Großer Engel

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Großer Engel (Big Angel)
Römerberg, Altstadt
Frankfurt, September 2024

“The Großer Engel (Great Angel) is a historic building in Frankfurt am Main. It is the northernmost building in the ‘Ostzeile’ (East Row) that borders the Römerberg square, and is the leftmost building from a frontal viewer, with the address Römerberg 28. To the south, the building borders the Goldener Greif (Golden Griffin) building, and to the north, the Markt street opens up. To the east, the Großer Engel (Great Angel) is connected to the Kleiner Engel (Little Angel), so that the two buildings form a historically and architecturally cohesive complex. In 1562, the most ornate private building of the late Gothic period in Frankfurt was built, combining the two aforementioned plots and possibly also some older structures. As a corner house in the once densely built Markt street, with the cathedral rising behind it in the distance, the Große Engel in particular has been and remains one of the most frequently depicted and later photographed motifs of Frankfurt's old town ever since. During the Second World War, the Great and Little Angels were almost completely destroyed during the air raids on Frankfurt am Main, but were largely rebuilt true to the original in 1983-1984 during the reconstruction of the east side of the Römerberg.” (Großer und Kleiner Engel, Wikipedia)

Locus Gromae

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Gromae Locus
Via Emilia San Pietro
Reggio Emilia, May 2024

“Locus Gromae is the point of intersection of the generating axes of the Roman city: the decumanus and the cardo. In the case of Reggio Emilia, the decumanus is represented by the Via Emilia, while the cardo is the axis followed by today's Via Roma. The historian Titus Livius reports that the consul Marcus Aemilius Lepidus in 187 BC, after having defeated the Ligurian tribes settled on the Apennines, provided for the construction of a road connecting the cities of Arimium and Placentia, which took the name of Aemilia from him. Although the sources do not explicitly mention it, undoubtedly the same person is responsible for the construction of the inhabited nucleus of Reggio that maintained its memory in the same topographical denomination. It can therefore be said that Reggio Emilia was truly born with the Via Emilia. The great consular road, in fact, was also the decumanus maximus of Roman Reggio, while the cardo was today's Via Roma. Even today at the intersection of these two roads (in the heart of Reggio) a plaque is visible that recalls ‘the groma’: an ancient Roman measuring instrument that indicated the point of intersection between the two great roads and marked the place from which to begin founding a city.” (Via Emilia, giraReggio)

Baarmanns Hof

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Baarmanns Hof
Markt (Market Square)
Leipzig, September 2024

“Baarmanns Hof was the name of the commercial building at Markt 6 in Leipzig until its reconstruction in 1922, and is still occasionally used today. The house is one of four buildings on the north side of the market square in Leipzig. It is a four-story building with four window axes facing the market square. It is plastered and clad in sandstone on the ground floor. The entrance is from the neighboring house no. 5, to which it is connected internally. The steep, high, slate-covered roof is striking. It has a two-axis dormer between two gabled dormers. Above it, in four rows one above the other, are nine hip dormers decorated with a ball on a shaft. They surround an octagonal roof turret, which is also decorated with balls. The two chimneys at the ends of the roof ridge are dummies.” (Baarmanns Hof, Wikipedia)

Valente Faustini

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Valente Faustini (and a ‘batusa’) by Oreste Labò, 1929
Giardini Margherita
Via Alberoni
Piacenza, May 2024

“In the Giardini Margherita, in front of the train station, there is a monument to the Piacenza dialect poet, Valente Faustini. A strange monument because it depicts a half-length portrait of the poet celebrated here and a full-length portrait of one of his poetic creations, his most famous: the batusa. A term that could be translated, with all the appropriate approximations, as the brazen one, the impudent one. A young woman who is not afraid of anyone, knows her reasons and intends to assert them. She was (or rather they were, because there were many batusa in Piacenza) a feminist antelitteram, a feminist in the flesh who was alive and well before feminism began to be talked about, not only in Italy, but also in the world.” (The feminist who didn't need male laws, Il Piacenza Blog)

Georgsbrunnen

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Georgsbrunnen (George Fountain) by Artur Volkmann, 1904
Dresdner Residenzschloss
Dresden, September 2024

“The Georgsbrunnen is a fountain created in 1904 by Artur Volkmann in the small courtyard of the Dresden Residence Palace. Leipzig-born Artur Volkmann created the fountain in 1904 in his Rome workshop in memory of King George of Saxony, who died that same year. The commission was the Royal Saxon Ministry of the Interior. The design, exhibited at the Leipzig Art Association, had previously been unanimously recommended for execution by the academic council. The fountain was paid for with funds from the Saxon government's fund for art purposes. The fountain is located between two windows on the south side of the small courtyard of Dresden's Royal Palace. Damaged during the palace's destruction in World War II, it was reopened to the public during the palace's restoration in 2009.” (Georgsbrunnen, Wikipedia)

Piazzale della Pace

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Fountain of Piazzale della Pace
Strada Garibaldi
Parma, May 2024

“The garden is characterised by large English lawns and large paved spaces, bordered by tall plants; next to the Pilotta palace there is a large fountain, designed by Mario Botta on the site of the ancient church of San Pietro Martire, demolished in the Napoleonic era.” (Piazzale della Pace, Wikipedia)

Nový věk

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“Nový věk” (New Age) by Vincenc Makovský, 1958 (1970s copy)
Vinohradská, Vinohrady
Prague, September 2024

“The ‘Nový věk’ (New Age) sculpture was created by sculptor Vincenc Makovský for the Czechoslovak pavilion at the 1958 International Exhibition Expo in Brussels. The original name of the sculpture was ‘Atomový věk’ (Atomic Age). The sculpture received the Grand Prize of the World Exhibition in Brussels. The original sculpture has been placed in front of the main entrance to the Brno Fair and Exhibition Center since 1959, where it has been a protected monument since 1964. A copy of the sculpture is located in Prague. The sculpture shows a man and a woman, between whom is a stylized sun, which is an allegory of the coming atomic age. The man in a cloak, holding scrolls with plans in his hands, represents an allegory of Science , the barefoot woman with a wreath of foliage in an antique-style dress with fruit in her left hand and a sheaf of grain in her right hand represents Agriculture. The sculpture is placed on a reinforced concrete, vertically articulated pedestal with stone cladding. Between the female and male figures is a star-crystal, whose rays diverging to the sides depict a powerful explosion of nascent matter. It is the sun, whose new form of tearing matter Makovsky created as an interpretation of the contemporary view of the universe.” (New Age Sculpture Group, Wikipedia)