I don't always go to church on Sundays, but when I do, it's a pink church.
I really wish that was true.
Chesme church by architect Yury Felten in St. Petersburg, Russia. Picture credits: Wikimedia Commons (where it was the picture of the day today/yesterday, depending on where in the world you are).
"You disgrace to the noble architecture of these columns!" - Henry Higgins in George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, the play on which the musical and film My Fair Lady is based
The other day, a friend of mine suggested we should go see the new Oslo production of this timeless piece of musical silliness, and suddenly, I was humming the old children's song with lines that go like this:
London Bridge is falling down,
Falling down, falling down,
London Bridge is falling down,
My fair lady.
According to Wikipedia's excellent article about this verse, which is referencing Studwell, 1996, this is probably (???!?) where the musical took its name from. The rhyme is part of an old song about building a bridge using all sorts of materials (wood and clay will was away, iron and steel will bend and bow, etc.). A charmingly illustrated note sheet from 1877 looks like this:
I'm not really sure which one of these guys is the architect, but the old architect's symbol can be found on top of the stone plate being carried by that really muscular man. Maybe it's him?
London Bridge in the late 19th century
London Bridge is a name that has been carried by several bridges throughout the ages. The one pictured on the note sheet was only 40 years at the time, replacing a medieval bridge which stood 30 m downstream. The 1831 bridge was later bought and moved to Arizona, USA, by Robert McCulloch, for a new planned community called Lake Havasu City, after this bridge had been slowly sinking into the Thames since the end of the 19th century. (Nasty rumors have it that he thought he was buying the iconic Tower Bridge.)
Not London Bridge
The reconstructed bridge was finished in 1971, and was in London replaced by a neutrally looking concrete bridge.
The reconstructed London Bridge in Arizona
The current London Bridge
The coolest bridge, though, was the medieval one. Construction began in 1176, but wasn't finished before 1209, 33 years later. Then again, this bridge would last for another 600 years.
From the very beginning, houses with shops, dwellings, water wheels, squares and chapels were built on top of London Bridge, almost forming a continuous street instead of giving the feeling of walking on a bridge. This was partially done to pay for the extremely expensive construction, but also looked really neat.
The infamous Nonsuch house (as in 'nothing quite like it') was perhaps the most outstanding building on the bridge, and can be seen in the middle of this picture. (It's the one with the red, yellow and white facade, topped by four blue onion domes.) To cross the bridge, you actually had to go right through many of the houses, out of which several leaned as far as seven feet out over the water.
The bottom picture shows London Bridge c. 1750, shortly before all the houses were demolished to make way for traffic. The bridge itself stood until 1831, when it was replaced by the bridge now standing in Arizona.
And then only one question remains: Who was this Fair Lady? There are several suggestions, but here's the one I found a picture of, Matilda of Scotland. She was a consort of King Henry I, and oversaw the building of several bridges in 12th century England:
(Picture credits: Wikimedia Commons, except the ones of Audrey Hepburn and Nonsuch House, which I frankly don't quite know who owns.)
In the Disney classic 101 Dalmatians, the said dalmatians are kidnapped and kept in the old country house of the film's villain, Cruella de Vil. Hell Hall is the name of the manor, and the architecture seems to be quite eclectic, mixing gothic, elizabethan and rococo. An interior view:
I also tried finding the clip where the puppies are rescued from the manor, but that wasn't very easy to find. However, if you're a real fan of Cruella and her house (or if your children are(in which case you should probably call you local exorcist)), you can buy the Hell Hall toy house:
I actually think I wouldn't mind living there, considering how I love houses that look like they have been added to again and again. I'd prefer miss de Vil to move out first, though.
I stumbled upon this video in the Facebook group of my school. It describes the ingenious bridges made from live ficus plants that can be found in Meghalaya, Northeast India. Have a look!
The works of artist Jim Kazanjian, these amazing pictures are compiled from images of buildings found online. Although dreamlike and amazing, what I like the most about them, is that the majority of these structures actually could be built. I truly wish contemporary architecture was more like this.
A bit to much? Perhaps. But also: Loads of lovely architecture, fictional and factual.
In the "behind the scenes"-film, you can also see how the filmmakers actually used a real panther, and filmed on location such places as Prague, Aragón and Grand Palais, Paris.
A younger man than myself helped me remember this beautiful piece of music, written by Philip Glass for the film called Koyaanisqatsi (1982). The title derives from a scene in which the failed housing project named "Pruitt-Igoe", designed by Minoru Yamasaki (mostly known as the architect of the Twin Towers), is being demolished.
Although frequent attempts have been made by architects to blame the failures of the project on other aspects than the architecture, it has remained a symbol of how ideology-driven, de-humanizing thinking in our craft can result in horrible and uninhabitable places. The famous architecture historian and theorist Charles Jencks has even claimed that the tearing down of Pruitt-Igoe nailed the moment where Modernism's optimism on behalf of the future and itself ended, and post-modernism started.
The site is now mostly empty, but suggestions have been made for it to be rebuilt in completely different ways, for example in the charming and thought-through master plan developed by architect Samuel Lima. He suggests applying traditional architecture, extracted from examples in the nearby area, and is firmly planted within the New Urbanist approach.
Almost three years ago, I wrote a short post explaining about our particular academic discipline at BAS, called visual structure. Today, I was made aware of this video, showing an assignment usually done in Decembre first year, where uniformly coloured geometric shapes are given a contrasting treatment of different colours in non-geometric patches. The idea is that you should be curious to find out what the next side of the shape looks like, so that you'll be intrigued to look all the way around it. Quite charming video, and I think it expresses this concept clearly.
Surfing Wikipedia looking for cool pictures of monasteries, I found this picture after reading the article about the Ursuline order. It bears the title "Looking North from Ursuline Academy, Showing Wrecked Negro High School Building" (very direct language, don't you think?). The 1900 Galveston hurricane is the deadliest natural disaster ever to have struck the United States, with an estimated death toll of between 6,000 and 12,000 people.
While this was happening, Barack Obama's second inauguration was taking place in Washington, DC. (If you're bothered by me posting a picture with a title containing the word "negro" while writing about Obama, please remember that he's not any more "black" than "white".) Here, he finally spoke of the main challenge of this age in human history: 'We, the people, still believe that our obligations as Americans are not just to ourselves, but to all posterity. We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations.Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires, and crippling drought, and more powerful storms.The path towards sustainable energy sources will be long and sometimes difficult. But America cannot resist this transition; we must lead it. We cannot cede to other nations the technology that will power new jobs and new industries — we must claim its promise. That is how we will maintain our economic vitality and our national treasure – our forests and waterways; our croplands and snowcapped peaks. That is how we will preserve our planet, commanded to our care by God. That’s what will lend meaning to the creed our fathers once declared.' Although this picture was taken long before the scientific proof of climate change was established, please let it be a reminder of what lies ahead, if this generation fails to take action.
In architecture, we talk about scale a lot. In my first year spring project, I added a tower to an already quite large barn that I remodeled into a house. The tower was twice as tall as the barn, and I was accused of not understanding the scale of the place.
This autumn, I've been working with urban fabric in a part of Bergen where the buildings and streets have very different scales.
I even have a book called "Scale in Architecture, and let's not forget the architect's scale!
The only problem is this: Every time someone mentions the word 'scale' (including yours truly), I immediately start humming this song. It's unstoppable. Help me.
Happy new year! The world didn't end this time, either. The above picture was taken by yours truly in September, in a strange room behind the clocks of the tower of Nykirken ("The New Church") in Bergen:
I like how things sometimes are much more weird than we believe them to be.
.jpg)
