Tag: Architecture
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The abandoned dog
The abandoned dog Whenever I look at this picture that I took 24 years ago, I think: ‘De hond in het lege huis’. (The dog in the empty house). And then memories follow that take me back half a century, when I was a student at the Film Academy in Amsterdam. Its director, Anton Koolhaas,…
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Keep distance!
Keep distance! I don’t think there are many people who don’t recognize the Sydney Opera House in this picture. Its design and location on the waterfront have made it into an iconic image of modern architecture. In pictures you always see it from a distance. Then it shows up well. But beware of going closer!…
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Sundari Chowk
Sundari Chowk The ‘beautiful courtyard’ in the old palace of the Malla kings in Patan. The lavishly ornamented pool in the centre shows that the art of Nepalese stone carving is in no way inferior to its art of wood carving. Many ancient buildings in Patan were destroyed or heavily damaged during the 2015 earthquake.…
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Gateway of delight
Gateway of delight Exquisite wood carving, that’s what the Newari artists of Nepal are masters of. See the modest expression of pleasure on the lady’s face while the man next to her holds her arm. A gateway of delight. Let’s pass through. Photo of the week: Durbar Square, Patan, Lalitpur, Nepal 2018
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Our house
Our house So there it is, our house in Kumaon, that I mentioned in last week’s post. You’ll need good eyes to find it though. It’s on the slope of the second hill, surrounded by trees. The photo below gives you a closer view. Photos of the week: Our house at Kasardevi, Almora, Kumaon, Uttarakhand,…
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Sublime simplicity
Sublime simplicity The house: a floor with tatamis, sliding walls, a roof. Height of Japanese architecture. Walls slide open. The spectacle begins. Photo of the week: Katsura Villa, Kyoto, Japan 2008
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Marken
Marken A little further than the quiet villages of Waterland but still close to Amsterdam we find Marken. In the past a fishing village on a tiny island in the Zuyder Zee, now connected by road to the mainland. With its typical wooden houses around the harbour it has kept some of its looks of…
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Ransdorp
Ransdorp A thousand years ago there were already people living in this low lying Waterland near the Zuyder Zee. Because of regular flooding a long dike was made in the 13th century around the whole Waterland area to protect the fields and villages. Early 16th century the village of Ransdorp started the construction of its…
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Gyantse Kumbum
The biggest and best preserved pyramidal multi-chapel monument of the kind in Tibet. It has more than 70 – dark – chapels inside, almost all decorated with murals and statues. We can look at the kumbum as a three-dimensional mandala: when you project the whole building on its ground-plan, it represents a visual metaphor of…
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Foot-bath temple
Orange saris and green saris, red ones and blue ones (and purple ones, I could add), and gold upon their bodies, bracelets on their arms and combs in their hair. The women were lithe and walked just above the earth, so it seemed. Thus Robert James Waller continues his ode to the beauty of Indian…
καιρός remembered 