#Palm City drainage history

[jthurlow]

Palm City, FL 1966 Then and Now w/ Todd Thurlow

Palm City, FL 1966 Then and Now w/ Todd Thurlow

Today’s blog post is about western Martin County Florida’s Palm City. This post includes  my mother’s inspiration, my brother Todd’s  time capsule flight video, and my writing. Palm City was once narrow strips of pine flatlands interspersed with hammocks, ponds, wide prairies, sloughs, sawgrass and cypress trees. Today it is a bustling part of Martin County due to the drainage of the C-23 canal…

[blueiscoool]

2,000-Year-Old Ancient Funerary Complex and Dog Head Statue Found in Rome

Excavations in Rome have uncovered an ancient burial complex that held an intact ceramic funerary urn containing bone fragments and a terracotta dog's head statue.

Archaeologists were called in after workers laying pipes for utility firm Acea on the Via Luigi Tosti in the city's Appio Latino quarter came across the buried tombs.

They would have once lined the Via Latina (literally, the 'Latin Road') which was one of the earliest-lain Roman roads and that runs south-east out from the old city walls.

Adjacent to the tombs, the team's excavations also uncovered the remains of a young man who appeared to have been buried in the bare earth.

According to the experts, the canine bust — small enough to fit in the palm of a hand — resembles decorative parts of drainage systems used on sloping rooms.

However, the little dog statue appears to have lost its drain hole, or perhaps never even had one and was fashioned for purely aesthetic purposes.

Dog experts at the RSPCA said that it was 'tricky' to identify the type of dog as, given the nature of the sculpture, there was no sense of scale.

'It could be representative of a large breed or a small, toy breed,' a spokesperson said, noting that dog breeds have also changed significantly over the last two millennia.

'During the Roman period there was selective breeding of dogs for desirable qualities and for specific functions, such as hunting, guarding, companions etc,' they added.

The Romans kept dogs as both pets and to guard property and livestock, with one popular breed being the Molossian hound, which came from ancient Greece.

Historians believe that they also kept dogs that would have been similar in appearance to to modern Irish wolfhounds, greyhounds, lurchers, Maltese and more.

The archaeologists believe that the structures making up the funerary complex were constructed between the 1st century BC and the 1st century AD.

'The discovery casts new light on an important context,' said Rome's special superintendent, Daniel Porro, the Times have reported.

'Once again, Rome shows important traces of the past throughout its urban fabric.'

The three tombs were found at a depth of roughly 1.6 feet (0.5 metres) below the surface of the present-day street.

Unfortunately, the archaeologists reported, the structures appeared to have been damaged by previous underground utility works, carried out in the area prior to the introduction of policies designed to protect the city's heritage.

All three of the tombs were built on a concrete base.

One had walls made of a yellow tuff, the second had a reticulated, net-like, composition, while the remains of the third were confined to just a base which showed signs of fire damage.

The experts said that, alongside the terracotta dog's head, they also uncovered a large number of fragments of coloured plaster.

The funerary complex, they added, appears to have been built using the front of an abandoned pozzolana quarry, as is evidenced by the characteristic cuts made into the bank of tuff (a rock made of volcanic ash) on which it appears to have stood.

Pozzolan was the name given to material of a volcanic origin that the Romans used as a key ingredient alongside lime to manufacture cement.

According to experts, only around a tenth of Rome has ever been excavated, and the capital's 2,800-year-long history of occupation has meant that much of its past has become buried beneath successive layers of construction and the modern city.

The new dig site on the Via Luigi Tosti is close to the Ipogeo di Via Dino Compagni — an underground tomb, or 'hypogeum', that was first discovered in 1954.

This structure — which, based on the stunning frescos within, has been dated to around 320–350 AD — would have been used for private burials.

The hypogeum is notable for containing a mixture of religious iconography, reflecting how some of its interred appeared to have converted to Christianity while other still adhered to worshipping pagan gods.

[yegarts]

Waving Goodbye to the Big Red Hand

Ripp’d Off & Red, by Nickelas Johnson, 2012

In the summer of 2012, the Edmonton Arts Council engaged Kendal Henry (now the Director of the Percent for Art Program in New York City) to curate a transitory (short-term) public art installation to reflect and explore the revitalization underway in the Quarters/Boyle Street areas. Known as Dirt City :: Dream City, the project featured 14 works by local artists that ranged from a community garden to live performance to large-scale installations. 

One of the most impactful of these works was Ripp’d Off & Red by Nickelas Johnson. Also known as “the big red hand”, the artwork has been a fixture in the community since its installation as part of Dirt City :: Dream City. Originally located at Jasper Avenue and 95th Street, the artwork has been sited at 96th Street and 104th Avenue for some time. 

While public support for Dirt City :: Dream City as a whole was strong, Ripp’d Off & Red was a particularly resonant piece for the community. In recognition of its impact, the City of Edmonton purchased the artwork in order to keep it installed in the area after the temporary Dirt City :: Dream City project concluded. 

Over the past eight years, the Edmonton Arts Council’s Public Art Conservation team has done maintenance to increase the lifespan of the artwork. Though originally created as a transitory piece, EAC has addressed coatings, drainage, sealants, and structural reinforcements as part of the regular maintenance of the City’s collection. However, the staff has now determined that repair and reconstruction are no longer feasible, both from an aesthetic and structural perspective. For public safety, a fence has been constructed around the artwork, and it is scheduled to be removed from the site later this month.

Images taken by EAC Conservation staff in 2020.

Artist Nickelas Johnson kindly provided YEGarts the following reflection about the project: 

“After spending an immersive week learning about the history of the Quarters from community leaders and Elders, I elected to build a massive red hand, severed at the wrist. The hand was intended to symbolize a community cut-off, ignored yet vibrantly visible on the side of the road. The gesture, an open palm, communicated both an offer to help and a desire for the same.

Artist Nickelas Johnson atop the sculpture during its 2012 installation.

The on-site installation proved to be a moving and inspiring experience. There was a constant flow of welcome interruptions from folks on the street inquiring about the sculpture and telling me what it meant to them. One houseless fellow named Crusty spent the day silently observing the installation, then approached and volunteered to protect the tarped-in sculpture overnight until it received its protective coating of paint. We arrived the next morning to find Crusty smiling triumphantly beside the sculpture, proud to have protected it from the elements or interference.  We shared a breakfast cradled in the palm of the hand.

Many residents of the Quarters community expressed gratitude and appreciation for a sculpture that spoke to them. Ultimately, the City of Edmonton offered to purchase Ripp'd Off & Red, to remain installed in the Quarters.

Since that time, there has been some online controversy about the intent of the piece, some of which I initially addressed but ultimately chose to let the art continue to speak for itself. The overwhelming feedback from community members has been humbling and galvanizing to me as an artist. It has helped me understand that art is as much an ear as an object. 

I'm grateful to the Edmonton Arts Council and the City of Edmonton for facilitating this experiment and allowing it to age, as was the artful intent, for as long as was safe for the public.”

When asked about the deaccessioning – the process by which a work of art is permanently removed from a collection – EAC Director of Public Art & Conservation David Turnbull explains, “The process is one that can be initiated for several reasons. In this case it was necessitated by the condition of the artwork, but deaccessioning can also be recommended in cases where the site of the artwork has changed.”

As part of this process, the artist is contacted, and once the work is deaccessioned, the rights and artwork revert to the artist. "This artwork held an important place in the community, and we want to honour that by ensuring that the public understands the reason behind this decision,” says Turnbull. “Deaccessioning is actually indicative of a healthy, living collection.”

[eretzyisrael]

NEW DISCOVERY IN JERUSALEM'S CITY OF DAVID: 2,000-YEAR-OLD PILGRIMAGE ROAD

The City of David has already changed Jerusalem. A new discovery there opening soon will change the way Jews connect with their past in a way never seen before.

BY

YAAKOV KATZ

 JUNE 28, 2019 11:59

City of David

(please go to site for videos)

In 2004, a sewage pipe burst in the middle of the neighborhood of Silwan in southeast Jerusalem. The municipality sent in a crew of construction workers to fix the leak, and as is the case in Jerusalem and especially in neighborhoods adjacent to the Old City, they were accompanied by a team of archeologists. As the repairs progressed, the construction workers stumbled upon some long and wide stairs a few dozen meters from where the Shiloah – the ancient pool Jewish pilgrims would dip in before beginning the religious ascent to the Temple, until its destruction in 70 CE – was believed to have once stood. The steps were just like the ones that lead to the Hulda Gates, a set of now blocked entrances along the Temple Mount’s Southern Wall.

Discovery of the Shiloah Pool led to another monumental find – the central water drainage channel that had served ancient Jerusalem. This channel is the tunnel that visitors to the City of David – known as Ir David – get to walk through today, starting at the bottom of the Shiloah and emerging about 45 minutes later next to the Western Wall.

As is often the case with archeology, though, the first discovery or two are just the beginning. That is how a few weeks ago I found myself on an exclusive tour of an ancient road dug out beneath the village of Silwan and above the now well-known water channel (also the place where Jewish rebels made a final stand against the Roman invaders).

The ancient street is referred to as “Pilgrimage Road,” since archeologists are convinced that this is the path millions of Jews took three times a year when performing the commandment of aliyah l’regel – going up to the holy city of Jerusalem to bring sacrifices to God during Judaism’s three key holidays, Passover, Shavuot and Sukkot.

The Pilgrimage Road goes all the way from the Shiloah Pool to the area adjacent to the Western Wall known as Robinson’s Arch, where today you can still see remnants of the ancient stairway that led into the Jewish Temple.

Titus Flavius Josephus, the first-century Roman-Jewish historian, wrote that 2.7 million people used to visit Jerusalem during the various Jewish holidays, bringing with them some 256,000 sacrifices.

Almost all of the Jewish pilgrims, according to Doron Spielman, vice president of the Ir David Foundation (Elad), would have entered the city on this road. It is a road that Jesus almost certainly used during the Second Temple period, alongside many of the famous Jewish scholars and leaders of that period.

“This place is the heart of the Jewish people, and is like the blood that courses through our veins,” Spielman said.

Here is one example: Hillel and Shammai – the famous first-century scholars who figure prominently in the Mishna – debate at what stage in a child’s development his father is obligated to include him in the pilgrimage. Shammai, the stringent one, says that a child should be included as long as he can sit on his father’s shoulders. Hillel says only if the child is able to walk up the 750-meter road need he be included.

Walking the road – as of now Ir David has excavated about 250 meters of it – you can imagine the throngs of people parading on it 2,000 years ago. Young boys walking next to their parents. Girls on their fathers’ shoulders. So far, only some of the stores that once lined the road have been partially uncovered, but with imagination you can hear the bartering that took place here – people trading leather for fur, seeds for honey, coins for wine.

For example, archeologists found a set of stairs in the middle of the road alongside one of the ancient shops. But the staircase doesn’t go anywhere. It ends in a platform. When Ir David checked, though, it found just one other similar set of stairs – in Rome, where it was used as something like a Hyde Park-style Speakers’ Corner. Basically, this was a place where people could make announcements and deliver speeches to the pilgrims as they climbed the road to the Temple.

Then archeologists found beside the stairs the burned remains of a male palm tree, one that doesn’t give fruit. Why would there be a non-fruit producing tree right there on the road? To provide shade for the speakers.

“To understand Jerusalem, you need to stand here,” Spielman said. “We were exiled in 70 [CE] and prayed three times a day and established a state. The last breath of Jews was here, beneath us.”

Spielman pointed at some black ash discovered along the road and mentioned the thousands of coins the archeologists uncovered engraved with the words “Free Zion.”

“This was the battle cry during the fight against the Romans,” he explained. “They made coins and not arrowheads, because they knew they could not beat Rome, but they made the coins so there would be something left for the people who would one day come back.”

IR DAVID has changed our understanding of history. It is one thing to read the Mishna and imagine or visualize what life for Jews was once like. It is quite another to walk on the exact same road as they did.

For the last few months, Ir David has been working around the clock to connect the excavated part of the road with the Shiloah Pool. It is tedious work that has to be done slowly. Every inch excavated has to be reinforced with steel beams to protect the modern city above.

The project has so far cost several hundred million dollars, and while the government has provided a portion of the budget, most has come from private donors, such as Sheldon and Miriam Adelson, Oracle founder Larry Ellison and WhatsApp co-founder Jan Koum.

Ir David hopes that when the road officially opens in a few months, it will draw approximately one million visitors a year.

Yisrael Hasson, director of the Israel Antiquities Authority, noted: “The Road project is a part of the Shalem Plan, which was approved in a government cabinet meeting, the purpose of which is to preserve and develop the area of ancient Jerusalem. The plan relates to the sites of ancient Jerusalem from a comprehensive governmental planning and budgetary perspective, which will create a holistic visitor experience in this unique area. We are currently in the second phase of the plan, which will dramatically improve this entire area.

“The Shalem Plan is part of the Israel Antiquities Authority’s new vision to become an initiative-based organization, based on its role as the national guardian of heritage and cultural sites in Israel.”

Considering the anti-Israel resolutions coming out of United Nations organizations such as UNESCO that deny the Jewish connection to Jerusalem, the Pilgrimage Road has far greater significance for Israel than just the opening of a new impressive tourist site, said Ze’ev Orenstein, director of international affairs for Ir David.

It proves the long and historic Jewish connection to Jerusalem, Orenstein stressed, not just the parts where Jews live today but across the city, even if it takes you under homes and streets in Arab neighborhoods like Silwan.

US Ambassador David Friedman agrees. “The City of David brings truth and science to a debate that has been marred for too long by myths and deceptions,” he told the Magazine. “Its findings, in most cases by secular archeologists, bring an end to the baseless efforts to deny the historical fact of Jerusalem’s ancient connection to the Jewish people.”

I asked Friedman why the discovery of Pilgrimage Road was important for the US government.

“There has been enormous support for the City of David by the American public,” he said. “This is yet another example – and a great one – of the recognition of the Judeo-Christian values upon which both nations were founded.”

Pilgrimage Road, Friedman said, is “stunning and tangible evidence” of Jewish prayer during the time of the Second Temple. “It brings to life the historical truth of that momentous period in Jewish history,” he added. “Peace between Israel and the Palestinians must be based upon a foundation of truth. The City of David advances our collective goal of pursuing a truth-based resolution. It is important for all sides of the conflict.”

For Spielman, Ir David is the “heart of the Jewish people” and “you can’t amputate the heart.”

I asked Friedman what would happen if a peace deal were to be concluded one day between Israel and the Palestinians. Is it possible that the Jewish state would be asked to give up Ir David or Silwan?

“I do not believe that Israel would ever consider such a thought,” he said. “The City of David is an essential component of the national heritage of the State of Israel. It would be akin to America returning the Statue of Liberty.”

[davidsankey]

London's Secret Rivers exhibition

Jacob's Island , 1887 -- James Lawson Stewart, Watercolour https://www.museumoflondonprints.com/image/65599/jacobs-island-rotherhithe-1887 :A notorious slum on the Nettinger river, site of Bill Sykes downfall in Oliver Twist

24 May - 27 Oct 2019  For: All ages Rec age: 5+ Entry: FREE

Museum of London Docklands    Secret Rivers     (exhibition)

For centuries Londoners have existed beside a series of waterways, which have shaped the city and people within it. The history of this relationship and the art that is has inspired are the focus of our next major exhibition, Secret Rivers.

Secret Rivers uses archaeological artefacts, art, photography and film to reveal stories of life by London’s rivers, streams, and brooks, exploring why many of them were lost over time.

Historic and contemporary artworks from artists, poets and authors will also show how London’s rivers have played an important role in the city’s imaginations. Previously unseen artefacts from excavations of the River Fleet and elsewhere hint at the diverse industrial, economic and religious roles these rivers have played over the centuries.

The intriguing histories of the River Effra, Fleet, Neckinger, Lea, Wandle, Tyburn, Walbrook and Westbourne will all feature in the exhibition. Each river will highlight a broader theme such as poverty, industry, development, effluence, manipulation, activism, sacred association and restoration.

View Larger Map

Walking the lost waterways: the Peck  

https://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/museum-london-docklands/event-detail?id=200009

 20th June

Walking the lost waterways: the Tyburn  

https://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/museum-london-docklands/event-detail?id=200808

Walking the lost waterways: the Wandle  

https://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/museum-london-docklands/event-detail?id=201408

Walking the lost waterways: Hackney Brook  

https://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/museum-london-docklands/event-detail?id=201808

Walking the lost waterways: the Effra  

https://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/museum-london-docklands/event-detail?id=201609

Walking the lost waterways: the Westbourne

https://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/museum-london-docklands/event-detail?id=201610

& other events, talks etc.  

https://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/museum-london-docklands/whats-on/secret-rivers-events?series=Secret%20Rivers

http://www.londonisarivercity.com/   – Amy Sharrocks (London, UK):  

Tracing these rivers has been a process of layering: new stories over old, our footsteps over others, roads and railways over rivers. Uncovering a past of London I knew nothing about. Connecting to things submerged beneath our streets has uncovered a currency of the city, and enabled a kind of palm reading of London.  These rivers lost their claim to space in this city, long ago paved over, with their inconvenient tides and smells, to make way for faster roads and railways. These river walks have championed a human speed, that stumbles, stops to look at things, slows down when it is tired. There is a connection to the speed of water, a meandering dérive to battle the rising pace of modern life. We took the measure of London by our own strides, pacing out the city at our own speed

 ---its not a dérive imo

London’s Lost Rivers

– Paul Talling (London, UK):  

This website has been created to promote the book of

London’s Lost Rivers

(2011) (the follow up  to Paul's Derelict London book). Over the years this website is expanding to cover many other London water related topics.  From the sources of the Fleet in Hampstead’s ponds to the mouth of the Effra in Vauxhall, via the meander of the Westbourne through ‘Knight’s Bridge’ and the Tyburn’s curve along Marylebone Lane,

London’s Lost Rivers unearths the hidden waterways that flow beneath the streets of the capital.  Paul Talling investigates how these rivers shaped the city – forming borough boundaries and transport networks, fashionable spas and stagnant slums – and how they all eventually gave way to railways, roads and sewers. Armed with his camera, he traces their routes and reveals their often overlooked remains: riverside pubs on the Old Kent Road, healing wells in King’s Cross, ‘stink pipes’ in Hammersmith and gurgling gutters on streets across the city.  Packed with maps and over 100 colour photographs, London’s Lost Rivers

uncovers the watery history of the city’s most famous sights, bringing to life the very different London that lies beneath our feet

The Lost Rivers of London

– Nicholas Barton & Stephen Myers  (London, UK):  T

he hidden rivers beneath London’s streets have a perennial fascination. Sadly, over the years they were neglected, abused and eventually integrated into drainage and sewer systems.  They were for centuries an important element of London’s life and topography: they still are  The Lost Rivers of London  (2016) (Revised and extended with color maps) is the most comprehensive account of their history and courses.  The book also offers a proposal for harnessing some of their waters to create small ornamental streams in London’s streets again.  Previous editions authored by Barton include the original in 1965 and a 2nd Edition reprint with the expanded subtitle ‘A Study of Their Effects Upon London and Londoners, and the Effects of London and Londoners on Them’ in 1982 and a 3rd Edition 1992

[architectnews]

Eleftheria Square, Nicosia Cyprus

Eleftheria Square, Nicosia Cyprus, New Cypriot Landscape Design, Mediterranean Architecture

Eleftheria Square, Nicosia Cyprus

14 Dec 2021

Architect: Zaha Hadid Architects

Location: Nicosia, Cyprus

Establishing Eleftheria Square as the city’s primary gathering space, Zaha Hadid Architects’ (ZHA) design creates new connections intended to unite a divided capital. Nicosia’s massive Venetian fortifications separate the old city from its modern districts, while the city’s ‘Green Line’ divides the capital into two disparate communities.

Eleftheria Square

Located near the centre of Nicosia, Eleftheria Square is adjacent to the Venetian Walls and the dry moat that encircles the city. Constructed in the Middle Ages and extensively rebuilt by the Venetians in the 16th century, these substantial defensive walls define the boundary of the oldest part of the capital, dividing the ancient city from the new districts outside the walls.

ZHA envisioned Eleftheira Square as the initial phase of a much larger urban plan that could be a catalyst for the reunification of the capital. The design ensures unobstructed views of the Venetian Walls, establishing these fortifications as an integral part of Nicosia’s identity, while also opening the dry moat for public use to create an orbital park that surrounds the city.

Transforming previously inaccessible areas of the moat with new civic plazas, gardens and palm lined promenades, the moat can become a ‘green belt’ around the city. ZHA’s design proposes these new public spaces within the moat are extended to follow the ancient city walls and encircle Nicosia, reconnecting communities of this divided capital.

The Eleftheria Square design elevates the topography of the moat to create an upper level bridge that meets the surrounding streetscape, establishing direct connections with the city’s urban fabric and defining a new public square in the heart of the capital.

Transformed into an urban park, the moat’s fluid geometries have been created through the process of triangulating the irregular forms of the ancient fortifications to establish points of ‘intensity’ that define seating, flowerbeds or water features within the new park.

The moat’s granite paving conveys a timeless solidity, while open joints between the granite slabs create a passive rainwater drainage system that allows the new trees planted within the moat to naturally balance groundwater levels and reduce erosion of the medieval walls’ foundations.

As the largest civic plaza in Nicosia, Eleftheira Square has been designed to host festivals and public events; its upper level bridge and supporting columns are crafted in concrete, their sculptural forms ensure structural integrity in this seismic region and the base of each column morphs into seating.

The renovation of the square involved extensive archaeological excavations together with works to repair and protect the historic Venetian Walls. The redevelopment also includes two cafes within the square and the new underground parking lot with access ramp on Omirou Avenue. Stairs and elevators directly connect with the bus terminal in Solomos Square.

ZHA’s transformation of Eleftheria Square weaves together Nicosia’s rich history with an unwavering optimism for the future. Bridging the Venetian Wall and moat, the square becomes an important gateway to the old city, its underground parking removing cars from the ancient city’s streets to enable further pedestrianisation that enhances the urban realm of this historic district while also creating new public gardens and plazas to be enjoyed by residents and visitors to the city

Eleftheria Square in Nicosia, Cyprus – Building Information

Architects: Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA) Design: Zaha Hadid, Patrik Schumacher, Christos Passas ZHA Competition team: Christos Passas (Design Director), Saffet Bekiroglu, Viviana Muscettola, Michele Pasca di Magliano, Daniel Fiser, Ceyhun Baskin, Inanc Eray ZHA Schematic Design Team: Stella Nikolakaki (Design Lead), Sevil Yazici (Design Lead), Sylvia Georgiadou, Takang Hsu, Phivos Skroumbelos and Marilena Sophocleus (Landscape), Chrysi Fradellou, Edward Sorgeloose, Vladimir Tschaly ZHA Design Development: Dimitris Akritopoulos (Design Lead), Bence Pap (Design Lead), Kwanphil Cho, Reza Esmaeeli, Chrysi Fradellou, Raul Forsoni, Thomas Frings, Jesus Garate, Irene Guerra, George Giokalas, Spyridon Kaprinis, Javier Ernesto Lebie, Carlos Luna, Vincent Nowak, Anna Papachristoforou, Sophia Papageorgiou, Vivian Pashiali, Ivan Ucros Polley, Matthew Richardson, Michail Roidis, Hendrik Rupp, Andri Shalou, Vladimir Tschaly, Leo Alves, Megan Burke (Landscape), Eleni Mente (Landscape), David McDowell (Administration) ZHA Project Supervision Team: Electra Mikelides, Dimitris Kolonis, Stella Nikolakaki, Vivian Pashiali, Christos Sazos, Nicos Yiatros, Christina Christodoulidou, Maria-Eleni Bali

Consultants On-site Engineers: Eleni Loizou, Remos Achilleos Structural Engineers: ASD Hyperstatic Engineering [Limassol]; Andros Achilleos (Principal Engineer), Michalis Allayiotis (Project Engineer) MEP Engineers: UNEMEC [Nicosia]; Lakis Pipis (Director in-charge), Andreas Karayiannis and Trevor Colett (Directors), Chris MacFarlane, Kleovoulos Kasoulides, George Lerides, Kypros Tziakouris (Electrical Engineers -supervision stage) Kostas Archeos (Supervising Electrical Engineer) Panayiotis Ktorides (Mech. Engineer) Lighting: Kardorff Lichtplanung Ing. [Berlin]; Volker Kardorff (Principal), Stefan Krauel (Project Designer) Accessibility Consultants: David Bonnett Associates; David Bonnett MTCW; Klelia Petridou Traffic Consultants: SKM Colin Buchanan; Andreas Markides (CEO), Colin Firth (Director) Project Management/Coordination Team: Modinos & Vrahimis Associates; Saverios Vrahimis (Director), Anna Lyssandridou Client Project Management Team: Agni Petridou (Project Coordinator), Maria Ioannou, Maria Georgiou, Foivos Tsappas, Georgiana Loizides Cost Consultants: MDA Cyprus; Stephanos Andreou (Director In Charge), Niki Stavrou Advisors: Lekton [Cyprus]; Andy Sphicas, Soula Iacovidou The Concrete Center [UK] Beton Centrum [NL]

Photography: Laurian Ghinitoiu

Eleftheria Square, Nicosia Cyprus images / information received 141221

Location: Nicosia, Cyprus, south east Europe

New Cyprus Houses

Contemporary Cypriot Residences

The Garden House in the City, Nicosia Design: Christos Pavlou Architecture photo from architects Garden House Nicosia

Contemporary Nicosia Residence photo from architects Pool House in Nicosia

Nicosia Residence photo from architects L House in Nicosia Cyprus

New Cyprus Architecture

Contemporary Cypriot Architectural Projects

Cypriot Architecture Design – chronological list

Cypriot Architecture News

Art Collector’s House & Gallery, outskirts of Nicosia Design: Vakis Associates – Vakis Hadjikyriacou Architect image Courtesy architecture office Art Collector’s House & Art Gallery in Nicosia

Nicosia Residence Design: Polytia Architects Nicosia Residence

Cyprus Buildings

Another Cypriot building by christos pavlou architecture on e-architect:

Natuzzi Store Limassol Limassol Building

Comments / photos for Eleftheria Square, Nicosia Cyprus page welcome

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[vivanaija]

Benin City - the red soil city that left Europeans in awe

Benin City - the red soil city that left Europeans in awe

This is the story of a lost medieval city you’ve probably heard about and yet never knew of its greatness. Benin City, originally known as Edo, was once the capital of a pre-colonial African empire located in what is now southern Nigeria. The Benin empire was one of the oldest and most highly developed states in west Africa, dating back to the 11th century.

The Guinness Book of Records (1974 edition) described the walls of Benin City and its surrounding kingdom as the world’s largest earthworks carried out prior to the mechanical era. According to estimates by the New Scientist’s Fred Pearce, Benin City’s walls were at one point “four times longer than the Great Wall of China, and consumed a hundred times more material than the Great Pyramid of Cheops”.

Situated on a plain, Benin City was enclosed by massive walls in the south and deep ditches in the north. Beyond the city walls, numerous further walls were erected that separated the surroundings of the capital into around 500 distinct villages.

Pearce writes that these walls “extended for some 16,000 km in all, in a mosaic of more than 500 interconnected settlement boundaries. They covered 6,500 sq km and were all dug by the Edo people … They took an estimated 150 million hours of digging to construct, and are perhaps the largest single archaeological phenomenon on the planet”.

Barely any trace of these walls exist today.

View along a street in the royal quarter of Benin City, 1897. Photograph: The British Museum/Trustees of the British Museum

Benin City was also one of the first cities to have a semblance of street lighting. Huge metal lamps, many feet high, were built and placed around the city, especially near the king’s palace. Fuelled by palm oil, their burning wicks were lit at night to provide illumination for traffic to and from the palace.

When the Portuguese first “discovered” the city in 1485, they were stunned to find this vast kingdom made of hundreds of interlocked cities and villages in the middle of the African jungle. They called it the “Great City of Benin”, at a time when there were hardly any other places in Africa the Europeans acknowledged as a city. Indeed, they classified Benin City as one of the most beautiful and best planned cities in the world.

In 1691, the Portuguese ship captain Lourenco Pinto observed: “Great Benin, where the king resides, is larger than Lisbon; all the streets run straight and as far as the eye can see. The houses are large, especially that of the king, which is richly decorated and has fine columns. The city is wealthy and industrious. It is so well governed that theft is unknown and the people live in such security that they have no doors to their houses.”

In contrast, London at the same time is described by Bruce Holsinger, professor of English at the University of Virginia, as being a city of “thievery, prostitution, murder, bribery and a thriving black market made the medieval city ripe for exploitation by those with a skill for the quick blade or picking a pocket”.

Benin City – A forerunner in African fractals

Benin City’s planning and design was done according to careful rules of symmetry, proportionality and repetition now known as fractal design. The mathematician Ron Eglash, author of African Fractals – which examines the patterns underpinning architecture, art and design in many parts of Africa – notes that the city and its surrounding villages were purposely laid out to form perfect fractals, with similar shapes repeated in the rooms of each house, and the house itself, and the clusters of houses in the village in mathematically predictable patterns.

As he puts it: “When Europeans first came to Africa, they considered the architecture very disorganised and thus primitive. It never occurred to them that the Africans might have been using a form of mathematics that they hadn’t even discovered yet.”

At the centre of the city stood the king’s court, from which extended 30 very straight, broad streets, each about 120-ft wide. These main streets, which ran at right angles to each other, had underground drainage made of a sunken impluvium with an outlet to carry away storm water. Many narrower side and intersecting streets extended off them. In the middle of the streets were turf on which animals fed.

“Houses are built alongside the streets in good order, the one close to the other,” writes the 17th-century Dutch visitor Olfert Dapper. “Adorned with gables and steps … they are usually broad with long galleries inside, especially so in the case of the houses of the nobility, and divided into many rooms which are separated by walls made of red clay, very well erected.”

Dapper adds that wealthy residents kept these walls “as shiny and smooth by washing and rubbing as any wall in Holland can be made with chalk, and they are like mirrors. The upper storeys are made of the same sort of clay. Moreover, every house is provided with a well for the supply of fresh water”.

Family houses were divided into three sections: the central part was the husband’s quarters, looking towards the road; to the left the wives’ quarters (oderie), and to the right the young men’s quarters (yekogbe).

Daily street life in Benin City might have consisted of large crowds going though even larger streets, with people colourfully dressed – some in white, others in yellow, blue or green – and the city captains acting as judges to resolve lawsuits, moderating debates in the numerous galleries, and arbitrating petty conflicts in the markets.

The early foreign explorers’ descriptions of Benin City portrayed it as a place free of crime and hunger, with large streets and houses kept clean; a city filled with courteous, honest people, and run by a centralised and highly sophisticated bureaucracy.

The city was split into 11 divisions, each a smaller replication of the king’s court, comprising a sprawling series of compounds containing accommodation, workshops and public buildings – interconnected by innumerable doors and passageways, all richly decorated with the art that made Benin famous. The city was literally covered in it.

The exterior walls of the courts and compounds were decorated with horizontal ridge designs (agben) and clay carvings portraying animals, warriors and other symbols of power – the carvings would create contrasting patterns in the strong sunlight. Natural objects (pebbles or pieces of mica) were also pressed into the wet clay, while in the palaces, pillars were covered with bronze plaques illustrating the victories and deeds of former kings and nobles.

At the height of its greatness in the 12th century – well before the start of the European Renaissance – the kings and nobles of Benin City patronised craftsmen and lavished them with gifts and wealth, in return for their depiction of the kings’ and dignitaries’ great exploits in intricate bronze sculptures.

“These works from Benin are equal to the very finest examples of European casting technique,” wrote Professor Felix von Luschan, formerly of the Berlin Ethnological Museum. “Benvenuto Celini could not have cast them better, nor could anyone else before or after him. Technically, these bronzes represent the very highest possible achievement.”

Benin City laid out in organised fractal design.

What impressed the first visiting Europeans most was the wealth, artistic beauty and magnificence of the city. Immediately European nations saw the opportunity to develop trade with the wealthy kingdom, importing ivory, palm oil and pepper – and exporting guns. At the beginning of the 16th century, word quickly spread around Europe about the beautiful African city, and new visitors flocked in from all parts of Europe, with ever glowing testimonies, recorded in numerous voyage notes and illustrations.

Now, however, the great Benin City is lost to history. Its decline began in the 15th century, sparked by internal conflicts linked to the increasing European intrusion and slavery trade at the borders of the Benin empire.

Then in 1897, the city was destroyed by British soldiers – looted, blown up and burnt to the ground. My great grandparents were among the many who fled following the sacking of the city; they were members of the elite corps of the king’s doctors.

Nowadays, while a modern Benin City has risen on the same plain, the ruins of its former, grander namesake are not mentioned in any tourist guidebook to the area. They have not been preserved, nor has a miniature city or touristic replica been made to keep alive the memory of this great ancient city.

A house composed of a courtyard in Obasagbon, known as Chief Enogie Aikoriogie’s house – probably built in the second half of the 19th century – is considered the only vestige that survives from Benin City. The house possesses features that match the horizontally fluted walls, pillars, central impluvium and carved decorations observed in the architecture of ancient Benin.

Curious tourists visiting Edo state in Nigeria are often shown places that might once have been part of the ancient city – but its walls and moats are nowhere to be seen. Perhaps a section of the great city wall, one of the world’s largest man-made monuments, now lies bruised and battered, neglected and forgotten in the Nigerian bush.

A discontented Nigerian puts it this way: “Imagine if this monument was in England, USA, Germany, Canada or India? It would be the most visited place on earth, and a tourist mecca for millions of the world’s people. A money-spinner worth countless billions in annual tourist revenue.”

Instead, if you wish to get a glimpse into the glorious past of the ancient Benin kingdom – and a better understanding of this ground-breaking city – you are better off visiting the Benin Bronze Sculptures section of the British Museum in central London.

  Courtesy: The Guardian UK

[tarmacadamsurfacingcontractors]

Engineering a better society

Senior Leeds council engineer Magda Lezama is a single mum, rambler, wine enthusiast and a UNISON activist. Annie Mitchell from UNISON’s Yorkshire and Humberside region recently caught up with her.

After only a few minutes talking with Magda Lezama, I start to imagine that her life story would make a great film. Even in 2017, engineering is a profession that struggles to attract enough women, but Magda bucked that trend way back in the ’80s. Not only that, she gained her first engineering degree from the University of the West Indies – cue some lovely location shots – beaches, palm trees, blue sea. Born and raised in Trinidad and Tobago – as one of nine children – how she came to work for Leeds City Council seems like a tale of complete chance, but also of opportunity grabbed with both hands.

From the Caribbean to the Humber, via London

“In 1989 I came on holiday to visit my brother in London and while I was there applied for a job at Leeds City Council. I wanted to be a chartered engineer and to become a member of the Institute of Civil Engineers you needed to work with a recognised employer and Leeds Council was.

“I was with my son Rhett who was one at the time – it was a brave move, especially as I had never been to Leeds and didn’t even know where it was, but sometimes ignorance is bliss! I got the job.”

After sorting out work permits and visas, Magda headed to Leeds on the train: “I arrived with my suitcase – which I left at the station – to start work in April 1990. Someone in human resources knew someone who was moving to a job in London and arranged for me to get her place on the day I started work – I was lucky.

Engineering her way to the top

“To become a member of the Institute of Civil Engineers you have to work in different aspects of engineering – highways, road design etc. but I eventually settled in drainage. While I was working I got my masters degree from Sheffield Hallam and have been a senior engineer at Leeds City Council for 26 years – for the past 24 years working in flood risk management in the highways department.”

Magda took the challenges she faced in her stride. Working on site is “tough” she says, but it seems she can give as good as she gets.

“There are quite a few women engineers at Leeds City Council now, but years ago I was the only one. It’s a tough world but whether it’s by luck or good fortune I have always been well supported, even on site. When they see that you know what you are doing the guys show you some respect.”

At Leeds City Council it didn’t take long for Magda to find out about the union: “On day one at work, the NALGO union rep signed me up.

“The rep always encouraged me when he passed by. I used to hand out leaflets and go on marches. I then went on a women’s course where I met lots of other women who were speaking out and that’s why I got more involved.

“After a few years the rep encouraged me to become a steward and I became part of the Black members group – we didn’t meet very often to start, but slowly and with a very supportive branch, we grew.”

In 2016 Magda became the chair of UNISON’s regional Black members group. Her mission, she explains, is to get more Black members involved at branch level to make their opinions known and be heard by the union.

“I want to encourage all UNISON branches to have a Black members group that can act as a springboard to get people involved into mainstream union activities. A starting point, so Black members feel comfortable and nurtured and encouraged – a union for all of us – to be able to raise and deal with matters throughout the different layers and structures of the union.”

Magda’s enthusiasm and commitment to UNISON and engineering is clear and as a single woman, she also relishes an active social life.

“I have been in a wine group for many years that travels around Europe visiting wineries. I also enjoy living in the centre of Leeds and I’m part of a walking group. Yorkshire is such a lovely part of the country to explore.”

Magda’s son Rhett has clearly inherited his mother’s drive:

“Rhett has a first class honours degree from Hull University in computer games design. He works in London now as a games designer and I am very proud of him.”

Looking to the future Magda says: “I want to go back to the Caribbean at some point. But I want to make sure that I know as much as I can professionally. There are always new things coming up and I want to stay as up to date as much as possible in my profession.

I am at a time in my life where I enjoy a good work/life balance. I still have real enthusiasm to enjoy the job and the people I work with.”

Magda has kept up her professional membership in the Caribbean and last year after a rigorous interview and testing, she was made a Fellow of the Association of Professional Engineers of Trinidad and Tobago.

“I went home to get the award and my brother and family all came to the ceremony – it was a proud moment.”

••••••

This article was first published in UNISON Active magazine which is produced by the Yorkshire and Humberside region of the union.

Next month (October) is Black History Month. If you’re a UNISON member and you’d like to get involved with your local Black members group contact your branch.

  The article Engineering a better society first appeared on the UNISON National site.

from UNISON National https://www.unison.org.uk/news/magazine/2017/09/engineering-better-society/ via IFTTT

[nofomoartworld]

Art F City: L.A. Art Diary: The Final Entry

Doug Crocco

This is my last entry from L.A. I’ll explain why later, but basically I realized it was not the city for me, despite the past month+ of adventures I’ve had: Week One, Week Two: Part One, Week Two: Part Two, Week Three, Week Four.

Monday 7/17

#spiritual #technology #LA

A post shared by Michael Anthony Farley (@ellende666enerate) on Jul 17, 2017 at 6:04pm PDT

I realize I really miss walking, and that I have spent very little of the last month outside of a car/bus/train actually experiencing the city. I decide to take a semi-urban hike to the Hollywood Hills from Echo Park, roughly nine miles and an elevation climb of about 1,200 feet (an Empire State Building!). It takes a little over 3 hours, and along the way I fancy myself on a Situationist dérive.

A post shared by Michael Anthony Farley (@ellende666enerate) on Jul 17, 2017 at 6:32pm PDT

I pass Scientology compounds, mansions, slums, mini malls, beautiful old art deco buildings,  most of Sunset Boulevard’s eastern leg, Little Armenia, Thai Town, and plenty of weird sights. It occurs to me that L.A. seems so surreal and familiar at the same time because it’s an unlikely pastiche of different urbanisms. The scattered pockets of dense eclectic pre-war architecture (themselves mostly referent to other places’ vernaculars) don’t quite coherently connect to one another so much as they float in a sea of postwar sprawl and car-centric infrastructure. But bits of big-city reality end up accumulating in all the wasted space of the suburban dream—the dead sidewalk space fronting big blank side walls of supermarkets become tent cities, highway medians host street preachers shouting at passing cars futily, and those odd islands between boulevards and parking lots get occupied by food trucks and other vendors. People sleep and conduct a shadow economy in the grassy areas between the street and gated parks.1950s motels have been converted into studio apartments with businesses below.  L.A. feels like the not-so-distant future of so much of America.

At one point my sidewalk ends and I’m forced onto a steep hillside between a freeway onramp and a walled-off neighborhood of mansions patrolled by private security. I stumble upon an entire impermanent shanty town, hidden from the highway by scrub and the wealthy residents above by an impossibly high concrete wall topped with barbed wire. Los Angeles might have one of the worst housing shortages and income disparities I’ve ever seen in an industrialized nation. It’s a thought that sticks with me on my ascent past single-family mansions the size of office parks.  

Tuesday 7/18

I temporarily move onto the futon of artists Meghan Gordon and Manny Prieres in Koreatown. (Coincidentally, I’d written about Meghan’s work and Manny’s work, respectively, before I became friends with either or knew they were roommates). Staying with them is awesome. Their apartment is huge, full of windows, one adorable cat, and is walking distance to roughly 2,000 businesses and two subway lines. Their rent is maybe half of what a comparable spot in a convenient New York neighborhood would be. If they had a third bedroom, I would be seriously tempted to sign on as a permanent roommate.

Wednesday 7/19

A friend from Baltimore lives close-ish to Meghan and Manny, and we meet up to check out The Faultline, a gay bar that hosts a crazy drag competition on Wednesdays. Someone is dressed as Ursula the sea witch lipsynching to Divine and it’s a show-stopper. It feels appropriate that it’s hump-day and we find this very NSFW GIF-able neon sign. It’s a good night so far.

We leave the club to grab a drink at a quieter spot to catch up, but after 30 minutes of wandering, can’t find another bar. Although it’s before midnight, the streets are almost entirely empty. On our walk, we pass exactly three other people, all of whom are men who catcall her. She says that’s not uncommon. Street harassment is obviously a problem in every city, but it’s usually tempered by having positive or neutral experiences with the vast majority of the thousands of people one encounters in public space in other cities. The lack of pedestrian culture in 90% of L.A.’s surface area (excepting commercial strips in a handful of older neighborhoods) makes public space intimidating. It also emboldens creeps. Basically, in vast swaths of the city, the only people you see on sidewalks are either batshit crazy or scurrying from a car to an indoor space. We both admit we’re slowly becoming more misanthropic the longer we’re here. That thought really bothers me.

We both take Ubers home. I decide it might be time to book a flight out of L.A.

Thursday 7/20

Marcel Alcalá is having an informal showing of his recent drawings at Club Pro, an art space in a loft downtown. The pastel works on paper are really nice—they’re humorous, direct sketches that play with body image and sexuality in the age of dystopic-fake-cheery late capitalism. My favorite depicts an ambiguously-gendered person running gleefully with an erection—wearing only a tube top and go-go boots, one of which bears the acronyms: “DNA YSL NBA STD TSA”—between a house labelled “WELLS FARGO” and another “THE MALL”. In others, the imperfect figures seem to be posing for “sexy” selfies, but end up endearingly goofy.

After the opening, my former roommate from Baltimore invites me to her friend’s loft for a drink. It’s several stories above the eerily-dead-at-night Fashion District with sweeping views of the skyline. We can’t tell if it’s an apartment, coworking space, or event space. We’re both too embarrassed to ask, but joke that it looks remarkably like our old illegal warehouse apartment in Baltimore with several hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of renovations.

I end the night at General Lee’s, a Chinatown cocktail lounge that’s become my favorite L.A. art people hang out. Aria Dean, assistant curator of net art at Rhizome, is DJing. Again, I run into multiple people I’ve known in different cities at different time who all ended up here. Between that and the movie-set-like vibe of Chinatown’s pedestrian passages, L.A. starts to feel more and more like a dream.

Friday 7/21

The post punk proto goth neo noir sci fi half robot half man anti hero Los Angeles has been waiting for. Pickle dog is VERY impressed.

A post shared by ManyDistantCities (@nolizzie) on Jul 21, 2017 at 5:58pm PDT

I’ve spent the night on Liz’s couch to avoid Uber surge pricing, and we take her dogs for a walk along the L.A. River. The L.A. River is basically a concrete drainage ditch full of abandoned objects that the dogs love playing with. We discover that the concrete “river banks” are actually the perfect angle to lay upon in the sun while hungover. She describes the river as “either a triumph of urban planning or a really big urban planning mistake?” We decide L.A. needs a museum dedicated to the history of its divisive built environment. Liz’s bulldog Pickle gifts us with a tire full of potentially-toxic river slime in our laps and our art-viewing plans take a backseat to laundry and showering as a priority for the day.

By the time I get back to Koreatown, Manny and several of his artist friends are heading out to the Bigfoot Lodge. It’s a kitschy bar that looks like a Wes Anderson set where a DJ is spinning the best set of obscure-ish old vinyl I’ve ever heard. The music is so good we don’t even realize we’ve stayed until last call. We all end up chatting at a nearby diner (that looks equally like a Wes Anderson location) until sunrise, when we notice Coyotes have encircled the parking lot looking for easy drunk prey.

Only in Los Angeles.

Saturday 7/22

Manny and I are having some much-needed coffee with one of our mutual friends, artist/curator Jacqueline Falcone. To varying degrees, we all think of Miami as “home” despite the fact that none of us were born there nor live there presently. Jacqueline moved here from Miami about a year ago, and the three of us start talking about the similarities and differences between the two cities. Both have beaches, palm trees, tourists, endless traffic jams, glamour, and the bad urban planning that seems endemic to places with perfect weather in this country.

We all concur that the biggest adjustment is the isolation one can feel in Los Angeles. South Florida is spread out, but nothing like the scale of L.A. But mostly the art scene in Caribbean Miami feels like one big loud family you’re immediately welcomed into with cheek-besitos and all-night parties. There, our friends would ride a bike across a causeway in a tropical storm or sit in gridlock for hours to not miss your opening. Everyone shows up absurdly late for everything, but there’s a sense of ironclad dependability. Meanwhile in L.A., people will sometimes cancel lunch plans if it’s overcast (really) or they just don’t feel like dealing with the logistics (constantly feeling pressured to look your best in public, moving a car or paying for Uber, the vast distances, expensive valet parking everywhere) of leaving the house that day.

I admit that L.A. is starting to feel oppressively lonely when I’m not with friends. In most East Coast or Latin American cities, for example, it’s not considered creepy to strike up a conversation with a stranger at a coffee shop or bar if you’re alone. It’s a lot harder to meet people in L.A.

Manny thinks that’s not such a bad thing—the isolation of L.A. forces you to be more independent. You drink less here, care more about your health, and have less distractions from studio time. Knowing his labor-intensive process (he precisely recreates things such as book and album covers in delicate graphite on black enamel) that makes sense. I, on the other hand, might be too much of an extrovert to deal with the creepiness of all the times I’ve walked for 15+ blocks without passing another human (and in the rare cases I have, been regarded suspiciously for being a pedestrian without the excuse of a dog to walk).

I’m struggling to remember a quote I think I read somewhere (or maybe made up?) as an angsty, wander-lusty teenager. It goes something like “The world’s great megacities always attract lonely people, where they can hide in a teeming crowd, like crying in the rain.” It doesn’t matter, though, because Los Angeles seldom has “teeming crowds” per se. And it certainly doesn’t have rain.

One thing I love about both Los Angeles and Miami is that art openings, to quote Whitney Kimball, have “replaced stuff to do” in a dearth of opportunities for chance encounters. She was writing about New York, but I always think her description is much more appropriate to the sprawly Sunbelt cities: “Non-art friends sometimes ask if I can take them to openings to meet people, which I thought was weird, until I stopped going to art events for a year and realized there aren’t a lot of scenarios in this city where you’re allowed to just stand in a room and mingle for free.”

I can’t think of a better example of this phenomenon than BBQLA, a tiny gallery in the back of a studio building that celebrates openings by roasting an entire pig in the parking lot outside. We arrive and all concur it feels very Miami—down to the side dishes of platanos and arroz y habichuelas served in the lot of a one-story warehouse covered in street art. After about two hours chatting with friends outside, I feel guilty I have spent less than ten minutes actually looking at the small show, Cabin Pressure, curated by Quinn Harrelson.

Janeva Ellis, “Bloodlust Hero”

That’s not to say it’s uninteresting. I revisit the exhibition text and realize it’s eerily in synch with what I’d been thinking about the past few days:

“The year is 2017 and over the vast urban sprawl of Los Angeles, the world has just ended, like a cracked egg. Many are taking post-apocalyptic selfies with the remaining minutes of their batteries.

But here, the crust of the peopled desert springs open, and something else crawls out from the earth’s core. It is possibly just a sentient silence, and yet an oasis germinates. Here lives a swamp, a jungle, a digestive system flipped inside out, a white cube of humidity transported from Southern Florida to Southern California.

To what extent does a group of works construct an environment? an ecosystem?

To what extent are they truncated into mechanisms of the jungle? into a single human body?

Like crocodile tears are artificial tears, this is an artificial rainforest, a simulacrum of the swamp. Constructed to push mutability to limits. Here alchemy transmutes mud to matter and nothingness to mud.”

Purvis Young

The most-discussed piece in the show is undoubtedly a small Don Quixote on a found metal panel by the late self-taught artist Purvis Young. Young has somewhat of a cult following, and there’s something nice about the un-precious (but also revered) quality of some of the objects he left behind. I’m mostly drawn to Janiva Ellis’s portrait of a melancholy demon, “Bloodlust Halo”. It’s a weird painting, one that elicits unlikely empathy. Most people don’t want to linger with me in the tiny exhibition space, though, because there’s an installation of handmade dirt-and-paper bricks that smells overwhelmingly like pee. For a show with only six or seven artworks, it sure packs a sensory punch.

Sunday 2/23

Organizer Phil Davis makes shirts for the participating MINIBAR artists. I love these.

File this under the “stuff to do” category of art happenings: I’m on my way to a miniature golf course in South Pasadena. I think this was a “Suggested Event” for me on Facebook, but I can’t remember the name or find the information about it anywhere and I suspect the friends I’ve dragged along are beginning to think I made it up as our Uber winds through a suburban park.

We arrive, though, and lo and behold there’s a small group of art-looking people hanging out in the snack bar of the golf course. We ask them if we’re in the right place, and they explain that Phil Davis has been curating a series of monthly group shows, called MINIBAR, in the club. The work is all small and kind of easy to miss, which is actually a nice layer to enjoying the overall unlikeliness of the idiosyncratic setting. Los Angeles has become known for art shows in small, strange places, but this one might take the cake. There are 2D works scattered around the walls above booths, and a video by Tyler Finnie loops on the TV behind the bar.

Tyler Finnie

I’m a big fan of Finnie’s “Liza Six Pack,”  which comprises simply a plastic six-pack holder superimposed over a Polaroid of Liza Minnelli in a brass frame. Other highlights include Jessica Williams’ ��Keep on Dancing Til The World Ends,” a washy watercolor of a girl looking over her shoulders while walking her bike. She’s wearing booty shorts that say “BABY” on the ass and, like Liza, is a little funny/sad/creepy.

I bum a cigarette from someone I’m convinced I’ve met somewhere before—another art opening perhaps? A friend-of-a-friend’s dinner party? But they don’t remember me. This has happened to me three times in L.A. Later, someone will whisper in my ear that I recognize these people because they had supporting roles on the type of T.V. shows you lovingly binge-watch on Netflix when you’re sick. My urge to facepalm never wears off.

We end the night by walking through (but not playing) the miniature golf course, and fantasize about which structures would make the best tiny house squats.

Monday 2/24

I’m leaving a gym on Wilshire Boulevard at dusk and realize I’m across the street from LACMA. The sun is setting, and Chris Burden’s epic public sculpture “Urban Light” has just been illuminated. It’s really, really beautiful. From this distance, the gaggle of selfie-takers doesn’t even seem annoying. I’m struck with a sense of regret that I probably don’t have time to make it to all the museums I wanted to see. I debate pushing back my flight when I get back to my computer.

On the walk home, though, I pass through the dark dead space between Miracle Mile and Koreatown. There, two inhabitants of a tent village that’s sprung up in the yard of an abandoned brutalist office building follow me for several blocks, shouting alternately homophobic and (incorrectly-assigned) racial slurs until I cross into the bright neon and peopled-sidewalks of Koreatown. I’m beginning to feel like Los Angeles is hell-bent on reminding me that it hates me every time I start to love it.

Wednesday 7/26

I’m at a taco cookout at Big Pictures Los Angeles, an art space run by artist Doug Crocco about a 10 minute drive south of Koreatown. The space has several rooms, one of which is functioning like an open studio of Doug’s own recent work, and another showing excerpts of Steve Gladstone: The End of Pictures alongside works from the group show Polaroid Black. BPLA also has the coolest toilet seat I’ve ever seen in a gallery, made from colored pencils in resin. It’s a really nice space that strikes one of the best balances I’ve seen here between professional and casual.

Excerpts from “Polaroid Black” (R) and “Steve Gladstone: The End of Pictures” (L)

Manny Prieres has a piece in Polaroid Black, a detail from the cover of the Joy Division album Closer, enlarged and rendered in hand-drawn graphite. Until you’re right on top of it, you’d swear it was a silkscreen. It occurs to me that Manny feels like an old friend because his work would’ve appealed as much to my younger, more punk-rock self as it does to me today.

Manny Prieres

Doug Crocco’s colored pencil drawings are just as meticulous and lovingly crafted. At first, I mistake them for oil paintings or collage. The appeal of the distraction-free studio life is starting to reveal itself to me.

Doug Crocco

Thursday 7/27

It’s my last night in the United States for the foreseeable future, and I want to gorge myself on Ethiopian before heading to Mexico City (it’s oddly my one comfort food you can’t find in the world’s second biggest city). Liz, ever the obliging tour guide, takes me to Little Ethiopia to meet up with a friend at a vegan spot and it’s amazing. We end the night miles away at Hop Louie, a Chinatown dive bar known as a go-to spot for drinks after openings and a fantastic juke box. Tonight though, it’s kinda dead.

I step outside with a friend and realize the things I’m really going to miss about L.A. Chiefly, all my friends who keep trickling out here for the promises of big-ish houses, careers, and endless sunshine. Sometimes those dreams are actually fulfilled! Sometimes though, people end up endlessly stressed over car payments and the dead-end jobs they necessitate. L.A. seems singularly magnetic to the best (and sadly, many of the worst) people of the 25-45 demographic. Maybe I’m either too immature or prematurely crotchety for the appeal?

At any rate, I could see myself living in Chinatown. Ironically, its faux-pagoda-lined pedestrian malls are likely one of the earliest examples of “Disneyland Urbanism” I can think of—a genre of made-for-tourists architecture that usually makes my cold, modernist eyes roll. But this kitschy simulacrum of a neighborhood has somehow accrued a lived-in vibe of a real place that L.A.’s far older fake chateaus haven’t quite. There are people on the “street” here, and even if they’re just outside for a smoke, that’s a world of comfort.

L.A., this isn’t goodbye forever, just a “see you later”. To quote your former governor, I’ll be back. But definitely as just another tourist. 

Postscript 7/31

I am publishing this from Mexico City. I really wanted to fall in love with Los Angeles, but despite my best efforts, I couldn’t. I really wanted to. The art scene is great. The weather is usually amazing. Mostly, I wanted to love L.A. because so many of my favorite people in the world have made the city home for various reasons. Their hospitality (and that of their friends) has been so humbling.

But that warmth stands in contrast to a city whose culture, in general, is at times pretty unfriendly. I realized L.A. can be a very lonely place when you’re by yourself with unstructured time. Being a human body moving through space outside of a car can be downright depressing, if not dangerous. It’s not really the kind of city for wandering around and people watching or spur-of-the-moment unplanned encounters. I know that those things aren’t important to everyone, but since being back in a more conventional “city” city, I have to admit that they are to me.

It dawned on me that I was neurotically starting to feel like a second-class citizen on account of not having a car, a buttload of disposable income, nor a face/body/wardrobe worthy of 100k+ Instagram followers (there were literally times people cropped me out of photos, because I suppose I was “off brand”). I found myself becoming a little vain, self-conscious, suspicious, and resentful—qualities I don’t like to see. A lot of that has to do with money. The myth that L.A. is “affordable” only holds water when housing is compared to San Francisco, London, New York or a handful of other global financial centers. Indeed, it seems like a substantial chunk of the “affection” a lot of transplant artists have for L.A. is rooted in resentment toward New York—as if those were the only two cities on the planet.  When one accounts for transportation costs and the obsessive commodification of “health culture” (example: eating vegetarian in Los Angeles is more expensive than any other city I’ve ever lived in) L.A. ends up being pretty damn pricey.

I’ll definitely be back in Los Angeles at some point—as I mentioned, it’s home to so many of my best friends. And I never made it to the beach! But I don’t think I can live there. My first night back in Mexico City, I actually teared-up a few times because I realized I wasn’t crazy for feeling isolated in L.A. I missed walking in crowded streets, and strangers being nice to me, cheap food, and dancing not just for the sake of an Instagram story (it’s noticeable how much less time people spend on their phones outside of the Los Angeles bubble).

Honestly, I am probably just personally incompatible with the L.A. lifestyle. I’m sharing this because I suspect a lot of other people tempted to relocate there might be too. I have plenty of friends who are super happy living there, but also met plenty of people who weren’t. I guess I just fall into the latter category.

  from Art F City http://ift.tt/2uPhMN2 via IFTTT

[andrewbarnettfortlauderdale]

Old Lauderdale Becoming Broward

It was a long time coming, but not so easy to carve out Broward County. The area’s previous incarnations had been under the Spanish, “East Florida” under the British, St. John’s County in 1821, Monroe County in 1823, Dade County in 1836, Mosquito County later in 1836, St. Lucia County in 1845, Brevard County in 1860, Palm Beach County in 1909 and then Dade again.

But finally in 1915, this area was no longer an afterthought, a space between Dade and Palm Beach. And our city became the new county seat.

Yet it was not inevitable that things would happen this way. In 1908, three years before Fort Lauderdale was incorporated, two adjacent towns were. And one was hungry. This letter from a prominent citizen appeared in the Miami News Record in 1908.

Dania has five stores, one hotel, a stone church, the LaBree boot works, a blacksmith shop, Mrs. Palmer’s Bakery, Coulters Jewelry, two lumber yards, one lawyer, a new cement block school and a jail….The Citizens of Dania now contemplate taking in more territory next summer as far as the New River. If the Fort Lauderdale citizens on the north side of the river wish to be incorporated in Dania, Dania will have no problem.

Meanwhile to the north, Pompano and Deerfield for a time became part of Palm Beach County. Would our unincorporated settlement of mostly vegetable farmers be next?

To give you a feeling of the times, Pompano, once incorporated, enacted a raft of laws. Livestock could no longer be driven in the streets, and jail or fines awaited “rogues and vagabonds, common pipers and fiddlers.” (There goes the early Irish music scene.)

Two major developments sent territorial change in a different direction. One was the great land boom in Fort Lauderdale, sparked by Gov. Napoleon Bonaparte Broward’s campaign to drain the Everglades for a “New Fertile Crescent.” People across the U.S. bought the concept, and our city became the big kid on the block as people kept streaming in. (Though a sizable portion left in anger when they discovered their land was underwater.)

So on March 27, 1911, 45 of the town’s qualified voters got together in the new schoolhouse and voted for incorporation. They debated the city’s size, whether it should be 1.5 miles square or two miles square. They decided two miles was just too big.

One of their first acts came in the area of sanitation, then a crisis. The new council raised $230 to buy a wagon and a draft animal to facilitate “emptying the privies and disposing of refuse.” They called the beast of burden “The Sanitary Mule.”

With our growth, there was no more talk of annexation by Dania. In 1913, the business community thought it was time to break away from Dade County altogether, which in 1909 had lost another chunk of its territory to the newly endowed Palm Beach County (including Deerfield and Pompano).

Fort Lauderdale would create a new county around itself, including Dania, Hallandale, Zona and Pompano. (“Zona” was a small town roughly corresponding to present-day Davie, whose residents came up from the Panama Canal Zone to help build Governor Broward’s drainage canals.)

At that time, this new-county effort failed because the southern cities wanted to stay with Dade and Pompano wanted to stay with Palm Beach.

But then, along came that second major event - Prohibition.

Miami, a tourist town, wanted the “wet” version, but the county overall voted the dry option. Next thing you know, Dade was no longer resisting a new county. Pompano and Deerfield had also come around.

So after all the boundary details were hammered out, the state legislature passed a bill unanimously creating a new county named after the “swamp-draining” governor.  History books list its towns: our city, Dania, Pompano, Hallandale, Deerfield, Davie (Zona changed its name), Progresso and Colohatchee.

#fortlauderdale  #ftlauderdale #andrewbarnett

[jthurlow]

Palm City, "Empire of the Everglades," Part 2

Today’s post is  Part 2 of “Palm City, Empire of the Everglades,” written for the upcoming, 2024, official 100 year anniversary of the completion of the St Lucie Canal. This canal was  renamed the C-44 Canal after the federal government’s incorporation of the canal into the construction of the Central and Southern Florida Project -post “great flood” of 1947. I prefer to call C-44 it by its first…

[jthurlow]

Palm City, "Empire of the Everglades," 1923 - Part 1

Today I share yet another remarkable historic article from my mother Sandra Thurlow’s archives. This time from the Miami Herald, 1923. The significance of this article, that I have transcribed and broken down into two parts, is that it tells the story of Palm City, Florida, as part of the “Empire of the Everglades;” this a past of Palm City that most of us don’t know. Indeed, Palm City was…

[jthurlow]

Draining Palm City

My recent blog post featuring my brother Todd’s time capsule flight of Palm City 1966 Then & Now received great interest. So today I am going to take the subject a bit further in our study of area canals that drain wetlands into the St Lucie River. If you have never seen the 1940s Aerial Photos UF Collection, you must! These historic aerials were taken when the United States had new-spy plane…

[jthurlow]

"Go West Young Man! Go West?" St Luice River/Indian River Lagoon

“Go West Young Man! Go West?” St Luice River/Indian River Lagoon

Poppleton Creek and St Lucie River, April 17, 1952, courtesy archives Sandra Henderson Thurlow.

This remarkable 1952 historic aerial photograph shows Poppleton Creek and what were once pioneer Hubert Bessey’s lands near Downtown Stuart. Within the bucolic photograph canal C-23’s white sands piled on the land foreshadow the river’s future. This canal divides Martin and St Lucie County and is…