RAAAF and Atelier de Lyon spent 40 days slicing through a left-over WWII bunker, reconnecting the inside to the surroundings.
Although I'd have liked a bit more information on the machinery, the video is quite interesting.
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Recently in Architecture Category
More from the indominable Vincent Laforet, these were taken at night, dangling from a helocopter at 7,500 feet above the city. There are many more pictures as well as the complete story, somehow involving a Men's Health article!?
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Sometimes the positioning of the camera is the most important thing
Alexander Alland Untitled (Brooklyn Bridge) 1938
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In 1991 Magdalena Jeelovà took over the Viennese Museum of Applied Art, a ornate neo-Renaissance building in the style of a Florentine Palazzo, for her "Domestication of a Pyramid" Utilizing one of the most antique of architectural forms to overwhelm both the more modern architecture and neo-grecian sculptures that line the colonnade.
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From the exhibition catalogue:
Upon entering the building, the visitor finds himself/herself, surprisingly, in a darkened, curved space: soon he/she discovers that he/she is standing under large, slanted scaffolding. He/she instinctively walks to the right, where there is a way out. When he/she returns to the daylight, he/she finds himself/herself in the Museum hall, standing next to a thirteen-meter high tilted wall covered in red silica sand. The wall slices the inner space of the Museum diagonally across two floors, slashing razor-like through pillars and balustrades up to the ceiling. The wall, tilted at a 45° angle and with a base thirty-five meters long, is a fragment of one side of a pyramid which could continue in the exterior of the Museum building.
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Ely and Durham cathedrals
Peter Marlow, a photographer of the storied Magnum agency, recently completed a cycle of photographing all of the Anglican cathedrals in the UK. Originally he was commissioned by the Royal Mail to shoot 6 of them in 2008 for the 300th anniversary of St. Pauls. From that he worked over the next 4 years to shoot all 42 of them, with natural early-morning light, from the entrance looking down the nave. From the large-format negatives large prints, approx 110×85cm, were displayed this past summer at the Wapping Project Bankside and are now available in book form.
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Long exposure of the interior of Salisbury Cathedral, often remembered for its inverted arches. The traces are of the candles carried throughout the sanctuary during the 'darkness into light' service which begins Advent.
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I've run out of pictures of manuscripts from Benevento (see previous posts 1 and 2), so now to complete the set, a few pictures of the town. As a town, it hasn't really mattered in centuries, not politically since the 11th century most likely. Since then there was a slight blip on the radar when Pope Benedict XIII was elevated, as he had been archbishop of the city, but nothing else to speak of. Back in the day it was the capitol of an independent Lombard Duchy, and before that a rather important Roman trading post, as it is located on a junction in the Appian way.
| Closeup of the Arch of Trajan, one of the best preserved Roman triumphal arches | Facade of the Santa Sophia church in Benevento. The stucco work is Baroque but the church is from the 8th Century. It is thought that the manuscript Benevento 40 was written in/for this church |
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| Interior of Santa Sophia. Most of the interior frescos have been removed. This is a view of the dome looking towards the altar/apse | Interior of Benevento Cathedral looking towards the high altar. Dedicated to the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, it was destroyed by allied bombs in 1943 and rebuilt in a severe modern style in the 1950s |
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| Original Doors of the Cathedral. These are assembled of bronze plaques. The top 6 courses show scenes from the Bible, primarily the life of Jesus. The bottom three have depictions of all the Archbishops of the city from the time it became a episcopal see until the building of the Cathedral in the 13th Century. These were severely damaged during the 1943 bombing, but have been restored and put on display inside the narthex of the cathedral. | Part of the replica cathedral doors and the original marble frame. These are the exterior doors, copied from the remaining panels of the original. The intricate marble carving around the frame is also original |
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| Interior chapel of St. Jerome in the church of the Annunciation Benevento. This chapel honors Pope Benedict XIII, formerly Pietro Orsini, archbishop of Benevento in the 18th Century. The rococo multi-color stonework is common in southern Italy. | Interior of St. Jerome, looking from the altar towards the entrance. Because this was built originally as part of a convent, the second floor has long passage ways with grills, allowing the nuns to look out on the service without beeing seen. The church is being rennovated due to damage suffered in a recent earthquake |
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This is somewhat of an obvious piece once I stopped to think about it. Paris, mostly as an abstract feeling of "love" or a distillation of the architecture, has become a popular theme in jewelry and watches, take Van Cleef or Louis Vuitton, for example. Philippe Tournaire (previously mentioned) is most noted for his architectural, as in representing actual buildings rather then the vague term that has come to mean "massive", jewelry, in particular rings. He's already done a series of Paris rings, and so it wasn't a huge leap to do a Paris wristwatch Paris Forever, with a tourbillon movement base by Technotime.
The watch consists of a double-bezel, set with small white and yellow diamonds, set on 4 columns which suspend it over the movement and caseback, as the sides are sapphire. This setup gives you a better view into the massively thick movement which represents, in tiny form multiple Parisian monuments:
- The Trocadero gardens, identifiable by the blue-diamond at the center of the fountain
- The Louvre, seen from the Académie Française
- The Pont Neuf, set with white diamonds and the top ruby bearing of the tourbillon
- The sweep of the Eiffel tower up the Champs Elysee to the Arc de Triomphe
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I've always hated the old chestnut and I'm glad someone else does as well, but with better illustrative technique
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