time the winner, the Frankfurt architect Paul Wallot, would actually see his Neo-Baroque project executed. The direct model for Wallot's design was Philadelphia's Memorial Hall, the main building of the 1876 United States Centennial Exhibition.[1] The Reichstag's decorative sculptures, reliefs, and inscriptions were by sculptor Otto Lessing. On 29 June 1884, the foundation stone was finally laid by Wilhelm I, at the east side of the Königsplatz. Before construction was completed by Philipp Holzmann A.G. in 1894,[2] Wilhelm I died (in 1888, the Year of Three Emperors). His eventual successor, Wilhelm II, took a more jaundiced view of parliamentary democracy than his grandfather. The original building was acclaimed for the construction of an original cupola of steel and glass, considered an engineering feat at the time. But its mixture of architectural styles drew widespread criticism.[3]

 

In 1916 the iconic words Dem Deutschen Volke ("[To] the German people") were carved above the main façade of the building, much to the displeasure of Wilhelm II who had tried to block the adding of the inscription for its democratic significance. After World War I had ended and Wilhelm had abdicated, during the revolutionary days of 1918, Philipp Scheidemann proclaimed the institution of a republic from one of the balconies of the Reichstag building on 9 November. The building continued to be the seat of the parliament of the Weimar Republic (1919–1933), which was still called the Reichstag.

  

Third Reich

  

The building caught fire on 27 February 1933, under circumstances still not entirely known (see Reichstag fire). This gave a pretext for the Nazis to suspend most rights provided for by the 1919 Weimar Constitution in the Reichstag Fire Decree in an effort to weed out communists and increase state security throughout Germany.

 

During the 12 years of National Socialist rule, the Reichstag building was not used for parliamentary sessions. Instead, the few times that the Reichstag convened at all, it did so in the Krolloper building, a former opera house opposite the Reichstag building. This applies particularly to the session of 23 March 1933, in which the Reichstag disposed of its powers in favour of the Nazi government in the Enabling Act, another step in the so-called Gleichschaltung ("coordination"). The main meeting hall of the building (which was unusable after the fire) was instead used for propaganda presentations and, during World War II, for military purposes. It was also considered for conversion to a flak tower but was found to be structurally unsuitable.

 

The building, having never been fully repaired since the fire, was further damaged by air raids. During the Battle of Berlin in 1945, it became one of the central targets for the Red Army to capture due to its perceived symbolic significance. Today, visitors to the building can still see Soviet graffiti on smoky walls inside as well as on part of the roof, which was preserved during the reconstructions after reunification.

 

Yevgeny Khaldei took the famous picture, Raising a flag over the Reichstag, on 2 May 1945. The picture symbolizes the victory of USSR over nazism.

  

Cold War

  

When the Cold War emerged, the building was physically within West Berlin, but only a few metres from the border of East Berlin, which ran around the back of the building and in 1961 was closed by the Berlin Wall. During the Berlin blockade, an enormous number of West Berliners assembled before the building on 9 September 1948, and Mayor Ernst Reuter held a famous speech that ended with "Ihr Völker der Welt, schaut auf diese Stadt!" ("You peoples of the world, look upon this city!")

 

After the war, the building was essentially a ruin. In addition, there was no real use for it, since the seat of government of West Germany had been established in Bonn in 1949. Still, in 1956, after some debate, it was decided that the Reichstag should not be torn down, but be restored instead. However, the cupola of the original building, which had also been heavily damaged in the war, was demolished. Another architectural contest was held, and the winner, Paul Baumgarten, reconstructed the building from 1961–1964, but utterly removing all sumptuous heraldic statues, monuments, decorations and the like that harked back to the mythology of the German past from the inside, but also the largest ones on the outside of the building. In effect, he created a plain building inside the historic Reichstag, retaining only the outer walls stripped of most of their statues and decoration.

 

The artistic and practical value of his work was the subject of much debate after German reunification. Under the provisions set forth for Berlin by the Allies in the 1971 Four Power Agreement on Berlin, the Bundestag, the parliament of West Germany of that time, was not allowed to assemble formally in West Berlin (even though East Germany was in violation of this provision since it had declared East Berlin its capital). Until 1990, the building was thus used only for occasional representative meetings, and one-off events. It was also used for a widely lauded permanent exhibition about German history called Fragen an die deutsche Geschichte (Questions about German history).

  

Reunification

  

The official German reunification ceremony on 3 October 1990, was held at the Reichstag building, including Chancellor Helmut Kohl, President Richard von Weizsäcker, former Chancellor Willy Brandt and many others. The event included huge firework displays[citation needed]. One day later, the parliament of the united Germany would assemble in an act of symbolism in the Reichstag building.

 

However, at that time, the role of Berlin had not yet been decided upon. Only after a fierce debate, considered by many as one of the most memorable sessions of parliament, did the Bundestag conclude, on 20 June 1991, with quite a slim majority in favour of both government and parliament returning to Berlin from Bonn.

 

In 1992, Norman Foster won yet another architectural contest for the reconstruction of the building. His winning concept looked very different from what was later executed. Notably, the original design did not include a cupola.

 

Before reconstruction began, the Reichstag was wrapped by the Bulgarian-American artist Christo and his wife Jeanne-Claude in 1995, attracting millions of visitors.[4] The project was financed by the artists through the sale of preparatory drawings and collages, as well as early works of the 1950s and 1960s.

 

During the reconstruction, the building was first almost completely gutted, taking out everything except the outer walls, including all changes made by Baumgarten in the 1960s. Respect for the historic aspects of the building was one of the conditions stipulated to the architects, so traces of historical events were to be retained in a visible state. Among them were graffiti left by Soviet soldiers after the final battle for Berlin in April–May 1945. Written in Cyrillic script, they include such slogans as "Hitler kaputt" and names of individual soldiers. However, graffiti with racist or sexist themes were removed, in agreement with Russian diplomats at the time.

 

The reconstruction was completed in 1999, with the Bundestag convening there officially for the first time on 19 April of that year.[5] The Reichstag is now the second most visited attraction in Germany, not least because of the huge glass dome that was erected on the roof as a gesture to the original 1894 cupola, giving an impressive view over the city, especially at night.

  

Dome

  

The large glass dome at the very top of the Reichstag has a 360-degree view of the surrounding Berlin cityscape. The main hall of the parliament below can also be seen from inside the dome, and natural light from above radiates down to the parliament floor. A large sun shield tracks the movement of the sun electronically and blocks direct sunlight which would not only cause large solar gain, but dazzle those below. Construction work was finished in 1999 and the seat of parliament was transferred to the Bundestag in April of that year. The dome is open to visitors by prior registration.[

   

After its completion in the early 16th century, Seville Cathedral supplanted Hagia Sophia as the largest cathedral in the world, a title the Byzantine church had held for nearly a thousand years. It is the third-largest church in the world as well as the largest Gothic church. Since the world's two largest churches, the Basilica of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Aparecida and St. Peter's Basilica, are not the seats of bishops Seville Cathedral is still the largest cathedral in the world.

 

Seville Cathedral was the site of the baptism of Infante Juan of Aragon in 1478, only son of the Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile. Its royal chapel holds the remains of the city's conqueror Ferdinand III of Castile, his son and heir Alfonso the Wise and their descendant king Pedro el Cruel. The funerary monuments for cardinals Juan de Cervantes and Pedro González de Mendoza Quiñones are located among its chapels. Christopher Columbus and his son Diego are also buried in the cathedral.

 

The Cathedral of Saint Mary of the See was registered in 1987 by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, along with the adjoining Alcázar palace complex and the General Archive of the Indies. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seville_Cathedral

37 students cross the stage in the Celebration of Completion as they receive their degrees' from Baldwin Wallace University in the John Patrick Theatre at the Kleist Center for Art & Drama. Winter graduation ceremony.

Abandoned in 1962 with the completion of the Crookton Line Change, this 400 foot curved bore is part of the original A&P alignment somewhere circa 1882-ish. In 1897, the ATSF acquired the A&P assets and operated the route under the ATSF subsidiary Santa Fe Pacific railroad. A year later tragedy struck the route when wooden timbers supporting the tunnel caught fire - at least two men perished fighting the blaze. This prompted a reconstruction of the tunnel incorporating steel boilerplate replacing the original wooden shoring in the ceiling. During WWII the tunnel was considered of such military importance that guards were posted to prevent sabotage, and two wooden guard shacks were added at each portal. In 1943, Jack Delano photographed some of the wartime action here as requested by the Office of War Information.

 

More information can be found in David Myricks "Railroads of Arizona" Vol. 4.

  

Ever since SSR started running their 5:52am paths out of Kensington to Murchison East via Essendon back in 2017 and 2018, I hoped one day there would be a path late enough to do this spot in daylight. Only took around 8 years, but here we are!

 

On SSR's first ever mid-morning path via Essendon to Murchison East, A70 & N455 catch one final glimpse of the Melbourne skyline as they power over the Devon Road level crossing in Oak Park with empty grain train 9395. 25/3/25

The libretto of Tannhäuser combines mythological elements characteristic of German Romantische Oper (Romantic opera) and the medieval setting typical of many French Grand Operas. Wagner brings these two together by constructing a plot involving the 14th-century Minnesingers and the myth of Venus and her subterranean realm of Venusberg. Both the historical and the mythological are united in Tannhäuser's personality; although he is a historical poet composer, little is known about him other than myths that surround him.

 

Wagner wove a variety of sources into the opera narrative. According to his autobiography, he was inspired by finding the story in "a Volksbuch (popular book) about the Venusberg", which he claimed "fell into his hands", although he admits knowing of the story from the Phantasus of Ludwig Tieck and E. T. A. Hoffmann's story, Der Kampf der Sänger (The Singers' Contest). Tieck's tale, which names the hero "Tannenhäuser", tells of the minnesinger-knight's amorous adventures in the Venusberg, his travels to Rome as a Pilgrim, and his repudiation by the pope. To this Wagner added material from Hoffmann's story, from Serapions-Brüder (1819), describing a song contest at the Wartburg castle,[1] a castle which featured prominently in Thuringian history. Heinrich Heine had provided Wagner with the inspiration for Der fliegende Holländer and Wagner again drew on Heine for Tannhäuser. In Heine's sardonic essay Elementargeister (Elemental spirits), there appears a poem about Tannhäuser and the lure of the grotto of Venus, published in 1837 in the third volume of Der Salon.[1] Other possible sources include Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué's play Der Sängerkrieg auf der Wartburg and Eichendorff's Das Marmorbild (The Marble Statue, 1819).[1][2]

 

The legend of Tannhäuser, the amorous crusading Franconian knight, and that of the song contest on the Wartburg (which did not involve Tannhäuser, but the semi-mythical minnesinger Heinrich von Ofterdingen), came from quite separate traditions. Ludwig Bechstein wove together the two legends in the first volume of his collection of Thuringian legends, Der Sagenschatz und die Sagenkreise des Thüringerlandes (A treasury of the tales of Thuringian legends and legend cycles, 1835), which was probably the Volksbuch to which Wagner refers to in his autobiography.[3][1] Wagner also knew of the work of another contemporary, Christian Theodor Ludwig Lucas, whose Über den Krieg von Wartburg of 1838 also conflated the two legends.[4][5] This confusion (which explains why Tannhäuser is referred to as 'Heinrich' in the opera) does not fit with the historical timeline of the events in the opera, since the Singers' Contest involving von Ofterdingen is said to have taken place around 1207, while Tannhäuser's poetry appeared much later (1245–1265). The sources used by Wagner therefore reflected a nineteenth century romantic view of the medieval period, with concerns about artistic freedom and the constraints of organised religion typical of the period of Romanticism.[6]

 

During Wagner's first stay in Paris (1839–1842) he read a paper by Ludwig Lucas on the Sängerkrieg which sparked his imagination, and encouraged him to return to Germany, which he reached on 7 April 1842.[7] Having crossed the Rhine, the Wagners drove towards Thuringia, and saw the early rays of sun striking the Wartburg; Wagner immediately began to sketch the scenery that would become the stage sets.[8] Wagner wrote the prose draft of Tannhäuser between June and July 1842 and the libretto in April 1843.[9]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tannhäuser_(opera)

Neuschwanstein Castle (German: Schloss Neuschwanstein, pronounced [ˈʃlɔs nɔʏˈʃvaːnʃtaɪn], Southern Bavarian: Schloss Neischwanstoa) is a 19th-century Romanesque Revival palace on a rugged hill above the village of Hohenschwangau near Füssen in southwest Bavaria, Germany. The palace was commissioned by King Ludwig II of Bavaria as a retreat and in honour of Richard Wagner. Ludwig paid for the palace out of his personal fortune and by means of extensive borrowing, rather than Bavarian public funds.

 

The castle was intended as a home for the King, until he died in 1886. It was open to the public shortly after his death.[1] Since then more than 61 million people have visited Neuschwanstein Castle.[2] More than 1.3 million people visit annually, with as many as 6,000 per day in the summer.[3]

  

Contents

1Location

2History

2.1Inspiration and design

2.2Construction

2.3Funding

2.4Simplified completion

2.5World War II

3Architecture

3.1Exterior

3.2Interior

4Tourism

5In culture, art, and science

5.1World Heritage candidature

6Panoramas

7Notes

8Citations

9General sources

10External links

Location[edit]

 

A northward view of Neuschwanstein Castle from Mount Säuling (2,047 m or 6,716 ft) on the border between Bavaria and Tyrol: Schwangau between large Forggensee reservoir (1952) and Hohenschwangau and Neuschwanstein palaces

The municipality of Schwangau lies at an elevation of 800 m (2,620 ft) at the southwest border of the German state of Bavaria. Its surroundings are characterised by the transition between the Alpine foothills in the south (toward the nearby Austrian border) and a hilly landscape in the north that appears flat by comparison.

 

In the Middle Ages, three castles overlooked the villages. One was called Schwanstein Castle.[nb 1] In 1832, Ludwig's father King Maximilian II of Bavaria bought its ruins to replace them with the comfortable neo-Gothic palace known as Hohenschwangau Castle. Finished in 1837, the palace became his family's summer residence, and his elder son Ludwig (born 1845) spent a large part of his childhood here.[4]

 

Vorderhohenschwangau Castle and Hinterhohenschwangau Castle[nb 2] sat on a rugged hill overlooking Schwanstein Castle, two nearby lakes (Alpsee and Schwansee), and the village. Separated by only a moat, they jointly consisted of a hall, a keep, and a fortified tower house.[5] In the nineteenth century only ruins remained of the twin medieval castles, but those of Hinterhohenschwangau served as a lookout place known as Sylphenturm.[6]

 

The ruins above the family palace were known to the crown prince from his excursions. He first sketched one of them in his diary in 1859.[7] When the young king came to power in 1864, the construction of a new palace in place of the two ruined castles became the first in his series of palace building projects.[8] Ludwig called the new palace New Hohenschwangau Castle; only after his death was it renamed Neuschwanstein.[9] The confusing result is that Hohenschwangau and Schwanstein have effectively swapped names: Hohenschwangau Castle replaced the ruins of Schwanstein Castle, and Neuschwanstein Castle replaced the ruins of the two Hohenschwangau Castles.

 

History[edit]

Inspiration and design[edit]

Neuschwanstein embodies both the contemporaneous architectural fashion known as castle romanticism (German: Burgenromantik), and King Ludwig II's enthusiasm for the operas of Richard Wagner.

 

In the 19th century, many castles were constructed or reconstructed, often with significant changes to make them more picturesque. Palace-building projects similar to Neuschwanstein had been undertaken earlier in several of the German states and included Hohenschwangau Castle, Lichtenstein Castle, Hohenzollern Castle, and numerous buildings on the River Rhine such as Stolzenfels Castle.[10] The inspiration for the construction of Neuschwanstein came from two journeys in 1867—one in May to the reconstructed Wartburg near Eisenach,[11] another in July to the Château de Pierrefonds, which Eugène Viollet-le-Duc was transforming from a ruined castle into a historistic palace.[12][nb 3]

  

Neuschwanstein project drawing (Christian Jank 1869)

The King saw both buildings as representatives of a romantic interpretation of the Middle Ages, as well as the musical mythology of his friend Wagner, whose operas Tannhäuser and Lohengrin had made a lasting impression on him.[13]

 

In February 1868, Ludwig's grandfather King Ludwig I died, freeing the considerable sums that were previously spent on the abdicated King's appanage.[8][nb 4] This allowed Ludwig II to start the architectural project of building a private refuge in the familiar landscape far from the capital Munich, so that he could live out his idea of the Middle Ages.

 

It is my intention to rebuild the old castle ruin of Hohenschwangau near the Pöllat Gorge in the authentic style of the old German knights' castles, and I must confess to you that I am looking forward very much to living there one day [...]; you know the revered guest I would like to accommodate there; the location is one of the most beautiful to be found, holy and unapproachable, a worthy temple for the divine friend who has brought salvation and true blessing to the world. It will also remind you of "Tannhäuser" (Singers' Hall with a view of the castle in the background), "Lohengrin'" (castle courtyard, open corridor, path to the chapel) ...

 

— Ludwig II, Letter to Richard Wagner, May 1868[14]

The building design was drafted by the stage designer Christian Jank and realised by the architect Eduard Riedel.[15] For technical reasons, the ruined castles could not be integrated into the plan. Initial ideas for the palace drew stylistically on Nuremberg Castle and envisaged a simple building in place of the old Vorderhohenschwangau Castle, but they were rejected and replaced by increasingly extensive drafts, culminating in a bigger palace modelled on the Wartburg.[16] The king insisted on a detailed plan and on personal approval of each and every draft.[17] Ludwig's control went so far that the palace has been regarded as his own creation, rather than that of the architects involved.[18]

 

Whereas contemporary architecture critics derided Neuschwanstein, one of the last big palace building projects of the nineteenth century, as kitsch, Neuschwanstein and Ludwig II's other buildings are now counted among the major works of European historicism.[19][20] For financial reasons, a project similar to Neuschwanstein – Falkenstein Castle – never left the planning stages.[21]

 

The palace can be regarded as typical for nineteenth-century architecture. The shapes of Romanesque (simple geometric figures such as cuboids and semicircular arches), Gothic (upward-pointing lines, slim towers, delicate embellishments) and Byzantine architecture and art (the Throne Hall décor) were mingled in an eclectic fashion and supplemented with 19th-century technical achievements. The Patrona Bavariae and Saint George on the court face of the Palas (main building) are depicted in the local Lüftlmalerei style, a fresco technique typical for Allgäu farmers' houses, while the unimplemented drafts for the Knights' House gallery foreshadow elements of Art Nouveau.[22] Characteristic of Neuschwanstein's design are theatre themes: Christian Jank drew on coulisse drafts from his time as a scenic painter.[23]

 

The basic style was originally planned to be neo-Gothic but the palace was primarily built in Romanesque style in the end. The operatic themes moved gradually from Tannhäuser and Lohengrin to Parsifal.[24]

 

Construction[edit]

 

Neuschwanstein under construction: Bower still missing, Rectangular Tower under construction (photograph c. 1882–85)

 

Neuschwanstein under construction: upper courtyard (photograph c. 1886)

In 1868, the ruins of the medieval twin castles were completely demolished; the remains of the old keep were blown up.[25] The foundation stone for the palace was laid on 5 September 1869; in 1872 its cellar was completed and in 1876, everything up to the first floor, the gatehouse being finished first. At the end of 1882 it was completed and fully furnished, allowing Ludwig to take provisional lodgings there and observe the ongoing construction work.[24] In 1874, management of the civil works passed from Eduard Riedel to Georg von Dollmann.[26] The topping out ceremony for the Palas was in 1880, and in 1884, the King was able to move in to the new building. In the same year, the direction of the project passed to Julius Hofmann, after Dollmann had fallen from the King's favour.

 

The palace was erected as a conventional brick construction and later encased in various types of rock. The white limestone used for the fronts came from a nearby quarry.[27]

 

The sandstone bricks for the portals and bay windows came from Schlaitdorf in Württemberg. Marble from Untersberg near Salzburg was used for the windows, the arch ribs, the columns and the capitals. The Throne Hall was a later addition to the plans and required a steel framework.

 

The transport of building materials was facilitated by scaffolding and a steam crane that lifted the material to the construction site. Another crane was used at the construction site. The recently founded Dampfkessel-Revisionsverein (Steam Boiler Inspection Association) regularly inspected both boilers.

 

For about two decades the construction site was the principal employer in the region.[28] In 1880, about 200 craftsmen were occupied at the site,[29] not counting suppliers and other persons indirectly involved in the construction. At times when the King insisted on particularly close deadlines and urgent changes, reportedly up to 300 workers per day were active, sometimes working at night by the light of oil lamps. Statistics from the years 1879/1880 support an immense amount of building materials: 465 tonnes (513 short tons) of Salzburg marble, 1,550 t (1,710 short tons) of sandstone, 400,000 bricks and 2,050 cubic metres (2,680 cu yd) of wood for the scaffolding.

 

In 1870, a society was founded for insuring the workers, for a low monthly fee, augmented by the King. The heirs of construction casualties (30 cases are mentioned in the statistics) received a small pension.

 

In 1884, the King was able to move into the (still unfinished) Palas,[30] and in 1885, he invited his mother Marie to Neuschwanstein on the occasion of her 60th birthday.[nb 5] By 1886, the external structure of the Palas (hall) was mostly finished.[30] In the same year, Ludwig had the first, wooden Marienbrücke over the Pöllat Gorge replaced by a steel construction.

 

Despite its size, Neuschwanstein did not have space for the royal court, but contained only the King's private lodging and servants' rooms. The court buildings served decorative, rather than residential purposes:[9] The palace was intended to serve King Ludwig II as a kind of inhabitable theatrical setting.[30] As a temple of friendship it was also dedicated to the life and work of Richard Wagner, who died in 1883 before he had set foot in the building.[31] In the end, Ludwig II lived in the palace for a total of only 172 days.[32]

 

Funding[edit]

 

Neuschwanstein in 1886

The King's wishes and demands expanded during the construction of Neuschwanstein, and so did the expenses. Drafts and estimated costs were revised repeatedly.[33] Initially a modest study was planned instead of the great throne hall, and projected guest rooms were struck from the drafts to make place for a Moorish Hall, which could not be realised due to lack of resources. Completion was originally projected for 1872, but deferred repeatedly.[33]

 

Neuschwanstein, the symbolic medieval knight's castle, was not King Ludwig II's only huge construction project. It was followed by the rococo style Lustschloss of Linderhof Palace and the baroque palace of Herrenchiemsee, a monument to the era of absolutism.[8] Linderhof, the smallest of the projects, was finished in 1886, and the other two remain incomplete. All three projects together drained his resources. The King paid for his construction projects by private means and from his civil list income. Contrary to frequent claims, the Bavarian treasury was not directly burdened by his buildings.[30][34] From 1871, Ludwig had an additional secret income in return for a political favour given to Otto von Bismarck.[nb 6]

 

The construction costs of Neuschwanstein in the King's lifetime amounted to 6.2 million marks (equivalent to 40 million 2009 €),[35] almost twice the initial cost estimate of 3.2 million marks.[34] As his private means were insufficient for his increasingly escalating construction projects, the King continuously opened new lines of credit.[36] In 1876, a court counselor was replaced after pointing out the danger of insolvency.[37] By 1883 he already owed 7 million marks,[38] and in spring 1884 and August 1885 debt conversions of 7.5 million marks and 6.5 million marks, respectively, became necessary.[36]

 

Even after his debts had reached 14 million marks, King Ludwig II insisted on continuation of his architectural projects; he threatened suicide if his creditors seized his palaces.[37] In early 1886, Ludwig asked his cabinet for a credit of 6 million marks, which was denied. In April, he followed Bismarck's advice to apply for the money to his parliament. In June the Bavarian government decided to depose the King, who was living at Neuschwanstein at the time. On 9 June he was incapacitated, and on 10 June he had the deposition commission arrested in the gatehouse.[39] In expectation of the commission, he alerted the gendarmerie and fire brigades of surrounding places for his protection.[36] A second commission headed by Bernhard von Gudden arrived on the next day, and the King was forced to leave the palace that night. Ludwig was put under the supervision of von Gudden. On 13 June, both died under mysterious circumstances in the shallow shore water of Lake Starnberg near Berg Castle.

 

Simplified completion[edit]

 

Neuschwanstein front façade and surroundings (photochrom print, c. 1900)

 

A 1901 postcard of Berg Castle

At the time of King Ludwig's death the palace was far from complete. He slept only 11 nights in the castle. The external structures of the Gatehouse and the Palas were mostly finished but the Rectangular Tower was still scaffolded. Work on the Bower had not started, but was completed in a simplified form by 1892 without the planned figures of the female saints. The Knights' House was also simplified. In King Ludwig's plans the columns in the Knights' House gallery were held as tree trunks and the capitals as the corresponding crowns. Only the foundations existed for the core piece of the palace complex: a keep of 90 metres (300 ft) height planned in the upper courtyard, resting on a three-nave chapel. This was not realised,[17] and a connection wing between the Gatehouse and the Bower saw the same fate.[40] Plans for a castle garden with terraces and a fountain west of the Palas were also abandoned after the King's death.

 

The interior of the royal living space in the palace was mostly completed in 1886; the lobbies and corridors were painted in a simpler style by 1888.[41] The Moorish Hall desired by the King (and planned below the Throne Hall) was not realised any more than the so-called Knights' Bath, which, modelled after the Knights' Bath in the Wartburg, was intended to render homage to the knights' cult as a medieval baptism bath. A Bride Chamber in the Bower (after a location in Lohengrin),[23] guest rooms in the first and second floor of the Palas and a great banquet hall were further abandoned projects.[33] In fact, a complete development of Neuschwanstein had never even been planned, and at the time of the King's death there was not a utilisation concept for numerous rooms.[29]

 

Neuschwanstein was still incomplete when Ludwig II died in 1886. The King never intended to make the palace accessible to the public.[30] No more than six weeks after the King's death, however, the Prince-Regent Luitpold ordered the palace opened to paying visitors. The administrators of King Ludwig's estate managed to balance the construction debts by 1899.[42] From then until World War I, Neuschwanstein was a stable and lucrative source of revenue for the House of Wittelsbach, indeed King Ludwig's castles were probably the single largest income source earned by the Bavarian royal family in the last years prior to 1914. To guarantee a smooth course of visits, some rooms and the court buildings were finished first. Initially the visitors were allowed to move freely in the palace, causing the furniture to wear quickly.

 

When Bavaria became a republic in 1918, the government socialised the civil list. The resulting dispute with the House of Wittelsbach led to a split in 1923: King Ludwig's palaces including Neuschwanstein fell to the state and are now managed by the Bavarian Palace Department, a division of the Bavarian finance ministry. Nearby Hohenschwangau Castle fell to the Wittelsbacher Ausgleichsfonds, whose revenues go to the House of Wittelsbach.[43] The visitor numbers continued to rise, reaching 200,000 in 1939.[43]

 

World War II[edit]

Due to its secluded location, the palace survived the destruction of two World Wars. Until 1944, it served as a depot for Nazi plunder that was taken from France by the Reichsleiter Rosenberg Institute for the Occupied Territories (Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg für die besetzten Gebiete), a suborganisation of the Nazi Party.[44] The castle was used to catalogue the works of arts. (After World War II 39 photo albums were found in the palace documenting the scale of the art seizures. The albums are now stored in the United States National Archives.[45])

 

In April 1945, the SS considered blowing up the palace to prevent the building itself and the artwork it contained from falling to the enemy.[46] The plan was not realised by the SS-Gruppenführer who had been assigned the task, however, and at the end of the war the palace was surrendered undamaged to representatives of the Allied forces.[46] Thereafter the Bavarian archives used some of the rooms as a provisional store for salvaged archivalia, as the premises in Munich had been bombed.[47]

 

Architecture[edit]

The effect of the Neuschwanstein ensemble is highly stylistic, both externally and internally. The king's influence is apparent throughout, and he took a keen personal interest in the design and decoration. An example can be seen in his comments, or commands, regarding a mural depicting Lohengrin in the Palas; "His Majesty wishes that ... the ship be placed further from the shore, that Lohengrin's neck be less tilted, that the chain from the ship to the swan be of gold and not of roses, and finally that the style of the castle shall be kept medieval."[48]

 

The suite of rooms within the Palas contains the Throne Room, King Ludwig's suite, the Singers' Hall, and the Grotto. The interior and especially the throne room Byzantine-Arab construction resumes to the chapels and churches of the royal Sicilian Norman-Swabian period in Palermo related to the Kings of Germany House of Hohenstaufen. Throughout, the design pays homage to the German legends of Lohengrin, the Swan Knight. Hohenschwangau, where King Ludwig spent much of his youth, had decorations of these sagas. These themes were taken up in the operas of Richard Wagner. Many rooms bear a border depicting the various operas written by Wagner, including a theatre permanently featuring the set of one such play. Many of the interior rooms remain undecorated, with only 14 rooms finished before Ludwig's death. With the palace under construction at the King's death, one of the major features of the palace remained unbuilt. A massive keep, which would have formed the highest point and central focus of the ensemble, was planned for the middle of the upper courtyard but was never built, at the decision of the King's family. The foundation for the keep is visible in the upper courtyard.[49]

 

Neuschwanstein Castle consists of several individual structures which were erected over a length of 150 metres on the top of a cliff ridge. The elongate building is furnished with numerous towers, ornamental turrets, gables, balconies, pinnacles and sculptures. Following Romanesque style, most window openings are fashioned as bi- and triforia. Before the backdrop of the Tegelberg and the Pöllat Gorge in the south and the Alpine foothills with their lakes in the north, the ensemble of individual buildings provides varying picturesque views of the palace from all directions. It was designed as the romantic ideal of a knight's castle. Unlike "real" castles, whose building stock is in most cases the result of centuries of building activity, Neuschwanstein was planned from the inception as an intentionally asymmetric building, and erected in consecutive stages.[33] Typical attributes of a castle were included, but real fortifications – the most important feature of a medieval aristocratic estate – were dispensed with.

 

Exterior[edit]

 

Palace roof

 

Overview of palace complex; position of the planned chapel marked in yellow

 

View from location of unrealised chapel along upper courtyard level: Bower (left), palace front, and Knights' House (right)

The palace complex is entered through the symmetrical Gatehouse flanked by two stair towers. The eastward-pointing gate building is the only structure of the palace whose wall area is fashioned in high-contrast colours; the exterior walls are cased with red bricks, the court fronts with yellow limestone. The roof cornice is surrounded by pinnacles. The upper floor of the Gatehouse is surmounted by a crow-stepped gable and held King Ludwig II's first lodging at Neuschwanstein, from which he occasionally observed the building work before the hall was completed. The ground floors of the Gatehouse were intended to accommodate the stables.

 

The passage through the Gatehouse, crowned with the royal Bavarian coat of arms, leads directly into the courtyard. The courtyard has two levels, the lower one being defined to the east by the Gatehouse and to the north by the foundations of the so-called Rectangular Tower and by the gallery building. The southern end of the courtyard is open, imparting a view of the surrounding mountain scenery. At its western end, the courtyard is delimited by a bricked embankment, whose polygonally protracting bulge marks the choir of the originally projected chapel; this three-nave church, never built, was intended to form the base of a 90-metre (295-ft) keep, the planned centrepiece of the architectural ensemble. A flight of steps at the side gives access to the upper level.

  

Saint George

 

Gatehouse

Today, the foundation plan of the chapel-keep is marked out in the upper-courtyard pavement. The most striking structure of the upper court level is the so-called Rectangular Tower (45 metres or 148 feet). Like most of the court buildings, it mostly serves a decorative purpose as part of the ensemble. Its viewing platform provides a vast view over the Alpine foothills to the north. The northern end of the upper courtyard is defined by the so-called Knights' House. The three-storey building is connected to the Rectangular Tower and the Gatehouse by means of a continuous gallery fashioned with a blind arcade. From the point of view of castle romanticism the Knights' House was the abode of a stronghold's menfolk; at Neuschwanstein, estate and service rooms were envisioned here. The Bower, which complements the Knights' House as the "ladies' house" but was never used as such, defines the south side of the courtyard. Both structures together form the motif of the Antwerp Castle featuring in the first act of Lohengrin. Embedded in the pavement is the floor plan of the planned palace chapel.

 

The western end of the courtyard is delimited by the Palas (hall). It constitutes the real main and residential building of the castle and contains the King's stateroom and the servants' rooms. The Palas is a colossal five-story structure in the shape of two huge cuboids that are connected in a flat angle and covered by two adjacent high gable roofs. The building's shape follows the course of the ridge. In its angles there are two stair towers, the northern one surmounting the palace roof by several storeys with its height of 65 metres (213 ft). With their polymorphic roofs, both towers are reminiscent of the Château de Pierrefonds. The western Palas front supports a two-storey balcony with view on the Alpsee, while northwards a low chair tower and the conservatory protract from the main structure. The entire Palas is spangled with numerous decorative chimneys and ornamental turrets, the court front with colourful frescos. The court-side gable is crowned with a copper lion, the western (outward) gable with the likeness of a knight.

 

Interior[edit]

 

Floor plan of third floor, position of fourth-floor Hall of the Singers marked in red

 

Corridor

 

Throne Hall detail

Had it been completed, the palace would have had more than 200 interior rooms, including premises for guests and servants, as well as for service and logistics. Ultimately, no more than about 15 rooms and halls were finished.[50] In its lower stories the Palas accommodates administrative and servants' rooms and the rooms of today's palace administration. The King's staterooms are situated in the upper stories: The anterior structure accommodates the lodgings in the third floor, above them the Hall of the Singers. The upper floors of the west-facing posterior structure are filled almost completely by the Throne Hall. The total floor space of all floors amounts to nearly 6,000 square metres (65,000 sq ft).[50]

 

Neuschwanstein houses numerous significant interior rooms of German historicism. The palace was fitted with several of the latest technical innovations of the late 19th century.[22][51] Among other things it had a battery-powered bell system for the servants and telephone lines. The kitchen equipment included a Rumford oven that turned the skewer with its heat and so automatically adjusted the turning speed. The hot air was used for a calorifère central heating system.[52] Further novelties for the era were running warm water and toilets with automatic flushing.

 

The largest room of the palace by area is the Hall of the Singers, followed by the Throne Hall. The 27-by-10-metre (89 by 33 ft)[53] Hall of the Singers is located in the eastern, court-side wing of the Palas, in the fourth floor above the King's lodgings. It is designed as an amalgamation of two rooms of the Wartburg: The Hall of the Singers and the Ballroom. It was one of the King's favourite projects for his palace.[54] The rectangular room was decorated with themes from Lohengrin and Parzival. Its longer side is terminated by a gallery that is crowned by a tribune, modelled after the Wartburg. The eastern narrow side is terminated by a stage that is structured by arcades and known as the Sängerlaube. The Hall of the Singers was never designed for court festivities of the reclusive King.[citation needed] Rather, like the Throne Hall it served as a walkable monument in which the culture of knights and courtly love of the Middle Ages was represented. The first performance in this hall took place in 1933: A concert commemorating the 50th anniversary of Richard Wagner's death.[34]

 

The Throne Hall, 20 by 12 metres (66 by 39 ft),[55] is situated in the west wing of the Palas. With its height of 13 metres (43 ft)[55] it occupies the third and fourth floors. Julius Hofmann modelled it after the Allerheiligen-Hofkirche in the Munich Residenz. On three sides it is surrounded by colorful arcades, ending in an apse that was intended to hold King Ludwig's throne – which was never completed. The throne dais is surrounded by paintings of Jesus, the Twelve Apostles and six canonised kings. The mural paintings were created by Wilhelm Hauschild. The floor mosaic was completed after the king's death. The chandelier is fashioned after a Byzantine crown. The Throne Hall makes a sacral impression. Following the king's wish, it amalgamated the Grail Hall from Parzival with a symbol of the divine right of kings,[19] an incorporation of unrestricted sovereign power, which King Ludwig as the head of a constitutional monarchy no longer held. The union of the sacral and regal is emphasised by the portraits in the apse of six canonised Kings: Saint Louis of France, Saint Stephen of Hungary, Saint Edward the Confessor of England, Saint Wenceslaus of Bohemia, Saint Olaf of Norway and Saint Henry, Holy Roman Emperor.

 

Palace rooms (late 19th century Photochrom prints)

 

Hall of the Singers

  

Throne Hall

  

Drawing room

  

Study room

  

Dining room

  

Bedroom

Apart from the large ceremonial rooms several smaller rooms were created for use by King Ludwig II.[41] The royal lodging is on the third floor of the palace in the east wing of the Palas. It consists of eight rooms with living space and several smaller rooms. In spite of the gaudy décor, the living space with its moderate room size and its sofas and suites makes a relatively modern impression on today's visitors. King Ludwig II did not attach importance to representative requirements of former times, in which the life of a monarch was mostly public. The interior decoration with mural paintings, tapestry, furniture and other handicraft generally refers to the King's favourite themes: the grail legend, the works of Wolfram von Eschenbach, and their interpretation by Richard Wagner.

  

Grotto

The eastward drawing room is adorned with themes from the Lohengrin legend. The furniture – sofa, table, armchairs and seats in a northward alcove – is comfortable and homelike. Next to the drawing room is a little artificial grotto that forms the passage to the study. The unusual room, originally equipped with an artificial waterfall and a so-called rainbow machine, is connected to a little conservatory. Depicting the Hörselberg grotto, it relates to Wagner's Tannhäuser, as does the décor of the adjacent study. In the park of Linderhof Palace the King had installed a similar grotto of greater dimensions. Opposite the study follows the dining room, adorned with themes of courtly love. Since the kitchen in Neuschwanstein is situated three stories below the dining room, it was impossible to install a wishing table (dining table disappearing by means of a mechanism) as at Linderhof Palace and Herrenchiemsee. Instead, the dining room was connected with the kitchen by means of a service lift.

  

Kitchen

The bedroom adjacent to the dining room and the subsequent house chapel are the only rooms of the palace that remain in neo-Gothic style. The King's bedroom is dominated by a huge bed adorned with carvings. Fourteen carvers worked more than four years on the bed canopy with its numerous pinnacles and on the oaken panellings.[56] It was in this room that Ludwig was arrested in the night from 11 to 12 June 1886. The adjacent little house chapel is consecrated to Saint Louis, after whom the owner was named.

 

The servants' rooms in the basement of the Palas are quite scantily equipped with massive oak furniture. Besides one table and one cabinet there are two beds of 1.80 metres (5 ft 11 in) length each. Opaque glass windows separated the rooms from the corridor that connects the exterior stairs with the main stairs, so that the King could enter and leave unseen. The servants were not allowed to use the main stairs, but were restricted to the much narrower and steeper servants' stairs.

 

Tourism[edit]

Neuschwanstein welcomes almost 1.5 million visitors per year making it one of the most popular tourist destinations in Europe.[3][57] For security reasons the palace can only be visited during a 35-minute guided tour, and no photography is allowed inside the castle. There are also special guided tours that focus on specific topics. In the peak season from June until August, Neuschwanstein has as many as 6,000 visitors per day, and guests without advance reservation may have to wait several hours. Those without tickets may still walk the long driveway from the base to the top of the mountain and visit the grounds and courtyard without a ticket, but will not be admitted to the interior of the castle. Ticket sales are processed exclusively via the ticket centre in Hohenschwangau.[58] As of 2008, the total number of visitors was more than 60 million.[2] In 2004, the revenues were booked as €6.5 million.[1]

 

In culture, art, and science[edit]

Neuschwanstein is a global symbol of the era of Romanticism. The palace has appeared prominently in several movies such as Helmut Käutner's Ludwig II (1955) and Luchino Visconti's Ludwig (1972), both biopics about the King; the musical Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968) and the war drama The Great Escape (1963). It served as the inspiration for Disneyland's Sleeping Beauty Castle, Cameran Palace in Lucario and The Mystery of Mew, and later similar structures.[59][60] It is also visited by the character Grace Nakimura alongside Herrenchiemsee in the game The Beast Within: A Gabriel Knight Mystery (1996).

 

In 1977, Neuschwanstein Castle became the motif of a West German definitive stamp, and it appeared on a €2 commemorative coin for the German Bundesländer series in 2012. In 2007, it was a finalist in the widely publicised on-line selection of the New Seven Wonders of the World.[61]

 

A meteorite that reached Earth spectacularly on 6 April 2002, at the Austrian border near Hohenschwangau was named Neuschwanstein after the palace. Three fragments were found: Neuschwanstein I (1.75 kg (3.9 lb), found July 2002) and Neuschwanstein II (1.63 kg (3.6 lb), found May 2003) on the German side, and Neuschwanstein III (2.84 kg (6.3 lb), found June 2003) on the Austrian side near Reutte.[62] The meteorite is classified as an enstatite chondrite with unusually large proportions of pure iron (29%), enstatite and the extremely rare mineral sinoite (Si2N2O).[63]

 

World Heritage candidature[edit]

Since 2015, Neuschwanstein and Ludwig's Linderhof and Herrenchiemsee palaces are on the German tentative list for a future designation as UNESCO World Heritage Sites. A joint candidature with other representative palaces of the romantic historicism is discussed (including Schwerin Palace, for example).[64]

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuschwanstein_Castle

 

Synopsis[edit]

Background[edit]

In Eisenach, Germany, in the early 13th century, the landgraves of the Thuringian Valley ruled the area of Germany around the Wartburg. They were great patrons of the arts, particularly music and poetry, holding contests between the minnesingers at the Wartburg. Across the valley towered the Venusberg, in whose interior, according to legend, dwelt Holda, the Goddess of Spring. In time, Holda became identified with Venus, the pagan Goddess of Love, whose grotto was the home of sirens and nymphs. It was said that the Goddess would lure the Wartburg minnesinger-knights to her lair where her beauty would captivate them. The minnesinger-knight Heinrich von Ofterdingen, known as Tannhäuser, left the court of the Landgrave of Thuringia a year ago after a disagreement with his fellow knights. Since then he has been held as a willing captive through his love for Venus, in her grotto in the Venusberg.[27][incomplete short citation][17]

 

Overture[edit]

The substantial overture commences with the theme of the 'Pilgrim's Chorus' from Act 3, Scene 1, and also includes elements of the 'Venusberg' music from Act 1, Scene 1. The overture is frequently performed as a separate item in orchestral concerts, the first such performance having been given by Felix Mendelssohn conducting the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra in February 1846.[28] Wagner later gave the opinion that perhaps it would be better to cut the overture at opera performances to the Pilgrim's Chorus alone – "the remainder – in the fortunate event of its being understood – is, as a prelude to the drama, too much; in the opposite event, too little."[29] In the original, "Dresden" version, the overture comes to a traditional concert close (the version heard in concert performances). For the "Paris" version the music leads directly into the first scene, without pausing.

 

Act 1[edit]

The Venusberg, (the Hörselberg of "Frau Holda" in Thuringia, in the vicinity of Eisenach), and a valley between the Venusberg and Wartburg

 

Scene 1. Wagner's stage directions state: "The stage represents the interior of the Venusberg...In the distant background is a bluish lake; in it one sees the bathing figures of naiads; on its elevated banks are sirens. In the extreme left foreground lies Venus bearing the head of the half kneeling Tannhäuser in her lap. The whole cave is illuminated by rosy light. – A group of dancing nymphs appears, joined gradually by members of loving couples from the cave. – A train of Bacchantes comes from the background in wild dance... – The ever-wilder dance answers as in echo the Chorus of Sirens": "Naht euch dem Strande" (Come to the shore).[30] In the "Paris" version this orgiastic ballet is greatly extended.

 

Scene 2. Following the orgy of the ballet, Tannhäuser's desires are finally satiated, and he longs for freedom, spring and the sound of church bells. He takes up his harp and pays homage to the goddess in a passionate love song, "Dir töne Lob!" (Let your praises be heard), which he ends with an earnest plea to be allowed to depart, "Aus deinem Reiche, muss ich fliehn! O Königin! Göttin! Lass mich ziehn!" (From your kingdom must I flee! O Queen! O Goddess, set me free). Surprised, Venus offers him further charms, but eventually his repeated pleas arouse her fury and she curses his desire for salvation. (In the "Paris" version Venus's inveighing against Tannhäuser is significantly expanded).[31] Eventually Tannhäuser declares: "Mein Heil ruht in Maria" (My salvation rests in Mary). These words break the unholy spell. Venus and the Venusberg disappear.

 

Scene 3. According to Wagner's stage directions, "Tannhäuser...finds himself a beautiful valley… To the left one sees the Hörselberg. To the right...a mountain path from the direction of the Wartburg ...; in the foreground, led to by a low promontory, an image of the Virgin Mary – From above left one hears the ringing of herder’s bells; on a high projection sits a young shepherd with pipes facing the valley".[32] It is May. The shepherd sings an ode to the pagan goddess Holda, "Frau Holda kam aus dem Berg hervor" (Lady Holda, come forth from the hill). A hymn "Zu dir wall ich, mein Jesus Christ" (To thee I turn, my Jesus Christ) can be heard, as Pilgrims are seen approaching from the Wartburg, and the shepherd stops playing. The pilgrims pass Tannhäuser as he stands motionless, and then, praising God, ("Allmächt'ger, dir sei Preis!" (Almighty God, to you be praise!)) he sinks to his knees, overcome with gratitude. At that moment the sound of hunting-horns can be heard, drawing ever nearer.

 

Scene 4. The Landgrave's hunting party appears. The minnesingers (Wolfram, Walther, Biterolf, Reinmar, and Heinrich) recognise Tannhäuser, still deep in prayer, and greet him ("Heinrich! Heinrich! Seh ich recht?" (Heinrich! Heinrich! Do I see right?)) cautiously, recalling past feuds. They question him about his recent whereabouts, to which he gives vague answers. The minnesingers urge Tannhäuser to rejoin them, which he declines until Wolfram mentions Elisabeth, the Landgrave's niece, "Bleib bei Elisabeth!" (Stay, for Elisabeth!). Tannhäuser is visibly moved, "Elisabeth! O Macht des Himmels, rufst du den süssen Namen mir?" (Elisabeth! O might of heaven, do you cry out the sweet name to me?). The minnesingers explain to Tannhäuser how he had enchanted Elisabeth, but when he had left she withdrew from their company and lost interest in music, expressing the hope that his return will also bring her back, "Auf's Neue leuchte uns ihr Stern!" (Let her star once more shine upon us). Tannhäuser begs them to lead him to her, "Zu ihr! Zu ihr!" (To her! To her!). The rest of the hunting party gathers, blowing horns.

 

Act 2[edit]

 

The Wartburg in Eisenach

The minnesingers' hall in the Wartburg castle

 

Introduction – Scene 1. Elisabeth enters, joyfully. She sings, to the hall, of how she has been beset by sadness since Tannhäuser's departure but now lives in hope that his songs will revive both of them, "Dich, teure Halle, grüss ich wieder" (Dear hall, I greet thee once again). Wolfram leads Tannhäuser into the hall.

 

Scene 2. Tannhäuser flings himself at Elisabeth's feet. He exclaims "O Fürstin!" (O Princess!). At first, seemingly confused, she questions him about where he has been, which he avoids answering. She then greets him joyfully ("Ich preise dieses Wunder aus meines Herzens Tiefe!" (I praise this miracle from my heart's depths!)), and they join in a duet, "Gepriesen sei die Stunde" (Praise be to this hour). Tannhäuser then leaves with Wolfram.

 

Scene 3. The Landgrave enters, and he and Elisabeth embrace. The Landgrave sings of his joy, "Dich treff ich hier in dieser Halle" (Do I find you in this hall) at her recovery and announces the upcoming song contest, at which she will preside, "dass du des Festes Fürstin seist" (that you will be the Princess of the Festival).

 

Scene 4 and Sängerkrieg (Song Contest). Elisabeth and the Landgrave watch the guests arrive. The guests assemble greeting the Landgrave and singing "Freudig begrüssen wir edle Halle" (With joy we greet the noble hall), take their places in a semicircle, with Elisabeth and the Landgrave in the seats of honour in the foreground. The Landgrave announces the contest and the theme, which shall be "Könnt ihr der Liebe Wesen mir ergründen?" (Can you explain the nature of Love?), and that the prize will be whatever the winner asks of Elisabeth. The knights place their names in a cup from which Elisabeth draws the first singer, Wolfram. Wolfram sings a trite song of courtly love and is applauded, but Tannhäuser chides him for his lack of passion. There is consternation, and once again Elisabeth appears confused, torn between rapture and anxiety. Biterolf accuses him of blasphemy and speaks of "Frauenehr und hohe Tugend" (women's virtue and honour). The knights draw their swords as Tannhäuser mocks Biterolf, but the Landgrave intervenes to restore order. However, Tannhäuser, as if in a trance, rises to his feet and sings a song of ecstatic love to Venus, "Dir Göttin der Liebe, soll mein Lied ertönen" (To thee, Goddess of Love, should my song resound). There is general horror as it is realised he has been in the Venusberg; the women, apart from Elisabeth, flee. She appears pale and shocked, while the knights and the Landgrave gather together and condemn Tannhäuser to death. Only Elisabeth, shielding him with her body, saves him, "Haltet ein!" (Stop!). She states that God's will is that a sinner shall achieve salvation through atonement. Tannhäuser collapses as all hail Elisabeth as an angel, "Ein Engel stieg aus lichtem Äther" (An angel rose out of the bright ether). He promises to seek atonement, the Landgrave exiles him and orders him to join another younger band of pilgrims then assembling. All depart, crying Nach Rom! (To Rome!).

 

In the "Paris" version, the song contest is somewhat shortened, possibly because of the lack of suitable soloists for the Paris production.[citation needed]

 

Act 3[edit]

The valley of the Wartburg, in autumn. Elisabeth is kneeling, praying before the Virgin as Wolfram comes down the path and notices her

 

Scene 1. Orchestral music describes the pilgrimage of Tannhäuser. It is evening. Wolfram muses on Elisabeth's sorrow during Tannhäuser's second absence, "Wohl wusst' ich hier sie im Gebet zu finden" (I knew well I might find her here in prayer) and her longing for the return of the pilgrims, and expresses concerns that he may not have been absolved. As he does so he hears a pilgrims' prayer in the distance, "Beglückt darf nun dich, O Heimat, ich schauen" (Joyfully may I now you, O homeland, behold). Elisabeth rises and she and Wolfram listen to the hymn, watching the pilgrims approach and pass by. She anxiously searches the procession, but in vain, realising sorrowfully he is not amongst them, "Er kehret nicht züruck!" (He has not returned). She again kneels with a prayer to the Virgin that appears to foretell her death, "Allmächt'ge Jungfrau! Hör mein Flehen" (Almighty Virgin, hear my plea!). On rising she sees Wolfram but motions him not to speak. He offers to escort her back to the Wartburg, but she again motions him to be still, and gestures that she is grateful for his devotion but her path leads to heaven. She slowly makes her way up the path alone.

 

Scene 2. Wolfram, left alone as darkness draws on and the stars appear, begins to play and sings a hymn to the evening star that also hints at Elisabeth's approaching death, "Wie Todesahnung Dämmrung deckt die Lande...O du mein holder Abendstern" (Like a premonition of death the twilight shrouds the earth... O thou my fair evening star).

 

Scene 3. It is now night. Tannhäuser appears, ragged, pale and haggard, walking feebly leaning on his staff. Wolfram suddenly recognises Tannhäuser, and startled challenges him, since he is exiled. To Wolfram's horror, Tannhäuser explains he is once again seeking the company of Venus. Wolfram tries to restrain him, at the same time expressing compassion and begging him to tell the story of his pilgrimage. Tannhäuser urges Wolfram to listen to his story, "Nun denn, hör an! Du, Wolfram, du sollst es erfahren" (Now then, listen! You, Wolfram, shall learn all that has passed). Tannhäuser sings of his penitence and suffering, all the time thinking of Elisabeth's gesture and pain, "Inbrunst im Herzen, wie kein Büsser noch" (With a flame in my heart, such as no penitent has known). He explains how he reached Rome, and the "Heiligtumes Schwelle" (Holy shrine), and witnessed thousands of pilgrims being absolved. Finally he approaches "ihn, durch den sich Gott verkündigt'" (he, through whom God speaks)[a] and tells his story. However, rather than finding absolution, he is cursed, "bist nun ewig du verdammt!" (you are forever damned!), and is told by the pope that "Wie dieser Stab in meiner Hand, nie mehr sich schmückt mit frischem Grün, kann aus der Hölle heissem Brand, Erlösung nimmer dir erblühn!" (As this staff in my hand, no more shall bear fresh leaves, from the hot fires of hell, salvation never shall bloom for thee). Whereupon, absolutely crushed, he fled, seeking his former source of bliss.

 

Having completed his tale, Tannhäuser calls out to Venus to take him back, "Zu dir, Frau Venus, kehr ich wieder" (To you, Lady Venus, I return). The two men struggle as a faint image of dancing becomes apparent. As Tannhäuser repeatedly calls on Venus, she suddenly appears and welcomes him back, "Willkommen, ungetreuer Mann!" (Welcome, faithless man!). As Venus continues to beckon, "Zu mir! Zu mir!" (To me!, To me!), in desperation, Wolfram suddenly remembers there is one word that can change Tannhäuser's heart, and exclaims "Elisabeth!" Tannhäuser, as if frozen in time, repeats the name. As he does so, torches are seen, and a funeral hymn is heard approaching, "Der Seele Heil, die nun entflohn" (Hail, the soul that now is flown). Wolfram realises it must be Elisabeth's body that is being borne, and that in her death lies Tannhäuser's redemption, "Heinrich, du bist erlöst!" (Heinrich, you are saved). Venus cries out, "Weh! Mir verloren" (Alas! Lost to me!) and vanishes with her kingdom. As dawn breaks the procession appears bearing Elisabeth's body on a bier. Wolfram beckons to them to set it down, and as Tannhäuser bends over the body uttering, "Heilige Elisabeth, bitte für mich!" (Holy Elisabeth!, pray for me!) he dies. As the growing light bathes the scene the younger pilgrims arrive bearing the pope's staff sprouting new leaves, and proclaiming a miracle, "Heil! Heil! Der Gnade Wunder Heil!" (Hail!, Hail! To this miracle of grace, Hail!). All then sing "Der Gnade Heil ist dem Büsser beschieden, er geht nun ein in der Seligen Frieden!" (The Holy Grace of God is to the penitent given, who now enters into the joy of Heaven!).[27][incomplete short citation][25][30]

 

After Wagner[edit]

Productions[edit]

Wagner died in 1883. The first production of the opera at Wagner's Bayreuth Festspielhaus (originally constructed for the performance of his Ring Cycle), was undertaken under the supervision of Cosima in 1891, and adhered closely to the 'Vienna' version. Later performances at Bayreuth included one conducted by Richard Strauss (1894), and one where the Bacchanal was choreographed by Isadora Duncan (1904).[33] Duncan envisaged the Bacchanal as a fantasy of Tannhäuser's fevered brain, as Wagner had written to Mathilde Wesendonck in 1860.[34] Arturo Toscanini conducted the opera at Bayreuth in the 1930/31 season.[35][incomplete short citation]

 

In the words of the Wagner scholar Thomas S. Grey, "The Bacchanal remained a defining focus of many ...productions, as a proving ground for changing conceptions of the psychosexual symbolism of the Venusberg." Productions including those of Götz Friedrich at Bayreuth (1972) and Otto Schenk at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, (1977) "routinely offer quantities of simulated copulation and post-coital langour, for which the Paris score offers ample encouragement".[33] A Munich production (1994) included as part of Tannhäuser's fantasies "creatures out of Hieronymus Bosch crawl[ing] around the oblivious protagonist".[36]

 

The Operabase website indicates that in the two calendar years 2014/2015, there were 163 performances of 41 productions of Tannhäuser in 30 cities throughout the world.[37]

 

Literature[edit]

Many scholars and writers on opera have advanced theories to explain the motives and behaviour of the characters,[9] including Jungian psychoanalysis,[1] in particular as regards Tannhäuser's apparently self-destructive behaviour. In 2014 an analysis suggested that his apparently inconsistent behaviour, when analysed by game theory, is actually consistent with a redemption strategy. Only by public disclosure can Tannhäuser force a resolution of his inner conflict.[38]

The Salesforce Tower nearing completion. San Francisco from Berkeley. June, 2017.

Sarı tamamlanması =)

 

The completion of the yellow.. OMG ! :)

 

Click here ->> www.sametatak.com My photo & Web desigin

FDC are incredibly excited to announce the completion of the University of Sydney’s Chau Chak Wing Museum.

 

The Chau Chak Wing Museum is a six-storey development created to consolidate the University’s Macleay, Nicholson and University Art Gallery collections and make possible the showcasing of some of Australia’s most significant artistic, scientific and archaeological artefacts.

 

The six-storey, 7,700sqm museum boasts eight separate galleries, interactive learning spaces, a café, a gift shop and a secure basement storage facility. A key feature is the striking concrete box structure which cantilevers 14m to the south, overlooking the city skyline.

 

An incredibly complex project, the structural engineering of the concrete box was an unequivocal mastery of the art. Below the box, additional concrete precast elements were re-engineered to suit the preferred build methodology, and the majority of in-ceiling services were cast-in to the Level 4 concrete slab, meaning all the plasterboard could be deleted; a major achievement.

 

The unique project also aimed to achieve a 100-year design life of the structure, longevity FDC enacted by galvanising 25% of the reinforcement. These efforts in structural engineering ensure the museum will be of long-term cultural and heritage significance to both the University and the wider community.

 

The Chau Chak Wing Museum was delivered alongside Johnson Pilton Walker, Northrop, IGS, NDY and Coffey.

 

The museum was completed to the Gold Level Standard of the University’s Sustainability Framework model, equivalent to the GBCA’s Greenstar rating.

 

Source:FDC website

One of the long tails returns with a feather to line the nest.

Chaney's Corner, Christchurch Northern Motorway.

 

"Fanfare" is a large-scale work by Christchurch artist Neil Dawson (he who created "Chalice" in Cathedral Square).

It is 20m in diameter, 25 tonnes and is covered by 360 separate 1m-round wind-powered 'pinwheels' (all independently attached and lit up for special occasions on the calendar).

"Fanfare" was originally commissioned by Sydney, Australia, for its 2005 New Year celebrations. It was raised from a barge at midnight and suspended from its Harbour Bridge for three weeks. Then in 2007, Sydney gifted it to Christchurch...

Now this giant bauble is being installed beside the northern entrance to the city. Total asset cost: $3.3 million.

LENGTH 83.4m

BREADTH 18m

ORDER YEAR October 2013

COMPLETION August 2016

OWNER Vroon Offshore Services

BUILDER COSCO Guangdong Shipyard

DESIGNER Ulstein Group

DEADWEIGHT 3,650gwt

MAXIMUM SPEED 15kt

  

The ship is equipped with class-2 dynamic positioning system. Image courtesy of Vroon Offshore Services.VOS Passion platform supply vessel is one of six vessels based on PX121 design.

 

The naming ceremony for VOS Passion took place in July 2016. Image courtesy of Vroon Offshore Services.VOS Passion features X-BOW design concept that enables smoother navigation in harsh waters. Image courtesy of Vroon Offshore Services.

 

The ship is equipped with class-2 dynamic positioning system. Image courtesy of Vroon Offshore Services.VOS Passion platform supply vessel is one of six vessels based on PX121 design. Image courtesy of Vroon Offshore Services.

 

VOS Passion is a platform supply vessel operated by Vroon Offshore Services, an international shipping company. The vessel was built by COSCO Guangdong Shipyard in China and delivered to Vroon in August 2016.

 

The ship is the fourth of six vessels ordered by Vroon, of which VOS Pace (2015), VOS Paradise (2015) and VOS Partner (2016) have been delivered, while VOS Patience and VOS Patriot are under construction and scheduled for delivery in 2016.

 

Vroon’s PSV fleet is used for a range of operations, including cargo transportation, bulk transfers, fire-fighting, oil-spill recovery and safety standby. The vessels’ unique design enables them to support longer and deeper offshore drilling activities.

 

VOS Passion design

VOS Passion has an overall length of 83.4m, a moulded breadth of 18m and a clear deck area spanning 850m². The vessel’s maximum draft is 6.7m, maximum deadweight capacity is 4,200t and gross tonnage is 3,650gwt.

 

The ship design is based on the PX121 design developed by Norway-based Ulstein Group. All of the remaining five vessels ordered by Vroon are also based on the same design.

 

The PX121 design features Ulstein’s patented X-BOW concept, which enables smoother vessel navigation in harsh conditions.

 

Vessels with conventional bow designs rise on waves and drop violently onto the water, making navigation in adverse environments difficult. The X-BOW design, on the other hand, enables smoother navigation by minimising wave slamming and bow impact.

 

The X-BOW concept features a slender hull and a tapered fore, which provides more displacement volume. The vessel pierces smaller waves, and is therefore less affected by the vertical motions of the water.

 

It also uses less fuel to navigate through the waves, saving energy. In addition, the design reduces noise and vibration, improving crew comfort and safety levels.

 

Navigation and communication of the platform supply vessel

The ship’s navigation equipment includes an X-band radar, an S-band radar, two McMurdo S4 radio transponder units, a JRC eco sounder, a Navi-Sailor multi-function display, and a Yokogawa gyro compass.

 

The vessel is fitted with communication applications, including a JRC medium / high-frequency radio, a JRC portable VHF radio, McMurdo E5 Satellite EPIRB, two Inmarsat-C systems and two McMurdo S4 SART systems.

 

Deck machinery and fire-fighting equipment

Deck machinery aboard the VOS Passion includes two 10t tuggers, two 10t capstans and one 3t crane with a safe working load of 18m.

 

The ship is equipped with ABS FiFi class-I fire-fighting systems with a monitor capacity of 1,200m³/h and a throw of more than 120m.

 

VOS Passion propulsion system

The ship is fitted with four diesel generator engines, including two 1,639kW engines and two 990kW engines, as well as a 130ekW emergency generator.

 

The vessel is propelled by two diesel-electric Azimuth thrusters with a capacity of 3,800kW. It also features two 1,600kW Schottel stern thrusters and two bow thrusters.

 

"Deck machinery aboard the VOS Passion includes two 10t tuggers, two 10t capstans and one 3t crane with a safe working load of 18m."

The maximum speed of the vessel is 15kt.

 

Tank capacities and cargo handling systems

The ship is capable of storing 1,035m³ of fresh water, 1,674m³ of drill water, 1,464m³ of fuel, 1,293m³ of liquid mud, 150m³ of methanol, 260m³ of dry bulk and 127m³ of base oil. The ship is also fitted with heeling tanks with a capacity of 391.4m³.

 

Accommodation and life-saving facilities onboard VOS Passion

VOS Passion can accommodate 26 crew members in 14 single and six double cabins featuring hotel-type comfort beds. It is fitted with two anti-rolling tanks to increase crew comfort.

 

The ship is equipped with two 20-man life rafts and one six-man raft on each side. A man overboard boat (MOB) capable of accommodating six persons is also available.

 

Contractors

Ulstein was contracted by COSCO Guangdong Shipyard to supply power and control systems and to provide on-site services for the Vroon vessels.

Brickcon is only a week away form now!

All sizes...

Flint Castle (Welsh: Castell y Fflint) in Flint, Flintshire, was the first of a series of castles built during King Edward I's campaign to conquer Wales.

 

The site was chosen for its strategic position in North East Wales. The castle was only one day's march from Chester, supplies could be brought along the River Dee and there was a ford nearby across to England that could be used at low tide.

 

Building work began in 1277 initially under Richard L'engenour, who would later become Mayor of Chester in 1304. The castle and its earthworks were built by 18,000 labourers and masons using local Millstone Grit ashlar and sandstone. Savoyard master mason James of Saint George was assigned "ad ordiandum opera castorum ibidem" (to undertake the works of the same castle works (referring to all Welsh castle building projects) in April 1278. November 1280 saw him beginning directly overseeing construction at Flint for Edward I as the initially very slow construction pace was accelerated. He remained at the castle for 17 months. James of Saint George then moved onto Rhuddlan to oversee its completion.

 

When work ceased in 1277, Flint Castle had an inner ward and an outer bailey. They were separated by a tidal moat and were connected with gatehouse and drawbridge. A plantation town was also laid out beyond the outer bailey. The inner ward had three large towers and a detached keep. This isolated tower protected the inner gatehouse and outer bailey. In total expenditure, Edward I spent £6068.7.5d. creating the fortress and the town (£5.7 million in 2008).

 

Flint, on the western shore of the River Dee estuary, could be supplied by river or sea. Its harbour was protected by a defensive wall. The castle lies opposite to the English shore and Shotwick Castle in England. Before the course was changed in the 18th century, passage across the estuary at this point could be made directly by boat at high tide or by fording at low tide.

 

The castle is based on Savoyard models where one of the corner towers is enlarged and isolated. This independent structure served as both corner tower and keep or donjon, like at Dourdan, France. Flint's keep has been compared to the donjon at Aigues-Mortes, France. Edward I may have been familiar with Aigues-Mortes having passed through the fortress on the way to join the Eighth Crusade in 1270. An alternative possibility is the influence of Jean Mésot on James of Saint George, Mésot having worked in Southern France before influencing Saint George in Savoy. The castle at Flint has also been described as a "classic Carrė Savoyard" as it is very similar to Yverdon Castle. Its ground dimensions are a third bigger but it shares the classic shape and style, along with the use of a corner tower as keep (donjon). Most historians attribute this to input from Edward's premier architect and castle builder James of Saint George Although construction began in 1277 and James of Saint George didn't begin work at Flint until 1280, he was in England from 1278 and was described as "ad ordinandum opera castorum ibidem", that is, charged with the design of the works at Flint.

 

The keep is an impressive structure. Its stone walls are 7 metres (23 ft) thick at the base and 5 metres (16 ft) above. Access was gained by crossing a drawbridge into a central entrance chamber on the first floor. Originally there would have been at least one additional storey. These floors had small rooms built into the thick walls. A timber gallery was built on top of the keep for the visit of Edward, Prince of Wales, in 1301. On the ground floor is a vaulted passage that runs all the way around the inside of the keep.

 

Flint's design was not repeated in any other castle built by Edward I in North Wales. The layout at Flint remains unique within the British Isles.

 

Flint was the first castle of what would later become known as Edward I's "Iron Ring". A chain of fortresses designed to encircle North Wales and oppress the Welsh. Its construction began almost immediately after Edward I began the First Welsh War in 1277.

 

Five years later Welsh forces under the command of Dafydd ap Gruffydd, brother of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, besieged the castle in an attempted uprising against the English Crown. In 1294 Flint was attacked again during the revolt of Madog ap Llywelyn; this time the constable of the castle was forced to set fire to the fortress to prevent its capture by the Welsh. The castle was later repaired and partly rebuilt.

 

With the conclusion to the Welsh Wars, English settlers and merchants were given property titles in the new town that was laid out in front of the castle. The plantation borough was protected by a defensive ditch with a wooden palisade on earth banking. Its outline remains visible in streets patterns.

 

In 1399 Richard II of England was held by Henry Bolingbroke at Flint before being returned to London.

 

During the English Civil War, Flint Castle was held by the Royalists. It was finally captured by the Parliamentarians in 1647 after a three-month siege. To prevent its reuse in the conflict, the castle was then slighted in accordance with Cromwell's destruction order. The ruins are what remain today.

 

By the 19th century part of the site's outer bailey was used as Flintshire's County Jail. A quarry operated nearby.

 

Flint (Welsh: Y Fflint) is a town and community in Flintshire, Wales, lying on the estuary of the River Dee. It is the former county town of Flintshire. According to the 2001 Census, the population of the community of Flint was 12,804, increasing to 12,953 at the 2011 census. The urban area including Holywell and Bagillt had a population of 26,442.

 

Flint is located in north-east Wales, adjoining the estuary of the River Dee, to the north of the town of Mold. Across the estuary, the Wirral can be seen from Flint and views to the south of the town include Halkyn Mountain. As the crow flies, Flint is located less than 12 miles from the English urban area of Liverpool, and even closer to its metro area. However, the two estuaries in between make the distance travelling on land almost twice as long.

 

The name refers to the stony platform on which the castle was built, and was first recorded in 1277 in the French form le Chaylou (cf modern French caillou, "gravel").

 

Edward I began to build Flint Castle in 1277, during his campaign to conquer Wales. Both castle and town were attacked by the forces of Madog ap Llywelyn during the revolt of 1294–95; the defenders of the town burnt it in order to deny its use to the Welsh.

 

Richard II was handed over to his enemy Henry Bolingbroke in the castle in 1399. As a consequence, it is the setting for Act III, Scene III of the Shakespeare play Richard II. The castle was the first of Edward I's 'iron ring' of royal castles to be built in Wales, and the design served as the basis for larger castles such as Harlech Castle and Rhuddlan Castle. Owain Glyndŵr unsuccessfully assaulted it at the commencement of his revolt in 1400.

 

The town did not have a wall, but a protective earthen and wooden palisaded ditch. The outline of this remained visible in the pattern of streets until the mid-1960s, and the medieval boundary can still be traced now. This can be seen in John Speed's map of Flintshire.

 

Flint Town Hall, the home of Flint Town Council, was erected in 1840.

 

In 1969 Flint hosted the National Eisteddfod, and so the town has a circle of Gorsedd stones in the field adjacent to Gwynedd County Primary School. In July 2006 the stones were centre stage in the National Eisteddfod Proclamation Ceremony which formally announced Mold as the 2007 host town of the event. The Urdd National Eisteddfod was held in Flint in 2016.

 

Flint Town Council consists of 15 councillors who are elected from four wards; 2 from Oakenholt, 3 from Castle and 5 each from Coleshill and Trelawny wards. For elections to Flintshire County Council, three councillors are elected from Flint: Coleshill and Trelawny, and one each from Flint: Castle and Flint: Oakenholt. Flint is part of the Alyn and Deeside constituency and North Wales region for the Senedd, and of the Alyn and Deeside constituency for parliament.

 

In 2001 only 18% of the local population identified as Welsh, although this census controversially had no "Welsh" tick box.

 

In the census of 2011, 57.1% stated they had Welsh, or Welsh and other combined, identity. Many people in Flint have some knowledge of the Welsh language, although competence varies. Implementation of the European Union's freedom of movement provisions has led to a noticeable increase in the numbers of Polish-language speakers in Flint. Several retail businesses display information in Polish as well as in English and Welsh and the town has a number of Polskie sklepy (Polish shops) specialising in Polish products.

 

The Flint accent is frequently misidentified with that of Liverpool, although it has arisen in fact as a unique blending of the speech patterns of the area's Welsh speakers, earlier Irish settlers, and the residents of nearby Cheshire, Wirral, and the wider Merseyside region.

 

There are several songs associated with Flint. The most widely sung is "The Yard". Another popular song is "Fifty German bombers over Flint", which tells the story of a wartime bombing raid over nearby Liverpool that accidentally targeted the town of Flint instead. Verses describe the arrival of the bombers over Flint, and how they were shot down by the "Bagillt Navy". Eventually, the ill-fated German aircrew were fished out by the "Greenfield Fishers". The song is often sung in a drunken, friendly manner to the accompaniment of much hand clapping and revelry.

 

Flint railway station lies on the North Wales Coast Line and is served by Transport for Wales services from Manchester Piccadilly to Llandudno. A north-south service between Cardiff and Holyhead also calls, as do some Avanti West Coast services between London Euston and Holyhead. Bus services are operated by Arriva Buses Wales.

 

The town has three high schools: St Richard Gwyn Catholic High School, Flint High School and Ysgol Maes Hyfryd. Primary schools in Flint include the Gwynedd School, Cornist Park School, Ysgol Croes Atti (Welsh medium), St Mary's Catholic Primary School and Ysgol Pen Coch.

 

Flint once had its own low-powered television relay transmitter, designed to provide improved coverage of Welsh channels in an area that would otherwise receive only English television signals. Since 2009, signals have been transmitted digitally from Storeton transmitting station on the Wirral.

 

Perhaps one of the town's most striking images, in addition to the castle, is the group of three tower blocks of flats near the town centre. The first two blocks were built in the 1960s and named Bolingbroke Heights and Richard Heights, with a third, Castle Heights, added shortly afterwards.

 

Flint's football team is Flint Town United. They play in the Cymru North, the second division of Welsh football following relegation from the top tier. Nicknamed "the Silkmen", they play their home games at Cae-y-Castell.

 

Brian Fell's sculpture footplate can be seen at Flint railway station. Initially it was thought to be an imitation of the famous Monty Python foot drawn by Terry Gilliam.

 

The town has a library which was extensively refurbished in 2020, and a leisure centre named the Jade Jones Pavilion to honour the town's Olympian. As of February 2023 Flint Retail Park was undergoing expansion, The town centre has been the subject of a regeneration scheme which began in 2012.

 

A lifeboat station was established in Flint in 1966, operated by the RNLI.

 

Notable people

Paul Draper (born 1970), songwriter and musician, went to school in Flint.

Ian Puleston-Davies (born 1958), actor and writer, plays Owen Armstrong in Coronation Street.

Julie Roberts (born 1963) painter who works in acrylics, oils and watercolours.

 

Sport

Enoch Bagshaw (1884–1930), an American football player and coach.

Ron Hewitt (1928–2001), footballer with over 500 club caps and 5 for Wales.

Allan Jones (1940–1993), footballer with 249 caps with Brentford F.C.

Brian Godfrey (1940–2010), footballer with over 590 club caps and 3 for Wales.

Andy Holden (born 1963), footballer with over 170 club caps, nephew of Ron Hewitt

Jade Jones (born 1993), 2012 and 2016 Olympic taekwondo gold medalist, attended Flint High School.

Ian Rush (born 1961), footballer with 602 club caps and 73 for Wales, went to school in Flint; some family live in the area.

Dylan Levitt (born 2000) footballer who came through Manchester United F.C. Academy, but now plays for Scottish Premiership football club Hibernian F.C.

 

Flintshire (Welsh: Sir y Fflint) is a county in the north-east of Wales. It has a maritime border with Merseyside along the Dee Estuary to the north, and land borders with Cheshire to the east, Wrexham County Borough to the south, and Denbighshire to the west. Connah's Quay is the largest town, while Flintshire County Council is based in Mold.

 

The county covers 169 square miles (440 km2), with a population of 155,000 in 2021. After Connah's Quay (16,771) the largest settlements are Flint (13,736), Buckley (16,127) and Mold (10,123). The east of the county is industrialised and contains the Deeside conurbation, which extends into Cheshire and has a population of 53,568. The adjacent coast is also home to industry, but further west has been developed for tourism, particularly at Talacre. Inland, the west of the county is sparsely populated and characterised by gentle hills, including part of the Clwydian Range and Dee Valley AONB.

 

The county is named after the historic county of the same name, which was established by the Statute of Rhuddlan in 1284 and has notably different borders. The county is considered part of the Welsh Marches and formed part of the historic Earldom of Chester and Flint.

 

Flintshire takes its name from the historic county of Flintshire, which also formed an administrative county between 1889 until 1974 when it was abolished under the Local Government Act 1972. The re-establishment of a principal area in 1996 under the Local Government (Wales) Act 1994 does not share the same boundaries and covers a smaller area.

 

At the time of the Roman invasion, the area of present-day Flintshire was inhabited by the Deceangli, one of the Celtic tribes in ancient Britain, with the Cornovii to the east and the Ordovices to the west. Lead and silver mine workings are evident in the area, with several sows of lead found bearing the name 'DECEANGI' inscribed in Roman epigraphy. The Deceangli appear to have surrendered to Roman rule with little resistance. Following Roman Britain, and the emergence of various petty kingdoms, the region had been divided into the Hundred of Englefield (Welsh: Cantref Tegeingl), derived from the Latin Deceangli.

 

It became part of the Kingdom of Mercia by the 8th century AD, with much of the western boundary reinforced under Offa of Mercia after 752, but there is evidence that Offa's Dyke is probably a much earlier construction. By the time of the Norman conquest in 1066 it was under the control of Edwin of Tegeingl, from whose Lordship the Flintshire coat of arms is derived.

 

Edwin's mother is believed to have been Ethelfleda or Aldgyth, daughter of Eadwine of Mercia. At the time of the establishment of the Earldom of Chester, which succeeded the Earl of Mercia, the region formed two of the then twelve Hundreds of Cheshire of which it remained a part for several hundred years.

 

Flintshire today approximately resembles the boundaries of the Hundred of Atiscross as it existed at the time of the Domesday Book. Atiscross, along with the Hundred of Exestan, was transferred from the Earldom of Chester to the expanding Kingdom of Gwynedd from the west in the 13th century following numerous military campaigns. This region, as well as an exclave formed from part of the Hundred of Dudestan (known as Maelor Saesneg), later formed the main areas of Flintshire, established by the Statute of Rhuddlan in 1284 under Edward I. It was administered with the Palatinate of Chester and Flint by the Justiciar of Chester. The county was consolidated in 1536 by the Laws in Wales Acts 1535–1542 under the Tudor King Henry VIII, when it was incorporated into the Kingdom of England; it included the detached exclave of Welsh Maelor.

 

Flintshire as a separate local authority remained in existence until 1974 when it was merged with those of Denbighshire and Edeyrnion Rural District to form the administrative county of Clwyd. Clwyd was abolished 22 years later and Flintshire reorganised in its present form in 1996. However, some parts of the historic country are not included within the present administrative boundaries: significantly English Maelor was incorporated into Wrexham County Borough, and St Asaph, Prestatyn and Rhyl into Denbighshire.

 

The current administrative area of Flintshire (a unitary authority and Principal area) came into existence in 1996, when the former administrative counties in Wales were split into smaller areas. The principal area was formed by the merger of the Alyn and Deeside and Delyn districts. In terms of pre-1974 divisions, the area comprises:

the former borough of Flint

the urban districts of Buckley, Connah's Quay, Holywell, Mold

the rural district of Holywell Rural District

all of Hawarden Rural District except the parish of Marford and Hosley

The district of Rhuddlan, which was also formed entirely from the administrative county of Flintshire was included in the new Denbighshire instead. Other parts of the pre-1974 administrative Flintshire to be excluded from the principal area are the Maelor Rural District and the parish of Marford and Hoseley, which became part of the Wrexham Maelor district in 1974 and are now part of Wrexham County Borough.

 

Flintshire is a maritime county bounded to the north by the Dee estuary, to the east by Cheshire, to the west by Denbighshire and to the south by Wrexham County Borough. The coast along the Dee estuary is heavily developed by industry and the north coast much developed for tourism. The Clwydian Range occupies much of the west of the county. The highest point is Moel Famau (1,820 feet/554 metres). Notable towns include Buckley, Connah's Quay, Flint, Hawarden, Holywell, Mold, Queensferry, and Shotton. The main rivers are the Dee (the estuary of which forms much of the coast), and the River Alyn.

 

Located on the North Wales Coast Line (Holyhead to Chester) with services run by Avanti West Coast and Transport for Wales specifically calling at Flintshire stations such as Flint and Shotton with an interchange at Shotton with the Borderlands Line, which links it and other Flintshire stations with the Liverpool area and Wrexham.

 

Parts of Flintshire have major manufacturing industries. Amongst these are an advanced Toyota plant that manufactures engines, Eren Paper,[6] and Airbus UK, making the wings for the A320, A330 and A350 aircraft at Broughton.

 

There are daily flights of the Airbus BelugaXL transport aircraft of Airbus wings from Broughton.

 

Flintshire is also known for its internet companies, the largest and most well known being Moneysupermarket.com based in Ewloe.

 

Flintshire included much of the North Wales Coalfield, with the last colliery at Point of Ayr closing in 1996.

 

Flintshire is home to Shotwick Solar Park, currently the largest photovoltaic solar array in the UK. It was built in 2016 and covers 250 acres of the south western edge of the Wirral Peninsula near the village of Shotwick. It has a maximum generating capacity of 72.2 MW and is connected directly to the largest paper-mill in the UK, UPM Shotton Paper.

 

Flintshire was home to a thriving steel industry with many of the local communities and homes being built around this sector. Steelmaking came to an end in 1980 with the loss of 6500 on one day. The Shotton Steelworks site, now owned by Tata Steel, continues to produce coated steel products, mainly for the construction industry.

 

On 19 November 2004, Flintshire was granted Fairtrade County status.

 

Flintshire County Council is the Local Education Authority of Flintshire. It runs 72 primary schools, 2 special schools and 11 secondary schools. Six of the primary schools and one comprehensive are Welsh medium schools.

 

Four of the secondary schools have come together with Coleg Cambria to form the Deeside Consortium.

 

In December 2022, the Climate Change Committee met and Buckley Bistre West councillor Carolyn Preece recommended weekly vegan school meals in the local schools to combat climate change.

 

Flintshire's local newspapers include two daily titles, North Wales Daily Post and The Leader.

 

There are two radio stations broadcast in the area – Communicorp station Heart North and Mid Wales and Global Radio station Capital North West and Wales broadcast from the studios based in Wrexham. Whilst BBC Cymru Wales runs a studio and newsroom for their radio, television and online services located at Glyndŵr University but does not base their broadcasting there.

 

An online news website covering the Flintshire area, Deeside.com, operates from Deeside.

 

Flintshire has been traditionally a Labour Party stronghold, but in the 2019 general election, the Welsh Conservatives won the Delyn constituency.

 

The Alyn and Deeside constituency is a historically and still is a Welsh Labour Party constituency, which is represented by Mark Tami.

 

Notable people

Gareth Allen (born 1988 in Mynydd Isa, near Buckley), former professional snooker player.

Saint Asaph, 6th century Christian saint, the first Bishop of St Asaph

Claire Fox (born 1960), writer, journalist, lecturer and politician; grew up in Buckley

William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898), 12 years as Prime Minister; retired to Hawarden Castle.

Jade Jones (born 1993 Bodelwyddan), taekwondo athlete; 2012 and 2016 Olympic gold medallist

Michael Owen (born 1979), footballer with 362 club caps and 89 for England went to school in Hawarden

Ian Rush (born 1961 in St Asaph), footballer with 602 club caps and 73 for Wales

Gary Speed (1969 in Mancot – 2011), footballer and manager with 677 club caps and 85 for Wales

Frances Williams (c. 1760–1801), first Welsh woman to settle in Australia

 

Flintshire has one formal twinning arrangement with:

Germany Menden, Germany

Aga cookers are simply the best! Old fashioned in style and concept, after twenty years of constant, perfect service, cooking the food and heating the kitchen (Zac the dog's favourite thing) ours needed a new part, and so was inoperative for some time. These two snaps are a celebration of it's return to normal service. Whilst (modestly - hah!) I've kept us well-fed using the microwave, an old camping stove, and a borrowed ceramic hob, NOTHING makes toast like an Aga! Breakfast on a sunny morning in spring! Yum!

Previously the plate looked like this: flic.kr/p/FknJ8r

Kitchen and living room close to completion.

Today I was trying to shoot some pictures, but it was a cloudy and dark afternoon, and there wasn't enough light to expose the 1/125s ISO50 scanner.

Maybe tomorrow I'll be more lucky.

 

BTW, I know, the painted body is not very good looking: I have to think about a good finish for the body and lens.

I had to take away the battery slot and open a big window on the back, to have access to the components while it's running, so now the body is set up for quick checks and easy adjusting. When the camera will be really completed, will be the time to think about the look of the body, so don't worry about the strange screws and bolts...

The third cable coming from the body is for the live view.

March 31 15:00 open! (Korea time)

My etsy ↓

www.etsy.com/shop/marshshop

With the completion of its latest series of milestone tests, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has now survived all of the harsh conditions associated with a rocket launch to space.

 

Webb’s recent tests have validated that the fully assembled observatory will endure the deafening noise, and the jarring shakes, rattles and vibrations that the observatory will endure during liftoff. Known as “acoustic” and “sine-sibration” testing, NASA has worked carefully with its international partners to match Webb’s testing environment precisely to what Webb will experience both on launch day, and when operating in orbit.

 

Though each component of the telescope has been rigorously tested during development, demonstrating that the assembled flight hardware is able to safely pass through a simulated launch environment is a significant achievement for the mission. Completed in two separate facilities within Northrop Grumman’s Space Park in Redondo Beach, California, these tests represent Webb’s final two, in a long series of environmental tests before Webb is shipped to French Guiana for launch.

 

The next environment Webb will experience is space.

 

Read the full feature on this milestone: go.nasa.gov/3d5Kuhh

 

Now that environmental testing has been successfully concluded, Webb will move forward into the last full extension of its iconic primary mirror and sunshield, followed by a full systems evaluation before being encapsulated in a specialized shipping container for transport to South America.

 

Image credit: NASA/Chris Gunn

 

NASA Media Use Policy

 

Follow us on Twitter

 

Like us on Facebook

 

Subscribe to our YouTube channel

 

Follow us on Instagram

  

Following the completion of the 466's HV refurbishments, it's now the turn of the DW's to finally be done, and the first batch of Gemini 2 DW's from TC to be refurbished by Hants and Dorset Trim. DW553 (LJ13CEA) was the second DW to be done and is pictured in Sanderstead on route 412