Among the tall stack of books which I read in the matter of research for writing my adventures set on the Texas frontier was one titled Texas Log Buildings; A Folk Architecture – which has actually proved to be a bit more interesting and informative than it looked at first glance. I am a sucker for knowing how things are constructed or put together- which is good, especially when I needed to write a description of building such a thing as a log house; details like how many days it would take so many men to build one, what size it would generally be, and the layout – these little details add convincing detail. Until I read that book, the only description of the process that I could bring readily to mind was in Little House on the Prairie – and it turns out that Pa Ingalls was not building that cabin to much of a standard. He may not even have been all that skilled as a carpenter, but since he was working on it mostly by himself, and in a place where the swiftness of getting a roof of some sort over his family counted for everything – allowances were made.
Architecture
Happy 500th Anniversary
…to the Sistine Chapel Ceiling. More about the ceiling here.
When asked to undertake the project, Michelangelo at first demurred, saying that “painting is not my art.”
The Vatican Library has put up a nice panoramic zoomable view of the entire chapel, here. Just click on the image and move around with the arrow keys; zoom in with the Shift key and out with Control.
Also see Sgt Mom’s post on her visit to the Basilica of St Peter.
History Friday: Byzantine
We bumptious Americans are always being reminded by everyone from Henry James on, that things in Europe are old, historic, and ancient. We are told that some places are piled thick in layers of events, famous people and great art, like some sort of historical sachertorte – and to a student of history, certain places in Europe are exactly that sort of treat. What they hardly ever mention is that most usually, the most ancient bits of it are pretty sadly battered by the time we come trotting around with our Blue Guide, and what there is left is just the merest small remnant of what there once was. The sanctuary at Delphi once was adorned with statues of gold, silver, bronze – and they were the first to be looted and melted down (all but one, the great bronze Charioteer) leaving us with the least and cheapest stone, sadly chipped, battered and scarred. (My daughter at the age of three and a bit, looking at a pair of archaic nudes in the Delphi museum asked loudly, “Mommy, why are their wieners all broken off?”) The great Athenian Akropolis itself was half-ruined, many of the blocks of which it was constructed scattered across the hillside like gargantuan marble Lego blocks. In Rome, most of the ancient buildings had been stripped long ago of the marble and stone facings, leaving only the battered concrete and tile core to hint at what splendor had once been – and again, only the smallest portion left to us to admire, the smallest, cheapest portion, or that hidden away by chance.
Wolf Point and Urban Traffic Lies
Wolf Point is a famous piece of land that is a penninsula where the Chicago River is on three sides, right in front of the Holiday Inn and adjacent to the Merchandise Mart. Recently the Kennedys, who own this land, proposed building three giant high rises on the site, as described in this article.
Of all the habitual liars in this world, one of the most odious has to be the “traffic consultant”. One of these firms, hired by the Kennedys, gave a report on the impact of traffic, and per the article:
Residents also suggested the development would further clog already-congested streets and mocked a traffic consultant’s conclusion that the project would not significantly worsen traffic.
To some extent, per the picture above, it is impossible to further “worsen” traffic. This is a photo taken during rush hour that is relatively typical; the bridge going north on Orleans (it is one-way) is completely gridlocked leading towards the Wolf Point site and backed up into Wacker drive, blocking both streets. Thus to some extent the consultant is right, because you can’t get worse than gridlock.
Fallingwater
I recently visited the iconic Frank Lloyd Wright house “Fallingwater“. The home is located in rural Pennsylvania and I highly recommend a visit. This “iconic” view was taken from a path after the tour; in most of the photos I’ve seen of Fallingwater on the web this must be the spot for these photos. This spot allows you to capture the two waterfalls and the house which are not visible from other angles.