Category: Architecture

Posted on

Sunday/ the construction goes on

Deadlines have to be met, and time costs money – so construction on the new downtown Seattle buildings soldiers on, regardless of the season.  The crews do take a break on Sundays, and then I can go check on their progress.  Here are two buildings near Westlake Avenue and Denny Way.

This is 2202 8th Ave, a 40-storey condo building, as seen from the south from Blanchard St. The inset below shows Denny Park as a green patch behind the building, and the architect picked an oval shape to ‘provide a visual bridge between the intersecting Downtown and South Lake Union neighborhoods’. The building is near a weird triangular confluence of major streets.
This is 2100 7th Ave (‘Amazon Block 21’), viewed from the corner of Blanchard St and 8th Ave. There will be two buildings, an 8-storey and a 24-storey. The bottom picture is an artist’s rendering of the completed project, and is the view when one stands on the opposite side of the construction site (with one’s back to the biospheres).  I guess the S on the crane stands for Santa?

 

Posted on

Wednesday/ downtown San Diego

Here are a few pictures from downtown San Diego. There are several new condo towers under construction, but the older buildings are the ones that are my favorites.

The San Diego City and County Administration Building, built in a Beaux-Arts/Spanish Revival-style, construction started in 1936, and it was dedicated in 1938 by FDR himself. ‘Good government demands the intelligent interest of every citizen’ .. never truer than in 2017.
The Santa Fe Depot (as it was originally designated) station opened in 1915, to accommodate visitors to the Panama-California Exposition. That is the San Diego Trolley in front of it. The station is also a stop for Amtrak and the Coaster commuter train that runs up to Oceanside.
The marquee of the Spreckels Theater Building on Broadway, which was completed in 1912. It has been in continuous use ever since, except for a few brief intervals for refurbishing.
The Balboa Theatre is a historic vaudeville/movie theater (just a few blocks from the Spreckels Theatre in downtown San Diego), built in 1924.
I took the Coaster from Santa Fe Depot station to Solana Beach’s station (picture), where I am staying (single fare ticket $5.50). The train cars are tall with three seating levels, and comfortable inside, and a great way to avoid traffic on I-5.

 

Posted on

Sunday/ the Pioneer Building

I managed to walk down 1st Avenue from Pike Place Market to Pioneer Square today, before the rain caught up with me and I had to call it quits. I took a few pictures of the Pioneer Building.  For awhile, it was the tallest building in Seattle and Washington state – from 1892 to 1904. In December 2015, the building was purchased by workspace provider Level Office.  They renovated the building’s interior to create private offices and co-working space for small businesses.

(Picture & Text From Wikipedia] The Pioneer Building is a Richardsonian Romanesque stone, red brick, terra cotta, and cast iron building located on the northeast corner of First Avenue and James Street, in Seattle’s Pioneer Square District. Completed in 1892, the Pioneer Building was designed by architect Elmer Fisher, who designed several of the historic district’s new buildings following the Great Seattle Fire of 1889.   During the Klondike Gold Rush, in 1897, there were 48 different mining companies that had offices there.
The Pioneer building’s south side, today. It is difficult to get a picture of the whole front facade (tall trees, other buildings). The original pyramid tower from the first picture is gone now.
Intricate stone detail in the top panel with the building name.
And here is the stonework arch on the main entrance.
Posted on

Sunday/ Seattle Times building update

I went down to South Lake Union today to check out the construction on the old Seattle Times Building’s site.

The original Seattle Times Building was completed in 1931 with offices and newspaper printing presses and all.  Operations stopped there in 2011, and were moved to Bothell (some 20 miles from of Seattle).  The real estate and buildings were sold in 2013 to a company from Vancouver.  The developer has to preserve the exterior facade and roof of the Seattle Times Building, since these were designated a Seattle city landmark in 1996.  It’s a little weird that only the exterior walls and roof of a building can be designated a landmark! .. but at least some semblance of the old building remains. The developer has already demolished all of the inside, and while the rooftop is not built on, it is getting a make-over with landscaping and seating.

Top left to right: The Seattle Times building in 1946; the side facade of the main building from behind (there is a support framework on the front); Art Deco elements on the side of the building and by the main entrance. Main picture: 1 Exterior landscaped amenity deck for building residents | 2 Double-height indoor amenity space adjacent to outdoor deck | 3 Tall landscaping elements kept back from roof deck perimeter to give priority to the landmark Seattle Times facade | 4 Bridge element connects roofdeck with podium over breezeway | 5 Display of Seattle Times industrial artifact.
Here is the proposed massing of the tower buildings around the Seattle Times Building (in red outline). ‘Massing’ in architecture refers to the perception of the general shapes, forms and sizes of a buildings.

 

Posted on

Saturday/ Seattle Skyline

Here’s the Seattle skyline as seen from the Bainbridge ferry on Friday afternoon.  I stitched together three photos, and marked it up with some of the tallest and most iconic buildings.

The Seattle skyline as seen from the Bainbridge ferry on Friday.  The 76-story Columbia Center, 937 feet (286 m) tall, and completed in 1985, is still the tallest of them all.  The cruise ship in the foreground is the MS Regatta (1998), operated by Oceania Cruises.
Posted on

Thursday/ Port Townsend

We took a leisurely drive up to Port Townsend on Thursday, with stops at Nordland and Fort Flagler Historical State Park.

Nordland on Marrow Island has a great general store, with canned products from Cape Cleare, Alaska. Fort Flagler was a United States Army fort at the northern end of Marrowstone Island, established in 1897 and closed in 1953.  Check out the sign on the fence that says ‘Falling can be deadly’.  There’s a 50 ft sheer drop on the other side of it.  (Change to ‘Falling will kill you?).  Ft Flagler was home to the Seattle Youth Symphony’s Pacific Northwest Music Camp from 1958 to 1989. Today it is open for visitors and has a campground. The Port Townsend ferry is arriving from Coupeville on Whidbey Island. Haller fountain was dedicated in 1906, and Galatea the Greek sea nymph, was added in 1922.
This sharp-eyed bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) was sitting on a drainage pipe sticking out from a cliff at Fort Flagler. The bald eagles is the national bird of the United States, appearing on most official seals of the U.S. government. They live to about 20 years old.
Here’s the Jefferson County Courthouse in Port Townsend. The Romanesque style courthouse was designed by Seattle architect W. A. Ritchie. The Roman numerals on the base of the clock tower reads ‘MDCCCXC’, indicating that the building was constructed in 1890.
Here’s the Hastings building on 833 Water Street, constructed in 1889. It was funded by Lucinda Bingham Hastings (1826-1894), the widow of Loren Brown Hastings (1814-1881), a local dry goods merchant, turned to real estate investment after her husband’s death.
This bell tower dates back to 1890 and was in service for 50 years. It is a 75-ft tall wooden structure with a 1,500 lb bell (just visible in the top). It is the last such remaining structure of its kind in the United States (it was repaired in 2003). The original brass bell was made to ring in designated patterns that indicated the location of a fire in the city. The patterns were generated by electrical signals sent to the tower from signal boxes throughout the city.
Posted on

Tuesday/ drive down to Astoria

The drive time down to Astoria is slightly less than 4 hrs. We made stops in Shelton and on the Washington State side of the Astoria-Megler bridge, which added to the travel time.
This mural is off the main street in Shelton, a town on one of the south-western extremes of Puget Sound. It is a nod to the times when timber was transported by steam locomotives. The town still have lumber yards, but these days the transportation is done mostly by trucks.
A rain-coated boatsman outside an antique store in Shelton. Shelton gets a LOT of rain, some 62 inches per year.
This is on the Astoria–Megler Bridge: a steel cantilever-through-truss bridge that spans the Columbia River between Astoria, Oregon and Point Ellice near Megler, Washington. Construction was completed in 1966. The road surface and sidewalks are being renovated right now, and there was a short stop on the bridge. (Don’t worry, I’m in the passenger seat!).
Here’s a view from the Astoria Riverwalk, on the old wooden piers just east of the bridge. So the Pacific Ocean lies in the distance, on the other side of a bluff in the distance.
The Wet Dog Cafe Brewery is where we had a beer and something to eat. It is near Pier 11 on the Astoria Riverwalk. There is a trolley (really a train) that runs along the waterfront between 12 noon and 6 pm.
The beautiful John Jacob Astor Hotel building in downtown Astoria. Originally built in 1923, it was renovated in 1986 with 66 apartments of subsidized housing. Businesses moved into the lower floors.
The Museum of Whimsey is an art museum housed in a historic 1925 bank building that had been renovated.
Hey! Nice to see some gay pride celebration lamppost signs. I see we just missed the parade though : it was this past weekend.

We made it to Astoria with a stop or two along the way (Shelton, Dismal Nitch.  There was some rain on the way here, but later in the day it cleared up.

The Astoria column was built in 1926 on Coxcomb Hill in Astoria, financed by Great Northern Railway. The 125-foot (38 m)-tall column has a 164-step spiral staircase case to the small observation deck at the top.

We arrived early enough to check into the motel, and to walk around the waterfront and downtown Astoria.

I love the bobbing buoy on the little Buoy Beer Co. truck. Pronunciation note: In South Africa we say ‘boi’ but I learned that in the USA we say ‘boo-ē’.
A map of the ship channel (dredged waterway) in the mouth of the Columbia river. There are pairs of buoys in the water and on land at different elevations, that should line up when looked at from the ship, to confirm that the vessel is in the shipping canal.
This is artwork at a little plaza that is dedicated to immigrants in downtown Astoria.
These murals are on old warehouses on the Astoria waterfront, a nod to times long gone now, from the last century.
Some of the trash cans downtown are decorated with the seafood cannery labels from long ago.

 

Posted on

Wednesday/ the Federal Office building

A photo from the Great Seattle Fire of June 6, 1889. A pot of glue over a gasoline fire – in what was a woodworking shop – boiled over. That started an inferno that raged on for 12 hours, destroying 25 city blocks.

I walked by the Federal Office building on 1st Avenue in downtown Seattle today.
Whoah! I thought .. I love all the Art Deco lines and motifs at the main entrance.

I learned later that the Great Seattle Fire of June 6, 1889 actually started right there, in the basement of what was a woodworking shop.

The Federal Office Building (completed in 1933) on 1st Ave in downtown Seattle is a great example of Art Deco architecture. The facade is stepped (see insert picture), with the outer portions rising from six stories to nine stories, while the central tower reaches eleven stories in height. The tower is topped by a ziggurat (stepped pyramid) with a flagpole at its apex. [Source: Wikipedia]

 

Posted on

Sunday/ construction frenzy

Seattle downtown’s construction frenzy shows no sign of slowing down, with 68 projects counted this spring.

Here are a few pictures from my walkabout in downtown on Sunday afternoon.

These new glass and steel buildings are in the Denny triangle. I’m looking toward Stewart Street. The tall wedge-shaped building is the Kinects Tower, slated for completion in July; 40 stories with 357 apartments. The shorter building with its tower at the back is the Tilt49 building. Those are offices in the front, with a 36-story, 368 apartment building at the back.
Close by, construction is starting on an extension of Seattle Children’s Hospital research facility, scheduled for opening in 2019.
Here’s another completed apartment tower, this one 39 stories tall, the Cirrus Tower. One bedroom apartment rentals start at $2,500 per month.  Right in front of me is the construction site of Amazon III, which will be 38 stories tall when completed at the end of 2018.
(This is not a new building, but I like it). The two-story Washington Talking Book and Braille Library (WTBBL, pronounce Wuh-tah’-bull) is housed in a 1948 building in the Streamline Moderne style (a late type of the Art Deco architecture). The building started out as an auto dealership that sold Dodge and Plymouth vehicles. WTBBL moved into the building in 1983.
Posted on

Sunday/ Amazon construction update

The city of Seattle had a decent Sunday (with sun!), and I used the opportunity to go check out the progress on the Amazon biospheres.   There is also a third Amazon tower building for which construction had started in the fall of 2016, with its completion scheduled for some time in 2018.

The three biospheres all have complete outer shells, but there is still work needed on the inside. What must surely be the city’s smallest dog park, is in the lower right of the picture : an enclosure barely bigger than my sitting room. Just behind the white containers on the left of the picture, is the foundation of Amazon Tower III, slated for completion in 2018.
Here is an artistic rendering of the three Amazon Towers. From left to right : Amazon I is the set of buildings with the red & green; Amazon II is the blue one to the right of the biospheres, and Tower III is the one on the far right, still under construction (37 floors). © Magnusson Klemencic Associates
This is the view on the north-facing side of Amazon II. There is an Amazon Go grocery concept store* on the far corner (where the yellow paneling ends) – but the store is not yet open to the public. *There are no check-out lines. The store uses technology to detect when a shopper takes an item from the shelf, and then syncs the data to the shopper’s smart phone.
Posted on

Sunday/ day trip to Basel

I did make it out to Basel today, but stayed only for four hours or so, using the street cars to get around to where I wanted to go.  Basel is a stone’s throw away from Germany, and from France.  I heard a lot of French on the street cars.

Here’s the route to Basel, from Oerlikon station in the north of Zurich. That’s the train on the inset picture, and the platform sign says we depart at 10.01 am for the Swiss Federal Railway Station at Basel; the 1’s and 2’s indicate the cars with 1st class & 2nd class seating, and which sections on the platform they will stop at. The train only stops for a minute or two! Do NOT be a whole 5 minutes away from where you need to be, when that train comes in and stops!
Here’s the main entrance of Basel SBB railway station. It has operated since 1854 but was rebuilt in 1860 and again in 1907, with another major upgrade in 2003.
This is Marktplatz with its eye-catching red Town Hall (Rathaus).
The little plaza inside the the town hall. The inscription in the middle at the bottom reads ‘Freiheit is über silver und gold’ – (The value of) Freedom is more than that of silver and gold.
The Les Trios Rois (The Three Kings) hotel with the symbol of basel on the left : a black crosier (a hooked staff carried by a bishop as a symbol of pastoral office).
Here’s the mighty Rhine River that flows through Basel.  I am standing on the Mittlere Brücke (Middle Bridge).  The south is to my left and north is to my right. Germany is just a few miles away to the north. Also, as I’m looking west, and can probably see some of France in the distance.
This is Spalenvorstadt (Spalen suburb) with Spalentor (the Gate of Spalen) at the end of the street. The gate was part of the ancient city walls of Basel, dating back to the 1400s.
Here’s Spalentor from the other side.
Here’s another ancient city gate; this one is called The Gate of Saint Alban. The gate was originally constricted in 1230, but mostly destroyed by an earthquake in 1356. Reconstruction was completed in 1374. The gate even survived a planned demolition 1869.

 

 

These buildings line Barfüsserplatz. I took the picture from the steps of the Barfüsserkirche (Barfüsser church).
The Elisabethenkirche (church) was built from 1857–1864, and is the best known neo- Gothic building in Switzerland (Source: Wikipedia).

 

Posted on

Friday/ Lake Zürich

I did my short round cruise on Zürichsee* today. It was nice enough .. no fairy-tale castles to behold from the lake, just the Lindt & Sprüngli Chocolate Factory.  The other highlight of my day (believe it or not, and don’t laugh) was my visit to the Zürich main post office.   I had to stop myself from buying one each of all the beautiful stamps they had for sale.

*German for Lake Zürich – and meer is actually sea! Here is a little table.

GermanEnglish
ZürichseeLake Zurich
Rotes MeerRed Sea
Atlantischer OzeanAtlantic Ocean
Golf von MexikoGulf of Mexico

Here’s our 300-person passenger ferry Uetliberg, named for a mountain near Zürich. The vessel is 42m (138 ft) long and 7 m (23 ft) wide and has been in service since 1999.
The inset shows our 1h 40 min circular trip at the top of the Lake. Some really nice houses are visible from the water. It was a beautiful day, but it’s still very early in the season so only a few paddleboarders, kayakers and sailboats were around.
I hopped off at the last stop in the boat cruise, at Willishofen, where I found this giant Lindt Milk Chocolate Gold Bunny at a gas station with a superette. Stores have tiny, regular and giant 1 kg Lindt chocolate bunnies for sale (the 1 kg ones go for SFr. 50 / US$50).
Here’s the Zurich Main Post Office building on Kasernenstrasse 97 ..
.. with fine old mosaic tiles on the bottom entrances still intact. But take a look at the blue and red letters visible in the lobby inside. Google has set up shop in the building as well.
Here’s my little set of Swiss stamps I bought – just for fun. The bicycle stamps celebrate the 200 year anniversary of the invention of the bicycle (in 1817 by the German Baron Karl von Drais). The flower and butterfly stamps feature a fine laser-cut perforation so that the exact shapes can stay intact. In the middle is a set of three stamps that gives a nod to the Gotthard Base Tunnel for which construction was completed in 2016.
This is just a cute jewelry store window display, for jewelry for kids (note that mom or dad would have to be prepared to splurge several hundred SFr.). The display has it all though : castle, princess in distress, knight in shiny armor and the dragon (the dragon looks a little sad – aw).

 

Posted on

Tuesday/ Zürich Old Town

Drink your Züri water! This little notice is from my hotel bathroom to say the tap water is absolutely fine to drink.
The Landsmuseum (National Museum) is right across the main train station. It is not very big, but the exhibits it has, are nicely presented. The main exhibit right now is of the 1917 Russian Revolution, and the connection between Zürich and Russia. (From Wikipedia : There was significant emigration of Swiss people to the Russian Empire from the late 17th to the late 19th century.  Also, Zürich played host to both Lenin and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn).

Zürich has been around for a long, long time : when the Romans founded it in 15 BC, they called it Turicum.  I can tell the German they speak here is different from Germany’s (not that I understand a whole lot of it!).   The city has a reputation for its quality of life, but man! you’d better have a good job or have money to spend.  My $4 Seattle Starbucks latte (admittedly expensive already) goes for $6.50 here, and I paid $25 for a pretty modest (but very nice) lunch today at seafood franchise Noordsee. The same lunch cost $16 in Germany.

Here’s the quick orientation of Zurich I gave myself, when I started out today. The Marriott hotel (at the top) is at the confluence of the Limmat and Sihl rivers. The blue at the bottom is Lake Zurich. The old town sits all around the Limmat river (the one on the right).
The main entrance to the Zürich Hauptbahnhof (main station). It’s early evening and lots of commuters are leaving the station to go home.  The blue-and-white flags beside the Swiss flag on the right, are the flags of the City of Zürich.
Zürich Altstadt (Old Town) has lots of crooked and cobbled streets, and two and three storey buildings, many of which date back to the 1500s or 1600s. (Renovated many times, I’m sure, though).
‘Hier wohnte Johannes Caspar Lavater 1778-1784’ says the words in the panel. I saw several other buildings with names and dates on them.
‘Haus Zur Glocke (House of the Bell) dates back to 1357, then owned by bell maker Konad Glogger. The neo-Renaissance facade was added in 1881 architect Adolf Brunner.  Finally, in 1925 the art deco ceramic cladding on the ground floor for the cafe-restaurant was added.
There are many, many luxury shops and expensive watch stores on Bahnhofstrasse, and they get ever more upmarket the closer one gets to Lake Zurich. Many of the street names here go by ‘gasse’ (alley) and not ‘strasse’ (street). I guess that is correct, given how narrow they are!
The Grossmünster (‘great minister’) as seen from the Münsterbrücke (Münster bridge) over the Limmat river. It is a Romanesque-style Protestant church. Construction of the present structure commenced around 1100 and it was inaugurated around 1220.
Here’s a panoramic view of Münsterhof square with some of the guild houses (or halls). These are buildings historically used by guilds for meetings and other purposes. Today many of them have been turned into restaurants on the ground floor and office space upstairs.
Here’s Lake Zürich by Bellevue platz as the sun set tonight. The swans are squabbling over a little tidbit in the water.
Posted on

Saturday/ Marienplatz

Marienplatz has been Munich’s main square since 1158 (whoah). This is the bell tower with the Glockenspiel which is part of the Neues Rathaus (New* Town Hall) *New is relative, in this case meaning since 1874. Is is exactly 12 noon, and soon thereafter the two carousels came to life, with kings and knights and joker characters going around for a few minutes.
The view of the Frauenkirche from a street coming out of Marienplatz.
This is the Montgelas Memorial (artist Katrin Sander, 2005) at Promenadeplatz square in the old city. Maximilian Josef Garnerin, aka Count von Montgelas (1759–1838) was a Bavarian statesman.

It was a beautiful spring-like day on Saturday, and I spent most it on and around Marienplatz, just doing a random walk around it, with a nice lunch at German seafood franchise Nordsee, and a coffee at Starbucks.

Some men dress up in lederhose, others walk their dogs on Marienplatz .. this pooch must have gotten something caught in its long hair. There was also a ‘women against inequality’ group singing songs and making their case from a podium, with a few policemen at hand to keep an eye on the crowd.
This is the view looking eastward from Marienplatz.
Inside the department store Galeria Kaufhof, off Marienplatz, this T-Rex is displaying its, um – charming character.
Check out these old collectable pictures, part of a large series, of the buildings of Munich in the 50s and 60s (or earlier? I’m not sure). I bought these at the Munich City Museum’s store for a few euros.

 

Posted on

Friday/ Munich U-bahn

I spent much of Friday traversing the city on the U-bahn, stopping at the stations with really nice interiors to take some pictures.   It still gets pretty darn cold outside as soon as the sun sets (down to freezing), so it’s good that I packed my scarf and gloves.

These giant domes bathed in purple from the walls and ceiling are at Westfriedhof station all the way north on the U1 line.
Sign inside one of the train cars; one of those uniquely German words : ‘Schwarzfahren’ .. traveling without a ticket. (Yes, but will an offender even bother to read the sign?)
This badge is painted on the outside of a train car on the U6 line, a symbol to the city’s historic past, but that’s all I know.
Many older stations such as Sendlinger Tor (Sendlinger Gate) have older interiors.
This beautiful building is right next to my hotel at Berlinerstrasse 95. It belongs to Munich RE Group, a reinsurance company based in Munich.
Fridge magnets from a souvenir store. Isn’t the bearded guy in his Bavarian lederhose with his beer and his doggie just utterly charming?
This is the underground inside of the large train station at Marienplatz. Five years ago when I was last here it was a big mess with all the renovation going on, and now it’s looking great.
And this is a little further down at Marienplatz, by the U-bahn platforms. It’s 10 at night, so no humans around to spoil the clean lines of the tunnel !
The station called Münchner Freiheit (Munich’s Freedom) on the U6 line has beautiful blue columns with LED lighting to accent the blue. The walls are yellow, and the ceiling panels a polished metal.
This is the street level at Münchner Freiheit station. It is somewhat of a hub since there are connecting bus lines and tram lines here as well. (But certainly the new BMW would be the sweetest mode of transport, right?).

 

Posted on

Saturday/ the Castle of Good Hope

Here’s a very nice diagram of the Castle of Good Hope that I found in a magazine.  I drove by there a few times in Cape Town this week, and could for the life of me not remember the names of all five points.  Now I know (again) what they are : Katzenellenbogen (translated from Dutch, literally : ‘the cat’s elbow’), Oranje, Buuren, Nassau and Leerdam.

*[From Wikipedia] Built by the Dutch East India Company between 1666 and 1679, the Castleis the oldest existing colonial building in South Africa. It replaced an older fort called the Fort de Goede Hoop which was constructed from clay and timber and built by Jan van Riebeeck upon his arrival at the Cape of Good Hope in 1652.

 

Posted on

Sunday/ the V&A Waterfront

My friends Bryan and Dale and I made a quick run out to the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront today. It was very pleasant outside at the Waterfront (25℃/ 75 ℉).

Cheers! San Marcos at the V&A Waterfront. Our beers are from Namibia, mine a Windhoek Light and Bryan’s a Windhoek Lager. (Thanks for snapping the picture, Dale!).
This is one of my favorite buildings in the Waterfront, the Old Port Captain’s Building (1904).
The Victorian Gothic-style Clock Tower was the original Port Captain’s Office, built in 1882. The pointed Gothic windows surrounds the structure with a clock, imported from Edinburgh, as a main feature. The red walls are the same color as they were in the 1800’s, the new paint matched with scrapings of the old.

 

Posted on

Monday/ hello, Heidelberg

It takes about 48 minutes on the Stuttgart-bound train from Frankfurt to Heidelberg.

I took a Deutsche Bahn train to Heidelberg today in the morning, returning to Frankfurt some 4 hours later.  It’s not the best time of year to visit, of course – but Heidelberg has Heidelberg University, founded in the 14th century.  I also wanted to check out Heidelberg Castle, conveniently located on Königstuhl hill right by the Altstadt (old town).

This is Markplatz right next to Heiliggeistkirche (the Holy Ghost Church), off Hauptstrasse. It is chilly – not a lot of people around!
This is the Neckar River that runs through Heidelberg. It is a major tributary to the Rhine. To the right of the sluice gates is a set of locks, elevating the river surface upstream by a few feet.
This is the entrance to the Institute for Translation and Interpreting at the University of Heidelberg, at 52 Hauptstrasse.
This is looking west on Hauptstrasse, with Zum Guldenen Schaf (‘To the Golden Sheep’) tavern on my right.
This is an ornate and very beautiful pair of entrance doors on Universitätsplatz (University Square).
This little square is called Kornmarkt (I think) .. in the background on Königstuhl hill is the redstone buildings and remains of Heidelberg Castle.
Heidelberg has the distinction of having both the oldest and the most modern funicular railways in Germany. The lower portion opened in 1890, and was most recently updated in 2004, giving it the ‘most modern’ title as well.  Here’s the little train car on the funicular railway that goes up Königstuhl hill. There is a walkway up the hill as well (but it’s easier and way more fun to take the little train).
It’s a quick ride up, through some very old tunnel. I am sitting in the last row at the back, and this is the view down.
Alright! Let’s go inside and see what the castle looks like.
This is the back of the best-preserved part of the castle. The front overlooking the city, looks similar. The black and yellow flag on the tower on the right is the City of Heidelberg flag.
Lion’s head detail on the castle wall from the previous picture. Is this a sad lion? Like the one in the Wizard of Oz?
Here’s a zoomed-in view from the city from a vantage point on the castle.  The church towers of the Jesuitenkirche (Jesuit Church) on the left, and the Heiliggeistkirche (Holy Ghost Church) on the right, stand out.   That’s the Neckar River at the top of the picture.

 

Posted on

Sunday/ construction update

It was finally warm enough* for me to venture out for a walk-about in the city today, to ‘inspect’ the construction going on in downtown Seattle.

*43°F/ 6°C .. so still pretty chilly, just not freezing !

The cladding of ‘The Mark’ is progressing. The 660 ft-tall building has 44 floors and is scheduled for completion in April 2017. (I’m not an expert, but just looking at it from the outside, I think the completion will be a few months later than April!).
The three Amazon biospheres have all their panels fitted, but there is still a lot of work to be done on the inside. They are scheduled for completion in the spring of 2018.
Posted on

Friday/ Shibuya

Newly-clad copper roof of part of the Meiji shrine. The copper will oxidize and turn green over time.

I made a ran out to the Meiji Shrine in Shibuya ward on Friday .. but found it not as impressive as other shrines I have been to on previous visits. The shrine is dedicated to Emperor Meiji and his wife, Empress Shōken.  The emperor died in 1912, and the shrine was constructed in 1915.

This beautiful building is nearby the Meiji shrine, and houses administrative offices.  (The copper cladding on the entrance canopy has turned green).
This is in Shibuya. The tear-dropped shaped kōban (police box) on the left is unusual. Usually they really are ‘boxes’!
Half-boy, half-bird face on an advertising display panel at the entrance of a Virtual Reality arcade in Shibuya. Judging by the clientele inside, I was wa-ay too old to go in (but I did, anyway).
Inside Shibuya station.
The more mundane platforms on the old Ginza line that I use to get to Kyobashi station by the hotel.
Display panel by the door inside the train car on the Ginza line. The program generating the display not only ‘knows’ which line the train is on, it also knows which CAR of the train it is in, and displays precise directions of connecting lines and how to exit the station.
It was the Year of the Monkey, so the stock market went up and down, said the news reader at the final day of trading on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. And weatherwise it is not warm, but at least sunny here in Tokyo.  Six days ago there was a massive snowstorm north in Sapporo, trapping hundreds of Hongkongers in Sapporo and sparking violence at the airport that needed police attention.