Posts about Conversions

A view on nightly San Fransisco from Cavallo Point Lodge.

Cavallo Point Lodge: a resort-turned army post near San Francisco

11.03.2015

If you’re going to San Francisco, be sure to bear in mind the wide variety of accommodation options it offers. But if you’re going to San Francisco for a stunning view of the city itself, you may want to choose a place on the opposite side of the bay. Here is one in Sausalito that would fulfil this concrete wish of yours – and perhaps satisfy a number of other visions stressed-out business travellers or leisurely vacationers might maintain.

There was no Golden Gate Bridge yet, when the U.S. Army acquired the site of Horseshoe Cove at the mouth of San Francisco Bay in 1866 to establish a strategic military base. Much later, 24 Colonial Revival buildings – erected between 1901 and 1915 – embraced the 10-acre parade ground of the camp named Fort Baker. When the Golden Gate National Parks were founded in 1972 and Fort Baker was no longer needed by the military, it was designated to be taken under the wings of the National Park Service, a transaction officially concluded in 2002. The post has been listed in the National Register of Historic Places since 1973.

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New York City: Opening party of the Duggal Greenhouse

New York City: The Duggal Greenhouse

27.10.2014

A number of nations of the civilised world are giving environmental issues top priority and have thus succeeded in reducing toxic emission and hazardous by-products, in trying to minimise waste in all areas and in saving rapidly dwindling resources. Albeit: It does not take a government to get the individual stone rolling. There are copy-worthy examples of farsighted doers who make the global climate challenge their own – hoping their commitment might be contagious. This is one:

The venue-turned Brooklyn Navy Yard building could easily claim celebrity status solely for its enviable setting and views. And even if just another desolate structure had merely been transformed from its sorry former state into a reusable, intelligently functional and highly modern company seat cum event location: the Duggal Greenhouse would shine brightly among the array of doomed premises successfully rescued from terminal decay. Yet, what renders the edifice truly unique is that the „green“ in front of the „house“ exceeds by far what the name would usually imply and that for once, the term „greenhouse effect“ offers a positive connotation.

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Coal miners working at the Zeche Zollverein in Germany.

Germany. Zeche Zollverein: Diamonds are Forever

16.10.2014

Events above the pit-web

The actual pit may have been shut down decades ago, but the lifeblood of Zeche Zollverein, one of Europe’s largest industrial monuments, is pulsating powerfully through its veins to this day. Bestowing upon it a new purpose by turning its extraordinary properties into an event location seemed a brilliant idea, whereby the challenge lies in simultaneously complying with the constraints a recognised UNESCO world heritage site has to bow to. The venue shakes up an impressive cocktail of modern industrial architecture corroborated by the moving history of a legendary colliery – and has rightly become a much-regarded landmark – and a meaningful symbol for the Ruhrgebiet region. Zeche Zollverein is the indisputable epitome of coal mining activities in Germany.

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Alfama - the picturesque Old Town of Lisbon.

Portugal: Lissabon – ein Dauerbrenner!

3.10.2013

Der trutzige hohe Turm aus Schmiedeeisen in Tarnfarbe gestrichen und zusammengehalten von den typischen knubbeligen Nieten klebt als Gruß aus dem letzten Jahrhundert zwischen patinierten Altstadthäusern: Raoul Mesnier de Ponsard, ein Schüler Gustave Eiffels entwarf den 45 Meter hohen Elevador de Santa Justa als unverwechselbares Wahrzeichen Lissabons. Der 1902 in Betrieb genommene Fahrstuhl verbindet bis heute die Stadtteile Baixa und Chiado. Bequem wie im Fluge ermöglicht er Bürgern wie Besuchern in zwei großen Kabinen bei bezauberndem Ausblick gegen einen kleinen Obolus eine gemütliche Himmelfahrt in höher gelegene urbane Regionen. Drei weitere „Elevadores” sind eigentlich Standseilbahnen, die wiederum den Trams zum Verwechseln ähneln und seit weit mehr als hundert Jahren quasi als Steilvorlage den sonst so mühsamen Aufstieg in die Hänge der Stadt beschleunigen.

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Schottland: Hello, Dolly!

25.09.2013

Source of header photo is untraceable. Please contact the publisher, should you be the author.

Diese Schotten! Der Klischees gäbe es mehr als genug: Schotten sind geizig, essen unansehnliches Haggis, trinken Unmengen Whisky und pfeifen unaufhörlich auf dem Dudelsack. Sie gehen nicht ohne Golfschläger aus dem Haus, tragen kratzige Pullover und karierte Faltenröcke, treffen sich in Clans in Glens, tanzen den ganzen Tag Ceilidh [kay-lee] und werfen im Hochland mit Baumstämmen oder Gummistiefeln um sich. Außerdem ist ihr Glaube an böswillige Gespenster und an ein einem Dinosaurier ähnelndes Untier in einem tiefen Loch schier unausrottbar!

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