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The Cathedral Church of St Andrew, Wells (Wells Cathedral)
Overview
Heritage Category: Listed Building
Grade: I
List Entry Number: 1382901
Date first listed: 12-Nov-1953
Statutory Address: CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF ST ANDREW, CATHEDRAL GREEN
County: Somerset
District: Mendip (District Authority)
Parish: Wells
National Grid Reference: ST 55148 45885
Details
Cathedral Bishopric established in 909. Saxon cathedral built, nothing now visible (excavations 1978/79). See transferred to Bath in 1090. Church extended and altered in 1140, in Norman style, under Bishop Robert Lewes; part of this lies under south transept of the present church.
Present church begun, at east end, in 1176 and continued to consecration in 1239, but with substantial interruption from 1190-1206. Designer Adam Lock, west front probably by Thomas Norreys. Nave, west front (but not towers), north porch, transepts, and part of choir date from this phase. Bishopric becomes Bath and Wells in 1218. Central tower begun 1315, completed 1322. Designer Thomas Witney Lady Chapel begun 1323, completed c 1326. Probably by Thomas Witney. At this stage the Chapel a free-standing structure to the east of the original (1176) east end. Extension of choir and presbytery in 1330 to connect with the new Lady Chapel. Designer Thomas Witney, but presbytery vaults by William Joy.
Following signs of dangerous settlement and cracking under the new tower, the great arches and other work inserted to prevent collapse in 1337; designer William Joy. (The St Andrew's arches known as strainer arches). South-west tower begun in 1385 to design of William Wynford, completed c 1395. North-west tower built 1410. Tracery added to nave windows in 1410. Central tower damaged by fire in 1439; repair and substantial design modification (designer not known) completed c 1450. Stillington's chapel built 1477, (off east cloister) designer William Smyth, who also designed the fan vault to the main crossing. The chapel was demolished in 1552.
MATERIALS: Doulting ashlar with blue Lias dressings, partly replaced by Kilkenny marble, some Purbeck marble internal dressings, and pink rubble outer cloister walls.
PLAN: Cruciform plan with aisled nave and transepts, north porch, cruciform aisled chancel with transeptal chapels and Retroquire. East Lady Chapel, north-east Chapter House and south Cloister.
EXTERIOR: Early English Gothic style, Decorated Gothic style Chapter House, Retroquire and Lady Chapel, Perpendicular Gothic style west and crossing towers and cloister. Early English windows throughout, mainly filled with two-light tracery c 1415, with a parapet of cusped triangles added c 1320 to all but the Chapter House and west front. Five-sided Lady Chapel has angle buttresses, drip and a parapet of cusped triangles, with wide five-light windows with reticulated tracery of cusped spheroid triangles; a late C14 flying buttress with a square pinnacle to the south-east. North chancel aisles: the east bay has a shallow two-centre arched five-light window with Decorated tracery, steeper three-light windows to the west bays, the transept chapel window of four-lights with reticulated tracery. The early C14 east end of the chancel has flying buttresses to the gable and three east bays; the east end has a five-light window with Decorated tracery, including two mullions up to the soffit, and a raised surround beneath a shallow canted parapet, with the coped gable set back and lit by four lozenge windows divided by a wide Y-shaped mullion; the north clerestory windows of three-lights, the three to the east have ogee hoods, the three late C12 west and two north transept windows linked by a continuous hood mould.
North Transept and nave aisles have a plinth, sill band, corbel table and parapet, with wide buttresses separating aisle lancet windows with inserted early C15 two-light Perpendicular tracery, and a clerestory with similar moulding and fenestration. Transept gable in three stages, with clasping buttress turrets and sill bands: three lower-stage windows and one to the end of west aisle, middle stage has a blind arcade of six lancets, the middle four truncated beneath three tall stepped lancets to upper stage, with similar blind panels paired to the turrets, and medallions to the spandrels; a weathered band beneath an arcade of stepped blind lancets, and panelled turret pinnacles with octagonal caps, a third to the flanking aisle; the right-hand turret has a good c 1475 clock with paired soldiers above striking two bells, and a crenellated canopy. Nine-bay nave aisle, ten-bay clerestory, of which the two windows flanking the transept re-entrant cut off above a mid C14 relieving arch.
Fine north porch two bays deep with blue Lias shafts and C18 outer doors: entrance archway of five orders with alternate paired banded columns with stiff leaf capitals to the west, carved showing the martyrdom of King Edmund to the east, and a roll-moulded arch, including two orders of undercut chevron mouldings with filigree decoration over fine doors of c 1200; clasping buttresses with octagonal pinnacles as the transept, and a gable with six stepped lancets beneath three stepped parvise lancets with sunken panels in the spandrels. Inside of two bays, articulated by banded vault shafts with stiff leaf capitals to a sexpartite vault; side benches are backed by arcades of four bayed seats with stiff leaf spandrels, beneath a string bitten off at the ends by serpents; a deeply recessed upper arcade of three arches to a bay, with complex openwork roll mouldings intersecting above the capitals, on coupled shafts free standing in front of attached shafts, enriched spandrels, and openwork Y-tracery in the tympanum beneath the vault. The south end decorated after the front entrance, including a moulded arch with a chevron order, and containing a pair of arched doorways with a deeply-moulded trumeau and good panelled early C13 doors with C15 Perpendicular tracery panels.
South elevation is similar: the chancel wall of the 1340 extension is recessed for the three east bays with flying buttresses, the windows to the west have uncusped intersecting tracery. Crossing tower has a c 1200 blind arcade to a string level with the roof ridge; upper section 1313, remodelled c 1440, has ribbed clasping buttresses to gabled niches with figures and pinnacles with sub-pinnacles; each side of three bays separated by narrow buttresses with pinnacles, a recessed transom with openwork tracery beneath and louvred trefoil-headed windows above, gabled hoods and finials. Corbels within for a spire, destroyed 1439.
West front screen is a double square in width, divided into five bays by very deep buttresses, with the wider nave bay set forward. The towers stand outside the aisles, the design of the front continued round both ends and returned at the rear. Statues of c 1230-1250, to an uncertain iconographic scheme. Divided vertically into three bands, beneath a central nave gable and Perpendicular towers; arches with originally blue Lias shafts, now mostly Kilkenny marble, and stiff leaf capitals. A tall, weathered plinth, with a central nave entrance of four orders with paired doorways and quatrefoil in the tympanum containing the seated Virgin with flanking angels, and smaller aisle entrances of two orders. Above is an arcade of gabled hoods over arches, containing paired trefoil-headed statue niches with bases and fifteen surviving figures; two-light Perpendicular tracery windows between the buttresses outside the nave; sunken quatrefoils in the spandrels, which cut across the corners of the buttresses. The third and principal band contains three tall, slightly stepped nave lancets, paired blind lancets between the outer buttresses, with narrower arches flanking them and to the faces and sides of the buttresses, all with banded Lias shafts and roll-moulded heads; the three arches to the sides and angled faces on the south-west and north-west corners have intersecting mouldings as in the north porch. All except the window arches contain two tiers of gabled statue niches with figures, taller ones in the upper tier, and across the top is an arcade of trefoil-headed statue niches with seated figures and carved spandrels. The nave buttresses have gabled tops containing cinquefoil-arched niches, and tall pinnacles with arched faces and conical tops; above the nave is a three-tier stepped gable with a lower arcade of ten cinquefoil-arched niches containing seated figures, a taller arcade of twelve niches with c 1400 figures of the Apostles, and a central top section with outer trefoil arches, corner sunken quatrefoils; the central oval recess with cusped sides and top contains a 1985 figure of Christ in Judgement beneath a pinnacle, with crosses and finials on the weathered coping. The Perpendicular towers continue the buttresses up with canopied statue niches to their faces and blank panelling to the sides, before raking them back into deep angle buttresses; between are a pair of two-light west windows, louvred above a transom and blind below, with a blind arcade above the windows, and a low crenellated coping.
INTERIOR: Lady Chapel: An elongated octagon in plan, with triple vault shafts with spherical foliate capitals to a tierceron vault forming a pattern of concentric stars, with spherical bosses and a paint scheme of 1845; the three west arches with Purbeck marble shafts onto the Retroquire have blind arched panels above; beneath the windows is a sill mould with fleurons, and a bench round the walls. Stone reredos has six statue niches with crocketed canopies and smaller niches in between, with four C19 sedilia with ogee-arched and crocketed canopies and a C14 cusped ogee trefoil-arched south doorway; C19 encaustic tiles.
The Retroquire extends laterally into east chapels each side and transeptal chapels: all with ogee-arched piscinae with crockets and finials, with a complex asymmetrical lierne vault on Purbeck marble shafts and capitals. The three east bays of the choir added early C14, and the high lierne vault of squares extended back over the three late C12 west bays, on triple vault shafts, Purbeck marble with roll-moulded capitals for the C14 and limestone with stiff leaf capitals for the C12; above the two-centre aisle arches and below the clerestory walk is a richly-carved openwork grille of statue niches with canopies, containing eight early C20 figures across the east end; clerestory walk has ogee-arched doorways. Rich canopies over choir stalls on Purbeck marble shafts, and five sedilia with enriched canopies. Ogee-arched doorways with crockets and pinnacles each side of the choir give onto the aisles, which have lierne vaults forming hexagons.
Transepts: Three bays deep and three wide, with cluster columns and stiff leaf capitals, including some fine figure carving in the south-west aisle, paired triforium arches between the vault shafts; the chancel aisles entered by C14 ogee-arched doorways with cinquefoil cusps and openwork panels each side; the north transept has a doorway from the east aisle with a depressed arch and moulded sides with a panelled Perpendicular ridge door, and Perpendicular panelled stone screens across the arcade; the south transept has an early C14 reredos with cusped ogee arches. The openings to the crossing contain inserted cross ogee strainer arches with triple chamfered moulding, on the west one an early C20 raised crucifix and flanking figures on shafted bases, and the roof has late C15 fan vaulting with mouchettes to the springers.
Nave: Ten-bay nave has compound columns of eight shafts with stiff leaf capitals enriched with figures, a continuous hood mould, with carved stops until the four west bays, which also have more richly-carved stiff leaf; a continuous triforium arcade of roll-moulded lancets with moulded rere arches, three to each bay, with enriched tympana and paterae in the spandrels above, carved corbels and springers to vault shafts above to a quadripartite vault without ridges; vault painted to a scheme of 1844. A panelled c 1450 gallery in the south clerestory window six from the west; aisles vaulted as nave, with enriched stiff leaf corbels. The west end has a trefoil-headed blank arcade on blue Lias shafts and a central stilted depressed-arch doorway, beneath the three west windows; the aisles end with a lateral rib from the vault to the west arcade. Chapels beneath the towers have sexpartite vaults with an enriched hole for the bell ropes; the south-west chapel has a shallow arch to the cloister beneath three cusped arched panels. The parvise over the north chapel contains a rare drawing floor. Two chantry chapels set between the east nave piers have fine openwork Perpendicular tracery and cresting, the south chapel of St Edmund c 1490 has a fan-vaulted canopy over the altar and two statue niches with canopies, and an ogee-arched doorway, the North Holy Cross Chapel c 1420 has quatrefoil panelling to the east canopy, distressed statue niches, and four-centre arched doorways.
FITTINGS: Lady Chapel: Brass lectern 1661 has a moulded stand and foliate crest.
Retroquire, North-East Chapel: fine oak C13 Cope Chest with a two-leaf top doors; panelled C17/C18 chest; north transept chapel: C17 oak screen with columns, formerly part of cow stalls, with artisan Ionic capitals and cornice, set forward over chest tomb of John Godilee; C14 floor tiles; south-east chapel: Bound oak C14 chest for Chapter Seal.
North Transept: Very fine c 1390 clock, considered the second oldest in the world after Salisbury Cathedral (qv), the face with heavenly bodies represented and four knights riding round above, and a quarter jack in the corner striking bells with a hammer and his heels; pine chest with bowed top.
Choir: Very fine stalls with misericords, c 1335; Bishop's Throne, c 1340, restored by Salvin c 1850, wide with panelled, canted front and stone doorway, deep nodding cusped ogee canopy over, with three stepped statue niches and pinnacles; C19 pulpit opposite, octagonal on a coved base with panelled sides, and steps up from the North aisle; organ within the chancel arch rebuilt and new case 1974.
South Transept: Round font from the former Saxon cathedral, with an arcade of round-headed arches, on a round plinth, with a c 1635 cover with heads of putti round sides.
Nave: Pulpit and tomb of William Knight, mid C16, built out from the Sugar chantry, with panelled buttresses, curved sides and a cornice.
Library: Good shelves and desks with panelled ends, cornices and scroll crests, and benches with ogee ends with ball finials of 1686.
MONUMENTS: Quire Corpus Christi North Transept Chapel: marble chest tomb of Robert Creyghton d 1672, an alabaster effigy on a sarcophagus with bowed sides; chest tomb of John Middleton, d c 1350, effigy set beneath the window; chest tomb of John Middleton, d c 1350, effigy set beneath the window; chest tomb of John Godelee, d 1333, effigy on a chest with open ogee arcade.
North Quire aisle: chest tombs of Bishop Giso, d 1088, Ralph of Salisby, d 1463, alabaster, and two further c 1230 effigies of Saxon Bishops, on mid C20 plinths; panelled chest tomb with three heraldic panels and moulded top; South-East Chapel of St John the Baptist: chest tomb encloses north side, with arcaded sides, thin mullions to a good openwork top with cusped gables and a canopy to east end.
St Katherine's Transept Chapel: Chest tomb of John Drokensford, d 1329, a painted effigy on a chest with open ogee arcade, as that for John Godelee; chest tomb of John Gunthorpe, d 1498 with five heraldic panels and moulded top. South chancel aisle: effigy of John Bernard, d 1459 on a mid C20 plinth; fine chest tomb of Bishop Bekynton, d 1464 but made c 1450, a cadaver within the open lower section with enriched shafts and angel capitals, with a painted marble figure on top, surrounded by a fine C15 wrought-iron screen with buttress stanchions; raised, incised coffin slab of Bishop Bytton d 1274, blue Lias; large chest tomb of Bishop Harvey d 1894 with five trefoil panels and an effigy with putti to the head; three c 1230 effigies of Saxon Bishops on mid C20 plinths; chest tomb of Bishop Harewell d 1386, a marble effigy on a C20 plinth.
North Transept, east aisle: Enriched marble chest tomb of John Still d 1607 with black Corinthian columns to entablature, sarcophagus with alabaster effigy; chest tomb to Bishop Kidder, d 1703 marble with an enriched naturalistic reclining figure of his daughter in front of two urns of her parents.
South Transept: Chapel of St Calixtus, fine un-named chest tomb of c 1450, with carved alabaster panels and effigy; Chapel of St Martin, chest tomb of William Bykonyll c 1448 with an arcaded front, cusped shallow arch over the effigy, panelled ceiling and a rich crested top; C15 wrought-iron gates to both chapels; in the south wall, good monument to Bishop William de Marchia, d 1302, three cusped cinquefoil-headed arches on moulded shafts, ogee hoods and pinnacles to a crenellated top, with an effigy within, with a three-bay segmental vaulted canopy, and decorated with six carved heads beneath.
STAINED GLASS: Original early glass is mainly in the choir and Lady Chapel; the Parliamentarians caused extensive damage generally in August 1642 and May 1643. Earliest fragments are in two windows on the west side of the Chapter House staircase (c 1280-90), and in two windows in the south choir aisle (c 1310-20), but of principal interest is the Lady Chapel range, c 1325-30, the east window including extensive repairs by Willement, 1845, and the others with substantial complete canopy-work, otherwise much in fragments. The choir east window is a fine Jesse Tree, including much silver stain, flanked by two windows each side in the clerestory, with large figures of saints, all these of c 1340-45; a further window each side is late C19. The chapel of St Katherine has interesting panels of c 1520, attributed to Arnold of Nijmegen; these, in the south and east windows were acquired from the destroyed church of St John, Rouen, the last panel was bought in 1953. The large triple lancet to the nave west end was glazed at the expense of Dean Creyghton at a cost of £140 in c 1664: repaired in 1813, but the central light largely replaced to a design by A K Nicholson between 1925-31. The main north and south transept end windows are by Powell, 1903-05, and the nave south aisle has four paired lights of 1881-1904, with a similar window at the west end of each aisle.
The Borobudur Temple Compounds is one of the greatest Buddhist monuments in the world, and was built in the 8th and 9th centuries AD during the reign of the Syailendra Dynasty. The monument is located in the Kedu Valley, in the southern part of Central Java, at the centre of the island of Java, Indonesia.
The main temple is a stupa built in three tiers around a hill which was a natural centre: a pyramidal base with five concentric square terraces, the trunk of a cone with three circular platforms and, at the top, a monumental stupa. The walls and balustrades are decorated with fine low reliefs, covering a total surface area of 2,520 m2. Around the circular platforms are 72 openwork stupas, each containing a statue of the Buddha.(UNESCO)
Overview
Heritage Category: Listed Building
Grade: I
List Entry Number: 1269316
Date first listed: 18-Jan-1949
Location
Statutory Address: Abbey Church of St Mary & St Aldhelm, Malmesbury, Wiltshire SN16 0AA
District: Wiltshire (Unitary Authority)
Parish: Malmesbury
National Grid Reference: ST 93280 87320
Details
Benedictine Abbey church, now parish church. Church founded c637 by Irish hermit Mailduib, monastery founded during abbacy of Aldhelm (c675-705), though no pre-C12 work survives; church probably begun under Bishop Roger (c1118-1139), and mostly dates from c1160-80 with a 9-bay aisled nave, transepts with E chapels, chancel, ambulatory with 3 radiating chapels, and S porch, rebuilt 1350-1450 above gallery level with clerestory, vault, crossing spire and W towers, a lengthened chancel and Lady Chapel; spire fell 1479. After Dissolution nave altered by William Stumpe of Abbey House (qv) and damaged W parts walled for the parish church, W tower fell c1662, W window by Goodridge 1830, restored W end 1903. MATERIALS: limestone ashlar with stone tiles. STYLE: late Romanesque style C12 work, Decorated Gothic style C14 extensions. PLAN: reduced since the Dissolution to 6 E bays of nave, with short lengths of transept walls and S corner of W end. EXTERIOR: the E end has a single N chancel bay and matching chancel arch with paired half shafts set in square piers with quarter round capitals, beneath the 2-centre arched line of the vault, and tas-de-charges with sunken mouchettes; the jambs of next E bay has matching aisle and triforium semi-circular jambs with chevron mouldings. Inner wall of N transept has blocked 2-centred aisle arch containing a C16 doorway and 3-light mullion window, and a blind round-arched doorway to the right; 6-bay N elevation has a blind former cloister wall along the aisle divided by buttresses, with a roll-top coping, and round-arched windows above a cill band containing C14 tracery, with a steep gable in the fourth bay containing a 3-light Decorated tracery window; at the left end is a blocked, round-arched C12 doorway with an archivolt of relief palmettes, and a cusped cinquefoil arch set within. The C14 clerestory has flying buttresses with tall pyramidal pinnacles between 3-light 2-centre arched windows, 2-light at the E end, with paterae to each side of the three E windows. S transept as N, 2 bays after the aisle arch, an incomplete arcade of interlacing round arches with a chevron moulding
beneath 2 storeys of round-arched windows with splayed reveals, the lower windows flanked by narrow round-arched recesses containing inner arches open to a passage through the walls. The arcade continues along the former external side of the S transept and to the 9-bay S elevation, otherwise as the N side with a Decorated cusped openwork parapet to aisle and nave, and with second and third bays from E containing C14 2-centre windows with Decorated tracery. C12 porch rebuilt externally in C14 with angle buttresses, has a very fine splayed round-arched entrance of 3 orders, without capitals, richly carved with iconographic Biblical scenes set in oval panels, and separated by richly carved mouldings, and a hood with dog head stops. Inside is a similarly-moulded doorway and C14 door, beneath a tympanum of Christ in Glory supported by 2 angels, with along both sides the round-arched arcade above a bench, beneath finely-carved lunettes each of 6 Apostles with a horizontal flying angel above. In the E re-entrant is a square stair turret with a pyramidal roof. The incomplete W end has a massive clasping buttress stair turret to the S corner in 4 stages separated by moulded strings, blank from the ground, a pair of blind round-arched panels containing lower arched panels to the second stage, an arcade of narrow interlacing round-arches to the third, and a taller arcade to the fourth stage with square section mouldings; the bay to the left as the S aisle, with a pair of round arches with flanking half arches at the second stage enriched with chevron moulding, containing pairs of round-arches; above is an arcade of 5 round-arches, and a blind wall topped with a C20 parapet. The S side of the central entrance bay has the jamb of a round-arched entrance with 2 orders carved as the S porch and plain capitals, beneath the jamb of a large C14 W window with the springers of 4 cusped transoms. INTERIOR: nave arcade has round shafts with scallop capitals to sharply moulded 2-centre arches, with billet mouldings to the 2 E arches, and billet hoods with dog head stops; the triforium has blind round arches with attached shafts to cushion capitals, a chevron moulding, with an arcade of 4 similar arches within; splayed clerestory windows have rere arches. An attached shaft extends up from the piers to C14 tas-de-charges, and a lierne vault with carved bosses. A 'Watching Loft' is corbelled out above the fourth pier on the S side of the nave, with plain openings and billet moulded cornice. The C12 aisles have pointed quadripartite vaults and benches,
the blind arcade of the outside beneath the windows, on the S side without the middle columns; the E end bays have C15 stone screens with Perpendicular tracery. To the left of the entrance is a winder stair to the C14 parvis over the porch, which has C20 panelling. MEMORIALS: running counter-clockwise from the entrance, a wall monument to Joseph Cullerne, d1764, a marble panel with raised bracketed top section; wall monument to Robert Greenway, d1751, a marble shield; wall monument to Bartholomew Hiren, d1703, a panel with a broken pediment; at the W end, a wall monument to Dame Cyscely Marshal, d 162?, with a slate panel in a carved alabaster frame; to the left a late C17 cartouche with drapes; in the N aisle, a dresser tomb of King Athelston, d939, with narrow buttresses to the sides, with a recumbent figure of the King with his feet on a lion, and a vaulted canopy behind his head; wall monument to Elizabeth Warneford, d1631, a slate plaque set in a moulded alabaster frame with shields along the sides, a cartouche, and a segmental cornice over; wall tablet to Isaac Watts, d 1789, an oval marble panel set in slate; wall tablet to Johannes Willis, mid C18, a marble panel with gadroon beneath and a cornice; wall tablet to GI Saunders, d1806, with a round-arched top and moulded frame; wall tablet to Elizabeth George, d1806, a well-carved cartouche with putti below; wall tablet to Edward Cullerne, d1765, marble with yellow marble inserts and a pediment; wall tablet to Mary Thomson, d1723, a stone panel with draped surround including an hour glass; wall tablet facing the entrance to Willima Robernce (?), d1799, a stone frame including a small inscribed pointing hand in the corner. Set in the chancel floor are a group of 8 brasses from late C17 to mid C18. FITTINGS: include a round C15 font from St Mary Westport (qv), with a turned base and fluted sides; at the W end of the nave, is the font used since the C17; in the S aisle, a glass case containing a verge of 1615, carved with features of the Abbey; at the E end the S aisle is the parish chest dated 1638, panelled with 3 locks; communion rail of c1700 with twisted balusters. In the parvis are kept 4 volumes of an illustrated manuscript Bible of 1407. GLASS: mostly C14 glass in the N aisle; the Luce window in the S aisle designed by Burne Jones and made by William Morris. HISTORICAL NOTE: the use of pointed arches and vaults in the aisles is structurally advanced and transitional with Early Gothic, and links Malmesbury with subsequent West Country churches, but the carving is Anglo Saxon in character, and probably borrowed from manuscript illustrations. The conventual buildings stood on the N side of the church; for the reredorter and sections of the precinct wall, see
Abbey House, Market Cross (qv), and for the guest house, see Old Bell Hotel, Gloucester Street (qv). (Victoria History of the Counties of England: Crowley DA: Wiltshire: 1991-: 157; Archaeologia: Brakspear H: Malmesbury Abbey: 1912-; Smith MQ: The Sculptures of the S Porch of Malmesbury Abbey: Malmesbury: 1973-; The Buildings of England: Pevsner N: Wiltshire: London: 1963-: 321-327; Midmer R: English Medieval Monasteries 1066-1540: London: 1976-: 212).
© Historic England 2021
A visit to Coughton Court in Warwickshire, on the Spring Bank Holiday Weekend in late May 2018. A National Trust property, it was the home of the Throckmorton family.
Coughton Court is an English Tudor country house, situated on the main road between Studley and Alcester in Warwickshire. It is a Grade I listed building.
The house has a long crenelated façade directly facing the main road, at the centre of which is the Tudor Gatehouse, dating from 1530; this has hexagonal turrets and oriel windows in the English Renaissance style. The gatehouse is the oldest part of the house and is flanked by later wings, in the Strawberry Hill Gothic style, popularised by Horace Walpole.
The Coughton estate has been owned by the Throckmorton family since 1409. The estate was acquired through marriage to the De Spinney family. Coughton was rebuilt by Sir George Throckmorton, the first son of Sir Robert Throckmorton of Coughton Court by Catherine Marrow, daughter of William Marrow of London. The great gatehouse at Coughton was dedicated to King Henry VIII by Throckmorton, a favorite of the King. Throckmorton would become notorious due to his almost fatal involvement in the divorce between King Henry and his first wife Catherine of Aragon. Throckmorton favoured the queen and was against the Reformation. Throckmorton spent most of his life rebuilding Coughton. In 1549, when he was planning the windows in the great hall, he asked his son Nicholas to obtain from the heralds the correct tricking (colour abbreviations) of the arms of his ancestors' wives and his own cousin and niece by marriage Queen Catherine Parr. The costly recusancy (refusal to attend Anglican Church services) of Robert Throckmorton and his heirs restricted later rebuilding, so that much of the house still stands largely as he left it.
After Throckmorton's death in 1552, Coughton passed to his eldest son, Robert. Robert Throckmorton and his family were practicing Catholics therefore the house at one time contained a priest hole, a hiding place for priests during the period when Catholics were persecuted by law in England, from the beginning of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. The Hall also holds a place in English history for its roles in both the Throckmorton Plot of 1583 to murder Queen Elizabeth I of England, and the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, although the Throckmorton family were themselves only indirectly implicated in the latter, when some of the Gunpowder conspirators rode directly there after its discovery.
The house has been in the ownership of the National Trust since 1946. The family, however, hold a 300-year lease and previously managed the property on behalf of the Trust. In 2007, however, the house reverted to management by the National Trust. The management of the property is renewed every 10 years. The family tenant until recently was Clare McLaren-Throckmorton, known professionally as Clare Tritton QC, until she died on 31 October 2017.
The house, which is open to the public all year round, is set in extensive grounds including a walled formal garden, a river and a lake.
The gatehouse at Coughton was built at the earliest in 1536, as it is built of stones which came from Bordesley Abbey and Evesham Abbey after the Dissolution of the Monasteries Act in 1536. As with other Tudor houses, it was built around a courtyard, with the gatehouse used for deliveries and coaches to travel through to the courtyard. The courtyard was closed on all four sides until 1651, when Parliamentary soldiers burnt the fourth (east) wing, along with many of the Throckmorton's family papers, during the English Civil War.
After the Roman Catholic Relief Act was passed in 1829, the Throckmorton family were able to afford large-scale building works, allowing them to remodel the west front.
Grade I Listed Building
Listing Text
COUGHTON
SP06SE
1/144 Coughton Court
10/02/56
GV I
Country house, Gatehouse late C15, and after 1518; early and late C16; late C17
additions; west front remodelled 1780; additions and remodelling of 1835(VCH).
Limestone ashlar gatehouse. Timber framed with lath and plaster infill; brick;
imitation stone render. Tile and lead roofs; brick stacks, U-plan, formerly
courtyard. 2 and 3 storeys; 13-window range. Entrance (west) front symmetrical.
3 storey central gatehouse range has moulded plinth and double string course.
Square ground floor with corner turrets. C19 Gothic panelled part-glazed
double-leaf doors in 4-centred moulded arch with square head, hood mould and
carved spandrels. Stone mullioned and transomed windows with arched lights
throughout. Upper floors of different coloured stone. 2-storey canted oriel with
flanking lights and glazed octagonal turrets; 2 transoms on first floor, one on
second. Shield of arms on each floor. Turrets continued up another floor'; left
turret unglazed. Remainder 2 storeys only. Single 5-light window with transom
and hood mould. Clasping buttresses with quatrefoil panels projecting above
roof. Crenellated parapets with string course throughout. Remainder of front of '
scored imitation ashlar with stucco hood moulds. Ground floor has leaded 2-light
casements, 3 slightly recessed bays have Gothick sashes and moulded surrounds on
first floor. Projecting end bays with clasping buttresses. First floor: leaded
cross windows. String course above first floor. Attic with quatrefoil panels,
some part glazed. String course and crenellated parapet. Right return side of
thin bricks. Two C17 shaped gables with stone coping. Left gable between 2
external brick stacks; right gable has ball finials. 5-window range, mostly C17
stone cross windows. Narrow gabled wing set back. High single-storey range with
early C20 window, and plaster eaves cove. East front of gatehouse has unglazed
turrets and inscription over entrance. Irregular ranges to courtyard. Timber
framed with brick ground floor. Corresponding small 4-centred door. Irregular
fenestration with moulded stone mullioned windows ground floor, wood mullions
and casements above; some with transoms. 2 storey south range has close studding
with middle rail. Left section breaks forward and has 4 framed gables with
brackets. Entrance in recessed bay below third gable has 4-centred moulded
doorway with square head, hood mould and carved spandrels. Paired 6-panelled
doors with Gothick overlight. Right section has 2 large gables, and another
behind and above in roof, with decorative panel framing. Elaborately carved
scrolled bargeboards with finials and openwork pendants. End wall has gable.
Ground floor has 2 stone cross windows with arched lights. Blocked arches above
and in centre. 2-storey and attic north range. Close studding. 3 large framed
gables and smaller end gable all with casements and brackets. Ground floor has
four 3-light mullioned and transomed windows. First floor projects on plaster
cove. Blank gabled end wall. Left return side: range of c.1690. Scored render
with quoins. 3 projecting bays with hipped roofs. 4-centred doorway. Slightly
projecting first floor. Irregular fenestration with wood mullioned and transomed
windows. Interior: Entrance Hall with plaster fan vault. Late C18 open well
cantilevered staircase with moulded soffit and simple handrail; Gothick
plasterwork cornice. Drawing Room has simple early Cl6 stone fireplace. Windows
with C16,C17 and C19 armorial glass. Gothick plasterwork cornice. 6-panelled
doors. Little Drawing Room has C18 style carved wooden fireplace. Newel
staircase to roof. Tower Room has moulded 4-centred fireplace with carved
spandrels and projecting top. Two 4-centred doorways. North east turret has 2
hiding places. Dining Room and Tribune have fine C16 panelling possibly with
later work, turned balusters, grotesques and medallions with heads. Fine marble
chimneypiece with paired Ionic and Corinthian columns, cartouche and coat of
arms, Saloon, formed 1910, has arcaded panelled screen c.1660 (VCH) to Tribune.
C16 double-flight staircase from Harvington hall with heavy turned balusters and
square newel posts with finials. Study has fine C17 panelling with pilasters.
Ground floor with broad-chamfered ceiling beams. North range has part of a fine
C16 panelled timber cieling with moulded ribs and carved bosses. Dog-leg
staircase with C17 turned balusters. The Throckmortons were Catholics, and were
deeply involved in the Throckmorton plot of 1583. In 1605 the wives of the
Gunpowder Plotters awaited news at Coughton. In 1688 the east wing was destroyed
by a Protestant mob, and was finally cleared away in 1780.
(V.C.H.: Warwickshire, Vol.III, pp.75-78; Buldings of England: Warwickshire,
pp.245-6; Coughton Court; The National Trust 1984).
Listing NGR: SP0831160624
This text is from the original listing, and may not necessarily reflect the current setting of the building.
View of the house from within the house.
The Courtyard from The Staircase.
There used to be an East Wing, but it was burnt down in 1688 and it was later demolished in the 1780s leaving one side exposed to the countryside.
From The Gatehouse. The North Wing to the left and The South Wing to the right. Better views of The Courtyard from the Tower Roof up above.
1726 or 1735, by Jan de Rijk ; the center panel is located exactly where a rugwerk might have been, but I don't know whether there was ever a rugwerk
~1500 ; rebuilt in the new church bldg. in 1877 by architect David Walker.
The "flat" panels of the soffit are not original.
An excellent article about this screen can be read @
www.buildingconservation.com/articles/llananno-rood/llana...
FRONT VIEW OF THE IMPERIAL STATE CROWN MINIATURE
Creator:
Garrard & Co (jeweller)
Creation Date:
1937
Materials:
Gold, platinum, silver, diamonds, rubies, emeralds, sapphires, spinel, pearls, velvet, ermine
Dimensions:
31.5 cm
Acquirer:
King George VI, King of the United Kingdom (1895-1952)
Provenance:
Commissioned for the Coronation of King George VI on 12 May 1937, from the Crown Jewellers, Garrard & Co.
Description:
The Imperial State Crown is formed from an openwork gold frame, mounted with three very large stones, and set with 2868 diamonds in silver mounts, largely table-, rose- and brilliant-cut, and coloured stones in gold mounts, including 17 sapphires, 11 emeralds and 269 pearls.
At the front of the crown band is the large cushion-shaped brilliant, Cullinan II, the second largest stone cut from the Cullianan Diamond (also known as the Second Star of Africa). At the back of the band is the large oval sapphire known as the 'Stuart Sapphire'. The two large stones are linked by an openwork frieze, containing eight step-cut emeralds and eight sapphires, between two rows of pearls.
Above the band are two arches (or four half-arches), each springing from a cross-pattée. The front cross is mounted with a large, irregular cabochon red spinel, known as the 'Black Prince's Ruby'. In its history the stone was pierced for use as a pendant, and the upper hole later plugged with a small cabochon ruby in a gold slip mount. The remaining three crosses are each mounted with a step-cut emerald mounted as a lozenge. The crosses alternate with four fleurs-de-lis, each with a mixed-cut ruby in the centre. Both crosses and fleurs-de-lis are further mounted with diamonds. The crosses and fleurs-de-lis are linked by swags of diamonds, supported on sapphires.
The arches are cast as oak leaves, set with diamonds, each having paired pearl acorns in diamond cups projecting from the sides. At the intersection of the arches are suspended four large pear-shaped pearls in rose-diamond caps, known as 'Queen Elizabeth's Earrings'. The arches are surmounted by a monde of fretted silver, pavé-set with brilliants, with a cross-pattée above, set in the centre with an octagonal rose-cut sapphire known as 'St Edward's Sapphire'.
The Crown is fitted with a purple velvet cap and ermine band. Small plates on the reverse of the 'Black Prince's Ruby' and the 'Stuart Sapphire' are engraved to commemorate the history of the Crown.
The Imperial State Crown, or Crown of State, is the crown the monarch exchanges for St Edward's Crown, at the end of the coronation ceremony. Before the Civil War the ancient coronation crown was always kept at Westminster Abbey and the monarch needed another crown to wear when leaving the Abbey. The Imperial State Crown is also used on formal occasions, such as the annual State Opening of Parliament. The term imperial state crown dates back to the fifteenth century when English monarchs chose a crown design closed by arches, to demonstrate that England was not subject to any other earthly power.
This crown was made for the coronation of King George VI in 1937 but is closely based on a crown designed for Queen Victoria in 1838 by the crown jewellers of the time, Rundell, Bridge & Rundell. The crown is mounted with several historic stones to which a number of legends are attached. These include:
St Edward's Sapphire which carries the legend that Edward the Confessor (1042-66), or St Edward, one of the last Anglo-Saxon kings of England, was asked for alms by a beggar. Carrying no money on him, the King presented the beggar with a ring. The beggar later turned out to be St John the Evangelist, who assisted two English pilgrims in Syria in gratitude for the King's help, and asked them to return the ring to St Edward. The King was buried with the ring in Westminster Abbey in 1066. In the 12th century his tomb was opened and the ring removed.
Queen Elizabeth's Earrings, the four large pearls, have become associated with the seven pearls that Catherine de Medici received from Pope Clement VII on her marriage to Henri II of France in 1533. She later gave them to her daughter-in-law, Mary, Queen of Scots, and after her imprisonment they were allegedly sold to Elizabeth I. Elizabeth is unlikely to have worn them as earrings, as she preferred to wear pearls scattered over her ruff, on her hair or on her costume, and despite this romantic tale it appears that at least two of the pearls did not enter the Collection until the nineteenth century.
The Black Prince's Ruby - in fact a large spinel - was traditionally thought to have been the ruby given to Edward, Prince of Wales (1330-76), son of Edward III, and known as the Black Prince, by Don Pedro, King of Castile, after the Battle of Najera near Vittoria in 1367. The stone, which measures 170 carats, is of Eastern origin and has been drilled in the past for use as a pendant. According to legend it passed to Spain in about 1366, where Don Pedro took it from the Moorish king of Granada. In 1415 it was one of the stones worn by Henry V in his helmet, at the Battle of Agincourt. It is difficult to prove that this is indeed the same stone but a large Balas (or spinel) certainly appears in the descriptions of historic state crowns, and it has been reset each time the crown was refashioned.
The Stuart Sapphire, which has also been drilled in its history for use as a pendant, is approximately 104 carats. It is traditionally thought to have been smuggled by James II, when he fled England in December 1688. He passed it to his son Prince James Francis Edward, 'the Old Pretender', and it eventually came into the collection of Henry, Cardinal York. When an Italian dealer, Angioli Bonelli was sent on behalf of George IV to retrieve any remaining Stuart papers, after the Cardinal's death, he encountered a Venetian merchant who produced a large sapphire, saying that it belonged to the Stuart Crown. Bonelli purchased the sapphire and returned it to Britain. George IV certainly believed it was the Stuart Sapphire and by the time of Queen Victoria's coronation it was set into the front of the band of her State Crown. It was moved to the rear of the band in 1909 to make way for the newly acquired Cullinan II.
Cullinan II, or the 'Second Star of Africa, weighs 317.4 carats. It is the second largest stone cut from the great Cullinan Diamond, the largest diamond ever discovered. It was found in 1905 by Frederick G.S. Wells, at the Premier Mine, about twenty miles from Pretoria in South Africa. The stone, which weighed 3025 carats, was named after Thomas Cullinan, the Chairman of the Premier (Transvaal) Diamond Mining Company. The diamond was presented to Edward VII in 1907 as a symbolic gesture to heal the rift between Britain and South Africa after the Boer War. It was formally handed over to the King on his birthday, 9 November 1907, at Sandringham. The stone was cut by Asschers of Amsterdam. Nine large stones were cut from the original diamond. The cutting and polishing took three men eight months to complete. A further 97 small brilliants and some unpolished fragments were also created. The largest cleaving of the stone, Cullinan I, the Star of Africa, was placed in the Sovereign's Sceptre, and Cullinan II placed in the front of the band of the Imperial State Crown. The remaining numbered stones were mounted as jewellery (and do not form part of the official Crown Jewels).
Be aware this miniature from Crowns and Regalia contains several more stones than the one they normally show. I believe it is no longer available, but best to check this out in case I am wrong.
Information is copyright of The Royal Collection Trust. Link here to be amazed by the original photos on their site which are so detailed.
www.royalcollection.org.uk/collection/31701/the-imperial-...
After the visits to Abbotsbury Subtropical Gardens, and Abbotsbury Beach (Chesil Beach), the final stop of the day was to have a look around the nearby village of Abbotsbury.
Spent around 20 minutes or so looking around the village.
Strangways Hall - Market Street, Abbotsbury.
Grade II Listed Building
Listing Text
SY 5785 ABBOTSBURY MARKET STREET, EAST SIDE
10/47 Stangways Hall
GV II
Village School, now Village Hall. Dated AD 1858 on left hand gable. Abbotsbury
and Portesham stone walls, banded. Buttresses with set-offs and aedicules framing
the doorways. Plain slate and fish-scale slate roofs, with 2 gables of different
sizes to front, the larger at left hand, and a gable-end at right hand. Stone-
coped gables with moulded kneelers and finials. Single storey. 4 bays, irregular.
Windows, front left hand: 5-light stone mullion with 4-centred heads, 3-light
over this and 3 graduated top lights under stilted segmental-pointed heads. Label
over stopped. C19 metal casements. Openwork quatrefoil in head of gable. Door
with 4-centred head, plank with strap-hinges. Stone framing and 4 lights framing
it (bay 2). Bay 3, gabled window of similar design to bay 1, though with 2-centred
label over and 2 carved coats-of-arms with pinnacled heads over. Bay 4, door of
similar design to bay 2, with 3-rectangular lights over the doorhead. Attached
wall for 3 metres at right hand, rubble-stone with central doorway having dressed
stone jambs and depressed-arch head. Gabled head projecting above the wall with
a cusped pointed trefoil in the face. Finial over. Plank door with strap-hinges,
C19. Inscriptions: carved in stone and framing the left hand window: "Shew Me
Thy Ways O Lord" and "Teach Me Thy Paths".
Listing NGR: SY5765385387
This text is from the original listing, and may not necessarily reflect the current setting of the building.
carvings from the old choir screen adorn the pulpit & the communion rail ; here the fox preaches to the geese ; the fox may even be a bishop.
El Colegio de San Gregorio de Valladolid es la sede principal del Museo Nacional de Escultura. Es uno de los mejores ejemplos de la arquitectura del periodo de los Reyes Católicos. En particular, su patio y su portada son célebres por su refinada ornamentación, las elegantes proporciones y una ostensible simbología del poder.
Igualmente interesante es su historia como institución docente. Destinado a colegio de Teología para frailes dominicos, adquirió una notable autoridad doctrinal y actuó como un semillero espiritual y político de la España renacentista y barroca.
La Universidad de Valladolid fue fundada en el siglo XIII durante el reinado de Alfonso X el Sabio; como en otros países se potenció la aparición de centros colegiales, de modo que tardíamente se creó el Colegio de San Gregorio, que actuaron en paralelo o complementariamente con relación a la vida universitaria. En Valladolid se creó además el Colegio de Santa Cruz también a finales del siglo XV
La creación del Colegio, bajo la advocación del doctor de la Iglesia San Gregorio, fue obra del dominico Alonso de Burgos, obispo de la diócesis de Palencia y confesor de los Reyes Católicos. Alonso de Burgos condicionó su fundación a la obtención de la comunidad dominica de San Pablo de los terrenos para la construcción de su propia capilla funeraria, que serviría igualmente para el alumnado del Colegio. Tal petición se vio satisfecha en 1487: consigue el espacio necesario, lo cual fue confirmado por el Papa Inocencio VIII.
Las obras se iniciaron en 1488 aunque se había comenzado ya la construcción de la capilla funeraria, cuya puerta de entrada se percibe en el crucero sur de la Iglesia conventual de San Pablo.
La fachada fue concebida como un telón o estandarte (arquitectura suspendida). Su compartimentación se organiza con elementos vegetales que evocan los arcos triunfales construidos con madera y enramada, reforzándose su carácter civil y urbano. Dada su significación simbólica, la explicación de los diferentes motivos y elementos que la integran ofrece una gran dificultad, tanto individualmente como en su totalidad y en la relación entre los diferentes elementos.
En el tímpano principal y sobre el dintel decorado con flor de lis aparece la dedicatoria y la ofrenda del Colegio por parte del fraile dominico Alonso de Burgos a san Gregorio Magno en presencia de San Pablo y Santo Domingo.
Destacan las figuras de hombres silvestres cubiertos, o no, de pelo, y con garrotes y escudos; o bien aluden a la costumbre cortesana de disfrazar escuderos con ocasión de fiestas, o bien representan la imagen mítica del «hombre natural», tal como se discutió por esas fechas y entran en diálogo visual con esculturas de caballeros, vestidos con armaduras y portando lanzas y escudos, encarnando la Virtud.
La parte central superior está ocupada por un pilón hexagonal, rebosante de agua, que puede evocar la especulación intelectual como Fuente de la Vida. En torno al pilón, se arremolinan parejas de niños y de él arranca el tronco de un granado, en posible alusión a la Fuente de la Vida y al Árbol de la Ciencia, aparte de la celebración de la reciente conquista del Reino de Granada. Todo el relieve central de la fachada se constituye con esta representación simbólica de un microcosmos, a imagen del Paraíso, lugar hacia donde deberían dirigirse los hombres mediante el conocimiento de las Artes y la Teología.
La presencia del escudo de los Reyes Católicos, sostenido por leones y por el águila de San Juan podría tener una significación política o podría ser una alusión a la dedicación del edificio a la Monarquía, a la que Alonso de Burgos nombró heredera y patrona del Colegio.
El patio del Colegio es de planta cuadrada y representa una de las joyas de estilo hispanoflamenco. Sus dos pisos se levantan sobre pilares helicoidales decorados sus capiteles con medias bolas y lises separados ambos por el tema de la cadena.
En las arquerías del piso superior se encuentra toda la decoración mediante calados pretiles de tracería gótica y cortinas pétreas que al abrirse originan arcos geminados de guirnaldas y follaje, entre los que juguetean niños, concebido con una talla muy plana próxima al estilo renacentista. Un friso de yugos y flechas y las gárgolas es lo único que se conserva de su antiguo coronamiento.
El acceso al piso superior se realiza a través de una sola escalera con pretiles góticos a los que se suceden los paramentos almohadillados de su caja decorada también con el timbre heráldico del fundador y con un artesonado mudéjar, en cuyo friso se pueden observar las iniciales de los Reyes Católicos y que cierra todo su ámbito.
es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colegio_de_San_Gregorio
es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museo_Nacional_de_Escultura
The Colegio de San Gregorio is an Isabelline style building located in the city of Valladolid, in Castile and León, Spain, it was formerly a college and now is housing the Museo Nacional de Escultura museum. This building is one of the best examples of the architectural style known as Isabelline, which is the characteristic architectural style of the Crown of Castile region during the Catholic Monarchs' reign (late-15th century to early-16th century).
Among other sections highlights its courtyard and its facade for its refined decoration, elegant proportions and the number of symbologies. It was founded as a teaching institution. Aimed at College of Theology for Dominican friars, it has acquired a doctrinal authority and acted as a spiritual and political hotbed in the Central region of Spain's Renaissance and Baroque periods.
The University of Valladolid was founded in the 13th-century during the Alfonso X of Castile the Wise's reign; as in other countries, the emergence of college centers was potentiated, then belatedly was created the Colegio de San Gregorio, who performed in parallel or complementarily in relation to university life. In Valladolid the Colegio Mayor Santa Cruz was also created also in late 15th-century.
The creation of the College, under the title of the Doctor of the Church Saint Gregory the Great, was work of Dominican Alonso de Burgos, the Catholic Monarchs's confessor and Bishop of the dioceses of Córdoba, Cuenca and Palencia. The foundation of the college was confirmed by with Papal Bull of Pope Innocent VIII in 1487, and accepted as Royal patronage by Queen Isabella the Catholic in 1500, after the founder's death.
It attached to the Convento de San Pablo, which Friar Alonso had been its prior, its foundation was subject to the assignment of the Capilla del Crucifijo (Crucifix's chapel), attached to the Epistle's arm of the Dominican church, to become his own funeral chapel, which later acquired dual function to also serve as a chapel for college.
Work began in 1488 in a process from the inside to outside, being the main facade the last in lift. The Royal shields in the corners of the Large courtyard still do not present the Granada's symbol suggests that this part would be completed before 1492. The building is assumed to completed in 1496.
The facade, plain facing and topped with a crest, stands out above all for its spectacular main facade, which by its stylistic features it sets regarding the workshop of Gil de Siloé, a Flemish origin artist, who was at that time in Burgos dealing with the royal sepulchers of the Miraflores Charterhouse and is known to have been commissioned to make the defunct altarpiece of the chapel, very in connection with which the sculptor had made in the Conception's chapel or of Bishop Acuña in the Cathedral of Burgos and has obvious similarities to the upper of the main facade of San Gregorio.
Perhaps evoking the triumphal arches of the architectures at that time were developing in Central Europe, or perhaps the Islamic Madrasas, architects of this building applying an individually decorated of the Castilian late-Gothic (Isabelline), it has a complex symbolic significance in that mix contemporary figures, saints, allegories, wild men, abundant symbolic of power, etc.
It has two bodies framed by two buttresses. The lower hosts a vain lintel decorated with fleur-de-lys, the founder's symbol repeated often enough, covered with three-centered arch in turn covered by another ogee trefoil.
It draw attention to the "savage men" of the jambs and buttresses, a total of sixteen. Theories about the significance of these figures, present in many buildings of 15th-century, are varied and should be put in relation to the context in which these appear. One of its functions would be simple heraldry sculptures. It is also said that, dressed with shield and mace, were the guardians of the building, beastmen guaranteeing security. Or these could allude to the custom of disguising the squires and lackeys in Court (nobility) festivities in which it presented the "savage" as inferior, in relation, for example, the chivalric romances, which mentions hair covered wild men, degraded men, estranged from the civilized world, not Christianized, and could here be in visual confrontation with the knights who also appear on the main facade, with armor, spears and shields, that would be interpreted as allegories of Virtue. On the contrary, these could also be a positive allusion, the mythical image of man in nature, unpolluted, symbol of purity that evokes the time in a perfect and happy world, with prototype to John the Baptist.
Those on the lower part, flanking the main facade, are completely covered with long hair, carrying weapons and the shields are decorated with demonic figures except in one, which has a Knight order of Calatrava's cross, the same motifs of the soldiers's shields of the second floor, the same iconography already seen for over a century.
However, in the top of the main facade are completely different, with the same attributes but without hair on the body and even two hairless, with a more human aspect, and there are authors who consider the oldest representation in Castile of an American Native, reflecting the effect of the Americas's arrival in the European imagination.
The tympanum, on a lintel, seems to represent the offering of the college by Friar Alonso de Burgos to Saint Gregory the Great in the presence of Saints Dominic and Paul, patrons of the neighboring Dominican convent, a somewhat disconcerting scene, unbalanced, with disproportion between the figures and Saint Paul with a cruciferous nimbus, an exclusive attribute of Christ. It seems to be earlier work than the rest, or even reused from other site.
The upper body is divided into three sections, with the center occupied by a hexagonal pylon which starts a pomegranate tree, referring to the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada's conquest in 1492, swirling around putti playing and jumping. It could be a Fountain of Eternal Youth's representation, hence the children, of the Tree of Knowledge, in relation to the building dedicated to the study, an allegory of the Paradise, the place to which men aspire to reach through the knowledge, an allegory of the Golden Age, in relation to the historical moment that was occurring to the Spanish monarchy.
The pomegranate tree is topped by a big shield of the Catholic Monarchs with the St. John's eagle held by two attitude lions and below the Catholic Monarchs's symbols also appear: the beam and arrows. And the use of the royal heraldry with propaganda purposes in this period reached prominence hitherto unknown, present not only in buildings directly promoted by the Catholic Monarchs but also in many that of their closest collaborators, in that way showing participation and acceptance in the political project undertaken by Isabella I and Ferdinand II in relation to the establishment of a modern state with which to control and organize all their territories under their unique power.
Upper body's side sections have the founder's heraldic decoration and two kings of arms placed at height of the central shield.
Distributed among the distributed arboured throughout the main facade are seen multiple scenes related to the defects to be overcome with the study, in relation to the search for truth and rejection of heresy, the triumph of intelligence over force or the strength to overcome temptation.
(Large courtyard) The Patio Grande was the access to the most important stays of the set. It considered a Hispanic-Flemish (Isabelline) gem, is set in relation to Juan Guas for its similarities to Palacio del Infantado in Guadalajara, although have also located abundant motifs that Bartolomé Solórzano, an active artist at that time in the area, used in the Cathedral of Palencia, seat of the Friar Alonso's bishopric.
It is square with two floors, the lower with slender pillars, perhaps a Solomonic reference in relation to a building as a "temple of wisdom", with capitals of average balls and fleur-de-lis sustaining segmental arches, and the upper with one of the most decorative Isabelline galleries, with parapets openwork with Gothic tracery and geminare arches riddled with garlands and foliage among those appears children playing and where already shown Renassaince influence, of midpoint and a form that goes be more flat.
Then follows a frieze of yokes and arrows on highlighting the imaginative gargoyles.
It has abundant emblems of the Catholic Monarchs and the kingdoms of Navarre and Granada, incorporated into the Crown of Castile during the erection of the building.
The only staircase that connects both floors is rectangular of two sections, Isabelline base, decorated walls with padding of Renaissance influence with the founder's heraldry; an impressive Mudéjar roof on a frieze with the Catholic Monarchs's initials; and neo-Gothic parapets with same trace that the base, added in works in the 1860s to replace the wooden fence that had.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colegio_de_San_Gregorio
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museo_Nacional_de_Escultura,_Vallad...
Steel sculpture; female figure of a stilt-walker (Moko Jumbie). Figure has articulated limbs, painted black. Wears a loincloth composed of plastic and synthetic fibres, shoulder pieces made from nylon netting and gold-sprayed metal breast ornaments. Openwork copper pipe skirt soldered together and hooked onto waist of figure. Numerous composite objects attached to figure including wooden masks and comb; metal bells, keys and toy aeroplane; plastic ornaments sprayed gold; textile decorations. Figure wears gold-sprayed leather and synthetic trainers with toes exposed. Wooden mask with attached vertical headdress made of strips of sheet metal sprayed gold with multiple small metal objects attached including keys, figures, chains, and bells. Wings secured to back of figure, sprayed black and gold. Figure has spiral copper armlet on right proper arm.
Created by Zak Ové for the British Museum's Celebrating Africa season.
The Museum commissioned these figures to coincide with London’s Notting Hill Carnival at the end of August. Moko Jumbie figures became a key feature of carnival in Trinidad in the early 1900s. Oral traditions describe the Moko Jumbie as a guardian of villages who could foresee danger and protect inhabitants from evil forces. Traditionally, Moko Jumbie figures wore long colourful skirts or trousers over their stilts and masks covering their faces. They were sometimes accompanied by dwarfs – represented in the installation in the Great Court by two ‘lost souls’, on loan to the Museum from Zak Ové – who provided a visual height contrast.
Zak Ové works with sculpture, film and photography. He uses these ‘new-world’ materials to pay tribute to both spiritual and artistic African identity. This Moko Jumbie display is part of a larger body of work that draws inspiration from the Trinidad carnival. The works are born from Ové’s documentation of and interest in the African Diaspora and African history. The artist’s intellectual and creative responses to this history are filtered through his own personal and cultural upbringing in London and Trinidad. The relationship between carnival and Africa derives from the enforced movement of peoples during the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Between around 1500 and 1900, millions of people were transported from West and Central Africa to the Caribbean and North, Central and South America.
Carnival in Trinidad began as a predominantly elite event. In the late 1700s French immigrants arrived on the island to run plantations, bringing with them enslaved Africans. The plantation owners staged elaborate masquerade balls during the carnival season. Africans also brought their own masking traditions of which the Moko Jumbie is but one. Masking for Africans in the Caribbean was a way to connect to ancestors and nature as well as ideas of ‘home’. But traditional masquerades were also used to satirically depict their masters and turn a critical eye on plantation society. After full emancipation in 1838, Africans took over the streets at carnival time, using song, dance and masquerade to re-dress the still existing social inequalities.
[British Museum]
Ce petit autel-retable a été dressé dans le deuxième moitié de XVIIe siècle par la confrérie des Archers en l'honneur de leur saint patron, Sébastien. Il a été restauré en 1991. Il est exécuté en sapin et porte des décorations en tilleul. Le bois a reçu une polychromie variée relevée de doreurs. Le tableau d'autel représentait à l'origine le martyre de saint Sébastien. En complète dégradation, il a été remplacé a la fin du XIXe siècle par une icône de Notre-Dame du Perpétuel Secours.
D'autres transformations ont eu lieu, entrainant la disparition du tabernacle. L'"antependium" (devant de l'autel) mobile est en bois sculpté ajouré, plaqué sur un massif maçonné de briques.
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This small altarpiece was erected in the second half of the 17th century by the brotherhood of Archers in honor of their patron saint, Sebastien. It was restored in 1991. It is executed in fir with decorations in linden. The wood has been painted and gilt. The painting originally depicted the martyrdom of St. Sebastian. In an act of total degradation, it was replaced at the end of the 19th century by an icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help.
Other transformations have taken place, causing the disappearance of the tabernacle. The antependium is open carved woodwork, on a face of bricks.
mémoire2cité - Sols absorbants, formes arrondies et couleurs vives, les aires de jeux standardisées font désormais partie du paysage urbain. Toujours les mêmes toboggans sécurisés, châteaux forts en bois et animaux à ressort. Ces non-lieux qu’on finit par ne plus voir ont une histoire, parallèle à celle des différentes visions portées sur l’enfant et l’éducation. En retournant jouer au xixe siècle, sur les premiers playgrounds des États-Unis, on assiste à la construction d’une nation – et à des jeux de société qui changent notre vision sur les balançoires du capitalisme. Ce texte est paru dans le numéro 4 de la revue Jef Klak « Ch’val de Course », printemps-été 2017. La version ici publiée en ligne est une version légèrement remaniée à l’occasion de sa republication dans le magazine Palais no 27 1, paru en juin 2018. la video içi www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uwj1wh5k5PY The concept for adventure playgrounds originated in postwar Europe, after a playground designer found that children had more fun with the trash and rubble left behind by bombings -inventing their own toys and playing with them- than on the conventional equipment of swings and slides. Narrator John Snagge was a well-known voice talent in the UK, working as a newsreader for BBC Radio - jefklak.org/le-gouvernement-des-playgrounds/ - www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/chasing-the-vanishing-p... or children, playgrounds are where magic happens. And if you count yourself among Baby Boomers or Gen Xers, you probably have fond memories of high steel jungle gyms and even higher metal slides that squeaked and groaned as you slid down them. The cheerful variety of animals and vehicles on springs gave you plenty of rides to choose from, while a spiral slide, often made of striped panels, was a repeated thrill. When you dismounted from a teeter-totter, you had to be careful not to send your partner crashing to the ground or get hit in the head by your own seat. The tougher, faster kids always pushed the brightly colored merry-go-round, trying to make riders as dizzy as possible. In the same way, you’d dare your sibling or best friend to push you even higher on the swing so your toes could touch the sky. The most exciting playgrounds would take the form of a pirate ship, a giant robot, or a space rocket.
“My husband would look at these big metal things and go, ‘Oh my God, those are the Slides of Death!'” - insh.world/history/playground-equipment-of-yesterday-that...
Today, these objects of happy summers past have nearly disappeared, replaced by newer equipment that’s lower to the ground and made of plastic, painted metal, and sometimes rot-resistant woods like cedar or redwood. The transformation began in 1973, when the U.S. Congress established the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which began tracking playground injuries at hospital emergency rooms. The study led to the publication of the first Handbook for Public Playground Safety in 1981, which signaled the beginning of the end for much of the playground equipment in use. (See the latest PPS handbook here.) Then, the American Society for Testing and Materials created a subcommittee of designers and playground-equipment manufacturers to set safety standards for the whole industry. When they published their guidelines in 1993, they suggested most existing playground surfaces, which were usually asphalt, dirt, or grass, needed to be replaced with pits of wood or rubber mulch or sand, prompting many schools and parks to rip their old playgrounds out entirely.
Top: A Space Age rocket-themed playground set by Miracle Playground Equipment, introduced circa 1968, photographed in Burlington, Colorado, in 2009. Above: Two seesaws and a snail-shaped climber, circa 1970s, photographed in Vandergrift, Pennsylvania, in 2007. (Photos by Brenda Biondo)
Top: A Space Age rocket-themed playground set by Miracle Playground Equipment, introduced circa 1968, photographed in Burlington, Colorado, in 2009. Above: Two seesaws and a snail-shaped climber, circa 1970s, photographed in Vandergrift, Pennsylvania, in 2007. (Photos by Brenda Biondo)
That said, removing and replacing playground equipment takes money, so a certain amount of vintage playground equipment survived into the next millennium—but it’s vanishing fast. Fortunately, Brenda Biondo, a freelance journalist turned photographer, felt inspired to document these playscapes before they’ve all been melted down. Her photographs capture the sculptural beauty and creativity of the vintage apparatuses, as well as that feeling of nostalgia you get when you see a piece of your childhood. After a decade of hunting down old playgrounds, Biondo published a coffee-table book, 2014’s Once Upon a Playground: A Celebration of Classic American Playgrounds, 1920-1975, which includes both her photographs of vintage equipment and pages of old playground catalogs that sold it.
Starting this November, Biondo’s playground photos will hit the road as part of a four-year ExhibitsUSA traveling show, which will also include vintage playground postcards and catalog pages from Biondo’s collection. The show will make stops in smaller museums and history centers around the United States, passing through Temple, Texas; Lincoln, Nebraska; Kansas City, Missouri; and Greenville, South Carolina. Biondo talked to us on the phone from her home in small-town Colorado, where she lives with her husband and children.
This 1975 Miracle catalog page reads, "This famous Lifetime Whirl has delighted three generations of children and still is a safe, playground favorite. Although it has gone through many improvements many of the original models are still spinning on playgrounds from coast to coast." (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)This 1975 Miracle catalog page reads, “This famous Lifetime Whirl has delighted three generations of children and still is a safe, playground favorite. Although it has gone through many improvements many of the original models are still spinning on playgrounds from coast to coast.” (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)Collectors Weekly: What inspired you to photograph playgrounds?Biondo: In 2004, I happened to be at my local park with my 1-year-old daughter, who was playing in the sandbox. I had just switched careers, from freelance journalism to photography, and I was looking for a starter project. I looked around the playground and thought, “Where is all the equipment that I remember growing up on?” They had new plastic contraptions, but nothing like the big metal slides I grew up with. After that, I started driving around to other playgrounds to see if any of this old equipment still existed. I found very little of it and realized it was disappearing quickly. That got to me.I felt like somebody should be documenting this equipment, because it was such a big part—and a very good part—of so many people’s childhoods. I couldn’t find anybody else who was documenting it, and I didn’t see any evidence that the Smithsonian was collecting it. As far as I could tell, it was just getting ripped up and sent to the scrap heap. At first, I started traveling around Colorado where I live, visiting playgrounds. Eventually, I took longer trips around the Southwest, and then I started looking for playgrounds whenever I was in any other parts of the country, like around California and the East Coast. It was a long-term project—shot over the course of a decade. And every year that I was shooting, it got harder and harder to find those pieces of old equipment.
This merry-go-round, photographed in Cañon City, Colorado, in 2006, is very similar to the Lifetime Whirl above. In the background are a rideable jalopy and animals, including four attached to a teeter-totter. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
This merry-go-round, photographed in Cañon City, Colorado, in 2006, is very similar to the Lifetime Whirl above. In the background are a rideable jalopy and animals, including four attached to a teeter-totter. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
Collectors Weekly: How did you find them?
Biondo: I would just drive around. I started hunting down local elementary schools and main-street playgrounds as well as neighborhood playgrounds. If I had a weekend, I would say, “OK, I’m going to drive from my home three hours east to the Kansas border, stay overnight and drive back.” Along the way, I would stop at every little town that I’d pass. They usually had one tiny main-street playground and one elementary school. I never knew what I was going to find. In a poorer area, a town often doesn’t have much money to replace playground equipment, whereas more affluent areas usually have updated their playgrounds by now. It was a bit of a crap shoot. Sometimes, I’d drive for hours and not really find anything—or I’d find one old playground after the other, because I happened to be in an area where equipment hadn’t been replaced.
I couldn’t get to every state, so I had to shoot where I was. I think there certainly are still old playgrounds out there, especially in small towns. But there’s fewer and fewer of them every year. My book has something like 170 photographs. I would guess that half the equipment pictured is already gone. Sometimes, I’d go back to a playground with a nice piece of equipment a year later to reshoot it, maybe in different lighting or a different season, and so often it had been removed. That pressured me to get out as often as I could because if I waited a few weeks, that piece might not be there anymore.
A 1911 postcard shows girls playing on an outdoor gymnasium at Mayo Park in Rochester, Minnesota.
a 1911 postcard shows girls playing on an outdoor gymnasium at Mayo Park in Rochester, Minnesota.
Collectors Weekly: What did you learn about playground history?
Biondo: I didn’t know American playgrounds started as part of the social reform or progressive movement of the early 1900s. Reformers hoped to keep poor inner-city immigrant kids safe and out of trouble. Back then, city children were playing in the streets with nothing to do, and when cars became more popular, kids started to get hit by motorists. Child activists started building playgrounds in big cities like Boston, Chicago, and New York as a way to help and protect these kids. These reformers felt they could build model citizens by teaching cooperation and manners through playgrounds. These early main-street parks would also have playground leaders who orchestrated activities such as games and songs.
“I started driving to playgrounds to see if any old equipment still existed. I found very little of it and realized it was disappearing quickly.”
In the late 1800s, Germans developed what they called “sand gardens,” which are just piles of sand where kids can come dig and build things. There were few of those in the United States as well. But by the early 1900s, the emphasis of playgrounds was on the apparatuses, things kids could climb on or swing on.
Soon after I started researching playground history, I happened to stumble on an eBay auction for a 1926 catalog that the playground manufacturers used to send to schools. At that point, I wasn’t thinking of doing a book, but I thought I could do something with it. I won the catalog; I paid, like, $12 for it. And it was so interesting because I could see this vintage equipment when it was brand new and considered modern and advanced. The manufacturers boasted about how safe it was and how it was good for building both muscles and imaginations.
After that, I would always search on eBay for playground catalogs, and I ended up with about three dozen catalogs from different manufacturers. My oldest is 1916, and my newest is from 1975. So I would take a photograph of some type of merry-go-round, and then I might find that same merry-go-round in a 1930 catalog. Often in the book, I pair my picture with the page from the catalog showing when it was first manufactured. I discovered a couple dozen manufacturers, which tended to be located in the bigger industrial areas with steel manufacturing, like Trenton, New Jersey, and Kokomo and Litchfield, Indiana. Pueblo, Colorado, even had a playground manufacturer. Burke and GameTime were big 20th century companies, and actually are among few still in existence.
The cover of a 1926 catalog for EverWear Manufacturing Company. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)
The cover of a 1926 catalog for EverWear Manufacturing Company. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)
Collectors Weekly: I recently came across an old metal slide whose steps had the name of the manufacturer, American, forged in openwork letters.
Biondo: I love those. One of the last pages in the book shows treads from six different slides, and they each had the name of their manufacturer in them, including Porter, American, and Burke. One time when I was traveling, I did a quick side trip to a small town with an elementary school. In the parking lot was this old metal slide with the American step treads, lying on its side. You could tell it had just been ripped off out of the concrete, which was still attached to the bottom, and was waiting for the steel recyclers to come and take it away.
I thought, “Oh my gosh, just put it on eBay! Somebody is going to want that. Don’t melt it down.” But nobody thinks about this stuff getting thrown away when it should be preserved. If you go on eBay, you can find a lot of those small animals on springs that little kids ride, because they’re small enough to be shipped. Once I saw someone selling one of those huge rocket ships, which had been dismantled, on eBay, but I don’t know if anybody ever bid on it. It’s rare to see the big stuff, because it is so expensive to ship. It’s like, “What kind of truck do you need to haul this thing away?” I don’t know of anyone who’s collecting those pieces, but I hope somebody is.
A metal slide in Victor, Colorado, had step treads with the name "American" in them. Photographed in 2008. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
A metal slide in Victor, Colorado, had step treads with the name “American” in them. Photographed in 2008. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
Collectors Weekly: It seems like an opportunity for both starting a collection or repurposing the material.
Biondo: I photographed many of the apparatuses as if they were sculptures because they have really cool designs and colors. Even when they’re worn down, the exposed layers of paint can be beautiful. Hardly anybody stops to look at it that way. People drive by and think, “Oh, there’s an old, rusty, rundown playground.” But if you take the time to look closely at this stuff, it’s really interesting. Just by looking at these pieces, you can picture all the kids who played on them.
Collectors Weekly: Aren’t people nostalgic for their childhood playgrounds?
Biondo: While I was taking the pictures, I visited Boulder, Colorado, which is a very affluent community. I was sure there would be no old playground equipment there. When I was driving around, all of a sudden, I looked over and saw this huge rocket ship. It turns out that one of the original NASA astronauts, Scott Carpenter, grew up in Boulder, and this playground was built in the ’60s to honor their hometown boy. Because of that, the citizens of Boulder never wanted to take down the rocket ship. One of the first exhibitions of this photography project happened in Boulder, and at the opening, I sold four prints of that rocket ship. People would come up to me at the exhibition, and they’d go, “Oh my gosh, I grew up playing on this when I was a little kid! Now, my kids are playing on it, and I’m so excited that I can get a picture of it and hang it in their bedroom.” So people have a strong nostalgic attachment to this equipment. It’s sad that most of it’s not going to be around for much longer.
A 1968 Miracle Playground Equipment catalog features the huge rocket-ship play set seen at the top of this story. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)
A 1968 Miracle Playground Equipment catalog features the huge rocket-ship playset seen at the top of this story. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)
Collectors Weekly: Besides slides and animals on springs, what were some other pieces that were common in older playgrounds?
Biondo: I didn’t come across as many old swings as I expected. I thought they would be all over the place, but I guess they’re gone now because they were so easy to replace. I tended to find merry-go-rounds more frequently—you know, the one where you’d run around pushing them and then jump on. When my kids were younger, they’d go out playground hunting with me, and the merry-go-rounds were their favorite things. They’re just so fun. The other thing you don’t find often is the seesaw or teeter-totter, and that was my favorite.The Karymor Stationary Jingle Ring Outfit appeared in the 1931 playground catalog put out by Pueblo, Colorado's R.F. Lamar and Co. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
The Karymor Stationary Jingle Ring Outfit appeared in the 1931 playground catalog put out by Pueblo, Colorado’s R.F. Lamar and Co. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
Before I started this project, I didn’t know there was such a variety of equipment. I figured I’d see seesaws, swings, slides, and merry-go-rounds. But I had no idea there were such things as revolving swings, which would be attached to a spinning pole via outstretched metal arms. Many mid-century pieces had themes from pop culture like “The Wizard of Oz,” “Cinderella,” “Denis the Menace,” cowboys and Indians, and Saturday-morning cartoons. During the Space Age, you started to see pieces of equipment shaped like rocket ships and satellites, because in the ’60s, Americans were so excited about space exploration. What was going on in the broader culture often got reflected in playground equipment.
Pursuing the catalogs was eye-opening. I live about an hour and a half south of Denver, so I often looked for playgrounds around the city. There, I’d find these contraptions where were shaped like umbrella skeletons, but then they had these rings hanging off the spindles. I’ve never seen them outside of Colorado. Then I bought a 1930s catalog from the manufacturer in Pueblo, Colorado, which is only 45 minutes from me, and it featured this apparatus. Later, I met people in Denver who’d say, “Oh, yeah, I remember that thing as a kid. It’s kind of like monkey bars where you had to try and get from ring to ring swinging and hanging by your arms.” There was so much variety, and even so many variations on the basics.I have a cool catalog from 1926 from the manufacturer Mitchell, which doesn’t exist anymore. I looked at one of the contraptions they advertised and I was like, “Oh my God, this looks like a torture device!” It was their own proprietary apparatus and maybe it didn’t prove to be very popular. I had never seen something like that on a playground. There probably weren’t very many of them installed.
This strange Climbing Swing from the 1926 Mitchell Manufacturing Company catalog looks a bit like a torture device. Brenda Biondo says she's never found one in the wild. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)
This Climbing Swing from the 1926 Mitchell Manufacturing Company catalog looks a bit like a torture device. Biondo’s never found one in the wild. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)
Collectors Weekly: After a while, were you able to date pieces just by looking at them?
Biondo: From looking at the catalogs, I certainly got a better idea of when things were built. But there were a handful things I couldn’t find in the catalogs. You can guess the age by knowing the design, as well as by looking at the amount of wear and the height of the piece. Usually, the taller it was, the older it was. One of the oldest slides I photographed was probably from the ’30s. I climbed to the top to shoot it as if the viewer were going to go down the slide. Up there, the place where you’d sit before sliding had been used for so many years by so many kids that I could see an outline of all the butts worn into the metal. You can imagine all the children who must have gone down that slide to wear the metal down like that.
This 1930s-era slide, found in Sargents, Colorado, in 2007, developed a butt-shaped imprint. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
This 1930s-era slide, found in Sargents, Colorado, in 2007, developed a butt-shaped imprint. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
Collectors Weekly: How did Modernism influence playground design?
Biondo: In 1953, the Museum of Modern Art in New York held a competition for playground design. Modern Art was just getting popular, and the idea of incorporating the theories of Modernist design into utilitarian objects was in the air, and was translated into playgrounds for several years. I have a 1967 catalog that features very abstract playground equipment made from sinuous blobs of poured concrete. And you’ve probably seen some of it, but there’s not too much of that around. That’s another example of how broader cultural trends were reflected in playgrounds.
When most people think of playgrounds, they say, “Oh, that’s a kiddie subject. There’s not much to it.” But when you start looking into them, you realize playgrounds are a fascinating piece of American culture—they go back a hundred years and played a part in most Americans’ lives. These playground pieces are icons of our childhood.
Collectors Weekly:What was the impact of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which launched in 1973?
Biondo: Things started to change after that, which is why I limited to book to apparatuses made before 1975. New playgrounds were starting to be build out of plastic and fiberglass. I looked up the statistics, and according to the little research I’ve done—contrary to what you’d expect—there’s not much difference in the number of injuries on older equipment versus injuries on equipment today. A “New York Times” article from 2011 called “Can a Playground Be Too Safe?” explains that studies show when playground equipment was really high and just had asphalt underneath it and not seven layers of mulch, thekids knew they had to be careful because they didn’t want to fall. Nowadays, when everything is lower and there’s so much mulch, kids are just used to jumping down and falling and catching themselves. So kids learned to assess risk by playing on the older equipment. They also learned to challenge themselves because it is a little scary to go up to the top of the thing.
This old postcard of Shawnee Park in Kansas City, Kansas, circa 1912, shows how tall slides could get.
This old postcard of Shawnee Park in Kansas City, Kansas, circa 1912, shows how tall slides could get.
At my local park where you have new equipment, the monkey bars aren’t that high and there’s mulch below it, but a child fell and broke their arm last year. When I was talking to the principal at the school where they had just torn out that old American slide, I asked her, “Why did you replace the equipment?” She said, “We felt the parents in the community were expecting to have a little bit newer and nicer equipment. And this stuff had been here for so long.” And I said, “Have you seen a difference in injury rates since you put up your newer equipment?” She replied, “I’ve been a principal here several years, and we never had a serious broken-bone injury on the playground until four months ago on the new equipment.”
There were some nasty accidents in the ‘60s and ’70s, where kids got their arms or their heads caught in the contraptions. Those issues definitely needed to be assessed. What’s interesting is the Consumer Product Safety Commission never issued requirements, just suggested guidelines. But manufacturers felt that if their equipment didn’t meet those guidelines, they’d be vulnerable to liability. Everybody went to the extreme, making everything super safe so they wouldn’t risk getting sued.A 1970s-era climbing-bar apparatus, photographed in Rocky Ford, Colorado, in 2006. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
A 1970s-era climbing-bar apparatus, photographed in Rocky Ford, Colorado, in 2006. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
In the last decade, people have been looking at playground-equipment design and trying to make it more challenging and more encouraging of imaginative play, but without making it more likely someone’s going to get injured. And adults, I think, are realizing kids are spending more time indoors on devices so they want to do everything they can to encourage kids to still get outside, run around, and climb on things.
Collectors Weekly: You don’t need a playground to hurt yourself. When I was a kid, I fell off a farm post and broke my arm.Biondo: Oh, yeah, kids have been falling out trees forever—they always want to climb stuff. Playground politics are always evolving. Even in the 1920s, the catalogs talked about how safe their equipment was, and they were selling these 30-foot slides. Sometimes, I’d be out with my family on a vacation, and we’d make a little side tour to look for an old playground to shoot. My husband would look at these big metal things and go, “Oh my God, those are the Slides of Death!” because they were so huge and rickety. But back then, these were very safe pieces of equipment compared to what kids had been playing on before.
A page from the 1971 GameTime catalog offering rideable Saddle Mates. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)
A page from the 1971 GameTime catalog offering rideable Saddle Mates. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)
Collectors Weekly: Growing up in the 1980s, I always hated the new fiberglass slides because I’d end up with all these tiny glass shards in my butt.
Biondo: Yeah, I remember that, too. It’s always something. It is fun to talk to people about playgrounds because it reminds them of all the fun stuff they did as kids. When people see pictures of these metal slides, they tell me, “Oh my gosh, I remember getting such a bad burn from a metal slide one summer!” The metal would get so hot in the sun, and kids would take pieces of wax paper with them to sit on so they’d go flying down the slide. I have some old postcards that show playgrounds from the early ’20s. The wood seesaws not only were huge, but they had no handles so you had hold on to the sides of the board where you sat. I’m looking at that like, “Oh my God!” It’s all relative.
playground_postcard_milwaukee
Kids ride the rocking-boat seesaw at a Milwaukee, Wisconsin, park in this postcard postmarked 1910.
(To see more of Brenda Biondo’s playground photos and vintage catalog pages, pick up a copy of her book, “Once Upon a Playground: A Celebration of Classic American Playground, 1920-1975.” To find an exhibition of Biondo’s playground project, or to bring it to your town, visit the ExhibitsUSA page. To learn more about creative mid-century playgrounds around the globe, also pick up, “The Playground Project” by Xavier Salle and Vincent Romagny.) insh.world/history/playground-equipment-of-yesterday-that...
mémoire2cité - Sols absorbants, formes arrondies et couleurs vives, les aires de jeux standardisées font désormais partie du paysage urbain. Toujours les mêmes toboggans sécurisés, châteaux forts en bois et animaux à ressort. Ces non-lieux qu’on finit par ne plus voir ont une histoire, parallèle à celle des différentes visions portées sur l’enfant et l’éducation. En retournant jouer au xixe siècle, sur les premiers playgrounds des États-Unis, on assiste à la construction d’une nation – et à des jeux de société qui changent notre vision sur les balançoires du capitalisme. Ce texte est paru dans le numéro 4 de la revue Jef Klak « Ch’val de Course », printemps-été 2017. La version ici publiée en ligne est une version légèrement remaniée à l’occasion de sa republication dans le magazine Palais no 27 1, paru en juin 2018. la video içi www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uwj1wh5k5PY The concept for adventure playgrounds originated in postwar Europe, after a playground designer found that children had more fun with the trash and rubble left behind by bombings -inventing their own toys and playing with them- than on the conventional equipment of swings and slides. Narrator John Snagge was a well-known voice talent in the UK, working as a newsreader for BBC Radio - jefklak.org/le-gouvernement-des-playgrounds/ - www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/chasing-the-vanishing-p... or children, playgrounds are where magic happens. And if you count yourself among Baby Boomers or Gen Xers, you probably have fond memories of high steel jungle gyms and even higher metal slides that squeaked and groaned as you slid down them. The cheerful variety of animals and vehicles on springs gave you plenty of rides to choose from, while a spiral slide, often made of striped panels, was a repeated thrill. When you dismounted from a teeter-totter, you had to be careful not to send your partner crashing to the ground or get hit in the head by your own seat. The tougher, faster kids always pushed the brightly colored merry-go-round, trying to make riders as dizzy as possible. In the same way, you’d dare your sibling or best friend to push you even higher on the swing so your toes could touch the sky. The most exciting playgrounds would take the form of a pirate ship, a giant robot, or a space rocket.
“My husband would look at these big metal things and go, ‘Oh my God, those are the Slides of Death!'” - insh.world/history/playground-equipment-of-yesterday-that...
Today, these objects of happy summers past have nearly disappeared, replaced by newer equipment that’s lower to the ground and made of plastic, painted metal, and sometimes rot-resistant woods like cedar or redwood. The transformation began in 1973, when the U.S. Congress established the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which began tracking playground injuries at hospital emergency rooms. The study led to the publication of the first Handbook for Public Playground Safety in 1981, which signaled the beginning of the end for much of the playground equipment in use. (See the latest PPS handbook here.) Then, the American Society for Testing and Materials created a subcommittee of designers and playground-equipment manufacturers to set safety standards for the whole industry. When they published their guidelines in 1993, they suggested most existing playground surfaces, which were usually asphalt, dirt, or grass, needed to be replaced with pits of wood or rubber mulch or sand, prompting many schools and parks to rip their old playgrounds out entirely.
Top: A Space Age rocket-themed playground set by Miracle Playground Equipment, introduced circa 1968, photographed in Burlington, Colorado, in 2009. Above: Two seesaws and a snail-shaped climber, circa 1970s, photographed in Vandergrift, Pennsylvania, in 2007. (Photos by Brenda Biondo)
Top: A Space Age rocket-themed playground set by Miracle Playground Equipment, introduced circa 1968, photographed in Burlington, Colorado, in 2009. Above: Two seesaws and a snail-shaped climber, circa 1970s, photographed in Vandergrift, Pennsylvania, in 2007. (Photos by Brenda Biondo)
That said, removing and replacing playground equipment takes money, so a certain amount of vintage playground equipment survived into the next millennium—but it’s vanishing fast. Fortunately, Brenda Biondo, a freelance journalist turned photographer, felt inspired to document these playscapes before they’ve all been melted down. Her photographs capture the sculptural beauty and creativity of the vintage apparatuses, as well as that feeling of nostalgia you get when you see a piece of your childhood. After a decade of hunting down old playgrounds, Biondo published a coffee-table book, 2014’s Once Upon a Playground: A Celebration of Classic American Playgrounds, 1920-1975, which includes both her photographs of vintage equipment and pages of old playground catalogs that sold it.
Starting this November, Biondo’s playground photos will hit the road as part of a four-year ExhibitsUSA traveling show, which will also include vintage playground postcards and catalog pages from Biondo’s collection. The show will make stops in smaller museums and history centers around the United States, passing through Temple, Texas; Lincoln, Nebraska; Kansas City, Missouri; and Greenville, South Carolina. Biondo talked to us on the phone from her home in small-town Colorado, where she lives with her husband and children.
This 1975 Miracle catalog page reads, "This famous Lifetime Whirl has delighted three generations of children and still is a safe, playground favorite. Although it has gone through many improvements many of the original models are still spinning on playgrounds from coast to coast." (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)This 1975 Miracle catalog page reads, “This famous Lifetime Whirl has delighted three generations of children and still is a safe, playground favorite. Although it has gone through many improvements many of the original models are still spinning on playgrounds from coast to coast.” (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)Collectors Weekly: What inspired you to photograph playgrounds?Biondo: In 2004, I happened to be at my local park with my 1-year-old daughter, who was playing in the sandbox. I had just switched careers, from freelance journalism to photography, and I was looking for a starter project. I looked around the playground and thought, “Where is all the equipment that I remember growing up on?” They had new plastic contraptions, but nothing like the big metal slides I grew up with. After that, I started driving around to other playgrounds to see if any of this old equipment still existed. I found very little of it and realized it was disappearing quickly. That got to me.I felt like somebody should be documenting this equipment, because it was such a big part—and a very good part—of so many people’s childhoods. I couldn’t find anybody else who was documenting it, and I didn’t see any evidence that the Smithsonian was collecting it. As far as I could tell, it was just getting ripped up and sent to the scrap heap. At first, I started traveling around Colorado where I live, visiting playgrounds. Eventually, I took longer trips around the Southwest, and then I started looking for playgrounds whenever I was in any other parts of the country, like around California and the East Coast. It was a long-term project—shot over the course of a decade. And every year that I was shooting, it got harder and harder to find those pieces of old equipment.
This merry-go-round, photographed in Cañon City, Colorado, in 2006, is very similar to the Lifetime Whirl above. In the background are a rideable jalopy and animals, including four attached to a teeter-totter. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
This merry-go-round, photographed in Cañon City, Colorado, in 2006, is very similar to the Lifetime Whirl above. In the background are a rideable jalopy and animals, including four attached to a teeter-totter. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
Collectors Weekly: How did you find them?
Biondo: I would just drive around. I started hunting down local elementary schools and main-street playgrounds as well as neighborhood playgrounds. If I had a weekend, I would say, “OK, I’m going to drive from my home three hours east to the Kansas border, stay overnight and drive back.” Along the way, I would stop at every little town that I’d pass. They usually had one tiny main-street playground and one elementary school. I never knew what I was going to find. In a poorer area, a town often doesn’t have much money to replace playground equipment, whereas more affluent areas usually have updated their playgrounds by now. It was a bit of a crap shoot. Sometimes, I’d drive for hours and not really find anything—or I’d find one old playground after the other, because I happened to be in an area where equipment hadn’t been replaced.
I couldn’t get to every state, so I had to shoot where I was. I think there certainly are still old playgrounds out there, especially in small towns. But there’s fewer and fewer of them every year. My book has something like 170 photographs. I would guess that half the equipment pictured is already gone. Sometimes, I’d go back to a playground with a nice piece of equipment a year later to reshoot it, maybe in different lighting or a different season, and so often it had been removed. That pressured me to get out as often as I could because if I waited a few weeks, that piece might not be there anymore.
A 1911 postcard shows girls playing on an outdoor gymnasium at Mayo Park in Rochester, Minnesota.
a 1911 postcard shows girls playing on an outdoor gymnasium at Mayo Park in Rochester, Minnesota.
Collectors Weekly: What did you learn about playground history?
Biondo: I didn’t know American playgrounds started as part of the social reform or progressive movement of the early 1900s. Reformers hoped to keep poor inner-city immigrant kids safe and out of trouble. Back then, city children were playing in the streets with nothing to do, and when cars became more popular, kids started to get hit by motorists. Child activists started building playgrounds in big cities like Boston, Chicago, and New York as a way to help and protect these kids. These reformers felt they could build model citizens by teaching cooperation and manners through playgrounds. These early main-street parks would also have playground leaders who orchestrated activities such as games and songs.
“I started driving to playgrounds to see if any old equipment still existed. I found very little of it and realized it was disappearing quickly.”
In the late 1800s, Germans developed what they called “sand gardens,” which are just piles of sand where kids can come dig and build things. There were few of those in the United States as well. But by the early 1900s, the emphasis of playgrounds was on the apparatuses, things kids could climb on or swing on.
Soon after I started researching playground history, I happened to stumble on an eBay auction for a 1926 catalog that the playground manufacturers used to send to schools. At that point, I wasn’t thinking of doing a book, but I thought I could do something with it. I won the catalog; I paid, like, $12 for it. And it was so interesting because I could see this vintage equipment when it was brand new and considered modern and advanced. The manufacturers boasted about how safe it was and how it was good for building both muscles and imaginations.
After that, I would always search on eBay for playground catalogs, and I ended up with about three dozen catalogs from different manufacturers. My oldest is 1916, and my newest is from 1975. So I would take a photograph of some type of merry-go-round, and then I might find that same merry-go-round in a 1930 catalog. Often in the book, I pair my picture with the page from the catalog showing when it was first manufactured. I discovered a couple dozen manufacturers, which tended to be located in the bigger industrial areas with steel manufacturing, like Trenton, New Jersey, and Kokomo and Litchfield, Indiana. Pueblo, Colorado, even had a playground manufacturer. Burke and GameTime were big 20th century companies, and actually are among few still in existence.
The cover of a 1926 catalog for EverWear Manufacturing Company. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)
The cover of a 1926 catalog for EverWear Manufacturing Company. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)
Collectors Weekly: I recently came across an old metal slide whose steps had the name of the manufacturer, American, forged in openwork letters.
Biondo: I love those. One of the last pages in the book shows treads from six different slides, and they each had the name of their manufacturer in them, including Porter, American, and Burke. One time when I was traveling, I did a quick side trip to a small town with an elementary school. In the parking lot was this old metal slide with the American step treads, lying on its side. You could tell it had just been ripped off out of the concrete, which was still attached to the bottom, and was waiting for the steel recyclers to come and take it away.
I thought, “Oh my gosh, just put it on eBay! Somebody is going to want that. Don’t melt it down.” But nobody thinks about this stuff getting thrown away when it should be preserved. If you go on eBay, you can find a lot of those small animals on springs that little kids ride, because they’re small enough to be shipped. Once I saw someone selling one of those huge rocket ships, which had been dismantled, on eBay, but I don’t know if anybody ever bid on it. It’s rare to see the big stuff, because it is so expensive to ship. It’s like, “What kind of truck do you need to haul this thing away?” I don’t know of anyone who’s collecting those pieces, but I hope somebody is.
A metal slide in Victor, Colorado, had step treads with the name "American" in them. Photographed in 2008. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
A metal slide in Victor, Colorado, had step treads with the name “American” in them. Photographed in 2008. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
Collectors Weekly: It seems like an opportunity for both starting a collection or repurposing the material.
Biondo: I photographed many of the apparatuses as if they were sculptures because they have really cool designs and colors. Even when they’re worn down, the exposed layers of paint can be beautiful. Hardly anybody stops to look at it that way. People drive by and think, “Oh, there’s an old, rusty, rundown playground.” But if you take the time to look closely at this stuff, it’s really interesting. Just by looking at these pieces, you can picture all the kids who played on them.
Collectors Weekly: Aren’t people nostalgic for their childhood playgrounds?
Biondo: While I was taking the pictures, I visited Boulder, Colorado, which is a very affluent community. I was sure there would be no old playground equipment there. When I was driving around, all of a sudden, I looked over and saw this huge rocket ship. It turns out that one of the original NASA astronauts, Scott Carpenter, grew up in Boulder, and this playground was built in the ’60s to honor their hometown boy. Because of that, the citizens of Boulder never wanted to take down the rocket ship. One of the first exhibitions of this photography project happened in Boulder, and at the opening, I sold four prints of that rocket ship. People would come up to me at the exhibition, and they’d go, “Oh my gosh, I grew up playing on this when I was a little kid! Now, my kids are playing on it, and I’m so excited that I can get a picture of it and hang it in their bedroom.” So people have a strong nostalgic attachment to this equipment. It’s sad that most of it’s not going to be around for much longer.
A 1968 Miracle Playground Equipment catalog features the huge rocket-ship play set seen at the top of this story. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)
A 1968 Miracle Playground Equipment catalog features the huge rocket-ship playset seen at the top of this story. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)
Collectors Weekly: Besides slides and animals on springs, what were some other pieces that were common in older playgrounds?
Biondo: I didn’t come across as many old swings as I expected. I thought they would be all over the place, but I guess they’re gone now because they were so easy to replace. I tended to find merry-go-rounds more frequently—you know, the one where you’d run around pushing them and then jump on. When my kids were younger, they’d go out playground hunting with me, and the merry-go-rounds were their favorite things. They’re just so fun. The other thing you don’t find often is the seesaw or teeter-totter, and that was my favorite.The Karymor Stationary Jingle Ring Outfit appeared in the 1931 playground catalog put out by Pueblo, Colorado's R.F. Lamar and Co. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
The Karymor Stationary Jingle Ring Outfit appeared in the 1931 playground catalog put out by Pueblo, Colorado’s R.F. Lamar and Co. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
Before I started this project, I didn’t know there was such a variety of equipment. I figured I’d see seesaws, swings, slides, and merry-go-rounds. But I had no idea there were such things as revolving swings, which would be attached to a spinning pole via outstretched metal arms. Many mid-century pieces had themes from pop culture like “The Wizard of Oz,” “Cinderella,” “Denis the Menace,” cowboys and Indians, and Saturday-morning cartoons. During the Space Age, you started to see pieces of equipment shaped like rocket ships and satellites, because in the ’60s, Americans were so excited about space exploration. What was going on in the broader culture often got reflected in playground equipment.
Pursuing the catalogs was eye-opening. I live about an hour and a half south of Denver, so I often looked for playgrounds around the city. There, I’d find these contraptions where were shaped like umbrella skeletons, but then they had these rings hanging off the spindles. I’ve never seen them outside of Colorado. Then I bought a 1930s catalog from the manufacturer in Pueblo, Colorado, which is only 45 minutes from me, and it featured this apparatus. Later, I met people in Denver who’d say, “Oh, yeah, I remember that thing as a kid. It’s kind of like monkey bars where you had to try and get from ring to ring swinging and hanging by your arms.” There was so much variety, and even so many variations on the basics.I have a cool catalog from 1926 from the manufacturer Mitchell, which doesn’t exist anymore. I looked at one of the contraptions they advertised and I was like, “Oh my God, this looks like a torture device!” It was their own proprietary apparatus and maybe it didn’t prove to be very popular. I had never seen something like that on a playground. There probably weren’t very many of them installed.
This strange Climbing Swing from the 1926 Mitchell Manufacturing Company catalog looks a bit like a torture device. Brenda Biondo says she's never found one in the wild. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)
This Climbing Swing from the 1926 Mitchell Manufacturing Company catalog looks a bit like a torture device. Biondo’s never found one in the wild. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)
Collectors Weekly: After a while, were you able to date pieces just by looking at them?
Biondo: From looking at the catalogs, I certainly got a better idea of when things were built. But there were a handful things I couldn’t find in the catalogs. You can guess the age by knowing the design, as well as by looking at the amount of wear and the height of the piece. Usually, the taller it was, the older it was. One of the oldest slides I photographed was probably from the ’30s. I climbed to the top to shoot it as if the viewer were going to go down the slide. Up there, the place where you’d sit before sliding had been used for so many years by so many kids that I could see an outline of all the butts worn into the metal. You can imagine all the children who must have gone down that slide to wear the metal down like that.
This 1930s-era slide, found in Sargents, Colorado, in 2007, developed a butt-shaped imprint. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
This 1930s-era slide, found in Sargents, Colorado, in 2007, developed a butt-shaped imprint. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
Collectors Weekly: How did Modernism influence playground design?
Biondo: In 1953, the Museum of Modern Art in New York held a competition for playground design. Modern Art was just getting popular, and the idea of incorporating the theories of Modernist design into utilitarian objects was in the air, and was translated into playgrounds for several years. I have a 1967 catalog that features very abstract playground equipment made from sinuous blobs of poured concrete. And you’ve probably seen some of it, but there’s not too much of that around. That’s another example of how broader cultural trends were reflected in playgrounds.
When most people think of playgrounds, they say, “Oh, that’s a kiddie subject. There’s not much to it.” But when you start looking into them, you realize playgrounds are a fascinating piece of American culture—they go back a hundred years and played a part in most Americans’ lives. These playground pieces are icons of our childhood.
Collectors Weekly:What was the impact of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which launched in 1973?
Biondo: Things started to change after that, which is why I limited to book to apparatuses made before 1975. New playgrounds were starting to be build out of plastic and fiberglass. I looked up the statistics, and according to the little research I’ve done—contrary to what you’d expect—there’s not much difference in the number of injuries on older equipment versus injuries on equipment today. A “New York Times” article from 2011 called “Can a Playground Be Too Safe?” explains that studies show when playground equipment was really high and just had asphalt underneath it and not seven layers of mulch, thekids knew they had to be careful because they didn’t want to fall. Nowadays, when everything is lower and there’s so much mulch, kids are just used to jumping down and falling and catching themselves. So kids learned to assess risk by playing on the older equipment. They also learned to challenge themselves because it is a little scary to go up to the top of the thing.
This old postcard of Shawnee Park in Kansas City, Kansas, circa 1912, shows how tall slides could get.
This old postcard of Shawnee Park in Kansas City, Kansas, circa 1912, shows how tall slides could get.
At my local park where you have new equipment, the monkey bars aren’t that high and there’s mulch below it, but a child fell and broke their arm last year. When I was talking to the principal at the school where they had just torn out that old American slide, I asked her, “Why did you replace the equipment?” She said, “We felt the parents in the community were expecting to have a little bit newer and nicer equipment. And this stuff had been here for so long.” And I said, “Have you seen a difference in injury rates since you put up your newer equipment?” She replied, “I’ve been a principal here several years, and we never had a serious broken-bone injury on the playground until four months ago on the new equipment.”
There were some nasty accidents in the ‘60s and ’70s, where kids got their arms or their heads caught in the contraptions. Those issues definitely needed to be assessed. What’s interesting is the Consumer Product Safety Commission never issued requirements, just suggested guidelines. But manufacturers felt that if their equipment didn’t meet those guidelines, they’d be vulnerable to liability. Everybody went to the extreme, making everything super safe so they wouldn’t risk getting sued.A 1970s-era climbing-bar apparatus, photographed in Rocky Ford, Colorado, in 2006. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
A 1970s-era climbing-bar apparatus, photographed in Rocky Ford, Colorado, in 2006. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
In the last decade, people have been looking at playground-equipment design and trying to make it more challenging and more encouraging of imaginative play, but without making it more likely someone’s going to get injured. And adults, I think, are realizing kids are spending more time indoors on devices so they want to do everything they can to encourage kids to still get outside, run around, and climb on things.
Collectors Weekly: You don’t need a playground to hurt yourself. When I was a kid, I fell off a farm post and broke my arm.Biondo: Oh, yeah, kids have been falling out trees forever—they always want to climb stuff. Playground politics are always evolving. Even in the 1920s, the catalogs talked about how safe their equipment was, and they were selling these 30-foot slides. Sometimes, I’d be out with my family on a vacation, and we’d make a little side tour to look for an old playground to shoot. My husband would look at these big metal things and go, “Oh my God, those are the Slides of Death!” because they were so huge and rickety. But back then, these were very safe pieces of equipment compared to what kids had been playing on before.
A page from the 1971 GameTime catalog offering rideable Saddle Mates. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)
A page from the 1971 GameTime catalog offering rideable Saddle Mates. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)
Collectors Weekly: Growing up in the 1980s, I always hated the new fiberglass slides because I’d end up with all these tiny glass shards in my butt.
Biondo: Yeah, I remember that, too. It’s always something. It is fun to talk to people about playgrounds because it reminds them of all the fun stuff they did as kids. When people see pictures of these metal slides, they tell me, “Oh my gosh, I remember getting such a bad burn from a metal slide one summer!” The metal would get so hot in the sun, and kids would take pieces of wax paper with them to sit on so they’d go flying down the slide. I have some old postcards that show playgrounds from the early ’20s. The wood seesaws not only were huge, but they had no handles so you had hold on to the sides of the board where you sat. I’m looking at that like, “Oh my God!” It’s all relative.
playground_postcard_milwaukee
Kids ride the rocking-boat seesaw at a Milwaukee, Wisconsin, park in this postcard postmarked 1910.
(To see more of Brenda Biondo’s playground photos and vintage catalog pages, pick up a copy of her book, “Once Upon a Playground: A Celebration of Classic American Playground, 1920-1975.” To find an exhibition of Biondo’s playground project, or to bring it to your town, visit the ExhibitsUSA page. To learn more about creative mid-century playgrounds around the globe, also pick up, “The Playground Project” by Xavier Salle and Vincent Romagny.) insh.world/history/playground-equipment-of-yesterday-that...
Die Orgel der Klosterkirche wurde 1746 bis 1751 durch den Lippstädter Johann Patroclus Möller errichtet. {de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kloster_Marienfeld_(Harsewinkel)#Orgel}
Built from 1746-51 by Johann Patroclus Möller of Lippstadt.
Monuments historiques: PA00089925
Address entered in the Mérimée database:
Grève (rue de la); General-de-Gaulle (rue du)
29590 Le Faou - France
Insee code of the municipality: 29053
Finistère [29] - Quimper - Brittany
Approximate address taken from GPS coordinates (latitude and longitude):
1 Rue du Général de Gaulle 29590 Le Faou
Protected elements:
Church (cad. 1999 AE 20): registration by decree of June 3, 1932
History:
The church consists of a nave, a wide double transept, a three-sided apse and gables. To the south, a large porch bears the dates of 1593 and 1613. The bell tower, openwork and elongated, is cushioned by a lantern dome and bears the dates of 1629, 1630, 1634 and 1640.
Periods of construction:
16th century, 17th century
The Saint-Sauveur church was rebuilt between 1544 and 1680 but retained the furniture of the previous church. And some parts are graded. In particular the “snakes” baptismal font, made of Kersanton stone, considered to be of exceptional interest, and a magnificent stone pietà. The stained glass windows recounting the legendary foundation of the parish, the altar of the rosary and the medallions illustrating the "joyful, glorious, painful mysteries", the Saint-Antoine altar with turrets, that of the "four women", the panels with angels and the carved wooden candlesticks from the 17th century... The church contains many treasures!
Logonna Stone
Illustrated explanatory panels (made by the Ar Faou association) evoke the history of the church and its heritage The exterior is also very beautiful: the Logonna stone gives the building a golden hue associated with the Kersanton stone for the statuary elements. You can also see beautiful gargoyles. And the porch protects the wooden statues of the 12 apostles. Finally, the steeple is domed, unlike the other pointed steeples. The church is open every day, from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. and you can get an explanatory booklet for the visit, at the entrance.
mémoire2cité - Sols absorbants, formes arrondies et couleurs vives, les aires de jeux standardisées font désormais partie du paysage urbain. Toujours les mêmes toboggans sécurisés, châteaux forts en bois et animaux à ressort. Ces non-lieux qu’on finit par ne plus voir ont une histoire, parallèle à celle des différentes visions portées sur l’enfant et l’éducation. En retournant jouer au xixe siècle, sur les premiers playgrounds des États-Unis, on assiste à la construction d’une nation – et à des jeux de société qui changent notre vision sur les balançoires du capitalisme. Ce texte est paru dans le numéro 4 de la revue Jef Klak « Ch’val de Course », printemps-été 2017. La version ici publiée en ligne est une version légèrement remaniée à l’occasion de sa republication dans le magazine Palais no 27 1, paru en juin 2018. la video içi www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uwj1wh5k5PY The concept for adventure playgrounds originated in postwar Europe, after a playground designer found that children had more fun with the trash and rubble left behind by bombings -inventing their own toys and playing with them- than on the conventional equipment of swings and slides. Narrator John Snagge was a well-known voice talent in the UK, working as a newsreader for BBC Radio - jefklak.org/le-gouvernement-des-playgrounds/ - www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/chasing-the-vanishing-p... or children, playgrounds are where magic happens. And if you count yourself among Baby Boomers or Gen Xers, you probably have fond memories of high steel jungle gyms and even higher metal slides that squeaked and groaned as you slid down them. The cheerful variety of animals and vehicles on springs gave you plenty of rides to choose from, while a spiral slide, often made of striped panels, was a repeated thrill. When you dismounted from a teeter-totter, you had to be careful not to send your partner crashing to the ground or get hit in the head by your own seat. The tougher, faster kids always pushed the brightly colored merry-go-round, trying to make riders as dizzy as possible. In the same way, you’d dare your sibling or best friend to push you even higher on the swing so your toes could touch the sky. The most exciting playgrounds would take the form of a pirate ship, a giant robot, or a space rocket.
“My husband would look at these big metal things and go, ‘Oh my God, those are the Slides of Death!'” - insh.world/history/playground-equipment-of-yesterday-that...
Today, these objects of happy summers past have nearly disappeared, replaced by newer equipment that’s lower to the ground and made of plastic, painted metal, and sometimes rot-resistant woods like cedar or redwood. The transformation began in 1973, when the U.S. Congress established the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which began tracking playground injuries at hospital emergency rooms. The study led to the publication of the first Handbook for Public Playground Safety in 1981, which signaled the beginning of the end for much of the playground equipment in use. (See the latest PPS handbook here.) Then, the American Society for Testing and Materials created a subcommittee of designers and playground-equipment manufacturers to set safety standards for the whole industry. When they published their guidelines in 1993, they suggested most existing playground surfaces, which were usually asphalt, dirt, or grass, needed to be replaced with pits of wood or rubber mulch or sand, prompting many schools and parks to rip their old playgrounds out entirely.
Top: A Space Age rocket-themed playground set by Miracle Playground Equipment, introduced circa 1968, photographed in Burlington, Colorado, in 2009. Above: Two seesaws and a snail-shaped climber, circa 1970s, photographed in Vandergrift, Pennsylvania, in 2007. (Photos by Brenda Biondo)
Top: A Space Age rocket-themed playground set by Miracle Playground Equipment, introduced circa 1968, photographed in Burlington, Colorado, in 2009. Above: Two seesaws and a snail-shaped climber, circa 1970s, photographed in Vandergrift, Pennsylvania, in 2007. (Photos by Brenda Biondo)
That said, removing and replacing playground equipment takes money, so a certain amount of vintage playground equipment survived into the next millennium—but it’s vanishing fast. Fortunately, Brenda Biondo, a freelance journalist turned photographer, felt inspired to document these playscapes before they’ve all been melted down. Her photographs capture the sculptural beauty and creativity of the vintage apparatuses, as well as that feeling of nostalgia you get when you see a piece of your childhood. After a decade of hunting down old playgrounds, Biondo published a coffee-table book, 2014’s Once Upon a Playground: A Celebration of Classic American Playgrounds, 1920-1975, which includes both her photographs of vintage equipment and pages of old playground catalogs that sold it.
Starting this November, Biondo’s playground photos will hit the road as part of a four-year ExhibitsUSA traveling show, which will also include vintage playground postcards and catalog pages from Biondo’s collection. The show will make stops in smaller museums and history centers around the United States, passing through Temple, Texas; Lincoln, Nebraska; Kansas City, Missouri; and Greenville, South Carolina. Biondo talked to us on the phone from her home in small-town Colorado, where she lives with her husband and children.
This 1975 Miracle catalog page reads, "This famous Lifetime Whirl has delighted three generations of children and still is a safe, playground favorite. Although it has gone through many improvements many of the original models are still spinning on playgrounds from coast to coast." (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)This 1975 Miracle catalog page reads, “This famous Lifetime Whirl has delighted three generations of children and still is a safe, playground favorite. Although it has gone through many improvements many of the original models are still spinning on playgrounds from coast to coast.” (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)Collectors Weekly: What inspired you to photograph playgrounds?Biondo: In 2004, I happened to be at my local park with my 1-year-old daughter, who was playing in the sandbox. I had just switched careers, from freelance journalism to photography, and I was looking for a starter project. I looked around the playground and thought, “Where is all the equipment that I remember growing up on?” They had new plastic contraptions, but nothing like the big metal slides I grew up with. After that, I started driving around to other playgrounds to see if any of this old equipment still existed. I found very little of it and realized it was disappearing quickly. That got to me.I felt like somebody should be documenting this equipment, because it was such a big part—and a very good part—of so many people’s childhoods. I couldn’t find anybody else who was documenting it, and I didn’t see any evidence that the Smithsonian was collecting it. As far as I could tell, it was just getting ripped up and sent to the scrap heap. At first, I started traveling around Colorado where I live, visiting playgrounds. Eventually, I took longer trips around the Southwest, and then I started looking for playgrounds whenever I was in any other parts of the country, like around California and the East Coast. It was a long-term project—shot over the course of a decade. And every year that I was shooting, it got harder and harder to find those pieces of old equipment.
This merry-go-round, photographed in Cañon City, Colorado, in 2006, is very similar to the Lifetime Whirl above. In the background are a rideable jalopy and animals, including four attached to a teeter-totter. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
This merry-go-round, photographed in Cañon City, Colorado, in 2006, is very similar to the Lifetime Whirl above. In the background are a rideable jalopy and animals, including four attached to a teeter-totter. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
Collectors Weekly: How did you find them?
Biondo: I would just drive around. I started hunting down local elementary schools and main-street playgrounds as well as neighborhood playgrounds. If I had a weekend, I would say, “OK, I’m going to drive from my home three hours east to the Kansas border, stay overnight and drive back.” Along the way, I would stop at every little town that I’d pass. They usually had one tiny main-street playground and one elementary school. I never knew what I was going to find. In a poorer area, a town often doesn’t have much money to replace playground equipment, whereas more affluent areas usually have updated their playgrounds by now. It was a bit of a crap shoot. Sometimes, I’d drive for hours and not really find anything—or I’d find one old playground after the other, because I happened to be in an area where equipment hadn’t been replaced.
I couldn’t get to every state, so I had to shoot where I was. I think there certainly are still old playgrounds out there, especially in small towns. But there’s fewer and fewer of them every year. My book has something like 170 photographs. I would guess that half the equipment pictured is already gone. Sometimes, I’d go back to a playground with a nice piece of equipment a year later to reshoot it, maybe in different lighting or a different season, and so often it had been removed. That pressured me to get out as often as I could because if I waited a few weeks, that piece might not be there anymore.
A 1911 postcard shows girls playing on an outdoor gymnasium at Mayo Park in Rochester, Minnesota.
a 1911 postcard shows girls playing on an outdoor gymnasium at Mayo Park in Rochester, Minnesota.
Collectors Weekly: What did you learn about playground history?
Biondo: I didn’t know American playgrounds started as part of the social reform or progressive movement of the early 1900s. Reformers hoped to keep poor inner-city immigrant kids safe and out of trouble. Back then, city children were playing in the streets with nothing to do, and when cars became more popular, kids started to get hit by motorists. Child activists started building playgrounds in big cities like Boston, Chicago, and New York as a way to help and protect these kids. These reformers felt they could build model citizens by teaching cooperation and manners through playgrounds. These early main-street parks would also have playground leaders who orchestrated activities such as games and songs.
“I started driving to playgrounds to see if any old equipment still existed. I found very little of it and realized it was disappearing quickly.”
In the late 1800s, Germans developed what they called “sand gardens,” which are just piles of sand where kids can come dig and build things. There were few of those in the United States as well. But by the early 1900s, the emphasis of playgrounds was on the apparatuses, things kids could climb on or swing on.
Soon after I started researching playground history, I happened to stumble on an eBay auction for a 1926 catalog that the playground manufacturers used to send to schools. At that point, I wasn’t thinking of doing a book, but I thought I could do something with it. I won the catalog; I paid, like, $12 for it. And it was so interesting because I could see this vintage equipment when it was brand new and considered modern and advanced. The manufacturers boasted about how safe it was and how it was good for building both muscles and imaginations.
After that, I would always search on eBay for playground catalogs, and I ended up with about three dozen catalogs from different manufacturers. My oldest is 1916, and my newest is from 1975. So I would take a photograph of some type of merry-go-round, and then I might find that same merry-go-round in a 1930 catalog. Often in the book, I pair my picture with the page from the catalog showing when it was first manufactured. I discovered a couple dozen manufacturers, which tended to be located in the bigger industrial areas with steel manufacturing, like Trenton, New Jersey, and Kokomo and Litchfield, Indiana. Pueblo, Colorado, even had a playground manufacturer. Burke and GameTime were big 20th century companies, and actually are among few still in existence.
The cover of a 1926 catalog for EverWear Manufacturing Company. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)
The cover of a 1926 catalog for EverWear Manufacturing Company. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)
Collectors Weekly: I recently came across an old metal slide whose steps had the name of the manufacturer, American, forged in openwork letters.
Biondo: I love those. One of the last pages in the book shows treads from six different slides, and they each had the name of their manufacturer in them, including Porter, American, and Burke. One time when I was traveling, I did a quick side trip to a small town with an elementary school. In the parking lot was this old metal slide with the American step treads, lying on its side. You could tell it had just been ripped off out of the concrete, which was still attached to the bottom, and was waiting for the steel recyclers to come and take it away.
I thought, “Oh my gosh, just put it on eBay! Somebody is going to want that. Don’t melt it down.” But nobody thinks about this stuff getting thrown away when it should be preserved. If you go on eBay, you can find a lot of those small animals on springs that little kids ride, because they’re small enough to be shipped. Once I saw someone selling one of those huge rocket ships, which had been dismantled, on eBay, but I don’t know if anybody ever bid on it. It’s rare to see the big stuff, because it is so expensive to ship. It’s like, “What kind of truck do you need to haul this thing away?” I don’t know of anyone who’s collecting those pieces, but I hope somebody is.
A metal slide in Victor, Colorado, had step treads with the name "American" in them. Photographed in 2008. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
A metal slide in Victor, Colorado, had step treads with the name “American” in them. Photographed in 2008. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
Collectors Weekly: It seems like an opportunity for both starting a collection or repurposing the material.
Biondo: I photographed many of the apparatuses as if they were sculptures because they have really cool designs and colors. Even when they’re worn down, the exposed layers of paint can be beautiful. Hardly anybody stops to look at it that way. People drive by and think, “Oh, there’s an old, rusty, rundown playground.” But if you take the time to look closely at this stuff, it’s really interesting. Just by looking at these pieces, you can picture all the kids who played on them.
Collectors Weekly: Aren’t people nostalgic for their childhood playgrounds?
Biondo: While I was taking the pictures, I visited Boulder, Colorado, which is a very affluent community. I was sure there would be no old playground equipment there. When I was driving around, all of a sudden, I looked over and saw this huge rocket ship. It turns out that one of the original NASA astronauts, Scott Carpenter, grew up in Boulder, and this playground was built in the ’60s to honor their hometown boy. Because of that, the citizens of Boulder never wanted to take down the rocket ship. One of the first exhibitions of this photography project happened in Boulder, and at the opening, I sold four prints of that rocket ship. People would come up to me at the exhibition, and they’d go, “Oh my gosh, I grew up playing on this when I was a little kid! Now, my kids are playing on it, and I’m so excited that I can get a picture of it and hang it in their bedroom.” So people have a strong nostalgic attachment to this equipment. It’s sad that most of it’s not going to be around for much longer.
A 1968 Miracle Playground Equipment catalog features the huge rocket-ship play set seen at the top of this story. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)
A 1968 Miracle Playground Equipment catalog features the huge rocket-ship playset seen at the top of this story. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)
Collectors Weekly: Besides slides and animals on springs, what were some other pieces that were common in older playgrounds?
Biondo: I didn’t come across as many old swings as I expected. I thought they would be all over the place, but I guess they’re gone now because they were so easy to replace. I tended to find merry-go-rounds more frequently—you know, the one where you’d run around pushing them and then jump on. When my kids were younger, they’d go out playground hunting with me, and the merry-go-rounds were their favorite things. They’re just so fun. The other thing you don’t find often is the seesaw or teeter-totter, and that was my favorite.The Karymor Stationary Jingle Ring Outfit appeared in the 1931 playground catalog put out by Pueblo, Colorado's R.F. Lamar and Co. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
The Karymor Stationary Jingle Ring Outfit appeared in the 1931 playground catalog put out by Pueblo, Colorado’s R.F. Lamar and Co. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
Before I started this project, I didn’t know there was such a variety of equipment. I figured I’d see seesaws, swings, slides, and merry-go-rounds. But I had no idea there were such things as revolving swings, which would be attached to a spinning pole via outstretched metal arms. Many mid-century pieces had themes from pop culture like “The Wizard of Oz,” “Cinderella,” “Denis the Menace,” cowboys and Indians, and Saturday-morning cartoons. During the Space Age, you started to see pieces of equipment shaped like rocket ships and satellites, because in the ’60s, Americans were so excited about space exploration. What was going on in the broader culture often got reflected in playground equipment.
Pursuing the catalogs was eye-opening. I live about an hour and a half south of Denver, so I often looked for playgrounds around the city. There, I’d find these contraptions where were shaped like umbrella skeletons, but then they had these rings hanging off the spindles. I’ve never seen them outside of Colorado. Then I bought a 1930s catalog from the manufacturer in Pueblo, Colorado, which is only 45 minutes from me, and it featured this apparatus. Later, I met people in Denver who’d say, “Oh, yeah, I remember that thing as a kid. It’s kind of like monkey bars where you had to try and get from ring to ring swinging and hanging by your arms.” There was so much variety, and even so many variations on the basics.I have a cool catalog from 1926 from the manufacturer Mitchell, which doesn’t exist anymore. I looked at one of the contraptions they advertised and I was like, “Oh my God, this looks like a torture device!” It was their own proprietary apparatus and maybe it didn’t prove to be very popular. I had never seen something like that on a playground. There probably weren’t very many of them installed.
This strange Climbing Swing from the 1926 Mitchell Manufacturing Company catalog looks a bit like a torture device. Brenda Biondo says she's never found one in the wild. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)
This Climbing Swing from the 1926 Mitchell Manufacturing Company catalog looks a bit like a torture device. Biondo’s never found one in the wild. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)
Collectors Weekly: After a while, were you able to date pieces just by looking at them?
Biondo: From looking at the catalogs, I certainly got a better idea of when things were built. But there were a handful things I couldn’t find in the catalogs. You can guess the age by knowing the design, as well as by looking at the amount of wear and the height of the piece. Usually, the taller it was, the older it was. One of the oldest slides I photographed was probably from the ’30s. I climbed to the top to shoot it as if the viewer were going to go down the slide. Up there, the place where you’d sit before sliding had been used for so many years by so many kids that I could see an outline of all the butts worn into the metal. You can imagine all the children who must have gone down that slide to wear the metal down like that.
This 1930s-era slide, found in Sargents, Colorado, in 2007, developed a butt-shaped imprint. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
This 1930s-era slide, found in Sargents, Colorado, in 2007, developed a butt-shaped imprint. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
Collectors Weekly: How did Modernism influence playground design?
Biondo: In 1953, the Museum of Modern Art in New York held a competition for playground design. Modern Art was just getting popular, and the idea of incorporating the theories of Modernist design into utilitarian objects was in the air, and was translated into playgrounds for several years. I have a 1967 catalog that features very abstract playground equipment made from sinuous blobs of poured concrete. And you’ve probably seen some of it, but there’s not too much of that around. That’s another example of how broader cultural trends were reflected in playgrounds.
When most people think of playgrounds, they say, “Oh, that’s a kiddie subject. There’s not much to it.” But when you start looking into them, you realize playgrounds are a fascinating piece of American culture—they go back a hundred years and played a part in most Americans’ lives. These playground pieces are icons of our childhood.
Collectors Weekly:What was the impact of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which launched in 1973?
Biondo: Things started to change after that, which is why I limited to book to apparatuses made before 1975. New playgrounds were starting to be build out of plastic and fiberglass. I looked up the statistics, and according to the little research I’ve done—contrary to what you’d expect—there’s not much difference in the number of injuries on older equipment versus injuries on equipment today. A “New York Times” article from 2011 called “Can a Playground Be Too Safe?” explains that studies show when playground equipment was really high and just had asphalt underneath it and not seven layers of mulch, thekids knew they had to be careful because they didn’t want to fall. Nowadays, when everything is lower and there’s so much mulch, kids are just used to jumping down and falling and catching themselves. So kids learned to assess risk by playing on the older equipment. They also learned to challenge themselves because it is a little scary to go up to the top of the thing.
This old postcard of Shawnee Park in Kansas City, Kansas, circa 1912, shows how tall slides could get.
This old postcard of Shawnee Park in Kansas City, Kansas, circa 1912, shows how tall slides could get.
At my local park where you have new equipment, the monkey bars aren’t that high and there’s mulch below it, but a child fell and broke their arm last year. When I was talking to the principal at the school where they had just torn out that old American slide, I asked her, “Why did you replace the equipment?” She said, “We felt the parents in the community were expecting to have a little bit newer and nicer equipment. And this stuff had been here for so long.” And I said, “Have you seen a difference in injury rates since you put up your newer equipment?” She replied, “I’ve been a principal here several years, and we never had a serious broken-bone injury on the playground until four months ago on the new equipment.”
There were some nasty accidents in the ‘60s and ’70s, where kids got their arms or their heads caught in the contraptions. Those issues definitely needed to be assessed. What’s interesting is the Consumer Product Safety Commission never issued requirements, just suggested guidelines. But manufacturers felt that if their equipment didn’t meet those guidelines, they’d be vulnerable to liability. Everybody went to the extreme, making everything super safe so they wouldn’t risk getting sued.A 1970s-era climbing-bar apparatus, photographed in Rocky Ford, Colorado, in 2006. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
A 1970s-era climbing-bar apparatus, photographed in Rocky Ford, Colorado, in 2006. (Photo by Brenda Biondo)
In the last decade, people have been looking at playground-equipment design and trying to make it more challenging and more encouraging of imaginative play, but without making it more likely someone’s going to get injured. And adults, I think, are realizing kids are spending more time indoors on devices so they want to do everything they can to encourage kids to still get outside, run around, and climb on things.
Collectors Weekly: You don’t need a playground to hurt yourself. When I was a kid, I fell off a farm post and broke my arm.Biondo: Oh, yeah, kids have been falling out trees forever—they always want to climb stuff. Playground politics are always evolving. Even in the 1920s, the catalogs talked about how safe their equipment was, and they were selling these 30-foot slides. Sometimes, I’d be out with my family on a vacation, and we’d make a little side tour to look for an old playground to shoot. My husband would look at these big metal things and go, “Oh my God, those are the Slides of Death!” because they were so huge and rickety. But back then, these were very safe pieces of equipment compared to what kids had been playing on before.
A page from the 1971 GameTime catalog offering rideable Saddle Mates. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)
A page from the 1971 GameTime catalog offering rideable Saddle Mates. (Courtesy of Brenda Biondo)
Collectors Weekly: Growing up in the 1980s, I always hated the new fiberglass slides because I’d end up with all these tiny glass shards in my butt.
Biondo: Yeah, I remember that, too. It’s always something. It is fun to talk to people about playgrounds because it reminds them of all the fun stuff they did as kids. When people see pictures of these metal slides, they tell me, “Oh my gosh, I remember getting such a bad burn from a metal slide one summer!” The metal would get so hot in the sun, and kids would take pieces of wax paper with them to sit on so they’d go flying down the slide. I have some old postcards that show playgrounds from the early ’20s. The wood seesaws not only were huge, but they had no handles so you had hold on to the sides of the board where you sat. I’m looking at that like, “Oh my God!” It’s all relative.
playground_postcard_milwaukee
Kids ride the rocking-boat seesaw at a Milwaukee, Wisconsin, park in this postcard postmarked 1910.
(To see more of Brenda Biondo’s playground photos and vintage catalog pages, pick up a copy of her book, “Once Upon a Playground: A Celebration of Classic American Playground, 1920-1975.” To find an exhibition of Biondo’s playground project, or to bring it to your town, visit the ExhibitsUSA page. To learn more about creative mid-century playgrounds around the globe, also pick up, “The Playground Project” by Xavier Salle and Vincent Romagny.) insh.world/history/playground-equipment-of-yesterday-that...
Bronze mirror with silver inlays around its frame. The open-work plaque depicts Eos, the goddess and personification of the dawn, abducting the handsome mortal hunter Kephalos out of love, taking him to her home. The tang (the pointy part at the bottom) would have been inserted into an organic handle, now lost (wood, bone, or ivory). The polished oval mirror would have been contained within the silvered frame above the scene of Eos and Kephalos.
In the myth, Kephalos never stopped longing for his wife, Prokris. Eos eventually returned him to his wife, but in her anger, she first tested Prokris's faithfulness by disguising Kephalos and trying to seduce her. When Prokris failed the test, Kephalos accused her of infidelity, leading to their separation. The myth also involves Kephalos accidentally killing Prokris with a spear while hunting and later a period of exile before settling on the island of Kephallenia. During their time together, Eos and Kephalos had one child, Phaeton, from whome the house of Odysseus was descended.
Western Greek, from Locri Epizephyrii, Calabria, Italy, ca 300-200 BCE.
British Museum, London (1865,0712.14)
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Itchan Kala is the walled inner town of the city of Khiva, Uzbekistan. Since 1990, it has been protected as the World Heritage Site.
The old town retains more than 50 historic monuments and 250 old houses, dating primarily from the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries. Djuma Mosque, for instance, was established in the tenth century and rebuilt from 1788 to 1789, although its celebrated hypostyle hall still retains 112 columns taken from ancient structures.
The most spectacular features of Itchan Kala are its crenellated brick walls and four gates at each side of the rectangular fortress. Although the foundations are believed to have been laid in the tenth century, present-day 10-meters-high walls were erected mostly in the late seventeenth century and later repaired.
Tash-Hauli Palace
In the period of Allakuli-khan (1825-1842), the political, public and trading center of Khiva had moved to the eastern part of Ichan-Qala. A new complex formed at the gates of Palvan-darvaza: a new palace, madrassah, caravanserai and shopping mall (tim). The palace of Allakuli-khan was named Tash-Hauli ("Stone courtyard"). It looks like a fortress with high battlements, towers and fortified gates. Its architecture is based on the traditions of Khorezm houses and country villas ("hauli") with enclosed courtyards, shady column aivans and loggias.
Tash-Hauli consists of three parts, grouped around inner courtyards. The northern part was occupied by the Khan's harem. The formal reception room-ishrat-hauli adjoins the last one on the southeast; court office (arz-khana) - in the southwest. In the center of Ishrat-hauli there is a round platform for the Khan's yurt. Long labyrinths of dark corridors and rooms connected the different parts of the palace. Refined majolica on walls, colored paintings on the ceiling, carved columns and doors are distinctive features of Tash-Hauli decor.
A corridor separated the family courtyard of Tash-Hauli (harem or haram) from the official part. Its southern side is occupied by five main rooms: apartments for the Khan and his four wives. The two-storied structure along the perimeter of the courtyard was intended for servants, relatives and concubines. Each aivan of the harem represents a masterpiece of Khivan applied arts. Their walls, ceilings and columns display unique ornamental patterns. Majolica wall panels were performed in traditional blue and white color. Red-brown paintings cover the ceilings. Copper openwork lattices decorate the windows.
Block Arcade, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
"A particularly fine shopping arcade of 1890-93, designed by Twentyman and Askew in a Boom version of the French Renaissance style, with handsome plate glass shop windows, an octagon at the junction on the two arms, mosaic tiled floors, a glass roof of which some sheets survive with their original decoration, cast-iron roof principals with elegant openwork spandrels, and six and seven storey buildings facing on to Elizabeth and Collins Street: in all a late monument to the financial boom and to B. J. Fink, J. McAlister Howden and the other members of the City Property Company, for which it was built."
Source: vhd.heritage.vic.gov.au/vhd/heritagevic#detail_places;64610
Tsuki says: "This is mine, nobody else is having it !"
Tsuki's gorgeous hand carved bench is a fabulous piece of art by Joanna Rajtar, JRajtar on etsy.
Empire style inspired, oak wood with openwork armrest, black leather upholstery and brass foot pads.
Photos cannot do it justice,
Simply stunning!
Tsuki - porcelain Enchanted Doll Sapphire, wig by Marina Bychkova, dress by Bibarina.
Probably dating back to the 16th century, Wheal Luna tin mine is known to have been in operation in 1838. The miners followed the ore bearing lode back into the cliffs, digging the tin out out with hand tools and leaving the worthless rock in situ.
درب لاکی، قرن 19 ترسایی، 185.5 در 9.5 سانتیمتر
A pair of lacquered doors, Persia, 19th century
of rectangular form, each door with three inserted panels, painted throughout with courtly scenes of outdoor leisure in shaped cartouches, set against a ground of palmette and split palmette scrolls scattered with flowers and foliage, with two openwork brass handles in the form of stylised paired dragons
185.5 x 90.5cm.
~1540, the oldest organ case on the island ; the decorative carving deserves the closest observation.
To put up the yurta people start from installing a door casing, bosogo. Then by the circle stretches the openwork wall, kerege, which consists of a few sections, kanat. Each kanat is made of long wooden poles. Usually kerege is made of birch tree trunks and boughs. Then stretched out it form a grid with rhombic clear space-kerege koz. Then installs the supporting dome poles and tyundyuk - the top of the Yurta. The surface of the poles is trimmed and thoroughly polished by the master who renders them the required shape and thickness. The surfaces of the wooden parts of the yurta are covered with a special substance and painted so it keeps the original flexibility . From the outside, the Yuta is covered by Chiy, or mat, with a national ornament and finally, the nearly finished spherical structure is covered with a specially prepared thick felt, - kiyiz. Usually, yurta has several felt layers.
A jailoo is a high mountain pasture. The Sarala Saz jailoo is located about an hour and a half to the north of the village of Kochkor. Besides its landscapes and view on the mountains it is also famous for being home to the yearly exhibition of traditional Kyrgyz horse games every July.
© Eric Lafforgue
Chehel Sotoun (also Chihil Sutun or Chehel Sotoon; Persian: چهل ستون, literally: “Forty Columns”) is a pavilion in the middle of a park at the far end of a long pool, in Isfahan, Iran, built by Shah Abbas II to be used for his entertainment and receptions. In this palace, Shah Abbas II and his successors would receive dignitaries and ambassadors, either on the terrace or in one of the stately reception halls.
(This is UNESCO World Heritage Site)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chehel_Sotoun
Isfahan (Persian: اصفهان Esfahān), historically also rendered in English as Ispahan, Sepahan, Esfahan or Hispahan, is the capital of Isfahan Province in Iran, located about 340 kilometres (211 miles) south of Tehran.
It is famous for its Islamic architecture, with many beautiful boulevards, covered bridges, palaces, mosques, and minarets.
This led to the Persian proverb "Esfahān nesf-e jahān ast" (Isfahan is half of the world).
The Naghsh-e Jahan Square in Isfahan is one of the largest city squares in the world and an outstanding example of Iranian and Islamic architecture.
It has been designated by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isfahan
The footbridge was built for the Ulverstone and Lancaster Railway (later part of the Furness Railway), and is in cast and wrought iron. The stairs have openwork balusters and newels with ball finials, the landings have fluted columns with round bases and foliated capitals, and the landings and the bridge have lattice balustrades.
Steel sculpture; female figure of a stilt-walker (Moko Jumbie). Figure has articulated limbs, painted black. Wears a loincloth composed of plastic and synthetic fibres, shoulder pieces made from nylon netting and gold-sprayed metal breast ornaments. Openwork copper pipe skirt soldered together and hooked onto waist of figure. Numerous composite objects attached to figure including wooden masks and comb; metal bells, keys and toy aeroplane; plastic ornaments sprayed gold; textile decorations. Figure wears gold-sprayed leather and synthetic trainers with toes exposed. Wooden mask with attached vertical headdress made of strips of sheet metal sprayed gold with multiple small metal objects attached including keys, figures, chains, and bells. Wings secured to back of figure, sprayed black and gold. Figure has spiral copper armlet on right proper arm.
Created by Zak Ové for the British Museum's Celebrating Africa season.
The Museum commissioned these figures to coincide with London’s Notting Hill Carnival at the end of August. Moko Jumbie figures became a key feature of carnival in Trinidad in the early 1900s. Oral traditions describe the Moko Jumbie as a guardian of villages who could foresee danger and protect inhabitants from evil forces. Traditionally, Moko Jumbie figures wore long colourful skirts or trousers over their stilts and masks covering their faces. They were sometimes accompanied by dwarfs – represented in the installation in the Great Court by two ‘lost souls’, on loan to the Museum from Zak Ové – who provided a visual height contrast.
Zak Ové works with sculpture, film and photography. He uses these ‘new-world’ materials to pay tribute to both spiritual and artistic African identity. This Moko Jumbie display is part of a larger body of work that draws inspiration from the Trinidad carnival. The works are born from Ové’s documentation of and interest in the African Diaspora and African history. The artist’s intellectual and creative responses to this history are filtered through his own personal and cultural upbringing in London and Trinidad. The relationship between carnival and Africa derives from the enforced movement of peoples during the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Between around 1500 and 1900, millions of people were transported from West and Central Africa to the Caribbean and North, Central and South America.
Carnival in Trinidad began as a predominantly elite event. In the late 1700s French immigrants arrived on the island to run plantations, bringing with them enslaved Africans. The plantation owners staged elaborate masquerade balls during the carnival season. Africans also brought their own masking traditions of which the Moko Jumbie is but one. Masking for Africans in the Caribbean was a way to connect to ancestors and nature as well as ideas of ‘home’. But traditional masquerades were also used to satirically depict their masters and turn a critical eye on plantation society. After full emancipation in 1838, Africans took over the streets at carnival time, using song, dance and masquerade to re-dress the still existing social inequalities.
[British Museum]
"Erlangen 's Orangery is architecturally assigned to Erlangen Castle and is located in the castle garden belonging to the residence.
Margrave Christian Ernst of Brandenburg-Bayreuth gave his wife the recently completed Erlangen Castle in 1703. The orangery itself was built a short time later, between 1704 and 1706, on behalf of Margravine Elisabeth Sophie as part of the Erlanger palace complex. It once served the Margrave couple as a greenhouse with living rooms and a ballroom.
Due to its “teatro” shape, derived from the oval floor plan, the arrangement itself and its dual function as a greenhouse and “maison de plaisir” make the orangery an important architectural and historical monument in the entire palace ensemble.
In 1818, after the death of the Dowager Margravine Sophie Caroline, the Orangery became the property of the Friedrich-Alexander University and became the seat of various faculties, offices and offices. Since 1914, in addition to the Institute for Church Music, the art history seminar has also been located in their rooms.
The Orangery in Erlangen is built on a semi-oval floor plan. The ends form pavilions that curve parallel to the garden axis. The middle part, in which the stucco-covered water hall is located, does not continue the curves, but has a rectangular floor plan that is visible to the outside like a risalit. The three-gate portal is the main focus on the south facade. The swinging wings culminate in the triumphal arch architecture, which forms the entrance to the water hall. The central, round-arched gate stands out from the side gates, which are also round-arched, in that it is framed by two pairs of free-standing columns and spanned by an openwork segmental gable. The entrances on the left and right are each framed by a solid column. The bases of the columns are decorated with plant (vegetable) motifs. Only the gable of the central portal breaks the regularity of the attic zone. Rich, figurative and ornamental jewelry here represents princely power and pays homage to fertility. Figures of the four seasons rise on the projecting bases of the cranked attic zone. Although the outer wall of the water hall is not curved but straight compared to the wings, the architectural decoration gives the impression that the wall is swinging out convexly.
Erlangen (German pronunciation: [ˈɛʁlaŋən]; Mainfränkisch: Erlang, Bavarian: Erlanga) is a Middle Franconian city in Bavaria, Germany. It is the seat of the administrative district Erlangen-Höchstadt (former administrative district Erlangen), and with 116,062 inhabitants (as of 30 March 2022), it is the smallest of the eight major cities (Großstadt) in Bavaria. The number of inhabitants exceeded the threshold of 100,000 in 1974, making Erlangen a major city according to the statistical definition officially used in Germany.
Together with Nuremberg, Fürth, and Schwabach, Erlangen forms one of the three metropolises in Bavaria. With the surrounding area, these cities form the European Metropolitan Region of Nuremberg, one of 11 metropolitan areas in Germany. The cities of Nuremberg, Fürth, and Erlangen also form a triangle on a map, which represents the heartland of the Nuremberg conurbation.
An element of the city that goes back a long way in history, but is still noticeable, is the settlement of Huguenots after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. Today, many aspects of daily life in the city are dominated by the Friedrich Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg and the Siemens technology group.
Erlangen is located on the edge of the Middle Franconian Basin and at the floodplain of the Regnitz River. The river divides the city into two halves of about equal sizes. In the western part of the city, the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal lies parallel to the Regnitz.
Franconia (German: Franken, pronounced [ˈfʁaŋkŋ̍]; Franconian: Franggn [ˈfrɑŋɡŋ̍]; Bavarian: Frankn) is a region of Germany, characterised by its culture and Franconian dialect (German: Fränkisch).
Franconia is made up of the three Regierungsbezirke of Lower, Middle and Upper Franconia in Bavaria, the adjacent, Franconian-speaking, South Thuringia, south of the Thuringian Forest—which constitutes the language boundary between Franconian and Thuringian— and the eastern parts of Heilbronn-Franconia in Baden-Württemberg.
Those parts of the Vogtland lying in Saxony (largest city: Plauen) are sometimes regarded as Franconian as well, because the Vogtlandian dialects are mostly East Franconian. The inhabitants of Saxon Vogtland, however, mostly do not consider themselves as Franconian. On the other hand, the inhabitants of the Hessian-speaking parts of Lower Franconia west of the Spessart (largest city: Aschaffenburg) do consider themselves as Franconian, although not speaking the dialect. Heilbronn-Franconia's largest city of Heilbronn and its surrounding areas are South Franconian-speaking, and therefore only sometimes regarded as Franconian. In Hesse, the east of the Fulda District is Franconian-speaking, and parts of the Oden Forest District are sometimes regarded as Franconian for historical reasons, but a Franconian identity did not develop there.
Franconia's largest city and unofficial capital is Nuremberg, which is contiguous with Erlangen and Fürth, with which it forms the Franconian conurbation with around 1.3 million inhabitants. Other important Franconian cities are Würzburg, Bamberg, Bayreuth, Ansbach and Coburg in Bavaria, Suhl and Meiningen in Thuringia, and Schwäbisch Hall in Baden-Württemberg.
The German word Franken—Franconians—also refers to the ethnic group, which is mainly to be found in this region. They are to be distinguished from the Germanic people of the Franks, and historically formed their easternmost settlement area. The origins of Franconia lie in the settlement of the Franks from the 6th century in the area probably populated until then mainly by the Elbe Germanic people in the Main river area, known from the 9th century as East Francia (Francia Orientalis). In the Middle Ages the region formed much of the eastern part of the Duchy of Franconia and, from 1500, the Franconian Circle. The restructuring of the south German states by Napoleon, after the demise of the Holy Roman Empire, saw most of Franconia awarded to Bavaria." - info from Wikipedia.
Summer 2019 I did a solo cycling tour across Europe through 12 countries over the course of 3 months. I began my adventure in Edinburgh, Scotland and finished in Florence, Italy cycling 8,816 km. During my trip I took 47,000 photos.
Now on Instagram.
~1500 ; rebuilt in the new church bldg. in 1877 by architect David Walker.
The statues all date from this period, as do many other expertly reconstructed details.
A visit to Coughton Court in Warwickshire, on the Spring Bank Holiday Weekend in late May 2018. A National Trust property, it was the home of the Throckmorton family.
Coughton Court is an English Tudor country house, situated on the main road between Studley and Alcester in Warwickshire. It is a Grade I listed building.
The house has a long crenelated façade directly facing the main road, at the centre of which is the Tudor Gatehouse, dating from 1530; this has hexagonal turrets and oriel windows in the English Renaissance style. The gatehouse is the oldest part of the house and is flanked by later wings, in the Strawberry Hill Gothic style, popularised by Horace Walpole.
The Coughton estate has been owned by the Throckmorton family since 1409. The estate was acquired through marriage to the De Spinney family. Coughton was rebuilt by Sir George Throckmorton, the first son of Sir Robert Throckmorton of Coughton Court by Catherine Marrow, daughter of William Marrow of London. The great gatehouse at Coughton was dedicated to King Henry VIII by Throckmorton, a favorite of the King. Throckmorton would become notorious due to his almost fatal involvement in the divorce between King Henry and his first wife Catherine of Aragon. Throckmorton favoured the queen and was against the Reformation. Throckmorton spent most of his life rebuilding Coughton. In 1549, when he was planning the windows in the great hall, he asked his son Nicholas to obtain from the heralds the correct tricking (colour abbreviations) of the arms of his ancestors' wives and his own cousin and niece by marriage Queen Catherine Parr. The costly recusancy (refusal to attend Anglican Church services) of Robert Throckmorton and his heirs restricted later rebuilding, so that much of the house still stands largely as he left it.
After Throckmorton's death in 1552, Coughton passed to his eldest son, Robert. Robert Throckmorton and his family were practicing Catholics therefore the house at one time contained a priest hole, a hiding place for priests during the period when Catholics were persecuted by law in England, from the beginning of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. The Hall also holds a place in English history for its roles in both the Throckmorton Plot of 1583 to murder Queen Elizabeth I of England, and the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, although the Throckmorton family were themselves only indirectly implicated in the latter, when some of the Gunpowder conspirators rode directly there after its discovery.
The house has been in the ownership of the National Trust since 1946. The family, however, hold a 300-year lease and previously managed the property on behalf of the Trust. In 2007, however, the house reverted to management by the National Trust. The management of the property is renewed every 10 years. The family tenant until recently was Clare McLaren-Throckmorton, known professionally as Clare Tritton QC, until she died on 31 October 2017.
The house, which is open to the public all year round, is set in extensive grounds including a walled formal garden, a river and a lake.
The gatehouse at Coughton was built at the earliest in 1536, as it is built of stones which came from Bordesley Abbey and Evesham Abbey after the Dissolution of the Monasteries Act in 1536. As with other Tudor houses, it was built around a courtyard, with the gatehouse used for deliveries and coaches to travel through to the courtyard. The courtyard was closed on all four sides until 1651, when Parliamentary soldiers burnt the fourth (east) wing, along with many of the Throckmorton's family papers, during the English Civil War.
After the Roman Catholic Relief Act was passed in 1829, the Throckmorton family were able to afford large-scale building works, allowing them to remodel the west front.
Grade I Listed Building
Listing Text
COUGHTON
SP06SE
1/144 Coughton Court
10/02/56
GV I
Country house, Gatehouse late C15, and after 1518; early and late C16; late C17
additions; west front remodelled 1780; additions and remodelling of 1835(VCH).
Limestone ashlar gatehouse. Timber framed with lath and plaster infill; brick;
imitation stone render. Tile and lead roofs; brick stacks, U-plan, formerly
courtyard. 2 and 3 storeys; 13-window range. Entrance (west) front symmetrical.
3 storey central gatehouse range has moulded plinth and double string course.
Square ground floor with corner turrets. C19 Gothic panelled part-glazed
double-leaf doors in 4-centred moulded arch with square head, hood mould and
carved spandrels. Stone mullioned and transomed windows with arched lights
throughout. Upper floors of different coloured stone. 2-storey canted oriel with
flanking lights and glazed octagonal turrets; 2 transoms on first floor, one on
second. Shield of arms on each floor. Turrets continued up another floor'; left
turret unglazed. Remainder 2 storeys only. Single 5-light window with transom
and hood mould. Clasping buttresses with quatrefoil panels projecting above
roof. Crenellated parapets with string course throughout. Remainder of front of '
scored imitation ashlar with stucco hood moulds. Ground floor has leaded 2-light
casements, 3 slightly recessed bays have Gothick sashes and moulded surrounds on
first floor. Projecting end bays with clasping buttresses. First floor: leaded
cross windows. String course above first floor. Attic with quatrefoil panels,
some part glazed. String course and crenellated parapet. Right return side of
thin bricks. Two C17 shaped gables with stone coping. Left gable between 2
external brick stacks; right gable has ball finials. 5-window range, mostly C17
stone cross windows. Narrow gabled wing set back. High single-storey range with
early C20 window, and plaster eaves cove. East front of gatehouse has unglazed
turrets and inscription over entrance. Irregular ranges to courtyard. Timber
framed with brick ground floor. Corresponding small 4-centred door. Irregular
fenestration with moulded stone mullioned windows ground floor, wood mullions
and casements above; some with transoms. 2 storey south range has close studding
with middle rail. Left section breaks forward and has 4 framed gables with
brackets. Entrance in recessed bay below third gable has 4-centred moulded
doorway with square head, hood mould and carved spandrels. Paired 6-panelled
doors with Gothick overlight. Right section has 2 large gables, and another
behind and above in roof, with decorative panel framing. Elaborately carved
scrolled bargeboards with finials and openwork pendants. End wall has gable.
Ground floor has 2 stone cross windows with arched lights. Blocked arches above
and in centre. 2-storey and attic north range. Close studding. 3 large framed
gables and smaller end gable all with casements and brackets. Ground floor has
four 3-light mullioned and transomed windows. First floor projects on plaster
cove. Blank gabled end wall. Left return side: range of c.1690. Scored render
with quoins. 3 projecting bays with hipped roofs. 4-centred doorway. Slightly
projecting first floor. Irregular fenestration with wood mullioned and transomed
windows. Interior: Entrance Hall with plaster fan vault. Late C18 open well
cantilevered staircase with moulded soffit and simple handrail; Gothick
plasterwork cornice. Drawing Room has simple early Cl6 stone fireplace. Windows
with C16,C17 and C19 armorial glass. Gothick plasterwork cornice. 6-panelled
doors. Little Drawing Room has C18 style carved wooden fireplace. Newel
staircase to roof. Tower Room has moulded 4-centred fireplace with carved
spandrels and projecting top. Two 4-centred doorways. North east turret has 2
hiding places. Dining Room and Tribune have fine C16 panelling possibly with
later work, turned balusters, grotesques and medallions with heads. Fine marble
chimneypiece with paired Ionic and Corinthian columns, cartouche and coat of
arms, Saloon, formed 1910, has arcaded panelled screen c.1660 (VCH) to Tribune.
C16 double-flight staircase from Harvington hall with heavy turned balusters and
square newel posts with finials. Study has fine C17 panelling with pilasters.
Ground floor with broad-chamfered ceiling beams. North range has part of a fine
C16 panelled timber cieling with moulded ribs and carved bosses. Dog-leg
staircase with C17 turned balusters. The Throckmortons were Catholics, and were
deeply involved in the Throckmorton plot of 1583. In 1605 the wives of the
Gunpowder Plotters awaited news at Coughton. In 1688 the east wing was destroyed
by a Protestant mob, and was finally cleared away in 1780.
(V.C.H.: Warwickshire, Vol.III, pp.75-78; Buldings of England: Warwickshire,
pp.245-6; Coughton Court; The National Trust 1984).
Listing NGR: SP0831160624
This text is from the original listing, and may not necessarily reflect the current setting of the building.
A look along The West Front with The Gatehouse in the middle, from the road in front of this side of the house.
The road links both churches on the estate.
Gilded copper reliquary with applied relief figurines of saints, openwork and engraved Celtic Knots with snakes and dragons, lion heads, stones and crosses. Irish, Medieval, 11th Century AD. National Museum. Dublin, Ireland. Copyright 2016, James A. Glazier
A legend attributes Kraków's founding to the mythical ruler Krakus, who built it above a cave occupied by a dragon, Smok Wawelski. The first written record dates to 965, when Kraków was described as a notable commercial center captured by a Bohemian duke Boleslaus I in 955. The first ruler of Poland, Mieszko I, took Kraków from the Bohemians.
In 1038, Kraków became the seat of the Polish government. By the end of the 10th century, the city was a center of trade. Brick buildings were constructed, including the Royal Wawel Castle. The city was sacked and burned during the Mongol invasion of 1241. It was rebuilt and incorporated in 1257 by Bolesław V the Chaste who introduced city rights. In 1259, the city was again ravaged by the Mongols. The third attack in 1287 was repelled thanks in part to the newly built fortifications.
The city rose to prominence in 1364, when Casimir III founded the University of Kraków, the second oldest university in central Europe. But after Casimir´s death in 1370 the campus did not get completed.
As the capital of the Kingdom of Poland and a member of the Hanseatic League, the city attracted craftsmen from abroad, guilds as science and the arts began to flourish. The 15th and 16th centuries are known as Poland's "Złoty Wiek" (Golden Age).
After childless King Sigismund II had died in 1572, the Polish throne passed to Henry III of France and then to other foreign-based rulers in rapid succession, causing a decline in the city's importance that was worsened by pillaging during the Swedish invasion and by an outbreak of bubonic plague that left 20,000 of the city's residents dead. In 1596, Sigismund III of the House of Vasa moved the capital of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth from Kraków to Warsaw.
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In the place of a Romanesque church, that got destroyed during the Mongol invasion, the early Gothic Church of St. Mary was built on the northeast corner of the market square at the end of the 13th century. It got consecrated in 1320.
The church was completely rebuilt during the reign of Casimir III the Great between 1355 and 1365. The main body of the church was completed in 1395–97 with the new vault constructed by master Nicholas Wernher from Prague.
In the 18th century, the interior was rebuilt in the late Baroque style. In the years 1887–1891, the neo-Gothic design was introduced into the Basilica.
The altarpiece by Veit Stoss is a large Gothic altarpiece and the most important work of art in the basilica. It is located behind the altar of St. Mary. The altarpiece was created between 1477 and 1489 by the German-born sculptor Veit Stoss, who lived and worked in the city for over 20 years.
The retable of the Marian altar is a pentaptych, which means that it has five wings. It consists of a central part with sculptures, a pair of opening inner wings and a pair of fixed outer wings. Both pairs of wings are decorated with reliefs. The structure is completed by a predella in relief on the altarpiece and an openwork keystone with massive sculptures.
It is made of three types of wood. The structure is made of hard oak, the background of lighter but equally strong larch, while the figures are carved of soft and flexible linden.
Unfortunately, the reredos was "closed".
The wings of the closed altar present twelve scenes.
"Christ among the Doctors" - Mary and Joseph find Jesus at the age of twelve in The Temple in discussion with the elders. They were amazed at his learning, especially given his young age.
Luke 2:46-47
"Now so it was that after three days they found Him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard Him were astonished at His understanding and answers"
Feel the relaxing sea breeze in this elegant Honeycomb Overlay Fringed Pullover. Coffee Honeycomb Overlay Fringed Pullover
A beautifully crafted honeycomb surfaced pullover with a charming openwork pattern. It features unique high-low hem with fringes detailed. Layer over your favorite cami and pair with slim pants for perfect complement.
Cozier. Copper with siver inserts and enamel inlay, and Celtic knot openwork. Irish, medieval, 11th Century AD. National Museum. Dublin, Ireland. Copyright 2016, James A. Glazier
Early C19 terraced house of 1 bay and 3 storeys plus attic. The arch of the entrance can just be seen to right at No. 125. A canopied verandah on cast-iron columns contributes to a graceful, but narrow, facade. Grade II listed. Hampstead, London Borough of Camden.
(CC BY-SA - credit: Images George Rex.)
Coachwork by Henri Chapron
At the paris Motor Show 1933, Delahaye broke totally with their traditional productions by presenting two modern chassis with independent front wheels : the four-cylinder Type 134 and the six-cylinder, 3,2-litre Type 138. The latter would lead to the celebrated Type 135, characterized by a lower chassis frame of even more modern design, with side-frames of with tubular struts, the ensemble being electrically welded.
In June 1934 Delahaye obtained approval from the Service des Mines (French vehicle-testing service) for a chassis with a 3,5-litre engine known as the 135M (for modified). The engine entered production in 1935 after being tested in competition.
This 135M with bodywork by Henri Chapron, belonged for many years to the well-known collector Jacques Dumontant, who inherited it from his father and often used it on his travels in search of vintage cars. Although that 135M usually came with openwork sheet-metal wheels, this one has more elegant wire wheels, always available as an option at the time.
Zoute Concours d'Elegance
The Royal Zoute Golf Club
Zoute Grand Prix 2016
Knokke - Belgium
Oktober 2016
This is one piece - a harness collar fitting with a maenad appliqué - of a large set of bronze and gilded silver fittings for a four-wheeled, two-horse carriage that was discovered in a burial mound dating from the Roman Imperial period. It was among the first unearthed in archaeological investigations in Bulgaria and provides an opportunity to reconstruct the design and decorations of such carriages in the province of Thrace. The fittings were both functional and ornamental. Most of them served to prevent tangling of the horses' reins. The solid bronze fittings were cast, and their upper surfaces were silver-plated. Round appliqués depicting deities and mythological characters were soldered on top of each element.
Most of the pieces decorated the double yoke. In the center, where the pole was attached, there was a conical umbo ending in a hexagonal prism with concave walls and a round disk on top, which is decorated with a silver appliqué with the head of Dionysos facing frontally (cat. 65a). The lower conical element is decorated with two appliqués with maenads. On both sides of the central piece, there were large bronze spikes with octagonal heads, decorated with round silver appliqués with the bust of a young wreathed Herakles, his lion skin thrown across his left shoulder and a strap across his right one (cat, 65b). The curved parts of the yoke were decorated with rings attached to soldered hexagonal bronze pieces decorater with silver appliqués with heads of maenads turned slightly to the right, wreathed with ivy and with a ribbon holding their wild hair (cat. 65c). The ends of the yoke were decorated with elongated hexagonal bronze elements with rings (cat. 65d). On the upper surface are two bulging disks decorated with silver appliqués with heads of maenads facing frontally.
Similar images decorated the horse harness, forming a set. The collars of the two horses were composed of bronze elements of irregular shape, with openwork ornaments at the upper and lower ends (cat. 65e).
In the middle, soldered to a bulging disk on a hexagonal base, is an appliqué with the head of a maenad. One of the maenads turns to the left, the other to the right (this one in the photo). Four chains served to hang the fittings. The flanks of the horses were decorated with bronze elements of irregular shape, with a relief hexagon in the middle and a bulging disk decorated with an appliqué with the head of Dionysos facing frontally (cat. 65f).
Thracian, 3rd century BCE. Bronze and silver with gilding. Found near the village of Shishkovisi, Kyustendil Province, Bulgaria, in 1954.
H with chains: 29 cm; W: 12.5 cm;
D: 6/5.5 cm; Wt: 146.3/198.6 grams
Sofia, National Archaeological Institute with Museum, 7992 (22, 23)
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Photographed at the Getty Villa Museum, at the exhibition 'Ancient Thrace and the Classical World: Treasures from Bulgaria, Romania, and Greece'
Fé no Interior da Catedral de Milão.
A text, in english, from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Milan Cathedral
Milan Cathedral (Italian: Duomo di Milano; Milanese: Domm de Milan) is the cathedral church of Milan in Lombardy, northern Italy. It is the seat of the Archbishop of Milan, currently Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi.
History:
Milan's layout, with streets either radiating from the Duomo or circling it, reveals that the Duomo occupies the most central site in Roman Mediolanum, that of the public basilica facing the forum. Saint Ambrose's 'New Basilica' was built on this site at the beginning of the 5th century, with an adjoining basilica added in 836. When a fire damaged both buildings in 1075, they were rebuilt as the Duomo.
Um texto, em português, do Site "Fatos e fotos de viagens", que pode ser visto no endereço interata.squarespace.com/jornal-de-viagem/2006/11/27/duom...
In 1386 archbishop Antonio da Saluzzo began construction in a rayonnant Late Gothic style more typically French than Italian. Construction coincided with the accession to power in Milan of the archbishop's cousin Gian Galeazzo Visconti, and was meant as a reward to the noble and working classes which had been suppressed by his tyrannical Visconti predecessor Barnabò. Before actual work began, three main buildings were demolished: the palace of the Archbishop, the Ordinari Palace and the Baptistry of 'St. Stephen at the Spring', while the old church of Sta. Maria Maggiore was exploited as a stone quarry. Enthusiasm for the immense new building soon spread among the population, and the shrewd Gian Galeazzo, together with his cousin the archbishop, collected large donations for the work-in-progress. The construction program was strictly regulated under the "Fabbrica del Duomo", which had 300 employees led by first chief engineer Simone da Orsenigo. Galeazzo gave the Fabbrica exclusive use of the marble from the Candoglia quarry and exempted it from taxes.
In 1389 a French chief engineer, Nicolas de Bonaventure, was appointed, adding to the church its strong Gothic imprint. Ten years later another French architect, Jean Mignot, was called from Paris to judge and improve upon the work done, as the masons needed new technical aid to lift stones to an unprecedented height. Mignot declared all the work done up till then as in pericolo di ruina ("peril of ruin"), as it had been done sine scienzia ("without science"). In the following years Mignot's forecasts proved untrue, but anyway they spurred Galeazzo's engineers to improve their instruments and techniques. Work proceeded quickly, and at the death of Gian Galeazzo in 1402, almost half the cathedral was complete. Construction, however, stalled almost totally until 1480, due to lack of money and ideas: the most notable works of this period were the tombs of Marco Carelli and Pope Martin V (1424) and the windows of the apse (1470s), of which those extant portray St. John the Evangelist, by Cristoforo de' Mottis, and Saint Eligius and San John of Damascus, both by Niccolò da Varallo. In 1452, under Francesco Sforza, the nave and the aisles were completed up to the sixth bay.
In 1500-1510, under Ludovico Sforza, the octagonal cupola was completed, and decorated in the interior with four series of fifteen statues each, portraying saints, prophets, sibyls and other characters of the Bible. The exterior long remained without any decoration, except for the Guglietto dell'Amadeo ("Amadeo's Little Spire"), constructed 1507-1510. This is a Renaissance masterwork which nevertheless harmonized well with the general Gothic appearance of the church.
The famous "Madunina" atop the main spire of the cathedral, a baroque gilded bronze artwork.
During the subsequent Spanish domination, the new church proved usable, even though the interior remained largely unfinished, and some bays of the nave and the transepts were still missing. In 1552 Giacomo Antegnati was commissioned to build a large organ for the north side of the choir, and Giuseppe Meda provided four of the sixteen pales which were to decorate the altar area (the program was completed by Federico Borromeo). In 1562 Marco d' Lopez's St. Bartholomew and the famous Trivulzio candelabrum (12th century) were added.
After the accession of the ambitious Carlo Borromeo to the archbishop's throne, all lay monuments were removed from the Duomo. These included the tombs of Giovanni, Barnabò and Filippo Maria Visconti, Francesco and his wife Bianca, Galeazzo Maria and Lodovico Sforza, which were brought to unknown destinations. However, Borromeo's main intervention was the appointment, in 1571, of Pellegrino Pellegrini as chief engineer— a contentious move, since to appoint Pellegrino, who was not a lay brother of the duomo, required a revision of the Fabbrica's statutes.
Borromeo and Pellegrino strove for a new, Renaissance appearance for the cathedral, that would emphasise its Roman / Italian nature, and subdue the Gothic style, which was now seen as foreign. As the façade still was largely incomplete, Pellegrini designed a "Roman" style one, with columns, obelisks and a large tympanum. When Pellegrini's design was revealed, a competition for the design of the facade was announced, and this elicited nearly a dozen entries, including by Antonio Barca [1].
This design was never carried out, but the interior decoration continued: in 1575-1585 the presbytery was rebuilt, while new altars and the baptistry were added in the nave.
Wooden choirstalls were constructed by 1614 for the main altar by Francesco Brambilla.
In 1577 Borromeo finally consecrated the whole edifice as a new church, distinct from the old Santa Maria Maggiore and Santa Tecla (which had been unified in 1549 after heavy disputes).
At the beginning of the 17th century Federico Borromeo had the foundations of the new façade laid by Francesco Maria Richini and Fabio Mangone. Work continued until 1638 with the construction of five portals and two middle windows. In 1649, however, the new chief architect Carlo Buzzi introduced a striking revolution: the façade was to revert to original Gothic style, including the already finished details within big Gothic pilasters and two giant belfries. Other designs were provided by, among others, Filippo Juvarra (1733) and Luigi Vanvitelli (1745), but all remained unapplied. In 1682 the façade of Santa Maria Maggiore was demolished and the cathedral's roof covering completed.
The ultimate facade with its striking rosy marble revetment
In 1762 one of the main features of the cathedral, the Madonnina's spire, was erected at the dizzying height of 108.5 m. The spire was designed by Francesco Croce and sports at the top a famous polychrome Madonnina statue, designed by Giuseppe Perego that befits the original stature of the cathedral.[2] Given Milan's notoriously damp and foggy climate, the Milanese consider it a fair-weather day when the Madonnina is visible from a distance, as it is so often covered by mist.
On May 20, 1805, Napoleon Bonaparte, about to be crowned King of Italy, ordered the façade to be finished. In his enthusiasm, he assured that all expenses would fall to the French treasurer, who would reimburse the Fabbrica for the real estate it had to sell. Even though this reimbursement was never paid, it still meant that finally, within only seven years, the Cathedral had its façade completed. The new architect, Francesco Soave, largely followed Buzzi's project, adding some neo-Gothic details to the upper windows. As a form of thanksgiving, a statue of Napoleon was placed at the top of one of the spires.
In the following years, most of the missing arches and spires were constructed. The statues on the southern wall were also finished, while in 1829-1858, new stained glass windows replaced the old ones, though with less aesthetically significant results. The last details of the cathedral were finished only in the 20th century: the last gate was inaugurated on January 6, 1965. This date is considered the very end of a process which had proceeded for generations, although even now, some uncarved blocks remain to be completed as statues. The Duomo's main facade is under renovation as of 2007; canvas-covered scaffolding obscures most of the facade.
he cathedral of Milano is often described as one of the greatest churches in the world. The ground plan is of a nave with 5 aisles, crossed by a transept and then followed by choir and apsis. The height of the nave is about 45 meters, the highest Gothic vaults of a complete church (less than the 48 meters of Beauvais Cathedral that was never completed).
The roof is open to tourists (for a fee), which allows many a close-up view of some spectacular sculpture that would otherwise be unappreciated. The roof of the cathedral is renowned for the forest of openwork pinnacles and spires, sitting upon delicate flying buttresses.
The cathedral's five wide naves, divided by forty pillars, are reflected in the hierarchic openings of the facade. Even the transepts have aisles. The nave columns are 24.5 metres (80 ft) high, and the apsidal windows are 20.7 x 8.5 metres (68 x 28 feet). The huge building is of brick construction, faced with marble from the quarries which Gian Galeazzo Visconti donated in perpetuity to the cathedral chapter. Its maintenance and repairs are very complicated.
The interior of the cathedral includes a huge number of monuments and artworks. These include:
* The Archbishop Alberto da Intimiano's sarcophagus, which is overlooked by a Crucifix in copper laminae (a replica).
* The sarcophagi of the archbishops Ottone Visconti and Giovanni Visconti, created by a Campionese master in the 14th century.
* The sarcophagus of Marco Carelli, who donated 35,000 ducati to accelerate the construction of the cathedral.
* The three magnificent altars by Pellegrino Pellegrini, which include the notable Federico Zuccari's Visit of St. Peter to St. Agatha jailed.
* In the right transept, the monument to Gian Giacomo Medici di Marignano, called "Medeghino", by Leone Leoni, and the adjacent Renaissance marble altar, decorated with gilt bronze statues.
* In front of the former mausoleum is the most renowned work of art of the cathedral, the St. Bartholomew statue by Marco D'Agrate.
* The presbytery is a late Renaissance masterpiece composing a choir, a Temple by Pellegrini, two pulpits with giant telamones covered in copper and bronze, and two large organs. Around the choir the two sacristies' portals, some frescoes and a fifteenth-century statue of Martin V by Jacopino da Tradate) can be seen.
* The transepts house the Trivulzio Candelabrum, which is in two pieces. The base (attributed to Nicolas of Verdun, 12th century), characterized by a fantastic ensemble of vines, vegetables and imaginary animals; and the stem, of the mid-16th century.
* In the left aisle, the Arcimboldi monument by Alessi and Romanesque figures depicting the Apostles in red marble and the neo-Classic baptistry by Pellegrini.
* A small red light bulb in the dome above the apse marks the spot where one of the nails from the Crucifixion of Christ has been placed.
* In November-December, in the days surrounding the birthdate of the San Carlo Borromeo, a series of large canvases, the Quadroni are exhibited along the nave.
DUOMO - A Catedral de Milão
O Duomo é apenas mais um dos fabulosos exemplos de arquitetura e monumentalidade dirigida ao culto ao divino entre tantas outras catedrais construídas na Europa durante a Idade Média, entre os séculos 9 e 12.
Dizem que o Duomo foi projetado pelo pintor, escultor, arquiteto, engenheiro, cientista e inventor italiano Leonardo da Vinci, nascido em Vinci e falecido em Amboise, na França.
Igrejas como as de Chartres , Amiens e Notre Dame de Paris (França), Sevilha e Santiago de Compostela (Espanha), Colônia (Alemanha) e o Duomo de Milão (Itália) são o exemplo máximo do estilo gótico — caracterizado pelo uso das ogivas (cruzamento de arcos), que possibilitavam a construção de altas estruturas. No apogeu do fervor católico, elas foram projetadas usando medidas que reproduziam as proporções do corpo humano.
Situado no centro da cidade , o Duomo é o marco zero geográfico da cidade e ponto de partida para se conhecer a cidade. Muitas de suas atrações estão nas proximidades ou vizinhanças.
Pode-se visitar internamente a igreja e seu telhado. Todos os dias, de 7 às19h de junho a setembro, e de 9 às 16h, de outubro a maio. Para ingressar na igreja nada se paga, mas para subir ao seu telhado paga-se o preço de 4 Euros, por elevador.
Duomo é uma gigantesca igreja catedral, uma das maiores em estilo gótico em todo o mundo, em dimensões, pois tem cerca de 160 m de comprimento por 92 de largura. Suas dimensões representam aquilo que mais impressiona e provoca admiração a quem a visita, num primeiro olhar.
igreja começou a ser construída no Século 14 mas só foi concluída 500 (!!) anos depois.
Uma das coisas mais interessantes a ser fazer em toda Milão é visitar o telhado do Duomo, todo em placas de mármore, da mesma pedra de sua fachada, suas esculturas (santos, gárgulas e agulhas) e de onde se tem uma bela vista de toda a cidade.
A fachada do Duomo não tem apenas um estilo arquitetônico: eles vão do gótico ao renascentista, com alguns elementos neoclássicos.
Ainda no exterior, antes de entrar na igreja, não deixe de observar o rendilhado que envolve as janelas-vitrais e também as belíssimas e enormes portas de bronze, nas quais estão esculturas em baixos e altos-relevos que mostram cenas da história da cidade.
O que mais impressiona no interior é a altura dos enormes pilares góticos que suportam o telhado de toda a igreja e que delimitam suas naves laterais, secundárias e principal, além do altar-mór. Elas enquadram os vitrais igualmente gigantescos e belíssimos.
O interior não impressiona tanto quanto o exterior, ainda que seja solene, grandioso e tenha cinco naves e 52 gigantescas colunas de pedra.
Também o maravilhoso piso de mármore de três ou quatro tonalidades, que formam belos desenhos, dão, na nave central, a verdadeira impressão das dimensões desta fabulosa igreja. Observe o piso (de preferência ajoelhado nele) posisionando-se de costas para o altar-mór e olhando para o portão principal.
Em Milão quase tudo gira ao redor do Duomo, a Catedral de Milão, a terceira maior igreja da cristandade depois da Basílica de São Pedro, em Roma, e da Catedral de Sevilha.
No telhado as centenas de agulhas altíssimas, de arcos e gárgulas, estátuas e cariátides esculpidos em mármore impressionam tanto quanto sua fachada, vista do nível da rua. A mais magestosa das imagens é a estatua dourada da Madonnina do Perego, situada no topo da agulha maior, onde foi colocada em 1744.
Uma visita ao seu telhado dá-nos a dimensão exata da grandiosidade do trabalho de construção desta monumental escultura e nos leva a imaginar o quão difícil deve ter sido, compreendendo-se porque ela iniciou-se em 1386 e terminou em 1887!
O Duomo di Milano é um monumento símbolo do patrimônio Lombardo, dedicado à Santa Maria Nascente e situado na praça central da cidade de Milão, Itália. É uma das mais célebres e complexas construções em estilo Gótico do mundo.
Leia mais sobre a catedral de Milão no endereço www.maconaria.net/portal/index.php?view=article&catid...