I’ve just returned from a three week holiday in South East Asia. I’ve grown up with a taste for travel, even working in the industry for a while, and it had been a while since I’d visited a country new to me, but this trip really refreshed my taste buds.
Of course, that was true both figuratively and literally. When I travel, one of the first things I’m interested in is the local cuisine. I’m an inquisitive traveller; I seek out the points of difference, the individuality and character of a place, and food is an obvious starting point.
Another thing that I pick up on immediately, telling me that I’m in new territory, is the birdsong. They speak in tongues them birds, and their chatter is as foreign as the local lingo. My favourite way of visiting a country is on a pushbike, as I did on this trip. You move slow enough to hear the ambient sounds, to be able to stop and check whatever that was that you caught out of the corner of your eye; yet fast enough for the scenery to keep changing.
Perhaps surprisingly, I don’t go to countries planning to pick up on the local music. I think my tastes are too specific and demanding to be able to chance upon what might intrigue me.
But what always fascinates me is the architecture and not just the big ticket items, though of course I did dally for hours at Angkor Wat. I am as interested in just seeing how different cultures resolve the demands of living, retailing, transporting, worshipping. ‘Maybe I should say I am fascinated by ‘built environment’ rather than just architecture. Left to my own devices, I will happily while away the hours wandering, eyes upwards, taking in the infinite variety of responses to the possibilities that construction methods allow. One of my favourite travel moments was three whole self-guided days exploring Napier, art deco capital of the Southern Hemisphere. As for my cycling holidays at home, these are informed by my complete set of Pevsners, that lead me up country lanes and back streets to unsung jewels and quirky oddities.
Architecture is one of the arts, sitting alongside all those other joys that we discuss here on this blog, comparing notes on music, literature, film and TV on the monthly Takeover, yet it would stick out a mile if one of our number related how this month they have been enjoying the cottage ornes of Sidmouth or the garden suburbs of English suburbia. We did once have a very enjoyable thread along the lines of ‘Post a photograph of a building that you love’.
So, do you have a curiosity about the buildings around you. Do you appreciate them every bit as much as you do a good book or a well-staged drama? Can a well-proportioned non-Conformist chapel stir your emotions as much as a three minute pop song? Tell us about it.
We are just coming to the end of a couple of weeks jaunt in Japan (flew into Osaka but mostly along the coast south of there) and I can relate to what you are saying….
One of my main loves about Japan is the food and the fact you can just stumble across a small non descript noodle bar that will give you one of the best meals you have ever had (and that’s from someone who lives in Singapore where we have some of the best food in the world).
We have travelled mainly by train and I was commenting to the wife the other day as we passed through small towns, on the very distinct style of Japanese houses (my feeling is that it’s the roof tiles that are distinctive). Obviously the other major stand out in this part of Japan is the temples / shrines which have a very recognisable architectural style.
And, serious brownie points for me in timing the trip to perfection to coincide with cherry blossom season (and being south of Osaka we avoided the crowds)
Serious brownie points, indeed – I envy you!
I’m with you on the architecture, Cat. One of my favourite things to look at – I got the habit from my dad, who used to put me on the back of his BSA Bantam and take me off to explore old churches. One of the joys of moving to Australia was the wealth of amazing architecture, both domestic and business, particularly art deco and mid-century. When I first arrived in Brisbane I spent days exploring the suburbs gazing at unassuming little dwellings that just seemed perfect, especially in their generous blocks of land.
I have to say though that I was slightly underwhelmed by Napier. The buildings were astounding of course, particularly the tobacco company block and the Telegraph building. But I feel they over-egged it. You couldn’t move for fake art deco signage and the like – the street signs in 48-point Gatsby bold for example. Again I spent quite a lot of time wandering round the suburbs looking at people’s homes.
Napier. I think one of the things that I enjoyed was having the time to go beyond the set pieces, even beyond the city limits, and find little Deco details. It did feel to me as if the place had been infused with the spirit of Art Deco.
Strangely, I was reminded of Napier on my most recent trip. Rural Vietnam seemed to settle on antipodean Art Deco as the template for much of its modest rural property, even down to a prevalence for that very 1930s pale green pastel colour.
@mikethep time you came to Melbourne. Plenty of art deco here.
I too was underwhelmed by Napier.
I know, I roosted in some Art Deco that time we met up!
I suppose I’m drawn the the strange and quirky ones that make you say,”well why not”.
One of my favourites is this, I stayed in it a few years ago for my birthday. The Dunmore Pineapple near Falkirk/Stirling.
Recently an ex workplace caught fire (I’ve just gone past it today) it had at one point been one of the local grammar schools, when I worked there it had become an art college. I’ve got a lot of affection for it as it was a great job and sad to see the state the place is in now.
I recall you mentioning that visit to Dunmore. That was on one of my many ‘Betjeman in lycra’ itineraries in 2015.
In a similar “Landmark” vein: some years ago I stayed at The Pigsty, near Robin Hood’s Bay – small and primitive, but most enjoyable – and very peaceful. The architecture, of course, is far from primitive!
From the website: “Once really a sty, Squire Barry of Fyling Hall is said to have been inspired by the classical architecture he had seen in the Mediterranean during his travels in the 1880s when building this home for his pigs.”
I went looking and found this – that’s a big fish…
I love looking at buildings and rooftops. I am typing this in another return to Beddgelert, the beautiful little village in Eryi (nee Snowdonia). The cottage we are in, an end terrace, was built for the copper miners who worked up the road, and, apparently, the trend was not to seal off the roof space, which meant the rafters were traditionally whitewashed from within. Clearly no evidence now to confirm that, as a century or so of improvements have taken place. Despite that, I enjoy imagining it.
Elsewhere I enjoy the way that different materials make up house construction: the flints that “clad” properties in Kent and Sussex, and the stones, of different hue, that were used in, say, the Cotswolds and Yorkshire.
The way an old roof sags appeals and timbers leaning likewise.
As far as civic buildings go, Glasgow has to have amongst the best, even If you are left with a crick neck from the constant upward gazing.
Beddgelert was the home of Alfred Bestall and several buildings from the surrounding area appeared in his work in Rupert’s Nutwood.
Someone we both know commented recently how she misses the Yorkshire sandstone.
I was an avid collector of Rupert annuals – nearly a complete run up to the John Harrold years – and once (as a child) wrote to Alfred Bestall at the Express, and got a nice handwritten letter in return. He was an astonishingly modest and accomplished draughtsman – his work for Punch is a delight.
An excellent OP, Cheshire. I was very taken with your comment about the birdsong. I’m sure there’s a whole thread to be had on how the avian soundscape varies from county to country and region to region.
Spring is just arriving here and yesterday in the forest the blackbirds were really giving it some welly. I was looking for the wren that I know lives at a certain spot. But couldn’t remember what they sound like so I didn’t find him.
As regards buildings, I am very fond of the Stockholm City Hall. (where the Nobel Banquet takes place). You enter through a large, impressive, old-fashioned doorway into a courtyard and then walk down through a forest of stout pillars onto a large lawn looking out onto Lake Mälaren.
It’s a place that is always full of life. Stockholm’s busiest registry office is there so at the weekend there are always lots of newly-weds with all their families and friends. Not to mention tourists.
Tomorrow I will dig out some photos. I suddenly realise how difficult it is to describe a building, even one that I know very well!
English parish churches, the smaller and older and simpler the better. Nothing much impresses after that. I lived in Paris for a few years, and found the Haussmann streets boring, and the monumental national architecture oppressive. Oxford, where I lived just before it morphed into a “place about Oxford”, could be architecturally pretty, but that only goes postcard deep.
Here where I live in Siam, architecture is on a human scale. No office blocks, high-rises. The town is in a constant state of renewal – there’s no reverence for history (and precious little of it remains – the timber houses will not be replaced by others), and not much concern for anything beyond building a comfortable and temporary shelter from the weather. If a building manages to stay up past forty years, that’s old, and not necessarily good. The result of this unconcern is a town that serves the inhabitants, architecture put in its place as a background to human activity. There’s nothing brutalist or East German about it – there’s charm and a homely idiosyncracy in the details, but no pretence to permanence. You want to build a house? Go ahead, and lots of luck. We built ours in under a year, with maybe one construction-related form to sign. Things work out fine. Houses and shop-houses get knocked down, usually by a couple of blokes in flip-flops, and replaced by concrete and tile boxes in a kind of Thai Contemporary style. Builders serve as architects, somebody’s brother-in-law as electrician, and life goes on, mostly outdoors anyway.
(And the food is fantastic.)
Great observations – just the kind of thing I’d be looking for.
And, yes, Thai is my favourite national cuisine, though I usually hoy out the whole chillis.
Pile the chillis up at the side – their work is done!
I live outside of town but worked in the city centre for seven years. I used to cycle down Senate House Passage (cursing the pedestrians weaving all over the path) and along King’s Parade. Cycling along King’s Parade on a crisp, sunny, early morning when there’s nobody around put a spring in my step. But I’d never really stopped to look.
One evening I’d been to a gig in the Corn Exchange, when the Arts Theatre performance had finished at the same time, and so 2000+ cars were attempting to leave the multi-storey car park at once. I got a cup of tea from the kebab van in Market Square, found a bench in King’s, and sat for an hour to take in the view. Even in the moonlight, it is rather nice.
I walked back to the car park and drove straight out.
I’ve just had a few days in Budapest. Beautiful architecture everywhere, and great grub. It’s the best bits of Paris without the smell of drains and the threat of aggro kicking off (in a lifetime of travel, only in Paris did someone want to try and have a go with me, though crisis resolved without bloodshed).
Gang War
In Belfast it’s religion (ha!)
In New York it’s your race
In Paris it’s your politics
In London it’s your face!
© Nicky Tesco
@vincent Snap! So have I.
Apropos the Art Deco discussion above, Budapest is also a great Art Deco/Secession/Modernism architecture destination.
I was the bloke built like Uncle Monty in the “Hatfield and the North” t-shirt. But there were so many of us, I wouldn’t stick out.
We must have just missed one another. 😁
Seville – fantastic buildings everywhere (mainly the homes of traders who made vast fortunes when Spain ran The Americas) and orange trees lining every avenue. Fantastic food although must admit after a week of tapas, a steak and kidney pie with chips doth appeal….
I hear you had a little trouble with your castanets, Lody.
Took weeks of polishing to get them back in action
For the last 20 years I’ve lived in a trullo. Trullos are brill. Warm in winter, cool in the summer. There are many theories behind the origin of the design. One of the more popular theories is that due to high taxation on property, the people of Puglia built dry stone wall constructions so that they could be dismantled quickly when tax inspectors were in the area.
Am selling mine if anyone wants to buy.
Never seen those before – astonishing! Are the roofs held together by anything except gravity?
I’m not a very practical person so have zero knowledge about anything remotely buildery, but I think they’re like cemented together or something. My roof is plastered inside and out. The supporting walls are, no exaggeration, about two feet thick.
Them look amazing – and the pool comes with a pool boy!
Phew. I found a picture where the beehive bit looked like a Cornish dry stone wall. I used to live in a cottage in Cornwall where the walls were two feet thick – cool in summer, bloody cold and damp in the winter.
The thing with stone-walled cottages is never letting the interior get too cold in the Winter, or you’ll be weeks warming it back up again. The stone walls retain heat if the interior is kept warm but they take a lot of warming up if you’re away for a bit in the winter, because they will retain the cold too, once the inside temperature drops too far.
Yep. We had central heating (oil-fired) and a woodburning stove (before we knew we were killing ourselves) and it was still a struggle.
Built by using a dry stone wall method, if @Gary you are correct about having to be removed quickly then this would be the preferred technique.
I imagine that they are battened over to build the dome.
https://www.alberobello.com/en/visit-alberobello/trulli#:~:text=The%20roof%20is%20built%20according,use%20of%20mortar%20or%20moulds.
Those trullos look quite amazing. And you live in one! Respect!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trullo
Seeing them makes me want to sing! Trololoo!
Gary Numan should sue him for stealing his look.
https://www.allmusic.com/album/the-pleasure-principle-mw0000599295
Wow. I’m so impressed. You live in a design classic! I might even permit the word ‘iconic’.
I’m giving it up though, for a life by the sea. This is the view from my new abode in Sardinia. I get the keys at the end of this month. Living in a trullo has been fab, but living right by the sea will really be a dream come true.
That hedge looks like it’ll take a fair bit of maintenance. I’ll tell you what – I’ve got a Black & Decker electric hedge shear thing in my garden shed, I’ll come over and sort it out in return for a couple of weeks of full board.
And who’s the ghostly figure with the pointy hat?
I think the whole thing’ll require lots of maintenance, being by the sea. But hopefully I’ll be dead before it falls apart or gets obliterated by rising sea levels. The ghostly figure with the pointy hat might be my new neighbour. I like him already.
There’s a handy washing line to hang your smalls from, and a riot shield barrier, and what looks like a security camera on a pole – you’re going to prison, aren’t you?
Looks like whoever installed that gate was expecting trouble.
I googled, I didn’t know that Sardinia was the second largest island in the Med. You are not going to be bored.
Sardinia my ass (probably):
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/06/gorgona-italys-last-penal-colony-where-100-criminals-care-for-180-farm-animals
That’s a really fascinating article. I’d never heard of Gorgona or the penal colony.
I see another island has been in the news recently for its problem with too many goats. So many that they’re giving them away for free. And who doesn’t love a freebie?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/04/get-your-goat-italian-island-overrun-by-the-animals-offers-to-give-them-away
Where are the waves? Where’s the sand?
One suspects there aren’t two girls for e-e-ev’ry boy-y-y-y-y…
Yes, it all looks a little bleak but AS LONG AS HE’S HAPPY that’s what I say. Put his mittens on and wheel him out onto the strip of seaweed and plastic bottles until he falls asleep, bless.
Like Dirk in Death in Venice!
That’s right, dear! Just like Dirk in Death In Venice! Would you like your lozenges?
Not now, my make-up’s running.
Does that make you Tadzio, HP?
Talking of Tadzio, there’s a recent documentary, The Most Beautiful Boy in the World. which got excellent reviews, and is about Björn Andresen, the Swedish teenager who played the role:
What a nightmarish experience it turned out to be.
I doubt that HP looks much like Tadzio in the movie. But he might look like Björn Andresen (well, the 2024 version.)
Nothing, not even time travel and the best plastic surgery money can buy, would make me Tadzio. Will a bald Bernie Ecclestone do?
As promised, a few photos of Stockholm City Hall which celebrated its 100th birthday last year.
I happened to cycle past it on my way to the dentist yesterday so I thought I’d take a quick look around for a minute or two. It’s not often someone asks me to describe a building so I certainly was looking at it in a different way.
Beyond the pillars you can see Lake Mälaren and beyond that the hipster paradise that is Södermalm.
Build of red bricks, the building looks very solid and stable. An embodiment of civic pride.
That tower dominates the skyline at that point where Lake Målaren begins.
Tomorrow I am going on a special Cheshirecat Photo Safari to photograph one of Stockholm’s most beautiful rooms for you!
Whereas the Copenhagen stock exchange is in need of a bit of TLC.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-europe-68823716
Yes, I saw that. It hits me in the gut when I see a good old building destroyed.
I shall look forward to that. I’ve never visited Sweden and know less about its architecture than I do that of its neighbours – stave churches in Norway, Alvar Aalto in Finland and all that. Oh, and Helsinki Station – a masterpiece.
Helsinki is a great city to wonder around. So many interesting, idiosyncratic buildings.
Those Norwegian stave churches are magnificent: unlike anything I’ve ever seen.
“An embodiment of civic pride.” It’s ugly. Fake Alhambra arches, statues in niches, blank facades … no thanks.
Half of that comment reads as a Steve Kilbey lyric @h-p-saucecraft
My second Stockholm building is the magnificent Central Library designed by Gunnar Asplund.
The exterior is attractive
But it is the magnificent reading room under the dome which makes it so special.
A room that really makes me want to get reading.
The bloke in the top hat is Strindberg who lived five minutes walk away in Drottninggatan.
But the library was completed in 1928 several years after his death.in 1912. But August S cast a very long shadow over Swedish literary life.
It’s the lighting which make it so special.. That central room is full of light and space.
In about a month’s time, the library will closing for major renovations and won’t be open again for four years.
There were a lot people there studying yesterday. It will be sorely missed.
Hats off to you @thecheshirecat for getting us to talk about architecture,
“The exterior is attractive”. Can’t let you get away with that. It looks like a prison. Grim. *shudder*
I’ve not visited many prisons. But I doubt they are russet-coloured and have large windows without bars. But OK, I concede, it’s not a stunner.
I love circular/near circular features in architecture: drums (Leicester’s pork pie library), towers (Cronkhill, Shropshire), oeil de boeuf windows (my neighbours’ house!), Jodrell Bank. Great photos KFD.
Igloos.
Well the frontage is round.
Saltaire United Reform Church.
*that thing with a hand that isn’t skin-coloured, with a thumb pointing upwards*
There are lots of churches and Cathedrals in both England and Italy that I love. Canterbury Cathedral has a special place in my affections, Amalfi has such a beautifully distinctive exterior, but one of my very favourite places in the world is my local cathedral in Monopoli. Nothing special from the outside, but inside it’s like a tiny, miniature St Peter’s, without the crowds. Unashamedly opulent and I’m reluctant to give any kudos to the nasty organisation that is the Catholic Church, but I do love going there when it’s empty. I’ll miss it when I move.
This is how I imagine your bathroom to look, Gar.
That Monopoli Cathedral looks splendid from the air.
Lovely blue sea and sky too. Sorry! I’m just envious. We have frost here this morning! Again!
I’ve not visited many prisons. But I doubt they are russet-coloured and have large windows without bars.
But OK, I concede, it’s not a stunner.
My ideal library would be the Carnegie Library in Earlsdon, Coventry, about sixty years back. A reading room (full range of newspapers and magazines such as Motor Sport, Punch …) a kids’ section, which I soon grew out of, and an atmosphere of strange, unhurried luxury. Architecturally, it was the jewel box of bricks typical of the breed, designed to invite and inspire respect.
Must be something about libraries – the State Library of Victoria has a very agreeable reading room – I’m no good at posting images but you can see it here…
https://whatson.melbourne.vic.gov.au/things-to-do/state-library-victoria
(Old movie buffs might recognise the front exterior as the site of the Salvation Army rally in Stanley Kramer’s 1959 fillum “On The Beach”)
The no-longer-extant Cincinnati Public Library pops up online occasionally…and no surprise.
https://www.messynessychic.com/2014/06/17/seriously-though-how-did-the-most-beautiful-library-in-america-get-demolished/
That State of Victoria library is one very fine building, Sniffity. And really enormous!
And as for that Cincinnati Public Library! Wow! What a place of wonder and magic, I imagine they needed to call in Ghostbusters a few times.
It’s amazing that there was not a single protest when they demolished it.
Southgate Station is rather impressive. Close Encounter of the Piccadilly Kind!
It has a lot of fans.
https://www.modernistbritain.co.uk/post/building/Southgate+Underground+Station/
This Underground site looks like a real treat for trainspotters.
https://150greatthingsabouttheunderground.com/2012/04/02/10-the-exterior-of-southgate/
“From the tip of the roof downwards, Southgate is something very special.
It holds its own against fierce competition from pretty much every station along the northern end of the Piccadilly line, which is easily the most rewarding stamping ground for Underground architecture. And it does this by not merely being another example of Charles Holden’s faultless skill for coupling beauty with design, but by being unique.
There is literally no other station like this on the whole of the network.”
And would you believe it? Charles Holden was very influenced by a visit to Stockholm.
https://londonist.com/london/features/southgate-tube-station
“His Piccadilly line stations were going to be different though — almost unimaginably so. In 1930, Holden and Pick travelled around northern Europe in search of inspiration — a kind of 20th century Grand Tour, with classicism substituted for modernism. In Stockholm, the pair visited the Stockholmsutställningen, an exhibition flaunting the streamlined new aesthetics of Functionalism and International Style. Pick and Holden liked what they saw. “Holden came back and his mind changed,” says Ann Gavaghan, Customer Experience Manager at TfL, “The influence of what he saw there: materials of bricks, the circular shapes, the rectangular geometric shapes — Swedish modernist architecture in particular —- influenced his designs for the underground.”
How about this?
“Mind you, Holden can’t take all the credit. A visionary he may have been, but he wasn’t afraid to lift architectural motifs that caught his eye. The bulb finial that tops Southgate station — and pulls together the whole 1950s B-movie look — is a feature that appeared at Stockholmsutställningen, and which Holden thought he quite fancied a piece of. His blueprints for nearby Arnos Grove unabashedly took their cue from Stockholm Public Library. Whisper it, but TfL may owe some royalties to Sweden”.
Excellent thought @Mike_H. You are all doing this thread proud.
Not just the Piccadilly line extension gave us these period classics; Chiswick Park, Hanger Lane and Park Royal are also circular, while Perivale, Sudbury Town and many others are all gems.
Arnos Grove – another fine circular erection
This article provides photographs to compare Arnos Grove Station and the Stockholm City library.
https://www.mylondon.news/news/transport/pretty-london-underground-station-you-28195718
The similarity is striking.
When I was a boy, we used to drive past Southgate tube station every time we went to my Grandma and Grandpa’s. I didn’t pay it too much attention at the time, but now I think it’s a really cool building.
St. Custards.
It was intended to be a grand hotel, with Aberystwyth’s railway station included within, to cash in on a supposed demand for a posh spa destination.
In the end the railway stopped short of it when the money ran out and the college bought it from the developer.
It’s a remarkable story, Mike. Thanks for adding this building to our list.
“Railway entrepreneur Thomas Savin bought Castle House in 1864 and commissioned the architect J.P. Seddon to transform it into a hotel, the first of a number that he intended to build along Cardigan Bay as part of the travel and tourism boom of the nineteenth century. But Savin was hit badly by the Stock Exchange panic of 1865, and his venture failed. ”
A Victorian tourist boom to Wales! The stuff we learn here!
https://www.aber.ac.uk/en/oldcollege/history/
Aberystwyth was once even billed as the ‘Biarritz of Wales!
I had many, very enjoyable childhood holidays in South Wales as my mum was from Dyfed (Pembrokeshire). very beautiful part of Britain bur not exactly a sunbathers’ paradise.
“On 23rd June 1864, Aberystwyth was linked to the rail network for the first time.
The arrival of the railway gave rise to something of a Victorian tourist boom and Aberystwyth was once even billed as the ‘Biarritz of Wales’. A second railway opened in 1867, which linked Aberystwyth to Lampeter and Carmarthen, bringing in new crowds of tourists from industrial South Wales, which resulted in the opening of the Royal Pier in 1869 which attracted 7,000 visitors.”
https://www.facebook.com/TheHistoryOfWales/posts/on-23rd-june-1864-aberystwyth-was-linked-to-the-rail-network-for-the-first-timet/3855827961204524/
There are a few brief glimpses of Stockholm City Hall in this newsreel of Queen Elizabeth visiting Stockholm in 1956. Other than that it is gloriously irrelevant but very enjoyable anyway.
https://www.filmarkivet.se/movies/drottning-elizabeth-ii-i-stockholm/
The most bizarre moment, amidst all the pomp and ceremony is when she is driven out to the suburbs to see the home of an average Swedish family. Pure Social Democrat propaganda but it must have made refreshing change to the rest of the itinerary.
https://sverigesradio.se/avsnitt/hans-larsson-var-10-ar-nar-drottning-elizabeth-besokte-norra-angby-1956-studio-ett
In this recent radio interview, Hans Larsson, who was the 10 year old boy in the family, talks about, what it was like when Liz came to visit. All the schools in Norra Ängby were closed and everyone was there to watch the Queen. There was no English in Swedish schools in those days, but he’d been taught to say “How do you do?”
The one-of-a-kind flying saucer Macca’s was about 10 miles from me, until it was demolished in 2008.
https://cultrface.co.uk/the-spaceship-mcdonalds-from-alconbury-in-cambridge/
Yet more flying saucers.
arrival in Todmorden.
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/aug/22/back-to-the-futuro-house-flying-saucer-matti-suuronen
I drive my trains over that viaduct!
We’ve had some superb churches and splendid libraries, but so far only one major railway station: Helsinki.
Surely there must be a few others worthy of praise? The Victorian railway stations in London, with those magnificent high ceilings, are cathedral-like in their splendour.
Here are some real beauties from around the world.
https://www.architecturaldigest.com/gallery/best-train-station-architecture-slideshow
Grand Central Station is worth the flight to NYC.
(Cheshire)Catnip time!
Without even clicking on that link, I’m guessing the guest list includes: London St Pancras, Florence, Melbourne Flinders Street, Kuala Lumpur, Zurich Hauptbahnhof, Helsinki of course, Porto Sao Bento, Grand Central
I am particularly fond of the art nouveau stations that grace many mid-sized provincial French towns: Rochefort, Limoges Benedictins, La Rochelle, Tours, Metz. It’s at this point that I wish I’d got @Hubert_Rawlinson to complete my introduction to Imgur.
Cheshire Catnip! I love it! I scored a bullseye there.
“Art nouveau stations that grace many mid-sized provincial French towns”! That we have to explore further.
This may be useful.
http://www.art-nouveau-around-the-world.org/en/pays/france.htm
In 2024 Imgur could scarcely be easier to use. You don’t even need to open an account.
Go to the site: imgur.com
Click on New Post
Upload a photo from the photos file on your computer.
Click on Copy link.
Click on Grab link
Paste the link in here.
This ought to be a photo of the Stockholm Konserthuset…
And it was!
I’m sure Hubert can give far clearer instructions.
But do have a go.
Here’s Rochefort.
We’re due another meet up Chesh I’ll go through it then.
Until then, here’s Limoges Benedictins.
Dunno about railway stations. How about a bus garage?
.
Or a meat market.
2027 the Pompidou Centre will be 50 years old.
https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/monster-magnifique-pompidou-centre-paris/
The Pompidou Centre is impressive but significantly uglier.
I’m a typical bloody Stockholmer! How could I fail to mention Santiago Calatrava’s
remarkable Turning Torso in Malmö?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turning_Torso
Once seen never forgotten!
Wat Phra That Phanom.
If you want a slightly longer look at that exquisite That temple, Wat Phra That Phanom, you will enjoy this video.
If you’re feeling peckish and your name is Cheshire Cat: Supper’s Ready!
Your Corsair Chicken banquet awaits you!
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This video contains content from myVideoMedia1, who has blocked it from display on this website or application.”
The temple compound architecture is open. Of course, this is mainly thanks to having good weather – British churches might attract fewer worshipers if they were open to the elements. The outer buildings, while roofed, are open structures, with columns and arches. The effect is an openness and accessibility utterly at odds with (say) the great brick barn of the Frari, or most high-windowed, narrow-doored Western churches.
It is brilliantly, blindingly colourful. That’s real gold leaf on the chedi, and real gold at the top, where a shard of Buddha’s bone is held in a crystal phial. Again, this polychrome approach is the opposite to Western architecture. Compare and contrast with other pictures in this thread. It’s a reflection of ordinary life – colour-saturated, vivid, intense.
It’s not overshadowed by other buildings, right in the centre of town See that skyline? Trees and clouds. Wander around the temple and that’s what you see above the gilt and the blazing colours and the statues of Buddha, monks, and monsters – trees, sky.
It’s one of the Top Thai Temples, visited by royalty (the Old King came a couple of times, his wonderful daughter, too) and millions of Thai tourists, who see it mostly as a selfie backdrop these days, something Buddha, with his understanding of self, would find interesting. My favourite time is dusk, a very brief period, when the sky turns to purple, the tip of the chedi blazes in the setting sun, and thousands of birds return to roost in the branches, excitedly sharing the day’s news.
Any chance of a photgraph of it at dusk?
I’ll do me best. I don’t usually carry a camera (or a phone), because I’m not a tourist, but I’ll slip me Sony RX-100 into me shorts next time.
Plenty of shots here, none exactly capturing that dusky moment, which makes me think it’s a pretty difficult thing to do:
https://www.alamy.com/chedi-of-wat-phra-that-phanom-temple-complex-in-amphoe-that-phanom-nakhon-phanom-province-isan-thailand-image178933069.html
Thanks H, that’s stunning stuff, and neatly returns us to the OP of my travels in SE Asia. That pint you make about selfie culture is so true. You ain’t been anywhere on a holiday or day trip if you can’t provide photographic evidence nowadays. As a result, visitors spend half their time with their back to the thing that they are visiting!
If I’m dining in one of those art nouveau stations in the SW of France, I’ll start with salade de gesiers, followed by confit de canard, thankyou very much. Buildings and food!
Don’t know if you’ve trained to here Chesh but I thought another railway station wouldn’t go amiss.
Wemyss Bay.
(Alamy)
It is a beauty, isn’t it? I used the ticket office in centre picture just two years ago.
Here’s a excellent, very informative, wee film about the history of Wemyss Bay Station.
The commentary is wonderfully deadpan.
It’s from a YT Channel devoted to trains.
It’s hardcore, pure anorak stuff.
https://www.youtube.com/@TrainsTrainsTrains
Though the inner anorak in me says ‘Victorian travellers’ after 1903.
I suppose most were born Victorian but became Edwardian.
BAPS Swaminarayan Mandir.
Neasden Hindu Temple, London NW10.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcOhCE5bfNU
You are I are clearly on the same page. Late at night yesterday I was thinking about temples, in particular the erotic temple carvings of Khajuraho in India.
Lucky me! I got the chance to visit in the early 1980s when I was doing my Lonely Planet, back-packing thing in India. It was slightly warmer than Neasden.
The Karma-Sutra-like carvings are what have made the area famous but the buildings themselves are quite remarkable. Each completely different.
There’s a relatively new arts centre in Whangārei, about 90 minutes north of where I live in Auckland. It was designed by Hundertwasser and it’s an instant tourist location for Whangārei, which is a big-ish town but had no real focal point. That’s all changed now. It’s a beautiful building.
https://www.macdonaldindustries.co.nz/case-studies/hundertwasser-art-centre-whangarei
Wow! It’s something else! This clip shows even more of the colourful, zany details.
Hundertwasser was an interesting chap. (Not that I’d ever heard of him!)
He even devised a new New Zealand flag.
I’ve visited a few of Hundertwasser’s buildings, another in Vienna is the municipal incinerator.
A snippet …
and a longer look….
And a look at some of the other Vienna buildings.
Visited this one too, didn’t last long as a market hall and when we visited it was showing a Silvesterklaus exhibition.
It seems to have opened again with different ways of working.
https://markthalle-altenrhein.ch/
Now, you see, my railway head immediately read what it wanted to see and interpreted this as Landwasser.