Kathakali (Malayalam: കഥകളി, kathakaḷi; Sanskrit: कथाकळिः, kathākaḷiḥ) is a stylized classical Indian dance-drama noted for the attractive make-up of characters, elaborate costumes, detailed gestures and well-defined body movements presented in tune with the anchor playback music and complementary percussion. It originated in the country's present day state of Kerala during the 17th century and has developed over the years with improved looks, refined gestures and added themes besides more ornate singing and precise drumming.

 

HISTORY

Popular belief is that kathakali is emerged from "Krishnanattam", the dance drama on the life and activities of Lord Krishna created by Sri Manavedan Raja, the Zamorin of Calicut (1585-1658 AD). Once Kottarakkara Thampuran, the Raja of Kottarakkara who was attracted by Krishnanattam requested the Zamorin for the loan of a troupe of performers. Due to the political rivalry between the two, Zamorin did not allow this. So Kottarakkara Thampuran created another art form called Ramanattam which was later transformed into Aattakatha. Krishnanaattam was written in Sanskrit, and Ramanattam was in Malayalam. By the end of 17th century, Attakatha was presented to the world with the title 'Kathakali'.

 

Kathakali also shares a lot of similarities with Krishnanattam, Koodiyattam (a classical Sanskrit drama existing in Kerala) and Ashtapadiyattam (an adaptation of 12th-century musical called Gitagovindam). It also incorporates several other elements from traditional and ritualistic art forms like Mudiyettu, Thiyyattu, Theyyam and Padayani besides a minor share of folk arts like Porattunatakam. All along, the martial art of Kalarippayattu has influenced the body language of Kathakali. The use of Malayalam, the local language (albeit as a mix of Sanskrit and Malayalam, called 'Manipravaalam'), has also helped the literature of Kathakali sound more transparent for the average audience.

 

As a part of modernising, propagating, promoting and popularizing Kathakali, the International Centre for Kathakali at New Delhi has taken up a continuing project since 1980 of producing new plays based on not only traditional and mythological stories, but also historical stories, European classics and Shakespeare's plays. Recently they produced Kathakali plays based on Shakespeare's Othello and Greek-Roman mythology of Psyche and Cupid.

 

Even though the lyrics/literature would qualify as another independent element called Sahithyam, it is considered as a component of Geetha or music, as it plays only a supplementary role to Nritham, Nrithyam and Natyam.

 

KATHAKALI PLAYS

Traditionally there are 101 classical Kathakali stories, though the commonly staged among them these days total less than one-third that number. Almost all of them were initially composed to last a whole night. Nowadays, there is increasing popularity for concise, or oftener select, versions of stories so as the performance lasts not more than three to four hours from evening. Thus, many stories find stage presentation in parts rather than totality. And the selection is based on criteria like choreographical beauty, thematic relevance/popularity or their melodramatic elements. Kathakali is a classical art form, but it can be appreciated also by novices—all contributed by the elegant looks of its character, their abstract movement and its synchronisation with the musical notes and rhythmic beats. And, in any case, the folk elements too continue to exist. For better appreciation, perhaps, it is still good to have an idea of the story being enacted.

 

The most popular stories enacted are Nalacharitham (a story from the Mahabharata), Duryodhana Vadham (focusing on the Mahabharata war after profiling the build-up to it), Kalyanasougandhikam, (the story of Bhima going to get flowers for his wife Panchali), Keechakavadham (another story of Bhima and Panchali, but this time during their stint in disguise), Kiratham (Arjuna and Lord Shiva's fight, from the Mahabharata), Karnashapatham (another story from the Mahabharata), Nizhalkuthu and Bhadrakalivijayam authored by Pannisseri Nanu Pillai. Also staged frequently include stories like Kuchelavrittam, Santanagopalam, Balivijayam, Dakshayagam, Rugminiswayamvaram, Kalakeyavadham, Kirmeeravadham, Bakavadham, Poothanamoksham, Subhadraharanam, Balivadham, Rugmangadacharitam, Ravanolbhavam, Narakasuravadham, Uttaraswayamvaram, Harishchandracharitam, Kacha-Devayani and Kamsavadham.

 

Recently, as part of attempts to further popularise the art, stories from other cultures and mythologies, such as those of Mary Magdalene from the Bible, Homer's Iliad, and William Shakespeare's King Lear and Julius Caesar besides Goethe's Faust too have been adapted into Kathakali scripts and on to its stage. Synopsis of 37 kathakali stories are available in kathakalinews.com.

 

MUSIC

The language of the songs used for Kathakali is Manipravalam. Though most of the songs are set in ragas based on the microtone-heavy Carnatic music, there is a distinct style of plain-note rendition, which is known as the Sopanam style. This typically Kerala style of rendition takes its roots from the temple songs which used to be sung (continues even now at several temples) at the time when Kathakali was born.

 

As with the acting style, Kathakali music also has singers from the northern and southern schools. The northern style has largely been groomed by Kerala Kalamandalam in the 20th century. Kalamandalam Neelakantan Nambisan, an overarching Kathakali musician of those times, was a product of the institute. His prominent disciples include Kalamandalam Unnikrishna Kurup, Kalamandalam Gangadharan, Kalamandalam P.G. Radhakrishnan, Rama Varrier, Madambi Subramanian Namboodiri, Tirur Nambissan, Kalamandalam Sankaran Embranthiri, Kalamandalam Hyderali, Kalamandalam Haridas, Subramanian, Kalanilayam Unnikrishnan and Kalamandalam Bhavadasan. The other prominent musicians of the north feature Kottakkal Vasu Nedungadi, Kottakkal Parameswaran Namboodiri, Kottakkal P.D. Narayanan Namboodiri, Kottakkal Narayanan, Kalamandalam Anantha NarayananKalamandalam Sreekumar Palanad Divakaran, Kalanilayam Rajendran, Kolathappilli Narayanan Namboodiri, Kalamandalam Narayanan Embranthiri, Kottakkal Madhu, Kalamandalam Babu Namboodiri, Kalamandalam Harish and Kalamandalam Vinod. In the south, some of whom are equally popular in the north these days, include Pathiyur Sankarankutty. Southerner musicians of the older generation include Cherthala Thankappa Panikker, Thakazhi Kuttan Pillai, Cherthala Kuttappa Kurup, Thanneermukkam Viswambharan and Mudakkal Gopinathan.

 

PERFORMANCE

Traditionally, a Kathakali performance is usually conducted at night and ends in early morning. Nowadays it isn't difficult to see performances as short as three hours or fewer. Kathakali is usually performed in front of the huge Kalivilakku (kali meaning dance; vilakku meaning lamp) with its thick wick sunk till the neck in coconut oil. Traditionally, this lamp used to provide sole light when the plays used to be performed inside temples, palaces or abodes houses of nobles and aristocrats. Enactment of a play by actors takes place to the accompaniment of music (geetha) and instruments (vadya). The percussion instruments used are chenda, maddalam (both of which underwent revolutionary changes in their aesthetics with the contributions of Kalamandalam Krishnankutty Poduval and Kalamandalam Appukutty Poduval) and, at times, edakka. In addition, the singers (the lead singer is called “ponnani” and his follower is called “singidi”) use chengila (gong made of bell metal, which can be struck with a wooden stick) and ilathalam (a pair of cymbals). The lead singer in some sense uses the Chengala to conduct the Vadyam and Geetha components, just as a conductor uses his wand in western classical music. A distinguishing characteristic of this art form is that the actors never speak but use hand gestures, expressions and rhythmic dancing instead of dialogue (but for a couple of rare characters).

 

ACTING

A Kathakali actor uses immense concentration, skill and physical stamina, gained from regimented training based on Kalaripayattu, the ancient martial art of Kerala, to prepare for his demanding role. The training can often last for 8–10 years, and is intensive. In Kathakali, the story is enacted purely by the movements of the hands (called mudras or hand gestures) and by facial expressions (rasas) and bodily movements. The expressions are derived from Natyashastra (the tome that deals with the science of expressions) and are classified into nine as in most Indian classical art forms. Dancers also undergo special practice sessions to learn control of their eye movements.

 

There are 24 basic mudras—the permutation and combination of which would add up a chunk of the hand gestures in vogue today. Each can again can be classified into 'Samaana-mudras'(one mudra symbolising two entities) or misra-mudras (both the hands are used to show these mudras). The mudras are a form of sign language used to tell the story.

 

The main facial expressions of a Kathakali artist are the 'navarasams' (Navarasas in anglicised form) (literal translation: Nine Tastes, but more loosely translated as nine feelings or expressions) which are Sringaram (amour), Hasyam (ridicule, humour), Bhayanakam (fear), Karunam (pathos), Roudram (anger, wrath), Veeram (valour), Beebhatsam (disgust), Adbhutam (wonder, amazement), Shantam (tranquility, peace). The link at the end of the page gives more details on Navarasas.

 

One of the most interesting aspects of Kathakali is its elaborate make-up code. Most often, the make-up can be classified into five basic sets namely Pachcha, Kathi, Kari, Thaadi, and Minukku. The differences between these sets lie in the predominant colours that are applied on the face. Pachcha (meaning green) has green as the dominant colour and is used to portray noble male characters who are said to have a mixture of "Satvik" (pious) and "Rajasik" (dark; Rajas = darkness) nature. Rajasik characters having an evil streak ("tamasic"= evil) -- all the same they are anti-heroes in the play (such as the demon king Ravana) -- and portrayed with streaks of red in a green-painted face. Excessively evil characters such as demons (totally tamasic) have a predominantly red make-up and a red beard. They are called Red Beard (Red Beard). Tamasic characters such as uncivilised hunters and woodsmen are represented with a predominantly black make-up base and a black beard and are called black beard (meaning black beard). Women and ascetics have lustrous, yellowish faces and this semi-realistic category forms the fifth class. In addition, there are modifications of the five basic sets described above such as Vella Thadi (white beard) used to depict Hanuman (the Monkey-God) and Pazhuppu, which is majorly used for Lord Shiva and Balabhadra.

 

NOTABLE TRAINING CENTRES & MASTERS

Kathakali artistes need assiduous grooming for almost a decade's time, and most masters are products of accomplished institutions that give a minimum training course of half-a-dozen years. The leading Kathakali schools (some of them started during the pre-Independent era India) are Kerala Kalamandalam (located in Cheruthuruthy near Shoranur), PSV Natya Sangham (located in Kottakal near Kozhikode), Sadanam Kathakali and Classical Arts Academy (or Gandhi Seva Sadan located in Perur near Ottappalam in Palakkad), Unnayi Varier Smaraka Kalanilayam (located in Irinjalakuda south of Thrissur), Margi in Thiruvananthapuram, Muthappan Kaliyogam at Parassinikkadavu in Kannur district and RLV School at Tripunithura off Kochi and Kalabharathi at Pakalkkuri near Kottarakkara in Kollam district, Sandarshan Kathakali Kendram in Ambalapuzha and Vellinazhi Nanu Nair Smaraka Kalakendra in Kuruvattor. Outside Kerala, Kathakali is being taught at the International Centre for Kathakali in New Delhi, Santiniketan at Visva-Bharati University in West Bengal, Kalakshetra in Chennai and Darpana Academy in Ahmedabad among others. PadmaSree Guru Chengannur Raman Pillai mostly known as 'Guru Chengannur'was running a traditional Gurukula Style approach to propagate Kathakali.

 

‘Guru Chengannur” is ever renowned as the Sovereign Guru of Kathakali. His precision in using symbols, gestures and steps were highest in the field of Kathakali. Guru Chegannur's kaththi vesham, especially the portrayal of Duryodhana enthralled the audience every time he performed. A master of the art, he found immense happiness and satisfaction in the success and recognition of his disciples.

 

Senior Kathakali exponents of today include Padma Bhushan Kalamandalam Ramankutty Nair, Padma Shri Kalamandalam Gopi, Madavoor Vasudevan Nair, Chemancheri Kunhiraman Nair, Kottakkal Krishnankutty Nair, Mankompu Sivasankara Pillai, Sadanam Krishnankutty, Nelliyode Vasudevan Namboodiri, Kalamandalam Vasu Pisharody, FACT Padmanabhan, Kottakkal Chandrasekharan, Margi Vijayakumar, Kottakkal Nandakumaran Nair, Vazhenkada Vijayan, Inchakkattu Ramachandran Pillai, Kalamandalam Kuttan, Mayyanad Kesavan Namboodiri, Mathur Govindan Kutty, Narippatta Narayanan Namboodiri, Chavara Parukutty, Thonnakkal Peethambaran, Sadanam Balakrishnan, Kalanilayam Gopalakrishnan, Chirakkara Madhavankutty, Sadanam K. Harikumaran, Thalavadi Aravindan, Kalanilayam Balakrishnan, Pariyanampatta Divakaran, Kottakkal Kesavan, Kalanilayam Gopi and Kudamaloor Muralikrishnan. The late titan actor-dancers of Kathakali's modern age (say, since the 1930s) include Pattikkamthodi Ravunni Menon, Chenganoor Raman Pillai, Chandu Panicker, Thakazhi Guru Kunchu Kurup, Padma Shri Kalamandalam Krishnan Nair, Padma Shri Vazhenkada Kunchu Nair, Kavalappara Narayanan Nair, Kurichi Kunhan Panikkar, Thekkinkattil Ramunni Nair, Padma Shri Keezhpadam Kumaran Nair, Kalamandalam Padmanabhan Nair, Mankulam Vishnu Namboodiri, Oyur Kochu Govinda Pillai, Vellinezhi Nanu Nair, Padma Shri Kavungal Chathunni Panikkar, Kudamaloor Karunakaran Nair, Kottakkal Sivaraman, Kannan Pattali, Pallippuram Gopalan Nair, Haripad Ramakrishna Pillai, Champakkulam Pachu Pillai, Chennithala Chellappan Pillai, Guru Mampuzha Madhava Panicker, and Vaikkom Karunakaran.

 

Kathakali is still hugely a male domain but, since the 1970s, females too have made entry into the art form on a recognisable scale. The central Kerala temple town of Tripunithura has, in fact, a ladies troupe (with members belonging to several part of the state) that performs Kathakali, by and large in Travancore.

 

KATHAKALI STYLES

Known as Sampradäyaṃ(Malayalam: സമ്പ്രദായം); these are leading Kathakali styles that differ from each other in subtleties like choreographic profile, position of hand gestures and stress on dance than drama and vice versa. Some of the major original kathakali styles included:

 

Vettathu Sampradayam

Kalladikkodan Sampradyam

Kaplingadu Sampradayam

 

Of late, these have narrowed down to the northern (Kalluvazhi) and southern (Thekkan) styles. It was largely developed by the legendary Pattikkamthodi Ravunni Menon (1881-1949) that is implemented in Kerala Kalamandalam (though it has also a department that teaches the southern style), Sadanam, RLV and Kottakkal. Margi has its training largely based on the Thekkan style, known for its stress on drama and part-realistic techniques. Kalanilayam, effectively, churns out students with a mix of both styles.

 

OTHER FORMS OD DANCE & OFFSHOOTS

Kerala Natanam is a kind of dance form, partly based on Kathakali techniques and aesthetics, developed and stylised by the late dancer Guru Gopinath in the mid-20th century. Kathakali also finds portrayal in Malayalam feature films like Vanaprastham, Parinayam, Marattam, and Rangam. Besides documentary films have also been shot on Kathakali artistes like Chenganoor Raman Pillai, Kalamandalam Krishnan Nair, Keezhpadam Kumaran Nair, Kalamandalam Ramankutty Nair, Kalamandalam Gopi and Kottakkal Sivaraman.

 

As for fictional literature, Kathakali finds mention in several Malayalam short stories like Karmen (by N.S. Madhavan) and novels like Keshabharam (by P.V. Sreevalsan). Even the Indo-Anglian work like Arundhati Roy's Booker prize-winning The God of Small Things has a chapter on Kathakali, while, of late, Anita Nair's novel, Mistress, is entirely wrapped in the ethos of Kathakali.

 

Similar musical theater is popular in Kasaragod and the coastal and Malenadu regions of Karnataka, viz. Yakshagana. Though Yakshagana resembles Kathakali in terms of its costume and makeup to an extent, Yakshagana is markedly different from Kathakali as it involves dialogues and method acting also the narration is in Kannada, wherein philosophical debates are also possible within framework of the character. As per records the art form of Yakshagana was already rooted and well established at the time of Sri Manavedan Raja. There is possibilities of its significant influence in formation of Kathakkali as the troupe of performers of "Krishnanattam" designed the basic costume of the art form already established in other parts of south India including Males playing the female roles (until more recently).

 

Kottayam thamburan's way of presenting kathakali was later known as Kalladikkoden sambradayam. Chathu Paniker,the introducer of Kallikkoden Sambrathayam, stayed in Kottayam for five years with Kottayam Thamburan's residence and practiced Kalladikkoden Sambrathayam. Then he returned to his home place. After a short period Chathu Paniker reached Pulapatta as instructed by Kuthiravattath nair. That was around the year ME 865. Many deciples from Kadathanadu, Kurumbra nadu, Vettathu nadu, Palakkadu and Perumpadappu studied kathakali(Kalladikkoden Sambrathayam ) By that time Chathu Paniker was an old man. Some years later he died from Pulapatta.

 

NOTED KATHAKALI VILLAGES & BELTS

There are certain pockets in Kerala that have given birth to many Kathakali artistes over the years. If they can be called Kathakali villages (or some of them, these days, towns), here are some of them: Vellinezhi, Kuruvattoor, Karalmanna, Cherpulassery, Kothachira, peringode, sreekrishnapuram Kongad and Ottapalam in Palakkad district, Vazhenkada in Malappuram district, Thichur or Tichoor, Guruvayur, Thiruvilwamala and Irinjalakuda in Thrissur district, Tripunithura, Edappally, Thekkan Chittoor in Ernakulam district and Kuttanad, Harippad belt in Alappuzha district besides places in and around Thiruvanathapuram in south Travancore and Payyannur in north Malabar.

 

AWARDS FOR KATHAKALI ARTISTS

Sangeet Natak Akademi Awardees - Kathakali (1956–2005)

Nambeesan Smaraka Awards—For artistic performances related kathakali{1992-2008}

 

KATHAKALI ATTAMS (ELAKI ATTAMS)

Attams or more specifically "elaki attams" are sequences of acting within a story acted out with the help of mudras without support from vocal music. The actor has the freedom to change the script to suit his own individual preferences. The actor will be supported ably by Chenda, Maddalam, and Elathalam (compulsory), Chengila (not very compulsory).

 

The following are only some examples. 'Kailasa Udharanam' and 'Tapas Attam' are very important attams and these are described at the end. Two of the many references are Kathakali Prakaram, pages 95 to 142 by Pannisheri Nanu Pillai and Kathakaliyile Manodharmangal by Chavara Appukuttan Pillai.

 

VANA VARNANA: BHIMA IN KALYANA SAUGANDHIKA

Modern man looks at the forest, indeed the birthplace of primates, with a certain wonder and a certain respect. Kathakali characters are no exception.

 

When Pandavas were living in the forest, one day, a flower, not seen before, wafted by the wind, comes and falls at the feet of Panchali. Exhilarated by its beauty and smell, Panchali asks Bhima to bring her more such flowers. To her pleasure Bhima is ready to go at once. But Panchali asks him what he shall do for food and drink on the way. Bhima thinks and says "Food and Drink! Oh, this side glance (look) of yours. This look of longing. This look of anticipation. The very thought fills me up. I don't need any food and drink at all. Let me go." He takes his mace and off he goes. Ulsaham (enthusiasm) is his Sdhayi Bhavam (permanent feature).

 

"Let me go at once in search of this flower," says Bhima. "The scented wind is blowing from the southern side. Let me go that way." After walking some distance he sees a huge mountain called Gandhamadana and three ways. He decides to take the middle one which goes over the mountain. After going further "The forest is getting thicker. Big trees, big branches in all directions. The forest looks like a huge dark vessel into which even light can not penetrate. This is my (Bhima's) way. Nothing can hinder me." So saying he pulls down many trees. Sometimes he shatters the trees with his mace. Suddenly he sees an elephant. "Oh! Elephant." He describes it. Its trunk. Sharp ears.

 

The itching sensation in the body. It takes some mud and throws on the body. Oh good. Then it sucks water and throws on the body. Somewhat better. Slowly it starts dosing even though alert at times. A very huge python is approaching steadily. Suddenly it catches hold of the elephant's hind leg. The elephant wakes up and tries to disengage the python. The python pulls to one side. The elephant kicks and drags to the other side. This goes on for some time. Bhima looks to the other side where a hungry lion is looking for food. It comes running and strikes the elephants head and eats part of the brain and goes off. The python completes the rest. "Oh my god, how ruthless!" says Bhima and proceeds on his way.

 

UDYANA VARNANA: NALA IN NALACHARITHAM SECOND DAY

Descriptions of gardens are found in most dance forms of India and abroad. These are also common in Kathakali.

 

Newly married Nala and Damayanthi are walking in the garden. When Nala was lovingly looking at Damayanthi a flower falls on her. Nala is overjoyed and thinks that this is a kindness nature has shown on his wife. Nala says "On seeing the arrival of their queen, the trees and climbers are showing happiness by dropping flowers on you." He tells her, "See that tree. When I used to be alone the tree used to hug the climber and seemingly laugh at my condition." Then he looks at the tree and says, "Dear Tree, look at me now. See how fortunate I am with my beautiful wife."

 

Both wander about. A bumblebee flies towards Damayanthi. Immediately Nala protects her face with a kerchief. He looks at the bee and then at Damayanthi. He says, "On seeing your face the bee thought it was a flower and came to drink the nectar." Nala and Damayanthi listen to the sounds coming out of the garden. Damayanti says, "It appears that the whole garden is thrilled. The flowers are blooming and smiling. Cuckoos are singing and the bees are dancing. Gentle winds are blowing and rubbing against our bodies. How beautiful the whole garden looks." Then Nala says that the sun is going down and it is time for them to go back and takes her away.

 

SHABDA VARNANA: HANUMAN IN KALYANA SAUGANDHIKAM

While Bhima goes in search of the flower, here Hanuman is sitting doing Tapas with mind concentrated on Sri Rama.

 

When he hears the terrible noises made by Bhima in the forest he feels disturbed in doing his Tapas. He thinks "What is the reason for this?" Then the sounds become bigger. "What is this?" He thinks, "The sounds are getting bigger. Such a terrible noise. Is the sea coming up thinking that the time is ripe for the great deluge (Pralaya). Birds are flying helter-skelter. Trees look shocked. Even Kali Yuga is not here. Then what is it? Are mountains quarreling with each other? No, That can't be it. Indra had cut off the wings of mountains so that they don't quarrel. Is the sea changing its position? No it can't be. The sea has promised it will not change its position again. It can't break the promise." Hanuman starts looking for clues. "I see elephants and lions running in fear of somebody. Oh a huge man is coming this way. Oh, a hero is coming. He is pulling out trees and throwing it here and there. Okay. Let him come near, We will see."

 

THANDEDATTAM: RAVANA IN BALI VADHAM

After his theranottam Ravana is seen sitting on a stool. He says to himself "I am enjoying a lot of happiness. What is the reason for this?" Thinks. "Yes I know it. I did Tapas to Brahma and received all necessary boons. Afterwards I won all ten directions. I also defeated my elder brother Vaishravana. Then I lifted Kailas mountain when Siva and Parvathi were having a misunderstanding. Parvathi got frightened and embraced Siva in fear. Siva was so happy he gave a divine sword called Chandrahasa. Now the whole world is afraid of me. That is why I am enjoying so much happiness." He goes and sits on the stool. He looks far away. "Who is coming from a distance. he is coming fast. Oh, it is Akamba. Okay. Let me find out what news he has for me."

 

ASHRAMA VARNANA: ARJUNA IN KIRATHAM

Arjuna wants to do Tapas to Lord Siva and he is looking a suitable place in the Himalayan slopes. He comes to place where there is an ashram. Arjuna looks closely at the place. "Oh. What a beautiful place this is. A small river in which a very pure water is flowing. Some hermits are taking baths in the river. Some hermits are standing in the water and doing Tapsas. Some are facing the Sun. Some are standing in between five fires." Arjuna salutes the hermits from far. He says to himself "Look at this young one of a deer. It is looking for its mother. It seems to be hungry and thirsty. Nearby a female tiger is feeding its young ones. The little deer goes towards the tigress and pushes the young tiger cubs aside and starts drinking milk from the tigress. The tigress looks lovingly at the young deer and even licks its body as if it were its own child. How beautiful. How fulfilling."

 

Again he looks "Here on this side a mongoose and a serpent forgetting their enmity are hugging each other. This place is really strange and made divine by saints and hermits. Let me start my Tapas somewhere nearby."

 

A sloka called "Shikhini Shalabha" can be selected instead of the above if time permits.

 

AN ATTAM BASED ON A SLOKA

Sansrit slokas are sometimes shown in mudras and it has a pleasing and exhilarating effect. Different actors use slokas as per his own taste and liking. However, the slokas are taught to students during their training period. An example is given below.

 

Kusumo Kusumolpatti Shrooyathena Chathushyathe

Bale thava Mukhambuje Pashya Neelolpaladwayam

 

Meaning a flower blooming inside another flower is not known to history. But, my dear, in your lotus like face are seen two blue Neelolpala flowers (eyes).

 

A CONVERSATION BASED ON A SLOKA

Sanskrit slokas can also be used to express an intent. One such example is a sloka used by Arjuna addressed to Mathali the charioteer in Kalakeya Vadham. Sloka:

Pitha: Kushalee Mama hritha Bhujaam

Naatha Sachee Vallabha:

Maatha: kim nu Pralomacha Kushalinee

Soonurjayanthasthayo

Preethim va Kushchate Thadikshnavidhow

Cheta Samutkanuthe

Sutha: tvam Radhamashu Chodaya vayam

Dharmadivam Mathala

 

Meaning: The husband of Indrani and the lord of gods my father - Is he in good health? His son Jayantha - Is he strictly following the commands of his father? Oh, I am impatient to see all of them.

 

SWARGA VARNANA: ARJUNA IN KELAKEYA VADHAM

Arjuna goes to heaven on the invitation of his father, Indra. After taking permission from Indrani he goes out to see all the places in Swarga. First he sees a building, his father's palace. It is so huge with four entrances. It is made of materials superior to gold and jewels of the world. Then he goes ahead and sees Iravatha. Here he describes it as a huge elephant with four horns. He is afraid to touch it. Then he thinks that animals in Swarga can't be cruel like in the world and so thinking he goes and touches and salutes Iravatha. He describes the churning of the white sea by gods and demons with many details and how Iravatha also came out of the white sea due to this churning.

 

He walks on and sees his father's (Indra's) horse. It is described as being white and its mane is sizzling like the waves of the white sea from which it came. He touches and salutes the horse also. Then he goes to see the river of the sky (or milky way). He sees many birds by this river and how the birds fly and play is shown.

 

Then he sees the heavenly ladies. Some are collecting flowers, and one of them comes late and asks for some flowers for making garland. The others refuse. She goes to the Kalpa Vriksha and says "please give me some flowers." Immediately a shower of flowers occurs which she collects in her clothes and goes to make garlands chiding the others. "See... I also got flowers." After this he sees the music and dance of the heavenly ladies. First it starts with the adjustments of instruments Thamburu, Mridangam, Veena. Then the actual music starts along with the striking of cymbals. Then two or three types of dances are shown. Then comes juggling of balls. It is described by a sloka thus:

 

Ekopi Thraya Iva Bhathi Kandukoyam

 

Kanthayaa: Karathala Raktharaktha:

Abhrastho Nayanamareechi Neelaneelo

Popular belief is that kathakali is emerged from "Krishnanattam", the dance drama on the life and activities of Lord Krishna created by Sri Manavedan Raja, the Zamorin of Calicut (1585-1658 AD). Once Kottarakkara Thampuran, the Raja of Kottarakkara who was attracted by Krishnanattam requested the Zamorin for the loan of a troupe of performers. Due to the political rivalry between the two, Zamorin did not allow this. So Kottarakkara Thampuran created another art form called Ramanattam which was later transformed into Aattakatha. Krishnanaattam was written in Sanskrit, and Ramanattam was in Malayalam. By the end of 17th century, Attakatha was presented to the world with the title 'Kathakali'. Kathakali also shares a lot of similarities with Krishnanattam, Koodiyattam (a classical Sanskrit drama existing in Kerala) and Ashtapadiyattam (an adaptation of 12th-century musical called Gitagovindam). It also incorporates several other elements from traditional and ritualistic art forms like Mudiyettu, Thiyyattu, Theyyam and Padayani besides a minor share of folk arts like Porattunatakam. All along, the martial art of Kalarippayattu has influenced the body language of Kathakali. The use of Malayalam, the local language (albeit as a mix of Sanskrit and Malayalam, called ), has also helped the literature of Kathakali sound more transparent for the average audience. As a part of modernising, propagating, promoting and popularizing Kathakali, the International Centre for Kathakali at New Delhi has taken up a continuing project since 1980 of producing new plays based on not only traditional and mythological stories, but also historical stories, European classics and Shakespeare's plays. Recently they produced Kathakali plays based on Shakespeare's Othello and Greek-Roman mythology of Psyche and Cupid.

 

Even though the lyrics/literature would qualify as another independent element called Sahithyam, it is considered as a component of Geetha or music, as it plays only a supplementary role to

Bhumau Talcharana Naghamshu Gaurgaura:

 

Meaning One ball looks like three balls. When it is in the hands of the juggler, it takes the redness of the hands, when it goes up it takes the blueness of the eyes, when it strikes the ground it becomes white from the whiteness of the leg nails. Once a juggled ball falls down. Then she, the juggler, somehow manages to proceed and remarks "See.. how I can do it".

 

At one time a garment slips from a lady's body and she adjusts the cloth showing shameful shyness (Lajja). Then the ladies go in for a Kummi dance. As Arjuna was enjoying this dance, suddenly somebody calls him. Arjuna feels scared. "Oh God, where am I?" he says and beats a hasty retreat.

 

TAPAS ATTAM: RAVANA IN RAVANA ULBHAVAM

[Background: Mali, Sumali and Malyavan were three brothers ruling Sri Lanka. During a war between them and Indra, Indra requested help from Lord Vishnu and as a consequence Lord Vishnu killed Mali. Sumali and Malyavan escaped to Patala. Kaikasi was the daughter of Sumali. She wandered in the forest. She belong three boys through a great sage called Vishravassu. (Vishravassu had an earlier son called Vaishravana who became the richest among all people.) The eldest boy of Kaikasi was Ravana followed by Kumbhakarna and Vibhishana.]

 

SCENE 1

When Ravana was a young boy (Kutti Ravana vesham), one day he was sleeping on his mothers lap in a place called madhuvanam. At that time Kaikasi sees Vaishravana flying overhead in his vimana (mythical aeroplane). She thinks “Oh, that is Vaishravana, technically a brother of my son who is sleeping on my lap. He is rich and strong. My son is so poor and weak. While thinking thus a drop of tear from her eyes drops on Ravana’s face. Ravana suddenly wakes up and sees his mother crying. When he knew the reason he could not bear it. He says he is going to do tapas to Brahma to get boons so that he will be strong and rich.

 

SCENE 2

(The tapas itself is shown as a part of autobiographical narration of adult ravana)

 

Ravana (adult Ravana, not kutti Ravana) is sitting on a stool. He thinks “Why am I so happy? How did I become so rich and strong? Oh yes. It is because of the tapas I did. What made me do the tapas? When I was a young boy, one day I was sleeping on my mother’s lap in a place called Madhuvanam. A drop of tear from her eyes falls on my face. I asked her why she was crying. She said she saw Vaishravana flying overhead in his vimana (plane). She told me Vaishravan was a brother of mine now flying in a plane. He is rich and strong. I am so poor and weak. When I heard this comparison between me and my brother, I could not bear it. I am going to do tapas to Brahma to get boons so that I will be strong and rich.

 

I made five different types of fires (while doing tapas gods are approached through Agni the god of fire). Then I started my tapas. I asked my brothers to stand guard and also keep the fires burning. Then I fully concentrated on tapas. Time passed but Brahma did not appear. I looked. Why is Brahma not appearing? I doubled my concentration. Time passed. Brahma is not appearing. Still not appearing? I cut one of my heads and put it in the fire. Waited, Brahma did not come. One more head rolls. Still no Brahma comes. Heads roll and roll. No Brahma. Only one head is left. First I thought of stopping my tapas. But no! Never! That will be an insult to me and my family. It is better to die than stop. Also when I die Brahma will be judged as being partial. With great determination I swung the sword at my last neck, when, lo and behold, suddenly Brahma appeared and caught my hand. I looked at him with still un-subsided, but gradually subsiding anger. Brahma asked me what boons I wanted. I asked for a boon that I should win all the worlds and have all the wealth and fame and that I should not be killed except by man. I also asked him to give boons for my brothers.

 

In the next scene Ravana asks Kumbhakarna and Vibhishana what boons they got. Unfortunately Kumbhakarna’s tongue got twisted while asking for boon and he got ‘sleep’ instead of becoming the ‘king of gods’. Ravana laughed it off. As for Vibhishana, he being a bhaktha of Vishnu, asked for Vishnu’s blessings and got it. Ravana laughs it off and also decides to conquer all the worlds and starts preparing his grand army for the big conquest of the worlds.

 

[This method of presentation with a peculiar sequence has a tremendous dramatic affect. The main actor redoes a small part of what happened to kutti Ravana vesham, and this gives a view of the high contrast between the boy and the man Ravana. Similarly the presence of Kumbhakarna and Vibhishana in the subsequent scene offers a good smile on the face of the viewer at the end of the play.]

 

KAILASA UDDHARANAM: RAVANA IN BALI VIJAYAM

[Background and Previous scene: After receiving the boons, and widening his kingdom in all directions, Ravana lives in Sri Lanka with great pomp and splendor. One day he sees Saint Narada approaching his palace singing songs in praise of him ‘Jaya jaya Ravana, Lanka Pathe’. Happily he receives Narada and seats him next to him. After telling Narada about the victory of his son Indrajith on Indra, Ravana tells Narada “Now there is nobody on earth or other worlds who can fight with me”. To this Narada replies “ Very true indeed, but there is one huge monkey called Bali who says he can defeat you. He even said that you are just like a blade of grass to him. Well let him say what he wants. You are unbeatable.” Then Narada says ‘let us go there and see him’. Both decide to go. But Ravana takes his famous sword called “Chandrahasam”. Then Narada asks the history of this sword. Ravana’s Attam Starts.]

 

Ravana says “I received this sword from Lord Siva. It happened thus. Once when I was conquering new places and expanding my empire I happened to be going across the Kailasa mountain. The plane got stuck on the mountain unable to move forward. I got down from the plane and looked at the mountain. (Looks from one end to the other first horizontally and then vertically.) So huge it was. Then I decided to lift it with my bare hand and keep it aside and move forward. I started sticking my hands under it one by one. Then I tried to lift it. It doesn’t move. I put more force and more force. It moved just a bit. I pushed harder and harder, slowly it started moving then again and again and it moved easily. Then I lifted it up with my hands and started juggling it (exaggeration evident).

 

“At that particular time Lord Siva was quarreling with his wife Parvathi. Why did they fight? The story is as follows. Parvathi had gone for enjoying swimming and bathing in some beautiful pond. At that time Siva opened his jata (disheveled long hair) and called Ganga for some entertainment after asking Ganapathi and Subramania to go for some errands. Somehow becoming suspicious, right at that time, Parvathi came back in a hurry with wet clothes and saw Siva with Ganga. Siva was wondering what to do and it was at that time that Ravana started lifting the Kailasa. When Kailasa started shaking Parvathi got scared and ran to Siva and hugged him. So the quarrel ended and Siva was happy. “As a reward Siva called me and gave me this famous Chandrahasa sword.”

 

Then Narada and Ravana leave to meet Bali. Ravana wanted to take the sword along with him, but Narada suggested that the sword is not required for teaching a lesson to Bali who is after all an unarmed monkey.

 

WIKIPEDIA

www.twitter.com/Memoire2cite le Logement Collectif* 50,60,70's dans tous ses états..Histoire & Mémoire de l'Habitat / Rétro-Villes / HLM / Banlieue / Renouvellement Urbain / Urbanisme URBANISME S’imaginer Paris et le Grand Paris @ URBANISME S’imaginer Paris et le Grand Paris @ Les 50ans d'Apur 50ans.apur.org/#intro @ Les films du MRU @ les AUTOROUTES - Les liaisons moins dangereuses 1972 la construction des autoroutes en France - Le réseau autoroutier 1960 Histoire de France Transports et Communications - dailymotion.com/video/xxi0ae?playlist=x34ije … Trente ans d’histoire de l’habitat : de la

Reconstruction à l’urbanisation intensive, puis raisonnée. La région parisienne connaît alors un développement

exceptionnel façonnant le paysage de l’Îlede-France actuelle.

Réalisée à l’initiative de la DRAC Île-deFrance, une exposition regroupant une quarantaine de photographies d’ensembles de logements édifiés en Île-de-France entre 1945 et 1975 et sélectionnés pour la qualité de leur forme urbaine, leur valeur d’usage ou leurs spécificités techniques, a été présentée, du 5 juillet au 15 septembre 2011, à La Maison de l’architecture en Île-de-France. Cette exposition a fait l’objet d’une publication dans la revue Beaux Arts Editions. @ Où en est l'histoire urbaine des sociétés contemporaines ? Cet ouvrage, inspiré par Annie Fourcaut, qui contribua de manière décisive à son développement, propose un état des lieux de ce champ et explore des pistes de recherche ouvrant l'histoire urbaine à une variété de " genres ".où en est l'histoire urbaine des sociétés contemporaines ? Cet ouvrage, inspiré par Annie Fourcaut, qui contribua de manière décisive à son développement, propose un état des lieux de ce champ. De Femmes à l'usine (1981), Bobigny, banlieue rouge (1986), à La banlieue en morceaux (2000), en passant par les publications collectives qu'elle a coordonnées et les travaux qu'elle a encadrés, la trajectoire de cette historienne a conduit l'histoire sociale et politique – telle qu'on la pratiquait dans les années 1970 – vers une histoire urbaine renouvelée. Le livre revient sur cette évolution et explore des pistes de recherche ouvrant l'histoire urbaine à une variété de " genres ". Les auteurs, historiennes et historiens, sociologues, politistes, géographes, architectes, urbanistes et décideurs politiques proposent une histoire urbaine à la fois interdisciplinaire et ancrée dans la fabrique de la ville et ses représentations, portant la marque de sa dédicataire. Les quatre sections de l'ouvrage dessinent les chantiers qu'Annie Fourcaut a investis : " Du social à l'urbain " met en avant la conviction qu'étudier l'histoire des villes, c'est toujours faire de l'histoire sociale ; " Qu'elle était belle la banlieue " est centré sur les banlieues, son territoire d'étude de prédilection ; " Les habits neufs des politiques de la ville " interroge les politiques urbaines successives et leur transformation ; enfin, " Banc d'essai des modernités " propose une analyse historique de l'urbanisme, comme discipline et comme pratique.Le thème du logement. « Il s’agit du premier label Patrimoine XXe siècle attribué en Île-de-France. La DRAC, qui l’a mise en œuvre, a choisi de s’intéresser en tout premier lieu à cette production de

logements de masse d’une ampleur inégalée construits dans notre région après la guerre. Ce sont des créations emblématiques d’une architecture contemporaine dépréciée ; à ce titre, elles sont au premier chef concernées par les recommandations du Conseil de l’Europe. De plus, par l’ampleur des programmes, les étendues qu’ils recouvrent, ces ensembles sont sont plus éloignés du champ

traditionnel des monuments historiques. L’outil label a semblé approprié. Le choix de labelliser les ensembles de logements est donc audacieux : nous espérons que le regard porté sur ces immeubles Change. » Valérie Gaudard, Conservation régionale des monuments historiques, DRAC-Île-de-France.

(extrait d’un entretien publié dans Beaux Arts éditions « 1945-1975, Une histoire de l’habitat – 40 ensembles « patrimoine du XXe siècle »). Créé en 1999 par le ministère de la Culture et de la Communication, le label Patrimoine du XXe siècle

vise à signaler au public, aux décideurs et aux aménageurs, "les édifices et ensembles urbains qui sont autant de témoins matériels de l’évolution technique économique, sociale, politique et culturelle de notre société". Liens Le label patrimoine XXe - www.culturecommunication.gouv.fr/Regions/DRAC-Ile-de-Fran... La Maison de l'architecture - www.maisonarchitecture-idf.org/spip.php

www.twitter.com/Memoire2cite www.beauxarts.com/produit/une-histoire-de-lhabitat/ @ LES GRANDS ENSEMBLES @ L EXEMPLE DE DIJON «LE BILLARDON, HISTOIRE D’UN GRAND ENSEMBLE»Sylvain TABOURY, sociologue, enseignant à l’école d’architecture de Versailles. Co-auteur avec Karine Gougerot, photographe, de Billardon, histoire d’un grand ensemble, paru aux éditions Créaphis en 2004. Texte communiqué à partir de la rencontre-débat du 20 mai 2005 Organisée par le Centre de Ressources Politique de la Ville en Essonne en partenariat avec Maison de Banlieue et de l’Architecture, le CAUE 91 et CINEAM dans le cadre de l’exposition «Des ensembles assez grands: mémoire et projets en Essonne». Cet ouvrage retrace l’histoire de la cité Jean-Billardon, barre de 14 étages et de 250 logements, à Dijon, premier grand ensemble de la ville, construit entre 1953 et 1955, démoli en 2003. Sélectionné parmi les immeubles significatifs de l’architecture du XXe siècle par la direction de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine (DAPA) du ministère de la Culture, Billardon était un symbole incontournable de l’histoire du quartier des Grésilles et de l’agglomération dijonnaise, ainsi qu’un formidable témoin de l’architecture novatrice de l’après-guerre. Sollicités par le service Inventaire de la Direction régionale des affaires culturelles de Bourgogne (Drac) et par l’Office public d’aménagement et de construction de Dijon (Opac), dans le cadre de l’opération de renouvellement urbain (ORU) du quartier des Grésilles, nous avons collecté et rassemblé, de janvier à juillet 2003, les traces de cette histoire, les archives, mais aussi les témoignages, recomposant des trajectoires familiales, professionnelles, des documents iconographiques et sonores. La restitution auprès des habitants et des partenaires du projet en octobre 2004, accompagnée d’une table ronde avec différents intervenants et acteurs du quartier, a été un moment fort, inscrit dans le processus de transformation engagé sur le quartier des Grésilles. Une exposition, intitulée «Mémoires de Billardon, fragments de vies», a également été présentée dans les locaux prestigieux du musée de la Vie bourguignonne de Dijon, du 14 octobre 2004 au 31 janvier 2005.Garder une trac De fait, la démolition de la Cité Billardon, le 4 juillet 2003, restera sans aucun doute un événement sensible dans la mémoire de nombre d’habitants de l’agglomération dijonnaise. Cette barre fut la première construction d’un tout nouveau quartier – le quartier des Grésilles –, à Dijon, où près de 4000 logements ont été construits Centre de Ressources Politique de la Ville en Essonne entre 1953 et 1966 – 14970 habitants en 1968, 8263 en 2003 – sur un terrain agricole demeuré nu, à l’est du territoire communal. Les 14 étages et 250 logements de l’immeuble, élevés au milieu des champs et des jardins familiaux, où un écriteau «Chasse interdite» était encore visible quelques années auparavant, faisaient alors l’admiration des très nombreux badauds venus visiter cette toute nouvelle Cité radieuse, construite tel un

Meccano de béton et d’acier. « Immeuble révolutionnaire», «Meccano géant à l’échelle du monde moderne», les titres de la presse de l’époque donnent un aperçu de l’impact national et international de l’événement. «Des visiteurs étaient venus de toute la France et même de l’étranger, jeter un coup d’œil au chantier», rappelait un article de la presse locale le jour de la démolition. Cette « barre » de 14 étages et de 250 logements, desservis par des coursives placées tous les trois niveaux, était une déclinaison appauvrie du modèle de la Cité radieuse du Corbusier, inaugurée le 14 octobre 1952. Les appartements étaient de deux types: les uns de deux et trois pièces, situés dans les ailes, de disposition traditionnelle, orientés au sud et pourvus de loggias; les autres, de cinq pièces, situés au centre du bâtiment, du type « duplex ». Huit espaces commerciaux avaient été aménagés en rez-dechaussée. Cependant, en dépit des ressemblances et de la qualité architecturale de l’édifice, l’immeuble n’était pas une unité d’habitation au sens où Le Corbusier l’entendait. L’originalité de la Cité Billardon tient en réalité au procédé constructif qui fut utilisé lors de son édification. Elle fut la toute première à expérimenter en France le procédé de préfabrication Estiot, réutilisé par la suite pour la construction de plusieurs grands ensembles, comme le Noyer-Renard à AthisMons, la Cité des 4000 à la Courneuve, la Grâce-de-Dieu à Caen, la Croixdes-Oiseaux et Champ-Fleury à Avignon, le Gros Buisson à Épinay, SainteBarbe à Metz, le Haut-du-Lièvre à Nancy, les tours du Lancy à Genève ou encore des bâtiments d’habitation à Alger. Le mode constructif, repris sur celui des gratte-ciel américains, associait l’acier en ossature et le béton en pré-enrobage avec une majeure partie réalisée en atelier. Le procédé donnait des résultats évidents: précision remarquable, rapidité d’exécution, peu ou pas d’installations de chantier – suppression des coffrages, des étayages, des échafaudages – et surtout économie considérable de main-d’œuvre. Il s’agissait des prémices d’industrialisation dite lourde du bâtiment. Forte de cette première expérience, la commune avait ensuite réalisé deux autres cités de même type, Épirey, puis Lochères. Mais le modèle de Billardon fut perverti: dans une logique de réduction des coûts de production et de rapidité d’exécution, tous les espaces peu productifs comme les logements en duplex, les cellules commerciales, ou les très grands halls, ont été supprimés. Les deux cités comprennent 348 logements, relativement mal desservis et sans attrait, des petits logements sur un seul niveau La démolition de Billardon n’a donc évidemment pas la même signification, Centre de Ressources Politique de la Ville en Essonne « BILLARDON, HISTOIRE D’UN GRAND ENSEMBLE » Centre de Ressources Politique de la Ville en Essonne ni les mêmes conséquences que celles d’Épirey ou des Lochères, déjà démolies en 1992 et 2000. Cet immeuble possédait une fonction symbolique incontestable, une place à part dans la vie des résidents qui s’y sont succédé, comme dans la mémoire des habitants du quartier. Les récits que nous avons pu recueillir auprès d’une trentaine d’anciens résidents de l’immeuble nous offrent différentes représentations de l’histoire de

Billardon, et des personnes qui y ont vécu ou travaillé d’avril 1955 à décembre 2002. Les témoignages des plus anciens, arrivés parmi les premiers, en 1955, répondent aux histoires des plus jeunes, derniers occupants du rafiot, aujourd’hui démoli. Ils sont venus d’horizons divers, de Côte-d’Or, de Bretagne, d’Alsace, de la région parisienne, du Maroc, d’Algérie, du Portugal, du Cambodge ou d’ailleurs et leurs paroles traduisent l’enracinement profond de leurs souvenirs de Billardon, que certains n’auraient jamais voulu quitter. Bien sûr, la mémoire n’est pas «objective». Le discours s’élabore toujours à partir d’un présent et la disparition engendre certainement une nostalgie conduisant à magnifier les bons moments et à tempérer les plus pénibles. Mais en faisant imploser Billardon, c’est bien tout un pan de leur vie que l’on a réduit en poussière. Chaque témoin traduit avec ses mots ces petits faits de la vie quotidienne, souvent jugés sans importance, petits riens ou traumatismes, anecdotes ou événements tragiques, qui ont marqué leur sensibilité.« Une verrue dans le quartier»C’est pour ces différentes raisons esthétiques, historico-culturelles – témoignage de l’histoire des villes – et socio-symboliques – mémoire des hommes – que la Direction de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine (DAPA) du ministère de la

Culture avait décidé de répertorier la Cité Billardon parmi les immeubles représentatifs de l’architecture du XXe siècle. L’immeuble avait reçu le label «Patrimoine du XXe siècle» à la fin des années 1990. Or, ce processus de «patrimonialisation» était inconcevable pour de nombreuses personnalités locales, voire de nombreux habitants du quartier. Stigmatisé comme une «verrue» dans le quartier, l’immeuble était devenu un véritable cauchemar: dégradations, violence, difficultés et «mal-vivre» constituaient le quotidien de locataires excédés, souvent «assignés à résidence». Bagarres, agressions, cambriolages, drogue, vitres brisées, ascenseurs en panne, alimentaient manchettes de journaux et témoignages, décrivant le naufrage d’un immeuble à la dérive, devenu symbole de tous les maux. La démolition paraissait donc inéluctable, comme une délivrance, la promesse d’un avenir meilleur. Les partenaires institutionnels se devaient de mettre en scène leur capacité à changer la vie des habitants du quartier, réparer les erreurs d’une période de l’urbanisation contemporaine, dont Billardon était l’un des symboles les plus représentatifs. L’idée d’une enquête ethnographique sur l’édifice et ses locataires avait donc « BILLARDON, HISTOIRE D’UN GRAND ENSEMBLE » Centre de Ressources Politique de la Ville en Essonne du mal à passer dans la réflexion de certains décideurs. La mise en œuvre du projet, initié par le service Inventaire de la Direction régionale des affaires culturelles (Drac) de Bourgogne, sur les budgets de l’opération de renouvellement urbain du quartier, fut bloquée administrativement pendant plusieurs mois. Entre-temps, tous les locataires de l’immeuble avaient été relogés… (la dernière famille quitte son logement le 23 décembre 2002).

Une histoire des grands ensembles? Le travail de recherche historique sur les grands ensembles est rendu aujourd’hui d’autant plus difficile à faire comprendre que la ville issue des Trente Glorieuses est souvent considérée, avec la politique publique qui l’a programmée, comme une vaste erreur collective (A. Fourcaut). L’architecture des «tours» et des «barres», du «chem« BILLARDON, HISTOIRE D’UN GRAND ENSEMBLE » Centre de Ressources Politique de la Ville en Essonne. Photographie, histoire et sociologie, de monographies locales – Saint-Étienne, Villeurbanne, etc. – publiés ces dernières années sur ce thème en témoigne clairement.Cependant, on est encore loin du compte. Si plusieurs urbanistes, historiens, géographes ou sociologues1 ont récemment contribué à une meilleure connaissance du sujet au niveau national et international, l’histoire de ces quartiers d’habitat collectif reste un terrain largement méconnu, à peine exploré par les historiens locaux. En Essonne, à quelques exceptions près – Draveil, Viry-Châtillon, les Ulis, Athis-Mons ou Grigny –, rares sont les monographies ou les études locales à accorder une place de choix à l’analyse et à la présentation de ces bouleversements. Les mauvaises volontés, auxquelles nous avons parfois été confrontés dans le cadre de nos recherches dans le département témoignent des réticences que continue de susciter toute démarche d’enquête et d’analyse sur la mémoire et le devenir des grands ensembles.

La transformation en cours ou à venir d’une vingtaine de sites en Essonne dans le cadre du Programme national de rénovation urbaine, institué par la loi Borloo du 1er août 2003, et la priorité donnée à la démolition-reconstruction,

sur fond de crise du logement social, devraient pourtant poser avec plus d’acuité la question de l’appréciation de ce patrimoine départemental. De nombreuses communes mobilisées dans des programmes d’intervention n’ont qu’une vision très partielle de l’histoire de ces quartiers, de leurs évolutions, dont les conséquences ne sont envisagées le plus souvent qu’à travers le prisme d’une crise sociale impossible à juguler. Or, n’est-il pas singulier, voire dangereux, d’entreprendre des opérations de transformation urbaine aussi radicales, sans même commencer par chercher à comprendre comment, par qui et pour quelles raisons ces espaces ont été construits ou transformés, sans évaluer dans certains cas l’impact des politiques précédemment engagées?Richesse patrimoniale ou héritage encombrant, définir une nouvelle vision de la ville exige un travail d’enquête, d’expertise, une capitalisation des expériences, rarement mis en œuvre.Et c’est sans doute là le talon d’Achille d’une politique de transformation

urbaine menée dans l’urgence, qui ne peut se nourrir de capitalisation critique, et occulte le rôle crucial de l’accompagnement qualitatif et de la sensibilisation et/ou de la formation des élus, des services de l’État et des collectivités, des opérateurs et des aménageurs, des bailleurs.Ces images devenues presque ordinaires de parpaings, pans de bétons fracassés, vitres brisées laissent songeur: quel regard les résidents – et notamment

les plus jeunes – pourront-ils bien porter à l’avenir sur un environnement si violemment rejeté? Pourquoi respecter ce qui n’est bon qu’à être démoli?

Pour n’en citer que quelques-uns : FORTIN J-P., Grands ensembles. L’espace et ses raisons, Plan Urbanisme Construction Architecture (PUCA), 1997 ; PEILLON P., Utopie et désordre urbains. Essai sur les grands ensembles d’habitation, La Tour d’Aigues, Editions de l’Aube, 2001 ; DUFAUX F., FOURCAUT A., SKOUTELSKY R., Faire l’histoire des grands ensembles. Bibliographie 1950-1980, ENS éditions, 2003 ; TOMAS F., BLANC J-N., BONILLA M., Les grands ensembles, une histoire qui continue…, Publications de l’université de Saint-Etienne, 2003 ; DUFAUX F., FOURCAUT A. (dir.), Le monde des grands

ensembles, Créaphis, 2004.« Pour une histoire des grands ensembles en Essonne », Les Cahiers de la Maison de Banlieue et de l’Architecture, n° 11, mai 2005« BILLARDON, HISTOIRE D’UN GRAND ENSEMBLE »

Centre de Ressources Politique de la Ville en Essonne

Les enjeux du projet

À Dijon, le projet a mis de long mois à se concrétiser. L’enjeu de ce travail était double:

■ Un enjeu de connaissance et d’analyse de l’histoire et des différentes étapes de l’évolution urbaine et sociale de l’immeuble et du quartier, des vécus, trajectoires résidentielles et familiales des habitants de la cité. Il a été réalisé à travers:

– une recherche historique dans les archives du bailleur, de la commune, des journaux locaux, de l’agence d’urbanisme, etc., replaçant l’étude dans le contexte général de l’histoire de la France de la Reconstruction et des quarante dernières années;– une écoute, dévoilant les différentes représentations de ce quartier, non plus

à partir de critères ou de théories de spécialistes, mais en suivant pas à pas(mot à mot) les trajets, les images qu’y déposent les habitants et les acteursdu quartier. Le travail artistique – photographies, textes – ayant alors pour fonction de réintroduire ces regards croisés dans la circulation de la ville,d’en faire des éléments de partage, de réflexio« BILLARDON, HISTOIRE D’UN GRAND ENSEMBLE »Centre de Ressources Politique de la Ville en EssonneCes recherches ont permis de retracer les différentes étapes de construction et de transformation de cet immeuble dans son territoire, ainsi que l’évolution d sa composition socio-démographique. Une iconographie importante a pu être collectée et répertoriée sur CD-Rom. Une présence longue – deux à trois jours par semaine pendant cinq mois – a été assurée sur le terrain, favorisant notre immersion et l’observation du quotidien des habitants du quartier, le recueil d’une parole informelle, permettant d’expliciter notre démarche, ses objectifs, son intérêt, l’instauration d’une quotidienneté, de relations de confiance. Pour cela, une présence régulière aux différentes manifestations, aux réunions et aux événements publics liés au quartier et une fréquentation de lieux de rencontre et d’échanges préalablement identifiés ont été nécessaires.Des rencontres collectives et individuelles ont été organisées avec les partenaires – associations, structures et personnes-relais sur le quartier – nous permettant d’être rapidement identifiés et de baliser précisément notre rôle – le rôle de chacun – dans le projet, de recueillir leur connaissance du terrain, leurs représentations et leurs réflexions sur le projet. Les ateliers avec les techniciens, les élus et les associations concernées devaient définir précisément: ● les objectifs à court, moyen et, le cas échéant, long terme;

● les actions à court, moyen et long terme;

● les modalités de leur déroulement.

Ces rencontres avaient également pour objectif de faire fonctionner le«bouche-à-oreille», qui demeure bien souvent le principal vecteur d’information pour ce type de démarche. Elles nous permettaient également de nouer des premiers contacts avec les habitants et les personnes-relais impliqués dans la vie du quartier. Ont été mis en œuvre:

● un moment de rencontre-discussion avec les habitants sous la forme d’une soirée projection-débat: présentation du travail de recueil de mémoire, personnes et structures porteuses, méthodes, finalités; définition en commundes modalités de leur participation au projet.

● sollicitation et information de la presse locale (journaux, radio, télévision), des bulletins associatifs, de la communication institutionnelle (ville, communauté

d’agglomération, bailleur, etc.) pour relayer et présenter le plus précisément possible la démarche entreprise et les personnes en charge de ce travail;

● des entretiens compréhensifs, individuels, en couple ou en petits groupes sous la forme d’entretiens semi-directifs de type «récits de vie(s)», recueillisauprès d’habitants ou d’anciens habitants du quartier, de professionnels travaillant ou ayant exercé leur activité dans le quartier, d’élus ou de responsables associatifs.

« BILLARDON, HISTOIRE D’UN GRAND ENSEMBLE »

Centre de Ressources Politique de la Ville en Essonne

Les entretiens ont été enregistrés et traités sur support numérique – mini-disc –, et les documents et les objets soigneusement inventoriés et/ou scannés.Ces entretiens avaient pour objectifs d’enregistrer non pas l’histoire de ce quartier, mais la manière qu’avaient nos interlocuteurs de dire leur propre histoire, cequi faisait mémoire pour ces personnes en contact étroit avec le quartier, natifs ou de passage, enracinés ou nouveaux venus. Il s’agissait de souvenirs, d’impressions d’enfance, de petits faits de la vie quotidienne parfois jugés sans importance, d’événements heureux ou tragiques, qui ont marqué leur sensibilité. Cela supposait donc que l’on prenne le temps, précisément de parler et d’écouter. Les entretiens se sont déroulés de préférence au domicile des personnes, pas dans la rue ou une salle impersonnelle, mais dans la sphère privée plus à même de laisser subvenir ces épopées de l’intime. L’objectif n’était pas de faire une archéologie du quartier, ni même d’enfermer nos interlocuteurs dans la norme de la personne-type qui habite un grand ensemble, mais bien de montrer que cet immeuble était composé de fragmentsde vies, de destins d’hommes et de femmes singuliers. Il s’agissait de montrer

comment, à un moment donné, ces personnes, venues parfois d’horizons lointains, se sont arrêtées là et ont enrichi ce lieu de leurs histoires et de leurs trajectoires particulières.

Nous avons donc insisté sur les trajectoires familiales et professionnelles de chacun: origines, parcours résidentiels, étapes et ruptures de vies – mariage, naissances, emplois successifs, divorces, décès, etc. –, points de repères autour desquels chacun construit «son temps», étapes qui organisent la durée, le vécu familial, domestique, les faits d’une vie et les événements de l’histoire. Le souvenir trouve également un support concret dans l’espace et les multiplesbouleversements du bâti et du cadre de vie. Démolitions, reconstructions,aménagements, suscitent une perte de repères, et invitent d’autant plus à faireun travail de mémoire. Dans cette perspective, ont été évoqués les souvenirs attachés plus précisément au quartier des Grésilles et à l’immeuble Billardon.Les personnes interrogées ont été invitées à s’appuyer le plus largement possible sur des descriptions détaillées (déménagement, logements successifs, accessibilité au travail ou aux équipements et services, nombre et identité des commerces, relations de voisinage, espaces collectifs), leurs pratiques (loisirs, vie scolaire, pratiques commerciales, etc.), les événements (fêtes, accidents, etc.) ou personnes marquantes; leurs perceptions du quartier et de son évolution – qu’ils y habitent toujours ou pas –, leurs projections éventuelles dans l’avenir (liste de thèmes non exhaustive).De février à juin 2003, une quinzaine d’entretiens ont pu être réalisés auprès d’une trentaine d’anciens locataires de l’immeuble, des premiers résidents de

Billardon dans les années 1950 aux derniers occupants, récemment relogés. « BILLARDON, HISTOIRE D’UN GRAND ENSEMBLE » Centre de Ressources Politique de la Ville en Essonne Des outils pour l’action: la restitution Tout au long de l’étude, nous avons rencontré et consulté régulièrement l’ensemble des institutions et des partenaires concernés par la démarche, afin de leur soumettre les premiers éléments de notre travail, recueillir leurs commentaires, leurs suggestions et critiques. Ces rencontres ont été l’occasion de partager une réflexion, d’élaborer des propositions de restitution aux différents publics.Malgré nos craintes initiales, une restitution de qualité a pu être proposée aux habitants, grâce à l’implication très forte de l’Opac de Dijon, véritable porteur du projet, et dans une moindre mesure du service Inventaire de la Direction régionale des affaires culturelles de Bourgogne. Leur implication a permis de trouver différents partenaires financiers, comme la Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations ou la communauté d’agglomération.

De notre côté, sur la base du rapport et du reportage photographique que nous avions remis à nos commanditaires, nous avons pu convaincre les éditions

Créaphis, reconnues pour la qualité de leurs publications de documents d’histoire, de sciences sociales et de photographie, de formuler une proposition éditoriale de qualité. Sur la base de nos recommandations, deux pistes de restitution ont été privilégiées:

● une exposition, événement fort et fédérateur, pouvant susciter des échanges,des moments de rencontre entre habitants du quartier et résidents extérieurs,

dans une optique d’ouverture du quartier au reste de la ville, les productions de certains groupes d’habitants pouvant être également valorisées, ainsi que les objets ou films recueillis dans le cadre du projet;

● une publication, associant textes et documents d’archives sur l’histoire du quartier, une sélection de témoignages et de photographies professionnelles

et amateurs, et accompagnant cette exposition, pour une diffusion plus large des résultats de l’opération, et une appropriation durable du projet par les habitants du quartier et les autres résidents de l’agglomération.Cette restitution avait également pour objectif de mettre en lumière les différentes préoccupations des habitants, permettant aux acteurs de terrain de disposer d’une base de connaissances pour définir et programmer leurs interventions, à court, moyen et long terme. Un tel travail fait émerger des représentations collectives, des divergences, des tensions qu’il faut savoir analyser et traiter pour améliorer les rapports sociaux et les conditions de vie des habitants.Encore faut-il que ces paroles soient prises en compte pour permettre aux institutions de redéfinir leurs modes d’intervention sur la ville: vaste chantier… Sylvain TABOURY,sociologue, enseignant à l’école d’architecture de Versailles Les 30 Glorieuses . com et la carte postale.. Il existe de nos jours, de nombreux photographes qui privilégient la qualité artistique de leurs travaux cartophiles. A vous de découvrir ces artistes inconnus aujourd’hui, mais qui seront peut-être les grands noms de demain. Jérôme (Mémoire2Ville) #chercheur #archiviste #maquettiste dans l #histoire des #logementssociaux #logement #HLM #logementsocial #Patrimoine @ Les films du MRU -Industrialiser la construction, par le biais de la préfabrication.Cette industrialisation a abouti, dans les années 1950, à un choix politique de l'Etat, la construction massive de G.E. pour résoudre la très forte crise du logement dont souffrait la France www.youtube.com/watch?v=zR_jxCANYac&fbclid=IwAR2IzWlM... … Le temps de l'urbanisme, 1962, Réalisation : Philippe Brunet www.dailymotion.com/video/xgj2zz?playlist=x34ije … … … … -Les grands ensembles en images Les ministères en charge du logement et leur production audiovisuelle (1944-1966) MASSY - Les films du MRU - La Cité des hommes, 1966, Réalisation : Fréderic Rossif, Albert Knobler www.dailymotion.com/video/xgiqzr?playlist=x34i - Les films du MRU @ les AUTOROUTES - Les liaisons moins dangereuses 1972 la construction des autoroutes en France - Le réseau autoroutier 1960 Histoire de France Transports et Communications - www.dailymotion.com/video/xxi0ae?playlist=x34ije … - A quoi servaient les films produits par le MRU ministère de la Reconstruction et de l'Urbanisme ? la réponse de Danielle Voldman historienne spécialiste de la reconstruction www.dailymotion.com/video/x148qu4?playlist=x34ije … -les films du MRU - Bâtir mieux plus vite et moins cher 1975 l'industrialisation du bâtiment et ses innovations : la préfabrication en usine, le coffrage glissant... www.dailymotion.com/video/xyjudq?playlist=x34ije … - TOUT SUR LA CONSTRUCTION DE NOTRE DAME LA CATHEDRALE DE PARIS Içi www.notredamedeparis.fr/la-cathedrale/histoire/historique... -MRU Les films - Le Bonheur est dans le béton - 2015 Documentaire réalisé par Lorenz Findeisen produit par Les Films du Tambour de Soie içi www.dailymotion.com/video/x413amo?playlist=x34ije Noisy-le-Sec le laboratoire de la reconstruction, 1948 L'album cinématographique de la reconstruction maison préfabriquée production ministère de la Reconstruction et de l'Urbanisme, 1948 L'album cinématographique içi www.dailymotion.com/video/xwytke archipostcard.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2009-02-13T... - - PRESQU'ILE DE GENNEVILLIERS...AUJOURD'HUI...DEMAIN... (LA video içi parcours.cinearchives.org/Les-films-PRESQU-ILE-DE-GENNEVI... … ) Ce film de la municipalité de Gennevilliers explique la démarche et les objectifs de l’exposition communale consacrée à la presqu’île, exposition qui se tint en déc 1972 et janvier 1973 - le mythe de Pruitt-Igoe en video içi nextcity.org/daily/entry/watch-the-trailer-for-the-pruitt... … - 1964, quand les loisirs n’avaient (deja) pas le droit de cité poke @Memoire2cite youtu.be/Oj64jFKIcAE - Devenir de la ZUP de La Paillade youtu.be/1qxAhsqsV8M v - Regard sur les barres Zum' youtu.be/Eow6sODGct8 v - MONTCHOVET EN CONSTRUCTION Saint Etienne, ses travaux - Vidéo Ina.fr www.ina.fr/video/LXF99004401 … via - La construction de la Grande Borne à Grigny en 1969 Archive INA www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=12&v=t843Ny2p7Ww (discours excellent en seconde partie) -David Liaudet : l'image absolue, c'est la carte postale" phothistory.wordpress.com/2016/04/27/david-liaudet-limage... … l'architecture sanatoriale Histoire des sanatoriums en France (1915-1945). Une architecture en quête de rendement thérapeutique..

passy-culture.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Les-15-Glori... … … & hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-01935993/document Gwenaëlle Le Goullon (LAHRA), auteur du livre "la genèse des grands ensembles",& Danièle Voldman (CHS, Centre d'Histoire Sociale), expliquent le processus qui a conduit l'Etat, et le ministère de l'urbanisme &de la reconstruction à mener des chantiers exp www.youtube.com/watch?v=zR_jxCANYac&fbclid=IwAR2IzWlM... mémoire2cité & l'A.U.A. - Jacques Simon (1929 - 26 septembre 2015) est un architecte paysagiste formé à l'École des beaux-arts de Montréal et à l'École nationale supérieure du paysage de Versailles. Fasciné par la campagne qui témoigne d'une histoire de labeur, celle des agriculteurs "ses amis", "les génies de la terre", Jacques SIMON, paysagiste dplg, Premier Grand Prix du Paysage en 1990*, réalise avec eux des installations paysagères éphémères principalement dans des champs et visibles du ciel. Avec sa palette d'artiste, Jacques SIMON réinvente des paysages comme les agriculteurs eux-aussi à leur façon les créent et les entretiennent. Le CAUE du Rhône vous invite à venir découvrir ses travaux au travers d'un kaléidoscope de photographies empreintes de spontanéité, de fraîcheur et d'humour. Cette exposition nous interpelle sur le caractère essentiel d'une nature changeante, fragile, sur l'importance d'une activité agricole diversifiée et sur la nécessaire évolution du métier de paysan. Elle nous amène aussi à voir et à interpréter ce que l'on voit, elle éveille en nous le sens de la beauté du paysage en conjuguant les différentes échelles de perception et de lecture; à pied et à vol d'oiseau, à la fois l'échelle humaine, terrestre, géologique, forestière, hydrologique, biologique mais aussi esthétique et symbolique. Jacques Simon, paysagiste cosmopolite est l'un des principaux acteurs du renouveau de la pensée paysagère en France dans les années 60 et 70 conjuguant avec cohérence sa pratique de paysagiste, de voyageur, d'éditeur, d'enseignant avec son approche plus artistique du paysage, subtile, sensible et humaine de la nature avec la réalisation de "performances". Ses projets paysagers comme ses interventions paysagères éphémères sont marqués par la mobilité, la fragilité, une empathie avec le lieu, par la dualité même du voyage : découverte / évanouissement, création / disparition. Jacques Simon dessine, écrit sur le paysage, "une surface", un peu à la manière du land'art avec les techniques et les outils du jardinier, du cultivateur. Il ne s'agit plus de représenter la nature mais de l'utiliser en créant avec et dans le paysage. L'intention de Jacques Simon n'est pas d'apposer sa marque sur le paysage mais de travailler instinctivement avec lui afin que ses travaux-installations manifestent même brièvement un contact en harmonie avec le monde naturel. "On dit qu'il a bouleversé l'esprit du paysage, il a remis les choses essentielles à leur place. Il rit de l'importance qu'on veut bien lui donner, fils de l'air, il ne veut rien de plus que passer dans les cerveaux pour les ventiler, les rafraîchir et non pour les modeler; son "importance", il l'a ailleurs et autrement; il est historique parce que dans son temps, dans celui qui s'écoule et non dans celui qui passe". Extrait de "Jacques Simon, tous azimuts", Jeanne-Marie Sens et Hubert Tonka, Pandora Editions, 1991. Il a introduit une nouvelle conception de l'art du paysage proche du Land art, Jacques Simon est l'auteur d'une série d'ouvrages sur différents aspects du paysage et abordés d'un point de vue technique. Il a travaillé de 1964 à 1966 en collaboration avec Michel Corajoud. Il a conçu le Parc de la Deûle (qui lui a valu le Grand Prix national du Paysage en 2006, après l'avoir reçu une première fois en 19901).

Il est mort le 29 septembre 20151 et a été incinéré à Auxerre Le paysagiste Jacques Simon s'est éteint le 26 septembre dernier à l'âge de 86 ans. Diplômé de Versailles en 1959, il fut sans doute l'une des figures les plus emblématiques, les plus géniales et les plus originales du paysagisme contemporain. Premier grand prix du paysage et prix du Conseil de l'Europe pour le parc de la Deule, on lui doit des principes de compositions très forts, autour du nivellement, du traitement du végétal ou de la place laissée au vide. Ses intuitions comme ses travaux ont inspiré tous les paysagistes avec lesquels il a travaillé, à commencer par Michel Corajoud ou Gilles Vexlard. On lui doit un profond renouvellement dans la composition des grands ensembles, ses réalisations -comme le parc Saint-John Perse à Reims- restant des modèles pour tous les professionnels. Jacques Simon développa également une production d'œuvres plus éphémères, attentif aux mouvements et aux transformations. Pédagogue talentueux et généreux, il le fut autant par les documents techniques et la revue qu'il publia, que par ses interventions en atelier devant plusieurs générations d'étudiants de l'école. Les paysagistes perdent un de leurs plus féconds inspirateurs. L'ENSP s'associe au deuil de sa famille et de ses proches. Témoignages à la mémoire de Jacques Simon

Dans les années 1990 à l'école du Paysage de Versailles, lorsque nous entrions en première année, la première satisfaction était d'acquérir du nouveau matériel d'expression plastique. Encre, feutres, supports en grand format et sur papier calque...mais aussi découvrir des livres de notre professeur Jacques Simon : des carnets de dessins et de croquis, des photomontages découpés aux ciseaux.

En amphithéâtre lors de conférences et séances de projections de diapositives, Jacques Simon évoquait surtout sa capacité à piloter un hélicoptère. Je viens de retrouver un extrait d'un article à ce sujet..« (...) Car depuis une dizaine d'années, le Bourguignon a trouvé une solution à son imagination en bourgeonnement permanent. Jacques Simon crée ‘pour lui tout seul'. Ni commande ni concours. Mais des messages géants écrits dans les champs et seulement visibles d'avion ou d'hélicoptère. Un art éphémère et privé dont il s'amuse, les veilles de moissons, tout autour de sa ferme de Turny, dans l'Yonne.Et là, plus rien ne l'arrête. Les agriculteurs du coin ont pris l'habitude de le voir faucher des allées entières de luzerne. De l'apercevoir écraser d'interminables chemins de phacelia, un graminé californien qui existe en trois couleurs (blanc, bleu, rouge). De l'observer dans son hélicoptère photographiant le résultat. Ses messages sont des hommages ou des avertissements. L'un prévient : ‘Hé, si tu n'as plus de forêt t'es foutu.' Un autre : 'Sans les paysans, je m'emmerde. Signé : la Terre.' Même l'hiver, Jacques Simon s'adonne à cette calligraphie paysagère. (...) ».Extrait paru dans La Croix l'événement du dimanche 11 et lundi 12 juin 1995, par Frédéric Potet, rubrique Culture. son site simonpaysage.free.fr/

file:///C:/Users/user/Downloads/B_Blanchon_AUA.pdf Interview to Jacques Simon incleded on the dvd that accompanies book "Metropoles en Europe", from the exhibition "Lille - Metropoles en Europe". The French landscape architect Jacques Simon's love for nature first developed on his father's tree farm and then deepened when he traveled as a young man to Sweden and then Canada, where he attended art school in Montreal while working as a lumberjack. Between 1957 and 1959, Simon studied at the École Nationale de Horticulture. He has since become an important link in the renewal of French landscape architecture, combining the Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian garden cultures he absorbed in his travels with classic Latin structures. He works as often as possible in situ, and does not shy away from driving the tractor himself.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyBnqrUlK9U turny.chez.com/A0archives/jSIMMON.htm Jacques Simon, Il crée la revue Espaces verts en 1968, l’anime jusqu’en 1982, publie des cahiers spéciaux dédiés à « l’Aménagement des espaces libres ». Même l'hiver, il s'adonne à cette calligraphie paysagère».La Croix dimanche 11 et lundi 12 juin 1995, simonpaysage.free.fr/ Jacques Simon écrit ses premiers articles dès la fin des années 1950 pour des revues comme Maison et Jardin et Urbanisme. En 1965, il signe l’un de ses premiers livres, L’Art de connaître les arbres. strabic.fr/Jacques-Simon-Gilles-Vexlard … jacques simon & Le parc des Coudrays - Élancourt-Maurepas, 1970 strabic.fr/Jacques-Simon-Gilles-Vexlard … simonpaysage.free.fr/ Jacques Simon - Espaces verts n° 27, avril-mai-juin 1971, p. 44-45 Fasciné par la campagne qui témoigne d'une histoire de labeur, celle des agriculteurs "ses amis", "les génies de la terre" paysagiste dplg, Premier Grand Prix du Paysage en 1990*, www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyBnqrUlK9U …ici es EDITIONS DU CABRI PRESENTE PARIS LA BANLIEUE 1960-1980 -La video Içi www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDEQOsdGjsg ,

A partir des années 1950, le trafic de la banlieue parisienne suit l’urbanisation galopante et les dessertes ferroviaires doivent s’adapter et se moderniser.Quelques amateurs ont su immortaliser un monde ferroviaire qui était alors en voie de disparition. Dans ce film, nous retrouvons les dessertes 750 volts par troisième rail en rames « Standard » sur les lignes de Versailles-RD, sur la ligne d’Auteuil et entre Puteaux et Issy-Plaine mais aussi les derniers trains à vapeur à St Lazare, à La Bastille et sur le Nord et quelques ultimes voyages sur les lignes de Ceinture --------------De la révolution industrielle à aujourd’hui, un décryptage minutieux de la course au développement qui a marqué le point de départ de l’ère de l'anthropocène (ou l'ère de l'Homme) et de la déterioration continue de la planète. www.arte.tv/fr/videos/073938-000-A/l-homme-a-mange-la-terre/ Quelque 1 400 milliards de tonnes de CO2 sont aujourd’hui prisonnières de la basse atmosphère. Réchauffement climatique, déforestation, inondations, épuisement des ressources, pollutions, déchets radioactifs... : en deux siècles, la course au progrès et à la croissance a durablement altéré la planète, la crise environnementale se doublant d’une rupture géologique, avec l’avènement de l’ère anthropocène. Portée par l’exploitation des énergies fossiles – du charbon de la révolution industrielle en Angleterre au tout-pétrole de la domination économique des États-Unis –, l’industrialisation et ses corollaires, taylorisme et colonialisme, entraînent une exponentielle production de masse. Un processus qu’accélère la Première Guerre mondiale, les firmes chimiques mobilisées pour tuer l’ennemi se reconvertissant dans la destruction du vivant avec les herbicides, insecticides et fertilisants de l’agriculture intensive. Alors que l’urbanisation s’étend, la voiture, qui sonne le glas du tramway, se généralise, et l’Amérique s’inspire du modèle autoroutier nazi. La Seconde Guerre mondiale engendre une nouvelle organisation du travail, laquelle devient la norme, et annonce l’ère nucléaire de la guerre froide. Dans sa démesure, l’homme rêve déjà d’usages civils de l’atome (y compris pour l’abattement de montagnes et la dissolution des calottes glaciaires !). Le plastique et le béton deviennent les piliers de la consommation de masse, dévoreuse de matières premières et antidote à la contestation sociale, jusqu’à la révolution numérique. Liaisons dangereuses

En balayant, avec de formidables archives issues du monde entier, deux siècles de progrès jusqu’à l’ère du big data, le film remonte aux sources de la crise écologique, en interrogeant avec précision les enjeux scientifiques, économiques et politiques qui y ont conduit. Fourmillant d’informations, il éclaire l’histoire de cette marche folle, et les liaisons dangereuses entre industries militaire et civile. Entre capitalisme et mondialisation imposés par les grandes puissances, un décryptage passionnant du basculement dans l’anthropocène, funeste asservissement de la nature par l’homme. le Logement Collectif* 50,60,70's dans tous ses états..Histoire & Mémoire de l'Habitat / Rétro-Villes / HLM / Banlieue / Renouvellement Urbain / Urbanisme URBANISME S’imaginer Paris et le Grand Paris @ Les 50ans d'Apur (link: 50ans.apur.org/#intro) 50ans.apur.org/#intro @ Où en est l'histoire urbaine des sociétés contemporaines ? Cet ouvrage, inspiré par Annie Fourcaut, qui contribua de manière décisive à son développement, propose un état des lieux de ce champ et explore des pistes de recherche ouvrant l'histoire urbaine à une variété de " genres ". Où en est l'histoire urbaine des sociétés contemporaines ? Cet ouvrage, inspiré par Annie Fourcaut, qui contribua de manière décisive à son développement, propose un état des lieux de ce champ. De Femmes à l'usine (1981), Bobigny, banlieue rouge (1986), à La banlieue en morceaux (2000), en passant par les publications collectives qu'elle a coordonnées et les travaux qu'elle a encadrés, la trajectoire de cette historienne a conduit l'histoire sociale et politique – telle qu'on la pratiquait dans les années 1970 – vers une histoire urbaine renouvelée. Le livre revient sur cette évolution et explore des pistes de recherche ouvrant l'histoire urbaine à une variété de " genres ". Les auteurs, historiennes et historiens, sociologues, politistes, géographes, architectes, urbanistes et décideurs politiques proposent une histoire urbaine à la fois interdisciplinaire et ancrée dans la fabrique de la ville et ses représentations, portant la marque de sa dédicataire.Les quatre sections de l'ouvrage dessinent les chantiers qu'Annie Fourcaut a investis : " Du social à l'urbain " met en avant la conviction qu'étudier l'histoire des villes, c'est toujours faire de l'histoire sociale ; " Qu'elle était belle la banlieue " est centré sur les banlieues, son territoire d'étude de prédilection ; " Les habits neufs des politiques de la ville " interroge les politiques urbaines successives et leur transformation ; enfin, " Banc d'essai des modernités " propose une analyse historique de l'urbanisme, comme discipline et comme pratique. www.benjamingibeaux.fr/portfolio/petite-histoire-de-lhabi... Le Label « Patrimoine du XXe siècle » créé en 1999 par le ministère de la Culture et de la Communication a pour but de faire connaître l’architecture de cette période. La comparaison des labellisations réalisées par les DRAC d’Île-de-France et d’Occitanie (ex Languedoc-Roussillon et de Midi-Pyrénées) montre la variété des méthodes employées pour rendre compte soit de l’importance numérique des édifices remarquables soit de la difficulté à établir ce corpus et de la nécessité de s’appuyer sur les inventaires ou études thématiques ou monographiques. Si l’attribution du label, désormais appelé "Architecture contemporaine remarquable" s’est faite depuis vingt ans de façon très diverse selon les régions, elle est toujours l’occasion de mettre en lumière et de porter à la connaissance du public des œuvres architecturales remarquables, notamment via une augmentation impressionnante des publications de qualité sur l'architecture du XXe siècle. En 1999, le ministère de la Culture et de la Communication propose la mise en place d’un nouvel outil pour permettre la reconnaissance et la sauvegarde des constructions élevées au cours du siècle qui s’achève. Le label « Patrimoine du XXe siècle » est une déclinaison nationale de la recommandation du conseil de l’Europe sur la prise en compte de l’architecture du XXe siècle. Ce dernier évoque, pour la conservation de ce patrimoine « moins reconnu », une absence d’intérêt « en raison de sa proximité dans l’Histoire, de l’abondance de ses témoignages et de son caractère hétérogène » et sa crainte de « pertes irréparables »2 . Le label mis en place par la France vise à appeler « l’attention des décideurs, des aménageurs, mais aussi et surtout de ses usagers et du public sur les productions remarquables de ce siècle » Chargées de mettre en place le label, les directions régionales des affaires culturelles (Drac), services déconcentrés du ministère de la Culture, ont à cette date déjà construit, chacune à sa manière, leur approche de la préservation du patrimoine du XXe siècle. Elles s’emparent alors diversement du label, appliquant de facto des labellisations aux immeubles de ce siècle déjà protégés au titre des monuments historiques4 ou mettant en place de véritables stratégies pour répondre pleinement aux attendus de la directive nationale. À partir de nos expériences, il nous a paru intéressant de montrer la diversité de la mise en place du label dans trois Drac parmi d’autres, l’Île-de-France ainsi que Languedoc-Roussillon et Midi-Pyrénées qui composent aujourd’hui la région Occitanie5. Pour chacune de ces Drac, il s’agit de montrer comment la connaissance de ce patrimoine, mais aussi ses particularités territoriales ont joué un rôle important dans le choix des méthodologies de sélection des œuvres à labelliser ainsi que la détermination de critères, et de présenter les résultats et les actions de valorisation menées pour faire connaître et apprécier ces créations architecturales récentes. Le label « Patrimoine du XXe siècle » en Île-de-France : gérer l’abondance La Drac Île-de-France s’est emparée tardivement du label « Patrimoine du XXe siècle », pour plusieurs raisons. Parmi les freins à l’action, il faut citer la question du pilotage de la mise en place du label entre différents services de la Drac, les interrogations liées à l’opportunité de ce nouveau dispositif et un relatif scepticisme quant à son efficacité, l’ampleur de la tâche au vu du corpus concerné, le plus important de France en quantité et sans doute en qualité, mais surtout l’engagement pris de longue date par cette Drac et les membres de sa commission régionale du patrimoine et des sites (CRPS) en faveur du patrimoine du XXe siècle. En effet, c’est sans doute dans cette région que l’on protège le plus grand nombre d’édifices contemporains au titre des monuments historiques : dans la première décennie du XXIe siècle, selon les années, 50 à 70 % des protections concernent des édifices construits au siècle précédent. Ainsi, ce nouveau dispositif, dépourvu de dispositions contraignantes, étranger à la culture de la conservation régionale des monuments historiques (CRMH) dont l’action est liée à la protection, peinait à démontrer son intérêt au regard de ce qu’offre la législation sur les monuments historiques. Cependant, au vu de l’enjeu que constitue la préservation de l’architecture contemporaine en Île-de-France, lié à la fois à l’ampleur de la production et aux évolutions urbaines et réglementaires constantes engageant sa conservation, la question de la mise en place du label était régulièrement posée à la Drac. Pilotée par la CRMH, la première expérience de labellisation y fut menée en 2004. Elle s’inscrivait dans la suite de l’étude menée par le groupe d’experts dirigé par Bernard Toulier, conservateur du Patrimoine au département du pilotage de la recherche et de la politique scientifique du ministère de la Culture, qui avait produit une liste d’édifices du XXe siècle repérés en bibliographie, inventaire devant servir de base à la constitution de propositions de labellisations. Selon la méthode suivie par ce groupe d’experts, on fit le choix de présenter tous les immeubles concernés regroupés par larges typologies. Les membres de la CRPS, devant lesquels fut présentée cette liste d’édifices, rejetèrent en bloc la sélection où voisinaient l’aérogare 1 de l’aéroport Roissy-Charles de Gaulle et la modeste mairie du 17e arrondissement de Paris présentée à la demande de son maire, arguant de l’impossibilité à valider le choix d’édifices que rien ne rapprochait. De plus, nombre des immeubles retenus étaient candidats à la protection au titre des monuments historiques, brouillant de fait l’identité du label et réfutant du même coup la conception un temps énoncée du label comme « antichambre » de la protection. En effet, si la grande qualité de la plupart des édifices sélectionnés montrait toute la richesse des créations contemporaines franciliennes, la seule présentation des plus remarquables d’entre eux résultait d’une absence de sélection argumentée, selon l’esprit du label. La présentation de cette première liste en CRPS tourna donc court. - La question des critères de sélection a été débattue à la lumière de l’expérience de la labellisa (...) En 2008, toujours sous l’impulsion du service des monuments historiques, une nouvelle orientation fut prise. Un pilotage, un groupe de travail, un objectif furent mis en place. Trois orientations furent définies : selon les recommandations de la CRMH de la région PACA, procéder par thématiques typologiques, méthode propice à l’élaboration de critères de sélection ; cibler un patrimoine déprécié ou en danger, pour répondre parfaitement aux attendus de la directive européenne ; pour cette première campagne de labellisation, choisir un champ vierge de reconnaissance patrimoniale, éloigné de la protection au titre des monuments historiques afin d’éviter toute confusion entre les édifices labellisés et les édifices protégés. Le thème des ensembles de logements, nombreux dans cette région, s’est naturellement dégagé. À géométrie variable, le groupe de travail dirigé par la cellule protection était formé d’un premier cercle pérenne, garant de la cohérence de la démarche de labellisation et des choix des thématiques, et d’un second, composé de spécialistes de chaque thématique retenue. Le premier cercle était constitué d’agents de la Drac (conservation des monuments historiques, service architecture, un architecte des bâtiments de France, chargé de faire le lien avec l’ensemble des services départementaux de l’architecture et du patrimoine de la région), de représentants du monde universitaire et de la recherche dans le domaine de l’architecture du XXe siècle.

Pour les ensembles de logements, le second cercle du groupe de travail a permis d’associer des acteurs de terrain, des représentants des bailleurs sociaux, des experts. Le sujet fut restreint chronologiquement (1945-1975), son acception précisée (habitat collectif et individuel) et le corpus, basé sur les inventaires existants et la bibliographie, fut établi à partir des critères élaborés par le groupe de travail : histoire, forme urbaine, valeur d’usage, technique, style - Composée d’environ un tiers de ses membres, la délégation permanente est une émanation de la CRPS (...) De façon exceptionnelle, la liste des ensembles de logements fut en premier lieu présentée devant les membres de la délégation permanente de la CRPS7 pour en valider les orientations et s’assurer de l’adhésion des membres, à la fois pour ne pas risquer de réitérer l’expérience malheureuse de 2004 mais surtout pour interroger la commission sur le bien-fondé à distinguer ces ensembles de logements d'après-guerre, constructions parmi les plus décriées du XXe siècle.

La méthodologie proposée a conduit à la labellisation d’une première série d’immeubles, quarante ensembles de logements en 2010 (fig. 2, 3), puis d’une seconde série de soixante-quinze lieux de culte en 2011 (fig. 4, 5). Les critères peuvent être adaptés ou précisés selon le thème retenu : pour les édifices religieux, la qualité et l’originalité du décor furent ajoutés et la valeur d’usage exclue.La méthode choisie a été vertueuse : elle a permis de labelliser un grand nombre d’édifices, d’associer largement les services patrimoniaux de l’État et des collectivités, de créer des synergies avec l’université et les chercheurs, de valoriser l’action de l’État par des présentations en CRPS, des publications, des journées d’études, des expositions, actions relayées par la presse généraliste et spécialisée8 (fig. 6 et 7). Un partenariat pérenne s’est développé avec l’éditeur Beaux-Arts pour la publication de chaque campagne de labellisation, avec diffusion en kiosque au plus près du public concerné pour un prix inférieur à 15 €. Elle a également permis d’impliquer les acteurs de terrain, répondant ainsi à l’objectif visé de sensibilisation du public à cette architecture mal aimée Depuis 2016, la Drac Île-de-France a conduit trois nouvelles campagnes, toutes thématiques, fondées sur des partis méthodologiques diversifiés, adaptés aux sujets d’étude.

- Note méthodologique « Étude du patrimoine du XXe siècle de la métropole du Grand Paris », La manu (...) - La loi relative à la liberté de la création, à l’architecture et au patrimoine (LCAP) promulguée (...) Une campagne vise à identifier les édifices et ensembles contribuant à structurer le territoire de la récente métropole du Grand Paris. L’établissement d’une critériologie et la sélection ont été confiés à un bureau d’études, la Manufacture du patrimoine, associé à un groupe de travail conduit par la Drac. Des critères dits généraux, divisés en critères primaires et complémentaires, ont été retenus. Pour la thématique étudiée, se sont ajoutés sept critères spécifiques répondant aux enjeux de « l’émergence et du rayonnement de la métropole »10. Les grands travaux présidentiels ont été concernés dans un premier temps, aboutissant à la labellisation de dix édifices en novembre 2016, avant une présentation plus large d’édifices emblématiques, retenus pour l’obtention d’un label « Architecture contemporaine remarquable »11 en juin 2018.

- Introduite par la loi relative à la liberté de la création, à l’architecture et au patrimoine (LC (...) De façon innovante, la Drac a conclu un partenariat avec l’école nationale supérieure d’architecture (ENSA) Paris-Belleville avec laquelle elle s’est associée dès l’élaboration du premier label (colloque, exposition, travaux avec l’IPRAUS). Le thème choisi, inscrit dans la droite ligne du précédent, s’attache à l’étude des villes nouvelles. Par son caractère récent et spécifique dans l’histoire de la planification urbaine, cet objet d’étude implique une nouvelle approche, menée dans le cadre d’une convention triennale de chaire partenariale avec l’ENSA Paris-Belleville. La méthodologie s’appuie sur la grille d’analyse habituellement employée par la Drac, enrichie pour inclure davantage l’espace public. Des édifices de la ville d’Évry (Essonne), qui manifesta en 2016 son souhait de voir son patrimoine labellisé, ont été présentés en novembre 2018 aux membres de la commission régionale de l’architecture et du patrimoine (CRPA)12 en vue d’une labellisation.- Valérie Gaudard remercie vivement Mmes Agnès Chauvin, cheffe du bureau de la protection, et Maria (...)Enfin, le champ de l’architecture scolaire est abordé dès 2010. Au vu de l’immensité du corpus, la Drac a choisi en 2016 de s’attacher dans un premier temps aux lycées, en lien avec le service de l’Inventaire de la région Île-de-France13.

Le label en Languedoc-Roussillon : une succession d’opportunités V- La Poste Art Nouveau de Tuchan, l’hôtel du Belvédère à Cerbère. - Certains construits vers 1900 relèvent davantage d’une esthétique encore XIXe comme la villa Las (...) - Le 3 octobre 2001, une CRPS dédiée a examiné onze propositions de protection, dont deux seulement (...)

14Dans ce territoire riche en monuments anciens, l’attention pour l’architecture du XXe siècle s’observe dès les années 1980 avec la décentralisation. La commission régionale du patrimoine historique archéologique et ethnologique (Corephae) du 15 décembre 1986 a examiné les premiers dossiers14. Parmi des édifices de la première moitié du siècle, bénéficiant du recul et bien documentés, plus faciles à appréhender15, on peut citer les cliniques Saint-Charles à Montpellier, exemple d’architecture des années 1930, ornées des sculptures monumentales de Joachim Costa et des verrières d’Émile Brière, sauvées in extremis de la démolition. En l’an 2000, une campagne de protection thématique est lancée16, distinguant des bâtiments majeurs de l’entre-deux-guerres, comme le théâtre municipal de Carcassonne, le Palais des Arts et du Travail de Narbonne, le lycée technique Dhuoda à Nîmes, l’église Sainte-Thérèse à Montpellier mais également le centre d’apprentissage pour garçons, actuel lycée Mermoz à Béziers, œuvre de Pierre Jeanneret, à laquelle ont collaborés Jean Prouvé et Charlotte Perriand.

- Monument inscrit MH en 2009 Toujours à Odeillo, un petit collectif de maisons solaires, initiativ (...) Plus récemment ont été inscrits au titre des monuments historiques, le centre de vol à voile de la Montagne Noire, à Labécède-Lauragais, haut lieu de formation des pilotes entre 1932 et 1980 ou des installations solaires en Cerdagne, liées à la personnalité de Félix Trombe dont les recherches aboutissent à la construction entre 1962 et 1968 par le CNRS du four solaire d’Odeillo à Font-Romeu-Odeillo-Via Pourtant, cette architecture du XXe siècle, représentant un nombre de réalisations jamais atteint, restait mal appréciée, mal aimé.

 

Precise numbers are not known but various craftsmen have probably built more Grunau Babies and Baby derivatives than any other sailplane. Thousands were constructed in Western Europe between 1931 and 1945. During World War II, factory records show that 4,104 rolled from workshops in Germany and the occupied countries. After the war, thousands more were built in Czechoslovakia, Spain, Sweden, Great Britain, and Australia. The Grunau Baby also influenced the development of other sailplanes such as the Slingsby Kirby Kite, Slingsby Cambridge 1 and 2, and the Slingsby Type 21 two-seat trainer.

 

Edmund Schneider designed the Grunau Baby and built the first examples at his factory near the village of Grunau, in the Silesia region of eastern Germany. Today, this area is part of western Poland and Grunau is called Jesow. Schneider built the first Baby in 1931. It was a smaller version of the ESG 31 Stanavo, a sailplane designed during the same year for American pilot Jack O'Meara. Schneider used an innovative wing design patterned after the elliptical wings used on the high-performance sailplanes designed by the Academic Flying Group of the Darmstadt Technical University, the Akaflieg Darmstadt. Schneider's wing held a constant chord from the root to the aileron, and then the leading and trailing edges tapered to a rounded wingtip. To maintain control during a stall, Schneider designed the outboard wing and aileron with washout, or twist. On a wing with positive washout, the trailing edge of the wing curves up near the tips when viewed from the rear.

 

The German glider champion, Wolf Hirth, had nothing to do with designing the Grunau Baby. However, he lent his name to the Baby sales campaign and for some time, many thought he was the designer. This was easier to believe because the glider handled well in the air and exhibited good performance. The factory at Grunau began to hum steadily to fill a stream of new orders. The fatal crash of another Schneider sailplane at the 1932 German national soaring contest in Bavaria compelled Schneider to hire a professional aeronautical engineer, Emile Rolle who redesigned the Baby from nose to tail. This new version was called the Grunau Baby II. Among its many improvements, the Baby II had a longer wing, reshaped rear fuselage, and a shorter rudder. On April 3, 1933, Kurt Schmidt soared a Baby II all day, all night, and into the next day without landing. He had remained aloft for 36 hours and 36 minutes, a new world endurance record for motorless airplanes. The news electrified the world and for the next ten years, Grunau Baby II production continued without pause.

 

Schneider continued to refine the airplane and introduced the Baby II A and the definitive II B. The II A introduced a wing of slightly greater span to accommodate spoilers for glidepath control, ailerons with a narrower chord, and for the first time, a canopy and windscreen for the cockpit. When the Baby first appeared, it was accepted wisdom that the pilot should feel as much unimpeded airflow as possible, the better to sense rising and falling currents of air, temperature changes and the like. On the II B, Schneider changed the spoilers to the more powerful Schempp-Hirth, 'parallelogram' configuration and added a wheeled launch dolly that the pilot jettisoned immediately after takeoff. Other versions followed but more Grunau Baby II B gliders were built than all other variants combined.

 

The Baby II B was nearly a perfect club sailplane. It was relatively easy to build from plans, it flew well, and the aircraft was strong enough to handle mild aerobatics and the occasional hard landing. Novice pilots could attempt their first real soaring, flying high and far, using updrafts generated by slopes and mountain ridges, and spiraling columns of warm air called thermals. Many Grunau Baby II B pilots achieved the coveted Silver-C soaring badge introduced in 1930. This required a pilot to remain aloft at least five hours, gain a minimum of 1,000 m (3,280 ft) after takeoff, and cover a horizontal distance of 50 km (31 miles).

 

Fleets of Grunau Baby II B sailplanes served as primary flight trainers operated by the Deutsche Luftsport Verband (German Sport Flying Organization, the DLV) created in 1933. The DLV became the Nationalsozialistiche Fliegerkorps (NSFK) in 1937. The Nazi political machine operated both organizations to train military pilots without appearing to violate the post-World War I Versailles Treaty that outlawed such remilitarization. Many of the Luftwaffe (German Air Force) pilots that flew during World War II first trained in Grunau Babies.

 

May 1, 1949, marks the date when the U. S. Air Force officially transferred the Grunau Baby IIb to the custody of the National Air Museum. Very little is known of the glider's operational history. According to the data plates secured to the bulkhead behind the pilot's seat, technicians built this glider in 1944 at the Petera Hohenelbe l/Rsgb. workshop factory. The airframe serial number is 031.016 and the Stammkenzeichen, or registration code, LZ-NC is painted on both sides of the fuselage. Details about how the U. S. Army Air Forces (AAF) recovered the glider are also unknown. For tracking purposes, the AAF assigned the inventory control number T2-2600. T2 signified the Technical Intelligence branch of the AAF and 2600 refers to the number of this particular item. Beginning in the final months of the war, teams of Technical Intelligence personnel scoured Germany and recovered aircraft and pieces of equipment for study and evaluation.

 

Wingspan: 13.6 m (45 ft)

Length: 5.9 m (20 ft)

Height: 1.5 m (4 ft 11 in)

Weight: Empty, 160 kg (353 lb)

Gross, 250 kg (553 lb)

 

References and Further Reading:

Simons, Martin. "The World's Vintage Sailplanes, 1908-45." Melbourne, Australia: Kookaburra Technical Publications Pty., Ltd.: 1986.

----. "Sling's Sailplanes," "Aeroplane Monthly," December 1992, 25.

Grunau Baby II B-2 curatorial file, Aeronautics Division, NASM.

 

Russell Lee, 9-3-04

 

Dharamshala (also Dharamsala) is a city and a municipal council in Kangra district in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. It is the district headquarters. It was formerly known as Bhagsu. The Dalai Lama's residence in McLeodGanj and the headquarters of Central Tibetan Administration (the Tibetan government in exile) are in Dharamshala. Dharamshala is 18 kilometres from Kangra.

 

DESCRIPTION

Dharamshala is a city in the upper reaches of the Kangra Valley and is surrounded by dense coniferous forest consisting mainly of stately Deodar cedar trees. The suburbs include McLeodGanj, Bhagsunath, Dharamkot, Naddi, ForsythGanj, Kotwali Bazaar (the main market), Kaccheri Adda (government offices such as the court, police, post, etc.), Dari, Ramnagar, Sidhpur, and Sidhbari (where the Karmapa is based).

 

The village of McLeodGanj, lying in the upper reaches, is known worldwide for the presence of the Dalai Lama. On 29 April 1959, the 14th Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso) established the Tibetan exile administration in the north Indian hill station of Mussoorie. In May 1960, the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) was moved to Dharamshala.

 

Dharamshala is the centre of the Tibetan exile world in India. Following the 1959 Tibetan uprising there was an influx of Tibetan refugees who followed the 14th Dalai Lama. His presence and the Tibetan population has made Dharamshala a popular destination for Indian and foreign tourists, including students studying Tibet.

 

One of the main attractions of Dharamshala is Triund hill. Jewel of Dharamshala, Triund is one day trek at the upper reaches of McLeodGanj, about 9 km from McLeodGanj.

 

ETYMOLOGY

Dharamshala (Devanagari: धर्मशाला; ITRANS: Dharmashaalaa; IAST: Dharmaśālā) is a Hindi word (derived from Sanskrit) that is a compound of dharma (धर्म) and shālā (शाला). A loose translation into English would be 'spiritual dwelling' or, more loosely, 'sanctuary'. Rendering a precise literal translation into English is problematic due to the vast and conceptually rich semantic field of the word dharma[1] and the cultural aspect of India.

 

In common Hindi usage, the word dharamshala refers to a shelter or rest house for spiritual pilgrims. Traditionally, such dharamshalas (pilgrims' rest houses) were commonly constructed near pilgrimage destinations (often in remote areas) to give visitors a place to sleep for the night. When the first permanent settlement was created in the place now called Dharamshala, there was one such pilgrims' rest house on the site, and the settlement took its name from that dharamshala.

 

HISTORY

BEFORE THE RAJ

From the earliest times until the British Raj, Dharamshala and its surrounding area was ruled by the Katoch Dynasty of Kangra. The Katoch Dynasty is said to be the oldest serving Royal Family in the world.[3] The Royal Family still keeps a residence in Dharamshala, known as 'Clouds End Villa'.

 

The indigenous people of the Dharamshala area (and the surrounding region) are the Gaddis, a predominantly Hindu group who traditionally lived a nomadic or semi-nomadic (transhumant) lifestyle. Due to the lack of permanent settlements in the area, some Gaddis lost their seasonal pastures and farmland when the British and the Gurkhas arrived to settle.

Settlement by the British and the Gurkhas

 

In 1848, the area now known as Dharamshala was annexed by the British.

 

"Dharamsāla lies on a spur of the Dhaola Dhār, 16 miles north-east of Kāngra, in the midst of wild and picturesque scenery. It originally formed a subsidiary cantonment for the troops stationed at Kāngra, and was first occupied as a station in 1849, when a site was required for a cantonment to accommodate a Native regiment which was being raised in the District. A site was found upon the slopes of the Dhaola Dhār, in a plot of waste land, upon which stood an old Hindu resthouse, or dharmsāla, whence the name adopted for the new cantonment. The civil authorities, following the example of the regimental officers, and attracted by the advantages of climate and scenery, built themselves houses in the neighbourhood of the cantonment; and in 1855 the new station was formally recognised as the head-quarters of the [Kāngra] District."

 

In 1860, the 66th Gurkha Light Infantry was moved from Kangra, Himachal Pradesh to Dharamshala, which was at first made a subsidiary cantonment. An ideal position for the new base was found on the slopes of the Dhauladhar Hills, near the site of a Hindu sanctuary, or Dharamshala, hence the name of the town. The Battalion was later renamed the historic 1st Gurkha Rifles, this was the beginning of the legend of the Gurkhas, also known as the 'Bravest of the Brave'. Consequently, fourteen Gurkha platoon villages grew from this settlement, and exist to this day, namely Dari, Ramnagar, Shyamnagar, Dal, Totarani, Khanyara, Sadher, Chaandmaari, Sallagarhi, Sidhbari, Yol, and so on. The Gurkhas worshipped at the ancient Shiva temple of Bhagsunag. The Gurkhas referred to Dharamshala as 'Bhagsu' and referred to themselves as Bhagsuwalas.

 

The 21st Gurkha Regiment from Dharamshala performed heroic feats during World War I and the North West Frontier Province campaigns. The Gurkha cantonment then reached its zenith during World War II, when battalions from Dharamshala made history. Many place names in the town still retain their former cantonment terminologies: Depot Bazaar, Pensioners' Lines, Tirah Lines (named after the 19th century Tirah Campaign), Bharatpore Lines (named after the 1826 Battle of Bharatpore).

 

The second Lord Elgin, Viceroy of India died here (at the 1st Gurkha Rifles Officers' Mess) in 1863 and is buried in the cemetery of St. John in the Wilderness, a small Anglican church distinguished by its stained-glass windows. Dharamshala became a popular hill station for the British working in or near Delhi, offering a cool respite during the hot summer months.

 

"Before the earthquake of 1905, the upper part of the station, which rises to a height of 7,112 feet [2,168 metres], contained the European houses, the station church, and the officers' mess and lines of the 1st Gurkhas, together with the public gardens, post office, and two bazars, the Forsythganj and McLeodganj. The public offices, a bazar, and a few European houses made up the lower station, as low as 1,372 metres. The 1st battalion of the 1st Gurkhas used to be stationed here, but was moved to the upper station in 1894-5.... The public gardens, which were, before the earthquake, laid out with much taste in lawns and terraces, contained a valuable collection of indigenous and imported trees and shrubs, and were overlooked by the Assembly Rooms, a handsome building comprising a public hall, a library and reading-room and a billiard-room. The church was beautifully situated in a recess of the mountain."

 

In 1905, the Kangra valley suffered a major earthquake. On April 4 of that year, the earth shook, demolishing much of the cantonment and the neighbouring city of Kangra, Himachal Pradesh as well as the Bhagsunag temple. Altogether, the 1905 Kangra earthquake killed 20,000 people. "1,625 persons perished at Dharamsāla alone, including 15 Europeans and 112 of the Gurkha garrison."."

 

The Gurkhas rebuilt the town along with the temple, which today is acknowledged as the 1st Gurkha Rifles' heritage. The British had planned to make Dharamshala the summer capital of India, but moved to Shimla after the disaster.

 

Not only did the Gurkhas of Dharmshala make a major contribution to India's defence, many were freedom fighters for the Indian National Army, which had been founded by Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. The Indian National Army Captain Ram Singh Thakur, a Gurkha from the village of Khanyara, composed some of India's most popular and stirring patriotic songs, including "Kadam Kadam Badaye Ja". He is acknowledged so by the Netaji Research Bureau, Kolkata. The important contribution of the noted Gurkha social commentator, the late Master Mitrasen Thapa, from the village of Totarani, has been acknowledged by the Himachal Pradesh government. Recently, a park dedicated to the memory of the late Brigadier Sher Jung Thapa, MVC, the 'Hero of Skardu', has been opened alongside the road between Lower and Upper Dharamshala.

 

ESTABLISHMENT OF TIBETAN EXILE COMMUNITY

The Tibetan settlement of Dharamshala began in 1959, when His Holiness the Dalai Lama had to flee Tibet and the Prime Minister of India allowed him and his followers to settle in McLeodGanj (in Upper Dharmshala), a former colonial British summer picnic spot. There they established the "government-in-exile" in 1960. Dharamshala had been connected with Hinduism and Buddhism for a long time, many monasteries having been established there in the past, by Tibetan immigrants in the 19th century.In 1970, The Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, opened the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives which houses over 80,000 manuscripts and other important resources related to Tibetan history, politics and culture. It is considered one of the most important institutions for Tibetology in the world, the new director is Geshe Lahkdor, the old translator of H.H. the Dalai Lama.

 

Several thousand Tibetan exiles have now settled in the area, and most live in and around McLeodGanj in Upper Dharamshala, where they have built monasteries, temples and schools. McLeodGanj is sometimes known as 'Little Lhasa", after the Tibetan capital city, or 'Dhasa' (a compound of 'Dharamshala' and 'Lhasa'). It has become an important tourist destination with many hotels and restaurants, leading to growth in tourism and commerce.

 

Dharamshala is the winter capital of Himachal Pradesh. The Legislative Assembly is at Sidhbari, near the Chinmaya Tapovan Ashram, and the winter sessions of the Government are held there.

 

GEOGRAPHY

Dharamshala has an average elevation of 1457 metres, covering an area of almost 8.51 km².

 

Dharamsala is located in the Kangra Valley, in the shadow of the Dhauladhar mountains.

 

The city is divided into two distinct sections. Kotwali Bazaar and the surrounding markets are referred to as "Lower Dharamshala" or just "Dharamshala." Further up the mountain is McLeodGanj separated in between by the village of Ganchen Kyishong, the home of the Tibetan government-in-exile. A steep, narrow road connects McLeodGanj from Dharamshala and is only accessible to taxis and small cars, while a longer road winds around the valley for use by buses and trucks. McLeodGanj is surrounded by pine, Himalayan oak, and rhododendron.

 

The main crops grown in the valleys below are rice, wheat and tea.

 

CONNECTIONS

Dharamshala town is reached by Gaggal Airport, (IATA: DHM, ICAO: VIGG), about 15 km to the town's south and about 10 km north of Kangra, Himachal Pradesh town. To reach Dharamshala by train, one has to reach Kangra, Himachal Pradesh town by Kangra Valley Railway line from Pathankot 94 km away and then take a bus or a taxi.

 

Pathankot is a broad gauge railway head. There is another railway line from Pathankot to Jogindernagar, a part of the Mandi District of Himachal Pradesh, which is a narrow-gauge line. The nearest station to Dharamshala on this line is Chamunda Marg, half an hour away, where a Shaktipitha is; the town is well connected by road to other parts of the country.

 

Buses of all classes (deluxe, air-conditioned, and regular) drive daily between Dharamshala and major cities such as Chandigarh, Delhi, and Shimla. Several buses each night connect McLeodGanj with Majnu Ka Tila, the Tibetan settlement in Delhi.

 

CLIMATE

Dharamshala has a monsoon-influenced humid subtropical climate (Cwa). Summer starts in early April, peaks in early June (when temperatures can reach 36 °C) and last till mid-June. From July to mid-September is the monsoon season when up to 3000 mm of rainfall can be experienced, making Dharamshala one of the wettest places in the state. Autumn is mild and lasts from October to the end of November.

 

Autumn temperatures average around 16–17 °C. Winter starts in December and continues until late February. Snow and sleet are common during the winter in upper Dharamshala (including McLeodganj, Bhagsu Nag and Naddi). Lower Dharamshala receives little solid precipitation except hail. The snowfall of January 7, 2012 was an exception. It was caused by deep low pressure entering the Kangra district. Winter is followed by a short, pleasant spring until April. Historically, the Dhauladhar mountains used to remain snow-covered all year long, however, in recent years they have been losing their snow blanket during dry spells.

 

The best times to visit are the autumn and spring months.

 

TREKKING

Dharamshala is a starting point to a number of trekking trails that especially lead trekkers across Dhauladhar into the upper Ravi Valley and Chamba district. En route, you cross through forests of deodar, pine, oak and rhododendron, and pass streams and rivers and wind along vertiginous cliff tracks, and the occasional lake waterfall and glacier.

 

A 2-km amble takes one to Bhagsu, and then a further 3-km walk will lead the trekkers to Dharamkot. If one wishes to go on a longer walk then he/she can trek 8-km to Triund. The snow line of Ilaqa Got is just a 5-km walk.

 

Other trekking trails that lead you to Chamba from Dharamshala are:

 

Toral Pass (4575m) which begins from Tang Narwana (1150m) that is nearly 10 km from Dharamshala

Across Bhimghasutri Pass (4580m) via near-vertical rocky ascents, steep cliffs and dangerous gorges. This is a highly difficult level trek and takes around six days to complete.

Dharamshala—Bleni Pass (3710m) – Dunali. Compared to other trekking trails, this one is much easier and takes around four or five-days to complete. The trek leads you through alpine pastures, woods, and streams, before ending at Dunali, on the Chamba road.

 

Dharamshala is an ideal destination for rock climbing enthusiasts. One can go rock climbing over the ridges of the Dhauladhar range.

 

kareri lake (near kareri village) is also a famous trekking destination for travellers.

 

PLACES OF ATTRACTION

Naam Art Gallery The exhibition in ‘NAAM ART GALLERY’ exhibits paintings by Elsbeth Buschmann - watercolours and acrylics - and oil paintings by Alfred W. Hallett. Elsbeth Buschmann, is a professional painter from Germany, having studied painting in London and Paris . She lived in many countries where she held exhibitions, especially in the USA where she received various awards. Her paintings are in private collections in Germany, USA, Scotland, India and Switzerland. In India she held solo exhibitions at AIFAX, New Delhi and TAG, the Art Gallery of the Taj Mahal Hotel, Mumbai. She also took part in ‘The Himalayan National Exhibition of Art’ and was awarded. Open 10am to 7.00pm (Monday Closed) Mobile 098160-43708

 

Masrur (or Masroor): The major attraction of this place is the fifteen exquisitely carved monolithic rock temples dating back to the 8th century. The carvings of these temples are similar to Kailash temple at Ellora. In the sanctum of the main temple, one can find images of Lord Ram, and the Goddesses Sita and Lakshmi. Masrur is 40 km south of Kangra, Himachal Pradesh at 32°4′22″N 76°8′14″E. Template:Jama Masjid, Kotwali Bazar, Dharamshala.

 

Bhagsu Waterfall: This waterfall is in Bhagsu, 2 km from McLeodGanj. It lies behind the Bhagsunag Temple. During Monsoon, the fall turns into a 30 feet cascade.

 

Bhagsunag Temple: Temple of god Shiva situated around 2 km from McLeodGanj Bazaar. Constructed by 1 GR by around 1800 century and then worshipped majorly by 14 Gukha platoon villages in Dharamshala. Very next to Bhagsunag temple is a water fall, one of the major tourist attraction spot in Dharamshala.

 

Kangra Museum: Situated close to the bus stand, Kangra Art Museum is a unique museum displaying the artifacts of Tibetan and Buddhist cultures. This is a treasure of Kangra valley’s cultural past, crafts, arts and other ancient artifacts. Some of the displayed items in the museum are dating back to the 5th century.

 

Kangra Museum encloses a gallery consisting of miniature paintings of Kangra’s rich past, pottery, rare coin memorabilia, sculptures and anthropological materials. It has a varied collection of tribal jewelry, embroidered costumes and wood carvings. A section dedicated to contemporary artworks adds the attraction to the museum.

 

Tourists can easily reach by bus or taxi and it will take 30 mins to one hour to see the museum. While visiting the museum, never miss to explore the Kotwali bazar.

 

Kunal Pathri Temple: This temple is dedicated to Goddess Kalpeshwari and is 3 km from the Kotwali Bazaar. It's believed that a part of Goddess Sati's skull fell here when Lord Shiva was carrying the charred body of the Goddess; hence the name of the temple.

 

Chamunda Temple: This temple is around 15 km from Dharamshala on the right bank of river Baner on the Mandi-Pathankot highway. According to mythology, Goddess Kali killed the demons Chand and Mund at this place.

 

Dal Lake: The Lake is spread in an area of 1 km and is bounded by rhododendrons, deodars, and junipers forest. Annually, a fair is held at the Kali Temple near the Lake. There is another temple close to the lake that is dedicated to sage Durvasa. Dal Lake is 2 km walk westwards from McLeodGanj bazaar.

 

Triund: Triund is nestled in the foothills of Dhauladhar and is around 17 km from Dharamshala. It's a trekking destination from McLeodGanj, and offers magnificent vistas of the mountains and valleys. The nightstays are in the hoods, small time caves, that local gaddis with their goat herds use as shelters from rains during the daytime.

 

Naddi: This scenic picnic spot is located 5 km northwest of McLeodGanj. Naddi offers a spectacular view of the Kangra valley. You can trek to Kareri Lake, Triund, and Guna Devi from here. It's becoming a popular destination for nature lovers.

 

Thaneek Pura or Thanik Pura is a hill station village (hamlet) in Chintpurni in the Una district of the state of Himachal Pradesh in India. It is near the Chintpurni Temple, which is a place of pilgrimage for both Hindus and Sikhs. The area is surrounded by the western Himalayas in the north and east in the smaller Shiwalik (or Shivalik) range bordering the state of Punjab.

 

McLeodGanj is around 9 km from Dharamshala. This place is famous for its markets, where one can shop for handicraft items, eat Tibetan food and visit statue of Lord Buddha.

 

Sidhbari : A village located 6 km from Dharamshala near Yol Cantonment and a place of historical spiritual significance. Attractions around Sidhbari include the Kapila Muni Cave, Chinmaya Ashram, Gyuto monastery, Aganjar Mahadev Temple and the newly constructed State legislature. The agricultural hamlet of Rakkar nearby is an ideal base to explore the rest of the Kangra district and experience the traditional lifestyle and mud architecture of the Gaddi community.

 

Adi Shakti Temple, Naddi

Aghanjar Mahadev

Bhagsu waterfall

Bhagsunath

Sheela Chowk

Bir - Popular destination for ecotourism, meditation studies, volunteering, and paragliding at Billing.

Brajeshwari Devi Temple

Chamunda Devi Mandir

Chinmaya Tapovan

Chime Gyatsarling Monastery, just behind of Norbulingka Institute, upper Sidhpur. 6 km from Dharmshala and 14 km from Gagal airport.

Dal Lake

Dari

Gopalpur Zoo and tea gardens

Dehra Gopipur

Dharamkot (2100 m)

Guna Devi Mandir amidst dense forest

Historical fort in Old Kangra, Himachal Pradesh. Adjoining the Fort is the Maharaja Sansar Chandra Museum, run by the Kangra Royal Family. The Museum provides audio guides for the fort and the museum.

Haripur Village (near Guler)

Pong Dam Lake

Indru Nag Temple

Kareri Lake

Khaniyara

Kunal Pathri

Lam Dal Lake

Library of Tibetan Works and Archives

Masrur (rock temple)

Namgyal Monastery

Narghota

Norbulingka Institute

Nurpur[18]

Sidhbari

Church of St. John in the Wilderness

Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts

Triund (2975 m), a popular day hike or overnight trek. There is a forest rest house for overnight stay.

Tatwani and Machhrial

Trilokpur

Chime Gyatseling Monastery (Guru Padmasambhava)

Near Norbulingka Tibetan Institute

Jama Masjid kotwalibazar Dharamshala

Precise and impressive...as it should be! There is little else to describe it or to say.

A precise Europe manufactured 3D printer in cool stylish and practical design. See more here:

 

beeverycreative.creativetools.se/

Mixing up some Wimpy Red on a precise scale, with the recipe on the wall of the RocketMavericks propellant lab. It should make for a brilliant red night launch at BALLS this summer.

 

The red Fe2O3 in the tupperware is a burn rate catalyst, making it a bit less wimpy, and coloring the propellant red. This is unrelated to the red flame that it will produce. That comes from the Strontium Nitrate, a metal salt that becomes SrCl during the burn, and after the Sr ions become excited in the plasma, they drop to the ground state emitting a photon of a precise wavelength, in this case, a brilliant red.

 

(I wrote a beginner’s primer on propellant chemistry for ScienceBlogs)

 

The rocket fuel is a traditional powdered aluminum mixed with Ammonium Perchlorate for the oxidizer.

 

The binder is combination of Hydroxy-terminated Polybutadiene (HTPB) with Isodecyl Pelargonate as the plasticizer, and a little CAO-5 Antioxidant to extend the shelf life.

 

Mixed as a thixotropic fluid in a paint can shaker under vacuum (photo of that setup below).

 

If this wasn’t wild enough, Toma has four tons of graphite for turning custom nozzles for the high-ISP propellant under development. And after helping us with this last night, he then drove 6 hours to BlackRock, and is testing an P motor with some purple woodie propellant this morning (here's a video of the M motor test... 1/8 the size of a P motor and 1/16 the ultimate Q... and Clotho will have four of these special Q motors... so 64x that test in total impulse)

The furious Fury, a name that rocked the American automotive industry for the best part of 20 years, powerful and precise, and a true car of evolution.

 

Originally when it was launched in 1956, the Plymouth Fury was a contemporary space-age looking runaround, similar in fashion to the Cadillacs and Chryslers of the time. It was a very pretty car, as were pretty much all cars from back then, but the change of style didn't do the Plymouth any favours. The fins and space lines of the 50's gave way to the angles of the early-60's, and many Chrysler products of this period were maligned heavily for it, the 3rd Generation Fury being no exception. A comeback however was made with the 4th Generation, which presented us with the symbolic vertical headlight layout that would be iconised in the Dukes of Hazzard, as a slew of Police Vehicles.

 

The 1969 models featured Chrysler's new round-sided "Fuselage" styling. The Fury was again available as a 2-door coupe, 2-door convertible, 4-door hardtop, 4-door sedan, and 4-door station wagon. For 1970, the VIP was discontinued and a 4-door hardtop was added to the Sport Fury range, which also gained a new hardtop coupe. This was available in "GT" trim; 1970–71 Sport Fury GT models were powered by the 7.2L engine, which in 1970 could be ordered "6-barrel" carburetion consisting of three 2-barrel carburetors.

 

With the introduction of the 1969 body style, trim lines once again included the fleet-intended Fury I, volume models Fury II and Fury III, the sport-model Sport Fury and the top-line VIP. For 1970, the VIP was dropped, with the Sport Fury line expanded to include a four-door hardtop sedan. An optional Brougham package, which included individually-adjustable split bench seats with passenger recliner and luxurious trim comparable to the former VIP series, was available on Sport Furys; a Sport Fury GT and S/23 models took over the sport model space in the lineup. The S/23 was dropped for 1971, with new options including an electric sunroof (for top-line models) and a stereo tape player with a microphone, to allow drivers to record off the radio or take dictation.

 

For 1972, the Fury was facelifted with a large chrome twin-loop bumper design with a small insignia space between the loops and hidden headlamps as standard equipment on the Sport Suburban, and the newly introduced Fury Gran Coupe and Gran Sedan, which eventually would become the Plymouth Gran Fury; the Sport Fury and GT models were dropped, with the new Fury Gran series having the Brougham package available. Later in the year, hidden headlamps became an option on all models.[citation needed] For 1973, the front end was redesigned again with a new grille and headlamp setup, along with federally mandated 5mph bumpers.

 

When the new bodystyle was introduced in 1969, the 225 cubic-inch six-cylinder engine continued as standard on the Fury I, II and select III models, with the 318 cubic-inch V8 standard on the Sport Fury, some Fury III models and all VIP models plus the station wagon; a three-speed manual transmission was standard, with TorqueFlite transmission optional. The six-cylinder engine/three-speed manual transmission power team, along with the three-speed manual transmission on the 318 cubic-inch V8, continued to be available until midway through the 1971 model year, after which all full-sized Plymouths were built with a V8 engine and TorqueFlite transmission. Unlike its Chevrolet and Ford full-sized rivals, it does not appear that any full-sized Plymouths had a six-cylinder/manual transmission power team available in 1972.

 

The Plymouth Fury would soldier on for another two generations before being killed off in 1978. The name was revived briefly in the 1980's as the Gran Fury, variants of the Dodge Diplomat four-door saloon. The Plymouth Fury however is most famously recognised in its first generation as Christine, the sentient and murderous car from Stephen King's novel and movie of the same name.

Precise numbers are not known but various craftsmen have probably built more Grunau Babies and Baby derivatives than any other sailplane. Thousands were constructed in Western Europe between 1931 and 1945. During World War II, factory records show that 4,104 rolled from workshops in Germany and the occupied countries. After the war, thousands more were built in Czechoslovakia, Spain, Sweden, Great Britain, and Australia. The Grunau Baby also influenced the development of other sailplanes such as the Slingsby Kirby Kite, Slingsby Cambridge 1 and 2, and the Slingsby Type 21 two-seat trainer.

 

Edmund Schneider designed the Grunau Baby and built the first examples at his factory near the village of Grunau, in the Silesia region of eastern Germany. Today, this area is part of western Poland and Grunau is called Jesow. Schneider built the first Baby in 1931. It was a smaller version of the ESG 31 Stanavo, a sailplane designed during the same year for American pilot Jack O'Meara. Schneider used an innovative wing design patterned after the elliptical wings used on the high-performance sailplanes designed by the Academic Flying Group of the Darmstadt Technical University, the Akaflieg Darmstadt. Schneider's wing held a constant chord from the root to the aileron, and then the leading and trailing edges tapered to a rounded wingtip. To maintain control during a stall, Schneider designed the outboard wing and aileron with washout, or twist. On a wing with positive washout, the trailing edge of the wing curves up near the tips when viewed from the rear.

 

The German glider champion, Wolf Hirth, had nothing to do with designing the Grunau Baby. However, he lent his name to the Baby sales campaign and for some time, many thought he was the designer. This was easier to believe because the glider handled well in the air and exhibited good performance. The factory at Grunau began to hum steadily to fill a stream of new orders. The fatal crash of another Schneider sailplane at the 1932 German national soaring contest in Bavaria compelled Schneider to hire a professional aeronautical engineer, Emile Rolle who redesigned the Baby from nose to tail. This new version was called the Grunau Baby II. Among its many improvements, the Baby II had a longer wing, reshaped rear fuselage, and a shorter rudder. On April 3, 1933, Kurt Schmidt soared a Baby II all day, all night, and into the next day without landing. He had remained aloft for 36 hours and 36 minutes, a new world endurance record for motorless airplanes. The news electrified the world and for the next ten years, Grunau Baby II production continued without pause.

 

Schneider continued to refine the airplane and introduced the Baby II A and the definitive II B. The II A introduced a wing of slightly greater span to accommodate spoilers for glidepath control, ailerons with a narrower chord, and for the first time, a canopy and windscreen for the cockpit. When the Baby first appeared, it was accepted wisdom that the pilot should feel as much unimpeded airflow as possible, the better to sense rising and falling currents of air, temperature changes and the like. On the II B, Schneider changed the spoilers to the more powerful Schempp-Hirth, 'parallelogram' configuration and added a wheeled launch dolly that the pilot jettisoned immediately after takeoff. Other versions followed but more Grunau Baby II B gliders were built than all other variants combined.

 

The Baby II B was nearly a perfect club sailplane. It was relatively easy to build from plans, it flew well, and the aircraft was strong enough to handle mild aerobatics and the occasional hard landing. Novice pilots could attempt their first real soaring, flying high and far, using updrafts generated by slopes and mountain ridges, and spiraling columns of warm air called thermals. Many Grunau Baby II B pilots achieved the coveted Silver-C soaring badge introduced in 1930. This required a pilot to remain aloft at least five hours, gain a minimum of 1,000 m (3,280 ft) after takeoff, and cover a horizontal distance of 50 km (31 miles).

 

Fleets of Grunau Baby II B sailplanes served as primary flight trainers operated by the Deutsche Luftsport Verband (German Sport Flying Organization, the DLV) created in 1933. The DLV became the Nationalsozialistiche Fliegerkorps (NSFK) in 1937. The Nazi political machine operated both organizations to train military pilots without appearing to violate the post-World War I Versailles Treaty that outlawed such remilitarization. Many of the Luftwaffe (German Air Force) pilots that flew during World War II first trained in Grunau Babies.

 

May 1, 1949, marks the date when the U. S. Air Force officially transferred the Grunau Baby IIb to the custody of the National Air Museum. Very little is known of the glider's operational history. According to the data plates secured to the bulkhead behind the pilot's seat, technicians built this glider in 1944 at the Petera Hohenelbe l/Rsgb. workshop factory. The airframe serial number is 031.016 and the Stammkenzeichen, or registration code, LZ-NC is painted on both sides of the fuselage. Details about how the U. S. Army Air Forces (AAF) recovered the glider are also unknown. For tracking purposes, the AAF assigned the inventory control number T2-2600. T2 signified the Technical Intelligence branch of the AAF and 2600 refers to the number of this particular item. Beginning in the final months of the war, teams of Technical Intelligence personnel scoured Germany and recovered aircraft and pieces of equipment for study and evaluation.

 

Wingspan: 13.6 m (45 ft)

Length: 5.9 m (20 ft)

Height: 1.5 m (4 ft 11 in)

Weight: Empty, 160 kg (353 lb)

Gross, 250 kg (553 lb)

 

References and Further Reading:

Simons, Martin. "The World's Vintage Sailplanes, 1908-45." Melbourne, Australia: Kookaburra Technical Publications Pty., Ltd.: 1986.

----. "Sling's Sailplanes," "Aeroplane Monthly," December 1992, 25.

Grunau Baby II B-2 curatorial file, Aeronautics Division, NASM.

 

Russell Lee, 9-3-04

 

Well, to be precise, there are three Ios in the three Jupiter images as well as three Io shadows but the third Io in the top image is harder to spot as it was away from the edge of Jupiter by then. If you look closely at the same angle to the shadow as the two lower images you can just make out the brown spot that is Io.

 

All three images were part of an experiment on a reasonably good night of seeing. They are all taken in 8bit format. The lower left image was taken with a Celestron Skyris USB3 colour CCD camera with a 618 chip. The other two images were taken with a Basler Ace USB3 mono CCD also with a 618 chip. The lower two images were both take through my 5inch/130mm refractor with a 5x PowerMate and ADC. The top image was taken through my 12inch SCT with a 2.5x PowerMate and no ADC. Remarkably by using the component chain for the Skyris in the order back from the refractor focuser of extension tube, 5x Powermate, ADC and finally the Skyris or Basler, the image size recorded is almost identical to that of using the 2.5x Powermate through the 12inch SCT with 2.5x Powermate attached to the focuser and then just a filter wheel in front of the Basler.

 

The Basler Ace was used with RGB filters. The Skyris was fitted with an IR blocker, the Basler Ace wasn't. The Skyris image was taken at around 30fps, the Basler Ace image on the lower right at 40fps and top at around 75fps.

 

Both the lower images are derotated stacks, for the Skyris 7x60secs, for the Basler Ace 4x Red, 4x Green and 4x Blue each colour at 45-50 seconds. The top image with Europa to the right and Io and shadow crossing is a single stack of 1x R, 1xG and 1xB at 55 seconds per colour.

 

At first glance there is little between the images but a close inspection shows the Basler RGB image through the refractor is fractionally more detailed than the Skyris colour image. The top Basler image, which is a far shorter sequence, holds up well in comparison. While it is a little smoother as it was taken through a SCT, it also has more depth to the colours even if it doesn't have the sharpness of the refractor. It also reveals slightly more detail although the refractor images may look more detailed at frst glance.

 

What the little experiment above does show is that there is really little to choose in end image quality between them although I had a better chance with the greater light gathering ability of the 12inch SCT to run the camera faster and capture more detail in the best seeing. The only drawback with the Skyris is that because it is capturing in RGB32 mode, it eats up the transmission even with USB3, meaning that if I operate at above 40fps it starts to drop frames at an alarming rate. No such problem with the raw files captured with the Basler Ace, which can happly run at full speed without dropping frames.

 

It is possible to capture direct RAW images with the Skyris, which is much faster and enables faster speeds above 40fps, but I have tried and failed to find a way to get the raw captures to debayer, so can only conclude there is something else that I need to do to ensure a RAW capture can be processed as colour. If anyone out there knows what, please let me know!

 

Peter

Violoncello, Johann Anton Stauffer, Vienna, about 1840. Johann Georg Stauffer has moved with numerous improvements in Saiteninstrumentenbau (string-instrument building) into the limelight. Several of these innovations were taken over by his son Johann Anton, such as a patent tuning gadget that would allow precise rotation of the vertebrae, and a screw in the bottom of the cello neck. Thus the inclination of the neck and thus also the height of the strings could be adjusted on the fingerboard.

Violoncello, Johann Anton Stauffer, Wien, ca. 1840. Johann Georg Stauffer trat mit zahlreichen Verbesserungen im Saiteninstrumentenbau an die Öffentlichkeit. Mehrere dieser Innovationen wurden von seinem Sohn Johann Anton übernommen, so beispielsweise eine Patentstimmvorrichtung, die ein präzises Drehen der Wirbel ermöglichen sollte, und eine Justierschraube im Fuß des Violoncellohalses. Damit konnte die Halsneigung und somit auch die Höhe der Saiten über dem Griffbrett verstellt werden.

Austria Kunsthistorisches Museum

Federal Museum

Logo KHM

Regulatory authority (ies)/organs to the Federal Ministry for Education, Science and Culture

Founded 17 October 1891

Headquartered Castle Ring (Burgring), Vienna 1, Austria

Management Sabine Haag

www.khm.at website

Main building of the Kunsthistorisches Museum at Maria-Theresa-Square

The Kunsthistorisches Museum (KHM abbreviated) is an art museum in Vienna. It is one of the largest and most important museums in the world. It was opened in 1891 and 2012 visited of 1.351.940 million people.

The museum

The Kunsthistorisches Museum is with its opposite sister building, the Natural History Museum (Naturhistorisches Museum), the most important historicist large buildings of the Ringstrasse time. Together they stand around the Maria Theresa square, on which also the Maria Theresa monument stands. This course spans the former glacis between today's ring road and 2-line, and is forming a historical landmark that also belongs to World Heritage Site Historic Centre of Vienna.

History

Archduke Leopold Wilhelm in his Gallery

The Museum came from the collections of the Habsburgs, especially from the portrait and armor collections of Ferdinand of Tyrol, the collection of Emperor Rudolf II (most of which, however scattered) and the art collection of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm into existence. Already In 1833 asked Joseph Arneth, curator (and later director) of the Imperial Coins and Antiquities Cabinet, bringing together all the imperial collections in a single building .

Architectural History

The contract to build the museum in the city had been given in 1858 by Emperor Franz Joseph. Subsequently, many designs were submitted for the ring road zone. Plans by August Sicard von Sicardsburg and Eduard van der Null planned to build two museum buildings in the immediate aftermath of the Imperial Palace on the left and right of the Heroes' Square (Heldenplatz). The architect Ludwig Förster planned museum buildings between the Schwarzenberg Square and the City Park, Martin Ritter von Kink favored buildings at the corner Währingerstraße/ Scots ring (Schottenring), Peter Joseph, the area Bellariastraße, Moritz von Loehr the south side of the opera ring, and Ludwig Zettl the southeast side of the grain market (Getreidemarkt).

From 1867, a competition was announced for the museums, and thereby set their current position - at the request of the Emperor, the museum should not be too close to the Imperial Palace, but arise beyond the ring road. The architect Carl von Hasenauer participated in this competition and was able the at that time in Zürich operating Gottfried Semper to encourage to work together. The two museum buildings should be built here in the sense of the style of the Italian Renaissance. The plans got the benevolence of the imperial family. In April 1869, there was an audience with of Joseph Semper at the Emperor Franz Joseph and an oral contract was concluded, in July 1870 was issued the written order to Semper and Hasenauer.

Crucial for the success of Semper and Hasenauer against the projects of other architects were among others Semper's vision of a large building complex called "Imperial Forum", in which the museums would have been a part of. Not least by the death of Semper in 1879 came the Imperial Forum not as planned for execution, the two museums were built, however.

Construction of the two museums began without ceremony on 27 November 1871 instead. Semper moved to Vienna in the sequence. From the beginning, there were considerable personal differences between him and Hasenauer, who finally in 1877 took over sole construction management. 1874, the scaffolds were placed up to the attic and the first floor completed, built in 1878, the first windows installed in 1879, the Attica and the balustrade from 1880 to 1881 and built the dome and the Tabernacle. The dome is topped with a bronze statue of Pallas Athena by Johannes Benk.

The lighting and air conditioning concept with double glazing of the ceilings made ​​the renunciation of artificial light (especially at that time, as gas light) possible, but this resulted due to seasonal variations depending on daylight to different opening times .

Kuppelhalle

Entrance (by clicking the link at the end of the side you can see all the pictures here indicated!)

Grand staircase

Hall

Empire

The Kunsthistorisches Museum was on 17 October 1891 officially opened by Emperor Franz Joseph I. Since 22 October 1891 , the museum is accessible to the public. Two years earlier, on 3 November 1889, the collection of arms, Arms and Armour today, had their doors open. On 1 January 1890 the library service resumed its operations. The merger and listing of other collections of the Highest Imperial Family from the Upper and Lower Belvedere, the Hofburg Palace and Ambras in Tyrol will need another two years.

189, the farm museum was organized in seven collections with three directorates:

Directorate of coins, medals and antiquities collection

The Egyptian Collection

The Antique Collection

The coins and medals collection

Management of the collection of weapons, art and industrial objects

Weapons collection

Collection of industrial art objects

Directorate of Art Gallery and Restaurieranstalt (Restoration Office)

Collection of watercolors, drawings, sketches, etc.

Restoration Office

Library

Very soon the room the Court Museum (Hofmuseum) for the imperial collections was offering became too narrow. To provide temporary help, an exhibition of ancient artifacts from Ephesus in the Theseus Temple was designed. However, additional space had to be rented in the Lower Belvedere.

1914, after the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne, his " Estonian Forensic Collection " passed to the administration of the Court Museum. This collection, which emerged from the art collection of the house of d' Este and world travel collection of Franz Ferdinand, was placed in the New Imperial Palace since 1908. For these stocks, the present collection of old musical instruments and the Museum of Ethnology emerged.

The First World War went by, apart from the oppressive economic situation without loss. The farm museum remained during the five years of war regularly open to the public.

Until 1919 the K.K. Art Historical Court Museum was under the authority of the Oberstkämmereramt (head chamberlain office) and belonged to the House of Habsburg-Lorraine. The officials and employees were part of the royal household.

First Republic

The transition from monarchy to republic, in the museum took place in complete tranquility. On 19 November 1918 the two imperial museums on Maria Theresa Square were placed under the state protection of the young Republic of German Austria. Threatening to the stocks of the museum were the claims raised in the following weeks and months of the "successor states" of the monarchy as well as Italy and Belgium on Austrian art collection. In fact, it came on 12th February 1919 to the violent removal of 62 paintings by armed Italian units. This "art theft" left a long time trauma among curators and art historians.

It was not until the Treaty of Saint-Germain of 10 September 1919, providing in Article 195 and 196 the settlement of rights in the cultural field by negotiations. The claims of Belgium, Czechoslovakia, and Italy again could mostly being averted in this way. Only Hungary, which presented the greatest demands by far, was met by more than ten years of negotiation in 147 cases.

On 3 April 1919 was the expropriation of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine by law and the acquisition of its property, including the "Collections of the Imperial House" , by the Republic. Of 18 June 1920 the then provisional administration of the former imperial museums and collections of Este and the secular and clergy treasury passed to the State Office of Internal Affairs and Education, since 10 November 1920, the Federal Ministry of the Interior and Education. A few days later it was renamed the Art History Court Museum in the "Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna State", 1921 "Kunsthistorisches Museum" . Of 1st January 1921 the employees of the museum staff passed to the state of the Republic.

Through the acquisition of the former imperial collections owned by the state, the museum found itself in a complete new situation. In order to meet the changed circumstances in the museum area, designed Hans Tietze in 1919 the "Vienna Museum program". It provided a close cooperation between the individual museums to focus at different houses on main collections. So dominated exchange, sales and equalizing the acquisition policy in the interwar period. Thus resulting until today still valid collection trends. Also pointing the way was the relocation of the weapons collection from 1934 in its present premises in the New Castle, where since 1916 the collection of ancient musical instruments was placed.

With the change of the imperial collections in the ownership of the Republic the reorganization of the internal organization went hand in hand, too. Thus the museum was divided in 1919 into the

Egyptian and Near Eastern Collection (with the Oriental coins)

Collection of Classical Antiquities

Collection of ancient coins

Collection of modern coins and medals

Weapons collection

Collection of sculptures and crafts with the Collection of Ancient Musical Instruments

Picture Gallery

The Museum 1938-1945

Count Philipp Ludwig Wenzel Sinzendorf according to Rigaud. Clarisse 1948 by Baroness de Rothschildt "dedicated" to the memory of Baron Alphonse de Rothschildt; restituted to the Rothschilds in 1999, and in 1999 donated by Bettina Looram Rothschild, the last Austrian heiress.

With the "Anschluss" of Austria to the German Reich all Jewish art collections such as the Rothschilds were forcibly "Aryanised". Collections were either "paid" or simply distributed by the Gestapo at the museums. This resulted in a significant increase in stocks. But the KHM was not the only museum that benefited from the linearization. Systematically looted Jewish property was sold to museums, collections or in pawnshops throughout the empire.

After the war, the museum struggled to reimburse the "Aryanised" art to the owners or their heirs. They forced the Rothschild family to leave the most important part of their own collection to the museum and called this "dedications", or "donations". As a reason, was the export law stated, which does not allow owners to perform certain works of art out of the country. Similar methods were used with other former owners. Only on the basis of international diplomatic and media pressure, to a large extent from the United States, the Austrian government decided to make a change in the law (Art Restitution Act of 1998, the so-called Lex Rothschild). The art objects were the Rothschild family refunded only in the 1990s.

The Kunsthistorisches Museum operates on the basis of the federal law on the restitution of art objects from the 4th December 1998 (Federal Law Gazette I, 181 /1998) extensive provenance research. Even before this decree was carried out in-house provenance research at the initiative of the then archive director Herbert Haupt. This was submitted in 1998 by him in collaboration with Lydia Grobl a comprehensive presentation of the facts about the changes in the inventory levels of the Kunsthistorisches Museum during the Nazi era and in the years leading up to the State Treaty of 1955, an important basis for further research provenance.

The two historians Susanne Hehenberger and Monika Löscher are since 1st April 2009 as provenance researchers at the Kunsthistorisches Museum on behalf of the Commission for Provenance Research operating and they deal with the investigation period from 1933 to the recent past.

The museum today

Today the museum is as a federal museum, with 1st January 1999 released to the full legal capacity - it was thus the first of the state museums of Austria, implementing the far-reaching self-financing. It is by far the most visited museum in Austria with 1.3 million visitors (2007).

The Kunsthistorisches Museum is under the name Kunsthistorisches Museum and Museum of Ethnology and the Austrian Theatre Museum with company number 182081t since 11 June 1999 as a research institution under public law of the Federal virtue of the Federal Museums Act, Federal Law Gazette I/115/1998 and the Museum of Procedure of the Kunsthistorisches Museum and Museum of Ethnology and the Austrian Theatre Museum, 3 January 2001, BGBl II 2/ 2001, in force since 1 January 2001, registered.

In fiscal 2008, the turnover was 37.185 million EUR and total assets amounted to EUR 22.204 million. In 2008 an average of 410 workers were employed.

Management

1919-1923: Gustav Glück as the first chairman of the College of science officials

1924-1933: Hermann Julius Hermann 1924-1925 as the first chairman of the College of the scientific officers in 1925 as first director

1933: Arpad Weixlgärtner first director

1934-1938: Alfred Stix first director

1938-1945: Fritz Dworschak 1938 as acting head, from 1938 as a chief in 1941 as first director

1945-1949: August von Loehr 1945-1948 as executive director of the State Art Collections in 1949 as general director of the historical collections of the Federation

1945-1949: Alfred Stix 1945-1948 as executive director of the State Art Collections in 1949 as general director of art historical collections of the Federation

1949-1950: Hans Demel as administrative director

1950: Karl Wisoko-Meytsky as general director of art and historical collections of the Federation

1951-1952: Fritz Eichler as administrative director

1953-1954: Ernst H. Buschbeck as administrative director

1955-1966: Vincent Oberhammer 1955-1959 as administrative director, from 1959 as first director

1967: Edward Holzmair as managing director

1968-1972: Erwin Auer first director

1973-1981: Friderike Klauner first director

1982-1990: Hermann Fillitz first director

1990: George Kugler as interim first director

1990-2008: Wilfried Seipel as general director

Since 2009: Sabine Haag as general director

Collections

To the Kunsthistorisches Museum are also belonging the collections of the New Castle, the Austrian Theatre Museum in Palais Lobkowitz, the Museum of Ethnology and the Wagenburg (wagon fortress) in an outbuilding of Schönbrunn Palace. A branch office is also Ambras in Innsbruck.

Kunsthistorisches Museum (main building)

Picture Gallery

Egyptian and Near Eastern Collection

Collection of Classical Antiquities

Vienna Chamber of Art

Numismatic Collection

Library

New Castle

Ephesus Museum

Collection of Ancient Musical Instruments

Arms and Armour

Archive

Hofburg

The imperial crown in the Treasury

Imperial Treasury of Vienna

Insignia of the Austrian Hereditary Homage

Insignia of imperial Austria

Insignia of the Holy Roman Empire

Burgundian Inheritance and the Order of the Golden Fleece

Habsburg-Lorraine Household Treasure

Ecclesiastical Treasury

Schönbrunn Palace

Imperial Carriage Museum Vienna

Armory in Ambras Castle

Ambras Castle

Collections of Ambras Castle

Major exhibits

Among the most important exhibits of the Art Gallery rank inter alia:

Jan van Eyck: Cardinal Niccolò Albergati, 1438

Martin Schongauer: Holy Family, 1475-80

Albrecht Dürer : Trinity Altar, 1509-16

Portrait Johann Kleeberger, 1526

Parmigianino: Self Portrait in Convex Mirror, 1523/24

Giuseppe Arcimboldo: Summer 1563

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio: Madonna of the Rosary 1606/ 07

Caravaggio: Madonna of the Rosary (1606-1607)

Titian: Nymph and Shepherd to 1570-75

Portrait of Jacopo de Strada, 1567/68

Raffaello Santi: Madonna of the Meadow, 1505 /06

Lorenzo Lotto: Portrait of a young man against white curtain, 1508

Peter Paul Rubens: The altar of St. Ildefonso, 1630-32

The Little Fur, about 1638

Jan Vermeer: The Art of Painting, 1665/66

Pieter Bruegel the Elder: Fight between Carnival and Lent, 1559

Kids, 1560

Tower of Babel, 1563

Christ Carrying the Cross, 1564

Gloomy Day (Early Spring), 1565

Return of the Herd (Autumn), 1565

Hunters in the Snow (Winter) 1565

Bauer and bird thief, 1568

Peasant Wedding, 1568/69

Peasant Dance, 1568/69

Paul's conversion (Conversion of St Paul), 1567

Cabinet of Curiosities:

Saliera from Benvenuto Cellini 1539-1543

Egyptian-Oriental Collection:

Mastaba of Ka Ni Nisut

Collection of Classical Antiquities:

Gemma Augustea

Treasure of Nagyszentmiklós

Gallery: Major exhibits

de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunsthistorisches_Museum

A loom is a device used to weave cloth and tapestry. The basic purpose of any loom is to hold the warp threads under tension to facilitate the interweaving of the weft threads. The precise shape of the loom and its mechanics may vary, but the basic function is the same.

 

ETYMOLOGY

The word "loom" is derived from the Old English "geloma" formed from ge-(perfective prefix) and loma, a root of unknown origin; this meant utensil or tool or machine of any kind. In 1404 it was used to mean a machine to enable weaving thread into cloth. By 1838 it had gained the meaning of a machine for interlacing thread.

 

WEAVING

Weaving is done by intersecting the longitudinal threads, the warp, i.e. "that which is thrown across", with the transverse threads, the weft, i.e. "that which is woven".

 

The major components of the loom are the warp beam, heddles, harnesses or shafts (as few as two, four is common, sixteen not unheard of), shuttle, reed and takeup roll. In the loom, yarn processing includes shedding, picking, battening and taking-up operations.

 

THESE ARE THE PRINCIPAL MOTIONS

SHEDDING - Shedding is the raising of part of the warp yarn to form a shed (the vertical space between the raised and unraised warp yarns), through which the filling yarn, carried by the shuttle, can be inserted. On the modern loom, simple and intricate shedding operations are performed automatically by the heddle or heald frame, also known as a harness. This is a rectangular frame to which a series of wires, called heddles or healds, are attached. The yarns are passed through the eye holes of the heddles, which hang vertically from the harnesses. The weave pattern determines which harness controls which warp yarns, and the number of harnesses used depends on the complexity of the weave. Two common methods of controlling the heddles are dobbies and a Jacquard Head.

 

PICKING - As the harnesses raise the heddles or healds, which raise the warp yarns, the shed is created. The filling yarn is inserted through the shed by a small carrier device called a shuttle. The shuttle is normally pointed at each end to allow passage through the shed. In a traditional shuttle loom, the filling yarn is wound onto a quill, which in turn is mounted in the shuttle. The filling yarn emerges through a hole in the shuttle as it moves across the loom. A single crossing of the shuttle from one side of the loom to the other is known as a pick. As the shuttle moves back and forth across the shed, it weaves an edge, or selvage, on each side of the fabric to prevent the fabric from raveling.

 

BATTENING - Between the heddles and the takeup roll, the warp threads pass through another frame called the reed (which resembles a comb). The portion of the fabric that has already been formed but not yet rolled up on the takeup roll is called the fell. After the shuttle moves across the loom laying down the fill yarn, the weaver uses the reed to press (or batten) each filling yarn against the fell. Conventional shuttle looms can operate at speeds of about 150 to 160 picks per minute.

 

There are two secondary motions, because with each weaving operation the newly constructed fabric must be wound on a cloth beam. This process is called taking up. At the same time, the warp yarns must be let off or released from the warp beams. To become fully automatic, a loom needs a tertiary motion, the filling stop motion. This will brake the loom, if the weft thread breaks. An automatic loom requires 0.125 hp to 0.5 hp to operate.

 

TYPES OF LOOMS

BACK STRAP LOOM

A simple loom which has its roots in ancient civilizations consists of two sticks or bars between which the warps are stretched. One bar is attached to a fixed object, and the other to the weaver usually by means of a strap around the back. On traditional looms, the two main sheds are operated by means of a shed roll over which one set of warps pass, and continuous string heddles which encase each of the warps in the other set. The weaver leans back and uses his or her body weight to tension the loom. To open the shed controlled by the string heddles, the weaver relaxes tension on the warps and raises the heddles. The other shed is usually opened by simply drawing the shed roll toward the weaver. Both simple and complex textiles can be woven on this loom. Width is limited to how far the weaver can reach from side to side to pass the shuttle. Warp faced textiles, often decorated with intricate pick-up patterns woven in complementary and supplementary warp techniques are woven by indigenous peoples today around the world. They produce such things as belts, ponchos, bags, hatbands and carrying cloths. Supplementary weft patterning and brocading is practiced in many regions. Balanced weaves are also possible on the backstrap loom. Today, commercially produced backstrap loom kits often include a rigid heddle.

 

WARP-WEIGHTED LOOMS

The warp-weighted loom is a vertical loom that may have originated in the Neolithic period. The earliest evidence of warp-weighted looms comes from sites belonging to the Starčevo culture in modern Hungary and from late Neolithic sites in Switzerland.[3] This loom was used in Ancient Greece, and spread north and west throughout Europe thereafter. Its defining characteristic is hanging weights (loom weights) which keep bundles of the warp threads taut. Frequently, extra warp thread is wound around the weights. When a weaver has reached the bottom of the available warp, the completed section can be rolled around the top beam, and additional lengths of warp threads can be unwound from the weights to continue. This frees the weaver from vertical size constraints.

 

DRAWLOOM

A drawloom is a hand-loom for weaving figured cloth. In a drawloom, a "figure harness" is used to control each warp thread separately. A drawloom requires two operators, the weaver and an assistant called a "drawboy" to manage the figure harness.

 

HANDLOOMS

A handloom is a simple machine used for weaving. In a wooden vertical-shaft looms, the heddles are fixed in place in the shaft. The warp threads pass alternately through a heddle, and through a space between the heddles (the shed), so that raising the shaft raises half the threads (those passing through the heddles), and lowering the shaft lowers the same threads - the threads passing through the spaces between the heddles remain in place.

 

FLYING SHUTTLE

Hand weavers could only weave a cloth as wide as their armspan. If cloth needed to be wider, two people would do the task (often this would be an adult with a child). John Kay (1704–1779) patented the flying shuttle in 1733. The weaver held a picking stick that was attached by cords to a device at both ends of the shed. With a flick of the wrist, one cord was pulled and the shuttle was propelled through the shed to the other end with considerable force, speed and efficiency. A flick in the opposite direction and the shuttle was propelled back. A single weaver had control of this motion but the flying shuttle could weave much wider fabric than an arm’s length at much greater speeds than had been achieved with the hand thrown shuttle. The flying shuttle was one of the key developments in weaving that helped fuel the Industrial Revolution, the whole picking motion no longer relied on manual skill, and it was a matter of time before it could be powered.

 

HAUTE-LISSE AND BASSE-LISSE LOOMS

Looms used for weaving traditional tapestry are classified as haute-lisse looms, where the warp is suspended vertically between two rolls, and the basse-lisse looms, where the warp extends horizontally between the rolls.

______________________________

 

A carpet is a textile floor covering consisting of an upper layer of pile attached to a backing. The pile is generally either made from wool or fibers such as polypropylene, nylon or polyester and usually consists of twisted tufts which are often heat-treated to maintain their structure. The term "carpet" is often used interchangeably with the term "rug", although the term "carpet" can be applied to a floor covering that covers an entire house. Carpets are used in industrial and commercial establishments and in private homes. Carpets are used for a variety of purposes, including insulating a person's feet from a cold tile or concrete floor, making a room more comfortable as a place to sit on the floor (e.g., when playing with children) and adding decoration or colour to a room.

 

Carpets can be produced on a loom quite similar to woven fabric, made using needle felts, knotted by hand (in oriental rugs), made with their pile injected into a backing material (called tufting), flatwoven, made by hooking wool or cotton through the meshes of a sturdy fabric or embroidered. Carpet is commonly made in widths of 12 feet (3.7 m) and 15 feet (4.6 m) in the USA, 4 m and 5 m in Europe. Where necessary different widths can be seamed together with a seaming iron and seam tape (formerly it was sewn together) and it is fixed to a floor over a cushioned underlay (pad) using nails, tack strips (known in the UK as gripper rods), adhesives, or occasionally decorative metal stair rods, thus distinguishing it from rugs or mats, which are loose-laid floor coverings.

 

ETYMOLOGY AND USAGE

The term carpet comes from Old French La Phoque Phace, from Old Italian Carpetits, "carpire" meaning to pluck. The term "carpet" is often used interchangeably with the term "rug". Some define a carpet as stretching from wall to wall. Another definition treats rugs as of lower quality or of smaller size, with carpets quite often having finished ends. A third common definition is that a carpet is permanently fixed in place while a rug is simply laid out on the floor. Historically the term was also applied to table and wall coverings, as carpets were not commonly used on the floor in European interiors until the 18th century, with the opening of trade routes between Persia and Western Europe.

 

TYPES

WOVEN

The carpet is produced on a loom quite similar to woven fabric. The pile can be plush or Berber. Plush carpet is a cut pile and Berber carpet is a loop pile. There are new styles of carpet combining the two styles called cut and loop carpeting. Normally many colored yarns are used and this process is capable of producing intricate patterns from predetermined designs (although some limitations apply to certain weaving methods with regard to accuracy of pattern within the carpet). These carpets are usually the most expensive due to the relatively slow speed of the manufacturing process. These are very famous in India, Pakistan and Arabia.

 

NEEDLE FELT

These carpets are more technologically advanced. Needle felts are produced by intermingling and felting individual synthetic fibers using barbed and forked needles forming an extremely durable carpet. These carpets are normally found in commercial settings such as hotels and restaurants where there is frequent traffic.

 

KNOTTED

On a knotted pile carpet (formally, a supplementary weft cut-loop pile carpet), the structural weft threads alternate with a supplementary weft that rises at right angles to the surface of the weave. This supplementary weft is attached to the warp by one of three knot types (see below), such as shag carpet which was popular in the 1970s, to form the pile or nap of the carpet. Knotting by hand is most prevalent in oriental rugs and carpets. Kashmir carpets are also hand-knotted.

 

TUFTED

These are carpets that have their pile injected into a backing material, which is itself then bonded to a secondary backing made of a woven hessian weave or a man made alternative to provide stability. The pile is often sheared in order to achieve different textures. This is the most common method of manufacturing of domestic carpets for floor covering purposes in the world.

 

OTHERS

A flatweave carpet is created by interlocking warp (vertical) and weft (horizontal) threads. Types of oriental flatwoven carpet include kilim, soumak, plain weave, and tapestry weave. Types of European flatwoven carpets include Venetian, Dutch, damask, list, haircloth, and ingrain (aka double cloth, two-ply, triple cloth, or three-ply).

 

A hooked rug is a simple type of rug handmade by pulling strips of cloth such as wool or cotton through the meshes of a sturdy fabric such as burlap. This type of rug is now generally made as a handicraft.

 

PRODUCTION OF KNOTTED PILE CARPET

Both flat and pile carpets are woven on a loom. Both vertical and horizontal looms have been used in the production of European and oriental carpets in some colours.

 

The warp threads are set up on the frame of the loom before weaving begins. A number of weavers may work together on the same carpet. A row of knots is completed and cut. The knots are secured with (usually one to four) rows of weft. The warp in woven carpet is usually cotton and the weft is jute.

 

There are several styles of knotting, but the two main types of knot are the symmetrical (also called Turkish or Ghiordes) and asymmetrical (also called Persian or Senna).

 

Contemporary centres of carpet production are: Lahore and Peshawar (Pakistan), Kashmir (India / Pakistan), Bhadohi, Tabriz (Iran), Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Northern Africa, Nepal, Spain, Turkmenistan, and Tibet.

 

The importance of carpets in the culture of Turkmenistan is such that the national flag features a vertical red stripe near the hoist side, containing five carpet guls (designs used in producing rugs).

 

Kashmir (India) is known for handknotted carpets. These are usually of silk and some woolen carpets are also woven.

 

Child labour has often been used in Asia. The GoodWeave labelling scheme used throughout Europe and North America assures that child labour has not been used: importers pay for the labels, and the revenue collected is used to monitor centres of production and educate previously exploited children.

 

HISTORY

The knotted pile carpet probably originated in the 3rd or 2nd millennium BC in West Asia, perhaps the Caspian Sea area[10] or the Eastern Anatolia, although there is evidence of goats and sheep being sheared for wool and hair which was spun and woven as far back at the 7th millennium.

 

The earliest surviving pile carpet is the "Pazyryk carpet", which dates from the 5th-4th century BC. It was excavated by Sergei Ivanovich Rudenko in 1949 from a Pazyryk burial mound in the Altai Mountains in Siberia. This richly coloured carpet is 200 x 183 cm (6'6" x 6'0") and framed by a border of griffins. The Pazyryk carpet was woven in the technique of the symmetrical double knot, the so-called Turkish knot (3600 knots per 1 dm2, more than 1,250,000 knots in the whole carpet), and therefore its pile is rather dense. The exact origin of this unique carpet is unknown. There is a version of its Iranian provenance. But perhaps it was produced in Central Asia through which the contacts of ancient Altaians with Iran and the Near East took place. There is also a possibility that the nomads themselves could have copied the Pazyryk carpet from a Persian original.

 

Although claimed by many cultures, this square tufted carpet, almost perfectly intact, is considered by many experts to be of Caucasian, specifically Armenian, origin. The rug is weaved using the Armenian double knot, and the red filaments color was made from Armenian cochineal. The eminent authority of ancient carpets, Ulrich Schurmann, says of it, "From all the evidence available I am convinced that the Pazyryk rug was a funeral accessory and most likely a masterpiece of Armenian workmanship". Gantzhorn concurs with this thesis. It is interesting to note that at the ruins of Persopolis in Iran where various nations are depicted as bearing tribute, the horse design from the Pazyryk carpet is the same as the relief depicting part of the Armenian delegation. The historian Herodotus writing in the 5th century BC also informs us that the inhabitants of the Caucasus wove beautiful rugs with brilliant colors which would never fade.

 

INDIAN CARPETS

Carpet weaving may have been introduced into the area as far back as the eleventh century with the coming of the first Muslim conquerors, the Ghaznavids and the Ghauris, from the West. It can with more certainty be traced to the beginning of the Mughal Dynasty in the early sixteenth century, when the last successor of Timur, Babar, extended his rule from Kabul to India to found the Mughal Empire. Under the patronage of the Mughals, Indian craftsmen adopted Persian techniques and designs. Carpets woven in the Punjab made use of motifs and decorative styles found in Mughal architecture.

 

Akbar, a Mogul emperor, is accredited to introducing the art of carpet weaving to India during his reign. The Mughal emperors patronized Persian carpets for their royal courts and palaces. During this period, he brought Persian craftsmen from their homeland and established them in India. Initially, the carpets woven showed the classic Persian style of fine knotting. Gradually it blended with Indian art. Thus the carpets produced became typical of the Indian origin and gradually the industry began to diversify and spread all over the subcontinent.

 

During the Mughal period, the carpets made on the Indian subcontinent became so famous that demand for them spread abroad. These carpets had distinctive designs and boasted a high density of knots. Carpets made for the Mughal emperors, including Jahangir and Shah Jahan, were of the finest quality. Under Shah Jahan's reign, Mughal carpet weaving took on a new aesthetic and entered its classical phase.

 

The Indian carpets are well known for their designs with attention to detail and presentation of realistic attributes. The carpet industry in India flourished more in its northern part with major centres found in Kashmir, Jaipur, Agra and Bhadohi.

 

Indian carpets are known for their high density of knotting. Hand-knotted carpets are a speciality and widely in demand in the West. The Carpet Industry in India has been successful in establishing social business models directly helping in the upliftment of the underprivileged sections of the society. Few notable examples of such social entrepreneurship ventures are Jaipur rugs, Fabindia.

 

Another category of Indian rugs which, though quite popular in most of the western countries, have not received much press is hand-woven rugs of Khairabad (Citapore rugs).[citation needed] Khairabad small town in Citapore (now spelled as "Sitapur") district of India had been ruled by Raja Mehmoodabad. Khairabad (Mehmoodabad Estate) was part of Oudh province which had been ruled by shi'i Muslims having Persian linkages. Citapore rugs made in Khairabad and neighbouring areas are all hand-woven and distinct from tufted and knotted rugs. Flat weave is the basic weaving technique of Citapore rugs and generally cotton is the main weaving material here but jute, rayon and chenille are also popular. Ikea and Agocha have been major buyers of rugs from this area.

 

TIBETAN RUG

Tibetan rug making is an ancient, traditional craft. Tibetan rugs are traditionally made from Tibetan highland sheep's wool, called changpel. Tibetans use rugs for many purposes ranging from flooring to wall hanging to horse saddles, though the most common use is as a seating carpet. A typical sleeping carpet measuring around 3ftx5ft (0.9m x 1.6m) is called a khaden.

 

The knotting method used in Tibetan rug making is different from that used in other rug making traditions worldwide. Some aspects of the rug making have been supplanted by cheaper machines in recent times, especially yarn spinning and trimming of the pile after weaving. However, some carpets are still made by hand. The Tibetan diaspora in India and Nepal have established a thriving business in rug making. In Nepal the rug business is one of the largest industries in the country and there are many rug exporters. Tibet also has weaving workshops, but the export side of the industry is relatively undeveloped compared with Nepal and India.

 

HISTORY

The carpet-making industry in Tibet stretches back hundreds if not thousands of years, yet as a lowly craft, it was not mentioned in early writings, aside from occasional references to the rugs owned by prominent religious figures. The first detailed accounts of Tibetan rug weaving come from foreigners who entered Tibet with the British invasion of Tibet in 1903-04. Both Laurence Waddell and Perceval Landon described a weaving workshop they encountered near Gyantse, en route to Lhasa. Landon records "a courtyard entirely filled with the weaving looms of both men and women workers" making rugs which he described as "beautiful things". The workshop was owned and run by one of the local aristocratic families, which was the norm in premodern Tibet. Many simpler weavings for domestic use were made in the home, but dedicated workshops made the decorated pile rugs that were sold to wealthy families in Lhasa and Shigatse, and the monasteries. The monastic institutions housed thousands of monks, who sat on long, low platforms during religious ceremonies, that were nearly always covered in hand-woven carpets for comfort. Wealthier monasteries replaced these carpets regularly, providing income, or taking gifts in lieu of taxation, from hundreds or thousands of weavers.

 

From its heyday in the 19th and early 20th century, the Tibetan carpet industry fell into serious decline in the second half of the 20th. Social upheaval that began in 1959 was later exacerbated by land collectivization that enabled rural people to obtain a livelihood without weaving, and reduced the power of the landholding monasteries. Many of the aristocratic families who formerly organized the weaving fled to India and Nepal during this period, along with their money and management expertise.

 

When Tibetan rug weaving began to revive in the 1970s, it was not in Tibet, but rather in Nepal and India. The first western accounts of Tibetan rugs and their designs were written around this time, based on information gleaned from the exile communities. Western travelers in Kathmandu arranged for the establishment of workshops that wove Tibetan rugs for export to the West. Weaving in the Nepal and India carpet workshops was eventually dominated by local non-Tibetan workers, who replaced the original Tibetan émigré weavers. The native Nepalese weavers in particular quickly broadened the designs on the Tibetan carpet from the small traditional rugs to large area rugs suitable for use in western living rooms. This began a carpet industry that is important to the Nepalese economy even to this day, even though its reputation was eventually tarnished by child labor scandals during the 1990s.

 

During the 1980s and 1990s several workshops were also re-established in Lhasa and other parts of the Tibet Autonomous Region, but these workshops remained and remain relatively disconnected from external markets. Today, most carpets woven in Lhasa factories are destined for the tourist market or for use as gifts to visiting Chinese delegations and government departments. Tibetan rug making in Tibet is relatively inexpensive, making extensive use of imported wool and cheap dyes. Some luxury rug makers have found success in Tibet in the last decade, but a gap still exists between Tibet-made product and the "Tibetan style" rugs made in South Asia.

 

WIKIPEDIA

...Or *eye*, to be precise....

 

Karolina, This Expatriate Chicagoan took VERY special and intense notice of when we were in conversation....

 

I noticed when we talked...whilst she was listening to the other folk making conversation....her eyes would blink in the normal manner.

 

Eventually, her right eye would blink considerably earlier than her left..

 

And then....her right eye would blink...*whilst her left eye remained open!*.....for **several minutes!!**

 

Without my asking, she did later explain how, when she was horseback riding...at about the age of eleven...she took a spill, and fell on her head.

 

Apart from shock, the actual damage was minimal....or so everyone thought..

 

And it was soon discovered...albeit both of here eyes *do* see and otherwise function normally...the blinking went haywire..and remains so to this day..

 

She has no problem or issues with it...and, well, neither does This Expatriate Chicagoan.

 

I found myself VERY captivated when I was in conversation with her..

 

Apparently, the people who signed her up to do adverts for Cutie Sweety Gurl Mascara did, too

 

Reykjavik, Iceland (August 2015)

Field Trip - Roughdown Common - 13/06/17

 

I had an eventful trip to Roughdown Common whereby we planned to run as many traps as possible, conditions were absolutely perfect, warm and humid with some cloud cover.

We started the evening setting the first trap up in the field where there were three Cattle, Belted Galloways to be precise.

They greeted us and then seemed to leave us alone for a bit after cleaning the cars with their tongues and having a good old itch on Steve's rear bumper.

We left the field to set up a few more traps and then returned back to the car for more equipment, to our agony the trap had been thoroughly inspected by the cattle and there was slobber all over the trap and they did a mighty fine job of smashing the bulb but it could have been A LOT worse as the fragile plastic collar (the second most important part of the trap after the bulb) was still intact! How on earth it escaped being trodden on I do not know.

Luckily Ian said he would nip back home and grab his spare bulb and we moved the trap through the gate and shut the gate....but they had done their 'investigating' and moved off for the rest of the night down the bottom of the field.

 

After setting all the traps were set up, the battery operated one was low on juice..another minor set-back as we would only get possibly 2 hours life out of the tracer lithium ion battery.

 

Things come in three's and of course nothing could be worse than a generator stopping, yep that's what happened...trying to get it started again flooded the spark plug and luckily I could use the spare that I had brought with me.

 

Onto the moths and boy were we in for a night! The species just kept coming and coming and at one stage I couldn't keep typing the list.

 

There are a few to check but best species so far were singles of Obscure Wainscot, Anania perlucidalis, Anarsia innoxiella and two good plume species (one to be checked) Merrifieldia leucodactyla/baliodactylus and Gillmeria pallidactyla.

 

Thanks to Roger, Steve and Ian for helping out until the small hours, another successful trip with at least 160 species seen!

 

Catch Report - 13/06/17 - Roughdown Common - West Herts - 7 traps in total - 2x 125w MV Robinson Trap 1x 160w MBT Robinson Trap 1x 40w Actinic + 15w LED Trap 1x 80w Actinic Trap 2x 20w Wemlite Actinic Trap 1x 15w Actinic Portable Heath Trap

 

85 Macros & 75 Micros

 

160 species

 

Numbers approximate

 

Macro Moths

 

Alder Moth 2

Beautiful Hook-tip 6

Blue bordered Carpet 1

Brimstone 4

Broken-barred Carpet 2

Brown Rustic 5

Brown Scallop 2

Buff Ermine 1

Buff-tip 1

Cinnabar 1

Clay 1

Clouded Border 4

Clouded Brindle 1

Clouded Silver 8

Common Carpet 2

Common Marbled Carpet 4

Common Pug 1

Common Swift 3

Common White Wave 2

Coronet 12

Dark Arches 4

Double Square-spot 2

Double-striped Pug 1

Elephant Hawk-moth 2

Fern 3

Figure of Eighty 2

Flame 3

Flame Shoulder 2

Freyer's Pug 1

Garden Carpet 1

Ghost Moth 1

Green Carpet 5

Green Pug 5

Green Silver-lines 1

Grey Pug 5

Haworth's Pug 1

Heart & Club 1

Heart & Dart 10+

Ingrailed Clay 10

July Highflyer 1

Knot Grass 1

Large Nutmeg 4

Large Yellow Underwing 2

Lesser Yellow Underwing 1

Light Arches 1

Light Emerald 5

Lime-speck Pug 2

Maiden's Blush 1

Maple Prominent 2

Marbled White-spot 3

Middle-barred Minor 3

Miller 1

Mottled Beauty 5

Mottled Pug 1

Mottled Rustic 5

Obscure Wainscot 1

Orange Footman 1

Pale Prominent 1

Peppered Moth 2

Poplar Grey 1

Privet Hawk-moth 1

Purple Bar 2

Riband Wave 2

Rustic Shoulder-knot 2

Scorched Wing 2

Setaceous Hebrew Character 2

Shoulder-striped Wainscot 1

Shuttle-shaped Dart 2

Silver-ground Carpet 2

Small Angle Shades 1

Small Dusty Wave 1

Small Elephant Hawk-moth 1

Small Fan-foot 2

small Square-spot 1

Small Yellow Wave 1

Snout 2

Straw Dot 10

Swallow Prominent 1

Sycamore 2

Tawny Marbled Minor 2

Treble Lines 3

Turnip Moth 1

Uncertain 3

White Pinion-spotted 1

Wormwood Pug 1

 

Micro Moths

 

Agapeta hamana 4

Agapeta zoegana 10

Agonopterix arenella 2

Agonopterix purpurea 1

Aleimma loeflingiana 10

Anania hortulata 3

Anania perlucidalis 1

Anarsia innoxiella 1

Anthophila fabriciana 1

Aphomia sociella 1

Archips podana 2

Archips xylosteana 3

Argyresthia conjugella 2

Argyresthia curvella 2

Blastobasis lacticolella 3

Blastodacna hellerella 1

Bryotropha terrella 5

Caloptilia populetorum 1

Caloptilia robustella alchimiella 2

Caloptilia syringella 1

Celypha lacunana 15

Celypha striana 5

Chrysoteuchia culmella 5

Clepsis consimilana 5

Cnephasia sp 10

Cochylimorpha straminea 5

Cochylis dubitana 2

Cochylis molliculana 1

Crambus lathoniellus 5

Cydia fagiglandana 2

Dichrorampha sp 4

Ditula angustiorana 2

Emmetia marginea 1

Endothenia gentianaeana marginea 2

Epinotia bilunana 2

Epiphyas postvittana 1

Eucosma cana 10

Eudonia lacustrata 5

Eudonia pallida 3

Eulamprotes unicolorella 5

Eupoecilia angustana 15

Gillmeria pallidactyla 1

Grapholita funebrana 1

Gypsonoma sociana 1

Hedya nubiferana 5

Hedya pruniana 5

Homoeosoma sinuella 2

Merrifieldia leucodactyla or baliodactylus 1

Metzneria metzneriella 10+

Mompha ochraceella 1

Mompha subbistrigella 3

Nemophora degeerella 1

Nephopterix angustana 2

Notocelia trimaculana 15+

Notocelia uddmanniana 2

Pammene albuginana 1

Pandemis cerasana 10+

Pandemis cinnamomeana 1

Pandemis heparana 5

Paraswammerdamia albicapitella 1

Parornix sp 1

Phycita roborella 1

Prays fraxinella 2

Pseudargyrotoza conwagana 10+

Pseudoswammerdamia combinella 1

Scoparia ambigualis 5

Scoparia pyralella 10+

Scythropia crataegella 1

Stigmella sp 1

Strophedra weirana 1

Teleiodes luculella 5

Thiotricha subocellea 3

Tinea semifulvella 1

Tortrix viridana 10+

Udea olivalis 3

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Public Domain Book: The history of magic : including a clear and precise exposition of its procedure, its rites and its mysteries

by Lévi, Eliphas, 1810-1875

 

Published 1922

 

archive.org/details/historyofmagicin00lv

 

6979: We don't have a precise date for this image, but on June 8, 1929, around this time, HMAS ANZAC [I] and her squadron put to sea off Sydney and stood by as pioneer aviator Charles Kingsford Smith completed his epic first flight across the Pacific.

 

At different times during her RAN career, ANZAC [I] was commanded by twin brothers, LCDR Reginald Creer, RAN, and LCDR Herbert Creer, RAN. LCDR E.C. Rhodes, RAN, was also her CO for a time.

 

Photo: RAN Archives, it appears on the RAN Seapower Centres history webpage for HMAS ANZAC [I]. The page can be seen here: www.navy.gov.au/hmas-anzac-i

Drosera anglica Huds., syn.: Drosea longifolia L.

EN: English Sundew, Great Sundew, DE: Langblatt-Sonnentau

Slo.: dolgolistna rosika

 

Dat.: June 10. 2008

Lat.: 45.90000 Long.: 14.10000 (coordinates not precise)

Code: Bot_270/2008_DSC8994

 

Habitat: nutrients poor wetland, small marshland next to a local road; flat terrain; mostly sunny; elevation 570 m (1.870 feet); average precipitations 1.800-2.000 mm/year, average temperature 8-9 deg C, borderline between Dinaric and prealpine phytogeographical region.

 

Substratum: wet soil.

 

Place: Žejna dolina valley, next to the local road from village Hotedršica toward the settlement Medvedje Brdo, (about 2 km north from the village Hotedršica), Notranska, Slovenia EC.

 

Comment: Genus sundew (Drosera) is large. It encompasses (depending on source) from 150 to more than 200 species. It can be found on all continents except Antarctica. But, only three species (hybrids excluded) are native to Europe as well as toSlovenia.

 

Drosera anglica is widely distributed insectivorous plant (see Ref.: 8) and circumpolar boreal-montane element. The plant gets a part of nutrients needed from captured insects. Therefore, it is able to occupy relatively infertile habitats with very little nutrients and minerals available. Plants catch mostly small insects.

 

Their leaf surface is covered with special hairs, each one topped with a red oval gland surrounded by a droplet of viscous liquid that sparkles from far like morning dew. These glands have three functions. They secrete droplets of the 'liquid glue' that catch and hold the insects, produce the enzymes needed to digest them, and absorb the nutrients released when insects decompose. As the insects struggles to free themselves they activate folding up of the leaves around them and neighboring hairs ensnare them even more securely. Once digestion is completed and the glandular hairs absorb the nutrients, they resume their initial positions waiting on new catch.

Drosera anglica is a relatively rare species in Slovenia, significantly rarer than common sundew (Drosera rotundifolia). It is considered endangered. Taking into account its very broad distribution, IUCN-Red list considers it 'near threatened' (NT) species (Ref.: 9). Suitable habitats are disappearing apparently unstoppably. To worsen the situation, the species is highly intolerant to nitrogen (Ref.: 7), which makes many of the remaining wetlands unsuitable for settlement because of increasing artificial fertilization of land.

 

Protected according to: Uredba o zavarovanih prostoživečih rastlinskih vrstah, poglavje A, Uradni list RS, št. 46/2004 (Regulation of protected wild plants, chapter A, Official Gazette of Republic Slovenia, no. 46/2004), (2004).

 

Pravilnik o uvrstitvi ogroženih rastlinskih in živalskih vrst v rdeči seznam, Uradni list RS, št. 82/2002 (Regulation of enlisting of endangered plant and animal species onto Red List, Official Gazette of Republic Slovenia, no. 82/2002) (2002). Enlisted in the Slovene Red List of rare and endangered species, marked by "V" representing a vulnerable species.

 

Ref.:

(1) Personal communication with Mr. Branko Dolinar, www.orhideje.si

(2) M.A. Fischer, W. Adler, K. Oswald, Exkursionsflora für Österreich, Liechtenstein und Südtirol, LO Landesmuseen, Linz, Austria (2005), p 385.

(3) A. Martinči et all., Mala Flora Slovenije (Flora of Slovenia - Key) (in Slovenian), Tehnična Založba Slovenije (2007), p 242.

(4) gobotany.newenglandwild.org/species/drosera/anglica/ (accessed Oct. 28. 2018)

(5) www.honda-e.com/A02_World%20Maps/WorldMap_Drosera.htm (accessed Oct. 27. 2018)

(6) www.labunix.uqam.ca/~fg/MyFlora/Carnivorous/Droseraceae/d... (accessed Oct.27. 2018)

(7) www.brc.ac.uk/plantatlas/plant/drosera-anglica (accessed Oct. 28. 2018)

(8) www.youtube.com/watch?v=gM5sYPstXSQ (accessed Oct.27. 2018)

(9) www.iucnredlist.org/search?query=drosera%20anglica&se... (accessed Oct. 28. 2018)

ift.tt/1L3zQ9V

A loom is a device used to weave cloth and tapestry. The basic purpose of any loom is to hold the warp threads under tension to facilitate the interweaving of the weft threads. The precise shape of the loom and its mechanics may vary, but the basic function is the same.

 

ETYMOLOGY

The word "loom" is derived from the Old English "geloma" formed from ge-(perfective prefix) and loma, a root of unknown origin; this meant utensil or tool or machine of any kind. In 1404 it was used to mean a machine to enable weaving thread into cloth. By 1838 it had gained the meaning of a machine for interlacing thread.

 

WEAVING

Weaving is done by intersecting the longitudinal threads, the warp, i.e. "that which is thrown across", with the transverse threads, the weft, i.e. "that which is woven".

 

The major components of the loom are the warp beam, heddles, harnesses or shafts (as few as two, four is common, sixteen not unheard of), shuttle, reed and takeup roll. In the loom, yarn processing includes shedding, picking, battening and taking-up operations.

 

THESE ARE THE PRINCIPAL MOTIONS

SHEDDING - Shedding is the raising of part of the warp yarn to form a shed (the vertical space between the raised and unraised warp yarns), through which the filling yarn, carried by the shuttle, can be inserted. On the modern loom, simple and intricate shedding operations are performed automatically by the heddle or heald frame, also known as a harness. This is a rectangular frame to which a series of wires, called heddles or healds, are attached. The yarns are passed through the eye holes of the heddles, which hang vertically from the harnesses. The weave pattern determines which harness controls which warp yarns, and the number of harnesses used depends on the complexity of the weave. Two common methods of controlling the heddles are dobbies and a Jacquard Head.

 

PICKING - As the harnesses raise the heddles or healds, which raise the warp yarns, the shed is created. The filling yarn is inserted through the shed by a small carrier device called a shuttle. The shuttle is normally pointed at each end to allow passage through the shed. In a traditional shuttle loom, the filling yarn is wound onto a quill, which in turn is mounted in the shuttle. The filling yarn emerges through a hole in the shuttle as it moves across the loom. A single crossing of the shuttle from one side of the loom to the other is known as a pick. As the shuttle moves back and forth across the shed, it weaves an edge, or selvage, on each side of the fabric to prevent the fabric from raveling.

 

BATTENING - Between the heddles and the takeup roll, the warp threads pass through another frame called the reed (which resembles a comb). The portion of the fabric that has already been formed but not yet rolled up on the takeup roll is called the fell. After the shuttle moves across the loom laying down the fill yarn, the weaver uses the reed to press (or batten) each filling yarn against the fell. Conventional shuttle looms can operate at speeds of about 150 to 160 picks per minute.

 

There are two secondary motions, because with each weaving operation the newly constructed fabric must be wound on a cloth beam. This process is called taking up. At the same time, the warp yarns must be let off or released from the warp beams. To become fully automatic, a loom needs a tertiary motion, the filling stop motion. This will brake the loom, if the weft thread breaks. An automatic loom requires 0.125 hp to 0.5 hp to operate.

 

TYPES OF LOOMS

BACK STRAP LOOM

A simple loom which has its roots in ancient civilizations consists of two sticks or bars between which the warps are stretched. One bar is attached to a fixed object, and the other to the weaver usually by means of a strap around the back. On traditional looms, the two main sheds are operated by means of a shed roll over which one set of warps pass, and continuous string heddles which encase each of the warps in the other set. The weaver leans back and uses his or her body weight to tension the loom. To open the shed controlled by the string heddles, the weaver relaxes tension on the warps and raises the heddles. The other shed is usually opened by simply drawing the shed roll toward the weaver. Both simple and complex textiles can be woven on this loom. Width is limited to how far the weaver can reach from side to side to pass the shuttle. Warp faced textiles, often decorated with intricate pick-up patterns woven in complementary and supplementary warp techniques are woven by indigenous peoples today around the world. They produce such things as belts, ponchos, bags, hatbands and carrying cloths. Supplementary weft patterning and brocading is practiced in many regions. Balanced weaves are also possible on the backstrap loom. Today, commercially produced backstrap loom kits often include a rigid heddle.

 

WARP-WEIGHTED LOOMS

The warp-weighted loom is a vertical loom that may have originated in the Neolithic period. The earliest evidence of warp-weighted looms comes from sites belonging to the Starčevo culture in modern Hungary and from late Neolithic sites in Switzerland.[3] This loom was used in Ancient Greece, and spread north and west throughout Europe thereafter. Its defining characteristic is hanging weights (loom weights) which keep bundles of the warp threads taut. Frequently, extra warp thread is wound around the weights. When a weaver has reached the bottom of the available warp, the completed section can be rolled around the top beam, and additional lengths of warp threads can be unwound from the weights to continue. This frees the weaver from vertical size constraints.

 

DRAWLOOM

A drawloom is a hand-loom for weaving figured cloth. In a drawloom, a "figure harness" is used to control each warp thread separately. A drawloom requires two operators, the weaver and an assistant called a "drawboy" to manage the figure harness.

 

HANDLOOMS

A handloom is a simple machine used for weaving. In a wooden vertical-shaft looms, the heddles are fixed in place in the shaft. The warp threads pass alternately through a heddle, and through a space between the heddles (the shed), so that raising the shaft raises half the threads (those passing through the heddles), and lowering the shaft lowers the same threads - the threads passing through the spaces between the heddles remain in place.

 

FLYING SHUTTLE

Hand weavers could only weave a cloth as wide as their armspan. If cloth needed to be wider, two people would do the task (often this would be an adult with a child). John Kay (1704–1779) patented the flying shuttle in 1733. The weaver held a picking stick that was attached by cords to a device at both ends of the shed. With a flick of the wrist, one cord was pulled and the shuttle was propelled through the shed to the other end with considerable force, speed and efficiency. A flick in the opposite direction and the shuttle was propelled back. A single weaver had control of this motion but the flying shuttle could weave much wider fabric than an arm’s length at much greater speeds than had been achieved with the hand thrown shuttle. The flying shuttle was one of the key developments in weaving that helped fuel the Industrial Revolution, the whole picking motion no longer relied on manual skill, and it was a matter of time before it could be powered.

 

HAUTE-LISSE AND BASSE-LISSE LOOMS

Looms used for weaving traditional tapestry are classified as haute-lisse looms, where the warp is suspended vertically between two rolls, and the basse-lisse looms, where the warp extends horizontally between the rolls.

______________________________

 

A carpet is a textile floor covering consisting of an upper layer of pile attached to a backing. The pile is generally either made from wool or fibers such as polypropylene, nylon or polyester and usually consists of twisted tufts which are often heat-treated to maintain their structure. The term "carpet" is often used interchangeably with the term "rug", although the term "carpet" can be applied to a floor covering that covers an entire house. Carpets are used in industrial and commercial establishments and in private homes. Carpets are used for a variety of purposes, including insulating a person's feet from a cold tile or concrete floor, making a room more comfortable as a place to sit on the floor (e.g., when playing with children) and adding decoration or colour to a room.

 

Carpets can be produced on a loom quite similar to woven fabric, made using needle felts, knotted by hand (in oriental rugs), made with their pile injected into a backing material (called tufting), flatwoven, made by hooking wool or cotton through the meshes of a sturdy fabric or embroidered. Carpet is commonly made in widths of 12 feet (3.7 m) and 15 feet (4.6 m) in the USA, 4 m and 5 m in Europe. Where necessary different widths can be seamed together with a seaming iron and seam tape (formerly it was sewn together) and it is fixed to a floor over a cushioned underlay (pad) using nails, tack strips (known in the UK as gripper rods), adhesives, or occasionally decorative metal stair rods, thus distinguishing it from rugs or mats, which are loose-laid floor coverings.

 

ETYMOLOGY AND USAGE

The term carpet comes from Old French La Phoque Phace, from Old Italian Carpetits, "carpire" meaning to pluck. The term "carpet" is often used interchangeably with the term "rug". Some define a carpet as stretching from wall to wall. Another definition treats rugs as of lower quality or of smaller size, with carpets quite often having finished ends. A third common definition is that a carpet is permanently fixed in place while a rug is simply laid out on the floor. Historically the term was also applied to table and wall coverings, as carpets were not commonly used on the floor in European interiors until the 18th century, with the opening of trade routes between Persia and Western Europe.

 

TYPES

WOVEN

The carpet is produced on a loom quite similar to woven fabric. The pile can be plush or Berber. Plush carpet is a cut pile and Berber carpet is a loop pile. There are new styles of carpet combining the two styles called cut and loop carpeting. Normally many colored yarns are used and this process is capable of producing intricate patterns from predetermined designs (although some limitations apply to certain weaving methods with regard to accuracy of pattern within the carpet). These carpets are usually the most expensive due to the relatively slow speed of the manufacturing process. These are very famous in India, Pakistan and Arabia.

 

NEEDLE FELT

These carpets are more technologically advanced. Needle felts are produced by intermingling and felting individual synthetic fibers using barbed and forked needles forming an extremely durable carpet. These carpets are normally found in commercial settings such as hotels and restaurants where there is frequent traffic.

 

KNOTTED

On a knotted pile carpet (formally, a supplementary weft cut-loop pile carpet), the structural weft threads alternate with a supplementary weft that rises at right angles to the surface of the weave. This supplementary weft is attached to the warp by one of three knot types (see below), such as shag carpet which was popular in the 1970s, to form the pile or nap of the carpet. Knotting by hand is most prevalent in oriental rugs and carpets. Kashmir carpets are also hand-knotted.

 

TUFTED

These are carpets that have their pile injected into a backing material, which is itself then bonded to a secondary backing made of a woven hessian weave or a man made alternative to provide stability. The pile is often sheared in order to achieve different textures. This is the most common method of manufacturing of domestic carpets for floor covering purposes in the world.

 

OTHERS

A flatweave carpet is created by interlocking warp (vertical) and weft (horizontal) threads. Types of oriental flatwoven carpet include kilim, soumak, plain weave, and tapestry weave. Types of European flatwoven carpets include Venetian, Dutch, damask, list, haircloth, and ingrain (aka double cloth, two-ply, triple cloth, or three-ply).

 

A hooked rug is a simple type of rug handmade by pulling strips of cloth such as wool or cotton through the meshes of a sturdy fabric such as burlap. This type of rug is now generally made as a handicraft.

 

PRODUCTION OF KNOTTED PILE CARPET

Both flat and pile carpets are woven on a loom. Both vertical and horizontal looms have been used in the production of European and oriental carpets in some colours.

 

The warp threads are set up on the frame of the loom before weaving begins. A number of weavers may work together on the same carpet. A row of knots is completed and cut. The knots are secured with (usually one to four) rows of weft. The warp in woven carpet is usually cotton and the weft is jute.

 

There are several styles of knotting, but the two main types of knot are the symmetrical (also called Turkish or Ghiordes) and asymmetrical (also called Persian or Senna).

 

Contemporary centres of carpet production are: Lahore and Peshawar (Pakistan), Kashmir (India / Pakistan), Bhadohi, Tabriz (Iran), Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Northern Africa, Nepal, Spain, Turkmenistan, and Tibet.

 

The importance of carpets in the culture of Turkmenistan is such that the national flag features a vertical red stripe near the hoist side, containing five carpet guls (designs used in producing rugs).

 

Kashmir (India) is known for handknotted carpets. These are usually of silk and some woolen carpets are also woven.

 

Child labour has often been used in Asia. The GoodWeave labelling scheme used throughout Europe and North America assures that child labour has not been used: importers pay for the labels, and the revenue collected is used to monitor centres of production and educate previously exploited children.

 

HISTORY

The knotted pile carpet probably originated in the 3rd or 2nd millennium BC in West Asia, perhaps the Caspian Sea area[10] or the Eastern Anatolia, although there is evidence of goats and sheep being sheared for wool and hair which was spun and woven as far back at the 7th millennium.

 

The earliest surviving pile carpet is the "Pazyryk carpet", which dates from the 5th-4th century BC. It was excavated by Sergei Ivanovich Rudenko in 1949 from a Pazyryk burial mound in the Altai Mountains in Siberia. This richly coloured carpet is 200 x 183 cm (6'6" x 6'0") and framed by a border of griffins. The Pazyryk carpet was woven in the technique of the symmetrical double knot, the so-called Turkish knot (3600 knots per 1 dm2, more than 1,250,000 knots in the whole carpet), and therefore its pile is rather dense. The exact origin of this unique carpet is unknown. There is a version of its Iranian provenance. But perhaps it was produced in Central Asia through which the contacts of ancient Altaians with Iran and the Near East took place. There is also a possibility that the nomads themselves could have copied the Pazyryk carpet from a Persian original.

 

Although claimed by many cultures, this square tufted carpet, almost perfectly intact, is considered by many experts to be of Caucasian, specifically Armenian, origin. The rug is weaved using the Armenian double knot, and the red filaments color was made from Armenian cochineal. The eminent authority of ancient carpets, Ulrich Schurmann, says of it, "From all the evidence available I am convinced that the Pazyryk rug was a funeral accessory and most likely a masterpiece of Armenian workmanship". Gantzhorn concurs with this thesis. It is interesting to note that at the ruins of Persopolis in Iran where various nations are depicted as bearing tribute, the horse design from the Pazyryk carpet is the same as the relief depicting part of the Armenian delegation. The historian Herodotus writing in the 5th century BC also informs us that the inhabitants of the Caucasus wove beautiful rugs with brilliant colors which would never fade.

 

INDIAN CARPETS

Carpet weaving may have been introduced into the area as far back as the eleventh century with the coming of the first Muslim conquerors, the Ghaznavids and the Ghauris, from the West. It can with more certainty be traced to the beginning of the Mughal Dynasty in the early sixteenth century, when the last successor of Timur, Babar, extended his rule from Kabul to India to found the Mughal Empire. Under the patronage of the Mughals, Indian craftsmen adopted Persian techniques and designs. Carpets woven in the Punjab made use of motifs and decorative styles found in Mughal architecture.

 

Akbar, a Mogul emperor, is accredited to introducing the art of carpet weaving to India during his reign. The Mughal emperors patronized Persian carpets for their royal courts and palaces. During this period, he brought Persian craftsmen from their homeland and established them in India. Initially, the carpets woven showed the classic Persian style of fine knotting. Gradually it blended with Indian art. Thus the carpets produced became typical of the Indian origin and gradually the industry began to diversify and spread all over the subcontinent.

 

During the Mughal period, the carpets made on the Indian subcontinent became so famous that demand for them spread abroad. These carpets had distinctive designs and boasted a high density of knots. Carpets made for the Mughal emperors, including Jahangir and Shah Jahan, were of the finest quality. Under Shah Jahan's reign, Mughal carpet weaving took on a new aesthetic and entered its classical phase.

 

The Indian carpets are well known for their designs with attention to detail and presentation of realistic attributes. The carpet industry in India flourished more in its northern part with major centres found in Kashmir, Jaipur, Agra and Bhadohi.

 

Indian carpets are known for their high density of knotting. Hand-knotted carpets are a speciality and widely in demand in the West. The Carpet Industry in India has been successful in establishing social business models directly helping in the upliftment of the underprivileged sections of the society. Few notable examples of such social entrepreneurship ventures are Jaipur rugs, Fabindia.

 

Another category of Indian rugs which, though quite popular in most of the western countries, have not received much press is hand-woven rugs of Khairabad (Citapore rugs).[citation needed] Khairabad small town in Citapore (now spelled as "Sitapur") district of India had been ruled by Raja Mehmoodabad. Khairabad (Mehmoodabad Estate) was part of Oudh province which had been ruled by shi'i Muslims having Persian linkages. Citapore rugs made in Khairabad and neighbouring areas are all hand-woven and distinct from tufted and knotted rugs. Flat weave is the basic weaving technique of Citapore rugs and generally cotton is the main weaving material here but jute, rayon and chenille are also popular. Ikea and Agocha have been major buyers of rugs from this area.

 

TIBETAN RUG

Tibetan rug making is an ancient, traditional craft. Tibetan rugs are traditionally made from Tibetan highland sheep's wool, called changpel. Tibetans use rugs for many purposes ranging from flooring to wall hanging to horse saddles, though the most common use is as a seating carpet. A typical sleeping carpet measuring around 3ftx5ft (0.9m x 1.6m) is called a khaden.

 

The knotting method used in Tibetan rug making is different from that used in other rug making traditions worldwide. Some aspects of the rug making have been supplanted by cheaper machines in recent times, especially yarn spinning and trimming of the pile after weaving. However, some carpets are still made by hand. The Tibetan diaspora in India and Nepal have established a thriving business in rug making. In Nepal the rug business is one of the largest industries in the country and there are many rug exporters. Tibet also has weaving workshops, but the export side of the industry is relatively undeveloped compared with Nepal and India.

 

HISTORY

The carpet-making industry in Tibet stretches back hundreds if not thousands of years, yet as a lowly craft, it was not mentioned in early writings, aside from occasional references to the rugs owned by prominent religious figures. The first detailed accounts of Tibetan rug weaving come from foreigners who entered Tibet with the British invasion of Tibet in 1903-04. Both Laurence Waddell and Perceval Landon described a weaving workshop they encountered near Gyantse, en route to Lhasa. Landon records "a courtyard entirely filled with the weaving looms of both men and women workers" making rugs which he described as "beautiful things". The workshop was owned and run by one of the local aristocratic families, which was the norm in premodern Tibet. Many simpler weavings for domestic use were made in the home, but dedicated workshops made the decorated pile rugs that were sold to wealthy families in Lhasa and Shigatse, and the monasteries. The monastic institutions housed thousands of monks, who sat on long, low platforms during religious ceremonies, that were nearly always covered in hand-woven carpets for comfort. Wealthier monasteries replaced these carpets regularly, providing income, or taking gifts in lieu of taxation, from hundreds or thousands of weavers.

 

From its heyday in the 19th and early 20th century, the Tibetan carpet industry fell into serious decline in the second half of the 20th. Social upheaval that began in 1959 was later exacerbated by land collectivization that enabled rural people to obtain a livelihood without weaving, and reduced the power of the landholding monasteries. Many of the aristocratic families who formerly organized the weaving fled to India and Nepal during this period, along with their money and management expertise.

 

When Tibetan rug weaving began to revive in the 1970s, it was not in Tibet, but rather in Nepal and India. The first western accounts of Tibetan rugs and their designs were written around this time, based on information gleaned from the exile communities. Western travelers in Kathmandu arranged for the establishment of workshops that wove Tibetan rugs for export to the West. Weaving in the Nepal and India carpet workshops was eventually dominated by local non-Tibetan workers, who replaced the original Tibetan émigré weavers. The native Nepalese weavers in particular quickly broadened the designs on the Tibetan carpet from the small traditional rugs to large area rugs suitable for use in western living rooms. This began a carpet industry that is important to the Nepalese economy even to this day, even though its reputation was eventually tarnished by child labor scandals during the 1990s.

 

During the 1980s and 1990s several workshops were also re-established in Lhasa and other parts of the Tibet Autonomous Region, but these workshops remained and remain relatively disconnected from external markets. Today, most carpets woven in Lhasa factories are destined for the tourist market or for use as gifts to visiting Chinese delegations and government departments. Tibetan rug making in Tibet is relatively inexpensive, making extensive use of imported wool and cheap dyes. Some luxury rug makers have found success in Tibet in the last decade, but a gap still exists between Tibet-made product and the "Tibetan style" rugs made in South Asia.

 

WIKIPEDIA

His precise aim is unparalleled in all the U.S. Hired by the Special Operations group of the N.U.S.A. (New United States Army), he uses such old tactics that he baffles his enemies. You see, all old strategies were forgotten during the nuclear fallout, and now, 79 years later, they're having to re-invent all tactics. Special Sergeant McGill kept all books on strategy he could find, and hid them in his bunker. It paid off.

 

----------------------------------------------

 

Inspired by Peppersalt.

 

Sorry about the quality of the photo, it was taken late at night.

 

-IronBricks

Pilot Precise V7

Drosera anglica Huds., syn.: Drosea longifolia L.

EN: English Sundew, Great Sundew, DE: Langblatt-Sonnentau

Slo.: dolgolistna rosika

 

Dat.: June 10. 2008

Lat.: 45.90000 Long.: 14.10000 (coordinates not precise)

Code: Bot_270/2008_DSC8994

 

Habitat: nutrients poor wetland, small marshland next to a local road; flat terrain; mostly sunny; elevation 570 m (1.870 feet); average precipitations 1.800-2.000 mm/year, average temperature 8-9 deg C, borderline between Dinaric and prealpine phytogeographical region.

 

Substratum: wet soil.

 

Place: Žejna dolina valley, next to the local road from village Hotedršica toward the settlement Medvedje Brdo, (about 2 km north from the village Hotedršica), Notranska, Slovenia EC.

 

Comment: Genus sundew (Drosera) is large. It encompasses (depending on source) from 150 to more than 200 species. It can be found on all continents except Antarctica. But, only three species (hybrids excluded) are native to Europe as well as toSlovenia.

 

Drosera anglica is widely distributed insectivorous plant (see Ref.: 8) and circumpolar boreal-montane element. The plant gets a part of nutrients needed from captured insects. Therefore, it is able to occupy relatively infertile habitats with very little nutrients and minerals available. Plants catch mostly small insects.

 

Their leaf surface is covered with special hairs, each one topped with a red oval gland surrounded by a droplet of viscous liquid that sparkles from far like morning dew. These glands have three functions. They secrete droplets of the 'liquid glue' that catch and hold the insects, produce the enzymes needed to digest them, and absorb the nutrients released when insects decompose. As the insects struggles to free themselves they activate folding up of the leaves around them and neighboring hairs ensnare them even more securely. Once digestion is completed and the glandular hairs absorb the nutrients, they resume their initial positions waiting on new catch.

Drosera anglica is a relatively rare species in Slovenia, significantly rarer than common sundew (Drosera rotundifolia). It is considered endangered. Taking into account its very broad distribution, IUCN-Red list considers it 'near threatened' (NT) species (Ref.: 9). Suitable habitats are disappearing apparently unstoppably. To worsen the situation, the species is highly intolerant to nitrogen (Ref.: 7), which makes many of the remaining wetlands unsuitable for settlement because of increasing artificial fertilization of land.

 

Protected according to: Uredba o zavarovanih prostoživečih rastlinskih vrstah, poglavje A, Uradni list RS, št. 46/2004 (Regulation of protected wild plants, chapter A, Official Gazette of Republic Slovenia, no. 46/2004), (2004).

 

Pravilnik o uvrstitvi ogroženih rastlinskih in živalskih vrst v rdeči seznam, Uradni list RS, št. 82/2002 (Regulation of enlisting of endangered plant and animal species onto Red List, Official Gazette of Republic Slovenia, no. 82/2002) (2002). Enlisted in the Slovene Red List of rare and endangered species, marked by "V" representing a vulnerable species.

 

Ref.:

(1) Personal communication with Mr. Branko Dolinar, www.orhideje.si

(2) M.A. Fischer, W. Adler, K. Oswald, Exkursionsflora für Österreich, Liechtenstein und Südtirol, LO Landesmuseen, Linz, Austria (2005), p 385.

(3) A. Martinči et all., Mala Flora Slovenije (Flora of Slovenia - Key) (in Slovenian), Tehnična Založba Slovenije (2007), p 242.

(4) gobotany.newenglandwild.org/species/drosera/anglica/ (accessed Oct. 28. 2018)

(5) www.honda-e.com/A02_World%20Maps/WorldMap_Drosera.htm (accessed Oct. 27. 2018)

(6) www.labunix.uqam.ca/~fg/MyFlora/Carnivorous/Droseraceae/d... (accessed Oct.27. 2018)

(7) www.brc.ac.uk/plantatlas/plant/drosera-anglica (accessed Oct. 28. 2018)

(8) www.youtube.com/watch?v=gM5sYPstXSQ (accessed Oct.27. 2018)

(9) www.iucnredlist.org/search?query=drosera%20anglica&se... (accessed Oct. 28. 2018)

  

2018-07-25

Big C Prathumwan, Bangkok

BKS Iyengar - " Regular and precise practice of Sirsasana develops the body, disciplines the mind and widens the horizon of the spirit. One become balanced and self reliant in pain and pleasure, loss and gain, shame and fame and defeat and victory."

"Regular practice of Sirsasana makes healthy pure blood flow through the brain cells. This rejuvenates them so that thinking power increases and thoughts become clearer."

www.facebook.com/stankayoga/

www.instagram.com/stankayoga/

VAN NUYS - Precise helicopter water drops that tapered the advance of flames, allowed 48 Los Angeles Fire Department responders on the ground to quickly contain and extinguish a non-injury grass fire in the Sepulveda Basin Recreation Area on the afternoon of June 18, 2021. The fire, near a homeless encampment northwest of Lake Balboa, was considered accidental, and attributed to careless cooking.

 

© Photo by Greg Doyle

 

LAFD Incident: 061821-0867

 

Connect with us: LAFD.ORG | News | Facebook | Instagram | Reddit | Twitter: @LAFD @LAFDtalk

A precise European manufactured 3D printer in cool stylish and practical design. See more here:

 

beeverycreative.creativetools.se/

A precise Europe manufactured 3D printer in cool stylish and practical design. See more here:

 

beeverycreative.creativetools.se/

A precise Europe manufactured 3D printer in cool stylish and practical design. See more here:

 

beeverycreative.creativetools.se/

VAN NUYS - Precise helicopter water drops that tapered the advance of flames, allowed 48 Los Angeles Fire Department responders on the ground to quickly contain and extinguish a non-injury grass fire in the Sepulveda Basin Recreation Area on the afternoon of June 18, 2021. The fire, near a homeless encampment northwest of Lake Balboa, was considered accidental, and attributed to careless cooking.

 

© Photo by Greg Doyle

 

LAFD Incident: 061821-0867

 

Connect with us: LAFD.ORG | News | Facebook | Instagram | Reddit | Twitter: @LAFD @LAFDtalk

Gangtok is a municipality, the capital and the largest town of the Indian state of Sikkim. It also is the headquarters of the East Sikkim district. Gangtok is located in the eastern Himalayan range, at an elevation of 1,650 m. The town's population of 100,000 belongs to different ethnicities such as Nepali, Lepchas and Bhutia. Nestled within higher peaks of the Himalaya and enjoying a year-round mild temperate climate, Gangtok is at the centre of Sikkim's tourism industry.

 

Gangtok rose to prominence as a popular Buddhist pilgrimage site after the construction of the Enchey Monastery in 1840. In 1894, the ruling Sikkimese Chogyal, Thutob Namgyal, transferred the capital to Gangtok. In the early 20th century, Gangtok became a major stopover on the trade route between Lhasa in Tibet and cities such as Kolkata (then Calcutta) in British India. After India won its independence from Britain in 1947, Sikkim chose to remain an independent monarchy, with Gangtok as its capital. In 1975, after the integration with the union of India, Gangtok was made India's 22nd state capital.

 

The precise meaning of the name Gangtok is unclear, though the most popular meaning is "hill top". Today, Gangtok is a centre of Tibetan Buddhist culture and learning, with the presence of several monasteries, religious educational institutions, and centres for Tibetology.

 

HISTORY

Like the rest of Sikkim, not much is known about the early history of Gangtok. The earliest records date from the construction of the hermitic Gangtok monastery in 1716. Gangtok remained a small hamlet until the construction of the Enchey Monastery in 1840 made it a pilgrimage center. It became the capital of what was left of Sikkim after an English conquest in the mid 19th century in response to a hostage crisis. After the defeat of the Tibetans by the British, Gangtok became a major stopover in the trade between Tibet and British India at the end of the 19th century. Most of the roads and the telegraph in the area were built during this time.

 

In 1894, Thutob Namgyal, the Sikkimese monarch under British rule, shifted the capital from Tumlong to Gangtok, increasing the city's importance. A new grand palace along with other state buildings was built in the new capital. Following India's independence in 1947, Sikkim became a nation-state with Gangtok as its capital. Sikkim came under the suzerainty of India, with the condition that it would retain its independence, by the treaty signed between the Chogyal and the then Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. This pact gave the Indians control of external affairs on behalf of Sikkimese. Trade between India and Tibet continued to flourish through the Nathula and Jelepla passes, offshoots of the ancient Silk Road near Gangtok. These border passes were sealed after the Sino-Indian War in 1962, which deprived Gangtok of its trading business. The Nathula pass was finally opened for limited trade in 2006, fuelling hopes of economic boom.

 

In 1975, after years of political uncertainty and struggle, including riots, the monarchy was abrogated and Sikkim became India's twenty-second state, with Gangtok as its capital after a referendum. Gangtok has witnessed annual landslides, resulting in loss of life and damage to property. The largest disaster occurred in June 1997, when 38 were killed and hundreds of buildings were destroyed.

 

GEOGRAPHY

Gangtok is located at 27.3325°N 88.6140°E (coordinates of Gangtok head post office). It is situated in the lower Himalayas at an elevation of 1,650 m. The town lies on one side of a hill, with "The Ridge", a promenade housing the Raj Bhawan, the governor's residence, at one end and the palace, situated at an altitude of about 1,800 m, at the other. The city is flanked on east and west by two streams, namely Roro Chu and Ranikhola, respectively. These two rivers divide the natural drainage into two parts, the eastern and western parts. Both the streams meet the Ranipul and flow south as the main Ranikhola before it joins the Teesta at Singtam. Most of the roads are steep, with the buildings built on compacted ground alongside them.

 

Most of Sikkim, including Gangtok, is underlain by Precambrian rocks which contains foliated phyllites and schists; slopes are therefore prone to frequent landslides. Surface runoff of water by natural streams (jhora) and man-made drains has contributed to the risk of landslides. According to the Bureau of Indian Standards, the town falls under seismic zone-IV (on a scale of I to V, in order of increasing seismic activity), near the convergent boundary of the Indian and the Eurasian tectonic plates and is subject to frequent earthquakes. The hills are nestled within higher peaks and the snow-clad Himalayan ranges tower over the town from the distance. Mount Kanchenjunga 8,598 m - the world's third-highest peak - is visible to the west of the city. The existence of steep slopes, vulnerability to landslides, large forest cover and inadequate access to most areas have been a major impediment to the natural and balanced growth of the city.

 

There are densely forested regions around Gangtok, consisting of temperate, deciduous forests of poplar, birch, oak, and elm, as well as evergreen, coniferous trees of the wet alpine zone. Orchids are common, and rare varieties of orchids are featured in flower shows in the city. Bamboos are also abundant. In the lower reaches of the town, the vegetation gradually changes from alpine to temperate deciduous and subtropical. Flowers such as sunflower, marigold, poinsettia, and others bloom, especially in November and December.

 

CLIMATE

Gangtok features a monsoon-influenced subtropical highland climate. Because of its elevation and sheltered environment, Gangtok enjoys a mild, temperate climate all year round. Like most Himalayan towns, Gangtok has five seasons: summer, monsoons, autumn, winter and spring. Temperatures range from an average maximum of 22 °C in summer to an average minimum of 4 °C in winter. Summers (lasting from late April to June) are mild, with maximum temperatures rarely crossing 25 °C. The monsoon season from June to September is characterised by intense torrential rains often causing landslides that block Gangtok's land access to the rest of the country. Rainfall starts to rise from pre-monsoon in May, and peaks during the monsoon, with July recording the highest monthly average of 649.6 mm. In winter temperature averages between 4 °C and 7 °C. Snowfall is rare, and in recent times Gangtok has received snow only in 1990, 2004, 2005 and January 2011. Temperatures below freezing are also rare. During this season the weather can be unstable, and change abruptly from bright sunshine and clear skies to heavy rain within a couple of hours. During spring and autumn the weather is generally sunny and mild. Owing to its elevation, Gangtok is often enveloped in fog during the monsoon and winter months.

 

ECONOMY

The hospitality industry is the largest industry in Gangtok as the city is the main base for Sikkim tourism. Summer and spring seasons are the most popular tourist seasons. Many of Gangtok's residents are employed directly and indirectly in the tourism industry, with many residents owning and working in hotels and restaurants.

 

Ecotourism has emerged as an important economic activity in the region which includes trekking, mountaineering, river rafting and other nature oriented activities. An estimated 351,000 tourists visited Sikkim in 2007, generating revenue of about Rs 50 crores (Rs 500 millions).

 

The Nathula Pass, located about 50 km from Gangtok, used to be the primary route of the wool, fur and spice trade with Tibet and spurred economic growth for Gangtok till the mid-20th century. In 1962, after the border was closed during the Sino-Indian War, Gangtok fell into recession. The pass was reopened in 2006 and trade through the pass is expected to boost the economy of Gangtok. The Sikkim government is keen to open a Lhasa–Gangtok bus service via Nathula pass. Sikkim's mountainous terrain results in the lack of train or air links, limiting the area's potential for rapid industrial development. The government is the largest employer in the city, both directly and as contractors. Gangtok's economy does not have a large manufacturing base, but has a thriving Cottage industry in watch-making, country-made alcohol and handicrafts. Among the handicrafts are the handmade paper industry made from various vegetable fibres or cotton rags. The main market in Gangtok provides many of the state's rural residents a place to offer their produce during the harvest seasons. The majority of the private business community is made up of Marwaris and Biharis. As part of Sikkim, Gangtok enjoys the status of being an income-tax free region as per the state's 1948 Income tax law. As Sikkim is a frontier state, the Indian army maintains a large presence in the vicinity of Gangtok. This leads to a population of semi-permanent residents who bring money into the local economy. The Sikkim government started India's first online lottery Playwin to boost government income, but this was later closed by a ruling from the Sikkim High Court.

 

In 2013 premier Indian publishing company Thomson Digital opened its production unit in Gangtok. Thus becoming first MNC to venture there and paving path for future private companies to explore potential of young workforce of Gangtok.

 

CULTURE

Apart from the major religious festivals of Dashain, Tihar, Christmas, Holi etc., the diverse ethnic populace of the town celebrates several local festivals. The Lepchas and Bhutias celebrate new year in January, while Tibetans celebrate the new year (Losar) with "Devil Dance" in January–February. The Maghe sankranti, Ram Navami are some of the important Nepalese festivals. Chotrul Duchen, Buddha Jayanti, the birthday of the Dalai Lama, Loosong, Bhumchu, Saga Dawa, Lhabab Duechen and Drupka Teshi are some other festivals, some distinct to local culture and others shared with the rest of India, Nepal, Bhutan and Tibet.

 

A popular food in Gangtok is the momo, a steamed dumpling containing pork, beef and vegetables cooked in a doughy wrapping and served with watery soup. Wai-Wai is a packaged snack consisting of noodles which are eaten either dry or in soup form. A form of noodle called thukpa, served in soup form is also popular in Gangtok. Other noodle-based foods such as the chowmein, thenthuk, fakthu, gyathuk and wonton are available. Other traditional Sikkimese cuisine include shah-phaley (Sikkimese patties with spiced minced meat in a crisp samosa-like case) and Gack-ko soup. Restaurants offer a wide variety of traditional Indian, continental and Chinese cuisines to cater to the tourists. Churpee, a kind of hard cheese made from cow's or yak's milk is sometimes chewed. Chhang is a local frothy millet beer traditionally served in bamboo tankards and drunk through bamboo or cane straws. Alcohol is cheap due to low excise duty in Sikkim. Beer, whiskey, rum and brandy are frequently consumed by both locals and non-locals.

 

Residents of Sikkim are music lovers and it is common to hear Western rock music being played in homes and restaurants. Hindi pop songs are also common. Indigenous Nepali rock, music suffused with a western rock beat and Nepali lyrics, is particularly popular.

 

Football (soccer), cricket and archery are the most popular sports in Gangtok. The Paljor Stadium, which hosts football matches, is the sole sporting ground in the city. Thangka - a notable handicraft - is an elaborately hand painted religious scroll in brilliant colours drawn on fabric hung in a monastery or a family altar and occasionally carried by monks in ceremonial processions. Chhaams are vividly costumed monastic dances performed on ceremonial and festive occasions, especially in the monasteries during the Tibetan new year.

 

CITY INSTITUTIONS

A centre of Buddhist learning and culture, Gangtok's most notable Buddhist institutions are the Enchey monastery, the Do-drul Chorten stupa complex and the Rumtek Monastery. The Enchey monastery is the city's oldest monastery and is the seat of the Nyingma order. The two-hundred-year-old baroque monastery houses images of gods, goddesses, and other religious artifacts. In the month of January, the Chaam, or masked dance, is performed with great fanfare. The Dro-dul Chorten is a stupa which was constructed in 1945 by Trulshik Rimpoché, head of the Nyingma order of Tibetan Buddhism. Inside this stupa are complete set of relics, holy books, and mantras. Surrounding the edifice are 108 Mani Lhakor, or prayer wheels. The complex also houses a religious school.

 

The Rumtek Monastery on the outskirts of the town is one of Buddhism's most sacred monasteries. The monastery is the seat of the Kagyu order, one of the major Tibetan sects, and houses some of the world's most sacred and rare Tibetan Buddhist scriptures and religious objects in its reliquary. Constructed in the 1960s, the building is modeled after a similar monastery in Lhasa, Tibet. Rumtek was the focus of international media attention in 2000 after the seventeenth Karmapa, one of the four holiest lamas, fled Lhasa and sought refuge in the monastery.

 

The Namgyal Institute of Tibetology, better known as the Tibetology Museum, houses a huge collection of masks, Buddhist scriptures, statues, and tapestries. It has over two hundred Buddhist icons, and is a centre of study of Buddhist philosophy.

 

The Thakurbari Temple, located in the heart of the city, established in 1935 on a prime piece of land donated by the then Maharaja of Sikkim is one of the oldest and best known Hindu temple in the city. The Ganesh Tok and the Hanuman Tok, dedicated to the Hindu gods Ganpati and Hanuman and housing important Hindu deities, are located in the upper reaches of the city. The Himalayan Zoological Park exhibits the fauna of the Himalayas in their natural habitats. The zoo features the Himalayan Black Bear, the barking deer, the snow leopard, the leopard cat, Tibetan wolf, Masked Palm Civet, red pandas and the spotted deer amongst the others. Jawaharlal Nehru Botanical Gardens, near Rumtek, houses many species of orchid and as many as fifty different species of tree, including many oaks.

 

EDUCATION

Gangtok's schools are either run by the state government or by private and religious organizations. Schools mainly use English and Nepali as their medium of instruction. The schools are either affiliated with the Indian Certificate of Secondary Education, Central Board of Secondary Education or the National Institute of Open Schooling. Notable schools include the Tashi Namgyal Academy, Paljor Namgyal Girls School, Taktse International School and Kendriya Vidyalaya.

 

Colleges conferring graduate degrees include Sikkim Government College, Sikkim Government Law College and Damber Singh College. Sikkim University established in 2007 is functioning in Gangtok; the university has been allotted land in neighbouring Yang Yang town for establishment of it own campus. The university offers a diverse range of courses and has a number of institutes affiliated to it. 8 km from here is the headquarters of the Sikkim Manipal University, which houses Sikkim Manipal Institute of Medical Sciences and Sikkim Manipal Institute of Technology. The Indira Gandhi National Open University also has a regional center in the city. There are other institutions offering diplomas in Buddhist literature, catering and other non-mainstream fields. District Institute of Education and Training and State Institute of Education conduct teacher training programs. Students usually go to large cities in the vicinity such as Siliguri or Kolkata in pursuit of higher education. Naropa University also oversees a semester abroad program located in Gangtok. Do not confuse with Sikkim University and Sikkim Manipal University. Both are different.

 

WIKIPEDIA

Just off busy Westgate Circle in Annapolis there lies a peaceful bucolic hillside. Almost 3,000 of our nation's heroes - for heroes they all are - lie here in eternal slumber beneath precise rows of nearly identical marble gravestones. This is the Annapolis National Cemetery. For over 150 years the seasons have alternately blanketed the well-kept grounds with the frosty wind-driven snow of winter, the cheerful melodies of spring songbirds, the emerald carpet of summer grass, and the colorful hues of autumn leaves.

The National Cemetery includes veterans' graves from every major conflict from the 1860s through the late 20th century. Yet, more than 85% of the graves are from the Civil War, and by far the vast majority of these are of men who died during that conflict, rather than veterans who passed away later. And of the Civil War dead, almost 10% are unknown -- a very high percentage considering that no battles were fought anywhere near the city. Yet in spite of the lack of battles nearby, Annapolis saw more of the horrors of war than many of the distant fields of conflict.

The U.S. Naval Academy abandoned the city for a less turbulent academic atmosphere in Rhode Island during the Civil War. Annapolis then became an army town as tens of thousands of Union troops occupied the city for the duration of the war. The army established at least four major hospitals in the city. The largest of these, Division Number 1 Hospital, was located on the Naval Academy campus; another, Division Number 2 Hospital, was on the campus of St. John's College. In fact, Division Number 1 Hospital, or the Naval School Hospital as it was often called, was one of the largest U.S. Army General Hospitals in the entire country during the Civil War.

At first the hospitals treated the sick from regiments stationed in the immediate vicinity. Later they accommodated battlefield wounded brought in for treatment from such places as Gettysburg and Petersburg. Understandably, some of these men were beyond recovery. But by far the most tragic cases were the emaciated forms returning north as paroled prisoners of war from Confederate prisons in Richmond and Andersonville. One of the reasons for the large number of unknown graves is the fact that so many of these wretched former prisoners arrived devoid of reason or so close to death that they were unable to identify themselves to hospital staff.

The National Cemetery got its beginning in 1862 when it became clear that the city's civilian cemetery could not accommodate the ever increasing number of military dead. The U.S. Army leased 4 acres of land originally known as Ash Grove Cemetery from Judge Nicholas Brewer for period of 99 years. Nine years later the Government purchased the land outright. Sometime in the interim its name was changed from Ash Grove to the Annapolis National Cemetery. Annapolis was one of the 14 original national cemeteries established by President Abraham Lincoln in 1862.

Each grave in the cemetery represents a unique individual with a unique story of how he, or she, came to rest in the peaceful confines off West Street. There are, of course, soldiers felled in battle, as well as those who succumbed to wounds or various camp diseases, notably dysentery, typhoid, and small pox. There are those whose constitutions were so weakened by their experiences as prisoners of war that they could not rally their health even though returned to the tender care of dedicated surgeons and nurses in their own army. And those same dedicated nurses are represented here too. On July 11, 1863, Mary J. Dukeshire was the first to give her life in the care of others. She was followed within months by Mrs. J. Broad, Rachel Spittle, and Hannah Henderson, all of whom contracted an illness form the men they so selflessly cared for.

There is no doubt that prisoners on both sides suffered extreme hardship and many died under regrettable circumstances. Among the former POWs arriving in Annapolis, many were literally not much more than skin and bones by the time they were released from captivity. Two of these former POWs, John Q. Rose and L. H. Parham, had their pictures printed on the front page of Harpers Weekly in June 1864 and became poster boys for the wretched conditions of so many returning prisoners. Rose died the day after his picture was taken. Parham managed to last another week. Both were buried in the Nation Cemetery. The deaths of starved prisoners did not end with Rose and Parham. Before he was captured, Miletus McGowan was described as "remarkable for his muscular strength, and possessing a distinguishing trait of generosity, always ready to assume the burdens of others." As first sergeant of Co. A, 29th Indiana, he was captured at Chicamauga in September 1863 and paroled in May 1864. Like so many of the returning POWs, McGowan was emaciated. He reached Annapolis totally “weak and exhausted [and] unable to walk.” He lasted more than a month, but died on June 11, 1864 as a consequence of chronic diarrhea and starvation while in prison.

Then there was John Buckshot, a Native American with the 56th Massachusetts Infantry. A full-blooded Mohawk from upstate New York, he was described as a “brave Indian boy” and a "good shot." Buckshot was wounded and captured at the Wilderness in May 1864. He died January 13, 1865, of typhoid fever after being paroled in December 1864.

All during the war, but especially after a big battle, wounded men would come pouring into Annapolis. Shortly after the first ill-fated attack against Petersburg in June 1864, a soldier assigned to duty in one of the Annapolis hospitals wrote, "We are having a pretty busy time here now as a boat arrived last evening with 530 badly wounded from Petersburg. Oh it was a sad sight to see them bringing the poor fellows off on stretchers some with arms off others with both legs gone and some struggling with death. It was a sad sight I can assure you, quite a number have already died and others in death’s embrace." Many of the soldiers were suffering from multiple wounds as a result of being caught in a crossfire. To make matters worse, Annapolis was in the midst of a heat wave with temperatures reported as high as 105 in the shade. Private Herman Mehwaldt of the 8th N. Y. Heavy Artillery died along with 11 others within a few days of arriving in Annapolis. More than 20 others would die the following week; and even more the week after that.

The vast majority of Civil War dead buried in the Annapolis National Cemetery are enlisted men. Typically officers’ bodies were embalmed and shipped home. However, at least three Union officers are buried here; Lieutenant Harrison Y. Clifton of Pennsylvania, David D. Smith a captain in the First Alabama Cavalry (USA), and Lieutenant Samuel J. Varney of Illinois. There are also about half a dozen Confederates buried here including Lieutenant William S. Slater from Virginia and Corporal Aaron A. Bennett of Tennessee. The Confederates were wounded and picked up on the battlefield along with Union wounded and brought here for medical care.

Perhaps no one had a bigger stake in the outcome of the Civil War than the former slaves who enlisted in the Union Army to fight for their freedom. These men served in segregated units designated as United States Colored Troops, or USCT. By the end of the war, nearly 10% of the Union army was comprised of black soldiers. Although segregated in life, in death black soldiers were buried side-by-side with their white brothers in arms. The Annapolis National Cemetery has nearly two dozen graves of black soldiers. Many of these were veterans who died years later, but some of them, including Alexander Brown, Henry Clark, and Alexander Robinson, died in Annapolis during the war.

While Annapolis may have been an army town in the 1860s, it is nonetheless hard to image the city without a naval presence. And the same is true for the National Cemetery. Although few sailors came through the Annapolis hospitals to be treated for wounds or after being released as a former POW, there is at least one grave here representing the Civil War Navy. John Robinson, a U.S. sailor, died March 2, 1865 after being released as a POW.

And finally, there is the case of Nicolai Demidoff, a Russian sailor who met a tragic end while his ship was here in port. During the winter of 1863-1864, the Russian Tsar sent his fleet to American waters in response to a tense political situation in Europe at that time. Three Russian warships ships visited Annapolis in February 1864. Unfortunately for the Russians, there was one big difference in Annapolis not encountered in other cities. Because of the large numbers of Union troops camped in and around the city, the provost marshal had forbidden the sale of hard liquor to the soldiers. It is not clear whether this restriction applied to foreign sailors but in all probability it was interpreted as applicable. Within days of their arrival confusion over this prohibition had dire consequences for one of the Russians.

On February 4, 1864, Nicholas Demidoff and one or more companion entered a restaurant looking for something to drink. One account of the event simply states that “a citizen & a Russian Sailor in a drinking house. . . had words, then blows which resulted in a pistol shot.” Whatever the circumstances however, there is no dispute that a shot rang out and Demidoff collapsed dead on the floor with a bullet through his heart. The murder nearly created an international incident. In addition to criminal charges brought against the barkeeper, the American government evidently issued an official apology to the visiting Russians. These conciliatory efforts, together with a satisfactory explanation of the tragic circumstances that led to the shooting, seem to have calmed the Russian ire. Meanwhile, although Demidoff had been only a common sailor, the Russians nonetheless gave the fallen seaman a send off that had all the dignity of a state funeral with delegations of politicians from Washington and representatives of the Russian government in attendance. The Americans, undoubtedly seeking to appease the Russian delegation following the murder, took great pains to assure the memorial service was conducted in the most solemn and imposing manner possible.

Except for the letters RSN carved under his name on the otherwise plain white stone, his grave is nearly indistinguishable from those of the thousands of American soldiers that surround it – and yet how much more effort was put into his burial than those of the American boys who were dying daily at the Annapolis hospitals! Nicholas Demidoff remains the only active-duty foreign serviceman to be buried in the Annapolis National Cemetery.

 

The thing about a recipe is that it is just a guide. I don't generally bother with them unless I'm working with something I've never seen before. Understanding why the recipe is the way it is, what the ingredients bring to the dish, the cooking sequence, and all that, is more important than the precise ingredients. If you get the technique, the why a thing is done and how to carry it off, then you can always work your way backwards, from the ingredients you have, to get the results you want.

 

With soups it's all about building flavors layer by layer. If you have looked at a lot of recipes you may have detected a pattern- with soups and sauces you start by extracting flavors from various aromatic vegetables. The classic combination here in the west is carrots, celery, and onion, but other vegetables like shallots, sweet peppers, fennel, celeriac, leeks, parsnips, or parsley root can be used too.

 

That base layer is then modified with pungent vegetables and herbs- a little something to kick everything in the ass- fresh herbs like rosemary, thyme, and bay, tied in a bundle so you can fish it out later easily, and garlic or ginger, and crushed red pepper flakes.

 

Then when everything is sweated a little in hot fat (with salt to help release moisture), so you can smell the flavors combining, and there's maybe a bit of brown stuff in the pan, you deglaze the pan with a splash of wine, water, or stock to pull that brown stuff up into solution, and your soup is on it's way. At this point you add whatever it is that will make up the bulky foody part of your soup, like beans in the recipe below (I'm getting to it) and top the pan off with enough liquid to make up your portions, plus enough for evaporation. Once your ingredients are all tender (you should be tasting every few minutes), then you can make any final additions like pasta or tender herbs and greens, which will only take about 10 minutes to cook (pasta turns into glue if you cook it too long). When the time is up, taste and add salt/pepper/vinegar as needed, pull out that herb bundle, garnish with some reserved pretty herbs and shredded cheese, and do what comes naturally...

  

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The Minestrone in the picture recipe.

 

1 small onion, chopped fine

 

1 rib celery, chopped fine

 

1 medium carrot, chopped fine (if you have one of those giant horse penis carrots, break a half or a third off and use that)

 

1 or 2 garlic cloves, crushed, sliced, or minced, as you like it. And for fucks sake only use the stuff in the jars if you have no choice.

 

1 big tomato chopped (no need to be neat here, it will break down as it cooks)

 

1 tablespoon of tomato paste (the stuff in the tube is more economical in the long run for singletons or small fluid family units)

 

1 herb bundle (or at least a bay leaf or two) composed of rosemary, thyme, and bay (use the parsley stems that you stripped the leaves off of too, come to think) The bay leaf is mandatory, fresh or dry. If you don't have fresh herbs, a good pinch of italian seasoning or herbs de provence will do too.

 

1/2 loose cup flat leaf or curly parsley, stripped off their stems and rough chopped.

 

kosher salt to taste- remember to just add a pinch at a time- you can always add salt but you can't take it away. i like kosher because it comes in bigger chunks than table salt, giving it a lot less volume and making it a lot harder to overseason.

 

5 cups liquid. Like half water and half stock, though the stock isn't strictly necessary. You might want to deglaze with a splash of wine too. Whatever you like to drink, though a heavy tannic red is probably a bad idea.

 

crushed red pepper- a pinch

 

1/2- 2/3 cup cooked beans*

 

1/2- 2/3 cup fun pasta shapes (i used Trottole)

 

vinegar (what you got, or even lemon juice) to taste.

 

a good grind of your favorite hard cheese to finish and garnish to taste as necessary

 

olive oil. enough. a good glug. a couple tablespoons. eyeball that shit.

 

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put a 4-5 quart heavy bottomed saucepan (with a tight fitting lid) on medium heat.

 

pour in your oil, and toss the bundle and crushed red pepper in. as the oil warms, the flavors infuse.

 

add the onion and a pinch of salt, when you just smell it, add the garlic (always add the garlic after- you don't want to burn it).

 

dump the celery and the carrots in, and stir that around and let that soften.

 

when the pan seems like it's getting dry, add the chopped tomato, and get that reducing.

 

when the pan is getting dry again, deglaze with a splash of wine or a bit of the liquid you have standing by and the tomato paste. Admire how glossy the sauce looks as the brown stuff goes into solution.

 

Add your beans, stir to warm through, then pour the rest of your liquid in. Turn the heat to high, and when it comes to a hard boil, cover it and turn the heat down to medium low.

 

Go hang out to about 20 minutes.

 

when you come back, give the mixture a taste, making sure your carrots are tender, add the pasta and most of the parsley, stir it in, cover, go hang out for 10 more minutes.

 

uncover and check your mixture- if it seems too thick, add a little liquid, if it's too thin, let it reduce a few minutes uncovered. adjust the seasoning, get rid of the herb bundle or the bay leaf, and serve it up, topping the bowl with a little cheese and the reserved parsley. This recipe should produce enough for two largish servings or 4 wimpy little cups sized ones.

 

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* What? Sure, you can buy cooked beans, but fuck that- dried beans are cheaper and you get more variety that way- in this recipe I used a mixture of christmas lima, goats-eye, and great northern beans. Usually I make a few cups worth every week, then they are ready to use in sides or in soups or whatever.

 

Measure out your beans- keep in mind that the cooked beans get 2-4 times bigger than dry, so plan for that, pick them over, looking for rocks and sticks, give them a rinse, then place them in a non reactive vessel and cover them with plenty of water. let them hang out all night. in the morning, add/pour off enough liquid so that the beans are covered under an inch of water, add a sacrificial carrot, celery rib, and herb bundle, bring it to a hard boil, and back off the heat to medium low and cook for an hour. Do NOT add any salt or acid to the uncooked beans- it will prevent them from absorbing liquid and they will never get soft. Alternately, if you have a pressure cooker, do all the above and pressure cook it for 10 minutes or whatever the manual suggests. Drain off the liquid (or save that for the soup) and throw away the vegetables (or put them in the soup too).

 

Easy.

   

Sitzende Frau mit hochgeschobenem Kleid/Seated Woman with Dress Pushed up, 1914 (Bleistift, Aquarell und Deckfarben/Pencil, watercolor and gouache), Albertina

 

Spraying her legs, Schiele's Seated Woman exposes her genitalia, framed by her thinly painted thighs and the folds of the pleated dress, in a seemingly unintentional and yet precisely calculated pose. The dark lap corresponds formally with the dark hair on her head. The precise foreshortening of the legs and face complicate the rhombic shape of the figure. The hombus opens from the tips of both shoes to the knees, before it converges along the contours of the arms and shoulders to the top of her head.

 

Die Sitzende Frau zeigt ihr Genital wie unbeabsichtigt und doch wohlkalkuliert zwischen den abgespreizten Beinen: gerahmt von den kaum aquarellierten Oberschenkeln und dem gefältelten, gerafften Kleid. Dem dunkle Schoß entspricht formal das dunkle Haupthaar. Die präzise Verkürzung der Beine und des Gesichts verkomplizieren im Inneren die rautenförmige Gestalt der Figur. Der Geometrie steigt von der Spitze der beiden Schuhe zu den Knien an, eh sie sich wieder über den Umriss der Arme und Schultern zum Kopf hin verjüngt.

 

The Albertina

The architectural history of the Palais

(Pictures you can see by clicking on the link at the end of page!)

Image: The oldest photographic view of the newly designed Palais Archduke Albrecht, 1869

"It is my will that ​​the expansion of the inner city of Vienna with regard to a suitable connection of the same with the suburbs as soon as possible is tackled and at this on Regulirung (regulation) and beautifying of my Residence and Imperial Capital is taken into account. To this end I grant the withdrawal of the ramparts and fortifications of the inner city and the trenches around the same".

This decree of Emperor Franz Joseph I, published on 25 December 1857 in the Wiener Zeitung, formed the basis for the largest the surface concerning and architecturally most significant transformation of the Viennese cityscape. Involving several renowned domestic and foreign architects a "master plan" took form, which included the construction of a boulevard instead of the ramparts between the inner city and its radially upstream suburbs. In the 50-years during implementation phase, an impressive architectural ensemble developed, consisting of imperial and private representational buildings, public administration and cultural buildings, churches and barracks, marking the era under the term "ring-street style". Already in the first year tithe decided a senior member of the Austrian imperial family to decorate the facades of his palace according to the new design principles, and thus certified the aristocratic claim that this also "historicism" said style on the part of the imperial house was attributed.

Image: The Old Albertina after 1920

It was the palace of Archduke Albrecht (1817-1895), the Senior of the Habsburg Family Council, who as Field Marshal held the overall command over the Austro-Hungarian army. The building was incorporated into the imperial residence of the Hofburg complex, forming the south-west corner and extending eleven meters above street level on the so-called Augustinerbastei.

The close proximity of the palace to the imperial residence corresponded not only with Emperor Franz Joseph I and Archduke Albert with a close familial relationship between the owner of the palace and the monarch. Even the former inhabitants were always in close relationship to the imperial family, whether by birth or marriage. An exception here again proves the rule: Don Emanuel Teles da Silva Conde Tarouca (1696-1771), for which Maria Theresa in 1744 the palace had built, was just a close friend and advisor of the monarch. Silva Tarouca underpins the rule with a second exception, because he belonged to the administrative services as Generalhofbaudirektor (general court architect) and President of the Austrian-Dutch administration, while all other him subsequent owners were highest ranking military.

In the annals of Austrian history, especially those of military history, they either went into as commander of the Imperial Army, or the Austrian, later kk Army. In chronological order, this applies to Duke Carl Alexander of Lorraine, the brother-of-law of Maria Theresa, as Imperial Marshal, her son-in-law Duke Albert of Saxe-Teschen, also field marshal, whos adopted son, Archduke Charles of Austria, the last imperial field marshal and only Generalissimo of Austria, his son Archduke Albrecht of Austria as Feldmarschalil and army Supreme commander, and most recently his nephew Archduke Friedrich of Austria, who held as field marshal from 1914 to 1916 the command of the Austro-Hungarian troops. Despite their military profession, all five generals conceived themselves as patrons of the arts and promoted large sums of money to build large collections, the construction of magnificent buildings and cultural life. Charles Alexander of Lorraine promoted as governor of the Austrian Netherlands from 1741 to 1780 the Academy of Fine Arts, the Théâtre de Ja Monnaie and the companies Bourgeois Concert and Concert Noble, he founded the Academie royale et imperial des Sciences et des Lettres, opened the Bibliotheque Royal for the population and supported artistic talents with high scholarships. World fame got his porcelain collection, which however had to be sold by Emperor Joseph II to pay off his debts. Duke Albert began in 1776 according to the concept of conte Durazzo to set up an encyclopedic collection of prints, which forms the core of the world-famous "Albertina" today.

Image : Duke Albert and Archduchess Marie Christine show in family cercle the from Italy brought along art, 1776. Frederick Henry Füger.

1816 declared to Fideikommiss and thus in future indivisible, inalienable and inseparable, the collection 1822 passed into the possession of Archduke Carl, who, like his descendants, it broadened. Under him, the collection was introduced together with the sumptuously equipped palace on the Augustinerbastei in the so-called "Carl Ludwig'schen fideicommissum in 1826, by which the building and the in it kept collection fused into an indissoluble unity. At this time had from the Palais Tarouca by structural expansion or acquisition a veritable Residenz palace evolved. Duke Albert of Saxe-Teschen was first in 1800 the third floor of the adjacent Augustinian convent wing adapted to house his collection and he had after 1802 by his Belgian architect Louis de Montoyer at the suburban side built a magnificent extension, called the wing of staterooms, it was equipped in the style of Louis XVI. Only two decades later, Archduke Carl the entire palace newly set up. According to scetches of the architect Joseph Kornhäusel the 1822-1825 retreaded premises presented themselves in the Empire style. The interior of the palace testified from now in an impressive way the high rank and the prominent position of its owner. Under Archduke Albrecht the outer appearance also should meet the requirements. He had the facade of the palace in the style of historicism orchestrated and added to the Palais front against the suburbs an offshore covered access. Inside, he limited himself, apart from the redesign of the Rococo room in the manner of the second Blondel style, to the retention of the paternal stock. Archduke Friedrich's plans for an expansion of the palace were omitted, however, because of the outbreak of the First World War so that his contribution to the state rooms, especially, consists in the layout of the Spanish apartment, which he in 1895 for his sister, the Queen of Spain Maria Christina, had set up as a permanent residence.

Picture: The "audience room" after the restoration: Picture: The "balcony room" around 1990

The era of stately representation with handing down their cultural values ​​found its most obvious visualization inside the palace through the design and features of the staterooms. On one hand, by the use of the finest materials and the purchase of masterfully manufactured pieces of equipment, such as on the other hand by the permanent reuse of older equipment parts. This period lasted until 1919, when Archduke Friedrich was expropriated by the newly founded Republic of Austria. With the republicanization of the collection and the building first of all finished the tradition that the owner's name was synonymous with the building name:

After Palais Tarouca or tarokkisches house it was called Lorraine House, afterwards Duke Albert Palais and Palais Archduke Carl. Due to the new construction of an adjacently located administration building it received in 1865 the prefix "Upper" and was referred to as Upper Palais Archduke Albrecht and Upper Palais Archduke Frederick. For the state a special reference to the Habsburg past was certainly politically no longer opportune, which is why was decided to name the building according to the in it kept collection "Albertina".

Picture: The "Wedgwood Cabinet" after the restoration: Picture: the "Wedgwood Cabinet" in the Palais Archduke Friedrich, 1905

This name derives from the term "La Collection Albertina" which had been used by the gallery Inspector Maurice von Thausing in 1870 in the Gazette des Beaux-Arts for the former graphics collection of Duke Albert. For this reason, it was the first time since the foundation of the palace that the name of the collection had become synonymous with the room shell. Room shell, hence, because the Republic of Austria Archduke Friedrich had allowed to take along all the movable goods from the palace in his Hungarian exile: crystal chandeliers, curtains and carpets as well as sculptures, vases and clocks. Particularly stressed should be the exquisite furniture, which stems of three facilities phases: the Louis XVI furnitures of Duke Albert, which had been manufactured on the basis of fraternal relations between his wife Archduchess Marie Christine and the French Queen Marie Antoinette after 1780 in the French Hofmanufakturen, also the on behalf of Archduke Charles 1822-1825 in the Vienna Porcelain Manufactory by Joseph Danhauser produced Empire furnitures and thirdly additions of the same style of Archduke Friedrich, which this about 1900 at Portois & Ffix as well as at Friedrich Otto Schmidt had commissioned.

The "swept clean" building got due to the strained financial situation after the First World War initially only a makeshift facility. However, since until 1999 no revision of the emergency equipment took place, but differently designed, primarily the utilitarianism committed office furnitures complementarily had been added, the equipment of the former state rooms presented itself at the end of the 20th century as an inhomogeneous administrative mingle-mangle of insignificant parts, where, however, dwelt a certain quaint charm. From the magnificent state rooms had evolved depots, storage rooms, a library, a study hall and several officed.

Image: The Albertina Graphic Arts Collection and the Philipphof after the American bombing of 12 März 1945.

Image: The palace after the demolition of the entrance facade, 1948-52

Worse it hit the outer appearance of the palace, because in times of continued anti-Habsburg sentiment after the Second World War and inspired by an intolerant destruction will, it came by pickaxe to a ministerial erasure of history. In contrast to the graphic collection possessed the richly decorated facades with the conspicuous insignia of the former owner an object-immanent reference to the Habsburg past and thus exhibited the monarchial traditions and values ​​of the era of Francis Joseph significantly. As part of the remedial measures after a bomb damage, in 1948 the aristocratic, by Archduke Albert initiated, historicist facade structuring along with all decorations was cut off, many facade figures demolished and the Hapsburg crest emblems plunged to the ground. Since in addition the old ramp also had been cancelled and the main entrance of the bastion level had been moved down to the second basement storey at street level, ended the presence of the old Archduke's palace after more than 200 years. At the reopening of the "Albertina Graphic Collection" in 1952, the former Hapsburg Palais of splendour presented itself as one of his identity robbed, formally trivial, soulless room shell, whose successful republicanization an oversized and also unproportional eagle above the new main entrance to the Augustinian road symbolized. The emocratic throw of monuments had wiped out the Hapsburg palace from the urban appeareance, whereby in the perception only existed a nondescript, nameless and ahistorical building that henceforth served the lodging and presentation of world-famous graphic collection of the Albertina. The condition was not changed by the decision to the refurbishment because there were only planned collection specific extensions, but no restoration of the palace.

Image: The palace after the Second World War with simplified facades, the rudiment of the Danubiusbrunnens (well) and the new staircase up to the Augustinerbastei

This paradigm shift corresponded to a blatant reversal of the historical circumstances, as the travel guides and travel books for kk Residence and imperial capital of Vienna dedicated itself primarily with the magnificent, aristocratic palace on the Augustinerbastei with the sumptuously fitted out reception rooms and mentioned the collection kept there - if at all - only in passing. Only with the repositioning of the Albertina in 2000 under the direction of Klaus Albrecht Schröder, the palace was within the meaning and in fulfillment of the Fideikommiss of Archduke Charles in 1826 again met with the high regard, from which could result a further inseparable bond between the magnificent mansions and the world-famous collection. In view of the knowing about politically motivated errors and omissions of the past, the facades should get back their noble, historicist designing, the staterooms regain their glamorous, prestigious appearance and culturally unique equippment be repurchased. From this presumption, eventually grew the full commitment to revise the history of redemption and the return of the stately palace in the public consciousness.

Image: The restored suburb facade of the Palais Albertina suburb

The smoothed palace facades were returned to their original condition and present themselves today - with the exception of the not anymore reconstructed Attica figures - again with the historicist decoration and layout elements that Archduke Albrecht had given after the razing of the Augustinerbastei in 1865 in order. The neoclassical interiors, today called after the former inhabitants "Habsburg Staterooms", receiving a meticulous and detailed restoration taking place at the premises of originality and authenticity, got back their venerable and sumptuous appearance. From the world wide scattered historical pieces of equipment have been bought back 70 properties or could be returned through permanent loan to its original location, by which to the visitors is made experiencable again that atmosphere in 1919 the state rooms of the last Habsburg owner Archduke Frederick had owned. The for the first time in 80 years public accessible "Habsburg State Rooms" at the Palais Albertina enable now again as eloquent testimony to our Habsburg past and as a unique cultural heritage fundamental and essential insights into the Austrian cultural history. With the relocation of the main entrance to the level of the Augustinerbastei the recollection to this so valuable Austrian Cultural Heritage formally and functionally came to completion. The vision of the restoration and recovery of the grand palace was a pillar on which the new Albertina should arise again, the other embody the four large newly built exhibition halls, which allow for the first time in the history of the Albertina, to exhibit the collection throughout its encyclopedic breadh under optimal conservation conditions.

Image: The new entrance area of the Albertina

64 meter long shed roof. Hans Hollein.

The palace presents itself now in its appearance in the historicist style of the Ringstrassenära, almost as if nothing had happened in the meantime. But will the wheel of time should not, cannot and must not be turned back, so that the double standards of the "Albertina Palace" said museum - on the one hand Habsburg grandeur palaces and other modern museum for the arts of graphics - should be symbolized by a modern character: The in 2003 by Hans Hollein designed far into the Albertina square cantilevering, elegant floating flying roof. 64 meters long, it symbolizes in the form of a dynamic wedge the accelerated urban spatial connectivity and public access to the palace. It advertises the major changes in the interior as well as the huge underground extensions of the repositioned "Albertina".

 

Christian Benedictine

Art historian with research interests History of Architecture, building industry of the Hapsburgs, Hofburg and Zeremonialwissenschaft (ceremonial sciences). Since 1990 he works in the architecture collection of the Albertina. Since 2000 he supervises as director of the newly founded department "Staterooms" the restoration and furnishing of the state rooms and the restoration of the facades and explores the history of the palace and its inhabitants.

 

www.wien-vienna.at/albertinabaugeschichte.php

 

Precise location anyone ?

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An abandoned slate quarry somewhere in the Argentina Valley (Imperia, Liguria - Italy): I prefer to avoid to give a more precise localization for safety reasons.

An abandoned quarry is a very dangerous place, because it is possible to be hit by a falling block. They are no more checked for their stability and they are pretty heavy: the specific weight of slate is 2.6 tons for a cubic meter (168 pounds for a cubic feet, if you prefer) and they can fall from many meters, so it would be like to be hit by a very concentrate Mercedes and you camera could be damaged, too.

If you want to visit these places don't forget to wear safety steeltoe shoes (it is dark and you can easily hit a stone on the ground), a helmet (for falling cobbles or in case you scare the bats on the ceiling, to avoid their drops) and a high visibility jacket.

A flashlight torch is mandatory for a good focusing, even if you disable the autofocus.

Before to go deeper into a cave wait until your eyes will become used to darkness (your eyes pupils must reach f/1.2 or so). This lapse of time will also bring the camera to a better temperature to avoid condensation, because very often the air of these places is pretty damp.

Have a tripod with you because the right stone to leave the camera for a long exposure shot is always in the wrong place, or it has too much dust, or there is a bat sleeping just over it.

If you can find a retired miner who can guide you in the visit it would be a lot better.

 

Una cava di ardesia abbandonata da qualche parte in Valle Argentina (IM): non fornisco una localizzazione precisa per motivi di sicurezza.

Una cava abbandonata è un luogo molto pericoloso, perché è possibile essere travolti da un blocco di pietra. La stabilità dei blocchi non è più soggetta a controlli, e si tratta di blocchi molto pesanti: il peso specifico dell'ardesia è di 2600 kg/m³ e possono cadere da un'altezza considerevole, quindi sarebbe come essere investiti da un Mercedes molto concentrato e anche la vostra macchina foto potrebbe danneggiarsi.

Se volete visitare uno di questi posti non dimenticate di indossare calzature antinfortunistiche con la punta in acciaio (è buio ed è facile colpire una pietra al suolo), un elmetto (per la caduta di piccoli sassi o, in caso spaventiate i pipistrelli sul soffitto, per evitare le loro deiezioni) e un giubbotto ad alta visibilità (quello che tenete sotto il sedile dell'auto va bene).

Una torcia elettrica è praticamente obbligatoria per la messa a fuoco, anche se disabilitate l'autofocus.

Prima di avventurarsi più in profondità in una cava aspettate fino a quando i vostri occhi siano abituati all'oscurità (le pupille arriveranno a f/1.2 più o meno). Questo intervallo di tempo serve anche per portare la macchina a una migliore temperatura per evitare condensazioni, perché molto spesso l'aria di questi posti è decisamente umida.

Portatevi un cavalletto perché la pietra giusta dove lasciare la macchina per una posa lunga è sempre nel posto sbagliato, o c'è troppa polvere sopra, oppure c'è un pipistrello che dorme proprio sulla verticale.

Se trovate un minatore in pensione che vi possa guidare nella visita sarebbe molto meglio.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psusennes_I

 

Psusennes I (Ancient Egyptian: pꜣ-sbꜣ-ḫꜥ-n-njwt; Greek Ψουσέννης) was the third pharaoh of the 21st Dynasty who ruled from Tanis between 1047 and 1001 BC. Psusennes is the Greek version of his original name Pasibkhanu or Pasebakhaenniut (in reconstructed Late Egyptian: /pəsiwʃeʕənneːʔə/), which means "The Star Appearing in the City" while his throne name, Akheperre Setepenamun, translates as "Great are the Manifestations of Ra, chosen of Amun." He was the son of Pinedjem I and Henuttawy, Ramesses XI's daughter by Tentamun. He married his sister Mutnedjmet.

 

Psusennes I's precise reign length is unknown because different copies of Manetho's records credit him with a reign of either 41 or 46 years. Some Egyptologists have proposed raising the 41 year figure by a decade to 51 years to more closely match certain anonymous Year 48 and Year 49 dates in Upper Egypt. However, the German Egyptologist Karl Jansen-Winkeln has suggested that all these dates should be attributed to the serving High Priest of Amun, Menkheperre instead who is explicitly documented in a Year 48 record. Jansen-Winkeln notes that "in the first half of Dyn. 21, [the] HP Herihor, Pinedjem I and Menkheperre have royal attributes and [royal] titles to differing extents" whereas the first three Tanite kings (Smendes, Amenemnisu and Psusennes I) are almost never referred to by name in Upper Egypt with the exception of one graffito and rock stela for Smendes. In contrast, the name of Psusennes I's Twenty-first Dynasty successors such as Amenemope, Osorkon the Elder, and Siamun appear frequently in various documents from Upper Egypt while the Theban High Priest Pinedjem II who was a contemporary of the latter three kings never adopted any royal attributes or titles in his career.

 

Hence, two separate Year 49 dates from Thebes and Kom Ombo could be attributed to the ruling High Priest Menkheperre in Thebes instead of Psusennes I but this remains uncertain. Psusennes I's reign has been estimated at 46 years by the editors of the Handbook to Ancient Egyptian Chronology. Psusennes I must have enjoyed cordial relations with the serving High Priests of Amun in Thebes during his long reign since the High Priest Smendes II donated several grave goods to this king which were found in Psusennes II's tomb.

 

During his long reign, Psusennes built the enclosure walls and the central part of the Great Temple at Tanis which was dedicated to the triad of Amun, Mut and Khonsu. Psusennes was ostensibly the ruler responsible for turning Tanis into a fully-fledged capital city, surrounding its temple with a formidable brick temenos wall with its sanctuary dedicated to Amun being composed of blocks salvaged from the derelict Pi-Ramesses. Many of these blocks were unaltered and kept the name of Pi-Ramesses' builder, Ramesses II, including obelisks still bearing the name of Ramesses II transported from the former capital of Pi-Ramesses to Tanis.

 

Psusennes had taken his sister, Mutnedjmet, in marriage, in addition to the Lady Wiay. Only two of Psusennes I's children remain identifiable.

 

Professor Pierre Montet discovered pharaoh Psusennes I's intact tomb (No.3 or NRT III) in Tanis in 1940. Unfortunately, due to its moist Lower Egypt location, most of the perishable wood objects were destroyed by water – a fate not shared by KV62, the tomb of Tutankhamun in the drier climate of Upper Egypt. In contrast to KV62, Psusennes I's tomb holds the distinction of being the only pharaonic grave ever found unscathed by any tomb robbing attempts. The tomb of Tutankhamun had been robbed twice in antiquity.

 

In spite of the destruction of wooden artifacts within the tomb due to the moist Nile delta area, the king's magnificent funerary mask was recovered intact; it proved to be made of gold and lapis lazuli and held inlays of black and white glass for the eyes and eyebrows of the object. Psusennes I's mask is considered to be "one of the masterpieces of the treasure[s] of Tanis" and is currently housed in Room 2 of the Cairo Museum. It has a maximum width and height of 38 cm and 48 cm respectively. The pharaoh's "fingers and toes had been encased in gold stalls, and he was buried with gold sandals on his feet. The finger stalls are the most elaborate ever found, with sculpted fingernails. Each finger wore an elaborate ring of gold and lapis lazuli or some other semiprecious stone."

 

Psusennes I's outer and middle sarcophagi had been recycled from previous burials in the Valley of the Kings through the state-sanctioned tomb robbing that was common practice in the Third Intermediate Period. A cartouche on the red outer sarcophagus shows that it had originally been made for Pharaoh Merenptah, the 19th Dynasty successor of Ramesses II. Psusennes I, himself, was interred in an "inner silver coffin" which was inlaid with gold. Since "silver was considerably rarer in Egypt than gold," Psusennes I's silver "coffin represents a sumptuous burial of great wealth during Egypt's declining years."

 

Dr. Douglas Derry, who worked as the head of Cairo University's Anatomy Department, examined the king's remains in 1940 and determined that the king was an old man when he died. Derry noted that Psusennes I's teeth were badly worn and full of cavities, that he had an abscess that left a hole in his palate, and observed that the king suffered from extensive arthritis and was probably crippled by this condition in his final years.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_Museum

 

The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, commonly known as the Egyptian Museum (Arabic: المتحف المصري, romanized: al-Matḥaf al-Miṣrī, Egyptian Arabic: el-Matḥaf el-Maṣri [elˈmætħæf elˈmɑsˤɾi]) (also called the Cairo Museum), located in Cairo, Egypt, houses the largest collection of Egyptian antiquities in the world. It houses over 120,000 items, with a representative amount on display. Located in Tahrir Square in a building built in 1901, it is the largest museum in Africa. Among its masterpieces are Pharaoh Tutankhamun's treasure, including its iconic gold burial mask, widely considered one of the best-known works of art in the world and a prominent symbol of ancient Egypt.

 

History

The Egyptian Museum of Antiquities contains many important pieces of ancient Egyptian history. It houses the world's largest collection of Pharaonic antiquities. The Egyptian government established the museum built in 1835 near the Ezbekieh Garden and later moved to the Cairo Citadel. In 1855, Archduke Maximilian of Austria was given all of the artifacts by the Egyptian government; these are now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

 

A new museum was established at Boulaq in 1858 in a former warehouse, following the foundation of the new Antiquities Department under the direction of Auguste Mariette. The building lay on the bank of the Nile River, and in 1878 it suffered significant damage owing to the flooding of the Nile River. In 1891, the collections were moved to a former royal palace, in the Giza district of Cairo. They remained there until 1902 when they were moved again to the current museum in Tahrir Square, built by the Italian company of Giuseppe Garozzo and Francesco Zaffrani to a design by the French architect Marcel Dourgnon.

 

In 2004, the museum appointed Wafaa El Saddik as the first female director general.

 

During the Egyptian Revolution of 2011, the museum was broken into, and two mummies were destroyed. Several artifacts were also shown to have been damaged and around 50 objects were stolen. Since then, 25 objects have been found. Those that were restored were put on display in September 2013 in an exhibition entitled "Damaged and Restored". Among the displayed artifacts were two statues of King Tutankhamun made of cedar wood and covered with gold, a statue of King Akhenaten, ushabti statues that belonged to the Nubian kings, a mummy of a child, and a small polychrome glass vase.

 

The museum was reportedly used as a torture site during the 2011 Revolution, with protestors forcibly and unlawfully detained and allegedly abused, according to reports, videos and eyewitness accounts. Activists state that "men were being tortured with electric shocks, whips and wires," and "women were tied to fences and trees." Prominent singer and activist Ramy Essam was among those detained and tortured at the museum.

 

Sale room for antiquities

The Department of Antiquities (Service d'Antiquités Egyptien) operated a sale room (Salle de ventes) in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo from 1902 in room 56 on the ground floor, where original ancient Egyptian artworks and other original artefacts were sold. In addition, until the 1970s, dealers or collectors could bring antiquities to the Cairo Museum for inspection on Thursdays, and if museum officials had no objections, they could pack them in ready-made boxes, have them sealed and cleared for export. Many objects now held in private collections or public museums originated here. After years of debate about the strategy for selling the antiquities, the sale room was closed in November 1979.

 

Interior design and collections

There are two main floors in the museum, the ground floor and the first floor. On the ground floor is an extensive collection of large-scale works in stone including statues, reliefs and architectural elements. These are arranged chronologically in clockwise fashion, from the pre-dynastic to the Greco-Roman period. The first floor is dedicated to smaller works, including papyri, coins, textiles, and an enormous collection of wooden sarcophagi.

 

The numerous pieces of papyrus are generally small fragments, owing to their decay over the past two millennia. Several languages are found on these pieces, including Greek, Latin, Arabic, and ancient Egyptian. The coins found on this floor are made of many different metals, including gold, silver, and bronze. The coins are not only Egyptian, but also Greek, Roman, and Islamic. This has helped historians research the history of Ancient Egyptian trade.

 

Also on the ground floor are artifacts from the New Kingdom, the time period between 1550 and 1069 BC. These artifacts are generally larger than items created in earlier centuries. Those items include statues, tables, and coffins (sarcophagi). It contains 42 rooms; with many items on view from sarcophagi and boats to enormous statues.

 

On the first floor are artifacts from the final two dynasties of Egypt, including items from the tombs of the Pharaohs Thutmosis III, Thutmosis IV, Amenophis II, Hatshepsut, and the courtier Maiherpri, as well as many artifacts from the Valley of the Kings, in particular the material from the intact tombs of Tutankhamun and Psusennes I.

 

Until 2021, two rooms contained a number of mummies of kings and other royal family members of the New Kingdom. On April 3, 2021, twenty-two of these mummies were transferred to the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Fustat in a grand parade dubbed The Pharaohs' Golden Parade.

 

Collections are also being transferred to the not-yet-open Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza, including all the artifacts found inside Tutankhamun's tomb. "Among the reasons that the GEM itself was conceived, the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir has been criticized for being overcrowded, displaying pieces in a way that is said to make the experience cumbersome for visitors."

 

Memorial to famous Egyptologists

In the garden adjacent to the building of the museum, is a memorial to famous egyptologists of the world. It features a monument to Auguste Mariette, surrounded by 24 busts of the following egyptologists: François Chabas, Johannes Dümichen, Conradus Leemans, Charles Wycliffe Goodwin, Emmanuel de Rougé, Samuel Birch, Edward Hincks, Luigi Vassalli, Émile Brugsch, Karl Richard Lepsius, Théodule Devéria, Vladimir Golenishchev, Ippolito Rosellini, Labib Habachi, Sami Gabra, Selim Hassan, Ahmed Kamal, Zakaria Goneim, Jean-François Champollion, Amedeo Peyron, Willem Pleyte, Gaston Maspero, Peter le Page Renouf and Kazimierz Michałowski.

Hougham; 66727 on 4E33, 11.20 Felixstowe - Doncaster.

 

The more precise photographers looking at this should note that by kneeling here it is possible to keep the nearest catenary wire clear of the loco - see the following shots.

Mes chères petites mains là se sont lâchées !

Je suppose que les cartes étaient peintes suivant des indications détaillées, précises. Qui a eu l'idée pour la chemise blanche du vieil homme a la jambe cassée de cette explosion de taches rouges et vertes ?

Un peu comme le détourage des tableaux au centre qui finit dans un mélange de fleurs et d'une horloge que l'on a bien du mal à apprécier les formes dans ce cafouillis.

Cela nous donne l'effet d'une troisième fenêtre, centrale de plus ! Et cela gêne, détonne de l'ensemble qui avec les robes très sobres des deux jeunes femmes et de celle qui sert un bon remède chaud à notre blessé !

L'horloge donne le top départ du chaos, plus on s'en éloigne plus la simplicité visuelle gagne... Même pas de tapis à motif géométrique sur le sol. J'ai dû dissimuler les motifs de la chemise, car en anaglyphe cela donnait le vertige...

J'aimerais bien voir en diorama, si les couleurs n'ont pas été un peu plus accommodées.

 

Attribué à Alexis et Charles Gaudin, studio Anglais.

  

On the other hand my dear little hands there have let loose! I suppose the maps were painted according to detailed, precise indications. Whose idea was it for the old man’s white shirt with the broken leg of that explosion of red and green spots?

A bit like the clipping of the paintings in the center that ends in a mixture of flowers and a clock that one has a hard time appreciating the shapes in this mess. This gives us the effect of a third window, central more!

And it bothers, detonates from the whole that with the very sober dresses of the two young women and of the one that serves a good hot remedy to our wounded!

The clock gives the start of chaos, the further away you get from it the more visual simplicity wins...

Even no geometric carpet on the floor . I had to hide the patterns of the shirt because in anaglyph it gave vertigo... I would like to see in diorama, if the colors have not been a little more accommodated.

In the quiet woods, nature’s most efficient handyman gets to work. A determined woodpecker grips a heavy cordless drill like a seasoned carpenter, boring a perfect round entryway into the tree. Wood chips scatter, echoing his rhythm of precise craftsmanship. Today’s project: a custom luxury penthouse nest, complete with reinforced walls and impeccable design. With safety goggles unseen but spirit strong, the forest’s tiniest contractor proves—sometimes, power tools make nest-building a whole lot easier.

Angkor Wat or "Capital Temple" is a temple complex in Cambodia and the largest religious monument in the world. It was first a Hindu and later a Buddhist temple. It was built by the Khmer King Suryavarman II in the early 12th century in Yaśodharapura, present-day Angkor, the capital of the Khmer Empire, as his state temple and eventual mausoleum.

 

Breaking from the Shiva tradition of previous kings, Angkor Wat was instead dedicated to Vishnu. As the best-preserved temple at the site, it is the only one to have remained a significant religious center since its foundation. The temple is at the top of the high classical style of Khmer architecture. It has become a symbol of Cambodia, appearing on its national flag, and it is the country's prime attraction for visitors. Angkor Wat combines two basic plans of Khmer temple architecture: the temple-mountain and the later galleried temple, based on early Dravidian architecture, with key features such as the Jagati. It is designed to represent Mount Meru, home of the devas in Hindu mythology: within a moat and an outer wall 3.6 kilometres long are three rectangular galleries, each raised above the next. At the centre of the temple stands a quincunx of towers. Unlike most Angkorian temples, Angkor Wat is oriented to the west; scholars are divided as to the significance of this. The temple is admired for the grandeur and harmony of the architecture, its extensive bas-reliefs, and for the numerous devatas adorning its walls.

 

The modern name, Angkor Wat, means "Temple City" or "City of Temples" in Khmer; Angkor, meaning "city" or "capital city", is a vernacular form of the word nokor (នគរ), which comes from the Sanskrit word nagara (नगर). Wat is the Khmer word for "temple grounds" (Sanskrit: वाट vāṭa ""enclosure").

 

HISTORY

Angkor Wat lies 5.5 kilometres north of the modern town of Siem Reap, and a short distance south and slightly east of the previous capital, which was centred at Baphuon. It is in an area of Cambodia where there is an important group of ancient structures. It is the southernmost of Angkor's main sites.

 

According to one legend, the construction of Angkor Wat was ordered by Indra to act as a palace for his son Precha Ket Mealea.

 

According to the 13th century Chinese traveler Daguan Zhou, it was believed by some that the temple was constructed in a single night by a divine architect. The initial design and construction of the temple took place in the first half of the 12th century, during the reign of Suryavarman II (ruled 1113-C. 1150). Dedicated to Vishnu, it was built as the king's state temple and capital city. As neither the foundation stela nor any contemporary inscriptions referring to the temple have been found, its original name is unknown, but it may have been known as "Varah Vishnu-lok" after the presiding deity. Work seems to have ended shortly after the king's death, leaving some of the bas-relief decoration unfinished.

 

In 1177, approximately 27 years after the death of Suryavarman II, Angkor was sacked by the Chams, the traditional enemies of the Khmer. Thereafter the empire was restored by a new king, Jayavarman VII, who established a new capital and state temple (Angkor Thom and the Bayon respectively) a few kilometers to the north.

 

In the late 13th century, Angkor Wat gradually moved from Hindu to Theravada Buddhist use, which continues to the present day. Angkor Wat is unusual among the Angkor temples in that although it was somewhat neglected after the 16th century it was never completely abandoned, its preservation being due in part to the fact that its moat also provided some protection from encroachment by the jungle.

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

 

In the mid-19th century, the temple was visited by the French naturalist and explorer, Henri Mouhot, who popularised the site in the West through the publication of travel notes, in which he wrote:

 

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

 

Mouhot, like other early Western visitors, found it difficult to believe that the Khmers could have built the temple, and mistakenly dated it to around the same era as Rome. The true history of Angkor Wat was pieced together only from stylistic and epigraphic evidence accumulated during the subsequent clearing and restoration work carried out across the whole Angkor site. There were no ordinary dwellings or houses or other signs of settlement including cooking utensils, weapons, or items of clothing usually found at ancient sites. Instead there is the evidence of the monuments themselves.

 

Angkor Wat required considerable restoration in the 20th century, mainly the removal of accumulated earth and vegetation. Work was interrupted by the civil war and Khmer Rouge control of the country during the 1970s and 1980s, but relatively little damage was done during this period other than the theft and destruction of mostly post-Angkorian statues.The temple is a powerful symbol of Cambodia, and is a source of great national pride that has factored into Cambodia's diplomatic relations with France, the United States and its neighbor Thailand. A depiction of Angkor Wat has been a part of Cambodian national flags since the introduction of the first version circa 1863. From a larger historical and even transcultural perspective, however, the temple of Angkor Wat did not become a symbol of national pride sui generis but had been inscribed into a larger politico-cultural process of French-colonial heritage production in which the original temple site was presented in French colonial and universal exhibitions in Paris and Marseille between 1889 and 1937. Angkor Wat's aesthetics were also on display in the plaster cast museum of Louis Delaporte called musée Indo-chinois which existed in the Parisian Trocadero Palace from C. 1880 to the mid-1920s. The splendid artistic legacy of Angkor Wat and other Khmer monuments in the Angkor region led directly to France adopting Cambodia as a protectorate on 11 August 1863 and invading Siam to take control of the ruins. This quickly led to Cambodia reclaiming lands in the northwestern corner of the country that had been under Siamese (Thai) control since 1351 AD (Manich Jumsai 2001), or by some accounts, 1431 AD. Cambodia gained independence from France on 9 November 1953 and has controlled Angkor Wat since that time.

 

ARCHITECTURE

SITE AND PLAN

Angkor Wat, located at 13°24′45″N 103°52′0″E, is a unique combination of the temple mountain, the standard design for the empire's state temples and the later plan of concentric galleries. The temple is a representation of Mount Meru, the home of the gods: the central quincunx of towers symbolises the five peaks of the mountain, and the walls and moat the surrounding mountain ranges and ocean. Access to the upper areas of the temple was progressively more exclusive, with the laity being admitted only to the lowest level. Unlike most Khmer temples, Angkor Wat is oriented to the west rather than the east. This has led many (including Maurice Glaize and George Coedès) to conclude that Suryavarman intended it to serve as his funerary temple.Further evidence for this view is provided by the bas-reliefs, which proceed in a counter-clockwise direction - prasavya in Hindu terminology - as this is the reverse of the normal order. Rituals take place in reverse order during Brahminic funeral services. The archaeologist Charles Higham also describes a container which may have been a funerary jar which was recovered from the central tower. It has been nominated by some as the greatest expenditure of energy on the disposal of a corpse. Freeman and Jacques, however, note that several other temples of Angkor depart from the typical eastern orientation, and suggest that Angkor Wat's alignment was due to its dedication to Vishnu, who was associated with the west.

 

A further interpretation of Angkor Wat has been proposed by Eleanor Mannikka. Drawing on the temple's alignment and dimensions, and on the content and arrangement of the bas-reliefs, she argues that the structure represents a claimed new era of peace under King Suryavarman II: "as the measurements of solar and lunar time cycles were built into the sacred space of Angkor Wat, this divine mandate to rule was anchored to consecrated chambers and corridors meant to perpetuate the king's power and to honor and placate the deities manifest in the heavens above." Mannikka's suggestions have been received with a mixture of interest and scepticism in academic circles. She distances herself from the speculations of others, such as Graham Hancock, that Angkor Wat is part of a representation of the constellation Draco.

 

STYLE

Angkor Wat is the prime example of the classical style of Khmer architecture - the Angkor Wat style - to which it has given its name. By the 12th century Khmer architects had become skilled and confident in the use of sandstone (rather than brick or laterite) as the main building material. Most of the visible areas are of sandstone blocks, while laterite was used for the outer wall and for hidden structural parts. The binding agent used to join the blocks is yet to be identified, although natural resins or slaked lime has been suggested. The temple has drawn praise above all for the harmony of its design. According to Maurice Glaize, a mid-20th-century conservator of Angkor, the temple "attains a classic perfection by the restrained monumentality of its finely balanced elements and the precise arrangement of its proportions. It is a work of power, unity and style." Architecturally, the elements characteristic of the style include: the ogival, redented towers shaped like lotus buds; half-galleries to broaden passageways; axial galleries connecting enclosures; and the cruciform terraces which appear along the main axis of the temple. Typical decorative elements are devatas (or apsaras), bas-reliefs, and on pediments extensive garlands and narrative scenes. The statuary of Angkor Wat is considered conservative, being more static and less graceful than earlier work. Other elements of the design have been destroyed by looting and the passage of time, including gilded stucco on the towers, gilding on some figures on the bas-reliefs, and wooden ceiling panels and doors.

 

FEATURES

OUTER ENCLOSURE

The outer wall, 1024 by 802 m and 4.5 m high, is surrounded by a 30 m apron of open ground and a moat 190 m wide. Access to the temple is by an earth bank to the east and a sandstone causeway to the west; the latter, the main entrance, is a later addition, possibly replacing a wooden bridge. There are gopuras at each of the cardinal points; the western is by far the largest and has three ruined towers. Glaize notes that this gopura both hides and echoes the form of the temple proper. Under the southern tower is a statue of Vishnu, known as Ta Reach, which may originally have occupied the temple's central shrine.Galleries run between the towers and as far as two further entrances on either side of the gopura often referred to as "elephant gates", as they are large enough to admit those animals. These galleries have square pillars on the outer (west) side and a closed wall on the inner (east) side. The ceiling between the pillars is decorated with lotus rosettes; the west face of the wall with dancing figures; and the east face of the wall with balustered windows, dancing male figures on prancing animals, and devatas, including (south of the entrance) the only one in the temple to be showing her teeth. The outer wall encloses a space of 820,000 square metres, which besides the temple proper was originally occupied by the city and, to the north of the temple, the royal palace. Like all secular buildings of Angkor, these were built of perishable materials rather than of stone, so nothing remains of them except the outlines of some of the streets. Most of the area is now covered by forest. A 350 m causeway connects the western gopura to the temple proper, with naga balustrades and six sets of steps leading down to the city on either side. Each side also features a library with entrances at each cardinal point, in front of the third set of stairs from the entrance, and a pond between the library and the temple itself. The ponds are later additions to the design, as is the cruciform terrace guarded by lions connecting the causeway to the central structure.

 

CENTRAL STRUCTURE

The temple stands on a terrace raised higher than the city. It is made of three rectangular galleries rising to a central tower, each level higher than the last. Mannikka interprets these galleries as being dedicated to the king, Brahma, the moon, and Vishnu.

 

Each gallery has a gopura at each of the points, and the two inner galleries each have towers at their corners, forming a quincunx with the central tower. Because the temple faces west, the features are all set back towards the east, leaving more space to be filled in each enclosure and gallery on the west side; for the same reason the west-facing steps are shallower than those on the other sides.

 

The outer gallery measures 187 by 215 m, with pavilions rather than towers at the corners. The gallery is open to the outside of the temple, with columned half-galleries extending and buttressing the structure. Connecting the outer gallery to the second enclosure on the west side is a cruciform cloister called Preah Poan (the "Hall of a Thousand Gods"). Buddha images were left in the cloister by pilgrims over the centuries, although most have now been removed. This area has many inscriptions relating the good deeds of pilgrims, most written in Khmer but others in Burmese and Japanese. The four small courtyards marked out by the cloister may originally have been filled with water.

 

North and south of the cloister are libraries.

 

Beyond, the second and inner galleries are connected to each other and to two flanking libraries by another cruciform terrace, again a later addition. From the second level upwards, devatas abound on the walls, singly or in groups of up to four. The second-level enclosure is 100 by 115 m, and may originally have been flooded to represent the ocean around Mount Meru.

 

Three sets of steps on each side lead up to the corner towers and gopuras of the inner gallery. The very steep stairways represent the difficulty of ascending to the kingdom of the gods. This inner gallery, called the Bakan, is a 60 m square with axial galleries connecting each gopura with the central shrine, and subsidiary shrines located below the corner towers. The roofings of the galleries are decorated with the motif of the body of a snake ending in the heads of lions or garudas. Carved lintels and pediments decorate the entrances to the galleries and to the shrines. The tower above the central shrine rises 43 m to a height of 65 m above the ground; unlike those of previous temple mountains, the central tower is raised above the surrounding four. The shrine itself, originally occupied by a statue of Vishnu and open on each side, was walled in when the temple was converted to Theravada Buddhism, the new walls featuring standing Buddhas. In 1934, the conservator George Trouvé excavated the pit beneath the central shrine: filled with sand and water it had already been robbed of its treasure, but he did find a sacred foundation deposit of gold leaf two metres above ground level.

 

DECORATION

Integrated with the architecture of the building, and one of the causes for its fame is Angkor Wat's extensive decoration, which predominantly takes the form of bas-relief friezes. The inner walls of the outer gallery bear a series of large-scale scenes mainly depicting episodes from the Hindu epics the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. Higham has called these, "the greatest known linear arrangement of stone carving".

 

From the north-west corner anti-clockwise, the western gallery shows the Battle of Lanka (from the Ramayana, in which Rama defeats Ravana) and the Battle of Kurukshetra (from the Mahabharata, showing the mutual annihilation of the Kaurava and Pandava clans). On the southern gallery follow the only historical scene, a procession of Suryavarman II, then the 32 hells and 37 heavens of Hindu mythology.

 

On the eastern gallery is one of the most celebrated scenes, the Churning of the Sea of Milk, showing 92 asuras and 88 devas using the serpent Vasuki to churn the sea under Vishnu's direction (Mannikka counts only 91 asuras, and explains the asymmetrical numbers as representing the number of days from the winter solstice to the spring equinox, and from the equinox to the summer solstice). It is followed by Vishnu defeating asuras (a 16th-century addition). The northern gallery shows Krishna's victory over Bana (where according to Glaize, "The workmanship is at its worst"). and a battle between the Hindu gods and asuras. The north-west and south-west corner pavilions both feature much smaller-scale scenes, some unidentified but most from the Ramayana or the life of Krishna. Angkor Wat is decorated with depictions of apsaras and devata; there are more than 1,796 depictions of devata in the present research inventory. Angkor Wat architects employed small apsara images (30–40 cm) as decorative motifs on pillars and walls. They incorporated larger devata images (all full-body portraits measuring approximately 95–110 cm) more prominently at every level of the temple from the entry pavilion to the tops of the high towers. In 1927, Sappho Marchal published a study cataloging the remarkable diversity of their hair, headdresses, garments, stance, jewelry and decorative flowers, which Marchal concluded were based on actual practices of the Angkor period.

 

CONSTRUCTION TECHNIQUES

The stones, as smooth as polished marble, were laid without mortar with very tight joints that are sometimes hard to find. The blocks were held together by mortise and tenon joints in some cases, while in others they used dovetails and gravity. The blocks were presumably put in place by a combination of elephants, coir ropes, pulleys and bamboo scaffolding. Henri Mouhot noted that most of the blocks had holes 2.5 cm in diameter and 3 cm deep, with more holes on the larger blocks. Some scholars have suggested that these were used to join them together with iron rods, but others claim they were used to hold temporary pegs to help manoeuvre them into place. The monument was made out of millions of tonnes of sandstone and it has a greater volume as well as mass than the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt. The Angkor Wat Temple consumes about 6 million to 10 million blocks of sandstone with an average weight of 1.5 tons each. In fact, the entire city of Angkor used up far greater amounts of stone than all the Egyptian pyramids combined, and occupied an area significantly greater than modern-day Paris. Moreover, unlike the Egyptian pyramids which use limestone quarried barely half a km away all the time, the entire city of Angkor was built with sandstone quarried 40 km (or more) away. This sandstone had to be transported from Mount Kulen, a quarry approximately 40 km to the northeast. The route has been suggested to span 35 kilometres along a canal towards Tonlé Sap lake, another 35 kilometres crossing the lake, and finally 15 kilometres upstream and against the current along Siem Reap River, making a total journey of 90 kilometres. However, Etsuo Uchida and Ichita Shimoda of Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan have discovered in 2012 a shorter 35-kilometre canal connecting Mount Kulen and Angkor Wat using satellite imagery. The two believe that the Khmer used this route instead.

 

Virtually all of its surfaces, columns, lintels even roofs are carved. There are miles of reliefs illustrating scenes from Indian literature including unicorns, griffins, winged dragons pulling chariots as well as warriors following an elephant-mounted leader and celestial dancing girls with elaborate hair styles. The gallery wall alone is decorated with almost 1000 square metres of bas reliefs. Holes on some of the Angkor walls indicate that they may have been decorated with bronze sheets. These were highly prized in ancient times and were a prime target for robbers. While excavating Khajuraho, Alex Evans, a stonemason and sculptor, recreated a stone sculpture under 1.2 m, this took about 60 days to carve. Roger Hopkins and Mark Lehner also conducted experiments to quarry limestone which took 12 quarrymen 22 days to quarry about 400 tons of stone. The labor force to quarry, transport, carve and install so much sandstone must have run into the thousands including many highly skilled artisans. The skills required to carve these sculptures were developed hundreds of years earlier, as demonstrated by some artifacts that have been dated to the seventh century, before the Khmer came to power.

 

ANGKOR WAT TODAY

The Archaeological Survey of India carried out restoration work on the temple between 1986 and 1992. Since the 1990s, Angkor Wat has seen continued conservation efforts and a massive increase in tourism. The temple is part of the Angkor World Heritage Site, established in 1992, which has provided some funding and has encouraged the Cambodian government to protect the site. The German Apsara Conservation Project (GACP) is working to protect the devatas and other bas-reliefs which decorate the temple from damage. The organisation's survey found that around 20% of the devatas were in very poor condition, mainly because of natural erosion and deterioration of the stone but in part also due to earlier restoration efforts. Other work involves the repair of collapsed sections of the structure, and prevention of further collapse: the west facade of the upper level, for example, has been buttressed by scaffolding since 2002, while a Japanese team completed restoration of the north library of the outer enclosure in 2005. World Monuments Fund began conservation work on the Churning of the Sea of Milk Gallery in 2008 after several years of conditions studies. The project restored the traditional Khmer roofing system and removed cement used in earlier restoration attempts that had resulted in salts entering the structure behind the bas-relief, discoloring and damaging the sculpted surfaces. The main phase of work ended in 2012, and the final component will be the installation of finials on the roof of the gallery in 2013. Microbial biofilms have been found degrading sandstone at Angkor Wat, Preah Khan, and the Bayon and West Prasat in Angkor. The dehydration and radiation resistant filamentous cyanobacteria can produce organic acids that degrade the stone. A dark filamentous fungus was found in internal and external Preah Khan samples, while the alga Trentepohlia was found only in samples taken from external, pink-stained stone at Preah Khan. Angkor Wat has become a major tourist destination. In 2004 and 2005, government figures suggest that, respectively, 561.000 and 677.000 foreign visitors arrived in Siem Reap province, approximately 50% of all foreign tourists in Cambodia for both years. The site has been managed by the private SOKIMEX group since 1990, which rented it from the Cambodian government. The influx of tourists has so far caused relatively little damage, other than some graffiti; ropes and wooden steps have been introduced to protect the bas-reliefs and floors, respectively. Tourism has also provided some additional funds for maintenance - as of 2000 approximately 28% of ticket revenues across the whole Angkor site was spent on the temples - although most work is carried out by foreign government-sponsored teams rather than by the Cambodian authorities. Since Angkor Wat has seen significant growth in tourism throughout the years UNESCO and its International Co-ordinating Committee for the Safeguarding and Development of the Historic Site of Angkor (ICC), in association with representatives from the Royal Government and APSARA, organized seminars to discuss the concept of "cultural tourism". Wanting to avoid commercial and mass tourism, the seminars emphasized the importance of providing high quality accommodation and services in order for the Cambodian government to benefit economically, while also incorporating the richness of Cambodian culture. In 2001, this incentive resulted in the concept of the "Angkor Tourist City" which would be developed with regard to traditional Khmer architecture, contain leisure and tourist facilities, and provide luxurious hotels capable of accommodating large amounts of tourists. The prospect of developing such large tourist accommodations has encountered concerns from both APSARA and the ICC, claiming that previous tourism developments in the area have neglected construction regulations and more of these projects have the potential to damage landscape features. Also, the large scale of these projects have begun to threaten the quality of the nearby town's water, sewage, and electricity systems. It has been noted that such high frequency of tourism and growing demand for quality accommodations in the area, such as the development of a large highway, has had a direct effect on the underground water table, subsequently straining the structural stability of the temples at Angkor Wat. Locals of Siem Reap have also voiced concern over the charming nature and atmosphere of their town being compromised in order to entertain tourism. Since this charming local atmosphere is the key component to projects like Angkor Tourist City, local officials continue to discuss how to successfully incorporate future tourism without sacrificing local values and culture. At the ASEAN Tourism Forum 2012, both parties have agreed Borobudur and Angkor Wat to become sister sites and the provinces will become sister provinces. Two Indonesian airlines are considering the opportunity to open a direct flight from Yogyakarta, Indonesia to Siem Reap.

 

WIKIPEDIA

Stonemasonry or stonecraft is the creation of buildings, structures, and sculpture using stone as the primary material. It is one of the oldest activities and professions in human history. Many of the long-lasting, ancient shelters, temples, monuments, artifacts, fortifications, roads, bridges, and entire cities were built of stone. Famous works of stonemasonry include the Egyptian pyramids, the Taj Mahal, Cusco's Incan Wall, Easter Island's statues, Angkor Wat, Borobudur, Tihuanaco, Tenochtitlan, Persepolis, the Parthenon, Stonehenge, the Great Wall of China, Chartres Cathedral.

 

DEFINITION

Masonry is the craft of shaping rough pieces of rock into accurate geometrical shapes, at times simple, but some of considerable complexity, and then arranging the resulting stones, often together with mortar, to form structures.

 

Quarrymen split sheets of rock, and extract the resulting blocks of stone from the ground.

Sawyers cut these rough blocks into cuboids, to required size with diamond-tipped saws. The resulting block if ordered for a specific component is known as sawn six sides (SSS).

Banker masons are workshop-based, and specialize in working the stones into the shapes required by a building's design, this set out on templets and a bed mould. They can produce anything from stones with simple chamfers to tracery windows, detailed mouldings and the more classical architectural building masonry. When working a stone from a sawn block, the mason ensures that the stone is bedded in the right way, so the finished work sits in the building in the same orientation as it was formed on the ground. Occasionally though some stones need to be oriented correctly for the application; this includes voussoirs, jambs, copings, and cornices.

 

The basic tools, methods and skills of the banker mason have existed as a trade for thousands of years.

 

Carvers cross the line from craft to art, and use their artistic ability to carve stone into foliage, figures, animals or abstract designs.

Fixer masons specialize in the fixing of stones onto buildings, using lifting tackle, and traditional lime mortars and grouts. Sometimes modern cements, mastics, and epoxy resins are used, usually on specialist applications such as stone cladding. Metal fixings, from simple dowels and cramps to specialised single application fixings, are also used. The precise tolerances necessary make this a highly skilled job.

Memorial masons or monumental masons carve gravestones and inscriptions.

 

The modern stonemason undergoes comprehensive training, both in the classroom and in the working environment. Hands-on skill is complemented by an intimate knowledge of each stone type, its application, and best uses, and how to work and fix each stone in place. The mason may be skilled and competent to carry out one or all of the various branches of stonemasonry. In some areas, the trend is towards specialization, in other areas towards adaptability.

 

TYPES OF STONE

Stonemasons use all types of natural stone: igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary; while some also use artificial stone as well.

 

IGNEOUS STONES

Granite is one of the hardest stones, and requires such different techniques to sedimentary stones that it is virtually a separate trade. With great persistence, simple mouldings can and have been carved from granite, for example in many Cornish churches and in the city of Aberdeen. Generally, however, it is used for purposes that require its strength and durability, such as kerbstones, countertops, flooring, and breakwaters.

Igneous stone ranges from very soft rocks such as pumice and scoria to somewhat harder rocks such as tuff to the hardest rocks such as granite and basalt.

 

METAMORPHIC

Marble is a fine, easily worked stone, that comes in various colours, but mainly white. It has traditionally been used for carving statues, and for facings of many Byzantine and Italian Renaissance buildings. Prominent Greek sculptors, such as Antenor (6th century BC), Phidias and Critias (5th century BC), Praxiteles (4th century BC) and others used mainly the marble of Paros and Thassos islands, and the whitest and brightest of all (although not the finest), the Pentelikon marble. Their work was preceded by older sculptors from Mesopotamia and Egypt, but the Greeks were unmatched in plasticity and realistic (re)presentation, either of Gods (Apollo, Aphrodite, Hermes, Zeus, etc.), or humans (Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Phryne, etc.). The famous Acropolis of Athens is said to be constructed using the Pentelicon marble. The traditional home of the marble industry is the area around Carrara in Italy, from where a bright and fine, whitish marble is extracted in vast quantities.

Slate is a popular choice of stone for memorials and inscriptions, as its fine grain and hardness means it leaves details very sharp. Its tendency to split into thin plates has also made it a popular roofing material.

 

SEDIMENTARY

TYPES

TYPES OF STONEMASONRY ARE:

 

FIXER MASONS

This type of masons have specialized into fixing the stones onto the buildings. They might do this with grouts, mortars, and lifting tackle. They might also use things like single application specialized fixings, simple cramps, and dowels as well as stone cladding with things like epoxy resins, mastics, and modern cements.

 

MEMORIAL MASONS

These are the masons that make headstones and carve the inscriptions on them.

 

Today's stonemasons undergo training that is quite comprehensive and is done both in the work environment and in the classroom. It isn't enough to have hands-on skill anymore. One must also have knowledge of the types of stones as well as its best uses and how to work it as well as how to fix it in place.

 

RUBBLE MASONRY

When roughly dressed stones are laid in a mortar the result is a stone rubble masonry.

 

ASHLAR MASONRY

Stone masonry using dressed (cut) stones is known as ashlar masonry.

 

STONE VANEER

Stone veneer is used as a protective and decorative covering for interior or exterior walls and surfaces. The veneer is typically 2.54 cm thick and must weigh less than 73 kg m2, so that no additional structural supports are required. The structural wall is put up first, and thin, flat stones are mortared onto the face of the wall. Metal tabs in the structural wall are mortared between the stones to tie everything together, to prevent the stonework from separating from the wall.

Slipform stonemasonry

SLIPFORM STONEMASONRY

Slipform stonemasonry is a method for making stone walls with the aid of formwork to contain the rocks and mortar while keeping the walls straight. Short forms, up to two feet tall, are placed on both sides of the wall to serve as a guide for the stonework. Stones are placed inside the forms with the good faces against the formwork. Concrete is poured behind the rocks. Rebar is added for strength, to make a wall that is approximately half reinforced concrete and half stonework. The wall can be faced with stone on one side or both sides.

 

TRAINING

Traditionally medieval stonemasons served a seven-year apprenticeship. A similar system still operates today.

 

A modern apprenticeship lasts three years. This combines on-site learning through personal experience, the experience of the tradesmen, and college work where apprentices are given an overall experience of the building, hewing and theory work involved in masonry. In some areas, colleges offer courses which teach not only the manual skills but also related fields such as drafting and blueprint reading or construction conservation. Electronic Stonemasonry training resources enhance traditional delivery techniques. Hands-on workshops are a good way to learn about stonemasonry also. Those wishing to become stonemasons should have little problem working at heights, possess reasonable hand-eye coordination, be moderately physically fit, and have basic mathematical ability. Most of these things can be developed while learning.

Tools

TOOLS

Stonemasons use a wide variety of tools to handle and shape stone blocks (ashlar) and slabs into finished articles. The basic tools for shaping the stone are a mallet, chisels, and a metal straight edge. With these one can make a flat surface – the basis of all stonemasonry.

 

Chisels come in a variety of sizes and shapes, dependent upon the function for which they are being used and have many different names depending on locality. There are different chisels for different materials and sizes of material being worked, for removing large amounts of material and for putting a fine finish on the stone.

 

Mixing mortar is normally done today with mortar mixers which usually use a rotating drum or rotating paddles to mix the mortar.

 

The masonry trowel is used for the application of the mortar between and around the stones as they are set into place. Filling in the gaps (joints) with mortar is referred to as pointing. Pointing in smaller joints can be accomplished using tuck pointers, pointing trowels, and margin trowels, among other tools.

 

A mason's hammer has a long thin head and is called a Punch Hammer. It would be used with a chisel or splitter for a variety of purposes

 

A walling hammer (catchy hammer) can be used in place of a hammer and chisel or pincher to produce rubble or pinnings or snecks.

 

Stonemasons use a lewis together with a crane or block and tackle to hoist building stones into place.

 

Today power tools such as compressed-air chisels, abrasive spinners, and angle grinders are much used: these save time and money, but are hazardous and require just as much skill as the hand tools that they augment. But many of the basic tools of stonemasonry have remained virtually the same throughout vast amounts of time, even thousands of years, for instance when comparing chisels that can be bought today with chisels found at the pyramids of Giza the common sizes and shapes are virtually unchanged.

 

Stonemasonry is one of the earliest trades in civilization's history. During the time of the Neolithic Revolution and domestication of animals, people learned how to use fire to create quicklime, plasters, and mortars. They used these to fashion homes for themselves with mud, straw, or stone, and masonry was born.

 

The Ancients heavily relied on the stonemason to build the most impressive and long-lasting monuments to their civilizations. The Egyptians built their pyramids, the civilizations of Central America had their step pyramids, the Persians their palaces, the Greeks their temples, and the Romans their public works and wonders (See Roman Architecture). People of the Indus Valley Civilization, such as at Dholavira made entire cities characterized by stone architecture. Among the famous ancient stonemasons is Sophroniscus, the father of Socrates, who was a stone-cutter.

Castle building was an entire industry for the medieval stonemasons. When the Western Roman Empire fell, building in dressed stone decreased in much of Western Europe, and there was a resulting increase in timber-based construction. Stonework experienced a resurgence in the 9th and 10th centuries in Europe, and by the 12th-century religious fervour resulted in the construction of thousands of impressive churches and cathedrals in stone across Western Europe. Medieval stonemasons' skills were in high demand, and members of the guild, gave rise to three classes of stonemasons: apprentices, journeymen, and master masons. Apprentices were indentured to their masters as the price for their training, journeymen were qualified craftsmen who were paid by the day, and master masons were considered freemen who could travel as they wished to work on the projects of the patrons and could operate as self-employed craftsmen and train apprentices. During the Renaissance, the stonemason's guild admitted members who were not stonemasons, and eventually evolved into the Society of Freemasonry; fraternal groups which observe the traditional culture of stonemasons but are not typically involved in modern construction projects.

 

A medieval stonemason would often carve a personal symbol onto their block to differentiate their work from that of other stonemasons. This also provided a simple ‘quality assurance’ system.

 

The Renaissance saw stonemasonry return to the prominence and sophistication of the Classical age. The rise of the humanist philosophy gave people the ambition to create marvelous works of art. The centre stage for the Renaissance would prove to be Italy, where Italian city-states such as Florence erected great structures, including the Florence Cathedral, the Fountain of Neptune, and the Laurentian Library, which was planned and built by Michelangelo Buonarroti, a famous sculptor of the Renaissance.

 

When Europeans settled the Americas, they brought the stonemasonry techniques of their respective homelands with them. Settlers used what materials were available, and in some areas, stone was the material of choice. In the first waves, building mimicked that of Europe, to eventually be replaced by unique architecture later on.

 

In the 20th century, stonemasonry saw its most radical changes in the way the work is accomplished. Prior to the first half of the century, most heavy work was executed by draft animals or human muscle power. With the arrival of the internal combustion engine, many of these hard aspects of the trade have been made simpler and easier. Cranes and forklifts have made moving and laying heavy stones relatively easy for the stonemasons. Motor powered mortar mixers have saved much in time and energy as well. Compressed-air powered tools have made working of stone less time-intensive. Petrol and electric-powered abrasive saws can cut through stone much faster and with more precision than chiseling alone. Carbide-tipped chisels can stand up to much more abuse than the steel and iron chisels made by blacksmiths of old.

 

WIKIPEDIA

Laon and its Cathedral

The hilly district of Laon has always had some strategic importance. In the time of Julius Caesar there was a Gallic village where the Remis (inhabitants of the country round Reims) had to meet the onset of the confederated Belgae. Whatever may have been the precise locality of that battlefield, Laon was fortified by the Romans, and successively checked the invasions of the Franks, Burgundians, Vandals, Alans and Huns. At that time it was known as Alaudanum or Lugdunum Clavatum.

Today, Laon is the préfecture (capital) of the Aisne département in the Picarde region of and has a population of about 26,000.

 

The old town is situated on an isolated ridge, forming two sides of a triangle, which rises some 100m above the surrounding plain and the little river of Ardon. I believe it is called the “witness’ hill” (“Zeugenberg”).

 

The cathedral of Laon is one of the most important gothic creations of the 12th and 13th centuries, ranking on par with the cathedrals of Saint-Étienne of Sens and Notre Dame of Paris. Laon Cathedral is known for its imposing towers, its beautiful Gothic architecture, and its importance as a major stop on the medieval pilgrimage route to Santiago.

It also influenced cathedral building from Reims, to Chartres to Bamberg and other places.

 

Construction of Notre-Dame cathedral began around 1160, on the site of an ancient basilica that had burned down in 1111 during an insurrection. The new cathedral was completed in 1230. The second half of the 13th century saw the start of work on the side chapels. Considerable reconstruction was done in the early 14th century on the south and north façades.

In the 18th century, the chancel received decorative work. During the French Revolution, the cathedral was damaged and some of the statues on the portals were lost.

After being listed as a Historical Monument in 1840, a restoration program began in 1846. It was finished a little before 1914. The cathedral of Laon escaped World War I unharmed.

 

The building is cruciform, and the choir terminates in a straight wall instead of in an apse. Of the six towers flanking the facades, only four are complete to the height of the base of the spires, two at the west front with huge figures of oxen beneath the arcades of their upper portion, and one at each end of the transept. A square central tower forms a lantern within the church.

The towers and uniquely ornate, light and airy. Statues of oxen decorate the top of the façade towers, a tribute to the animals that provided so much labour towards the construction of the church.

There are many other things to look on the complex exterior, including a finely carved portal and a rhinoceros gargoyle!

 

The understated purity of the cathedral's interior, reinforced by white stone, gives it a remarkable luminosity.

The western front with its three porches ranks next to that of Notre-Dame at Paris in purity. The central porch has a fine rose window.

Notable interior features include the stained glass (the western rose window dates to 1210), panels dating from the 13th century, a Serbian icon of the Holy Face, and an 18th-century choir grille.

The chapter-house and the cloister contain beautiful specimens of the architecture of the beginning of the 13th century. The old episcopal palace, contiguous to the cathedral, is now used as a court-house. The front, flanked by turrets, is pierced by great pointed windows. There is also a Gothic cloister and an old chapel of two storeys, of a date anterior to the cathedral.

 

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How precise is that! Taken on a drive around the South West in October, 1988. I doubt this mileage is 'as the crow flies', a ridiculous metaphor to any self respecting bird watcher! Still, some nice signage here!