#LB Decamp | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

thelastdiadoch · 7 years

Photo

THE MONGOLS AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD AND THEIR ‘BATTLE OF THE KALKA RIVER’ AGAINST THE RUSIAN REALMS:

“We know not whence they came, nor where they hid themselves again. God knows whence he fetched them against us, for our sins.” – Novgorod Chronicle.

The following is an excerpt from my post, “GENGHIS KHAN, THE STALLION WHO MOUNTS THE WORLD”.

Mongol horde on the march

Now we turn our attention to the west, with the Khwarezmian Empire effectively conquered, what became of Shah Muhammad II of Khwarezmia? Back in 1220 CE he fled from the face of the Mongols, seeking refuge and aid in the west. Genghis Khan sent the great Mongol generals Subotai (the strategist) and Jebe (‘the arrow’) in pursuit of him. However, the Shah he died of pleurisy in 1220 CE before the Mongols reached him. While Genghis Khan and his sons were still hunting down the Shah Muhammad II’s son Sultan Jalal, Jebe and Subotai asked the Great Khan for permission to lead a reconnaissance in force to the mysterious lands to the west of the Caspian Sea.

The Mongols were skilled in leading long and deep raids into enemy territory, even when they were miles apart they kept in touch and could quickly regroup if necessary. This is proven throughout their campaigns against the Jinn dynasty (Tungusic Jurchen) of northern China, the Kara Khatai Khaganate (Turco-Mongols) of Central Asia, the Khwarezmian dynasty (Turco-Persian) of Greater Persia, and their raids under Jebe and Subotai to the Caucasus Mountains and beyond. The professional Mongol army believed in marching dividedly and leaving scouts at all their flanks, this division of manpower made it easier to cover more ground in shorter time and made it difficult for the enemy to track one individual force. The Mongols were strict about their decamping armies leaving behind no trace for the enemy to follow, punishing severely any who failed to clean up after themselves or their comrades.

“If you march in a large body of three or four hundred, with a design to attack the enemy, divide your party into three columns, each headed by a proper officer, and let those columns march in single files, the columns to the right and left keeping at twenty yards distance or more from that of the center, if the ground will admit, and let proper guards be kept in the front and rear, and suitable flanking parties at a due distance as before directed, with orders to halt on all eminences, to take a view of the surrounding ground, to prevent your being ambuscaded, and to notify the approach or retreat of the enemy, that proper dispositions may be made for attacking, defending, And if the enemy approach in your front on level ground, form a front of your three columns or main body with the advanced guard, keeping out your flanking parties, as if you were marching under the command of trusty officers, to prevent the enemy from pressing hard on either of your wings, or surrounding you, which is the usual method of the savages, if their number will admit of it, and be careful likewise to support and strengthen your rear-guard.” – The 28 Rules of Ranging by Robert Rogers, rule 6.

If the situation urged one into conflict, the other divisions could swiftly join together. The Mongol army also made great use of scouting parties which could be as much as a seventy miles ahead, behind and at their flanks. These scouts gathered intel in the form of geography, enemy positions and numbers, settlements, viable camp locations, terrain advantages and disadvantages, and sources of water. The Mongol horde obtained an almost constant flow of information. Since these scouts were light cavalrymen and were armed with long ranged weapons, they could also skirmish or lure the enemy toward a larger Mongol force.

Remount system and the ‘Yam’ pony express

"To appreciate the Mongol you must see him on horseback,—and indeed you rarely see him otherwise, for he does not put foot to ground if he can help it. The Mongol without his pony is only half a Mongol, but with his pony he is as good as two men. It is a fine sight to see him tearing over the plain, loose bridle, easy seat, much like the Western cowboy, but with less sprawl." – Elizabeth Kendall.

Since under Genghis Khan each Mongol brought along up to six horses, they could implement the so-called ‘remount system’. With this system the Mongols could ride a horse for a set amount of time and then saddle up another and ride further without ever overextending each horse. With this system a Mongols would be able to speedily cover tremendous distances with few breaks (examples: 130 m. in two days; 180 m. in two days through deep snows) as they were also known to rest while on horseback.

All this was done on the famed Mongolian horse (aduu) which was known to be a short (4 ft. 5-8 in.) and stocky breed (600 lbs.) with tremendous stamina and endurance, capable of providing a steady ride over long distances (600 miles in nine days). This steadiness granted the archers a clean stage from which to fire off clean shots, usually in between strides. Also granting stability was the Mongol saddle which was high in the back and front, making it easier to swing your torso to a position that would allow the rider to shoot behind them i.e. the Parthian shot.

^ Osprey – ‘Warrior’ series, issue 084 – Mongol Warrior 1200-1350 by Stephen Turnbull and Wayne Reynolds (illustrator). Plate B.

When Jebe (‘the arrow’) and Subotai began their reconnaissance of the Caucasus they encountered the Christian kingdom of Georgia (1008–1490 CE) which was just about to join the Fifth Crusade (1213–1221) CE). After a skirmish, Jebe led a feigned retreat which lured the Georgians into a long and tiring chase which ended in an ambush prepared by Subotai. Jebe then mounted fresh horses (remount system) and together the two were able to effectively destroy Georgia’s aristocracy in one grand clash.

Throughout their many campaigns, Mongol divisions kept constant communication with one another by means of smoke signals, torches, whistling arrows, flags, arm signals and messengers on horseback. The Mongols were renowned for their mounted courier service (‘Yam’). The Mongols established way stations and posts about 20-30 miles from one another and assisted in allowing said couriers to cover 200-300 kilometers (c. 124–186 mi.) with aid from the remount system. Some have been said to have traveled up to as much as 2,000 kilometers (c. 1242 mi.) in a short period of time with few long breaks. These stations worked as rest stops where the couriers, dignitaries and merchants could sleep, eat, drink, and grab a fresh horse (remount). The famed Venetian merchant and traveler Marco Polo and Giovanni of Pian del Carpine who traveled as the Pope’s ambassador to the Mongols between 1245 and 1247.

“It is an army after the fashion of a peasantry, being liable to all manner of contributions (mu'an) and rendering without complaint whatever is enjoined upon it, whether qupcbur, occasional taxes (avarizat), the maintenance (ikhrajat) of travelers or the upkeep of post stations (yam) with the provision of mounts (ulagh) and food (ulufat) therefor.” – Ala-ad-Din Ata-Malik Juvaini (1226–1283 CE), Persian historian and governor of Baghdad.

These ‘arrow-riders’ were referred to as the “eyes and ears” of the Khan and as a seal of authority they wore paizas (large tablets) made of wood, silver or gold (according to the person’s importance and level of authority). Messages were kept orally, to help memorize them messages were formed in a rhyming format which made remembering the wording as simple as remembering song lyrics. This was not done solely by couriers or spies but also the common soldier, the latter of which were known to sing laws and military rules of conduct.

“Again, when the extent of their territories became broad and vast and important events fell out, it became essential to ascertain the activities of their enemies, and it was also necessary to transport goods from the West to the East and from the Far East to the West. Therefore throughout the length and breadth of the land they established yams and made arrangements for the upkeep and expenses of each yam, assigning thereto a fixed number of men and beasts as well as food, drink and other necessities. All this they shared out amongst the tumen, each two tumen having to supply one yam. Thus, in accordance with the census, they so distribute and exact the charge, that messengers need make no long detour in order to obtain fresh mounts while at the same time the peasantry and the army are not placed in constant inconvenience.

Moreover strict orders were issued to the messengers with regard to the sparing of the mounts, etc., to recount all of which would delay us too long. Every year the yams are inspected, and whatever is missing or lost has to be replaced by the peasantry. Since all countries and peoples have come under their domination, they have established a census after their accustomed fashion and classified everyone into tens, hundreds and thousands; and required military service and the equipment of yams together with the expenses entailed and the provision of fodder this in addition to ordinary taxes; and over and above all this they have fixed the qupchur charges also.” – Ala-ad-Din Ata-Malik Juvaini (1226–1283 CE), Persian historian and governor of Baghdad.

The Battle of the Kalka River, 1223 CE

“for our sins, unknown tribe came, whom no one exactly knows, who they are, nor whence they came out, nor what their language is, nor of what race they are, nor what their faith is; but they call them Tartars (Mongols)” – Novgorod Chronicle.

Jebe (‘the arrow’) and Subotai, the Mongols who pursued Shah Muhammad II and defeated the Kingdom of Georgia, now made their way across the Caucasus Mountains. The Mongol generals were able to enlist some Turkish steppe nomads while warring with the rest, one such foe were the Turkish Polovtsians (Cumans) of the Cuman-Kipchak Khanate (900–1220 CE).

”They are the Four Dogs of Temujin. They have foreheads of brass, their jaws are like scissors, their tongues like piercing awls, their heads are iron, their whipping tails swords … In the day of battle, they devour enemy flesh. Behold, they are now unleashed, and they slobber at the mouth with glee. These four dogs are Jebe, and Kublai, Jelme, and Subotai.” — The Secret History of the Mongols.

^ Polovtsian Khanate. Osprey – ‘Campaign’ series, issue 098 – Kalka River 1223 – Genghis Khan’s Mongols invade Russia by D. Niccole, V. Shpakovsky and V. Korolkov (illustrator).

These nomads were defeated so they fled towards the Slavic realms of medieval Russia and Ukraine, drowning the Rusians in gifts and warning them that: “Our land they have taken away to-day; and yours will be taken tomorrow”. The Rusians then believed that “If we, brothers, do not help these (Polovtsians), then they will certainly surrender to them (Mongols), then the strength of those (Mongols) will be greater.” The Rusian principalities joined a unified front against the Mongols and, aided by the Polovtsians, they marched toward their eastern border which was marked by the Dnieper River.

^ The Russian Armies Assemble. Osprey – ‘Campaign’ series, issue 098 – Kalka River 1223 – Genghis Khan’s Mongols invade Russia by D. Niccole, V. Shpakovsky and V. Korolkov (illustrator).

When the Mongols learned of the Rusian-Polovtsian confederacy, they sent envoys their way with a message conveying that they were only after the Polovtsians and had no ill will with the Rusians.

“Behold, we hear that you are coming against us, having listened to the Polovets men; but we have not occupied your land, nor your towns, nor your villages, nor is it against you we have come. But we have come sent by God against our serfs, and our horse-herds, the pagan Polovets men, and do you take peace with us. If they escape to you, drive them off thence, and take to yourselves their goods. For we have heard that to you also they have done much harm; and it is for that reason also we are fighting them.” – Novgorod Chronicle.

The Rusians, however, killed these envoys. The Mongols then sent a second batch of envoys informing them that since the Rusians “have listened to the Polovets men, and have killed all our envoys, and are coming against us, come then, but we have not touched you, let God judge all. (Novgorod Chronicle)” What the Rusians should’ve done was fought the Mongols by the Dnieper River where they would’ve held a tactical advantage and would’ve been near their own territories if need for flight or reinforcements arose. The only person who tried to urge holding the Dnieper River and forcing the Mongols into crossing it was a Rusian grand prince named Mstislav (III) Romanovich the Old of Kiev.

^ Osprey – ‘Campaign’ series, issue 098 – Kalka River 1223 – Genghis Khan’s Mongols invade Russia by D. Niccole, V. Shpakovsky and V. Korolkov (illustrator).

The Rusians, however, left their advantageous position by the Dnieper River to follow a trail of breadcrumbs intentionally left behind by the Mongols. For nine days the Rusian-Polovtsian confederacy pursued the Mongols before reaching the vast open plain encompassing the area around the Kalka River. This luring tactic, which was common among steppe nomads, is called the ‘Dogfight tactic’, but is known more commonly as the ‘feigned retreat’. Steppe nomads would lure the enemy into hopeless pursuits, into ambushes or towards locations which swayed the advantage in their favor. The Mongols lured the Rusian-Polovtsian confederacy like the famed Scythian king of old named Idanthyrsus who led the Persian king Darius the Great for a month deep into Scythian territory as far as the Volga River (in modern Russia) in 513 BCE.

“Even if the Tartars retreat, our men ought not to separate from each other or be split up, for the Tartars pretend to withdraw in order to divide an enemy.” – Giovanni of Pian del Carpine (c.1185–1252 CE).

“It should be known that when they come in sight of the enemy they attack at once, each one shooting three of four arrows at their adversaries; if they see that they are not going to be able to defeat them, they retire, going back to their own line. They do this as a blind to make the enemy follow them as far as the places where they have prepared ambushes. If the enemy pursues them to these ambushes, they surround and wound and kill them. Similarly if they see that they are opposed by a large army, they sometimes turn aside and, putting a day's or two days' journey between them, they attack and pillage another part of the country and they kill men and destroy and lay waste to land. If they perceive that they cannot even do this, then they retreat for some ten or twelve days and stay in a safe place until the army of the enemy had disbanded, whereupon they come secretly and ravage the whole land.” – Giovanni of Pian del Carpine (c.1185–1252 CE).

^ The Polovtsians (Cumans, western Kipchaks). Osprey – ‘Campaign’ series, issue 098 – Kalka River 1223 – Genghis Khan’s Mongols invade Russia by D. Niccole, V. Shpakovsky and V. Korolkov (illustrator).

“And ye shall understand that it is a great dread for to pursue the Tatars if they flee in battle … for in fleeing they shoot behind them and slay both men and horses. And when they will fight they will shock them together in a plump…” – Sir John Mandeville.

“If you are obliged to retreat, let the front of your whole party fire and fall back, till the rear hath done the same, making for the best ground you can; by this means you will oblige the enemy to pursue you, if they do it at all, in the face of a constant fire.” – The 28 Rules of Ranging by Robert Rogers. Rule 9.

“He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight.” – The Art of War by Sun Tzu.

Polovtsian flight

Rus-Polovtsian coalition, despite being unified against a common foe, were rivalrous and constantly feuding throughout much of their history. Instead of fighting jointly, this uncoordinated and disorganized rabble of Slavic principalities and Turkish nomads were for the most part following their own individual tactical strategies. The Rusian and Polovtsian forces that rushed forward, far ahead of the remainder of their coalition, crossed the Kalka River to engage the Mongols. Those who were now on the Mongol side of the Kalka River plains were assaulted by an alternating cascade of arrows and heavy cavalry charges; echoing the disastrous Roman defeat by the Iranian Parthians at the Battle of Carrhae back in 53 BCE.

^ Osprey – ‘Warrior’ series, issue 084 – Mongol Warrior 1200-1350 by Stephen Turnbull and Wayne Reynolds (Illustrator). Plate F: Mongol Warriors in hand-to-hand combat at the battle of the Kalka River.

The surrounded and pummeled Rusians and Polovtsians broke and routed, the latter of which rushed toward the Kalka River but instead crashed into, trampled over and forced into the Kalka River the Rusians which were trailing behind them and just caught up with the initial Rus-Polovtsian vanguard.

^ To aid in understanding how the conflict went. Osprey – ‘Campaign’ series, issue 098 – Kalka River 1223 - Genghis Khan’s Mongols invade Russia by D. Niccole, V. Shpakovsky and V. Korolkov (illustrator).

“the Polovets men ran away back, having accomplished nothing, and in their flight they trampled the camp of the Russian Knyazes (princes), for they had not had time to form into order against them (Mongols); and they were all thrown into confusion, and there was a terrible and savage slaughter.” – Novgorod Chronicle.

Hilltop holdout

All but one Rusian force remained unbroken, that of Mstislav Romanovich the Old of Kiev, who had earlier suggested that they remain behind the Dnieper River. Mstislav Romanovich the Old of Kiev was trailing behind the rest of the confederates and saw that before he even reached the Kalka River that his comrades were obliterated and routed. Mstislav Romanovich the Old of Kiev quickly assembled a tabor or laager: fortifications made up of wagons drawn close together.

^ Osprey – ‘Campaign’ series, issue 098 – Kalka River 1223 – Genghis Khan’s Mongols invade Russia by D. Niccole, V. Shpakovsky and V. Korolkov (illustrator).

“Mstislav, Knyaz of Kiev, seeing this evil, never moved at all from his position; for he had taken stand on a hill above the river Kalka, and the place was stony, and there he set up a stockade of posts about him and fought with them from out of this stockade for three days.” – Novgorod Chronicle.

After being besieged for three days the Mongols promised that they would not shed their blood. Mstislav Romanovich the Old of Kiev surrendered but the Mongols were being smartasses since they intended on killing them in bloodless fashion. Since it was the tradition of the Mongols that they would not spill the blood of royalty or nobility, they organized a victory feast which was to be celebrated atop a platform (“bridge”) made of wooden planks. Mstislav Romanovich the Old of Kiev and the other princes were tied up and thrown under this platform. Here they suffered a slow and painful death from suffocation due to the immense weight and pressure the platform placed on them.

“And having taken the Knyazes they suffocated them having put them under boards, and themselves took seat on the top to have dinner. And thus they ended their lives.” – Novgorod Chronicle.

^ Osprey – ‘Campaign’ series, issue 098 – Kalka River 1223 - Genghis Khan’s Mongols invade Russia by D. Niccole, V. Shpakovsky and V. Korolkov (illustrator).

The Mongols hunted down the remnants of the Rus and the Polovtsians (Turks) back to the Dnieper River they initially crossed days ago, “the rest of the troops every tenth returned to his home”. The Mongols then crossed said river and entered into the land of the Rus who were vulnerable as they had just lost a vast army, nobles, princes and commanders. Just when it seemed like there would be a Mongol invasion, a campaign led directly against the Rus… they halted and returned to the steppes as Genghis Khan ordered them to join his son Jochi in a campaign against the Volga Bulgars (Muslim Turks).

“the Tartars turned back from the river Dnieper, and we know not whence they came, nor where they hid themselves again; God knows whence he fetched them against us for our sins.” – Novgorod Chronicle.

Head over to my post, “GENGHIS KHAN, THE STALLION WHO MOUNTS THE WORLD”, to read more about how Genghis Khan was pressured into campaigning out of China toward Central Asia (Kara Khitai Khanate), to Greater Iran (Khwarezmian Empire), to the frontier of Eastern Europe (Medieval Russia and Ukraine) and back to China. I also cover Mongol shamanism and their tolerance of foreign religions, the famed ‘Yam’ pony express, their tactical use of captives and their massive deportation policy.

To read up on the early history of the Mongols, check out my post ‘THE MONGOLS AND THE RISE OF GENGHIS KHAN’. In this post I speak about the Mongolian transition from seemingly insignificant tribal confederacies into an empire that was four times the size of Alexander’s and twice the size of the Roman’s. I cover their military tactics, some of their battle formations, armaments, their rapid adaptation of foreign technologies, and their secretive order of bodyguards known as the Keshik. During Genghis Khan’s early reign the Mongols warred against themselves and their fellow steppe neighbors as well as Northern China’s Western Xia dynasty (Tanguts: Tibeto-Burmese) and eastern Jinn dynasty (Tungusic Jurchens who were Sinicized).

#history #mongols #russia #ukraine #slavic #mongolia

189 notes · View notes

apsbicepstraining · 7 years

Text

The billion-dollar palaces of Apple, Facebook and Google

How the tech giants are employing top designers to improve splendid represents of their gargantuan global power

We know by now that the internet is a monster playpen, a scenery of dolls, distractions and instant gratification, of chirps and squeals and bright, shiny stuffs plus, rest assured, ugly, horrid beasties lurking in all the softness apparently without horizon. Graphics rounded areas, lower action, Googles primary colours, Twitters birdie, Facebooks colours of blue-blooded enhance the innocence and infantilism. It is a macrocosm, as Jonathan Franzen formerly said, so responsive to our desire as to be, effectively, a merely expansion of the self. Until we chance on the bars of the playpen and find that there are situates we cant go and that it is in the talent of the grown-ups on the other side to create or move the limitations of our freedom.

Were talk about of virtual infinite. But those grown-ups, the tech monsters, Apple, Facebook, Google and the rest, are also in the business of improving physical billion-dollar districts for their millions of hires. Here extremely they make calibrated districts of fun, wherein staff offer “peoples lives”, body and soul, day and night, in exchange for gyms, Olympic-sized swimming pools, clambering walls, basketball courts, running tracks and hiking lines, indoor football tars, rub areas and hanging plots, achievement venues, agreeable art and adorable graphics. They have been doing this for a while what is changing is the sheer scale and extravagance of these places.

For the tech whales are now in the same position as great powers in the past the bankers of the Italian Renaissance, the skyscraper-builders of the 20 th century, the Emperor Augustus, Victorian railway companies whereby, whether they want to or not, their size and opulence express their opinions in breathtaking architecture. As Deyan Sudjic, formerly of this parish and now administrator of the Design Museum, wrote in his journal The Edifice Complex , its implementation of building has always been at the discretion of those with their hands on the bars of ability. Having as much sense of their own usefulnes as those previous supremacies, tech firms probably dont recollection commissioning formations that define their time.

The construction of Apple Park in California

A clue to their passions lies in their choice of architects, who are at the extremely to particularly far-famed cease of the professional range. They have, clearly, massive assets, with the ability to do almost anything they like. They can have brand-new information developed, or make old-fashioned ones act as never before. They can construct the biggest and most expensive workplaces hitherto interpreted. They can change cities. They have already redefined building in the sense that the word been in a position to refer to the structures of software and hardware. Now the old-fashioned form of architecture feels itself an adjunct of the new sort. One clue of the shifted balance of power is the fact that Apple, having commissioned the mighty Foster and Spouse to design its new HQ, have chosen not mention them even after they had unveiled the plans. The campaign is still not on the Foster website. The Apple brand had to come first.

Most though not all of these new organizes are in the convene of towns, suburbiums and small cities that goes by the refer of Silicon Valley. There is the Foster project, Apple Park in Cupertino, 2.8 m sq ft in length and reportedly expenditure$ 5bn, at its centre a mile in circumference, visible from room, a metal and glass circle that are currently almost complete. There are the planned Google headquarters in Mountain View and London by the high-ego, high-reputation pairing of Bjarke Ingels and Thomas Heatherwick. Facebook has hired the New York office of OMA, these best practices founded by Rem Koolhaas, to add to the Frank Gehry-designed complex in Menlo Park that was completed in 2015.

The one that dominates increased attention, and has done since the specific characteristics were unveiled in 2011, is the Apple/ Foster circle, built on a place vacated by the waning empire of Hewlett Packard, which as it happens was the company that presented the teenage Steve Jobs his first infringe. According to Wired magazine, the building preoccupied Jobs in his last months, and he would waste his treasured time on five- or six-hour sessions on its motif. In June 2011, visibly ailing, he appeared in person in front of a starstruck Cupertino city council, with members of the audience snapping him with what now look like Jurassic cameras, to convince them of its merits. He didnt have to try too hard.

The accomplished Apple Park in Cupertino, California, which opened in April 2017. Photograph: Alamy

Weve had some enormous architects to work with, he said, some of the best in the world I recall, and weve come up with a blueprint that gives 12,000 beings in one construct. The gathering gasped. Hed construed place commons with lots of constructs but they get birthing pretty rapidly. So he proposed, acquainting a analogy that has since protruded to the design like dust to a MacBook screen, something a little like a spaceship property with a exquisite courtyard in the middle. Its a circle and so its bowed all the way round, he said, which as you know if you build occasions is not the cheapest lane to build something. Theres not a straight bit of glass on this building. At the same season the meridian would never transcend four storeys we want the whole place human-scale. There would be 6,000 trees on the 150 -acre site, selected with the help of a elderly arborist from Stanford whos very good with indigenous trees around this area.

When a council member said that the word splendid is an understatement, Jobs didnt demur. I think we do have a shot at building the best office building in the world, he said. I genuinely do think that structure students will come here to see this, I think it could be that good. He batted away mild is asking for a few benefits for the vicinity free wifi, opening an Apple store, mitigating the increase in transaction and in the nicest possible method reminds me of “thats been” the largest taxpayer in Cupertino, so wed like to continue to stay here and pay taxes. If the city asked for too much, in other words, Apple would decamp to a competitive municipality.

The mayor waved an iPad 2( which too gazes Jurassic now) and said how much his daughter loved it. Your technologies genuinely do everybody proud, said another council member. Well thanks, said Jobs, were proud to be in Cupertino very. Thanks, she sounded back, like a giddy teenager. In due direction the project was approved.

Jobs was in fact downplaying the curves exceptionalness. Lately Steven Levy, a reporter for Wired , was let through Apples PR palisades to look inside the nearly-finished house. He described a high-precision Xanadu, a feel-good Spectre basi, on which Lord Foster and his crew were assisted by Apples famed premier design officer also, as it happens, British-born Sir Jonathan Ive. After a drive down a pristine 755 -foot long tunnel, invest in specifically designed and patented tiles, he detected a world-wide of whiteness, greenery and silver, with a 100,000 sq ft fitness centre and a cafe that can act 4,000 at once, with the 1,000 -seat Steve Jobs theatre, surmounted by a 165 ft-wide glass cylinder, for Apples far-famed produce openings, and with a scenery designed to mimic a national park.

It is a place where trees have been transplanted from the Mojave desert, where the aluminium door-handles have been through multiple prototypes to achieve their perfect organize, where the stairs use fire-control systems acquired from ships, where the extended glass has been specifically considered to achieve precisely the desired degree of transparency and whiteness, where even a new various kinds of pizza casket that stops the contents going soggy has been invented and patented for the company coffeehouse. The doorways have perfectly flat thresholds because, according to a creation administrator reported by Reuters, if architects had to adjust their gait when penetrating the building, they gambled distraction from their work.

In life Jobs was pitiless about the detail; since his death his admirers have striven to be true to his atmosphere. He specified how the beam wall-linings should be cut and at what time of year, to minimise its exhaust material. There is a yoga room, reports Levy, that is covered in stone, from merely the right excavate in Kansas, thats been carefully distressed, like a duo of jeans, to make it definitely sounds like the stone at Jobss favourite inn in Yosemite. There are the sliding glass doorways to the cafe, four storeys or 85 paws high, each weighing 440,000 lbs practically 200 tonnes, that open and close with the help of near-noiseless underground mechanisms. Apple Park uses the largest, heaviest single pieces of glass ever installed on a structure, with the added complication of being curved.

It is certainly a think of our age, though to what end is an open question. Jonathan Ive told Wired that the main aims were the connection and collaboration it would allow between hires. For Foster it is a beautiful object descended on this verdant, comfortable landscape a true utopian vision. One of its objects is to inspire future Apple works with its perfection and attention to item, to give high standards for them to follow in their work. Tim Cook, Apples CEO, called it a 100 -year decision.

Ever since the design was unveiled, however, it has precipitated scepticism. The architecture critic of the LA Times called it a retrograded cocoon, doggedly old-fashioned. As a perfect and omitting bit of modernist geometry, defined within luxuriant set and is dependant on large amounts of car parking, it ogles strangely like a corporate HQ of the 1950 s or 60 s, something that IBM or Bell Labs might have improved,which you would have speculated is precisely the looking Apple wouldnt want. And a curve is a frozen species, hard to modify or augment. At any given point in time, the relationship to the rest is much the same as at any other item, which seems to work against Ives hopes for communications and spontaneity. It is the shape of infinity and eternity, of mausoleums and temples.

Facebook HQs rooftop common designed by Frank Gehry. Picture: Oliver Wainwright for the Guardian

Many of the greatest fabrications in modern technology have been realized in rough and ready, easy-to-adapt infinites in the garages, front room and acquired role tables where Apple, Google and others were hatched and in Building 20, the large-scale wooden molted at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where significant advance were drawn in linguistics, nuclear science, acoustics and computing, to call but a few. And while its hopeless for a company the size of Apple to recreate that exact atmosphere in its workplace, the big circle does look over-determined and more complete, as well as expensive and slow to construct. Promotes knockout and utopia are not able to induce the best medium for fast-moving invention. As for Cooks 100 -year ambition, this seems strange and hubristic as the decline of Hewlett Packard demoes, there is little reason to think that any tech corporation can last that long, in which lawsuit the Apple circle will, like the crumbling skill deco skyscrapers of Detroit, be splendidly redundant.

There is another line of analysi, which is that those terrified and tax-hungry members of Cupertino city council didnt push hard enough for the help that their community involves. If the fact that there is Apple is chiefly an immense boon for them it also brings push on dwelling and transportation, creating traffic jam and long travels and pushing the median cost of a home in Cupertino to nearly$ 2m. The layout novelist Allison Arieff recently bickered in the New York Times that the proposed project pictures a flagrant disregard is not simply for the citizens of Cupertino but too for the functionality of the states of the region. It should, she says, have seen more great efforts to is attached to public transport and the city should try harder to address the home necessitate that Apples attendance generates.

It doesnt often pay to bet against Apples judgment, and there may be intelligence in development projects that is not visible in the existing information. The companionship asset and supremacy may in any case be enough to counteract any unhelpfulness in its building, but Apple Park looks like the sort of splendid tombstone that empires construct for themselves Lutyenss houses for the British Raj in Delhi, the skyscrapers that moved up on the cusp of the Wall Street crash after they have elapsed their predominance. It may also be governed by excess if intelligible respect for Jobs. It is a place imbued with his account and his reveries. They call it Steves gift. It had better not be Steves millstone.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and architect Frank Gehry discuss representations of Facebooks Menlo Park campus. Image: Facebook/ AFP

It is, at all events, the project against which other tech business suggestions want to define themselves. They want to be the things that it is not. The official narrative of the Facebook/ Gehry collaboration is that Mark Zuckerberg was cautious of the inventors luminary and the latter had to convince him of his ability to deliver the project with the assistance of Gehrys in-house software more cheaply and effectively than his adversaries. The finished form is from the rough-edged and rumpus-room institutions of tech HQ design, with a huge open-plan office containing 2,800 workers and splashy, colorful operates by local artists. The building itself is pretty simple and isnt imagination. Thats on purpose, said Zuckerberg. We require our space to feel like a work in progress. When you penetrate our constructs, we want you to feel how much left there is to be done in our mission to connect the world.

Shohei Shigematsu, project partners at OMA New York in charge of Facebooks recent swelling, Willow Campus, is indicated that our operation was not to provide iconic architecture but also regional and social suppose. He and his buyer, he says, want to integrate with community and support parish amenity, to support the things that the community urgently misses a convenience store, open space, 1,500 dwellings of which 15% will be offered at below marketplace hires, a hotel, greenways, residential gaits, shopping streets. Facebook is the perfect company, Shigematsu also says, their assignment is to connect beings, and network is a word the hell is virtual but too physical. So he wants to apply that mission to urban desires for connectivity in the Bay Area.

He wants to re-activate a disused railing passageway at the leading edge of the locate as a cycling way, a pedestrian roadway and a possible line for a Facebook shuttle that can also be used by the public. He wants to undo the corporate fortress-like approaching, although he acknowledges that a immense fellowship will always have secrets and that is something that of the national territory will be out of bounds to members of the public. The imagery written so far reveals generically pleasant ballparks and streets, of the nature that well-mannered urbanists ought to have generating for more than three decades, with nothing of the provocation, astonish and signature perversion that you often get with OMA activities. Shigematsu says he is happy to accept any particular level of cliche in the form it is the large-scale thinking that matters to him.

Google miss something else again. Theyre emphatically not afraid of icons. After weighing many architects Zaha Hadid, for example they shotgunned Heatherwick and Bjarke Ingelss practice, BIG, into a marriage. Its a striking sentiment, like a billionaire hiring Miley Cyrus and Britney Spears to perform at his sprogs 18 th birthday. Heatherwick and Ingels are among the younger drafts to the grades of iconists, unabashed entertainers, purveyors of WTF spectaculars untrammelled by the academic scruples of older designers. One of the two might be considered ample for any one assignment, but then organizations like Google dont play by normal rules when it comes to hiring designers, or surely much else.

BIG and Heatherwicks design for Googles brand-new London headquarters in Kings Cross. Picture: HayesDavidson

At Mountain View, where permission was lately granted to proceed, a huge roof is proposed, both mountainous and tent-like, with upward-curving openings smile-shaped clerestories for deeming the sky. Beneath its capacious shelter, on a promoted open deck, hundreds if not thousands of Googlers will be doing their trash. The next tier down a publicly accessible roadway leads through, part of a programme of employing with these communities that also includes a public plaza for group tai chi and whatever. It is framed by oval oak thickets.

If Apple Park seems aloof and extraterrestrial despite the fact that a lot of its landscape is open to the public then Facebook and Google require you to know how much, like street jugglers or mime artists, they want to engage you. But there are currently similarities between all these projects, such as the all-embracing quality of their passions. Each campus is a self-contained universe where everything the species of botany, the graphics, the food in the coffeehouse, the programming of incidents, the structure, is determined by the management. They make their own weather.

Under the Google tent or inside the Apple circle there is little but googleness or appleness. There is quality but despite the meticulous selection of native floras it is of an abstract, finagled kind. There is art, but it is drained of the authority to offend and subvert, leaving alone recreation and reassurance. There is architecture but , notwithstanding the high degree of invention that goes into cloths, it procures it hard to shed the quality of computer supplies, the sense that buildings are made of a kind of digistuff, which could as well be one thing or the other. Even when the corporations reach out to their communities, to use the preferred PR terminology, the countries of the world is a hazy, ill-defined entity, a mist in the background of the computer-generated images.

These panoptical worlds are in accordance of the sheer magnitude of “owners corporations”, but they also show their mindset. It has been pointed out that tech campuses resemble hippie communes of the 1960 s in their obvious egalitarianism, their illusion that you can go back to quality, draw your own principles, liberate yourself with scientific and share everything. Physically, Googles large-scale ceiling echoes the geodesic domes that hippies put up in their rural retreats.

While their sci-fi is strangely dated, culturally it represents gumption. As the author Fred Turner has argued in From Counterculture to Cyberculture , radical Californian ideas of the 1960 s were, with added revenue inducement, converted into radical Californian technologies of recent decades. And as has been belatedly dawning, there are limits to the sharing, equality and impunity, especially when the intellectual property and business strategies of the tech monstrous are at post. Their building makes form to these negations, to the combinations of openness and control and of freedom and hindrances. They are perfect sketches of the obvious equality and actual inequality of the tech sphere, where impermeable septa partition those in the inner circles from the remainder. There is inequality everywhere, of course, but the tech manoeuvre is to claim that there isnt.

The Amazon Spheres, added to the Amazon campus in downtown Seattle, are Eden Project-style biodomes. Image: AP

Sometimes tech HQs find themselves in the middle of big cities, rather than the compliant sprawl of Silicon Valley, which causes them to modify but not abandon their hippie-commune mentality. Amazon has chosen to situate itself in downtown Seattle, where it is believed to occupy 15 -2 0% of the available role opening, which allows it to boast that 20% of its 25,000 hires go to undertaking. To its moderately anodyne assembly of its term of office pulley-blocks it has just added the Spheres, an urban Eden Project of interlocking foams, where its employees will wander, in Costa Rican temperatures, among tropical groves and waterfalls.

At Kings Cross in London pressure of space has obliged the stacking-up of Googles campus into an 11 -storey, one-million-square-foot structure as long as the Shard is towering. Here the fun and games of the inside a prom that ascends past cafe and fantastic plays facilities to a rooftop scenery of headland, battlefields, plot and plateau are constricted into an exterior that takes its cue from the moderately po-faced regularity of its term of office cubes around it, and from the recurring rows of the rail ways down one surface. These tempi then get jiggered, as if the internal power cant be contained any longer.

The proposed house is one of the more convincing architectural layouts so far by either BIG or Heatherwick, in which the encounter of campus and metropolis produces tighten and friction, pushing and plucking, activity and reaction. It is also a decided organization, unafraid of its proportion, amid the more indecisive pulley-blocks around, which is something the sphere necessitates. But it is still inward-looking, offering a conventional role entering plus an display of retail groups to the street. If the same can be said of other place builds nearby, one could have hoped that the strength of Google could have achieved more.

When Microsoft was in its solemnity it was happy to occupy a bland scattering of low-grade constructs on the edge of Seattle. It still does. Its also impressing that for all its notoriety Silicon Valley becomes little mark on the visual consciousness “of the worlds” theres not a strong feel of what it actually consider this to be. Until now it has lacked landmarks. But that is something that superpower and that much fund will not always be happy to be unobtrusive. We are only just beginning to see the ways in which it can change the landscape of cities.

The post The billion-dollar palaces of Apple, Facebook and Google appeared first on apsbicepstraining.com.

from WordPress http://ift.tt/2qGAaI7 via IFTTT

#IFTTT #WordPress

0 notes

footballleague0 · 7 years

Text

Lions staying grounded after big win in prime time

Detroit Lions are undefeated, so here are 16 signs to be excited Jeff Seidel – Detroit Free Press September 20, 2017

Detroit Lions film review: Diggs delivers on fourth down Dave Birkett – Detroit Free Press September 20, 2017

Inside the Lions podcast: Is Detroit’s defense ready for Falcons offense? Nate Atkins – MLive.com September 20, 2017

How Lions rookie Agnew ran 119.1 yards on punt return touchdown Michael Rothstein – ESPN.com September 20, 2017

Lions staying grounded after big win in prime time Noah Trister – The Associated Press September 20, 2017

Jim Caldwell doesn’t take issue with Odell Beckham block on Davis Dave Birkett – Detroit Free Press September 19, 2017

2-0 start proves Detroit Lions defense is ‘for real’ Dave Birkett – Detroit Free Press September 19, 2017

Detroit Lions rookie Agnew still earning his stripes after big punt-return TD Dave Birkett – Detroit Free Press September 19, 2017

Lions’ Decker, an ex-UM star? ‘Bro, c’mon’ The Detroit News September 19, 2017

Collins dustup doesn’t dim Ebron’s ‘special’ night Justin Rogers – The Detroit News September 19, 2017

Anatomy of Agnew’s game-altering return for Lions Justin Rogers – The Detroit News September 19, 2017

Lions’ Caldwell brushes off pleas he deserves job security James Hawkins – The Detroit News September 19, 2017

Wojo: Lions shedding doubters by how they’re shredding foes Bob Wojnowski – The Detroit News September 19, 2017

Should Detroit Lions keep blue pants or send them packing? Brendan Savage – MLive.com September 19, 2017

Lions rookie Agnew delivers knock out blow with 88-yard punt return Kyle Meinke – MLive.com September 19, 2017

Do you believe in the Detroit Lions after a 2-0 start? Josh Slagter – MLive.com September 19, 2017

Snap counts: Killebrew takes another step in Lions secondary Nate Atkins – MLive.com September 19, 2017

3 things we learned: Yes, the Lions are serious contenders in the NFC North Kyle Meinke – MLive.com September 19, 2017

Up next: Detroit Lions’ stingy defense vs. Atlanta Falcons top-10 offense Brendan Savage – MLive.com September 19, 2017

Was Odell Beckham’s hit on Lions LB Davis a dirty play? Kyle Meinke – MLive.com September 19, 2017

Jim Caldwell unfazed by Monday Night Football’s pleas to get him a new deal Nate Atkins – MLive.com September 19, 2017

Detroit Lions sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to Martha Ford in locker room after MNF win at Giants Scott DeCamp – MLive.com September 19, 2017

Detroit Lions early underdogs at home vs. Atlanta Falcons Brendan Savage – MLive.com September 19, 2017

Jim Caldwell, Stafford won’t explain mystery of ‘Kershaw’ line call Michael Rothstein – ESPN.com September 19, 2017

After two weeks, are the Detroit Lions for real? Michael Rothstein – ESPN.com September 19, 2017

Davis Suffers Brain Injury After Hit From Behind By Odell Beckham [VIDEO] Will Burchfield – CBS Sports Detroit September 19, 2017

Lions Serenade Martha Ford In Locker Room After Win Over Giants [VIDEO] Will Burchfield – CBS Sports Detroit September 19, 2017

Stafford Calls A Play Named After Childhood Friend Clayton Kershaw [VIDEO] Will Burchfield – CBS Sports Detroit September 19, 2017

Caldwell Responds To Odell Beckham’s Questionable Block On Davis Will Burchfield – CBS Sports Detroit September 19, 2017

Lions rolling into matchup vs Falcons; Giants seeming lost Tom Canavan – The Associated Press September 19, 2017

Jones: Lions’ defense made statement in win Conor Orr – NFL.com September 19, 2017

Final thoughts: Stafford excelling in every possible facet Chris Burke – The Athletic September 19, 2017

Week 3 Opponent Clips – Falcons

QUESTIONS ABOUT TRADING TEVIN COLEMAN, THE LIONS, PACKERS FANS AND THE FALCONS DEFENSE Matthew Tabeek – AtlantaFalcons.com September 20, 2017

Five things to know about the Falcons on Wednesday D. Orlando Ledbetter – AJC.com September 20, 2017

COVER 9@9: Sanu fitting in nicely on offense D. Orlando Ledbetter – AJC.com September 20, 2017

Matt Ryan focuses on improving footwork to stay on top of his game Vaughn McClure – ESPN.com September 20, 2017

DAN QUINN’S FILM BREAKDOWN OF THE FALCONS’ GAME-CHANGING PLAY IN WIN OVER THE PACKERS Kelsey Conway – AtlantaFalcons.com September 19, 2017

FALCONS SIGN DEFENSIVE LINEMAN TANIELA TUPOU TO PRACTICE SQUAD Kelsey Conway – AtlantaFalcons.com September 19, 2017

WHAT WE LEARNED: FIVE THINGS THE FALCONS’ WIN OVER THE PACKERS TELLS US WITH THE LIONS LOOMING Kelsey Conway – AtlantaFalcons.com September 19, 2017

Falcons top power rankings after Week 2 win over Packers JuliaKate E. Culpepper – AJC.com September 19, 2017

Hall of Famer Jason Taylor on Dan Quinn: ‘I’d run through a wall for him’ Vaughn McClure – ESPN.com September 19, 2017

The post Lions staying grounded after big win in prime time appeared first on Daily Star Sports.

from http://ift.tt/2ypMso3 from http://ift.tt/2xn4pF7

0 notes

giantsfootball0 · 7 years