Unveiling the Tower
0 Comments Published by Cedric Benetti on Monday, July 30, 2007 at 7/30/2007 06:32:00 PM.
Finally, after so many years, the restoration works on the Tour St-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie are slowly showing their results. And the results are breathtaking!
Back in the days when the ugly gray box was your best orientation point...
According to city hall officials, the tower will be unveiled to the public level by level, as the restoration work continues to work itself down to the base, and finally putting the surrounding green square (now a heaven for homeless) back into its past glory.
The tower has been surrounded by scaffolding and obscured by sheeting for long years (I actually never saw the tower since I live here), as surveyors investigate the condition of the stone and are doing an extensive iconographic study on the abundant decoration. Their recent findings show that happily the existing fabric is far more original than thought and that much ornamentation previously attributed to the imagination of the 19th century restorers is the genuine, late-medieval article. Unfortunately they also found lots of cracks which have made the tower a dangerous spot to stand around as a tourist.
Actually the obscured tower has been standing hidden under its heavy scaffolding for such a long time, that it has become a point of orientation to many parisians, who now seem to be a bit lost, since the top of the tower is being unveiled from its boxy iron cage.
Actually the obscured tower has been standing hidden under its heavy scaffolding for such a long time, that it has become a point of orientation to many parisians, who now seem to be a bit lost, since the top of the tower is being unveiled from its boxy iron cage.Confusion even got me at first, when looking at the usually monolithic grey structure: "What the hell is that thing? Where did they put the ugly scaffolding?"
Back in the days when the ugly gray box was your best orientation point...
According to city hall officials, the tower will be unveiled to the public level by level, as the restoration work continues to work itself down to the base, and finally putting the surrounding green square (now a heaven for homeless) back into its past glory.
Labels: Architecture shot, Paris street stuff (NOT a TOILET)
I just felt like telling you. In case you wondered. Tea time now!(comming up: lots of pictures from an extensive trip to the city that puts the "love" into "I love London"!)
Labels: London
Fisherman*s Friend
0 Comments Published by Cedric Benetti on Friday, July 27, 2007 at 7/27/2007 03:38:00 PM.
OMG I just love this song! I found it on my old music files collection, since my new laptop doesnt have all the music installed yet.
If you were wondering, its "Malambo No1" by Yma Sumac, a grand lady of weirdness!
Labels: Ads, Music, Talking Pictures
Tomorrow 8:04 am leaving Paris, 2 hours later arriving at Waterloo Station! Fun Fun Fun!
Does anyone still wear a hat?
I*ll drink to that!
Does anyone still wear a hat?I*ll drink to that!
Labels: London, Royalist stuff
Sleepless Restless Foodless Nights in Paris
1 Comments Published by Cedric Benetti on at 7/27/2007 01:19:00 AM.
Another night will be spent trying to get some sleep. How do I do to go to sleep? What do I have to count? God this is complicated. If I count pregnant sheep, do they count as double? What if they have triplets? Do cloned sheep count as one? What if the clones are pregnant? Should I count snails? Or read the phone directory for Guam?
Are you still reading? Good. Because it wont get better.
Yes, somehow I do not really feel the urge to sleep (just some hours at least), but lying in my bed also makes me just meditate and think about life. Nothing serious has come out of this, but I do appreciate the meditation.
And not only that, I also became immune to food! Yes! The sub-zero-what-the-fuck-do-you-want -from-me diet! No carbs! No fats! No nothing! Ok I just had a milkshake, but only to keep me from falling down after a day of walking around the greenhouses of Auteuil.
Now I wonder how long I can go like this. So far its been 31 hours and some minutes without food.
I will keep you updated on this, or maybe the doctor will. We will see who wins. My bets are on the doctor. Weird.
Life is the thing with feathers
Are you still reading? Good. Because it wont get better.
Yes, somehow I do not really feel the urge to sleep (just some hours at least), but lying in my bed also makes me just meditate and think about life. Nothing serious has come out of this, but I do appreciate the meditation.
And not only that, I also became immune to food! Yes! The sub-zero-what-the-fuck-do-you-want -from-me diet! No carbs! No fats! No nothing! Ok I just had a milkshake, but only to keep me from falling down after a day of walking around the greenhouses of Auteuil.
Now I wonder how long I can go like this. So far its been 31 hours and some minutes without food.
I will keep you updated on this, or maybe the doctor will. We will see who wins. My bets are on the doctor. Weird.
Life is the thing with feathers
Labels: Nonsensical rambling, things that can happen if you stare directly into the sun
Teenage Palace Dreams
1 Comments Published by Cedric Benetti on Tuesday, July 24, 2007 at 7/24/2007 02:57:00 PM.
Wasn't I a curious little weirdo! At 14 I didn't play sports or bullied other kids (like some did), but I was quietly sitting and drawing things. Lots of things. Very detailed things. Elaborate things.
I just found this old drawing of the perfect palace, I drew it in school, during those classes where you mostly were immensely bored by incompetent teachers. I was always submerged in my drawings, but I never forgot the world around me, so my grades didn't suffer of this.
The Perfect Palace
1996-1997
Cedric Benetti
(sorry the quality is very bad)
1996-1997
Cedric Benetti
(sorry the quality is very bad)
Labels: personal drawings + cartoons
What I*ve been reading these days
0 Comments Published by Cedric Benetti on at 7/24/2007 11:18:00 AM.
My eclectic choice for those boring hours of bad weather. The Berlin book from Taschen is one of the best I ever found! And some books on evolving urban schemes. All hail Koolhaas!
I forgot to add the book on Eero Saarinen (Taschen) to the lot.
And of course "On the Road", which has become the book that follows me around everywhere these days. Thanks again Erik!
Labels: Magazines and books
It's a bird? It's a plane? It's a terminal!
0 Comments Published by Cedric Benetti on Monday, July 23, 2007 at 7/23/2007 06:31:00 PM.
TWA Terminal, JFK Int. Airport, NY
1962
Eero Saarinen
1962
Eero Saarinen
Eero Saarinen gave New York City a symbol that captured the grace and excitement of the jet age by mimicking the shape of a soaring bird.
Since its completion in 1962, the TWA Terminal has served as an icon of both modern air travel and modern design. But its daring gull-winged construction—a reinforced concrete sculpture that tested the limits of its material and of what modernism could be—was the source of its distinction as well as downfall. The building’s stand-alone, sinewy form made it difficult to adapt it to the rapidly modernizing airline industry.
Larger airplanes, increased passenger flow and automobile traffic, computerized ticketing, handicapped accessibility, and security screening are just a few of the challenges that Terminal 5 could not meet without serious alteration. When the terminal closed in 2001 (in the wake of TWA’s demise 1999), no other airline stepped up to take over the space. In December 2005, JetBlue, which occupies the adjacent Terminal 6, began construction of an expanded terminal facility, which will utilize the front portion of Saarinen's Terminal 5 as an entry point.
The peripheral air-side parts of Terminal 5 have been demolished to make space for a mostly new terminal, which will have 26 gates and is expected to be complete by 2008.
The peripheral air-side parts of Terminal 5 have been demolished to make space for a mostly new terminal, which will have 26 gates and is expected to be complete by 2008. Labels: Architecture Instant Love, Architecture shot, design, New York
LOVE THE MASTER PLAN!
Enjoy a collection of urban "what if's", by french artist Florent Morellet. The river situation is constantly the Paris one, yet it is being transferred into different locations each time.
A very interesting concept. There are more maps like these to follow!
Enjoy a collection of urban "what if's", by french artist Florent Morellet. The river situation is constantly the Paris one, yet it is being transferred into different locations each time.
A very interesting concept. There are more maps like these to follow!
WHAT IF PARIS WAS SITUATED IN CHINA?
WHAT IF PARIS WAS SITUATED ON THE EQUATOR?
WHAT IF PARIS WAS SITUATED IN THE MIDDLE EAST?
WHAT IF PARIS SURVIVED WORLD WAR III AND WAS DIVIDED BY A WALL INTO HAVES AND HAVE-NOTS?
This last one is quite interesting because it shows the already present differences in Paris; a rich West side and a poorer or more popular East side. Labels: Architecture Instant Love, URBANISM
Palais de Justice, Brussels
1866-1883
Joseph Poelaert
Joseph Poelaert
This was apparently the biggest building built in the 19th century
Time for eclectism!The Palace of Justice in Lima, Peru, was based on this building:
No furniture so charming as books!
0 Comments Published by Cedric Benetti on Sunday, July 22, 2007 at 7/22/2007 11:50:00 AM.
This is the interior of my favorite bookstore in Luxembourg, you might even say it is on my top 10 of the best bookstores. You find lots of stuff, and I never leave this place without at least one new book! (maybe less than 7 times I walked out there without a book, but only because I was out of time)
The place is called Fellner Art Books and is centrally located in the old city, only a few footsteps away from the grand ducal palace (you actually have breathtaking views onto it from their front door.
You wouldn't believe the hours as well as the sums of money I left in this store! There was a time during my last school years in Luxembourg , when I would pay this place a daily visit, and also a daily buy! Sometimes I would even have to make 2 trips to the car to get the books into the trunk... the current state of my book collection could tell you... I have no space left to put them anymore, but I still buy and buy. Who could resist those prices?It's like a summer sale orgy at Chanel, only with books!
Their Luxembourgish books section is an impressive collection of many written testimonies of my country's literate musings. And the African sculpture collection is as impressive. Note the bottle holder in the above picture, the same one Marcel Duchamp used in one of his Ready-Mades...
Their Luxembourgish books section is an impressive collection of many written testimonies of my country's literate musings. And the African sculpture collection is as impressive. Note the bottle holder in the above picture, the same one Marcel Duchamp used in one of his Ready-Mades...
The architecture and urbanism section is the best in the country, and many books are already sold half price. You absolutely have to check out this fabulous heavenly place! You won't leave empty handed. Oh, and say hello to the owner's dog sleeping at the entry.Labels: Luxembourg, Magazines and books, shopping
Throne of Luxembourg
0 Comments Published by Cedric Benetti on Saturday, July 21, 2007 at 7/21/2007 05:51:00 PM.
I present to you, dear blogger, the throne of the House of Nassau, the grand-ducal line of the House of Luxembourg.
Hail to the throne!
The throne at the last grand-ducal investiture of Grand Duke Henri
It's interesting to see that the throne is not that well guarded, an occasional vigile passes by the room it is on display in the Museum of the History of the City of Luxembourg. You could almost try to sit down on it, if you were a respectless bastard...Labels: Luxembourg, MUSEUMS, Royalist stuff
Ryugyong Hotel, Pyongyang
Baekdu Mountain Architects & Engineers
1987-1992 (unfinished)
1987-1992 (unfinished)
The construction of the 330m tall tower began in 1987. It has a total 360,000 m² (3.9 million ft²) floor space and 105 stories. The building should have been opened in 1989, by that time it could have been the tallest hotel in the world and the 7th largest skyscraper. North Korea had spent $750 million or 2% of the country's GDP on the Ryugyong Hotel.
The hotel was designed to have 3,000 rooms, 7 revolving restaurants, casinos, nightclubs etc. In 1989 -the original completion date- they had several construction method and material problems therefore the opening was delayed, but in 1992 the construction came to a complete halt due to funding problems, electricity shortages, and the prevailing famine. Today, few North Koreans are willing to discuss the hotel with outsiders. The hotel, which was once found on city maps before the construction even began, has now been completely stricken from the official maps. Tour guides usually claim not to know where it is.
Italian DOMUS magazine ran a controversial competition in 2005 for the reuse of the tower.
The hotel was designed to have 3,000 rooms, 7 revolving restaurants, casinos, nightclubs etc. In 1989 -the original completion date- they had several construction method and material problems therefore the opening was delayed, but in 1992 the construction came to a complete halt due to funding problems, electricity shortages, and the prevailing famine. Today, few North Koreans are willing to discuss the hotel with outsiders. The hotel, which was once found on city maps before the construction even began, has now been completely stricken from the official maps. Tour guides usually claim not to know where it is. Italian DOMUS magazine ran a controversial competition in 2005 for the reuse of the tower.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY EIFFEL TOWER
0 Comments Published by Cedric Benetti on Thursday, July 19, 2007 at 7/19/2007 11:47:00 AM.
120 years ago, construction works began on a structure that was to become one of the worlds most celebrated tourist attractions. The first iron parts were erected on the first of June 1887, and construction work lasted exactly 2 years, 2 months and 5 days, and has been visited by 222 million visitors since its opening for the 1889 World's Fair.
The number of visitors per year since 1889The 1900 Exhibition
Remembering the first base jumper of the Eiffel tower, a sad historic video
CAMERA OBSCURA Luxembourg
1 Comments Published by Cedric Benetti on Wednesday, July 18, 2007 at 7/18/2007 01:55:00 PM.
Visiting a photographic exhibition with some photography buffs in the small Luxembourgish mining town of Lamadelaine (called 'Rolleng' in luxembourgish). The exhibition space is called the "room of the hanging" (salle des pendus), in reference to the miners, who hung their stuff up on the devices here, before taking a shower after a hard day's work.
The camera obscura (dark chamber) was an optical device used in drawing, and one of the ancestral threads leading to the invention of photography. In English, today's photographic devices are still known as "cameras".The principle of the camera obscura can be demonstrated with a rudimentary type, just a box (which may be room-size) with a hole in one side, (pinhole camera). Light from only one part of a scene will pass through the hole and strike a specific part of the back wall. The projection is made on paper on which an artist can then copy the image.
The advantage of this technique is that the perspective is right, thus greatly increasing the realism of the image (correct perspective in drawing can also be achieved by looking through a wire mesh and copying the view onto a canvas with a corresponding grid on it). With this simple do-it-yourself apparatus, the image is always upside-down.
By using mirrors, as in the 18th century overhead version illustrated in the Discovery and Origins section, it is also possible to project a right-side-up image. Another more portable type, is a box with an angled mirror projecting onto tracing paper placed on the glass top, the image upright as viewed from the back.
As a pinhole is made smaller, the image gets sharper, but the light-sensitivity decreases. With too small a pinhole the sharpness again becomes worse due to diffraction. Practical camerae obscurae use a lens rather than a pinhole because it allows a larger aperture, giving a usable brightness while maintaining focus.
"There is something special about a pinhole camera. There is a beauty in its simplicity and rawness that technology has not been able to better. There is a timeless quality that can make the most uncomplicated subject seem full of poetry. In each pinhole picture I take I hope to capture the joy and excitement that the early pioneering photographers (Fox Talbot and friends) must have felt when they took and developed photographs for the very first time."
The photographs are presented in barrels, hanging from the ceiling
The photos are themed on the old sites of Luxembourgs steel works, an industry that was and still is capital to the development of our country.
This is what the typical luxembourgish photographer looks like
The exhibition space had an incredible amount of fascinating details I tried to capture with my new favorite camera function; the über-zoom!
video of the place, with some photography talk in genuine luxembourgish!
Labels: and now for something completely different, exhibitions, Luxembourg, photography
