Around the Bloc: Romanian Churches Fall, and a Community Withers
Culture Ministry launches fund to protect hundreds of old buildings at risk of imminent collapse.
More...We kindly inform you that, as long as the subject affiliation of our 300.000+ articles is in progress, you might get unsufficient or no results on your third level or second level search. In this case, please broaden your search criteria.
Culture Ministry launches fund to protect hundreds of old buildings at risk of imminent collapse.
More...
The article introduces artistic achievements of Wilhelm Richter, a sculptor and constructor from Gdansk of the baroque period. It focuses on his cooperation with Abraham van den Blocke being a head of one of the largest sculptural and architectural workshops in Gdansk and on their joint work. Referring to documents at the British Library the author presents unknown objects sculpted by Richter which were commissioned and financed by Kazimierz Leon Sapieha, with stone door portals for Sapieha palace in Vilnius (finally placed in Bereza charterhouse) among them. The portals could have resembled the ones made by Richter for the cathedral at Gniezno. Other works for Bereza included two decorated cartouches with coats-of-arms of the order and the founder. It is probable that a pair of marble sarcophaguses intended to bury bodies of Sapieha and his wife, Teodora Krystyna neé Tarnowska, derived from the workshop of Richter. Important discovery of documents which described works done by Richter for Kazimierz Leon Sapieha constitutes an irrefutable proof of artistic contacts of this Lithuanian magnate with the circle of sculptors at Gdansk. It is even more important in relation to the architecture of Vilnius or Bereza charterhouse and reconstructed biography of Richter himself. By now unquestionable information covering his activity had ended by the mid-17th century (accounts for decoration of the Gulderstern chapel and epitaph in Gdansk, 1653), while his links with patrons like Sapieha had not been recorded. The presented documents allow to supplement studies on the artist’s ouevre and enrich our knowledge of contacts and trends in activity of the artistic milieu from Gdansk in the territory of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
More...
Passionate about Baroque, the author of the makeover wanted to “make something beautiful and unusual.”
More...
The central topic of the article is the organization of the Modern and Contemporary Art Museum in Vilnius. On the basis of the museum marketing and management models, the author analyzes the specific needs of the visitors and works out a tree of objectives of the future museum. A branch structure of the tree brings out obligatory functional contemporary museum's divisions of basic services: accumulation of collection, accounts, security, restoration, collection research, presentation of collection (organization of exhibitions), education, publishing, information centre, archives, library, international relations, public relations (marketing), administration, technical service and auxiliary staff. The structure of a functional-headquartered type is offered to the museum's organization, where both in the management and execution sections "headquarters" are added - an advisory board, which helps to solve the emerging issues. The latter system is useful both in the strategic management, where the function of headquarters can be performed by the board of museum's friends, and at the execution level, where the advisory headquarters can be formed when realizing a specific project. The application of management and marketing models when solving the MCAM issues of common concern draws attention to their interdisciplinary character and testifies to certain incoherence in modernization processes of our environment.
More...
Since Plato and Vitruvius we have seen continuous efforts to strive for the truth, good and beauty focused around a city as a political idea and fundamentally existential space. For ages these efforts have been coupled with thinking of an ideal arrangement and composition of a city, the sense of subjectivity of its dwellers and users, their experiencing of time and space. In particular, in the recent decades, when it was not the space, but the time and its acceleration that became the basic principle of the natural order of things, the role of architecture has been changing. The information technologies made it an act of communication and therefore a part of the message of the media system. They also reversed the direction and thinking of the urban development — from the only one homogenous space‑time continuum to the personalised city based on individualised personalities and respective places in both physical and virtual reality. In the modernist vision of a city the space‑time continua comprising absolute qualities were a priori preferred over thinking of a city as a gathering of various areas, relation networks and flows which unite, merge or split. The times of the advanced communication technologies raise the question concerning the ontological status of a city where independence and individualism in interpersonal contacts together with the identity loss mechanisms symbolised by removing the social relations from the context of the space have become an ideal.
More...
The Divine Liturgy or The Heavenly or The Angelic Liturgy is a mystic theme with its roots in the commentaries of great Orthodox theologians from the 6th to 15th century and in direct links with the texts of Eucharistic Liturgy itself. There are few differences between iconographic redactions in the Balkan churches, where it is rarely represented, and in the Romanian Countries in the Middle Ages. We find the theme in Moldavian monastic churches from 16th century and the beginning of 17th, in circular compositions around the lower register of the drum of the tower upon the nave: St Nicholas church of Probota Monastery (1532 – 1534/1535); St George church of St John the New Monastery in Suceava /Metropolitan Bishopric Church of Moldavia of the time (1534); Resurrection church of Suceviţa Monastey (1601), Descent of the Holy Spirit of Dragomirna Monastery (after 1610). As concerning the presence of the theme on the eastern wall of the narthex in the Descent of the Holy Spirit church of Dobrovăţ Monastery, considered to be the first one redaction in Moldova, we think that the large composition represents the procession from the Vesper office of the Holy Friday, with the epithaphios with the image of Christ dead, combined with some elements from the Divine Liturgy.
More...
In the beginning of the 21st century, a number of buildings with neomodernist elements were erected in Madrid. Modernist theory of forms should be juxtaposed with such residential buildings as Mirador (2005) and Celosia (2009) in the district of Sanchinarro, which were designed by the renowned Dutch office MVRDV in collaboration with the Spanish architect Blanca Lleó. Equally notable are the achievements of the Madrid-based architectural office, A-Cero (Joaquín Torres and Rafael Llamazares). Its main activity focuses on designing residential buildings: both entire complexes and individual houses (Vivienda 10, Moka House). The paper will not only present some of such buildings, but also the context of their creation, both in the formal and ideological terms. It is also worth considering the theoretical reflection on architecture whose authors are the architects themselves. The most interesting of them not only design, but also seek to present their artistic philosophy, in which we can find many neomodernist threads.
More...
This article is based on review of the most important, traditional as well as the most recent, trends in studies of urban morphology. It provides a comparative synthesis of the major European schools of urban morphology, developed in the field of geography and architecture. For this purpose, it traces the development of morphological studies derived from three distinct traditions: German, British and Italian, and compare them with modern techniques of analysis of urban spatial forms, with particular emphasis on space syntax. Through the presentation of different theoretical and methodological approaches to urban structures the article aims to demonstrate the differences in the focus of morphological studies conducted in different areas of research. At the same time it accentuate their complementary potential.
More...
U periodu koji je uslijedio poslije krstaških ratova, u Evropi je primijenjeno inovativno inžinjersko arhitektonsko znanje islamske civilizacije u gradnji gradskih fortifikacionih objekata. Boka kotorska, preciznije rečeno Herceg Novi, to znanje prezentuje pod turskom upravom poslije 1482.god., obnovom postojećih i gradnjom novih gradskih fortifikacionih objekata, gdje takav graditeljski kodeks traje sve do 1687.god.
More...
Restoration and preservation of urban systems, such as town fortifications, is a complex issue which requires a systematic approach in order to achieve compatibility between the aims and goals of conservationists, design architects and municipal administration. This paper describes a methodology for the preparation of project documentation for the restoration of town fortifications in the city of Modra. With some modifications, it can be applied to similar situations in documenting the development of urban space in Slovakia or abroad.
More...
The present study is intended to provide a fresh analysis of the Gothic murals in the currently Protestant church of Sântămărie-Orlea. The church and especially its precious frescoes have raised the interest of many scholars, both Hungarian and Romanian, but the poor state of conservation of the paintings allowed room for many different interpretations. A new reading of these frescoes is proposed here, based on a series of historic copies, until recently unknown, which provide the grounds to clear up some misinterpretations. Nevertheless, a certain degree of incertitude will remain for as long as these valuable paintings, dated around 1400, are not restored. The wall paintings are placed inside semi-circular frames formed beneath the vaults supporting the western gallery. Generally we can say that they represent saints important to the royal court. South of the entrance there is St. Elizabeth of Hungary, the first woman canonized from the Árpád Dynasty, who offered a new model of piety. North to the entrance there is a hardly interpretable mural with standing saints. The middle figure is supposedly representing one of the Three Holy Hungarian Kings. The scene placed on the northern wall, with the inscription OBIT PAUPER PAULUS, seems to be an original composition most probably connected with the Pauline order, very close to the royal court, whose important achievement was the transportation of the corpse of St. Paul of Thebes (the order’s protector) in 1381 to the monastery from the Buda hills. The determination of the style and of the time when this mural was painted is hampered by the actual state of conservation of the frescoes. There is no doubt that the mural is part of the International Gothic style fresco circle, with elements from Italian Trecento, dated around 1400. The restoration of the murals will surely bring out new information and even show completely new valences of the Transylvanian Art.
More...
Building works on the Bolyai noble court (Buia village, county of Sibiu) was carried out in different phases over more than four centuries. Based mainly on the archival and historical sources, specialists have suggested several hypotheses regarding the patronage and the phases of constructions of the noble court. A small fragment of vividly coloured wall painting preserved on the south-eastern side of the polygonal chapel’s chancel indicated the existence of the chapel in the medieval period. This had shaped the general idea that the noble court developed gradually around the existing medieval chapel. Nevertheless, little information is available regarding the architectural configuration of the noble court between the yet unknown founding date of the chapel and the middle of the 17th century. The present article, based mainly on the direct analysis of the ruins, aims at reconsidering the building’s relative chronology and providing a critical evaluation of the monument. Three unpublished architectural surveys found in different archives (i.e. National Institute of Heritage – Bucharest, “Ion Mincu” University of Architecture and Urban Planning – Bucharest, and KÖH Archive – Budapest) proved valuable sources in the hypothetical reconstruction of the monument’s architectural configuration during the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern period (14th - 17th centuries). The study also includes a catalogue of seven limestone blocks incorporated in the castle’s masonry - spolia and of a limestone door frame preserved in situ. The comparison of their dimensions and moulding characteristics indicated further elements of chronological dating, meanwhile allowing several reconstruction hypotheses of doors and windows frames. Moreover, starting from a brief account of the social life of its founders, the study illustrates the relation between elements of social identity and the architectural features of the noble residence.
More...
Part of the salvation plan of the 60 wooden churches, initiated by the Order of Architects in Romania, the wooden church of Urși, Popești Village, Vâlcea County, is in a new posture: going from the urgent intervention, meant to protect immediately and remove the danger of an imminent collapse to an inter-disciplinary-based research, planning and the operations of consolidation and conservation-restoration of the church architecture together with its artistic components (mural painting, iconostasis and icons, and furniture). The anamnesis, the iconographic and stylistic analysis, the technological analysis about the nature of materials employed in the al fresco and al secco paintings, the initiation of microclimate monitoring, the identification of degradation factors, with a deep analysis of the biodeterioration are the branches of the inter-disciplinary research undertaken at Urși. The execution of the general conservation-restoration project of the church made possible a long-term allocation of the operations through which the church will be rendered to the community. The article closes with a plea for the authorities to get involved in saving a type of monuments representative for the history of Romanian art facing disappearance.
More...
L’une des représentations d’époque romaine de la double Némésis est incorporée dans un petit édicule votif de marbre visible aujourd’hui au musée d’archéologie de Constanţa. L’édicule votif est analysé dans la perspective de la «corporalité intégrée» entre la double Némésis et l’architecture qui l’habille. La relation entre la divinité et la Mesure est incorporée dans le principe compositionnel de l’édicule et elle traduit leur implicite cohésion et la stabilité réciproque par le langage de la géométrie appliquée. On peut supposer que l’édicule représentait beaucoup plus que l’image d’un édifice quelconque. Il n’est pas exclu que la structure «en architecture» qui abritait la double Némésis soit un simulacre en miniature de l’abri dédié à la déité, une reproduction (adaptée) à l’échelle (?) d’un Nemeseion.
More...
The curriculum of Interior Architecture education includes applied and theoretical courses. The most important course constituting the main frame of it is the interior design atelier course. Its aim is not only to create spaces with self-constructed functions and identity but also comfortable, compatible, artistic spaces touching the human soul. The designer should acquire this perspective during his education in art history, furniture history, similar theoretical courses and atelier design courses. The aim of this study is to present the relationship between interior design atelier and theoretical art courses from students’ perspective, and interpret the interaction between students and their success in design courses through success rates. Qualitative research method is used in compliance with the aim of the research. In this respect, in the first stage of the study, a questionnaire was conducted with twenty fourth year students receiving education in design atelier VIII in Interior Architecture Department of EUL. It is aimed to evaluate the relation between art-related courses and atelier courses through the students’ own perspective. In the second stage, student transcripts are examined and it is evaluated and interpreted whether there is parallelism between the success in art-related courses and success in design atelier courses from the researcher perspective. Consequently, these have produced the findings in respect to contribution and the extent of the contribution of art-related courses to the design process. The findings showed that specific dominant art-related courses should be included in the curriculum and/or taught more in the renewal of and prospective curriculum.
More...
In this article authors analyse natural and cultural landscapes for scientific tourism. Central Yakutia with the unique permafrost landscapes is a rich and large territory of sites of interest for the development of “scientific tourism” for explorers, researchers or eco-natural-tourists. There are three types of scientific tourism relevant for Central Yakutia: the aim of which is scientific research; the aim of which is practical training and education of students of educational institutions; the aim of which is introducing the history of scientific research, unique natural resources, historical and cultural heritage to a wide range of people. The objects of interest of scientific tourism – landscapes of Khangalassky region – are classified according the selected types of scientific tourism using methods of secondary sources analysis and field research. The study showed that scientific tourism on the territory of Central Yakutia is quite feasible and has great prospects due to the unique landscapes. It can also give impetus for the new scientific discoveries. In one of these new areas the research is being conducted within the framework of the project RSF 15-18-20047, which justifies the application of the concept of identifying the ontological characteristics of the landscapes with the use of linguistic and mental representation of it. The determination and description of cultural landscapes, collection of field materials and mapping of the cultural and landscape zoning of Khangalassky region was funded by the RSF (Russian Science Foundation).
More...
This article presents the importance of a historical element in the city structure which is the Kłodzko Fortress. This towering military building is an important dominant located in the center of Kłodzko. The author citing the analyzes and research carried out by him in the territory of the Twierdza, bringing closer the possibilities of using the adaptive potential of this place. This object, once performing a signifi cant military function, should now have a completely new application. Also presenting the examples of adaptation of this type of objects from the country and the world, the cultural and economic potential for the region has been presented. Objects that do not fulfi ll their target function fall into ruin, losing values and potential hidden in them. The adaptive possibilities of the Kłodzko Fortress allow for the introduction of various functions to it, which may result in an enrichment of its value. Giving a contemporary function in a facility located in the center of the Kłodzko valley is to have an added element, i.e. a synergy effect for the city and the area in which it is located. Based on the materials developed by the author, the potential of the place is presented as an attractive commercial and cultural object. Presenting adaptation methods, at the same time, attention is paid to the risks associated with leaving the Fortress to destructive activities.
More...
Prije nešto više od četiri godine, dok sam sakupljao materijal za grb velikokladuške mjesne zajednice Glinica počeo sam ozbiljnije istraživati prošlost Glinice i okolnih sela, te cijele Cazinske Krajine. Poseban dojam na mene su ostavili podaci o zemljišnim posjedima, koje su na području općine Velika Kladuša imali cistercitski samostan i crkva Blažene Djevice Marije u Topuskom.
More...
Issues of cadastre 3D is important element of consideration many national and international commissions, which work on vision future cadastral systems. This issue concerns a wide group of information system users. So this require consulting many industries, such as law, geodesy, architecture, building, spatial planning and other. In Poland register of land and building perform a function of the cadastre. The basic cadastral objects are parcels, buildings and premises, which are independent real estate. For this cadastral objects graphical and descriptive information only in 2D is recorded. This informations should be supplemented with elements 3D during creation of 3D cadastre. In this paper authors consider law, technical and economical aspects in the context of real possibilities implementation of cadastre 3D in Poland.
More...