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Harpa is the newly built concert house in Reykjavík. I spent some time there and can tell you that they have a nice café, very friendly shop assistants at the shop selling Icelandic design and a music shop. And loads of interesting angles to take pictures of.
Official facts about Harpa you can find here
All pictures clickable and some more in the set.
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Harpa ist ein ziemlich neues Konzerthaus in Reykjavík. Ich habe dort einige Zeit verbracht und kann nun berichten, dass es dort ein nettes Café gibt (nur leicht überteuert), super nette Verkäufer in einem tollen Laden für Isländisches Design (vergleichsweise günstig) und einen Laden mit Isländischer Musik (da war ich aber nicht drin). Und fotogene Blickwinkel an allen Ecken und Enden.
Die wirklich wichtigen Infos über Harpa stehen hier.
Alle Bilder sind anklickbar und noch mehr im Album
seen from Lloyd's Building
gesehen vom Lloyd's Building
The Lloyd's building (sometimes known as the Inside-Out Building) is the home of the insurance institution Lloyd's of London. It is located on the former site of East India House in Lime Street, in London's main financial district, the City of London. The building is a leading example of radical Bowellism architecture in which the services for the building, such as ducts and lifts, are located on the exterior to maximise space in the interior.
In 2011, twenty-five years after its completion in 1986 the building received Grade I listing; at this time it was the youngest structure ever to obtain this status. It is said by Historic England to be "universally recognised as one of the key buildings of the modern epoch".
The first Lloyd's building (address 12 Leadenhall Street) had been built on this site in 1928 to the design of Sir Edwin Cooper. In 1958, due to expansion of the market, a new building was constructed across the road at 51 Lime Street (now the site of the Willis Building). Lloyd's now occupied the Heysham Building and the Cooper Building.
By the 1970s Lloyd's had again outgrown these two buildings and proposed to extend the Cooper Building. In 1978, the corporation ran an architectural competition which attracted designs from practices such as Foster Associates, Arup and I.M. Pei. Lloyd's commissioned Richard Rogers to redevelop the site, and the original 1928 building on the western corner of Lime and Leadenhall Streets was demolished to make way for the present one which was officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 18 November 1986. The 1928 building's entrance at 12 Leadenhall Street was preserved and forms a rather incongruous attachment to the 1986 structure. Demolition of the 1958 building commenced in 2004 to make way for the 26-storey Willis Building.
The current Lloyd's building (address 1 Lime Street) was designed by the architect company Richard Rogers and Partners (now Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners) and built between 1978 and 1986. Bovis was the management contractor. Like the Pompidou Centre in Paris (designed by Renzo Piano and Rogers), the building was innovative in having its services such as staircases, lifts, ductwork, electrical power conduits and water pipes on the outside, leaving an uncluttered space inside. The 12 glass lifts were the first of their kind in the United Kingdom. Like the Pompidou Centre, the building was highly influenced by the work of Archigram in the 1950s and 1960s.
The building consists of three main towers and three service towers around a central, rectangular space. Its core is the large Underwriting Room on the ground floor, which houses the Lutine Bell within the Rostrum. Also on the first floor is the loss book which for 300 years has had entries of significant losses entered by quill. The Underwriting Room (often simply called "the Room") is overlooked by galleries, forming a 60 metres (197 ft) high atrium lit naturally through a huge barrel-vaulted glass roof. The first four galleries open onto the atrium space, and are connected by escalators through the middle of the structure. The higher floors are glassed in and can only be reached via the exterior lifts.
The 11th floor houses the Committee Room (also known as the Adam Room), an 18th-century dining room designed for the 2nd Earl of Shelburne by Robert Adam in 1763; it was transferred piece by piece from the previous (1958) Lloyd's building across the road at 51 Lime Street.
The Lloyd's building is 88 metres (289 ft) to the roof, with 14 floors. On top of each service core stand the cleaning cranes, increasing the overall height to 95.10 metres (312 ft). Modular in plan, each floor can be altered by addition or removal of partitions and walls.
In 2008 the Twentieth Century Society called for the building to be Grade I listed and in 2011 it was granted this status.
The building was previously owned by Dublin-based real estate firm Shelbourne Development Group, who purchased it in 2004 from a German investment bank. In July 2013 it was sold to the Chinese company Ping An Insurance in a £260 million deal.
Use in feature films and record album covers
It is seen on the cover of British pop group Five Star's 1986 album Silk and Steel; Hundred Reasons' debut album Ideas Above Our Station; and the 2001 reissue of British electronic musician Mike Paradinas' 1993 album Tango n' Vectif, under the alias μ-ziq.
Use as a location in films
Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)
The Anomaly (2014)
Climbing Great Buildings (2010)
The Ghost Writer (2010)
Mamma Mia! (2008)
A Good Year (2006)
Code 46 (2003)
Spy Game (2001)
Proof of Life (2000)
Fred Dibnah's Magnificent Monuments (2000), TV series
Entrapment (1999)
The Avengers (1998)
Different for Girls (1996)
Hackers (1995)
Search Out Science "Search Out Space" (1990)
High Hopes (1988)
Trainspotting (1996) in a montage comparing thriving eighties London with the Edinburgh drug scene in the rest of the movie.
(Wikipedia)
30 St Mary Axe (known previously as the Swiss Re Building), informally known as The Gherkin, is a commercial skyscraper in London's primary financial district, the City of London. It was completed in December 2003 and opened in April 2004. With 41 floors, it is 180 metres (591 ft) tall and stands on the former sites of the Baltic Exchange and Chamber of Shipping, which were extensively damaged in 1992 in the Baltic Exchange bombing by a device placed by the Provisional IRA in St Mary Axe, a narrow street leading north from Leadenhall Street.
After plans to build the 92-story Millennium Tower were dropped, 30 St Mary Axe was designed by Norman Foster and Arup Group. It was erected by Skanska; construction started in 2001.
The building has become a recognisable landmark of London, and it is one of the city's most widely recognised examples of contemporary architecture.
The building stands on the former site of the Baltic Exchange (24-28 St Mary Axe), which was the headquarters of a global marketplace for shipping freight contracts and also soft commodities, and the Chamber of Shipping (30-32 St Mary Axe). On 10 April 1992, the Provisional IRA detonated a bomb close to the Exchange, causing extensive damage to the historic building and neighbouring structures.
The United Kingdom government's statutory adviser on the historic environment, English Heritage, and the City of London's governing body, the City of London Corporation, were keen that any redevelopment must restore the Baltic Exchange's old façade onto St Mary Axe. The Exchange Hall was a celebrated fixture of the shipping market.
English Heritage then discovered that the damage was far more severe than initially thought, and they stopped insisting on full restoration, albeit over the objections of architectural conservationists. The Baltic Exchange and the Chamber of Shipping sold the land to Trafalgar House in 1995. Most of the remaining structures on the Baltic Exchange site were then carefully dismantled, and the interior of Exchange Hall and the façade were preserved, hoping for a reconstruction of the building in the future. The salvaged material was eventually sold for £800,000 and moved to Tallinn, Estonia, where it awaits reconstruction as the centrepiece of the city's commercial sector.
In 1996, Trafalgar House submitted plans for the London Millennium Tower, a 386-metre (1,266 ft) building with more than 140,000 m2 (1,500,000 sq ft) of office space, apartments, shops, restaurants and gardens. This plan was dropped after objections that it was totally out-of-scale in the City of London, and anticipated disruption to flight paths for both London City and London Heathrow airports; the revised plan for a lower tower was accepted.
The tower's topmost panoramic dome, known as the "lens", recalls the iconic glass dome that covered part of the ground floor of the Baltic Exchange and much of which is now displayed at the National Maritime Museum.
The Gherkin nickname was applied to the current building at least as long ago as 1999, referring to that plan's highly unorthodox layout and appearance.
On 23 August 2000, Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott granted planning permission to construct a building much larger than the old Exchange on the site. The site was special because it needed development, it was not on any of the "sight lines" (planning guidance requires that new buildings do not obstruct or detract from the view of St Paul's Cathedral dome when viewed from a number of locations around London), and it had housed the Baltic Exchange.
The plan for the site was to reconstruct the Baltic Exchange. GMW Architects proposed a new rectangular building surrounding a restored exchange: it would have the type of large floor plan that banks liked. Eventually, the planners realised that the exchange was not recoverable, forcing them to relax their building constraints; they hinted that an "architecturally significant" building might obtain a favourable reception from City authorities. This gave the architect a free hand in the design; it eliminated the restrictive[clarification needed] demands for a large, capital-efficient, money-making building, whose design was per the client's desire.
The new building's low-level plan satisfied the planning authority's desire to maintain London's traditional streetscape, with its narrow streets. The mass of the tower was not too imposing. Like Barclays' former city headquarters in Lombard Street, the idea was that the passer-by in neighbouring streets would be nearly oblivious to the tower's existence until directly underneath it.
The building was constructed by Skanska, completed in December 2003 and opened on 28 April 2004. The primary occupant of the building is Swiss Re, a global reinsurance company, which had the building commissioned as the head office for its UK operation. The tower is thus sometimes known as the Swiss Re Building, although this name has never been official and has more recently fallen out of favour, since the company's main headquarters is in Zurich and the Gherkin name has become more popular.
The building uses energy-saving methods which allow it to use only half the power that a similar tower would typically consume. Gaps in each floor create six shafts that serve as a natural ventilation system for the entire building, even though required firebreaks on every sixth floor interrupt the "chimney". The shafts create a giant double glazing effect; air is sandwiched between two layers of glazing and insulates the office space inside.
Architects promote double glazing in residential houses, which avoids the inefficient convection of heat across the relatively narrow gap between the panes, but the tower exploits this effect. The shafts pull warm air out of the building during the summer and warm the building in the winter using passive solar heating. The shafts also allow sunlight to pass through the building, making the work environment more pleasing, and keeping the lighting costs down.
The primary methods for controlling wind-excited sways are to increase the stiffness, or increase damping with tuned/active mass dampers. To a design by Arup, its fully triangulated perimeter structure makes the building rigid enough without any extra reinforcements. Despite its overall curved glass shape, there is only one piece of curved glass on the building, the lens-shaped cap at the apex.
On the building's top level (the 40th floor), there is a bar for tenants and their guests, with a panoramic view of London. A restaurant operates on the 39th floor, and private dining rooms on the 38th. Most buildings have extensive lift equipment on the roof of the building, but this was not possible for the Gherkin, since a bar had been planned for the 40th floor. The architects dealt with this by having the main lift only reach the 34th floor, and also a push-from-below lift to the 39th floor. There is a marble stairwell and a disabled persons' lift, which leads the visitor up to the bar in the dome.
The building is visible over long distances: From the north, for instance, it can be seen from the M11 motorway, some 32 kilometres (20 mi) away, while to the west it can be seen from the statue of George III in Windsor Great Park.
In April 2005, a glass panel, two thirds up the tower, fell to the plaza beneath. The plaza was sealed off, but the building remained open. A temporary covered walkway, extending across the plaza to the building's reception, was erected to protect visitors. Engineers examined the other 744 glass panels on the building. The cost of repair was covered by main contractor Skanska and curtain-wall supplier Schmidlin (now called Schmidlin-TSK AG).[20] The open-floor ventilation system did not operate as designed due to tenants adding glass partitions to increase security.
Since its completion, the building has won a number of awards for architecture. In October 2004, the architect was awarded the 2004 Stirling Prize. For the first time in the prize's history, the judges were unanimous. In December 2005, a survey of the world's largest firms of architects published in 2006 BD World Architecture 200 voted the tower as the most admired new building in the world. However, Ken Shuttleworth, who worked for Foster + Partners on the design of the building, said in 2011 that he believed the style was now out-moded: "I was looking at the glass all around and [thought], 'Why on earth did we do that?' Now we would do things differently". The building appeared in recent films such as Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, A Good Year, Basic Instinct 2, and Match Point and, rechristened the Spirit of London, became the spaceship centrepiece of Keith Mansfield's 2008 novel Johnny Mackintosh and the Spirit of London.
In September 2006, the building was put up for sale with a price tag of £600 million. Potential buyers included British Land, Land Securities, Prudential, ING, and the Abu Dhabi royal family. On 21 February 2007, IVG Immobilien AG and UK investment firm Evans Randall completed their joint purchase of the building for £630 million, making it Britain's most expensive office building. Swiss Re booked a gain of more than £300 million from the sale. The new owners are seeking compensation from four of their former managers on the deal, in which about £620 million was paid for a building with a build cost of about £200 million, giving the previous owners a clear £300 million profit.
Since February 2010, Sky News has broadcast its flagship business programme, Jeff Randall Live, from a studio in the building. In addition the top two floors of the tower are now available on a private hire basis for events.
Deloitte announced in April 2014 that the building was again being put up for sale, with an expected price of £550 million. The current owners could not afford to make loan repayments, citing differences in the value of the multi-currency loan and the British pound, high interest rates and general financing structure. In November 2014, the Gherkin was purchased for £700 million by the Safra Group, controlled by the Brazilian billionaire Joseph Safra.
(Wikipedia)
Das Lloyd’s Building ist der Hauptsitz des traditionsreichen Versicherungsmarktes Lloyd’s of London in London.
Das Gebäude wurde von dem Architekten Richard Rogers entworfen und im Zeitraum 1978 bis 1986 errichtet. Wie das Centre Pompidou, das Rogers zuvor gemeinsam mit Renzo Piano entworfen hatte, war auch dieses Gebäude innovativ, weil Versorgungsleitungen, Treppen und Lifte nach außen sichtbar verlegt wurden. Die zwölf Glaslifte waren die ersten ihrer Art im Vereinigten Königreich.
„Richard Rogers verfolgte diesen Ansatz der demonstrativ nach außen gekehrten Technik in seinem Lloyd’s Building auch im Hochhausbau weiter. Dieser in jeder Hinsicht unkonventionelle Bau kam den Visionen der Futuristen erstaunlich nahe.“
Der Komplex besteht aus drei Haupttürmen und drei Versorgungstürmen um einen zentralen rechteckigen Platz. Im 11. Stockwerk ist der Committee Room eingebaut, ein Speisezimmer aus dem 18. Jahrhundert, das 1763 im Auftrag von William Petty durch Robert Adam eingerichtet wurde und das Stück für Stück aus dem ehemaligen Lloyd’s-Gebäude auf der anderen Straßenseite übertragen wurde.
Das Lloyd’s Building ist rund 76 Meter hoch und hat 14 Stockwerke. Das Besondere an dem Bau ist, dass jedes Stockwerk durch Einbau oder Abbau von Trennwänden rasch verändert werden kann.
Der Eigentümer wechselte über die Zeit immer wieder, während der Mieter immer gleich blieb. Der Mietvertrag von Lloyd’s läuft noch bis 2031.
Das Gebäude war Kulisse für etliche Filme wie zum Beispiel Verlockende Falle und wurde als Werbekulisse für den Rover 800 genutzt.
(Wikipedia)
30 St Mary Axe, häufig The Gherkin genannt (englisch für Gewürzgurke), ist ein 180 m hoher Wolkenkratzer im Finanzbezirk der City of London. Er wurde als Büroturm des Rückversicherers Swiss Re erbaut und ist deshalb auch als Swiss Re Building oder Swiss Re Tower bekannt.
Das Gebäude wurde 2001 bis 2004 durch die Architekten Ken Shuttleworth und Norman Foster an der Stelle der durch einen IRA-Anschlag zerstörten Baltic Exchange errichtet. In seiner äußeren Form ähnelt es dem etwa gleichzeitig in Barcelona erbauten Torre Glòries.
Das 41-stöckige Gebäude wurde im April 2004 bezogen. Für den vom österreichischen Stahlbauunternehmen Waagner Biró realisierten Bau wurden 10.548 Tonnen Stahl verwendet. Das Tragwerk besteht aus ineinander verschlungenen Helixsträngen, einer Art Schlauchgeflecht. Aus dieser Formgebung folgt eine Verkleidung gänzlich bestehend aus dreieckigen und rautenförmigen Glaselementen.
Besonderen Wert legten Bauherrschaft und Konstrukteure auf Nachhaltigkeit und Energieeffizienz. Die Gesamtfläche des Gebäudes beträgt 47.310 m². Die Büroflächen überziehen nicht den ganzen Innenraum, sondern sind ringförmig angelegt. Der Kern des Gebäudes versorgt die einzelnen Etagen mit Energie und Wasser. Deckplatten und eckige Fenster öffnen und schließen sich je nach Außenwitterung, von Computeranlagen gesteuert. Es gibt Atrien über bis zu sechs Stockwerke, die für eine naturähnliche Ventilation sorgen. Die Klimatechnik ist nur bei extremen Wetterverhältnissen aktiv.
Die Swiss Re als ursprüngliche Eigentümerin verkaufte das Gebäude für 630 Millionen Britische Pfund (ca. 950 Millionen Euro) im Februar 2007 an den deutschen Immobilienkonzern IVG Immobilien, wird es aber weiter als Hauptmieter (55 % bis mindestens 2031) nutzen.
Das Hochhaus war im April 2014 unter Zwangsverwaltung gestellt worden. Im Juli 2014 wurde „The Gherkin“ für rund 820 Millionen Euro zum Verkauf angeboten und Anfang November 2014 für 925 Millionen Euro von Joseph Safra gekauft.
Der Film Basic Instinct 2 aus dem Jahr 2006 spielt zu großen Teilen im 30 St Mary Axe. In Match Point aus dem Jahr 2005 (Regie: Woody Allen) hat die Hauptfigur Chris Wilton ihr Büro im 30 St Mary Axe. Ebenso befindet sich das Büro des Wertpapierhändlers Max Skinner im Film Ein gutes Jahr in der „Gherkin“. Auch am Anfang von Harry Potter und der Halbblutprinz ist der Turm kurz zu sehen. In der Episode Der blinde Banker der englischen Miniserie Sherlock wird das Gebäude mehrfach gezeigt, so auch von der Balkonperspektive von oben. Im Film Thor – The Dark Kingdom rutschen Thor und sein Antagonist Malekith während eines Kampfes die Glasfassade des Gebäudes herunter.
Im Dokumentarfilm Building The Gherkin spielt das Gebäude selbst die Hauptrolle. Der Film begleitet den gesamten Entstehungsprozess von 30 St Mary Axe von 1999 bis 2005.
Die Zukunft des Gebäudes und sein schließlicher Zusammenbruch nach einem fiktiven Verschwinden der Menschheit wird in Folge 3 der 2. Staffel der Dokufiktion-Serie Zukunft ohne Menschen („Die Wiege der Zivilisation“, USA 2010) behandelt.
In der siebten Staffel von Skins – Hautnah arbeitet Effy Stonem in dem Gebäude.
(Wikipedia)
"Magic is believing in yourself, if you can do that, you can make anything happen."
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The Chicago skyline with waves crashing along the Lake Michigan shoreline
11-29-2011
All photos © Joshua Mellin per the guidelines listed under "Owner settings" to the right.
June 1st, 2015
All photos © Joshua Mellin per the guidelines listed under "Owner settings" to the right.
Istanbul, Turkey - October 14, 2015: Sancaklar Camii is the first mosque to be designed by Emre Arolat Architects In 2013 it won 1st Prize in the World Architectural Festival’s Best Religious Building category.
Architects: Nay & Strausz, 1894. The notable photographer, Mai Mano's former home and studio.
www.maimano.hu/maimanohaz_en.html
www.maimano.hu/maimanohaz_02_en.html
www.maimano.hu/maimanohaz_02.html
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zsolnay#Pyrogranite
Wonderful photos of Mai Manó in my friend, ggaabboo 's great collection:
www.flickr.com/photos/23912178@N08/sets/72157606893807021/
Mai Manó House, The Hungarian House of Photography operates in a studio-house built for the commission of Mai Manó (1855-1917), Imperial and Royal Court Photographer. His eight-story studio-house and home was built in fourteen months, in 1893-94.
This special, eight-story neo-renaissance monument is unique in world architecture: we have no knowledge of any other intact turn-of-the-century studiohouse. In addition, it serves its original goal, the case of photography again.
Mai Manó was a professional photographer and specialist, in his time he was one of the best specialists of child portraits. His status in the professional community of that time is uncontested. He was also the founder and editor of the periodical called A Fény (The Light, launched in 1906)
The building's richly decorated neo-renaissance façade clearly served ideological purposes: Mai Manó wanted to lend a past to the young trade, hardly considered to be a form of art by anyone at that time. Take the majolica putti between the ground floor and the mezzanine or the façade paintings on the third floor showing the "six muses of photography".
Actual photographing took place in the Sunlight-studio on the second floor, we restored in 1996-97. During the restoration, we found the original frescoes hiding bethind the white wallpaper for decades. These used to serve as background for Mai's portraits. His studio worked in the house for four decades, until 1931. It was followed by a luxury-bar, Arizona, which was closed in 1944.
After the Second World War, a number of institutions and companies moved into the house and a few private apartments were separated as well. In spite of all the vicissitudes, the house kept its original character. It was declared a piece of national heritage in 1996 considering its special architecture, ornaments and industry-historical significance.
“Spaceship Earth’s theme,” William Ellinghaus, then president of AT&T announced at EPCOT Center’s dedication in 1982, “is communications, civilization and communications from Stone Age to Information Age….” Ellinghaus dedicated the 180 foot tall geodesic sphere to, “all of the people who have advanced communications, arts, and sciences, and in so doing have demonstrated that communications is truly the beginning of understanding.”
The outer skin of the building is covered with 11,324 individual isosceles triangle facets, each made of “anodic clear mica” Alucobond. The ideas contained within the sphere - a story of the evolution and promise of human communication - was thanks to sci-fi author Ray Bradbury. The soaring sphere’s form and name were both inspired by futurist Buckminster Fuller.
Walt Disney originally imagined EPCOT as an Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow - a model city where innovations could be tested and perfected to help mankind live better lives. It would have been a living laboratory for urban planning and human progress. But with Walt’s death in 1966, the idea’s greatest champion was gone and it evolved into a theme park modeled on a permanent World’s Fair - themed around world unity and innovation. Spaceship Earth became it’s iconic central architectural marvel.
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This model of EPCOT Center’s Spaceship Earth is designed in-scale with my previous microscale versions of Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty Castles. I began with a sphere generated using Bram Lambrecht’s old-but-reliable sphere generator. But the bottom and rear faces needed to be heavily modified to allow for the interior support structures. The scale is roughly 1:360 or so, but with any LEGO modeling, there is some flexibility needed because of piece availability and construction solutions.
So many of the businesses and restaurants in and around Quartier Petit Champlain have that old-world architectural heritage that we so admire. We managed to get a photo of this lovely place before the evening dinner crowd got in. I like the warmth it exhudes. It's Rafaella Ristorante.
This little old building is located in Old Quebec City, and ironically has been turned into an antique store. There is no shortage of amazing Old World architecture in Quebec City, but this one, complete with its turret, was particularly intriguing.
The Cathedral of Monreale, also called Santa Maria la Nuova, is a Sicilian masterpiece built during the Middle Ages. Is one of the best examples of coexistence between Islamic, Byzantine and Romanesque cultures. The church was founded by the Norman king William the II between 1174 and 1189, at the same time with the Abbey, the Royal Palace and the Archbishop’s Palace with which it constitutes a complex, expanded during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The external part of the Cathedral shows its Arab-Norman nature, with arches, windows and coloured marbles which are typical expressions of that kind of architecture. ..
Spice Island in old Portsmouth with the top of the Spinnaker Tower on show in the background. It's a wonderful place to walk around and take in the years of history. I always imagine the Press Gangs roaming the streets to assist the general public into joining the Royal Navy! I took this photo on a beautiful very warm morning with my Canon DSLR camera
This image was recently published in the online magazine Architecture Week
www.architectureweek.com/2012/0125/design_1-1.html
Featured in the Australian series of Grand Designs this home called "Very Small House" or "Small House" has gone on to win national and international awards.
Designed by Domenic Alvaro, it won the ‘World’s Best House’ award at the prestigious World Architecture Festival (WAF) Awards 2011.
The Grand Designs website promo says:
"Architect Domenic Alvaro and his partner Sue Bassett are urban animals who love the inner city suburb of Surry Hills in Sydney. However their dream location comes with a nightmare price tag. So, they come up with a unique way of keeping costs down and do this by buying very small and building very tall.
After buying a tiny corner car park measuring 7m x 6m they set out to create 220 square metres of light filled living space. Their vertical build comes together quickly thanks to pre-fab concrete panels which fit together like Lego. Construction itself is fast and efficient but there are interesting challenges on site. A miniscule block and two narrow cross streets won’t submit to the needs of a gigantic crane in a hurry – and the crane is essential as it hauls the huge panels and windows into position. Basically something’s gotta give – and it does. Will the result be worth the hassle?"
I think the answer to that is a resounding yes!
Kurilpa Bridge is a pedestrian and cyclist bridge connecting Kurilpa Point in South Brisbane and Brisbane City. The name Kurilpa comes from an Aboriginal word, meaning the "place of water rats". (Eeeek!)
In 2011, the bridge was judged World Transport Building of the Year at the World Architecture Festival in Barcelona, Spain.
The picture was taken from the south end of William Jolly Bridge.
Canon 5DmkII, EF 17-40 mm f/4 L
Exp: 30 sec, f/16, 17 mm, ISO 200
Small green atriums give the people in the waiting room something beautiful to watch. Health center owned by four of the doctors and one nurse. Winner in the category "Best Health Building" at World Architecture Festival 2016.
www.worldarchitecturefestival.com/2016-category-winners
Built: 2016. Architect: Wingårdh Arkitektkontor (Anders Olausson and Gert Wingårdh).
www.wingardhs.se (website only in English).
Developer: Nötkärnan Vård och Omsorg AB och Bergsjön Vårdcentral och BVC AB.
www.bergsjonvardcentral.se (website only in Swedish).
(to see further pictures and read other information please go to the end of page!)
Flaktowers
Flakturm, Arenbergpark
Picture: Flakturm, Arenbergpark
The Vienna flak towers are six large, of reinforced concrete erected defensive and protective structures in Vienna, which were built in the years 1942-1945 as giant bomb shelters with fitted anti-aircraft guns and fire control. The architect of the flak towers was Friedrich Tamms (1904-1980).
Flakturm, Arenbergpark
Image: Terrace of the flak tower in Arenbergpark
The system of the Vienna flak towers consists as a whole of six buildings, three turrets, each with a Feuerleitturm (fire-control tower). The three bunker pairs are arranged in a triangle in the approximate middle of which the Stephansdom is situated. The towers are of different heights, but their upper platforms are in exactly the same altitude, so that an overall coordination of air defense was possible. The maximum operating radius of the four main guns (12.8 cm twin) of each tower was under ideal conditions 20 km. The smaller platforms of combat and fire-control towers were provided for 2 cm anti-aircraft guns, but they were never used in Vienna. In addition to its military crew the flak towers in Vienna served as makeshift hospitals, housed radio stations and partly war-relevant technical companies and offered on a large scale air raid shelters for the population.
Flakturm Augarten
Picture: Flakturm, Augarten
After the war, the Red Army undertook blasting tests in Gefechtsturm (flak tower with battle platform) Augarten, but a removal of the towers failed because of the proximity to residential areas. Nowadays, a removal of the towers would be possible, but now existing only an official decision as to the two anti-aircraft towers in Augarten from 5 April 2000 (GZ 39.086/2/2000) because all six buildings ex lege have been put under monument protection. Today, the towers are partially owned by the City of Vienna and partly owned by the Republic of Austria. There were repeatedly attempts to rebuild the flak towers and make it usable. The ideas range from depot for important backup data to a café or hotel.
Planning
Flakturm, Arenbergpark
Picture: Flakturm, Arenbergpark - Notstiege (Emergency flight of stairs)
Flakturm, Arenbergpark
Picture: Flakturm, Arenbergpark
Elevator shaft to the left, original instructions for lift usage right
After the battles of World War II also spread more and more to Vienna, Adolf Hitler ordered on 9 September 1942 the construction of flak towers in Vienna. The Air Force leadership provided for this purpose as building sites the Schmelz (Vienna), the Prater and Floridsdorf but Hitler rejected these places since the city center would not have been adequately protected because of the large distances. After discussions with Reichsstatthalter (Reich Governor) Baldur von Schirach, the final locations were determined. Instead of the Augarten, however, was initially the Roßauer barracks under discussion. The decisive factor for the choice of the places were on the one hand, the easy availability of the building ground and on the other hand the possibility to establish railway connections. The plan provided after the victorious end of the war to disguise the flak towers with marble and devote them as monuments to the fallen German soldiers. As with all the flak towers Friedrich Tamms was responsible for the planning, he was represented in Vienna by Anton Ruschitzka, construction management held Franz Fuhrmann from Vienna's city building department. The military leadership rested with Major Wimberger, which, however, had no mission staff. The material procurement was carried out by the Organisation Todt.
Construction
Flakturm, Arenbergpark
Picture: Flakturm, Arenbergpark
Emergency Exit Photo: Flakturm, Arenbergpark
With the construction of the flak towers the companies Philipp Holzmann and Gottlieb Tesch were commissioned, smaller firms being integrated via joint ventures. Since the availability of local workers due to conscription declined steadily, more and more prisoners of war, foreign and forced laborers were used in the course of the war. Cement was delivered primarily from Mannersdorf at Leithagebirge, to a lesser extent from Rodaun (situated in the outskirts of Vienna). The gravel stemmed from the gravel pits Padlesak in Felixdorf and Gustav Haager at Heidfeld at the Bratislava railway (Pressburger Bahn), about in the area of today's airport Wien-Schwechat. Sand was delivered in ships over the Danube Canal, which is why in the area of Weißgerberlände sand silos of the United Baustoffwerke AG were built. In this area was already in 1918 a feeder track of the tram through the Drorygasse. Although this was already in 1925 shut down it was restored in 1941 and enlarged in the following year after the construction of a new silo to two tracks. For the then due to the excavation of the foundations coming up overburden, at the Kratochwijlestraße (then Weissenbachstraße) in 22 District was created a landfill, which also got a tram connection.
This report is based on an article in the
WIKIPEDIA - The Free Encyclopedia
and is licensed under the GNU license
Free Documentation Creative Commons CC -BY- SA 3.0 Unported.
On Wikipedia there is List of the authors Available .
de.wikipedia.org
The monstrous remnants of the "Third Reich"
District II (Leopoldstadt), anti-aircraft towers in the Augarten, tram line 31 from metro station Scots ring/Schottenring (U2, U4).
On 15 March 1938 gathered some 200 000 Wiener (Viennese people) on Heldenplatz in order to celebrate the "Anschluss" of Austria to the so-called fatherland Germany, something, since the end of the first World War I many had been longing for. Adolf Hitler himself appeared on the balcony of the Neue Burg and announced: "As leader and Chancellor of the German nation and the Reich I report before story now the entry of my home in the German Reich". Then he boarded a plane back to Germany, the rest, as they say, is history. A few years later the magnificent Heroes Square (Heldenplatz) was dug up to plant vegetables there, they needed food for the distraught people who suffered the privations in Hitler's zusammenbrechendem (breaking down) "millennial Reich".
Right: Gefechtsturm in the Augarten
In Leopoldstadt
Below: The Leitturm (control tower) in Arenbergpark
In III. District highway (Landstraße).
The already existing and sometimes bombastic Viennese architecture the occupiers seems to have pleased, no major buildings were added during their reign. On 9 September 1942, however, Hitler decreed that the city center of Vienna like in Berlin and Hamburg should be protected by some huge flak towers, three pairs should form a defensive triangle, St. Stephen's Cathedral was the center. 1943/44, the German troops began the construction of two flak towers in the Augarten and defaced in this way Austria's oldest still existing and in 1712 laid out baroque garden. Another pair of flak towers emerged in Arenberg Park in III. District (Landstraße), a third near the Mariahilferstraße (in Esterházypark and in the courtyard of the barracks Stiftskaserne) in the VI. resp. VII. District (Mariahilf/Neubau). The towers have been made of almost indestructible, 2.5 to 3.5 meters thick reinforced concrete and were self-sufficient, and they possessed their own water and power supply, first aid station and air filters if it should come to a gas attack. Each pair of flak towers contained a big, provided with a heavy gun flak tower and a smaller control tower for communication. The first is either a square tower in the style of a fortress, like the one in the Arenbergpark (neunstöckig - nine storeys), 41.6 meters high, 57 meters in diameter) or a round tower, in fact, sixteen -sided, as in the Augarten Park and the yard of the Stiftskaserne Barracks (zwölfstöckig - twelve storeys, 50.6 meters high, 43 meters in diameter). The heaviest artillery gun (105-128 mm) was standing on the roof, on the projecting balconies below there were lighter guns (20 to 30 millimeters). The Leittürme, from which the air defense was coordinated, were all rectangular (neunstöckig - nine storeys, 39 to 51.4 meters high, 24 to 39 feet long) and equipped with a lighter gun, they possessed communication devices and searchlights on the roof. Toward the of the war the towers only just were functional. They also served as air-raid shelter for the people in the area and each tower had space for 30 000 people. In the event that the war ended with a victory, the architect, the builder of the Reichsautobahn Friedrich Tamms, already had prepared designs to dress up the towers with black marble plates in which the names of the dead German soldiers should be engraved in gold letters. So the towers would also have been victory and war memorials (and thus in a strange way similar to the Mausoleum of Theodoric in Ravenna or the Castel de Monte in Apulia).
In the bureau of an architect of Berlin were even found plans to demolish the Jewish Quarter in the Leopoldstadt and to build a huge Nazi forum. Today, however, there is in Leopoldstadt again a thriving Jewish life and the flak towers are frozen monuments to the darkest times of Viennese history (in fact, the Russians tried to destroy the tower in Augarten with dynamite, which later on was mistaken for the vandalism of a few schoolboys, by mistake a forgotten weapon depot setting on fire).
In a famous quote Hitler Vienna compared with a pearl, which he wanted to give a socket. Towards the end of war, however, this socket only consisted of bombed-out buildings and abandoned flak towers, silent witnesses of the delusion of their builder. As a result, only the Leitturm was used in Esterhazy Park, and today in it the house of the sea (Zoo - Haus des Meeres) is accommodated. Outside there is a climbing wall with 25 different routes, and the vertical wall and the projecting balconies give a perfect imitation of an overhanging cliff of 34 meters of height. A conservatory (or biotope) with a miniature rain forest along with monkeys and birds has been added on one side; it is entered through a door that only with difficulty could be broken in the two and a half meters thick reinforced concrete, but this also ensures a uniform temperature for aquariums and vivariums in the tower.
The stable temperatures also have the Museum of Applied Arts (MAK) brought to take advantage of the flak tower in Arenberg Park as a magazine and occasional exhibition space; in the meantime it is known as Contemporary Art Tower (CAT).
A former air-raid shelter at the base of the Leitturm in Esterhazy Park now contains the Museum of Medieval legal history: the history of torture
Excerpts from
Duncan J. D. Smith; Only in Vienna
A travelling guide to strange places, secret places and hidden attractions
Translated from English by Brigitte Hilzensauer
Photographs by Duncan JD Smith
"The streets of Vienna are paved with culture, the streets of other cities with asphalt". Karl Kraus (1874-1936)
Vienna is certainly one of the greatest and also the most homogeneous capitals in Europe. And it is one of the most fascinating. The overabundance of travel guides that are out there to buy, presents the not too demanding visitor a magical (and easily accessible) abundance of museums, churches, palaces and culinary venues, and they recount the history of the city since the times of the Romans over those of the Habsburg Empire to the present.
Courtesy
Christian Brandstätter Verlag mbH
The publishing service for museums, businesses and public authorities
www.brandstaetter - verlag.at
Total, totalitarian, dead
Picture: Flak tower in 1943 /44, Augarten
At the zero point of the knowledge about the progress of the world stands since 11 September 2001 "Ground Zero". The debris field of the World Trade Center was used as a metaphor, which for its part marks a zero point. "Ground Zero" is called the area that lies in the center of a nuclear explosion. In Hiroshima and Nagasaki this area has been explored, the experiments that began with Albert Einstein's warning of a nuclear policy of Nazi Germany, were successful beyond measure. The name for the nuclear program, "Manhattan Project". With the beginning of the new millennium "Ground Zero" is real returned to where it had once taken its nominal starting point. The skyscraper obviously is able to stimulate the imagination of physicists, ballistics and aeronauts. In the skyscraper the obsessions of the 20th century are concentrated, self-sufficiency and utopia become one in the sky billowing tower. It is the exalted and the sublime. It provides a beacon, of the construction as well as of the destruction.
As the World Trade Center each of the Viennese "flak towers" come along as pairs: One serves as control tower, the other as a flak tower. The central component is the platform, it was needed in high altitudes in order to have a clear field of fire over the city. The tower architecture, which thereby became necessary, one used for bunker systems, no fewer than 40,000 people should here find shelter. For other facilities there was also space: the Gaupropagandaleitung (Regional propaganda direction) for example, the radio station, a munitions factory. At three locations in the city - the triangle that they abzirkelten (encircled), took in Vienna's historic center - in the years 1943/44 had established an own self-contained world, with it corresponded an outside, the world of total war. The flak towers gave this world the architectural icon.
On 14 February 1943, the British Air Force had carpet bombings on German cities announced after it adversary those commitments to civility, just in war of some validity, namely to protect non- military targets, long ago had abandoned. It was a strategy that should give World War II a decisive turn. The Germans had their production concentrated on weapons with immediate penetrating power, especially on fighter planes and tanks. The Allies, however, swore on sustainability, on long-range bombers that now more and more were used. Against such so-called "flying fortresses" should prepare the city's flak towers.
On 18 February 1943 already, the Nazi regime had reacted propagandistically. Joseph Goebbels delivered in the Sportpalast (Sports Palace) those infamous speech in which an unleashed crowd at the top of its voice loud the hysterical question "Do you want total war?" applauded. From then on, the action would no longer overridingly occur on the fronts. Now, as Goebbels put it, the "phalanx of the homeland" was at stake. The war would be carried to the cities. In their midst, in the urban milieu that would now lose all nonchalance and any worth of life. Also, and just that is what the flak towers stand for: their comfort is the security wing, their promise the ammunition depot. They guarantee offensive and defensive in one. In this hard as reinforced concrete alignment, imagined the regime each of every Volksgenossen (member of the German nation).
The flak towers are the architecture of total war par excellence: monumental exclamation marks for military preparedness, towering icons of the resistiveness, uniform archetypes of a technical, an instrumental progress, to which the Nazi state with due atavism was always committed. Furthermore, comes to some extent the domestic political effect: The flak towers are citadels against the own population, reduits in the face of a psychological and social situation, which solely by forced violence, by martial law and concentration camps could be overmastered.
The prototype of the flak towers built up in Berlin, as well as their principle was conceived in the capital, especially by Albert Speer, the Minister for the war economy. But as a kind of urban identification mark they stand in Vienna, and also for this the logic of total war can be used. It is the logic of destruction, the so-called "Nero-command", which after Hitler's disposal would have provided the destruction of all remaining infrastructure in the German Reich. It is the logic of a perverted Darwinism, which would have applied the dictum of unworthy life in the moment of defeat on the own population.
In one of his table talks in May 1942, Hitler blustered about the "huge task to break ... the supremacy of Vienna in the cultural field ...". The hatred toward the city of his youth was notorious, and one may assume that the flak towers, whose placement the "Führer" personally ordered, the enemy, in a manner of speaking, definitely should stake out a target area. Because naturally, the towers would increasingly attract attacks on themselves. But they have the war unscathed as hardly another building survived. That they are standing for the long shot, the totalitarism this very day is clear. To eliminate them, would mean to turn the city with them in rubble.
(to see further pictures and read other information please go to the end of page!)
Flaktowers
Flakturm, Arenbergpark
Picture: Flakturm, Arenbergpark
The Vienna flak towers are six large, of reinforced concrete erected defensive and protective structures in Vienna, which were built in the years 1942-1945 as giant bomb shelters with fitted anti-aircraft guns and fire control. The architect of the flak towers was Friedrich Tamms (1904-1980).
Flakturm, Arenbergpark
Image: Terrace of the flak tower in Arenbergpark
The system of the Vienna flak towers consists as a whole of six buildings, three turrets, each with a Feuerleitturm (fire-control tower). The three bunker pairs are arranged in a triangle in the approximate middle of which the Stephansdom is situated. The towers are of different heights, but their upper platforms are in exactly the same altitude, so that an overall coordination of air defense was possible. The maximum operating radius of the four main guns (12.8 cm twin) of each tower was under ideal conditions 20 km. The smaller platforms of combat and fire-control towers were provided for 2 cm anti-aircraft guns, but they were never used in Vienna. In addition to its military crew the flak towers in Vienna served as makeshift hospitals, housed radio stations and partly war-relevant technical companies and offered on a large scale air raid shelters for the population.
Flakturm Augarten
Picture: Flakturm, Augarten
After the war, the Red Army undertook blasting tests in Gefechtsturm (flak tower with battle platform) Augarten, but a removal of the towers failed because of the proximity to residential areas. Nowadays, a removal of the towers would be possible, but now existing only an official decision as to the two anti-aircraft towers in Augarten from 5 April 2000 (GZ 39.086/2/2000) because all six buildings ex lege have been put under monument protection. Today, the towers are partially owned by the City of Vienna and partly owned by the Republic of Austria. There were repeatedly attempts to rebuild the flak towers and make it usable. The ideas range from depot for important backup data to a café or hotel.
Planning
Flakturm, Arenbergpark
Picture: Flakturm, Arenbergpark - Notstiege (Emergency flight of stairs)
Flakturm, Arenbergpark
Picture: Flakturm, Arenbergpark
Elevator shaft to the left, original instructions for lift usage right
After the battles of World War II also spread more and more to Vienna, Adolf Hitler ordered on 9 September 1942 the construction of flak towers in Vienna. The Air Force leadership provided for this purpose as building sites the Schmelz (Vienna), the Prater and Floridsdorf but Hitler rejected these places since the city center would not have been adequately protected because of the large distances. After discussions with Reichsstatthalter (Reich Governor) Baldur von Schirach, the final locations were determined. Instead of the Augarten, however, was initially the Roßauer barracks under discussion. The decisive factor for the choice of the places were on the one hand, the easy availability of the building ground and on the other hand the possibility to establish railway connections. The plan provided after the victorious end of the war to disguise the flak towers with marble and devote them as monuments to the fallen German soldiers. As with all the flak towers Friedrich Tamms was responsible for the planning, he was represented in Vienna by Anton Ruschitzka, construction management held Franz Fuhrmann from Vienna's city building department. The military leadership rested with Major Wimberger, which, however, had no mission staff. The material procurement was carried out by the Organisation Todt.
Construction
Flakturm, Arenbergpark
Picture: Flakturm, Arenbergpark
Emergency Exit Photo: Flakturm, Arenbergpark
With the construction of the flak towers the companies Philipp Holzmann and Gottlieb Tesch were commissioned, smaller firms being integrated via joint ventures. Since the availability of local workers due to conscription declined steadily, more and more prisoners of war, foreign and forced laborers were used in the course of the war. Cement was delivered primarily from Mannersdorf at Leithagebirge, to a lesser extent from Rodaun (situated in the outskirts of Vienna). The gravel stemmed from the gravel pits Padlesak in Felixdorf and Gustav Haager at Heidfeld at the Bratislava railway (Pressburger Bahn), about in the area of today's airport Wien-Schwechat. Sand was delivered in ships over the Danube Canal, which is why in the area of Weißgerberlände sand silos of the United Baustoffwerke AG were built. In this area was already in 1918 a feeder track of the tram through the Drorygasse. Although this was already in 1925 shut down it was restored in 1941 and enlarged in the following year after the construction of a new silo to two tracks. For the then due to the excavation of the foundations coming up overburden, at the Kratochwijlestraße (then Weissenbachstraße) in 22 District was created a landfill, which also got a tram connection.
This report is based on an article in the
WIKIPEDIA - The Free Encyclopedia
and is licensed under the GNU license
Free Documentation Creative Commons CC -BY- SA 3.0 Unported.
On Wikipedia there is List of the authors Available .
de.wikipedia.org
The monstrous remnants of the "Third Reich"
District II (Leopoldstadt), anti-aircraft towers in the Augarten, tram line 31 from metro station Scots ring/Schottenring (U2, U4).
On 15 March 1938 gathered some 200 000 Wiener (Viennese people) on Heldenplatz in order to celebrate the "Anschluss" of Austria to the so-called fatherland Germany, something, since the end of the first World War I many had been longing for. Adolf Hitler himself appeared on the balcony of the Neue Burg and announced: "As leader and Chancellor of the German nation and the Reich I report before story now the entry of my home in the German Reich". Then he boarded a plane back to Germany, the rest, as they say, is history. A few years later the magnificent Heroes Square (Heldenplatz) was dug up to plant vegetables there, they needed food for the distraught people who suffered the privations in Hitler's zusammenbrechendem (breaking down) "millennial Reich".
Right: Gefechtsturm in the Augarten
In Leopoldstadt
Below: The Leitturm (control tower) in Arenbergpark
In III. District highway (Landstraße).
The already existing and sometimes bombastic Viennese architecture the occupiers seems to have pleased, no major buildings were added during their reign. On 9 September 1942, however, Hitler decreed that the city center of Vienna like in Berlin and Hamburg should be protected by some huge flak towers, three pairs should form a defensive triangle, St. Stephen's Cathedral was the center. 1943/44, the German troops began the construction of two flak towers in the Augarten and defaced in this way Austria's oldest still existing and in 1712 laid out baroque garden. Another pair of flak towers emerged in Arenberg Park in III. District (Landstraße), a third near the Mariahilferstraße (in Esterházypark and in the courtyard of the barracks Stiftskaserne) in the VI. resp. VII. District (Mariahilf/Neubau). The towers have been made of almost indestructible, 2.5 to 3.5 meters thick reinforced concrete and were self-sufficient, and they possessed their own water and power supply, first aid station and air filters if it should come to a gas attack. Each pair of flak towers contained a big, provided with a heavy gun flak tower and a smaller control tower for communication. The first is either a square tower in the style of a fortress, like the one in the Arenbergpark (neunstöckig - nine storeys), 41.6 meters high, 57 meters in diameter) or a round tower, in fact, sixteen -sided, as in the Augarten Park and the yard of the Stiftskaserne Barracks (zwölfstöckig - twelve storeys, 50.6 meters high, 43 meters in diameter). The heaviest artillery gun (105-128 mm) was standing on the roof, on the projecting balconies below there were lighter guns (20 to 30 millimeters). The Leittürme, from which the air defense was coordinated, were all rectangular (neunstöckig - nine storeys, 39 to 51.4 meters high, 24 to 39 feet long) and equipped with a lighter gun, they possessed communication devices and searchlights on the roof. Toward the of the war the towers only just were functional. They also served as air-raid shelter for the people in the area and each tower had space for 30 000 people. In the event that the war ended with a victory, the architect, the builder of the Reichsautobahn Friedrich Tamms, already had prepared designs to dress up the towers with black marble plates in which the names of the dead German soldiers should be engraved in gold letters. So the towers would also have been victory and war memorials (and thus in a strange way similar to the Mausoleum of Theodoric in Ravenna or the Castel de Monte in Apulia).
In the bureau of an architect of Berlin were even found plans to demolish the Jewish Quarter in the Leopoldstadt and to build a huge Nazi forum. Today, however, there is in Leopoldstadt again a thriving Jewish life and the flak towers are frozen monuments to the darkest times of Viennese history (in fact, the Russians tried to destroy the tower in Augarten with dynamite, which later on was mistaken for the vandalism of a few schoolboys, by mistake a forgotten weapon depot setting on fire).
In a famous quote Hitler Vienna compared with a pearl, which he wanted to give a socket. Towards the end of war, however, this socket only consisted of bombed-out buildings and abandoned flak towers, silent witnesses of the delusion of their builder. As a result, only the Leitturm was used in Esterhazy Park, and today in it the house of the sea (Zoo - Haus des Meeres) is accommodated. Outside there is a climbing wall with 25 different routes, and the vertical wall and the projecting balconies give a perfect imitation of an overhanging cliff of 34 meters of height. A conservatory (or biotope) with a miniature rain forest along with monkeys and birds has been added on one side; it is entered through a door that only with difficulty could be broken in the two and a half meters thick reinforced concrete, but this also ensures a uniform temperature for aquariums and vivariums in the tower.
The stable temperatures also have the Museum of Applied Arts (MAK) brought to take advantage of the flak tower in Arenberg Park as a magazine and occasional exhibition space; in the meantime it is known as Contemporary Art Tower (CAT).
A former air-raid shelter at the base of the Leitturm in Esterhazy Park now contains the Museum of Medieval legal history: the history of torture
Excerpts from
Duncan J. D. Smith; Only in Vienna
A travelling guide to strange places, secret places and hidden attractions
Translated from English by Brigitte Hilzensauer
Photographs by Duncan JD Smith
"The streets of Vienna are paved with culture, the streets of other cities with asphalt". Karl Kraus (1874-1936)
Vienna is certainly one of the greatest and also the most homogeneous capitals in Europe. And it is one of the most fascinating. The overabundance of travel guides that are out there to buy, presents the not too demanding visitor a magical (and easily accessible) abundance of museums, churches, palaces and culinary venues, and they recount the history of the city since the times of the Romans over those of the Habsburg Empire to the present.
Courtesy
Christian Brandstätter Verlag mbH
The publishing service for museums, businesses and public authorities
www.brandstaetter - verlag.at
Total, totalitarian, dead
Picture: Flak tower in 1943 /44, Augarten
At the zero point of the knowledge about the progress of the world stands since 11 September 2001 "Ground Zero". The debris field of the World Trade Center was used as a metaphor, which for its part marks a zero point. "Ground Zero" is called the area that lies in the center of a nuclear explosion. In Hiroshima and Nagasaki this area has been explored, the experiments that began with Albert Einstein's warning of a nuclear policy of Nazi Germany, were successful beyond measure. The name for the nuclear program, "Manhattan Project". With the beginning of the new millennium "Ground Zero" is real returned to where it had once taken its nominal starting point. The skyscraper obviously is able to stimulate the imagination of physicists, ballistics and aeronauts. In the skyscraper the obsessions of the 20th century are concentrated, self-sufficiency and utopia become one in the sky billowing tower. It is the exalted and the sublime. It provides a beacon, of the construction as well as of the destruction.
As the World Trade Center each of the Viennese "flak towers" come along as pairs: One serves as control tower, the other as a flak tower. The central component is the platform, it was needed in high altitudes in order to have a clear field of fire over the city. The tower architecture, which thereby became necessary, one used for bunker systems, no fewer than 40,000 people should here find shelter. For other facilities there was also space: the Gaupropagandaleitung (Regional propaganda direction) for example, the radio station, a munitions factory. At three locations in the city - the triangle that they abzirkelten (encircled), took in Vienna's historic center - in the years 1943/44 had established an own self-contained world, with it corresponded an outside, the world of total war. The flak towers gave this world the architectural icon.
On 14 February 1943, the British Air Force had carpet bombings on German cities announced after it adversary those commitments to civility, just in war of some validity, namely to protect non- military targets, long ago had abandoned. It was a strategy that should give World War II a decisive turn. The Germans had their production concentrated on weapons with immediate penetrating power, especially on fighter planes and tanks. The Allies, however, swore on sustainability, on long-range bombers that now more and more were used. Against such so-called "flying fortresses" should prepare the city's flak towers.
On 18 February 1943 already, the Nazi regime had reacted propagandistically. Joseph Goebbels delivered in the Sportpalast (Sports Palace) those infamous speech in which an unleashed crowd at the top of its voice loud the hysterical question "Do you want total war?" applauded. From then on, the action would no longer overridingly occur on the fronts. Now, as Goebbels put it, the "phalanx of the homeland" was at stake. The war would be carried to the cities. In their midst, in the urban milieu that would now lose all nonchalance and any worth of life. Also, and just that is what the flak towers stand for: their comfort is the security wing, their promise the ammunition depot. They guarantee offensive and defensive in one. In this hard as reinforced concrete alignment, imagined the regime each of every Volksgenossen (member of the German nation).
The flak towers are the architecture of total war par excellence: monumental exclamation marks for military preparedness, towering icons of the resistiveness, uniform archetypes of a technical, an instrumental progress, to which the Nazi state with due atavism was always committed. Furthermore, comes to some extent the domestic political effect: The flak towers are citadels against the own population, reduits in the face of a psychological and social situation, which solely by forced violence, by martial law and concentration camps could be overmastered.
The prototype of the flak towers built up in Berlin, as well as their principle was conceived in the capital, especially by Albert Speer, the Minister for the war economy. But as a kind of urban identification mark they stand in Vienna, and also for this the logic of total war can be used. It is the logic of destruction, the so-called "Nero-command", which after Hitler's disposal would have provided the destruction of all remaining infrastructure in the German Reich. It is the logic of a perverted Darwinism, which would have applied the dictum of unworthy life in the moment of defeat on the own population.
In one of his table talks in May 1942, Hitler blustered about the "huge task to break ... the supremacy of Vienna in the cultural field ...". The hatred toward the city of his youth was notorious, and one may assume that the flak towers, whose placement the "Führer" personally ordered, the enemy, in a manner of speaking, definitely should stake out a target area. Because naturally, the towers would increasingly attract attacks on themselves. But they have the war unscathed as hardly another building survived. That they are standing for the long shot, the totalitarism this very day is clear. To eliminate them, would mean to turn the city with them in rubble.
Chicago, IL
10-30-2012
Tremendous 25 foot waves generated by 50 mph winds from Hurricane Sandy.
All photos © Joshua Mellin per the guidelines listed under "Owner settings" to the right.
Chicago, IL
June 27th, 2013
All photos © Joshua Mellin per the guidelines listed under "Owner settings" to the right.
Den Blå Planet, Northern Europe's largest aquarium, is just minutes walk from the Kastrup Airport, making it an excellent destination for anyone with a long layover or interest in sea life. You can also use your Copenhagen Card to cover your admission. For those traveling from central Copenhagen, it is only a few stops away, near Kastrup Station. An architectural masterpiece, the design by 3XN won "Best Building" at the World Architecture Festival.
Den Blå Planet. Kastrup, Denmark.
(to see further pictures and read other information please go to the end of page!)
Flaktowers
Flakturm, Arenbergpark
Picture: Flakturm, Arenbergpark
The Vienna flak towers are six large, of reinforced concrete erected defensive and protective structures in Vienna, which were built in the years 1942-1945 as giant bomb shelters with fitted anti-aircraft guns and fire control. The architect of the flak towers was Friedrich Tamms (1904-1980).
Flakturm, Arenbergpark
Image: Terrace of the flak tower in Arenbergpark
The system of the Vienna flak towers consists as a whole of six buildings, three turrets, each with a Feuerleitturm (fire-control tower). The three bunker pairs are arranged in a triangle in the approximate middle of which the Stephansdom is situated. The towers are of different heights, but their upper platforms are in exactly the same altitude, so that an overall coordination of air defense was possible. The maximum operating radius of the four main guns (12.8 cm twin) of each tower was under ideal conditions 20 km. The smaller platforms of combat and fire-control towers were provided for 2 cm anti-aircraft guns, but they were never used in Vienna. In addition to its military crew the flak towers in Vienna served as makeshift hospitals, housed radio stations and partly war-relevant technical companies and offered on a large scale air raid shelters for the population.
Flakturm Augarten
Picture: Flakturm, Augarten
After the war, the Red Army undertook blasting tests in Gefechtsturm (flak tower with battle platform) Augarten, but a removal of the towers failed because of the proximity to residential areas. Nowadays, a removal of the towers would be possible, but now existing only an official decision as to the two anti-aircraft towers in Augarten from 5 April 2000 (GZ 39.086/2/2000) because all six buildings ex lege have been put under monument protection. Today, the towers are partially owned by the City of Vienna and partly owned by the Republic of Austria. There were repeatedly attempts to rebuild the flak towers and make it usable. The ideas range from depot for important backup data to a café or hotel.
Planning
Flakturm, Arenbergpark
Picture: Flakturm, Arenbergpark - Notstiege (Emergency flight of stairs)
Flakturm, Arenbergpark
Picture: Flakturm, Arenbergpark
Elevator shaft to the left, original instructions for lift usage right
After the battles of World War II also spread more and more to Vienna, Adolf Hitler ordered on 9 September 1942 the construction of flak towers in Vienna. The Air Force leadership provided for this purpose as building sites the Schmelz (Vienna), the Prater and Floridsdorf but Hitler rejected these places since the city center would not have been adequately protected because of the large distances. After discussions with Reichsstatthalter (Reich Governor) Baldur von Schirach, the final locations were determined. Instead of the Augarten, however, was initially the Roßauer barracks under discussion. The decisive factor for the choice of the places were on the one hand, the easy availability of the building ground and on the other hand the possibility to establish railway connections. The plan provided after the victorious end of the war to disguise the flak towers with marble and devote them as monuments to the fallen German soldiers. As with all the flak towers Friedrich Tamms was responsible for the planning, he was represented in Vienna by Anton Ruschitzka, construction management held Franz Fuhrmann from Vienna's city building department. The military leadership rested with Major Wimberger, which, however, had no mission staff. The material procurement was carried out by the Organisation Todt.
Construction
Flakturm, Arenbergpark
Picture: Flakturm, Arenbergpark
Emergency Exit Photo: Flakturm, Arenbergpark
With the construction of the flak towers the companies Philipp Holzmann and Gottlieb Tesch were commissioned, smaller firms being integrated via joint ventures. Since the availability of local workers due to conscription declined steadily, more and more prisoners of war, foreign and forced laborers were used in the course of the war. Cement was delivered primarily from Mannersdorf at Leithagebirge, to a lesser extent from Rodaun (situated in the outskirts of Vienna). The gravel stemmed from the gravel pits Padlesak in Felixdorf and Gustav Haager at Heidfeld at the Bratislava railway (Pressburger Bahn), about in the area of today's airport Wien-Schwechat. Sand was delivered in ships over the Danube Canal, which is why in the area of Weißgerberlände sand silos of the United Baustoffwerke AG were built. In this area was already in 1918 a feeder track of the tram through the Drorygasse. Although this was already in 1925 shut down it was restored in 1941 and enlarged in the following year after the construction of a new silo to two tracks. For the then due to the excavation of the foundations coming up overburden, at the Kratochwijlestraße (then Weissenbachstraße) in 22 District was created a landfill, which also got a tram connection.
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The monstrous remnants of the "Third Reich"
District II (Leopoldstadt), anti-aircraft towers in the Augarten, tram line 31 from metro station Scots ring/Schottenring (U2, U4).
On 15 March 1938 gathered some 200 000 Wiener (Viennese people) on Heldenplatz in order to celebrate the "Anschluss" of Austria to the so-called fatherland Germany, something, since the end of the first World War I many had been longing for. Adolf Hitler himself appeared on the balcony of the Neue Burg and announced: "As leader and Chancellor of the German nation and the Reich I report before story now the entry of my home in the German Reich". Then he boarded a plane back to Germany, the rest, as they say, is history. A few years later the magnificent Heroes Square (Heldenplatz) was dug up to plant vegetables there, they needed food for the distraught people who suffered the privations in Hitler's zusammenbrechendem (breaking down) "millennial Reich".
Right: Gefechtsturm in the Augarten
In Leopoldstadt
Below: The Leitturm (control tower) in Arenbergpark
In III. District highway (Landstraße).
The already existing and sometimes bombastic Viennese architecture the occupiers seems to have pleased, no major buildings were added during their reign. On 9 September 1942, however, Hitler decreed that the city center of Vienna like in Berlin and Hamburg should be protected by some huge flak towers, three pairs should form a defensive triangle, St. Stephen's Cathedral was the center. 1943/44, the German troops began the construction of two flak towers in the Augarten and defaced in this way Austria's oldest still existing and in 1712 laid out baroque garden. Another pair of flak towers emerged in Arenberg Park in III. District (Landstraße), a third near the Mariahilferstraße (in Esterházypark and in the courtyard of the barracks Stiftskaserne) in the VI. resp. VII. District (Mariahilf/Neubau). The towers have been made of almost indestructible, 2.5 to 3.5 meters thick reinforced concrete and were self-sufficient, and they possessed their own water and power supply, first aid station and air filters if it should come to a gas attack. Each pair of flak towers contained a big, provided with a heavy gun flak tower and a smaller control tower for communication. The first is either a square tower in the style of a fortress, like the one in the Arenbergpark (neunstöckig - nine storeys), 41.6 meters high, 57 meters in diameter) or a round tower, in fact, sixteen -sided, as in the Augarten Park and the yard of the Stiftskaserne Barracks (zwölfstöckig - twelve storeys, 50.6 meters high, 43 meters in diameter). The heaviest artillery gun (105-128 mm) was standing on the roof, on the projecting balconies below there were lighter guns (20 to 30 millimeters). The Leittürme, from which the air defense was coordinated, were all rectangular (neunstöckig - nine storeys, 39 to 51.4 meters high, 24 to 39 feet long) and equipped with a lighter gun, they possessed communication devices and searchlights on the roof. Toward the of the war the towers only just were functional. They also served as air-raid shelter for the people in the area and each tower had space for 30 000 people. In the event that the war ended with a victory, the architect, the builder of the Reichsautobahn Friedrich Tamms, already had prepared designs to dress up the towers with black marble plates in which the names of the dead German soldiers should be engraved in gold letters. So the towers would also have been victory and war memorials (and thus in a strange way similar to the Mausoleum of Theodoric in Ravenna or the Castel de Monte in Apulia).
In the bureau of an architect of Berlin were even found plans to demolish the Jewish Quarter in the Leopoldstadt and to build a huge Nazi forum. Today, however, there is in Leopoldstadt again a thriving Jewish life and the flak towers are frozen monuments to the darkest times of Viennese history (in fact, the Russians tried to destroy the tower in Augarten with dynamite, which later on was mistaken for the vandalism of a few schoolboys, by mistake a forgotten weapon depot setting on fire).
In a famous quote Hitler Vienna compared with a pearl, which he wanted to give a socket. Towards the end of war, however, this socket only consisted of bombed-out buildings and abandoned flak towers, silent witnesses of the delusion of their builder. As a result, only the Leitturm was used in Esterhazy Park, and today in it the house of the sea (Zoo - Haus des Meeres) is accommodated. Outside there is a climbing wall with 25 different routes, and the vertical wall and the projecting balconies give a perfect imitation of an overhanging cliff of 34 meters of height. A conservatory (or biotope) with a miniature rain forest along with monkeys and birds has been added on one side; it is entered through a door that only with difficulty could be broken in the two and a half meters thick reinforced concrete, but this also ensures a uniform temperature for aquariums and vivariums in the tower.
The stable temperatures also have the Museum of Applied Arts (MAK) brought to take advantage of the flak tower in Arenberg Park as a magazine and occasional exhibition space; in the meantime it is known as Contemporary Art Tower (CAT).
A former air-raid shelter at the base of the Leitturm in Esterhazy Park now contains the Museum of Medieval legal history: the history of torture
Excerpts from
Duncan J. D. Smith; Only in Vienna
A travelling guide to strange places, secret places and hidden attractions
Translated from English by Brigitte Hilzensauer
Photographs by Duncan JD Smith
"The streets of Vienna are paved with culture, the streets of other cities with asphalt". Karl Kraus (1874-1936)
Vienna is certainly one of the greatest and also the most homogeneous capitals in Europe. And it is one of the most fascinating. The overabundance of travel guides that are out there to buy, presents the not too demanding visitor a magical (and easily accessible) abundance of museums, churches, palaces and culinary venues, and they recount the history of the city since the times of the Romans over those of the Habsburg Empire to the present.
Courtesy
Christian Brandstätter Verlag mbH
The publishing service for museums, businesses and public authorities
www.brandstaetter - verlag.at
Total, totalitarian, dead
Picture: Flak tower in 1943 /44, Augarten
At the zero point of the knowledge about the progress of the world stands since 11 September 2001 "Ground Zero". The debris field of the World Trade Center was used as a metaphor, which for its part marks a zero point. "Ground Zero" is called the area that lies in the center of a nuclear explosion. In Hiroshima and Nagasaki this area has been explored, the experiments that began with Albert Einstein's warning of a nuclear policy of Nazi Germany, were successful beyond measure. The name for the nuclear program, "Manhattan Project". With the beginning of the new millennium "Ground Zero" is real returned to where it had once taken its nominal starting point. The skyscraper obviously is able to stimulate the imagination of physicists, ballistics and aeronauts. In the skyscraper the obsessions of the 20th century are concentrated, self-sufficiency and utopia become one in the sky billowing tower. It is the exalted and the sublime. It provides a beacon, of the construction as well as of the destruction.
As the World Trade Center each of the Viennese "flak towers" come along as pairs: One serves as control tower, the other as a flak tower. The central component is the platform, it was needed in high altitudes in order to have a clear field of fire over the city. The tower architecture, which thereby became necessary, one used for bunker systems, no fewer than 40,000 people should here find shelter. For other facilities there was also space: the Gaupropagandaleitung (Regional propaganda direction) for example, the radio station, a munitions factory. At three locations in the city - the triangle that they abzirkelten (encircled), took in Vienna's historic center - in the years 1943/44 had established an own self-contained world, with it corresponded an outside, the world of total war. The flak towers gave this world the architectural icon.
On 14 February 1943, the British Air Force had carpet bombings on German cities announced after it adversary those commitments to civility, just in war of some validity, namely to protect non- military targets, long ago had abandoned. It was a strategy that should give World War II a decisive turn. The Germans had their production concentrated on weapons with immediate penetrating power, especially on fighter planes and tanks. The Allies, however, swore on sustainability, on long-range bombers that now more and more were used. Against such so-called "flying fortresses" should prepare the city's flak towers.
On 18 February 1943 already, the Nazi regime had reacted propagandistically. Joseph Goebbels delivered in the Sportpalast (Sports Palace) those infamous speech in which an unleashed crowd at the top of its voice loud the hysterical question "Do you want total war?" applauded. From then on, the action would no longer overridingly occur on the fronts. Now, as Goebbels put it, the "phalanx of the homeland" was at stake. The war would be carried to the cities. In their midst, in the urban milieu that would now lose all nonchalance and any worth of life. Also, and just that is what the flak towers stand for: their comfort is the security wing, their promise the ammunition depot. They guarantee offensive and defensive in one. In this hard as reinforced concrete alignment, imagined the regime each of every Volksgenossen (member of the German nation).
The flak towers are the architecture of total war par excellence: monumental exclamation marks for military preparedness, towering icons of the resistiveness, uniform archetypes of a technical, an instrumental progress, to which the Nazi state with due atavism was always committed. Furthermore, comes to some extent the domestic political effect: The flak towers are citadels against the own population, reduits in the face of a psychological and social situation, which solely by forced violence, by martial law and concentration camps could be overmastered.
The prototype of the flak towers built up in Berlin, as well as their principle was conceived in the capital, especially by Albert Speer, the Minister for the war economy. But as a kind of urban identification mark they stand in Vienna, and also for this the logic of total war can be used. It is the logic of destruction, the so-called "Nero-command", which after Hitler's disposal would have provided the destruction of all remaining infrastructure in the German Reich. It is the logic of a perverted Darwinism, which would have applied the dictum of unworthy life in the moment of defeat on the own population.
In one of his table talks in May 1942, Hitler blustered about the "huge task to break ... the supremacy of Vienna in the cultural field ...". The hatred toward the city of his youth was notorious, and one may assume that the flak towers, whose placement the "Führer" personally ordered, the enemy, in a manner of speaking, definitely should stake out a target area. Because naturally, the towers would increasingly attract attacks on themselves. But they have the war unscathed as hardly another building survived. That they are standing for the long shot, the totalitarism this very day is clear. To eliminate them, would mean to turn the city with them in rubble.
Istanbul, Turkey - October 14, 2015: Sancaklar Camii is the mosque. In 2013 it won 1st Prize in the World Architectural Festival’s Best Religious Building category.
The BOILERHOUSE and adjacent chimney stack, located on UWS Parramatta Campus were constructed in 1894 from finely crafted sandstock brick. Containing fire boxes and a number of artefacts of historical significance, the restaurant serves modern Australian cuisine.
The Boilerhouse Student Precinct at the University of Western Sydney’s Parramatta campus has received a number of architectural accolades – in recognition of a design that is chic, functional, and respectful of the site’s historical significance.
Alex Kibble of Tanner Architects was engaged to turn the boiler house into central plaza that acts as a major food service outlet; connects all of the student centred activities on campus; and, importantly, respects the unique heritage of the site.
The innovative design of the Precinct, which opened to students in August 2011, has received widespread recognition in a number of industry awards, including:
The ACUMA 2012 Award (opens in new window) for the Best Refurbished Facility.
The Master Builders Australia Award (opens in new window) for Best Adaptive Re-Use of a Historic Building (under $5m).
The Master Builders Australia; National Commercial/Industrial Construction Award (under $5m).
Shortlisted for the World Architecture Awards (Singapore) in the New and Old category.
Alex Kibble, Managing Director at Tanner Kibble Denton Architects (opens in new window), says the transformation of The Boilerhouse is an exciting combination of old and new.
For more information about The Boilerhouse, including its restaurant facilities, visit: www.boilerhouse.com.au
and
www.uws.edu.au/newscentre/news_centre/more_news_stories/b...
Source: UWS website
Millennium Park
Chicago, IL
January 5th, 2014
All photos © Joshua Mellin per the guidelines listed under "Owner settings" to the right.
Den Blå Planet, Northern Europe's largest aquarium, is just minutes walk from the Kastrup Airport, making it an excellent destination for anyone with a long layover or interest in sea life. You can also use your Copenhagen Card to cover your admission. For those traveling from central Copenhagen, it is only a few stops away, near Kastrup Station. An architectural masterpiece, the design by 3XN won "Best Building" at the World Architecture Festival.
Den Blå Planet. Kastrup, Denmark.
My first miscroscale MOC: This build was built for our local Architecture Lug group ARCHLug for a world Architecture Display.
Cabinet card, around 1900, after 1901.
No. 44 130
A birthday gift from my daughter.
Photographer: Mai Manó és Társa (Mai Manó & Co.), Royal photographer
Budapest, Nagymező utca 20.
A fővárosi orpheum átellenében - hajdani Somossy-féle orfeum, ma Operett Színházzal szemben.
hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mai_Man%C3%B3
Mai Manó (1855-1917) was a professional photographer and specialist, in his time he was one of the best specialists of child portraits. His status in the professional community of that time is uncontested. He was also the founder and editor of the periodical called "A Fény" (The Light, launched in 1906).
Mai Manó House - The Hungarian House of Photographers operates in this house. His eight-story studio-house and home was built in fourteen months in 1893-94.
The special, eight-story neo-renaissance monument is unique in world architecture: we have no knowledge of any other intact turn-of-the-century studiohouse. In addition, it serves its original goal, the case of photography again.
Wonderful photos by Mai Manó in my friend, ggaabboo 's great collection:
Lake Shore Drive
Chicago, IL
May 25th, 2014
All photos © Joshua Mellin per the guidelines listed under "Owner settings" to the right.
Chicago, IL
February 21st, 2017
All photos © Joshua Mellin per the guidelines listed under "Owner settings" to the right.
The Deborah, Jonathan F. P., Samuel Priest, and Adam R. Rose Main Reading Room is a majestic public space, measuring 78 feet by 297 feet—roughly the length of two city blocks—and weaving together Old World architectural elegance with modern technology. The award-wining restoration of this room was completed in 1998, thanks to a fifteen million-dollar gift from Library trustee Sandra Priest Rose and Frederick Phineas Rose, who renamed the room in honor of their children.
Here, patrons can read or study at long oak tables lit by elegant bronze lamps, beneath fifty-two foot tall ceilings decorated by dramatic murals of vibrant skies and billowing clouds. Since the General Research Division’s opening day on May 23, 1911, vast numbers of people have entered the main reading room. Literary figures such as Norman Mailer, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Elizabeth Bishop, E. L. Doctorow, and Alfred Kazin have cited the division as a major resource for their work. In one of his memoirs, New York Jew, Kazin described his youthful impression of the reading room: “There was something about the . . . light falling through the great tall windows, the sun burning smooth the tops of the golden tables as if they had been freshly painted—that made me restless with the need to grab up every book, press into every single mind right there on the open shelves.”
All of my photographs are under copyright ©. None of these photographs may be reproduced and/or used in any way without my permission
World Architecture Day 2025 will be celebrated on October 6, 2025, which is the first Monday of October.
The theme for this year is "Design for Strength", highlighting the critical role of architecture in addressing societal challenges.
This day is recognized globally to appreciate architectural works and the professionals behind them.