Posts about Museums

A museum for Tintin, the Belgian hero

4.05.2024

Hergé: Master of the Comic Strip

Georges Prosper Remi – born in Etterbeek/Brussels on May 22nd of 1907 – became a renowned cartoonist who chose to sign his drawings with the pseudonym Hergé (RG), standing for his initials read backwards. The adventures of his heroes Tintin and Snowy were first published in 1929 – and nothing could impede their rapid ascent nor weaken their lasting worldwide success. Their exciting feats were translated into numerous languages and devoured by hundreds of millions of readers – notwithstanding their age. The constant flow of Hergé’s inspiration sprang from the reality situations of everyday life, a reliable source likely never to run dry. Before founding his Studios, Hergé, the productive artist, accomplished the challenge of his unique creative mission as a solitary fighter for more than two decades. Georges Remi died in 1983. The artist’s legacy comprises a wealth of works of impressive diversity in its distinctive unequivocal style. It is displayed at the Hergé Museum in Louvain-la-Neuve near Brussels in the Belgian region of Walloon Brabant.

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Paris: The stage of a glamorous Montmartre Show.

Paris. Montmartre – a sphere in its own right

12.04.2024

The Making of a Bohemian Microcosm

Montmartre evolved following a massive urban reconstruction and relocation scheme initiated by a great man of the 19th century: Napoleon III. Together with his ambitious town planning prefect Baron Haussmann, he aimed at creating a mundane Paris of dazzling allure and wanted it to become „the most beautiful city of Europe“ – not without granting spacious plots of land in prime locations to Haussmann, his many friends and financial supporters. By rigorously stomping unsightly areas into the ground and by replacing humble housing by posh manorial edifices and narrow crooked alleyways by grandiose and airy boulevards and squares, Paris’s face was substantially lifted and embellished – albeit at the expense of the less privileged population, who became early victims of gentrification.

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River Main Frankfurt

Frankfurt – my Zuggerschneggsche

16.10.2023

The soft sides of a business queen

It’s been a long and sometimes painful journey through a jungle of misconception and prejudice. Both seem to die as hard as any of the bad habits the world so happily cultivates. Eventually it looks as though Frankfurt – Hessen’s largest city (but not it’s capital, that’s Wiesbaden, you didn’t know that, did you?) has managed to shed its unjustified reputation of being nothing but a money-minded financial hub. See for yourselves how winsome it can be.

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Johannesburg: Constitution Hill

28.07.2022

 

Before setting off on a journey to foreign latitudes, a general plan of action seems a reasonable idea. When time and funds are limited, the most has to be made of both. The aim is an agreeable cocktail of experiences upon whose long-lasting effect individual memories and emotions can foster. Sometimes even carefully charted programmes are missing a vital link. One that takes travellers back into a country’s historical and political past, grim as it may have been. Then it will be understood why the past is inseparable from the present and the future and why landmarks such as Joburg’s Constitution Hill epitomise the lifeblood of an entire nation.

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A toy harbour scene: The Miniature Train World in Hamburg's attracts millions of visitors each year.

Hamburg: The world’s largest model train exhibition

10.12.2020

Where’s Gulliver?

If a long-hatched childhood dream is ever to come true, entrepreneurial reason mostly isn’t the proper leverage to make it happen. Frederik Braun and his twin brother Gerrit still bravely ventured out on a project not only demanding a vast amount of courage, enthusiasm, utmost technical aptitude, congenial logistics and never-ending perseverance – but also a mighty portion of disregard towards the shaky economical outlook and the financial risks lurking virtually everywhere. A browse through a model railway shop in Switzerland’s capital Zurich back in 2000, triggered the idea for what was to become the largest and most successful exhibition of model railways worldwide.

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