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blueiscoool · 3 years

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The Pantheon in Rome

The Pantheon in Rome, now a church, was built as a temple to all the gods. It has been a shrine for architects since the Renaissance. It is also a worthy tribute to the skills of the ancient Roman masons and engineers who built it and the incredible alchemy of their concrete mix.

If there Was a competition to find the most durable and beautiful concrete structure ever built, the Pantheon in Rome would most surely win the prize. It also stands as a monument to the genius of Roman concrete.

Commissioned by Hadrian (who was emperor 117-138 CE) as a temple to all the gods, the Pantheon replaced Agrippa’s earlier temple following a fire. It is still the most visited site in Italy, having weathered centuries of tourists, floods, wars and earthquakes.

Its huge concrete dome – 43.4m in diameter and 21.75m high – was unrivalled in size until the building of Florence Cathedral in the 1400s, and is still the largest ever made with unsupported concrete.

“The mastery of building something so daring and having the structure resist essentially without any structural support for more than 19 centuries is simply extraordinary,” says Renato Perucchio, professor of mechanical engineering and director of the Archaeology, Technology, and Historical Structures Programme at the University of Rochester in the US.

So how did the Romans do it, what were the secrets of their concrete recipe and what lessons can architects and civil engineers learn from its construction today?

As every builder knows, foundations are everything. One of the most overlooked aspects of the Patheon’s remarkable construction lies below its famous dome. Although Rome is not on one of Italy’s major seismic zones, it has known earthquakes. Many historians believe seismic activity caused damage to the Colosseum. Moreover, until some of the River Tiber’s tributaries were buried in the late 19th century, it was also subject to major flooding.

The foundations of the Pantheon were made of concrete, originally 4.7m deep and 7.3m thick. During construction, however, they cracked due to the marshy, clay land below. “For this reason, a second reinforcement ring was built, projecting three metres beyond the original perimeter,” according to the Archeoroma website. Thick buttress walls were also built to the south of the building anchored to the Basilica of Neptune next door. “This had the effect of stabilising the structure by counterbalancing the forces and weights at either end of it,” Archeoroma writes.

Romans did not invent concrete. It had already been around for hundreds of years before the Pantheon was built.

Curiously that accolade probably goes to the Nabatean Bedouin tribes of the land that is today southern Syria and northern Jordan, who were using it to create hidden underground water cisterns around 700BC.

The basic concrete recipe the Romans followed can be found in the Roman architect Vitruvius’s book ‘De Architectura’, published 100 years before the building of the Pantheon. He described how to make concrete out of lime and pozzolana sand, a type of volcanic ash found near Naples, all mixed with stone mass.

Different aggregates were used to give the concrete diverse densities. Travertine limestone gave the Pantheon’s foundations a density of 2,200kg per cubic metre, while lighter rock was chosen for the dome.

Pozzolans, made of siliceous and aluminous materials, possess little or no cementitious value, but when mixed with water, react chemically with calcium hydroxide at ordinary temperature to form cementitious compounds.

It was the chemistry of this material that formed the basis of the durability of the dome, enabling it to survive two millennia without the steel tension rods used today.

Indeed, the Romans understood that the bigger the structure, the stronger it was, because the simplest way to keep concrete in compression is to put heavy stuff on top of it, like more concrete.

It is a trick still used today. Many large concrete dams are either gravity or arch structures that rely on their own weight and geometry to withstand water.

However, the circular structure of the dome meant that before the ancient engineers could start making its concrete ceiling, they needed to figure out how to direct the weight away from the centre. If they didn’t, and removed the wooden structure holding it in place, the 3,000 tonnes of concrete used to make the dome would have pushed outwards and the whole edifice would have collapsed under its own weight.

Even the kind of scaffolding framework used to support such a framework is still under discussion. “Think of the design of the scaffolding that holds a structure of that weight,” says Perucchio. “They [the ancient Romans] had a high mastery in using timber framing in a way that no other earlier cultures had developed.”

Today when we build in concrete, we introduce a steel tension rod which picks up half of the stresses in the concrete. The Romans used their ancient concrete recipe, and an abundance of highly skilled artisan labour, who tamped the stiff mixture into moulds and walls, rather than pouring it as is done today.

To build the dome, the Roman builders constructed a solid base, a wall six metres thick in the shape of a rotunda, to act as the foundation for the ceiling. They then used the vertical walls on either side to buttress the dome itself.

As the ceiling rose towards its apex, the master craftsmen mixed increasingly lighter aggregate materials into the concrete.

This principle of using different weights of aggregate goes from the heavy travertine used in the base right up to the top of the dome.

“It doesn’t look like it from the inside but on the outside it’s a very thick dome, but relatively light,” says Norbert Delatte, head of the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Oklahoma State University.

In some parts, the ancient builders mixed in small clay vases, called amphorae, to control the weight.

The aggregate of the concrete used to make the upper dome region consists of alternating layers of light tuff, found in abundance north of Rome, and pumice stone, the material we use today to file off rough skin. The concrete substance at the top of the dome had a density of just 1,350kg per cubic metre.

To make the ceiling even lighter, masons moulded recessed concrete waffle-like panel bricks called coffers; five layers of these bricks formed the interior ceiling. They pounded the concrete into the moulds using some kind of tamper, most likely made of wood or iron.

This meant that aesthetically, they had allowed an area of the dome to be decorated while simultaneously reducing the amount of concrete necessary for the dome itself.

At the top, the Pantheon’s crowning glory is an open oculus, 7.8m in diameter, which allowed light to shine in, adding to the sense of wonderment the building still incites today. But most importantly, it meant the apex of the dome was made of the lightest material of all, air.

Today, engineers all over the world are looking at the chemical properties of Roman concrete to see if it can be reproduced today to make buildings that last longer. Although the basic ingredients were set out by Vetruvius, modern measuring technologies are making it easier to ascertain the exact chemical properties from just small samples of material.

Yet the clever use of engineering and the unique Roman concrete material is not the only reason this enduring temple to all the gods is still there to inspire awe today. History also played a role in its staying power. The event that probably most ensured its long destiny happened in 609 AD, nearly 400 years after it was built.

The Emperor Phocas, the Byzantine emperor in the east, gave the Pantheon to the Catholic Church in Rome. The Vatican has used it as a place of worship ever since, while its formidable structure also still serves a shrine for architects and engineers the world over.

By Hilary Clarke.

#The Pantheon in Rome #Rome Italy #Emperor Hardian #the world’s largest reinforced concrete dome #archeology #archeolgst #history #history news #ancient history #ancient culture #ancient civilizations #ancient rome #roman history #roman empire

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architectuul · 3 years

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Autobus Park №7: Kyiv’s Abandoned Transport Circus

Kyiv might be Europe’s single greatest city for late-twentieth century Modernist architecture. It boasts many wild, eclectic, and vividly imaginative examples of the style, built during the height of Soviet monument-mania. Though amongst its steel and concrete marvels of Soviet-era architecture, one of Kyiv’s most striking modern buildings has, in recent years, also become one of the city’s most problematic ruins. Autobus Park №7 – once the pride of the Ukrainian transport industry – exists today as a decaying morgue for almost a thousand abandoned buses.

Autobus Park №7 today. | Photo © Darmon Richter

The design challenge of the Autobus Park №7 was to create an efficient depot capable of housing and maintaining a fleet of some 500 buses, in an urban environment where building space was limited. Had the building been constructed like a warehouse, or a factory, using a square plan and a regular pillar-based solution for supporting the roof, it was estimated that the total size of the building would have needed to be at least 4,000 square metres. However, an ingenious solution was proposed instead.

Under construction (1972), promotional photographs (1970s) and technical sketches (1979). | Photo via Khabarovsk Polytechnic Institute.

The chief engineers on the project, V. A. Kozlov and S. I. Smorgon, were responsible for the idea of using a cable-suspended roof. They took their inspiration from circus buildings – the cylindrical concrete-and-steel constructions which were by this time a ubiquitous feature in cities throughout the Soviet Union. By designing the building on a circular plan, and suspending concrete roof panels on cables strung between a central support pillar and the outer walls, it was found that both space and construction costs could be significantly reduced. Moreover, this design, with its organic, circular shape, lent itself more to what was then considered a modern and humanistic work environment for employees – while its form, reminiscent of circuses and Palaces of Culture, presented the bus depot not as a bland, functional box, but rather a community venue.

Kyiv’s Autobus Park №7 during its heyday with the tall building on the left accommodating administrative offices and staff canteens. | Photo via Exutopia

Left: Workers outside Kyiv Autobus Park №7 in 1977; right: A new fleet of buses ready for service, 1975. | Photo via Exutopia

Kozlov and Smorgon built a 1:10 scale model to test their idea. The central support pillar would be 18 metres high, a tower of reinforced concrete with a diameter of 8 metres, consisting of 0.3-metre thick concrete walls around an inner support of solid steel with a cross-section of 0.32 x 0.22 metres. Attached to the top of this pillar, were 84 radial cables – steel ropes with a diameter of 65 millimetres. Each of these cables was able to support a weight of up to 350 tons, and the roof would be constructed on top of them: a suspended tent dome, created from concrete plates, and with a total diameter of 160 metres.

On its completion in 1973, the building was considered an engineering marvel – its hanging roof was one of the largest ever constructed, and this system of support reduced the building’s necessary size from 40,000 square metres (the estimate for a pillar-supported roof) to a footprint of just 23,000 square metres.

Details of the relief on the front of building showing staff, passengers, vehicles, and the logos of various automotive brands. | Photo © Darmon Richter

As much as possible, the design aimed to take advantage of natural light. The concrete plates of the roof were fitted with portholes, most of which were concentrated close around the main support tower. In the outer wall, upright glass cylinders were installed between concrete panels, serving as sturdy support pillars that both insulated the building against the cold outside, and allowed refracted light to shine into the wings of the building. This solution proved particularly robust, and most of these glass pillars have survived intact since the early 1970s until this day. Between them, these design choices resulted in an interior space and working area that enjoyed bright sunlight during the day, thus minimising the additional cost of electrical lighting.

Attached to the 18m central support pillar, a metal staircase leads up to an observation platform. | Photo © Darmon Richter

Once operational, Autobus Park №7 was the largest vehicle depot in the Soviet Union – and it was rumoured, potentially the largest anywhere in the world. It served as more than just a garage, though. It was the base of operations for the entire fleet of buses serving the capital, including city buses, intercity buses, and also those working international routes, to Germany, Poland, Belarus and Russia. The building was fully air-conditioned, it featured a four-gate vehicle wash, and a mechanised repair bay fitted with conveyor belt systems. The building had a staff of 1,500 workers, and featured workers’ canteens, as well as a computing centre too – where teams calculated staff salaries and work shifts, as well as designing and optimising bus routes.

Sadly, the glory days of Autobus Park №7 would be short-lived. Following the break-up of the Soviet Union, many of the fleet’s international routes were discontinued. Services were gradually reduced through the 1990s, into the 2000s, while meanwhile, the building was increasingly used to store wrecked vehicles awaiting repair or decommissioning. The reduction of domestic bus routes in 2005 was a further blow, and eventually, in 2015, the autopark closed its doors for good – the building slipping into disrepair, as the once-proud circus was steadily transformed into a scrapyard.

Since it was officially closed in 2015, almost 1,000 buses have been stored inside the abandoned building. | Photo © Darmon Richter

Today, Autobus Park №7 in Kyiv seems to be locked in a downward spiral of decay. The building itself is nothing short of an engineering marvel, an extraordinary work of architecture that supporters have suggested could be adapted now into a museum, or even a film studio. In April 2018 a petition was registered on the website of Kyiv City Council, calling for the building’s preservation – but it only received 321 votes, a long way short of its target of 10,000 signatures. Even had it been successful though, good intentions don’t count for much without action and intent on the part of Kyiv City Council; where currently, any talks of potential preservation are being blocked at a bureaucratic level.

For 25 years the building has been owned by the company Kyivpastrans (‘Kyiv Passenger Transportation), whose deputy general director, Sergey Litvinov, has said that Autobus Park №7 poses an imminent risk of collapse, and, given the cost and scale of such a project, would be almost impossible to save. Meanwhile, other former transport depots around the city have already been bulldozed to make room for new residential blocks and shopping centres. Many property developers would jump at the chance of getting their hands on this 23,000-square metre plot – and from the perspective of the current owners, it is probably a more attractive financial proposition. The building is neither listed nor protected, so were it empty, there would be nothing to stop the owners from knocking it down overnight.

This rooftop capsule offered a panoramic view of the 180-metre diameter suspended roof of Autobus Park №7. | Photo © Darmon Richter

However, for the time being all parties are locked into a kind of stalemate over the building’s contents. The estimated 903 rusting vehicles stored inside (including LAZ, Volvo, Ikarus, and various other brands of urban and long-distance buses) pose a major administrative problem. These buses cannot easily be removed, or scrapped, as technically they are yet to be decommissioned from service. A new regulation that was introduced into Ukrainian law in 2013 complicated the bureaucratic procedure and created a backlog; so that all of the vehicles inside Autobus Park №7 today are – officially, on paper – still in service and awaiting audit. As such they cannot legally be taken apart for scrap, and right now, there’s nowhere else to store them in the city but here.

The vehicles have still not been officially decommissioned under Ukrainian law – which means they cannot be scrapped until the necessary paperwork is processed. | Photo © Darmon Richter

So for now, it’s a waiting game. If Kyivpastrans and Kyiv City Council are able to solve the bureaucratic headache of their vehicle decommissioning procedure, remove the abandoned buses, and then find the will, not to mention the funding, to undertake the colossal project of preserving Autobus Park №7 (while turning down more lucrative offers from property developers in the process), then perhaps the building might yet be saved. But in the meanwhile, the circus roof is sagging, and young trees are already sprouting from cracks in the concrete.

It may just be that this building, an engineering marvel of the Soviet period, having failed to find its place in a post-Soviet world, is doomed to go the same way as the regime that built it.

by Darmon Richter

[adapted with permission from an article at Ex Utopia]

Sources: Smena Magazine (1974) Issue No.19 Khabarovsk Polytechnic Institute (1979) Reinforced Concrete Space Structures (lecture notes, p.24-26), M. P. Danilovsky Hmarochos (2018) Why are Storage Facilities for Faulty Kyivpastrans Buses Being Set Up in Kyiv? Kiev Vlast (2019) Kyiv City Council Decided to Solve the Riddle of Bus Depot №7

#architecture #foma

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moteltrogir · 3 years

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Kamalapur Railway Station in Dhaka

Architectural Optimism of Bangladesh

Saša Šimpraga, 2021.

Adnan Zillur Morshed is an architect and architectural historian with focus on history and theory of modern architecture and urbanism; global history; urban poverty and spatiality; water and architectural historiography; and ecological urbanism in developing countries. He received his Ph.D. and Master’s in architecture from MIT and completed his pre-doctoral studies at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art and postdoctoral under Verville Fellowship at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC.

Morshed is the author of several books among other: Impossible Heights: Skyscrapers, Flight, and the Master Builder which examines the American fascination with the skyscraper and the airplane as part of a widely shared cultural phenomenon--the aesthetics of ascension--that characterized the interwar period. His books also include DAC, Dhaka through Twenty-Five Buildings.

He is a professor at the School of Architecture and Planning of the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.

Adnan Morshed is also involved with local and international intiatives on preservation of modernist architectural heritage of Bangladesh. We talk to him on the occasion of current international appeal to save the Kamalapur Railway Station in Dhaka from demolition.

SŠ: A gem of the Modern Movement in South Asia, The Kamalapur Railway Station in Dhaka, designed by Daniel Dunham and Robert Boughey in the 1960s is threatened due to the an urban expansion plan of the Dhaka Metro Rail's Line that includes its demolition and replacement by a new infrastructure, rather than its adaptation. What is the significance of the building and its current status?

Adnan Morshed: Kamalapur Railway Station is a rare modern train station in South Asia. It adopts an aesthetic vocabulary of tropical modernism for a public building in ways that have not been seen before in the region. The station’s modernist architecture breaks with colonial precedents both in the imperial center and on the subcontinent. In London, St. Pancras Station (1863–76) encapsulated modern values of mobility and exchange, while the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (formerly Victoria Terminus; built in 1888 and now a UNESCO World Heritage) in Mumbai and Howrah Station (1906) in Kolkata functioned as symbols of imperial hegemony.

The histories of colonialism and train infrastructure are deeply intertwined in South Asia. In 1862, the Eastern Bengal Railway Company opened the first railway line in the region from which it took its name. Connecting Kolkata with the western Bangladeshi town of Kushtia, this expansion of train services signaled a new phase in the growth of East Bengal’s colonial economy. Due to geographical challenges posed by Bengal's deltaic terrain, the railway did not arrive in Dhaka until the following century, after the city’s economic profile had risen and it was subsequently made, in 1947, the provincial capital of then-East Pakistan. In 1958, the government approved the creation of a new railway depot, which was inaugurated a decade later as Kamalapur Railway Station. Not only was it one of the largest modern railway stations in South Asia, but it also embodied changing conceptions of modernity, from the bracing mobility of 19th-century railways to the soaring modernism that defined the 1960s.

Kamalapur Railway Station, Photo by Anik Sarker/ Wikipedia

SŠ: Also in danger of demolition is the Dhaka University Teacher-Student Center Building by Greek architect Constantinos Doxiadis (the mastermind behind planning the city of Islamabad) from early 1960s. The structure exemplifies a modernist architectural sensitivity toward spatial needs for tropical climatic conditions. TSC's dome-shaped structure with empty spaces around is considered an iconic landmark not only inside Dhaka Uiversity campus, but in the broader cityscape of Dhaka. How optimistic are you about its future? And what is the general status of modernist architectural heritage of Bangladesh?

Adnan Morshed: I am concerned about the mid-20th-century buildings in Bangladesh because of the ways the notion of development is taking precedence over environment, history, and, generally, human wellbeing. Many buildings are about to face the wrecking ball. These buildings include the Teacher-Student Center or TSC. Located at the historic heart of the University of Dhaka, TSC exemplifies a type of tropical modernism that blends local architectural traditions of space-making—particularly the indoor-outdoor continuum and generation of space around courtyards—with the abstract idiom of the International Style. The complex of buildings was designed by the Greek architect, planner, and theoretician Constantinos Apostolos Doxiadis (1913–1975) in the early 1960s. This was a turbulent time marked by conflicting currents of political tension and architectural optimism in what was then East Pakistan, now Bangladesh. On the one hand, the two wings of postcolonial Pakistan were at loggerheads because of the political domination of East Pakistan by the military junta based in West Pakistan. On the other hand, many architectural opportunities arose in East Pakistan, which benefitted from American technical assistance. The United States allied with Pakistan as part of its Cold War-era foreign policy to create a geostrategic buffer against the socialist milieu of the Soviet Union–India axis in South Asia. Under the purview of a technical assistance program, the United States Agency for International Development and the Ford Foundation provided support for building educational and civic institutions in East Pakistan. Since there was a dearth of experienced architects in East Pakistan, the government sought the services of American and European architects for a host of buildings that were constructed during the 1960s. Doxiadis was among them.

TSC, Photo by Fasiha Binte Zaman/ Wikipedia

TSC is also a demonstration of Doxiadis’s idea of ekistics, by which he meant an objective, comprehensive, and integrative approach to all principles and theories of human settlements. Criticizing the top-down planning model which he viewed as a central problem associated with modernism, Doxiadis employed the notion of ekistics to promote a multidisciplinary, inclusive, and bottom-up approach. He hoped that such a method would create a synergy of local and global influences, by which one could successfully meld a data-driven theorization of planning, universal values of harmonious living, and place-based cultural inflections.

In this vein, Doxiadis aligned the TSC’s ensemble of buildings on an east-west axis, to take advantage of the prevailing breeze from the south or north. The three-story Student Union Building features a “double roof” that minimizes heat gain by allowing cool breezes to pass in between the two canopies. The ingenious solution proved to be a trendsetting feature, but it was just one of the complex’s many innovations. Doxiadis covered the auditorium with a reinforced concrete parabolic vault, a pioneering construction technique that had yet to be tested in the country. Covered walkways, supported on steel columns, weave together the major buildings and green spaces, serving as the social spine of the entire complex. In the post-Independence period, TSC became the epicenter of political agitation within Bangladesh, serving as a backdrop to political demonstrations.

SŠ: Pioneer od modernist architecture in Bangladesh, Muzharul Islam, began hes career in the 1950s. Born in 1923, he went to study architecture in the United States, and then returned to Bangladesh. Along with his teacher Louis Kahn, he also brought Paul Rudolph and Stanley Tigerman to work in Bangladesh, and three of them came to be known as the American Trio. Apart from the Trio, it was Islam's style that dominated Bangladesh architecture from 1950s onwards. What is his legacy in architectural history of Dhaka?

Adnan Morshed: Not only was architect Muzharul Islam Bangladesh's pioneering modernist architect, he was also an activist designer who viewed architecture as an effective medium for social transformation. His early work shows how architecture was deeply embedded in post-Partition politics.

Consider his “master piece,” the Faculty of Fine Arts (1953-56) at Shahbagh in Dhaka. At first encounter, the building presents the image of an international-style building, with a quiet and dignified attention to the architectural demands of tropical Bengal. Closer inspection, however, hinders the Eurocentric tendency to measure the building's “modernity” exclusively through a “Western” lens. A host of nuanced architectural modulations and environmental adaptations reveals how Muzharul Islam's work cross-pollinates a humanising, modernist architectural language with conscious considerations of climatic needs and local building materials.

Faculty of Fine Arts, Photo by Rossi101/ Wikipedia

The literature on South Asian modern architecture usually identifies the Faculty of Fine Arts as the harbinger of a Bengali modernism, synthesising a modern architectural vocabulary with climate-responsive and site-conscious design programmes. What has not been examined in this iconic building is how Islam's work also provides a window into the ways his architectural experiments with modernist aesthetics were part of his inquiries into the ongoing politics of Bengali nationalist activism.

Muzharul Islam interpreted the prevailing political conditions in his homeland as a fateful conflict between the secular humanist ethos of Bengal and an alien Islamist identity imposed by the Urdu-speaking ruling class in West Pakistan. The turbulent politics in which he found himself influenced his worldview as well as his fledgling professional career. The young architect began his design career in a context of bitterly divided notions of national origin and destiny, and his architectural work would reflect this political debate. He felt the need to articulate his homeland's identity on ethno-cultural grounds, rather than on a supra-religious foundation, championed by West Pakistani power-wielders. Muzharul Islam's Faculty of Fine Arts embodied these beliefs.

With his iconoclastic building, Islam sought to achieve two distinctive goals. First, the building introduced the aesthetic tenets of modern architecture to East Pakistan. For many, its design signalled a radical break from the country's prevailing architectural language for civic buildings. These buildings were designed either in an architectural hybrid of Mughal and British colonial traditions, popularly known as Indo-Saracenic, or as utilitarian corridor-and-room building boxes, delivered by the provincial government's Department of Communications, Buildings, and Irrigation (CBI). The Faculty of Fine Arts was an unambiguous departure from the colonial-era Curzon Hall (1904–1908) at the Dhaka University, within walking distance of Islam's building, and the Holy Family Hospital (1953; now Holy Family Red Crescent Medical College Hospital).

Faculty of Fine Arts, Photo: Wikipedia

Second, the Faculty of Fine Arts' modernist minimalism—rejecting all ornamental references to Mughal and Indo-Saracenic architecture—was a conscious critique of the politicised version of Islam that had become a state apparatus for fashioning a particular religion-based image of postcolonial Pakistan. By abstracting his design through a modernist visual expression, Muzharul Islam sought to purge architecture of what he viewed as the political associations of instrumental religion.

SŠ: Internationally, perhaps the most known modernist structure in Bangladesh is the National Parliament Complex, designed by Louis Kahn and associates. Its construction began in 1964, in what is now known as the Decade of Development for Bangladesh and time when Dhaka was the second capital of Pakistan. When talking about architecture in general, Muzharul Islam stated that „practical aspects of architecture are measurable – such as, the practical requirements, climatic judgments, the advantages and limitations of the site etc. – but the humanistic aspects are not measurable.“ Those aspects come when the architect leaves and building starts its life. How did that highly acclaimed complex came to be a part of the national identity and how its architecture influences culture in a broader sence?

National Parliament Complex in Dhaka, Photo: Yes, Louis Kahn

Adnan Morshed: The American architect Louis Isadore Kahn's Parliament building in Dhaka is considered one of the architectural icons of the twentieth century. Intriguingly, Kahn was not the first choice for the project. After two masters, Le Corbusier and Alvar Aalto, had turned down the invitation from the government of Pakistan, the megaproject went to the architect from Philadelphia. After multiple design iterations and many bureaucratic entanglements, the construction of the Parliament building began in October 1964, at Sher-e-Bangla Nagar.

Kahn first visited Dhaka in early March of 1963, after he had received the commission to plan the Parliament complex of East Pakistan. Five years earlier, the commander-in-chief of the Pakistani army, Mohammad Ayub Khan, took control of the government through a military coup and imposed martial law in October 1958. In 1960, the military man was “elected” to a five-year presidency. Pakistan's new constitution of 1962 called for a “democratic” election to be held in 1965. The decade of the 1960s was a politically tumultuous period in East Pakistan. Bengalis felt exploited and ignored by West Pakistan's military regime and, consequently, dreamed of independence from the doomed political geography of a nation with two units separated by over 1,000 miles. Aware of the political and economic disparity between the two halves of Pakistan and concerned about his own re-election bid, Ayub Khan's administration came up with a political strategy to mitigate the grievance of the Bengalis.

National Parliament Complex in Dhaka, Photo: Yes, Louis Kahn

The idea of a “second capital” for East Pakistan was born in this context. This showcase capital would, it was hoped, “bind East Pakistan more firmly to the nation by conducting the nation's business for half of each year.” The political drama that ensued from then on explains how the Parliament building, first conceived as a “bribe” for the Bengalis, gradually took on a whole new identity as a symbol of the people's struggle for self-rule. With rudimentary construction tools and bamboo scaffolding tied with crude jute ropes, approximately 2,000 lungi-clad construction workers erected a monumental government building. Slowly but steadily, they unwittingly portrayed the broader resilience of a nation revolting against economic and social injustice. If the Shahid Minar symbolised the language movement during the 1950s, the Parliament building portrayed the rise of the independence-minded Bengalis during the 1960s.

Kahn searched for inspirations from the Bengal delta, its rivers, green pastoral, expansive landscape, raised homesteads, and land-water geography. Soon after he had first arrived in Dhaka, he went on a boat ride on the Buriganga River and sketched scenes to understand life in this tropical land. He didn't have any problems in blending Bengali vernacular impressions with those of classical Greco-Roman and Egyptian architecture he had studied during the 1950s. As the war broke out in 1971, Kahn's field office in East Pakistan quickly closed and construction work discontinued. During the liberation war, an ironic story persisted that Pakistani pilots didn't bomb the building assuming that it was a ruin! That “ruin” eventually became an emblem of the country, adorning national currency, stamps, rickshaw decorations, advertisements, official brochures, and so on. When it was more or less completed in 1983—more than a decade after East Pakistan (later Bangladesh) emerged as a new nation-state and 9 years after Kahn's unexpected death in New York City—the Parliament complex emblematised the political odyssey of a people to statehood.

National Parliament Complex in Dhaka, Photo: Yes, Louis Kahn

SŠ: Transformation of Dhaka today is intensive. What would be some of the significant architectural achievements in contemporary Dhaka and Bangladesh?

Adnan Morshed: The architectural scene in Bangladesh has been thriving with a “new” energy over the past two decades or so. Bangladeshi architects have been experimenting with form, material, aesthetics, and, most importantly, the idea of how architecture relates to history, society, and the land. Their various experiments bring to the fore a collective feeling that something has been going on in this crowded South Asian country. One is not quite sure about what drives this restless energy! Is it the growing economy? The rise of a new middle class with deeper pockets? Is it an aesthetic expression of a society in transition? Is it aesthetics meeting the politics of development?

Whatever it is, an engaged observer may call this an open-ended search for some kind of “local” modernity. Bangladeshi architects have been winning architectural accolades from around the world for a variety of architectural projects. High-profile national architectural competitions have created a new type of design entrepreneurship, yielding intriguing edifices. Architects have also been expanding the notion of architectural practice by engaging with low-income communities and producing cost-effective shelters for the disenfranchised. Traditionally trained to design stand-alone buildings, architects seem increasingly concerned with the challenges of creating liveable cities.

No doubt it is an exciting time in Bangladesh, architecturally speaking, even if the roads in the country's big cities are paralysed by traffic congestion and a pervasive atmosphere of urban chaos. In the midst of infernal urbanisation across the country, an architectural culture has been taking roots with both promises and perils, introducing contentious debates about its origin, nature, and future.

Architecturally, the 1980s was an interesting time, as divergent ideas began to permeate architectural thinking in the country. Three stories should be mentioned. An “avant-garde” architectural study group named Chetona (meaning awareness) sought to introduce critical thinking as an essential part of architectural practice. Many architects, senior and junior— disillusioned with the prevalent role of architecture as primarily a professional practice without broader social visions and engagement with history and culture—gravitated toward Chetona, meeting at Muzharul Islam's architectural office, Bastukalabid, at Poribagh. The iconoclasm of the study group revolved around reading critical writings in architecture, criticism of current methods of architectural pedagogy, and reasoned questioning of architecture as a technical discipline. The group's reading list ranged from Rabindranath Tagore to the Franco-Swiss architect Le Corbusier to the Norwegian architectural theorist Christian Norberg-Schulz.

The influence of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture (AKAA), an architectural prize established by Aga Khan IV in 1977, was also felt strongly during the 1980s. The award sought to champion regional, place-based and culture-sensitive architectural impetuses in Islamic societies. Awardees included projects in contemporary design, social housing, community development, restoration, adaptive reuse, and landscape design. Architects were inspired to look for a “spirit of place.” Regionalism was in vogue.

The Aga Khan Award for Architecture's flagship magazine, Mimar: Architecture in Development, first published in 1981, influenced many Bangladeshi architects and architecture students in thinking beyond western modernism and the aesthetic conventions it allegedly created. At its inception, Mimar was the sole international architecture magazine focusing on architecture in the developing world. In many ways, the magazine's celebration of “local” expanded the scope of architectural practice in the country and gave rise to new aspirations among architects, who were willing to search for organic roots in architecture.

Bait Ur Rouf Mosque in Dhaka by Marina Tabassum, 2016 Aga Khan Award Recipient

The new architectural aspirations coincided with the rapid urbanisation of Bangladesh and the rise of an urban middle class that spawned a flourishing culture of architectural patronage. A historically agrarian country, Bangladesh began to urbanise rapidly from the late 1980s. The country's total urban population rose from a modest 7.7 percent in 1970 to 31.1 percent in 2010. Impoverished rural migrants began to flock to major cities, particularly the capital, Dhaka, in search of employment and better lives. Its population skyrocketed from 1.8 million in 1974 to more than 6 million in 1991 and to nearly 18 million today. The capital city's massive population boom created an unsustainable demand on urban land, and in return, land values increased.

During this transitional period, real estate developers emerged as powerful economic actors in Dhaka and beyond, playing a key role in replacing traditional single-family houses with multi-story apartment complexes. Meanwhile, public-sector housing failed to meet the demand, and in this vacuum, private real estate companies flourished rapidly. As private developers became key actors in the city's housing market, a trade association was needed to regulate the real estate sector and to ensure fair competition among its members. The stratospheric rise of private real-estate developers suggested that there was a robust market for high-density, multifamily apartments, even though affordability remained a major hurdle. Many architects experimented with material, form, spatial organisation, construction, aesthetic expression, and the individual plot's urban relationship to the neighbourhood.

A burgeoning class of urban entrepreneurs—who made their fortunes in the country's export-oriented ready-made garments industry, manufacturing and transportation sectors, construction industry, and consumer market—emerged as a new generation of architectural patrons, investing hefty amounts of money to build their signature single-family houses and other projects, including apartment complexes, hospitals, shopping malls, private schools and universities, factories, spaces of worship, etc.

And, happily, architects began to find work abundantly from the mid-1990s. Design consultancy until the early 1990s was limited to a handful of architectural firms. But soon thereafter new, smaller firms, run by younger architects, began to reshape the traditional methods of architectural design practice in the country.

The liberalisation of the market, the emergence of a strong private sector, and rapid urbanisation resulted in the need for a range of building typologies and related architectural design services. In the public sector, government organisations began to evaluate the social and commercial value of aesthetic expression and hired architectural firms to compete in the building market. All of these developments ushered in a vibrant and dynamic opportunity for architectural experiments. The last two decades in Bangladesh witnessed an intense battle of architectural ideas. The earlier attitudes to orthodox modernism or regionalism in architecture dispersed into a more nuanced landscape of aesthetic abstraction.

SŠ: „For most of modern history, cities grew out of wealth. Even in more recently developed countries, such as China and Korea, the flight towards cities has largely been in line with income growth. But recent decades have brought a global trend for “poor-country urbanisation”, in the words of Harvard University economist Edward Glaeser, with the proliferation of low-income megacities.“ Dhaka is an example of such a city that has outpaced develepoment and has grown tremendously. Can planned urbanisation even tackle such a huge task in given circumstaces?

Adnan Morshed: While architecture rose and prospered as individual plot-based or stand-alone practices, cities—Dhaka as a glaring example—as a whole descended into unbearable chaos. In extreme cases, Taj Mahals coexisted with overflowing dumpsters. Private oases and sumptuous cafes overlooked the ghettoised world of slums. While architects searched for Bengali roots and global gravitas in their work, they mostly failed to promote an “ethical” view of how city should function and treat all its citizens.

While globalisation went on with a cutthroat consumerist and neoliberal agenda, and architecture patronage benefitting from it, social inequality grew manifold. Architects seemed confused as to how architecture could or should also play mitigating roles in addressing the issues of social justice. Slums burned and architects rushed to the site with naïve, superficial aesthetic solutions without trying to understand the exploitative economic and political systems that blight society in the first place. The feeling that “architecture is great but the city rots” sometimes seems overwhelming.

Walking in some of Dhaka's walkable streets fronted with exclusive-looking buildings, an observer might wonder how architecture could showcase the rising stature of a developing country, while failing to play a role in making it socially just.

In Croatian: https://vizkultura.hr/intervju-adnan-morshed/

Projekt Motel Trogir u 2021. godini podržan je od Ministarstva kulture i medija Republike Hrvatske i Zaklade Kultura nova.

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galbencearch · 3 years

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The La Trobe Reading Room - State Library of Victoria, Australia. When opened in 1913, the dome was the largest reinforced concrete structure in the world. via /r/architecture https://ift.tt/33tsNnS

#architecture #galbence

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midoridragonuus · 4 years

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water | arcane | nature

the world of sornieth as defined by schwartz industries

WATER

flotsam town - a large, floating city in the middle of the sea of a thousand currents. while it may seem odd, the city itself is accessible by boat and entertains many travelers and tradesmen who use the sea for transport. it's known for its close community, rowdy parties, and mixing of regional foods.

tsunami flats - a vacation spot for many light and lightning citizens. it hosts numerous campsites and has an amazing wildlife preserve for the rare species of starfish found in the pools.

churnscar wharf - the wharf is where most sea-faring folk come from. it's where they first learn to sail a ship and coast the coasts. while the largest structure is a shipyard (employing many of its citizens), the wharf also has many villages along the shore that are home to fishermen, basket weavers, and chefs. (qliphoth was born here.)

shoredeep presage - a highway that's come under scrutiny as of late because of its lack of safety measures. forged in the early days of transportation and reinforced by magic only, the presage has a history of accidents. most recently, the emperor of the thousand currents, the tidelord, had suffered an accident while traveling the presage. he is currently in critical condition and his whereabouts are unknown, though his press team has assured the people that he is fine and recovering.

the drowned sanctum - one of the prestigious universities found in sornieth. it has a history dating back over a thousand years, and is connected to the lost coliseum. this is where the legend of praetor severus, the drowned, comes from.

spiral keep - the capital of the water district. it's revered for its structural integrity (in contrast to the shoredeep presage). many architectural students from the drowned sanctum study here.

ARCANE

hoverview vale - an incredibly popular retirement spot, hoverview vale is one of the richer areas of the arcane district. because of its gorgeous views and lack of harsh weather, property prices have risen dramatically in the last few years.

oculus of the eleven/the observatory - arguably the most prestigious of the sornieth universities, the oculus is the culmination of years of research and imput from the other districts. getting a degree from the oculus is practically a guarenteed job anywhere you look. (valthaas graduated from here.) it also contains the largest observatory in sornieth, which is affiliated with the university. any astronomer worth their stuff has glanced through its telescope at least once. (sylvaranti was expelled from here.)

the focal point - an odd cliffside in the midst of the starfall isles. it contains the first evidence of extraterrestrial life, and many samples from it are currently being studied at the oculus.

the tourmaline archives - arguably more impressive than lady lightweaver's library, the tourmaline archives are ten times larger than the aforementioned, and don't require government permission to access the majority of its chambers. scholars often travel to the arcane district to try and discover something new hidden in its depths. (it is said that hallow can be found here, though there is no concrete proof it exists).

the astrolodome - the capital of the arcane district. the magic practiced by the inhabitants is so frequent and unpredictable that the arcanist had to construct a dome around the city itself to prevent damage, both inside and out. not only does it protect the outside world from new magics, but it prevents damage to those who live in the city from dangerous falling astral rain and debris caused by an overabundance of magic that draws and centers various astral phenomenon.

starwood strand - an oddity of a forest that has drawn many botanists and astrobiologists to study. its trees grow larger than those in the nature district. it's theorized that this is because the trees in the starwood strand are enhanced by extraterrestrial means, though no proof of that has been concrete. the oculus' biology department is currently trying to study the theory.

NATURE

the gladeveins - the gladeveins were the first venture into technology by the nature district. its naturalized aquaducts lead to energy production via water mills. logging was also very popular in the area, as the trees grew back faster than they could be harvested. today, the remains of the aquaducts can be seen throughout the lumbering trees, as they're kept in good condition by the neighboring wild sanctum.

the wild sanctum - one of the prestigious universities in sornieth. while it is host to medical and history students, it isn’t surprising that the majority of students are agricultural. much of its funding goes into preservation of various parts of the nature district. though rare, it also oversees and restores areas in other districts. one of its contracts is with the light district, as the university is currently restoring several paintings within the sunbeam ruins.

everbloom gardens - a beautiful tourist spot consisting of acres and acres of gardens. flowers bloom here that don't exist anywhere else. its rich, fertile soil is also the perfect testing ground for newly bred fruits and hybridizations.

the shrieking wilds - a thick, seemingly endless forest in the nature district. the trees are so close together that it creates a darkened canopy, even during daylight hours. the only reprieve comes in fall and winter, as the nature district is north enough to get snow. many of the trees turn a beautiful orange and lose leaves, causing faint sunlight to hit the forest floor. (the ju-omoi territory is located here).

the behemoth/gladebough village - the behemoth is a great tree that towers over the entire region. it's so ancient that many records dating back thousands of years mention its height being roughly the same as it is today. within is the capital city, gladebough village, where the gladekeeper resides with her oligarchal council. the currently discussed issues revolve around farmland and governmental appropriation.

the pox consulate - an abandoned embassy after the fall out between the nature and the plague district. the consulate is overgrown with weeds, and is a popular spot for ghost stories. currently, there is a biohazard sign warning the general public to keep out. those that have ventured past the warning sign have not been recovered. an investigation is ongoing.

#flight rising #sornieth wb #arcane district #water district #nature district

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farismousa · 2 years

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The Pantheon still amazes nearly 2,000 years on

Exploring the cities of Europe, you will find endless varieties of amazing architecture, from humble homes to unrivalled shows of extravagance.

On any trip abroad, I will usually discover a selection that I really admire, and I have begun writing about my favourite locations in this blog (Faris Mousa: Valencia San Sebastian)

My most recent adventure was a few days spent with my family in Rome, enjoying a city deeply rich in culture and history. And while there is much about the Italian capital to love and report back about, I think the Pantheon deserves a blog all of its own.

It’s not easy standing head and shoulders above all else in a city which was once the centre of the known world and still houses some of the most culturally significant locations of modern times, such as the Vatican.

But I have never before seen such a stunning example of human ambition, ingenuity and achievement.

Around the outside stand 24 columns, which weigh 80 tonnes each and had to be transported all the way from Egypt using a clever underwater system.

The enormous, 142 ft roof was constructed without any visible support or reinforcements. A 25 ft aperture at the top provided the building’s only light source, which would no doubt have been an even more incredible sight when all of its original treasures will still on display.

The Roman empire may not have lasted, but many of its ideas and innovations did.

Not only did they invent concrete, which remains one of the most versatile and durable construction materials, but the Pantheon’s dome is still the largest cast-concrete construction in the world.

Evidence, maybe, that nobody has done it better in the nearly 2,000 years since the Pantheon’s construction.

#Faris Mousa #FarisMousa

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mercedesitatimolina · 4 years

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Journal # 6 Architecture

1. Picture - Architectural Design – Art Deco

Wisconsin Gas Light Building 626 E Wisconsin Ave, Milwaukee WI Eschweiler & Eschweiler Built in 1930

This 20-story Art Deco skyscraper has a stepped-back, ziggurat-shaped form. It is decorated with brick patterns, terracotta designs, and organic foliage patterns. The flame at the top predicts the weather with signals in red, gold, or blue neon tubes

Source: Web page created by Mary Ann Sullivan with Art History Webmasters Association https://homepages.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/wisconsin/milwaukee/gas/eschweiler.html

2. Notes - Architectural Design – Romanesque Revival and Gothic Revival

Our Savior’s Lutheran, 1952 3022 West Wisconsin Ave Architect: Hugo Haeuser Our Saviour’s Lutheran is a transitional church design. The building form and proportions are similar to other Romanesque Revival and Gothic Revival churches. The walls lack of ornaments, the design is simplified and modern in appearance. The main feature of the building is a high-relief sculpture of “The Inviting Christ” above the entrance door. The interior of the building is tall and relatively narrow with vaulted ceiling and axial orientation, contemporary and modern design, with the structural concrete. Source: Architecture of Faith website http://architectureoffaithmilwaukee.info/V-Modernism/61-Our-Saviors-Lutheran.aspx

3. Picture – Architectural Design – Renaissance/Baroque

St. Josephat’s Catholic Basilica, 1897 601 W Lincoln Ave, Milwaukee Architects: Erhard Brielmaier and Sons

Richly ornamented walls, ceiling vaults, and colossal dome. Among pre-World War II buildings in Wisconsin. Inspired by St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, a Renaissance/Baroque church constructed in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. It has a gold cross that surmounts the dome. The dome is framed in structural steel for the construction of a large dome. Sources: Architecture of Faith website http://architectureoffaithmilwaukee.info/I-Classical-Tradition/6-St-Josaphats-Catholic-Basilica.aspx

4. Picture - Architectural Design – Modernist

War Memorial Center 750 N Lincoln Memorial Dr, Milwaukee

The War Memorial Center, completed in 1957, was designed by Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen to create a new home for two previously separate art collections and a veterans’ memorial. The modernist building is shaped like a floating cross, with wings cantilevered from a central base. Saarinen’s innovative design won praise for its dramatic use of space. Eero Saarinen’s innovative design for the War Memorial Center was influenced by the abstract geometry of modern French architect Le Corbusier. Saarinen incorporated many of Le Corbusier’s ideas: lifting the bulk of a building off the ground on reinforced columns; eliminating load-bearing walls to allow a freeform façade and open floor plan; and using plazas, courtyards, and rooftop terraces to allow an interaction between internal and external spaces. Source: Milwaukee Art Museum website https://mam.org/info/details/war-memorial.php

5. Sketch – Architectural Design – Moorish Revival and Indian Elements. Moorish Architecture style also called “Western Islamic architecture”

Tripoli Shrine Center

3000 W Wisconsin ave, Milwaukee, WI Completed in 1928. Ornate interior, trappings & fixtures. Moorish Revival and Indian elements designs. An architectural replica of India’s Taj Mahal with an ornate interior, including stunning mosaics and original art and furniture, this landmark was built in 1928 and remains the home of Milwaukee’s Shriners International. Its entrance has a wide pointed arch, the roof has a wide yellow dome with light blue decorative paint. Source: Visit Milwaukee website https://www.visitmilwaukee.org/partners/tripoli-shrine-center-1108/

6 – Notes – Architectural Design – France Second Empire Style

Name of the building: The Mitchell Building Architect: Edward Townsend Mix Address: 207 E. Michigan St. Milwaukee Year built: 1876 In 1875 Mitchell asked Edward Townsend Mix to design new quarters for the organization. Mix chose to employ a bold, flamboyant style made popular in mid-19th-century, and his works were characterized by profuse decorative detail, projecting pavilions, and mansard roofs. By 1876 Mix was well known on the Milwaukee architectural field. Decorative details included in his work are iron cresting on the roof, heavily bracketed cornices, quoins, and the general effect is monumental and ornate, appropriate to the style’s Napoleonic roots. Second Empire residences often had a simple box form, square or rectangular, and highly symmetrical. Source: Urban Milwaukee website https://urbanmilwaukee.com/building/mitchell-building/

7. Notes – Architectural Design – Victorian/Italian Renaissance Style Name of the building: Mackie Building Address: 225 E. Michigan St Milwaukee Year built: 1879 Also known as the Chamber of Commerce, the building is a Victorian landmark built in 1879 to house what was once the world’s largest grain exchange. The Italian Renaissance-style space is rich with frescoes, stained glass, columns, arches, and carvings. Gargoyles guard each corner of the bell tower atop the building. The Grain Exchange, located in downtown Milwaukee, features soaring ceilings, beautiful granite, limestone, and sandstone, and is described, architecturally, as simple Italian. The room radiates the elegance and grandeur of a bygone era, and our expertise in food and hospitality present a partnership that will create a memorable event for even the most discriminating critic. Source: The Grain Exchange Historic Milwaukee Event Venue https://www.bartolottas.com/catering/venues/grain-exchange

8. Sketch – Architectural Design – Neo Renaissance/Renaissance Revival

Milwaukee Public Library

Address: 814. W Wisconsin Ave Milwaukee Architects: Ferry & Clas Established in 1978 First opened in 1898, this imposing structure is a combination of French and Italian Renaissance styles, built of Bedford limestone and featuring a hand-carved limestone staircase. An official Milwaukee Landmark and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the original 1898 building was designed by architects Ferry & Clas in the Beaux Arts style. It features a spectacular rotunda dome and mosaic floor and interior highlights in oak, mahogany, and marble. Source: Visit Milwaukee website https://www.visitmilwaukee.org/partners/milwaukee-public-library-320/

9. Notes – Architectural Design – Gothic St. Joan of Arc Chapel on Marquette University 1442 W. Wisconsin Ave Milwaukee

Design elements are pointed arches and windows. Stein, painted, decorated glass on windows Believed to be the oldest medieval structure in the Western Hemisphere dedicated to its original purpose, this chapel stood for more than 500 years as part of a French estate and was moved to the U.S. stone- by-stone in the 1920s and to the Marquette University campus in the 1960s. Legend has it that Joan of Arc prayed before the early Gothic altar and kissed the stone where she stood, and that stone has forever remained colder than those that surround it. 15th-century chapel was originally in France and later reconstructed on the campus 1965

Source: Visit Milwaukee website https://www.visitmilwaukee.org/partners/st-joan-of-arc-chapel-1160/

10. Picture – Architectural Design – Post and Post Modernism

The Quadracci Pavilion at the Milwaukee Art Museum Address: 700 N Art Museum Drive, Milwaukee. Added to the existing building in 2001

The iconic sculptural addition to the Milwaukee Art Museum was designed by the Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava. Highlights of the building, completed in 2001, are the magnificent cathedral-like space of Windhover Hall, with a vaulted a 90-foot-high glass ceiling; the Burke Brise Soleil, a moveable sunscreen with a 217-foot wingspan that unfolds and folds twice daily; and the Reiman Bridge, a pedestrian suspension bridge that connects the Museum to the city.

Design elements are the resemblance of a sail boat, functional (control the level of light), iconic (creates a memorable image for the Museum and the city). According to Santiago Calatrava the structure responds to the culture of the lake: “the sailboats, the weather, the sense of motion and change”.

Source: MAM.org website https://mam.org/info/details/quadracci.php

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bm2ab · 5 years

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Man’s Impact on the Environment Marlborough-Blenheim Hotel Atlantic City, New Jersey

The Marlborough-Blenheim Hotel was a historic resort hotel property in Atlantic City, New Jersey, built in 1902-1906, and demolished in October 1978.

In 1900, Josiah White III bought a parcel of land between Ohio Avenue and Park Place on the Boardwalk, and built the Queen Anne style Marlborough House. The hotel was financially successful and, in 1905, he chose to expand. White hired Philadelphia architect Will Price of Price and McLanahan to design a new, separate tower to be called the Blenheim. "Blenheim" refers to Blenheim Palace in England, the ancestral home of Sir Winston Churchill, a grandson of the Duke of Marlborough.

Recent hotel fires in and around Atlantic City, Price's recent experience of designing the all-concrete Jacob Reed store in Philadelphia, and a steel strike in the fall of 1905 influenced Price's choice of reinforced concrete for the tower. It opened in 1906.

It was not the first reinforced concrete hotel in the world, as French concrete pioneer François Hennebique had designed the Imperial Palace Hotel in Nice five years previously. But it was the largest reinforced concrete building in the world.[6] The hotel's Spanish and Moorish themes, capped off with its signature dome and chimneys, represented a step forward from other hotels that had a classically designed influence.

In 1916, Winston Churchill was a guest of the hotel.

In 1977 Reese Palley and local attorney and businessman Martin Blatt bought the Marlborough-Blenheim and planned to preserve the Blenheim half of the hotel, along with adjacent Dennis Hotel for his Park Place Casino. Palley was successful in getting the Blenheim part of the hotel placed on the National Register of Historic Buildings, while planning to raze the Marlborough to make way for a new modern hotel. Ten days later, he stepped aside when Bally Manufacturing purchased a controlling interest in the project.[8] After Bally took control, they announced plans to raze the Marlborough-Blenheim and the adjacent Dennis Hotel, despite protests, to make way for the new "Bally's Park Place Casino and Hotel". However, in an effort to offset costs and get the casino opened as fast as they could they chose to keep the Dennis Hotel, which would serve as the temporary hotel for Bally's until a new tower was built.

Bally demolished the wood-framed Marlborough with the conventional wrecking ball. For the Blenheim the company hired Controlled Demolition, Inc. (CDI) and Winzinger Incorporated of Hainesport New Jersey, which had taken down the Traymore Hotel, to implode the structure. A preservation group which had sought historic status for the building won a stay of execution for the Blenheim's rotunda portion on the Boardwalk. It was separated from the rest of the hotel, which was imploded in the fall of 1978. Several months later its historic status was denied, the stay was lifted, and CDI finished the demolition January 4, 1979. It is not known if they sold the name Marlborough-Blenheim as well.

Bally's Park Place now stands at this location.

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yodapresidio · 5 years

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Did you know that the Panthéon is still the largest un-reinforced concrete dome in the world? AFTER ALMOST 2000 YEARS. Amazing, isn’t it? #italy #rome #globalwarming #hypocrite #carbonfootprint #takecareofthisplanet #offthebeatentrack #travel (at Piazza della Rotonda) https://www.instagram.com/p/B8CGbwYlRD7/?igshid=1irazn5h97mw5

#italy #rome #globalwarming #hypocrite #carbonfootprint #takecareofthisplanet #offthebeatentrack #travel

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flatpyramid-blog · 5 years

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3D Model Iron Gate Collection 3D Model

6 Iron works High resolution textures. Smootheable. Unwrapped. ************************************************************** -Model has real-world scale. -Model is centered at 0,0,0. -All object are named. -All materials are named. -No unnecessary objects. -Model looks like the thumbnails. ************************************************************** Obj, fbx and max files, are compressed in zip files with all materials, textures and folders. High resolution textures. Standard 3ds max materials and Vray materials included. with .mat and .mtl Iron Gate 01 : 37.476 polygons Iron Gate 02 : 93.982 polygons Iron Gate 03 : 48.508 polygons. Iron Fence 01 : 22,916 polygons Iron fence 02 : 5.346 polygons Iron Fence 03 : 27.337 polygons ******************************************* Detailed enough for close-up renders. Metal structures (also: metal structures, abbreviation: MK) - the general name of structures made of metals and various alloys used in various fields of human activity: the construction of buildings, machine tools, large-scale devices, mechanisms, apparatuses, etc. In mechanical engineering, metal structures are usually understood to mean parts made of profiled metal, as opposed to cast parts and forgings. In construction, the term "building metal structures" describes load-bearing steel building elements of a building made of metal. Until the beginning of the 20th century, cast iron metal constructions were mainly used in construction (mainly in columns, beams, stairs, etc.). Modern metal structures are divided into steel and from light alloys (for example, aluminum). The metal structures in terms of application can be divided into engineering structures and structures of buildings and structures. In mechanical engineering, the term “construction” is used relatively rarely, since the norms stipulate only types of products: a part, an assembly unit, a complex and a set. At the same time, the terms "designer", "design" are used in mechanical engineering very often. Typical applications enclosing elements (fences, fencing) and in the form of decoration parts of buildings, bridges, supports of something, spans, arrows, floor beams, frames for reinforced concrete structures, pile frames, tower cranes, bridge cranes, which are based on MK, blast furnace frames gas holders tanks masts power transmission towers, light metal structures (LMK) - metal structures used for the construction of buildings with large spans, light steel thin-walled structures (LSTK) - building structures of cold-formed galvanized profiles. Known metal objects The dome of St. Isaac's Cathedral in St. Petersburg with a diameter of 22 meters. The Eiffel Tower is a 300-meter tower in Paris, the capital of France. Shukhov Tower - a television tower made in the form of a bearing steel mesh shell. Located in Moscow on the street Shabolovka. Turning Torso is a skyscraper in Malmö, Sweden, located on the Swedish side of the Öresund Strait. Skyscraper Mary-Ex - a 40-story skyscraper in London, the capital of Great Britain, the design of which is made in the form of a mesh shell with a central support base. The Golden Gate Bridge - the largest suspension bridge in the world from its opening in 1937 until 1964 through the Golden Gate Strait, connects the city of San Francisco in the north of the San Francisco Peninsula and the southern part of the Marin County, near the suburb of Sausalito. JoseVK

- #3D_Model #Industrial 3D Models

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architectuul · 4 years

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FOMA 38: Five Examples of Sacral Architecture in Kaunas

In June 1940, Soviet army entered Lithuania. This was a beginning of a 50 year long occupation. Catholic Church was one of the biggest enemies of the Soviet Union. Because of atheist policy, churches and other sacral buildings of all confessions were being closed and turned into warehouses, sport halls and galleries, therefore ignoring their architectural and cultural heritage value.

The poster with the “Monumental Church of the Resurrection in Kaunas” from 1940s. | Photo via Lietuva Senose Fotografijose

A lot of valuables were stolen, but the largest damage for the buildings was done by the weigh of goods stored on wooden floors – it crippled the walls, meanwhile the humidity and rainwater which leaked through the holes in the roofs damaged the interiors of abandoned churches. [1]

St. Michael Archangel Church was transformed into the Gallery of Sculpture and Stained Glass. | Photo © Nacionalinis Čiurlionio dailės muziejus

A choice to turn a church into a warehouse is rather interesting, since a warehouse had a symbolic meaning in the Soviet Union. Some researchers believe that converting churches into warehouses “was not the abolition of the holy but, so to speak, its replacement. The warehouse is just as ideal an order in the material world as the church is in the spiritual world. The warehouse is a materialist church, but instead of collecting people who are seeking in prayer an exalted form of the soul, it houses a multitude of objects that have found a precise inventoried form.”[2]

Vilnius Cathedral Basilica in 1847 | Lithography via Katedra.lt

Nevertheless, according to various data from 1953 to 1959 nearly 15-20% of churches were closed while some of sacral buildings went through radical transformations. Vilnius Cathedral Basilica (1783) by Gucevičius was closed in 1949. During 1950 sculptures of saints, which were on the rooftop were removed and destroyed. Since the Cathedral was closed a lot of artifacts were stolen while the interior was ravaged. The Cathedral become part of the Museum of Art and was in1956 transformed into a gallery. The building was returned to the Catholic community in 1988.

Vilnius Cathedral Basilica in 1950 | Photo © S. Simanskis

A synagogue of Kulautuva constructed by Trakman (1935) was turned into the warehouse. In 1967−1968 the building was reconstructed and masoned, so that it could be used for a library and a cultural centre.

The original constructions of the synagogue were uncovered in 2016 and was due to its poor condition demolished. | Photo via autc

Kaunas and Kaunas District are well-known because of the modernist buildings that were built during the Interwar Period. Five examples of Kaunas modernism – five sacral buildings - that were pushed to the politics of the oblivion in the Soviet times and are celebrated as architectural and cultural heritage today will be presented in this edition of FOMA.

Christ’s Resurrection Church had a flat roof, what was not common for catholic churches at the time of construction. | Photos © Lukas Mykolaitis

The Christ’s Resurrection Church was designed by Karolis Reisonas in 1929 as a 82-meter tall spiral tower crowned by a 7 meter tall statue of Jesus Christ. However, this project was too pricey and not very well accepted by the people of Kaunas, therefore abandoned. A new project was inspired by modernist spirit and designed in 1932. It was believed that the new church would become a monument of XX century architecture because of its contemporary style, advanced construction and quality materials. Its size was also extraordinary and exceptional in the context of the Baltic States.

Local granite was used for the construction, and the window frames and doors were made of oak. | Photos © Lukas Mykolaitis

The construction of the church was complicated because of lack of funding. Therefore the community engaged in the collection of donations for the church. In 1938 the walls were masoned and the roof was covered in concrete. In the spring of 1940 main construction works were completed, but when Lithuania was occupied by the soviets, it stopped and the building was confiscated. During the second world war the church was used as a paper warehouse.

The inside of the church was reconstructed, adapting it to the needs of the Kaunas Radio Factory. | Photo © Kauno miesto muziejus

In 1952 a decision was made to turn the church into the Kaunas Radio Factory, later named Banga. The inside of the church was reconstructed, adapting it to the needs of the factory: three stories in the side naves and five stories in the central nave were constructed. Crosses were removed, the chapel was demolished and large industrial windows were installed.

Minija-4 produced 1967-1973 in Kaunas. | Photo © Kauno miesto muziejus

Since the opening in 2004 the church has become the dominant landmark within the cityscape. | Photos © Lukas Mykolaitis

During 1930s Vaclovas Michnevičius designed a neo-gothic church for the Evangelical and Reformed community in Kaunas and the project was not built since its design didn’t fit well with its surroundings.The other project designed by Karolis Reisonas represented current modernist trends with a flat roof, smooth shape and its functionality. Narrow vertical windows added greatness to the image of the relatively small church.

Evangelical and Reformed Church looks similar to Christ’s Resurrection, designed by same architect. | Photo © Skeivys, 1956, KTU ASI archive.

The Evangelical and Reformed Church was finished in 1940 and remained unused due to the Soviet occupation. The top part of the tower was torn down, the building was nationalised and turned into the warehouse for tobacco and alcohol manufacturers. Afterwards was given to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which adapted it for the use of special school. When Lithuania regained its independence in 1990, most of the churches were given back to religious communities, however, this case was different: since the owner of the building was an educational institution, the rules of returning the property did not apply. For nearly 20 more years the Evangelical and Reformed Church in Kaunas was used as a sports hall and a canteen, until 2019 when the church was given back to the community.

The believers were allowed to pray on Sundays. | Photo Wikimedia

Pažėrai Sacred Heart Church, a masterpiece by Stasys Kudokas, was built in a small village of Pažėrai in Kaunas district. The construction started in 1936 and was funded by the catholic community. The construction of modernist red-brick building was interrupted during the Soviet occupation. In 1967 the function of Pažėrai Sacred Heart Church changed as it was given to a collective farm and used as a grain warehouse.

The church has two towers, with a high raised apse and the main space of the building is covered by a dome. | Photo © Lukas Mykolaitis, 2018

When Lithuania regained the independence, the church was returned to the congregation in 1991.The reconstruction began shortly afterwards and in 1997 the nearly-finished church was consecrated. The plan of the church in the form of a Greek cross has an unique, dynamic composition, and it is an example of rational modernist architecture.

Kaunas Mosque also known as Vytautas the Great Mosque is one of four remaining mosques in Lithuania. Its design reminds the mosques in Northern Africa, a compact, small-volume mosque combines historical forms with oriental motifs like an elliptical dome and a small minaret, which was never used for its traditional purpose.

Kaunas had a wooden mosque built in 1860. | Source postcard from 1940s

In 1941 the mosque was closed and robbed: its windows were smashed, carpets, furniture and ancient hand-written Quran were stolen. The ownership rights were transferred to Kaunas City Archive which turned the building into a warehouse. In 1986 the building became a library and a warehouse of M. K. Čiurlionis Museum of Art. During the soviet times murals were painted over and there are plans to recover the old murals by 2030 when the mosque will celebrate its 100 anniversary.

The mosque was returned to the Muslim community of Kaunas in 1989 and restored in 2007-2008. | Photo © Lukas Mykolaitis, 2017

Sacred Heart of Jesus Church in Šančiai neighborhood is a great example of modernist sacral architecture. The church is built of reinforced concrete, the nave is covered by supporting arches and the caisson shell. The exterior is minimalist and composed of regular geometric shapes: square front door and narrow rectangular windows.

During the war, the church was damaged, instead of stained-glass window a brick wall was built. | Photo © Justinas Stonkus, 2020

Kaunas2022 European Capital of Culture program Modernism for the Future tackles the questions of preservation, interpretation and dissemination of modernist heritage and promotes various initiatives by building owners, heritage community and cultural organizations.

[1] R. Čepaitienė. Vilniaus bažnyčių likimas sovietmečiu (1944-1990). Liaudies kultūra, 2002/5 (86), p. 32-37.

[2] M. Epstein. Russo-Soviet Topoi. The Landscape of Stalinism: The Art and Ideology of Soviet Space.ed. E. Dobrenko, E. Naiman. University of Washington Press, 2011, p. 301.

—

#FOMA 38: Ugne Marija Andrijauskaite

Ugne Marija Andrijauskaite is a historian, who investigates social and cultural history of XX century Lithuania. In 2017 she defended her PhD thesis, which investigated urban workers and organized labour movement in interwar Lithuania. Currently she is working at Kaunas2022 European Capital of Culture program Modernism for the Future. The goal of the program is to awaken responsibility for the environment that surrounds us and create an emotional connection with the urban landscape and culture.

#foma #forgotten masterpieces

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sweatshirtbrigade · 7 years

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World Architecture: A Comparative Review

About the Author

Finbar MacGuffin currently attends the Imperial Academy of the Sciences at Gestalt, majoring in civil engineering and heavy construction. At 16, he is among the youngest students in the history of the program. He was born in citadel at Threshold, capital of the the district of Campbell in the Western Colonies. [Leave this out, Barry; you’re this close to the degree.]

Introduction

Many architectural styles present throughout the planet have parallels to cultures preceding the ancestral Leveler culture as attested in the printed records. In many cases, drawing from these blueprints and designs yielded really remarkably stable structures, often with distinctive profiles and aesthetics that became preferred by a specific modern culture or sovereign state. This paper article provides an overview of the principal architectural styles paradigms adopted by the sovereign states and analyzes their origins and respective strengths.

Meridian

The Meridian Empire known today was formed consolidated from the union of crowns between the two nations entities that once occupied the namesake continent, Gran and Sapiria. The current public and palatial architectural paradigm of the Meridian Empire is derived from the national traditions and industries of the two countries its rich national tradition and industrial prowess, fusing stone, wood, colored glass and metalwork in increasingly ornate artistic designs.

Many cues in Meridian architecture derive from ancestral styles called neoclassical and baroque, one not favored by the Levelers but was well-documented among their predecessors. Public and palatial buildings tended to be ornamented spaces that were vast and cavernous yet understated, with few but lavish furnishings in between.

Flourishes are common in larger buildings and take the form of both organic and geometric ornamentation in the roofs, windows, doorways, and walls. Support structures such as vaults, coffers, pillars, and columns are often just as decorative as they are structural.

Columns, brickwork, and domes are even present in buildings that do not require such structural flourishes, such as skyscrapers built from internal skeletons or steel or reinforced concrete. From the outside, they resemble other, smaller Meridian buildings, albeit with significantly more floors; this adherence to tradition sets Meridian high rise development apart aesthetically from their counterparts in Shinar and the United Federation.

Skyscraper development is mostly restricted to special unobtrusive districts in key commercial cities like Hanlon [I have an apartment there. Spectacular views!], and with few exceptions is seen largely as a novelty rather than a strict necessity. Urban development in Meridian cities typically favored terraced housing, with many neighborhoods comprising of blocked rows of terraced houses homes and shops surrounding manicured garden squares.

Meridian buildings outside of those of the vernacular are rarely arbitrarily built. Urban planning is of immense importance. Well-kept streets, beautiful vistas, and well-directed road and pedestrian traffic serve the key purposes of maintaining social control order

Royal Concord

A continent of immense cultural diversity, Concord had for much of its history been the haven for the surviving ancestral religions, and; their profound impact on the people’s way of life is very prominently displayed in the Royalist school of architecture. The largest and most predominant religion in the region, Islam, is the primary influence of the Royal Concord architectural style.

The architects of Royal Concord used a style that strongly preferred geometric patterns, as attested by the records in their own national libraries. This can be seen is best demonstrated in their preference for carefully laid out complicated patterns in their ornamentation and the near-perfect obsessive geometry of their buildings. Hexagonal and rectilinear plans, elegant arches, and semicircular domed roofs are commonplace.

The chief religion of the Royal Concordians focused on the star Sol, and cities were carefully planned to accommodate and track this star that they may direct worship toward it. Observatories are a frequent feature in many cities and frequently perform double duty as exceptionally large city planning tools.

Theirs was a style focused on creating large, airy spaces, and relied on architectural shapes and features to heat and cool buildings. Stone, brick, and wood were often used in both ornamental and functional tandem. Concordian architecture is especially famous for chiefly utilizes ambient and energy-saving modes of structural temperature control; Concordian homes are relatively cool in summer and warm in winter, needing very little in the way of mechanized central heating or cooling.

Even among wealthy households, Concordian rooms tend to be more compact (palaces have many rooms and often house huge families), with only large common rooms being the few rooms of any considerable size [This is a redundancy], yet are more than likely to be well furnished with both lavish decorations and items of comfort. The sole exception are rooms in public spaces, designed to have plenty of occupants and are thus appropriately sized.

Bufferia Republican Concord

Few examples remain of the vernacular wood cabin constructions that dominated the region known as Bufferia Concord’s separatist western frontier. The Republican government regime that now controls the country region had favored utilizing a unified [and ugly, if you remember what we talked about in class] architectural style to distance their country from the Royalists across the border.

The breakaway Republic of Bufferia republican separatists thus represents a huge leap toward the opposite direction when it came to architecture aesthetic leap backwards. Whereas the Royal Concord style favored a lacy, airy aesthetic, the Bufferian Republican Concordian style preferred large solid-looking hideous [I wanted to keep that in, but the committee didn’t let me] edifices designed to evoke ponderous size. Its chief influences had been Brutalism and Socialist Realism, architectural movements that naturally favored size. and favored by corrupt tyrants.

Much like Meridian and their royalist counterparts, the Republican Concordians put immense value in city planning. For the past 80 years, the Republican regime had been obsessed with maintaining social control through the utilization of public spaces. Communal housing is the norm for the workers in the country outside the higher echelons of government. Homes are small apartments in medium-sized multistory buildings surrounded by large public plazas. Most activities are directed toward common rooms and open public spaces.

Overcompensation is the order of the day in Republican Concordian monumental architecture. Public buildings and open spaces tend to be large, showy affairs. The grandiose imagery created by the monuments is ultimately propagandistic, designed to make individual onlookers seem small and feel insignificant. [I like this!]

United Federation

The United Federation began as a collection of nations rather than a single entity, and thus a variety of styles has emerged across its borders. Prior to the advent of internal unification—the gradual process that marked the creation of the Federation as a functional union—each of the individual cantons of the country favored a specific architectural style.

Pascal, the one with the longest history of bilateral relations with the Meridian Empire, has plenty of Meridian influences, up until sharing many of its aesthetics. Pascalese buildings are frequently beautiful Neoclassical- or Palladian-influenced structures faced with vermilion brick, white stone, or whitewashed clapboard, and crowned with slate tiles.

[Barry, this section seems overly long and could count as a distinct article on its own. If you’re still keen on writing about this, we can grant you a separate article for the journal that focuses on the comparison of Federation and Imperial Meridian architectural aesthetics.]

Other places known for neoclassical influence in architecture is Jejima. Both northern and southern entities prefer a style of Neoclassical- and Baroque-influenced construction called Antillean suited for the continent’s predominant warm weather. Chief differences between the north and south are the materials utilized. Northern buildings are typically made of stone or adobe, and are plastered with a light-colored insulating stucco that is decorated accordingly, whereas southern buildings are built with a stone or brick foundation or ground floor, with subsequent floors being made of breezy, airy wood. A variation of the Antillean used by the Northern Jimans, only completely made of wood, is utilized in the Principality of Barrie.

Exterior and interior ornamentation are both high priority in both Pascalese and Jiman architecture. This is not universally the case in other Federation cultures. Belisarians favor an austere, minimalist vernacular style of plaster and lacquered wood, whereas fired mud brick, flat roofed architecture (a variant of a much older style called Sahelian) is preferred by cantons of the Mainland’s equatorial coast. The Rads typically utilize an architectural aesthetic (fittingly) known as the Federal style, a less ornamented derivative of the neoclassical styles utilized by the Pascalese.

Teslan architecture comes in two forms; semi-permanent tents its people once used before transitioning to a modern, settled state, and the square-shaped desert block houses they built afterward. The distinct shape of the tents still dominates the appearance of modern buildings in the canton and elsewhere.

Unique shapes are also present in the upturned eaves, intricate timber framing, and hipped-gabled roofs of the Poldevians, a style much like the ones utilized by the Belisarians in their temples and feudal strongholds, albeit with much more prominent and distinctive ornamentation. The Poldevians were a martial, imperial culture and originally favored expressions of social order as expressed in architectural and urban planning much like in Meridian, as expressed in the government districts surrounding their imperial cities. Specific styles utilized in Poldevian cities include the linear Zakumen, prevalent in the frigid islands, and the dense Lingnan, which predominate the crowded urban landscapes of its capital in the mainland.

Contrasting this is the vernacular architecture of the Chapekians and the Shires, which favored timber-framed buildings with the same stone or masonary foundations used in Jejima. Timber-framed housing was also popular in areas like Stephensonia and, to a limited extent, the Shires, which have also largely adopted the Palladian and Neoclassical styles used by Jejima and Pascal.

The Federation’s modern architecture, however, is unique in its preference for reflective materials like steel, aluminum, and glass. It is today the most popular and recognizable of Federation architecture, shown through the ubiquity of geometric modern and postmodern styles, reminiscent of large glass shards, visible in all its cities. The Federation had been built on infrastructure, and its gradual move toward less ornamental architectural styles reflects this.

Moreover, the spread of the modern and postmodern styles had been the subject of contention within the cantons itself. While many are happy with the appearance of the structures as is, many others claim that the genericized appearance of the buildings lack both soul and national character. [Spot on!] Many postmodern structures, especially in the Canton of Pascal, have been built at the expense of older traditional buildings. Critics have also lambasted the trends of façadism, a faux-historicist compromise wherein a postmodern building incorporates the restored façade of a demolished traditionalist structure.

Republic of Shinar

Shinar began as a colony of Meridian, and its older buildings reflect the aesthetic influence of the Meridian Empire. This is exemplified by the former Winter Palace at Babel [The traitor’s capital!], once a retreat for the Meridian Imperial family. One of the few remaining Meridian architectural structures in the former colony [Barbarians.], today it serves as both a museum and as the headquarters of the newly opened Meridian Imperial embassy.

Prior to the revolution, the Shinarians were experimenting in wide-scale skyscraper development, utilizing a style called Art Deco. Although this style is hardly unique to the Shinarians [Plagiarists.], it has become so ubiquitous within the country’s densely overpopulated southern megalopolis that it has become a recognizable mark of Shinarian [”]culture.[”]

The southern Shinarian cities are immensely built up overpopulated areas dominated by colossal skyscrapers with many skywalks surrounding them. They are the world’s most crowded densely populated urban spaces, carrying more people per square kilometer than any city before or since. [It’s fine on it’s own, but try to spin this as the bad thing that it likely is.]

The resultant urban canyons and the shadows cast by the skyscrapers and elevated rails and highways that dominate them blot out the sun completely in some places [”Urban planning” my @$$.]. Shinar’s nighttime urban landscapes are dominated by the intense otherworldly glow of multicolored lighting, especially prominent in the lower levels far removed from the old urban core Meridian-built old city.

Barry

Excellent first draft. Review and apply my changes to the initial article, then talk to me again. With a bit of work, we should be ready for the panel defense in two to three weeks’ time.

Yours,

Professor Rosamund Croft, CEng, MIIMMechE Imperial Academy of the Sciences, Gestalt

Citizen in the Service of His Majesty, Frederick III Blackheart, By Grace of the Ancestral Peoples, Emperor of Meridian

#Sweatshirt Brigade #world building #architecture #aesthetics #design #architectural styles and paradigms #nations #propaganda #Character: Finbar MacGuffin #Character: Professor Rosamund Croft #World Building June 2017

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tripsterguru · 5 years

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Wroclaw attractions - 25 most interesting places

New Post has been published on https://tripsterguru.com/wroclaw-attractions-25-most-interesting-places/

Wroclaw attractions - 25 most interesting places

Wroclaw – the capital of Silesia and the fourth most populated city in Poland, used to be called Breslavl, which sounds in German like Breslau. The city is famous for a large number of bridges (Odra and its 4 tributaries flow along it) and numerous places associated with its historical, cultural and religious past. Let’s talk about the most interesting sights of Wroclaw.

City Hall

In the main square of Wroclaw, one of the most striking sights is located – the town hall, built in the early Gothic style in the 13th century. The architecture of the town hall of extraordinary beauty attracts crowds of tourists admiring the pointed domes, towers and delicate ligature of metal decorations on the central facade. In 1945, the town hall was almost completely destroyed, but the Poles restored their original appearance, preserving a wonderful monument of majestic antiquity.

On the south side of the facade, under the triangle of the pediment, an astronomical clock is installed, are also the subject of attention of visitors. On the eastern wall, on a high domed tower, there are other mechanical watches with a battle. Everyone who comes to Wroclaw comes to the Town Hall.

Royal Palace

Despite the relatively young age of the palace (built in 1717), the building underwent many restructures in its history, reflecting the ambitions and requests of several owners of the palace. The Prussian king, who initially owned the idea of building, ordered the palace in the Venetian style, very fashionable in the 18th century. The new owner – the Prussian king Friedrich, having bought it, instructed the chief court architect Bumann to improve the building, expanding it and adding elements of the Baroque style from the outside – and elements of the Rococo inside.

As a result, the Royal Halls of receptions and celebrations and the private chambers of the Royal Majesty were decorated with magnificent splendor. The palace began to look more majestic and externally. But the descendant of Frederick the Great wanted to add classicism to the palace, which was entrusted to the architect Langhans, who in 1795 added a new staircase, several outbuildings and utility rooms.

However, in 1846, transformations were still made in the spirit of the fashion trends of the Florentine Renaissance: a building was added on the south side, wings were expanded inside the courtyard.

In 1926, when the palace became the property of the city, the Palace Museum was opened in it, with an exhibition dedicated to Frederick the Great. The royal splendor of the interiors was removed, and the main exhibits of the museum were objects of arts and crafts of Silesia.

After serious destruction in 1945, the palace was partially demolished, and the Archaeological and Ethnographic museums were placed in the remaining rooms. To pay tribute to the historical past, in 2004 began a major reconstruction of the palace, which lasted 4 years, and in 2008 the Royal Palace was opened in it, which became a museum of the whole history of Wroclaw. The majestic buildings of the palace symbolize the power and inviolability of power of the Polish kings, the strong foundations of modern Wroclaw.

Its architecture embodied the majestic severity of classicism, the splendor of baroque and rococo, the grace and irresistible beauty of modernity. The courtyard of the palace is a real masterpiece of street design art: curly green lawns surround a fountain surrounded by statues depicting representatives of the royal dynasties of Poland.

Thousands of tourists are eager to get here, on one of Wroclaw’s most interesting excursions.

Wroclaw Cathedral

Two tall 98-meter high Gothic spiers of a unique cathedral are visible from afar, representing examples of 13th century Gothic architecture. The cathedral is unique in its age: it is considered the very first Gothic cathedral in Poland, built in 1272. Otherwise, it is called the Cathedral of the Patron Saint and Defender of Wroclaw – St. John the Baptist, which deservedly has the status of the most important church not only in the city, but in the whole of Lower Silesia.

Like many other historical sites, the cathedral was badly damaged during the Second World War, but was carefully restored: the best restorers painstakingly recreated the Baroque interiors, made beautiful stained glass windows, which are truly artistic masterpieces.

Inside the church there are chapels built in the 14-16th century, wall panels and decorations of which represent centuries-old spiritual art. The central hall with an altar of white marble, with magnificent statues of saints, with elegant gilding details is unusually beautiful.

The organ, established in 1913, was for several years the largest among the church organs of Poland and the whole world. A reverent respect for the instrument allows it to sound powerful during ceremonial ceremonies and various events. People come here to Cathedral Street to listen to spiritually uplifting music, climb the towers of the cathedral and see below the amazingly beautiful perspective of the ancient Polish monument city.

Zoo

One of the oldest zoos in Poland was opened at the time when the city was called Breslau and belonged to Prussia (1865). Then it had the status of a zoological garden, because its entire territory was literally buried in the greenery of trees and shrubs. Against the backdrop of charming natural landscapes, enclosures with animals and birds were placed. For a long “life” the zoo has undergone many reconstructions and improvements and is now the most beautiful and beloved place for visitors to entertain and watch the “little brothers”.

On an area of 33 hectares there are more than 7000 representatives of tetrapods, birds, amphibians, marine creatures and other individuals (850 species). In a huge aquarium live sharks, rays, whales. Different species of ecosystems are inhabited by rare specimens of animals and birds, which not everyone can see in the natural environment. A visit to the Wroclaw Zoo is an unforgettable journey into the richest world of fauna of our planet.

Address: st. Wrobiewskieqo, 1-5.

Open: every day, 09.00-16.00; Afrikarium: poned. – 10.30-18.00, ex. and idle. – 09.00-19.00.

Admission Fee (PLN): adult – thirty; Stud. up to 26 liters – 25 (on Wednesdays – 10); the seventh (2 adults and 3 children) – 50; pension., inv. – 10 (Thursday).

Century Hall

This grandiose architectural monument commemorates the centenary of the liberation battle of the Poles against the Germans at Leipzig in 1813. In honor of this significant event, in 1907, the authorities organized an exhibition with the projects of architectural masterpieces presented at it, designed to capture the 100th anniversary of the liberation of the city from Prussia in a monumental structure. The large-scale expensive project of Wroclaw architect Max Berg was chosen.

As a result, a real architectural colossus of reinforced concrete and glass of the original design of a round shape, vys. 42 m., With the upper dome – the national pride of Poland. The floors are arranged in the form of a spiral tapering upwards. The huge ceremonial hall is able to accommodate 6,000 people. It is surrounded by spacious corridors, 56 exhibition rooms. By the inauguration of the Hall, the largest in the world, a majestic organ that served until 1946 was installed in it.

Address: Szczytnice Park, Wroclaw, 1 Wystawowa.

Working hours:

Apr-Oct: Mon-Fri, 09.00-18.00; Fri-Sat, 09.00-19.00; Sun – 09.00-18.00 November-March: every day, 09.00-17.00 Entrance (in zloty): adult – 12, concessionary – 9 A group of 10 people. each – 8 zlotys. Seventh (2 adults + 2 children. Up to 16 years – 30 PLN.

Raclawice panorama

In fact, this monumental artwork is unique not only for its impressive dimensions (114 mx 15 m), high visual qualities, but also its historical significance. The Racławice panorama is an artistic story of an episode of the liberation movement of the Poles led by T. Kosciuszko – the battle of Racławice against the Russians on 04.04.1794. The magnificent panorama was created in honor of the 100th anniversary of this victorious battle: the talented artists Joint and Kossak worked on it for almost a year. They painted on a special canvas ordered in Belgium, using 750 kg of paints.

The finished work was placed in the rotunda of Austrian design in Lviv in 1894, at the opening of the General Exhibition. The panoramic canvas was damaged by bombing in 1944, and in 1946 it was transferred to Wroclaw, where it was stored for a long time in folded form. In 1985, after a thorough restoration, the panorama was put on display in a specially erected round building, which became a place of pilgrimage for tourists and local residents.

Address: st. Yana Purkinyi, 11, Entrance ticket – 25 PLN, it includes a visit to the National and Ethnographic museums.

Synagogue “Under the White Stork”

As the name of a religious institution is unusual, so is its history. Built in the 19th century, it managed to survive in the cruel times of the Holocaust, like the mythical bird Phoenix, as a symbol of the victory of good over evil. The synagogue received an unusual name for its status from the eponymous zucchini that once stood here.

In Nazi occupation Poland, it was cynically used by the Nazis as a clothing storehouse for looted property, and its yard served as the starting point for Jews in concentration camps and crematoriums. After the war ended, the Jewish Church became the center of a new Jewish community, where people came to pray and communicate. But after II WW in Wroclaw, the synagogue was subjected to repeated cases of vandalism, and during the anti-Semitic company, it generally lost the status of the church.

For 20 years, there was a library and a music academy in its walls, only in 1995 a private company bought the building from the municipality and returned it to the Jewish community. From the former luxurious decoration in it there was only a skilful wooden carving on the arches. Restoration work was completed in 2010. Now prayers, music concerts, lectures, exhibitions, and theater performances are held in the synagogue.

Address: st. Vlodkovitsa, 7, near the Krupnitsky bridge.

The entrance is free.

Cathedral of St. Mary Magdalene

The church, built in strict Gothic style in the 14th century, is not the first Catholic church in this place. Prior to this, two cathedrals managed to stand here, one of which was built in the 11th century, and the second in the 13th. The first was barbarously destroyed by the Mongols, the second – burned down in 1342. The current church of St. Mary Magdalene pleases parishioners already in the 7th century, although during this time it also affected the destruction.

The painstaking restoration work going on in the 20th century not only returned the shrine to its former appearance, but added new elements. A 12th-century Romanesque-style portal was delivered from the Albanian Benedictine monastery to the church of St. Mary and Vincent. The holy entrance has become a real gem of the cathedral: relief images of griffins, roses, plots from the children’s life of Christ are an invaluable relic.

The interior of the central hall of the cathedral is majestically solemn, devoid of lavish pretentiousness, but full of light peace. It is this environment that corresponds to the modest appearance of St. Mary.

Address: st. Olovska, 19.

Admission is free. The cost of climbing cathedral towers is 5 zł.

Old city prison

It is easy to imagine the amazement of an uninitiated visitor to a beer cellar located in a corner building at the intersection of Prison and Nozhovnichy streets when he finds out that he is drinking beer in a former torture room. This is true, because the building with the pub is a former ancient prison, built in the 14th century. At first, the relatively small square building by the 17th century became rectangular due to the outbuildings in which there was a need.

The prison housed 100 prisoners, prisoners of the lower classes, the most dangerous criminals sentenced to death were kept in underground rooms. High-ranking, noble inhabitants of this gloomy institution were located on the ground floor. In the 20th century, the building was restored 2 times, and after the war, 41-45. it lost its prison status: the Institute of Archeology and Ethnology was opened in it. The old name was assigned to a summer cafe opened in a former prison yard. Only the inscriptions of former prisoners carved on the walls remind of the prison. Traditional Wroclaw attractions – funny gnomes – look cute and harmless against their background.

Address: st. Prison, 9, next to the Market Square.

Sculptural group “Transition 1977-2005”

Initially, until 1981, this composition was located in the center of Warsaw, but then it was dismantled, and it was restored only after 24 years, but not in the capital of Poland, but in Wroclaw. This is a monument to victims of martial law. The sculptural composition consists of two elements, each of which includes 7 figures of people, some of which go underground, and the other part, on the contrary, leaves the earth. The first part symbolizes citizens missing during martial law, the second – people who decided to fight and eventually defeated the military regime in the country. The composition is set in a place where, during the difficult political situation in the country, the most active demonstrations and rallies took place.

Catholic church of St. Elisabeth

Church of St. Elisabeth, located on the market square, was built in the 14th century. Over its centuries-old history, the building suffered several fires, due to which the tower and spire suffered the most, by the way, they have not been restored yet and stand out from the general view of the church. In addition to fires, the church of St. Elisabeth was destroyed due to a powerful hurricane in the first half of the 16th century, which destroyed its tower.

The church is made in the Gothic style and is considered one of its best representatives in Europe. On the bell tower of the church, whose height is 90 meters, there is a small observation deck with a magnificent view of the city, and in good, clear weather on the horizon you can see the mountains. A narrow spiral staircase inside the tower leads to the observation deck. The interiors of the Church of St. Elisabeth are decorated with beautiful elegant stained glass windows.

Yas and Malgosia houses

Near the church of St. Elisabeth there are 2 houses that got their names by the names of the heroes of a folk tale, the more famous analogue of which is the German fairy tale of the Brothers Grimm about Hansel and Grettel. The houses of Yas and Malgosia are all that remains of the medieval quarter, where artisans, ringleaders and merchants lived. Two houses, standing at an angle to each other, are made in similar restrained tones: one painted in creamy white, the other in pink and white. The buildings are interconnected by an arch, which forms a passage to the church of St. Elisabeth. Today, the houses of Yas and Malgosia are one of the most popular tourist destinations in Wroclaw, which is found in all guidebooks.

Wroclaw Opera

Wroclaw Opera was built in the 19th century by Karl Ferdinand Langgans. The building, made in the classical style, is recognized as a historical architectural monument. The opera was damaged by flooding in the late 20th century, but was soon completely restored. Her repertoire is very wide and offers the audience works of opera and ballet of different styles and eras, including works by Mozart and Prokofiev. Sometimes the Wroclaw opera gives its performances not in the theater building, but on city platforms: in parks, squares, and in the National Museum. The cost of tickets to the opera varies from 20 to 300 Polish zlotys.

National Music Forum

The National Music Forum is a modern cultural institution built several years ago, which is one of the largest European music centers. In the NFM building there is a recording studio, conference rooms, a library, offices, rehearsal rooms, as well as 4 concert halls with a total capacity of more than 2500 people. The PFM organizes the activity of 11 musical groups of the city. Large international festivals are held in the building of the National Music Forum, tickets for which, as well as for regular concerts, can be bought at the box office or on the official website, where you can also find the full NFM repertoire.

National Museum

The National Museum is one of the most famous and popular museums in the city. It was built in the 19th century and is similar to traditional German art museums. The exposition of the national museum mainly consists of paintings and sculptures, mostly from the creations of local masters. The first floor is devoted to religious subjects, on the second and third floors there are statues, paintings, some of which are dated to the 13-17th centuries, jewelry, sarcophagi and furniture decorated with handmade carving. The museum building itself looks very unusual: it is almost completely covered with climbing plants, and it seems that it has been abandoned for many centuries.

Koleikovo

The Kolejkovo Museum, located in the building of the old railway station near the market square, is Poland’s largest railway model with a total length of 430 meters of railways. The model shows 15 trains running along its territory, the total number of wagons of which is 60, as well as more than 1000 figures of people who are not just randomly arranged, but form certain scenes from life: a wedding, a performance by a local musical group, workers resting after a hard time working day at a local bar.

And all this is so elaborated and detailed that you can see what kind of food the wedding guests have or the prices of vegetables on the local market. Koleykovo is a great place that will be interesting not only for children but also for adults, because it literally returns to childhood.

Hydropolis.

Hydropolis is a modern interactive museum, equipped in a former drinking water tank. This place will let you know almost everything about water. There are equipped lecture halls with projectors, multimedia laboratories, in which master classes and experiments with water are held. Visitors can see an exact copy of the Trieste bathyscaphe, which made a record dive into the Mariana Trench in 1960, mock-ups of unusual inhabitants of the ocean, as well as a mock-up of an example of ancient marine engineering – the ancient Greek ship Siracusa.

It works daily, on weekdays from 9:00 to 18:00, on weekends from 10:00 to 20:00. The entrance ticket costs 27 zlotys, a discount ticket for children under 18 years of age and pensioners costs 18 zlotys, a family ticket that allows two adults and two children to visit the attraction costs 72 zlotys.

University of Wroclaw

The university was opened in 1702, and in 1945-1946 after the end of the Second World War it was reorganized and received the status of a state. However, the first attempts to create a university in Wroclaw date back to the beginning of the 16th century, when King Vladislav II Jagiellon signed a decree on the creation of a higher educational institution, but that period was accompanied by constant wars and armed conflicts, so the idea of establishing a university had to be abandoned.

In 1638, a school was opened in Wroclaw, on the basis of which 65 years later the University of Leopoldin was created, named after the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I, who signed a decree on its creation. Today, more than 31 thousand students study at the university, and among its graduates there are such outstanding personalities as the world famous singer Anna German and the director, one of the founders of the Polish film school, Stanislav Lenartovich.

Train Station

The railway station was built in 1857 in the undeveloped area of Wroclaw, then part of Prussia. The first work to expand the station was carried out at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. and were finished in 1904. During the Second World War, the building of the railway station was seriously damaged, and warehouses and shelters were built under the forecourt. At the end of World War II, the station was repaired, having built at the same time premises for a small cinema. A few years ago, the railway station was overhauled, the number of platforms was increased, and shelters from the Second World War were converted into a parking lot.

Sky Tower

Sky Tower (Sky Tower) – a skyscraper, which is the tallest building in the city, the third tallest building in the country, was built in 2012. Sky Tower is a complex consisting of three buildings, the first of which is given to galleries and an entertainment center, the second contains residential apartments and offices, the third building is also occupied by apartments and offices, and also has the highest observation deck in Poland, which opens panoramic view of the city. Entrance fee – 10 zł.

Grunwald Bridge

The Grunwald Bridge is one of the longest bridges in Poland (112 meters), built more than 100 years ago, in 1910. At the grand opening personally attended by Emperor Wilhelm II. In different years it was called the Imperial Bridge and the Liberty Bridge. The Grunwald Bridge connects the old part of Wroclaw with the Tumsky Island, separated from each other by the Oder River.

Tumsky bridge

Tumsky Bridge leads from the old city to Tumsky Island, where the Catholic Church, University Library and Elena Chodkowski School of Management and Law are located. This pedestrian steel bridge was built in 1889 on the site of an old wooden bridge. Before entering the bridge from the side of the old city, statues of saints Jadwiga and John the Baptist are installed. For tourists, the bridge is familiar from the frames from the movie “Kill the Dragon” directed by Mark Zakharov.

Shchitnitsky park

Szczytnice Park is one of the largest parks in Wroclaw, with an area of about 100 hectares. The park arose in the 18th century, when local residents chose a forested area near the village of Shchitniki and began to regularly get out here for the weekend. At the end of the 18th century. garrison commander Breslau F.L. Hohenlohe acquired part of the forest park on which he created the park in the English style. In the 19th century For over 70 years, horse racing has been held here. In the park there is a wooden church of St. John of Nepomuk, built in the late 16th – early 17th century. It is interesting that the church was originally located in another place and was transferred to the Shchitnitsky park only in 1913.

Japanese garden

The Japanese Garden is a garden and park complex that is part of the Schitnitsky Park, created in the early 20th century by Count Fritz von Hochberg. The famous Japanese gardener Mankishi Arai took part in the creation of the park, whose work and stone fragments brought from Japan predetermined the unique style of the garden.

The Japanese garden was abandoned during the First World War and was restored only in 1997, but after 2 months it was seriously damaged due to severe flooding. The new restoration of the garden took 2 years. The Wroclaw Japanese Garden is a real oasis of Japan in the center of Europe, on its territory there are several fish ponds, artificial waterfalls and arbours made in the Japanese style. Today, the Japanese Garden is one of the main places of rest in the city for locals and tourists.

Light and music fountain

The musical fountain, opened in 2009, is located near the visual-sports hall “Centennial Hall” in Szczytnice Park. The area of the fountain pool, which has 300 taps for water supply, is about 1 hectare. In addition to water taps, fire nozzles and many points of light supply are installed in the fountain, as well as a projector and a laser system, thanks to which local residents and guests of the city can watch a magnificent light-music performance in the evening. The fountain is open from late April to late December, and in winter it is used as an open ice rink.

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