Who needs posh?! Would a minimalist wooden cabin – bobbing on Swedish waters – with an interior reduced to bare necessities not suffice as well? Hotell Utter Inn, a pocket-sized lodging solution near Västerås, was conceived by local artist Mikael Genberg and built in 2000. It not merely floats, but virtually represents an islet in its own right. The tiny upstairs-downstairs affair has no immediate neighbours intruding into whatever one might be up to and is always encircled by a refreshing breeze to help cool off a reeling mind. Privacy of a similar quality is rarely to be had this close to civilisation.
Posts about Architecture
Saving America’s Mustangs
Madeleine Pickens is a businesswoman, animal welfare activist and philanthropist of European descent. When, in 2008, the Bureau of Land Management declared that the United States government considered euthanasia and/or the sale of more than 30,000 Wild Mustangs to slaughterhouses overseas, Madeleine resolved to establish a sanctuary for endangered native horses. A year later, Madelene testified before the United States House of Representatives Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands in support of H.R. 1018, the Restoring Our American Mustangs (ROAM) Act. After acquiring the sanctuary in North Eastern Nevada, she saved over 600 Mustangs from slaughter and endeavours to rescue and preserve the Wild Mustang have been an ongoing process. Also, until this day, the sanctuary’s survival relies on Madeleine’s charity foundation „Saving Americas Mustangs“, through which the funding for the Mustang Monument Eco-Resort and Preserve could be raised. A series of recurring obstacles had to be overcome before the resort could be run according to plan.
Saving America’s Mustangs is a not-for-profit organization accepting donations (tax-deductible).
Berlin: Tempelhof Airport – a legend!
Tempelhof Airport was closed for public air traffic in October 2008. 85 years earlier, in October 1923, ‘the first commercial airport worldwide’ was inaugurated by the German Reich’s Ministry of Transport; the initial route operated to Koenigsberg (now Kaliningrad) in former East Prussia. The first plane of the newly founded “Deutsche Luft Hansa” had its maiden voyage from Berlin to Zurich in 1926 and even gigantic Zeppelins majestically raised from the vast Tempelhof airfield. By the 1930s, it had developed into Europe’s busiest airport – ranging ahead of Paris, Amsterdam and London. But Tempelhof is unforgotten for the dramatic role it was to play in post-war Germany.
Dear Prague!
Don’t be shy to admit it: you are well aware of your striking looks! Uphill, downhill, along the Moldova with Smetana’s music resonating in one’s mind: walking your streets stands for a rewarding high-performance exercise for the senses – and for a bit of a challenge to the feet, too, I must say. To explore you from the core means treading historic grounds paved with cobble-stones hewn to all shapes and sizes. Yet, if the horses could cope with tricky surfaces on hooves back then, so can I in sensible footwear today. But, where to look first in this maze of wonder: left, right, up, down or around?
The Empire State Building: High ambitions
What’s feasible?
1929: „How high can you go so it won’t fall down?“ John Jakob Raskob (one of the executives representing the Empire State, Inc.) is said to have asked the architects of the prestigious new edifice, Shreve, Lamb & Harmon. The main objective being to devise the highest building not only of New York City, but of the entire world. Initially they had hoped that 80 daring storeys should suffice. Yet, there was a fierce mine-is-taller-than-yours competition going on in NYC in the first third of the 20th century and construction of the rivalrous Chrysler building was already in full swing when Raskob’s project just got started. Walter Chrysler’s building did become the tallest one, albeit temporarily. In the end, he was outraced by just a few meters of the finest Art Deco architecture shining brightly over 350, Fifth Avenue.