Category Archives: ARCHITECTURE

Celebrate the Dead

22.2.14

Cemeteries and graves all over Mexico are decorated and honoured on The Day of the Dead, a combination of the Christian All Souls' Day with older indigenous Mexican holiday. Here is the cemetery of the lovely mountain town, San Christobal. Not only is it beautifully decorated with flowers, but the architecture of the tombs and graves are a beautiful mix of colors, tiles and crosses. It reminds me very much of the Memphis furniture we had in the house while I was growing up.
Photographed November 2010, in San Christobal, Mexico.

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Hergiswald

8.8.13

We visited this church built in 1654, on a little road trip to Kanton Luzern. The 324 naive baroque ceiling paintings are emblems of motives and sayings of the time. The whole thing reminds us of Tarot, while being very different.The countryside folk style creates a much more powerful feeling and atmosphere than the richer churches of the day.
Photographed August 2013, in Hergiswald, Switzerland.

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Vat Xieng Thong

14.2.13

Built in 1560, Vat Xieng Thong is a lovely Buddhist temple at the far tip of Luang Prabang. The various buildings are covered in carvings and mosaics depicting scenes from Buddha's life, dharmachakras, the tree of life and Lao legends.
Photographed February 2013, in Luang Prabang, Laos.

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Callanish

29.1.13

In the Outer Hebrides, the remote islands of northern Scotland, is Callanish. A neolithic temple and stargazing clock. Walk around them, touch them, feel the landscape.
Read more here
Photographed October 2004, Isle of Lewis, Scotland.

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Jantar Mantar

5.8.11

Mughal emperor Muhammad Shah gave Maharaja Jai Singh II of Jaipur the task of revising the calendar and astronomical tables.  So starting in 1724 Jai Singh built the Jantar Mantar,  architectural astronomy instruments.  Of the five Jantar Mantar built the one most missing from this photostory is the one in Jaipur. But unlike the one in Delhi that is filled with families and lovers, the Jaipur one is overloaded with bus tourists seeing another site on their checklist itinerary. But these are special places. Science conducted with what look like 20th century abstract architectural sculptures. I have always found that instruments at the pinnacle of contemporary science to be as beautiful as any piece of art.
Photographed march 2010 in New Delhi and Varanasi, India

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Lama Temple

15.7.11

I'm not a fan of much Asian architecture due to the constant restoration that makes many places seem as if they were brand new. Thankfully the Lama Temple survived the cultural revolution and while being alive and used, it still feels old and beautiful.
Photographed May 2011 in Beijing, China.

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City Palace Museum Udaipur

1.7.11

The old palace of the Maharani. Dusty sandstone on the outside, beautiful painted rooms on the inside. The collection of miniature paintings is fantastic, and much better than what you can see in this story.
Photographed February 2010 in Udaipur, India.

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Heilig Kreuz

1.7.11

Heilig Kreuz is on the way from Zurich to the Engadin, a journey I made hundreds of times. I am not sure the first time I went to visit, but I remember how much sense I thought the place made. I love concrete and find it such a sensual material, but most brutalist buidlings feel like second tier 70's furniture, interesing style, but the corners are all wrong. Förderer seems to have magical touch. It all seems so right, so soft, so perfectly channeling the idea of the time.
Photographed January 2011 in Chur, Swtizerland.

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