Promoting inspirational #architecture from recent travel to #Heidelberg Germany.
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Heidelberg Castle ruins.
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"But let me talk of its castle. (This is absolutely essential, and I should actually have begun with it.)
What times it has been through! Five hundred years long it has been victim to everything that has shaken Europe, and now it has collapsed under its weight.
That is because this Heidelberg Castle, the residence of the counts Palatine, who were answerable only to kings, emperors, and popes, and was of too much significance to bend to their whims,
but couldn't raise his head without coming into conflict with them, and that is because, in my opinion, that the Heidelberg Castle has always taken up some position of opposition towards the powerful.
Circa 1300, the time of its founding, it starts with a Thebes analogy; in Count Rudolf and Emperor Ludwig, these degenerate brothers, it has its Eteocles and its Polynices [warring sons of Oedipus].
Then the prince elector begins to grow in power.
In 1400 the Palatine Ruprecht II, supported by three Rhenish prince electors, deposes Emperor Wenceslaus and usurps his position;
120 years later in 1519, Count Palatine Frederick II was to create the young King Charles I of Spain Emperor Charles V."
Promoting inspirational #architecture from recent travel to #Strasbourg France.
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Gothic architecture, flying buttresses and gargoyles...
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“He therefore turned to mankind only with regret.
His cathedral was enough for him.
It was peopled with marble figures of kings, saints and bishops who at least did not laugh in his face and looked at him with only tranquillity and benevolence.
The other statues, those of monsters and demons, had no hatred for him – he resembled them too closely for that.
It was rather the rest of mankind that they jeered at.
The saints were his friends and blessed him;
the monsters were his friends and kept watch over him.
He would sometimes spend whole hours crouched before one of the statues in solitary conversation with it.
If anyone came upon him then he would run away like a lover surprised during a serenade.”
-Quote by Victor Hugo, 'The Hunchback of Notre-Dame'
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“The more I contemplate the façade of the cathedral, the more I am convinced of my first impression that its loftiness is linked to beauty”.
Promoting inspirational #architecture from recent travel to #Trier, #Germany
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Basilica of Constantine (Aula Palatina) Trier, Germany.
Constructed 4th. Century.
Excellent example of Roman brickwork.
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'Bricks will be most serviceable if made two years before using;
for they cannot dry thoroughly in less time.
When fresh undried bricks are used in a wall, the stucco covering stiffens and hardens into a permanent mass, but the bricks settle and...
the motion caused by their shrinking prevents them from adhering to it, and they are separated from their union with it.
...at Utica in constructing walls they use brick only if it is dry and made five years previously, and approved as such by the authority of a magistrate.'
Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, Roman Architect, 1st century BC