Hackesche Höfe
Rosenthaler Straße
Berlin, September 2011
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Monday, October 29, 2012
Sunday, October 28, 2012
Doge's Palace
Palazzo Ducale (Doge's Palace) and the eastern column with the Lion of Saint Mark
Piazza San Marco
Venice, September 2012
“The palace is, or seems to be, a miracle of lightness. The European observer is accustomed to heaviness of foundation and lightness of summit. In the ducal palace the expectation is disappointed. The long double-storeyed arcade, at ground level, creates the illusion of space and airiness. The deep shadows within the arcade act as a metaphor for the foundation. The darkness has the illusion of volume. The upper part of the façade is made up of tiny marble pieces of pink and white and grey, in the pattern of damask, shimmering in the light of the lagoon. The whole structure has the exact proportions of a cube, but it is a cube of light. The palace might be said to float like the city itself. It is not, in Proust’s phrase, under the dominion of death.” (Peter Ackroyd, Venice: Pure City)
Saturday, October 27, 2012
The Oder
“Die Oder” (The Oder), Neptunbrunnen (Neptune Fountain) by Reinhold Begas
Rathausstraße / Spandauer Straße
Berlin, September 2011
See also: Neptunbrunnen - The Rhine - The Elbe - The Vistula
Friday, October 26, 2012
The Island of San Michele
Church of San Michele in Isola
Isola di San Michele (San Michele Island)
Venice, September 2012
“There is now an island of the dead close to the city. S. Michele once sustained a monastery devoted to learning but in the nineteenth century a cemetery was constructed here, so that the cadavers would no longer be close to the living population of Venice. The bodies are placed in little marble drawers like an enormous sideboard of mortality. The church of S. Michele, built some four centuries earlier, is like a whitened sepulchre guarding the site. Its recumbent corpses outnumber by many times the inhabitants of the city.” (Peter Ackroyd, Venice: Pure City)
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Lingerie française
“Lingerie française - The exhibition”, Espace Pierre Cardin
Jardins des Champs-Élysées
Avenue Gabriel
Quartier des Champs-Élysées, 8th arrondissement
Paris, July 2012
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Niccolò Tommaseo
“El cagalibri” (The Book Pooper)
Statue of Niccolò Tommaseo by Fancesco Barzaghi
Campo Santo Stefano, San Marco
Venice, September 2012
“Nicolò Tommaseo, the Risorgimento ideologue who was Manin’s right-hand man during the 1848 insurrection, is commemorated by the statue in the middle of Campo Santo Stefano; the unfortunate positioning of the pile of books (representing Tommaseo’s voluminous literary output) has earned the statue the nickname il Cagalibri – the Book-shitter.” (Jonathan Buckley, The Rough Guide to Venice & the Veneto)
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Monday, October 22, 2012
Santa Maria della Salute
Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute (St Mary of Health)
Dorsoduro
Venice, September 2012
“Generally referred to as La Salute, this crown jewel of 17th-century baroque architecture proudly reigns at a commercially and aesthetically important point, almost directly across from the Piazza San Marco, where the Grand Canal empties into the lagoon. The first stone was laid in 1631 after the Senate decided to honor the Virgin Mary of Good Health for delivering Venice from a plague. They accepted the revolutionary plans of a young, relatively unknown architect, Baldassare Longhena (who would go on to design, among other projects, the Ca’ Rezzonico). He dedicated the next 50 years of his life to overseeing its progress (he would die 1 year after its inauguration but 5 years before its completion). The only great baroque monument built in Italy outside of Rome, the octagonal Salute is recognized for its exuberant exterior of volutes, scrolls, and more than 125 statues and rather sober interior, though one highlighted by a small gallery of important works in the sacristy.” (Frommer's Northern Italy including Venice, Milan & the Lakes, 3rd Edition)
Sunday, October 21, 2012
Saturday, October 20, 2012
Ponte degli Scalzi
Ponte degli Scalzi (Bridge of the Barefoot [Monks])
Canal Grande (Grand Canal)
Venice, September 2012
Friday, October 19, 2012
The Rhine
“Der Rhein” (The Rhine), Neptunbrunnen (Neptune Fountain) by Reinhold Begas
Rathausstraße / Spandauer Straße
Berlin, September 2011
See also: Neptunbrunnen - The Oder - The Elbe - The Vistula
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Nell'arzanà de' Viniziani
Plaque quoting Dante's Inferno about the Venetian Arsenal
Placed on its wall, on the right of the Porta Magna
Venice, September 2012
| Quale nell'arzanà de' Viniziani bolle l'inverno la tenace pece a rimpalmare i legni lor non sani, ché navicar non ponno - in quella vece chi fa suo legno nuovo e chi ristoppa le coste a quel che più vïaggi fece; chi ribatte da proda e chi da poppa; altri fa remi e altri volge sarte; chi terzeruolo e artimon rintoppa -; tal, non per foco ma per divin' arte, bollia là giuso una pegola spessa, che 'nviscava la ripa d'ogne parte. Dante Alighieri, Divina Commedia, Inferno, XXI, vv. 7-18 | (As in the Arsenal of the Venetians Boils in the winter the tenacious pitch To smear their unsound vessels o'er again, For sail they cannot; and instead thereof One makes his vessel new, and one recaulks The ribs of that which many a voyage has made; One hammers at the prow, one at the stern, This one makes oars, and that one cordage twists, Another mends the mainsail and the mizzen; Thus, not by fire, but by the art divine, Was boiling down below there a dense pitch Which upon every side the bank belimed.) Translation by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow |
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Gardeners Shed
Gardeners shed
Jardin des plantes
Quartier du Jardin-des-Plantes, 5th arrondissement
Paris, July 2012
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Molino Stucky
Molino Stucky
Island of Giudecca, Dorsoduro
Venice, September 2012
“The striking neo-Gothic hulk of the best-known factory complex on the island, the Mulino Stucky, was built in the late 19th century and employed 1500 people. Now it is a star of the Hilton Hotel chain, with 380 rooms, a conference centre and several restaurants and bars. The original façade has been preserved and it is hard to miss when looking across the western end of the Zattere. The factory was shut in 1954 and sat long in dignified silence. The Hilton chain saved it from the wrecking ball in 2000 and opened in mid-2007. The views from the main tower (if you manage to wander in) are breathtaking.” (Lonely Planet Venice & The Veneto, 5th Edition, February 2008)
Monday, October 15, 2012
Sunday, October 14, 2012
Fondamenta della Pescheria
Fondamenta della Pescheria
Burano, Venetian Lagoon
Venice, September 2012
See also: Color Like Music - Fritto Misto - Rio de San Mauro
Saturday, October 13, 2012
Statue de la Liberté
Bronze copy made from the original plaster (286 cm) by Auguste Bartholdi
Cast for the Musée des Arts et Métiers by Susse Fondeur, Paris
Square du Général-Morin
Quartier des Arts-et-Métiers, 3e arrondissement
Paris, July 2012
See also: La Liberté éclairant le monde - Liberty Enlightening the World - Statue of Liberty
Friday, October 12, 2012
Porta Magna
The Porta Magna of the “Arsenale di Venezia”
Venetian Arsenal, Castello
Venice, September 2012
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Berolinahaus
Berolinahaus (Berolina House) by Peter Behrens
Alexanderplatz
Berlin, September 2011
See also: Völkerfreundschaft - Urania-Weltzeituhr - Haus des Lehrers - Alexanderhaus
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Chiesa degli Scalzi
Church of Santa Maria di Nazareth (Saint Mary of Nazareth) or
“Chiesa degli Scalzi” (Church of the Barefoot [Monks])
Cannaregio
Venice, September 2012
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Rue Henri de Bornier
Vespa scooter
Rue Henri-de-Bornier / Rue de Franqueville
Quartier de la Muette, 16th arrondissement
Paris, July 2012
Monday, October 8, 2012
Sunday, October 7, 2012
Heinrich Zille
Monument to Heinrich Zille by Thorsten Stegmann
Poststraße, Nikolaiviertel
Berlin, September 2011
“Born in Dresden in 1858, Heinrich Zille’s family moved to Berlin when he was a child. A lithographer by trade, he became the first prominent artist to evoke the social development of the city as the tendrils of modernity reached Berlin, creating an instantly recognisable style in his drawings of everyday life and real people, often featuring the bleak Hinterhöfe (inner courtyards) around which so much of their lives revolved. Even during his lifetime Zille was acknowledged as one of the definitive documenters of his time, and since his death in 1929 his prolific photographic work has also come to be seen as a valuable historical record.” (Lonely Planet, Berlin Travel Guide, 6th Edition)
Saturday, October 6, 2012
Ponte di Rialto
The Ponte di Rialto (Rialto Bridge)
Seen from the Canal Grande (Grand Canal)
Venice, September 2012
“There were many folk stories of the devil walking confidently over the bridges and along the calli of the city. He was reported to have taunted the mason working on the Rialto bridge, for example, with the claim that no one could build so wide an arch of stone. He offered to perform the work in exchange for the soul of the first person who crossed the bridge. It turned out to be the mason’s infant son.” (Peter Ackroyd, Venice: Pure City)
Friday, October 5, 2012
A nos martyrs
“A nos martyrs” (To our martyrs) by Charles Yrondi, 1934
Memorial to the fallen of 15th arrondissement
Place Hubert-Monmarché
Quartier Saint-Lambert, 15th arrondissement
Paris, July 2012
Thursday, October 4, 2012
Cavalo
A “cavalo” (Venetian for horse), one of two sea horses adorning the central part of a gondola
Rio del Mondo Novo, Castello
Venice, October 2012
