A few weeks ago, I wrote about some of the creative ways that municipalities have repurposed gasholders and other industrial behemoths.
Dreamily, I had mentioned the apartment blocks of Vienna as one innovative measure and was surprised to be able to see the site in person. The panoramic installation of four former storage tanks were in operation for eight decades up until 1984 when the city made the transition to natural gas for heating. Bauwerk des Dekonstruktivismus is the designation for architectural ensembles like this. The historic outer-shells were preserved—in part owing to the environmental contamination and the potential difficulties to be faced by new tenants without the support of the government and the city, once the landmark was retired extensive renovations and redesign took place, culminating in 2001.
The complex, joined by sky-bridges, comprises over eight hundred apartments, student dormitories, cinemas, a lecture hall and a shopping centre, and has subsequently fostered a unique sense of community within the four blocks, causing academics, ethnographers and urban-planners to take note with this phenomenon. I think it would be pretty keen to live in such a place, almost like living on an orbiting space station.
Monday 30 November 2015
viennese sandbox: gasometer city
catagories: ๐ฆ๐น, ๐️, architecture, Wikipedia
viennese sandbox: hofburg and treasury
H and I wandered through the gardens and the courtyards of the massive campus of the Hofburg of central Vienna—the wintering residence of the Hapsburg dynasty. Built up since 1279 and with a dizzying array of attractions vying for attention, we knew unfortunately we needed to be selective and could only see so much in a limited amount of time, ever a precious commodity. We passed several wings and chose one of the ten museums housed in the sprawling complex, the Imperial Treasury, Der Kaiserliche Schatzkammer. Though depleted notably over the centuries to finance wars with Prussia, the collection of secular and ecclesiastical treasures comprised some astounding rarities and the trappings of empire and ceremony.
There were many other iconic and bizarre items in a maze of galleries, like this bassinette for the infant heir-apparent, a key cabinet for the sarcophagi of the emperor’s entombed in the city (there’s a certainly a tangible fascination with remembrance, death and the macabre associated with Vienna, and a jewelled hat that is metonymy for the Kingdom of Hungary. The artefacts and wardrobe of state was expansive and dazzling but the core of the consignment is the imperial regalia (die Reichskleinodien). These manifestations of spiritual and temporal power were kept in Nuremburg until around 1800 when the Napoleonic Wars saw the dissolution of the Holy and Roman Empire of the Germans when they were sent to Vienna for safe-keeping.
It was a cheerful atmosphere and put us in a right proper mood—what with the fear-mongering against public gatherings enunciated in Germany and the Pope’s comment (while they were erecting the tree in Saint Peter’s square) that Christmas is a charade in a world of hate and violence. There was no snow or carolling yet but plenty of festive feelings to go around.
catagories: ๐ฆ๐น, ๐ฉ๐ช, ๐ถ, foreign policy, holidays and observances, myth and monsters, religion, travel
Sunday 29 November 2015
viennese sandbox: the third man
For a long weekend, PfRC took a trip to Vienna (Wien) and we are just full of impressions of the beautiful and storied city to sort out and can’t wait to return again soon. The next few instalments will share just a few episodes of a protracted but very inundating and rewarding visit. On a fine forenoon, we went to the the expansive amusement park, known as the Wurstelprater on the banks of the Danube—the divertissements for the public enjoyment going all the way back to 1766 when Austro-Hungarian Emperor Joseph II declared the former royal hunting grounds now a preserve of family entertainment.
A package ticket afforded us amazing, encompassing views of the Vienna from above—later travelling to the signals tower on one of the silt islands of the picturesque river. The Donauturm had a more commanding vantage but not nearly as fun as being gently rotated, though the high-speed elevator and the enticement of bungee-jumping platform were exciting. In the carnival grounds, we discovered another oddity of sovereignty just in the shadow of the Riesenrad in the form of the spherical Kugelmugel house. This micronation was transported later to its present address on Anti-Fascism Square after authorities refused to allow the architect and founder’s, Edwin Lipburger, design to remain on his own grounds.
Proclaiming independence in 1984, Kugelmugel claims thousands of non-resident citizens and issues its own stamps and passports—these franking privileges having gotten the founder in trouble but now tolerated by the Austrian government, but not going so far as to give them legitimacy. Though behind barbed-wire, I think that this is the first, extant micronation that we’ve had the pleasure to visit, and we have to wonder about its definition.
Wednesday 25 November 2015
tintin and milou
During the height of the hunt for suspected accomplices to the latest wave of terror attacks, officials in capital of Brussels implored nervous residents and citizen-journalist not to sound-off about the ongoing investigation, lest they inadvertently tip off those they sought after. It’s a little amazing to think that commentary and the its meta-narrative can unfold in real time and there’s no single abiding and authoritative version, but some jump to make that claim. The people of Belgium obliged and there were no calls of a media blackout during the lock-down nor suspicions that the government was trying to conceal something and they obliged in kind by inundating the channels with feline missives—of the memetic variety to convey support for discretion. Many took the extended opportunity to remain calm and not cowering indoors but rather to defiantly dress up and remix their pets.
catagories: ๐ง๐ช, ๐, networking and blogging
5x5
analemma: a team of American meteorologists is delivering a nation-wide sunset quality forecast
♘: A chess set whose pieces cue the way they are the be moved
pillbox: profile of one courageous icon of a dark and tragic day, Jackie O’s pink Chanel suit fifty-two years on
easter eggs: trying googling “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away”
profile pic: animated portraiture by Romain Laurent that highlights isolated movements
Tuesday 24 November 2015
unter den linden
A century ago tomorrow, Albert Einstein first presented his equations that dealt with two macroscopic fundamental forces of Nature—gravity and electromagnetism—to the Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin in an attempt to generalise his previous fete—no mean achievement, in asserting E=mc²—that binds together mass and energy and applies a universal speed limit.
Already paring back non-objective that tended to compartmentalise and create illusions based on the beholder, Einstein sought to incorporate the theory of gravitation and yield something more satisfying than the classical idea that gravity was like an elastic band that was infinite and instantaneous, but rather masses sinking and rising due to their warping of spacetime. Experiment and observation confirm the framework again and again, but just as normalcy appears to abandon us at the scale of very tiny things, Einstein’s physics also seem to buckle under highly energetic conditions. When things are small enough or hot enough to invoke the other fundamental forces, the Strong (holds atomic nuclei together) and the Weak (responsible for radioactive decay), General Relativity suffers the same fate as Sir Isaac Newton’s mechanics. Science and knowledge of the Cosmos is always going to be something provisional, and I wonder if it’s not just the bias of our size and frame-of-reference to think everything ought to applicable at every level. Is that a reasonable expectation or the exactly the opposite? Einstein himself is quoted (though perhaps one ought to be cautious of citations next to photographs on the internet, the intent remains) as saying, “Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a persistent one.” Eulogizing the loss of a life-long friend, Einstein really reflected, “this distinction between the past, present and future, is only an illusion, however tenacious.” What do you think?