retnoop

We're four months into a major renovation project and the walls (at least) are finished, so we're getting our brains around painting them. So far, one wall is painted so that the radiator can be (more BrE) fitted (in AmE, I'd say installed ) this week. I've marked the same space as 'same wall' on the 'before' picture, so you can see the difference, though it's a Ship-of-Theseus question whether it's the same wall... after before Because major renovations are not something I've done in any other country, I'm often not sure if the vocabulary I'm learning is (a) trade jargon that lay people don't generally know, (b) words I'd know if I were just a little bit handier, or (c) British words for things that Americans have different (or no) words for. Painting is something I have previous experience of, though, so I'm pretty sure I can make a whole week's worth of Twitter Differences of...

A first century temple to Mars, or possibly Janus, near Autun (ancient Augustodunum) in Burgundy may have inspired the large churches of this region in the 11th and 12th centuries. Only a fraction of this building remains today.  Here, a family from the Netherlands had a picnic while climbing the ruin. A movement  to dot the landscape of Europe with large churches in the 11th and 12th centuries was fueled by deep Christian faith, but, initially, the important building technologies had inspiration from the remains of ancient, pagan buildings. The population surged at this time and the last invaders, the Vikings and Magyars, had settled down. A transept of St. Lazare, Autun, built around 1120 has tall arches and a blind arcade like many late Roman buildings. The rib vaults vault are an innovation of Romanesque Romanesque is the name given today to that style of art, reflecting its common traits with Roman architecture: arches, barrel vaults and groin vaults.  Altho...

The Erechtheion is an Ionic building, with its porches going in different directions. It commemorates the founding of Athens, with the contest between Athena and Poseidon Glistening white marbles which is seem to grow out of the hill form the picture on my mind of the Athens' Acropolis, from what I've seen in textbooks.  The city's highest hill has been a wonder to the world for 2500 years, and a symbol of Greek civilization since ancient times. One climbs the hill to get to the Propylaia, monumental gateway to the Acropolis.  A wide opening in the center allowed horse-drawn chariots to enter.  This view is from inside the hill. Although the Parthenon is Doric, this column on the ground was Ionic Yet, at any given time, so much on the Acropolis is in the process of restoration, covered up by scaffolds.  I was there on the first day of June, which, unusually, was not a sunny day. A view of the Acropolis ruins leads to another hill, capped Athens Tower I was surprised ...

This summer I finally had the opportunity to go to Greece and see the sprawling Palace at Knossos.  Actually, it's not certain if this site was a palace, administrative center, giant apartment building, religious/ceremonial building, or all of the above.  Yet it is so huge that, when discovered in 1900, archeologist Arthur Evans certainly thought he had found a true labyrinth where the legendary King Minos lived and kept his minotaur.  The name Minoan for the Bronze Age people who lived in Crete from about 2000-1300 BC has stuck. Covering 6 acres, the palace of Knossos and the surrounding city may have had a population of 100,000 in the Bronze Age According to legend, the king of Athens paid tribute to King Minos by sending him 7 young men and young women who were in turn fed and sacrificed to the half-man, half-bull minotaur. Eventually, with the aid of Minos' daughter and the inventor Daedalus, Theseus carried a ball of thread to find his way out and to slay the beast. ...

Sicily was controlled or settled at various times by Carthaginians, Greeks, Romans, Saracens, Normans and Spaniards.  This view is Monreale, in the north, east of Palermo. The island of Sicily has a central location in the Mediterranean Sea which has made it the most conquered region in Italy, and perhaps the world.  Even the Normans who ruled England also went to Sicily.  Despite the violence of the Middle Ages, today we can recognize that era in Sicily as providing an example of cross-cultural cooperation which is to be admired.  Islam, Judaism, Greek Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism lived in tandem and with tolerance during most of that period.  The different religious and cultural groups poured the best work of various artistic traditions in to the building of Monreale Cathedrale, about 8 miles outside of Palermo. Bonnano of Pisa cast the bronze doors in 1185 A Norman ruler, William II (1154-89), built Monreale Cathedral between 1174 and 1185. When the Roman...

In Selinunte, Sicily, the remains of several Greek temples from the 6th- 5th century BC can reveal much about temple construction, although they fell to Carthaginian invasions and earthquakes not long after their building.                     Architect Mark Schara, with his good eye for detail, took almost all of these photos.  Temple E has most of its outer colonnade, the peristyle , restored . Classical harmony is apparent in the rhythm of fluted columns, continuing up into the triglyphs raised to the sky. . But many of the capitals have fallen. On the ground level, we can appreciate their large scale. Temple F was badly damaged . Much of the white stucco facing for the fluted limestone column on right is still visible. Tem ple G, below, was the largest of the 7 temples of Selinunte, the ancient city of Silenus. This temple had columns about 54 feet tall. Here, we see the c...