The Marina district is named after the San Francisco Marina on the shoreline. There is also a strip of green lawn called the Marina Green between the water and the built-up area. Buildings in the Marina district have suffered damage to earthquakes on more than one occasion the last century or so, but as Wikipedia notes : physically, the neighborhood appears to have changed very little since its construction in the 1920s.
Four of us from work went to an Italian restaurant in the Marina district tonight, and I did the very San Francisco thing of taking an ‘Uber pool’ ride home. (Smart phone app used to summon a driver, shown on the map with his name and his car, as well as whom you will share your ride with, what the cost is, and what the estimated arrival time of the car is. Wow! That’s a whole lot of technology coming together!).
This is the view of Pier 1 (far right), Pier 3 and Pier 5 along the Embarcadero, from the conference room we met in today, from the 20th floor in the Embarcadero Three building. The container ship in the background is probably on its way to the port of Oakland a little further into San Francisco Bay.I love this 1920s Art Deco entrance to one of the condominium buildings in the Marina district. Not all of the buildings have entrances as nice as this one!
[From Wikipedia] Hamburg, a major port city in northern Germany, is connected to the North Sea by the Elbe River. It’s crossed by hundreds of canals, and also contains large areas of parkland. Its central Jungfernstieg boulevard connects the Altstadt (old town) and the Neustadt, passing Binnenalster lake, dotted with boats and surrounded by cafes and restaurants. Oysters and traditional Aalsuppe (soup) are local specialties.
I did the best I could with the day-and-a-half and rain/ freezing rain at times in Hamburg! I will have to try to come back in summer some time, when the weather is warmer. The HafenCity* area’s development continues, even after 15 years since it had started, and I would love to spend more time there when it had been completed.
*HafenCity is an urban center with many shops, restaurants, hotels and cultural venues as well as rising visitor numbers. More than 2,000 people now live in HafenCity as a whole; there are more than 5,000 students at the various academic institutions; upwards of 10,000 employees work in more than 500 businesses. It aspires to generate and use clean energy and be a model for the new cities that will have to be built around the world this century.
The Rathaus (Town Hall) of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg is a spectacular work of art, inside and out. It was inaugurated in 1897.The inside of the main entrance hall in the Rathaus.This is the Alte Elbe Tunnel (the old Elbe tunnel), a tunnel that was completed by 1911 that runs under the Elbe river. It is still in use to this day : by pedestrians, bicyclists, and even the occasional car or taxi !Here is a car that had driven through the tunnel, and is entering the car elevator to get it up to street level. That HALT makes me think of the Berlin Wall and the World Wars!The U-bahn (and walking) was pretty much my only mode of transportation in Hamburg. In Copenhagen I used the bus much more, since there was a convenient bus stop right by the hotel. This is the train station at Ganzemarkt, on the U2 line.This is close by the Elbe Tunnel, stone construction on the river bank.An entrance to St Pauli U-bahn station, and by the Plante-en-Blumen Park. It was too darn cold, with an icy wind in the park! and so I spent very little time there.The U4 route goes to HafenCity Universitat, and the line and stations are much newer than the others. This green overhead light and color on the station changes to blue and purple .. and I would probably have seen more colors, if I stayed longer.A brand new truss bridge for cars and pedestrians at HafenCity.There are lots of stylish new office buildings and apartment complexes in HafenCity, such as this one.This building belongs to Anglo-Dutch multinational consumer goods company Unilever.
Right next to the Unilever building, in HafenCity .. I think this is an apartment tower.The entrance to one of the two new U-bahn stations at HafenCity, called Überseequartier.
No, it’s not a work of art (but it could be) .. lots of reflections on the way down to the U-bahn platforms of the Überseequartier station.
The Øresund Bridge connects Copenhagen and Malmo, and was completed in 2000 at a cost of €2.6 billion. The bridge made a big difference to the economy of Malmo.
I could see a bridge far away from my hotel room and discovered that it is the Øresund Bridge to Malmö in Sweden : a combined railway and motorway bridge across the Øresund strait between Sweden and Denmark. The bridge runs nearly 8 kilometres from the Swedish coast to the artificial island of Peberholm in the middle of the strait. So! I have to go, I thought, and besides, my feet and legs needed a break from walking all over the city of Copenhagen in between bus rides and train rides. I literally just had time to make the ride out there, look around the Central Station for 15 minutes, and then catch the train back again.
This is the grand old post office building across from the Malmo Central Station. Looks like the right side’s copper tower and dome is getting renovated.The original, old building of Malmo Central Station opened in 1856.And here is the new extension that had been added. I think it opened in 2011.This is a brand new building right next to the Central Station, still under construction. I think it is for a drug company.Hmm! An M&M candy machine right there at Copenhagen Main Station in the 7-11. (Why don’t we have these in the USA? But maybe that is a good thing for me, that there isn’t any).
Here are some of my favorite pictures from Saturday afternoon and Sunday. Yes, the Danes are very friendly and laid-back, and they speak good English. Watch out for bicycles : they go fast, so do not step into the bike lane or cross it before looking both ways! The public transport is top notch. Even the buses have display screens for the routes, and the connections at the next stop.
This is the Royal Copenhagen flagship store. Officially the Royal Porcelain Factory, it is a manufacturer of porcelain products and was founded in Copenhagen 1 May 1775 under the protection of Queen Juliane Marie.This building is on the corner of Studiestraede and Vester Volgade, but I could not immediately find the name of it.Porcelain displayed in an antique store.The new Axeltorv (Axel Square) towers are still under construction, but makes for quite a visual impact. ‘Copenhagen’s new landmark’ proclaims a sign on the construction fence. To the left is the is a circular building called the Circus Building, completed in 1886 to serve as a venue for circus performances. The last circus to use the building was in 1990, though. It now shows movies.Here is another building that I do not know the name of. I see the beautiful spires from a few blocks away, and then I just have to walk there and check out the building up close!This is the view from my 8th floor room in the Marriott Hotel on Kalvebod Brygge (literally “Kalvebod Quay”), a waterfront area in the Vesterbro district of Copenhagen.I don’t have plans to go to the Copenhagen Zoo, but I love this bus, especially the polar bear.This is the main entrance to Tivoli Gardens : a famous amusement park and garden. The park opened in 1843 and is the second-oldest operating amusement park in the world, after Dyrehavsbakken in nearby Klampenborg. It is still pretty chilly outside (45 F/ 6 C), but there were some brave souls out there on the swings, the roller coasters and dive bomber.Here is Hans Christian Andersen’s statue, looking toward the Tivoli gardens. He was a Danish author, a prolific writer of plays, travelogues, novels, and poems, but best remembered for his fairy tales.The Scandic Palace Hotel is gorgeous. Check out the gold trim on the balcony rails. [From Wikipedia] Influenced by the Art Nouveau style, the red brick building was designed by Anton Rosen and completed in 1910.Here is a close-up of the copper-clad trumpeter statue in the previous picture. They stand on a pedestal in front of the Scandic Palace Hotel.This little gazebo-style tower is on Nytorv (English: New Square or New Market) – a public square in the centre of Copenhagen. It serves up Carlsberg beer. The tourist season is not yet in full swing (it has to get a little warmer first!), so the outside spaces are still empty and quiet.Care for a Danish butter biscuit? Might that be Margrethe II (queen of Denmark), deployed in the window displat? Probably not!Here is the clock tower of the Copenhagen City Hall (Danish: Københavns Rådhus).This is the rooftop of the Copenhagen City Hall. Check out the incredible detail in the coat of arms and the copper-clad figuresHere is a Tesla that I spotted, actually making a very illegal U-turn. Hmm. The building in the background is the rebuilt (2013) headquarters of The Confederation of Danish Industry (DI). It houses several companies that do industrial design work. At night the white segments light up in patterns and in different colors.This is ‘The Crystal’ (completed 2001), the headquarters of Nykredit Bank. The founding of the bank date back to 1851, but this year in February 2016 Nykredit faced public outrage among their customers due to significantly increased service fees.
A visit to the Cape Town area is not quite complete for me without checking up on my old alma mater, the University of Stellenbosch, and the town itself. It was very late on Tuesday afternoon when I got there, though – and so the shadows were too long for taking fully lit pictures of the beautiful buildings. But here they are anyway.
The renovation on the Faculty of Engineering’s main building is almost complete. The canopy at the entrance is new, and will help students to prepare for going out into rainy winter weather. The lecture rooms inside have been redone as well.One of my favorite buildings, the ‘Old Main Building’. I should have tried to use the camera’s flash to light up the two pillars for the gate in the foreground a little bit.This is Crozier House, a student residence that accommodates 6 or 8. I was squished in between the house and a big tree and a street behind me, and so I could frame only the middle section of the house. This is a case where I should try to use the ‘RAW’ version of the picture to increase the contrast between the pastel colors (this a .JPG picture).Stellenbosch used to have Afrikaans only as instruction medium at the university, but in recent times that has been challenged, with some organizations even calling for it to be abolished. In a recent settlement, though, Afrikaans and English will have equal status. This poster from the organization Afriforum says that ‘Afrikaans Will Stay’ and that education in one’s mother tongue is a constitutional right.
I met my brother and nephew for lunch on Tuesday. We picked the swank Westin Hotel restaurant in the city’s Foreshore district. My nephew ordered a chocolate milkshake (not on the menu) to go with his lunch – and to their credit, they were up to it. ‘It will just take a little time’, said our server.
Here’s the view towards Table Mountain from the 19th floor of the Westin Hotel. To the right of Table Mountain is Lion’s Head, and on the far right is Signal Hill. I used to work (this was in 1994!) in the Metlife Centre building on the left. The bulge is really a 180° viewing bay on each floor, looking out over Cape Town harbor.The Westin is all glass and steel, with vanishing edges on this side. The Metlife Centre building is the one in the reflection. The Cape Town International Convention Centre is right across from the Westin.This statue of Bartolomeu Dias is close to the Convention Center. Dias was an explorer and a nobleman of the Portuguese royal household. He sailed around the southernmost tip of Africa (what is today known as Cape Town) in 1488, reaching the Indian Ocean from the Atlantic, the first European known to have done so. [Source : Wikipedia].Some very African motifs from the lobby of the Cape Town International Convention Center. There are baobab trees (thick trunk with round fruit), gazelles and an elephant.
I took the Intercity Express (ICE) train to Düsseldorf today. The train is no slouch ! .. the electronic speed indicator in the cabin showed 297 km/h (185 mph), at times. It runs very quietly, and even with four stops, it took just an hour an a half one way. The train comes up all the way from Munich, Nuremburg, and then Frankfurt, on to Cologne and Düsseldorf, and its final stop is Essen. The one-way fare does not come cheap at €82, but hey : time is money, right?
Our train was ICE 820, and here it is, just arriving into Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof.Here is the fleet of trains operated by Deutsche Bahn (German Rail) . I see the ICE4 is supposed to top out at 250 km/h .. but our train went faster than that !The modest brick facade of the entrance into the Dusseldorf Hauptbahnhof (main train station).The water is from the Rhine river (it is a canal connected to the river), the tower is the Rheinturm (Rhein Tower), and the weird white and brown buildings that look like they are about to tumble into the water, are apartments designed by architect Frank Gehry.The Rheinturm is a 240.5 meter (722 ft) high concrete telecommunications tower in Düsseldorf, capital of the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Construction commenced in 1979 and finished in 1981.The view from the top of the Rhein Tower. The slanted windows enable views straight down : definitely not for sufferers of vertigo! You will pass out, looking down. The lines of colored light are reflections generated by the tower; maybe it helps the viewer align the view out there with the descriptions inside the tower, or they indicate a specific direction. The rectangular blocks piled on top of one another on the peninsula is a Hilton hotel.It really does not look as if there is ONE straight line in this apartment building. 1. I hope they paid the construction workers extra and 2. one has to wonder if the insides of the building, the rooms, follow the same kooky contours as the outside would suggest !Here’s the second of the three Frank Gehry designed buildings in the Neuer Zollhoff, as the area is called. Construction was completed in 1998.Check out the stainless steel used on the exterior of the shiny building, wedged in between the other two, so that it can reflect the colors in the steel. It looks (to me) like the exterior is holding up well, given that the building is now approaching 20 years of age.Is there one square or rectangular building in the entire Neuer Zollhof? Apparently not! These are offices of some kind, but I did not check the details.How about some very classic architecture from the Altstadt (old town)? I loved this clock tower on top of one of the buildings but did not make a note of the name of the building.And here is what the canal in Koningsallee (the king’s alley) looked like today. It is beautifully lit up at night, and full of color in fall. Check out the little stepping ledges on the sides of the canal. It is to enable ducks and waterfowl to get out of the water and onto dry land.
I wanted to go check up on the latest construction in Seattle’s South Lake Union district, and went there with the light rail train and South Lake Union street car on Sunday afternoon. Soon after I got there, a persistent downpour started, and I had to curtail my picture-taking and call it quits.
One of the (relatively) new ‘Day One’ Amazon office buildings with a touch of artsy whimsy on the corner.The building in the middle of the picture is an apartment block, with more under construction. Many of the new buildings are apartment blocks, so that people can live and work in South Lake Union (is that a good thing, to live so close to one’s work?. Good and bad, I suppose).The open spaces are nicely done. Hopefully some greenery will appear to chase away the browns and grays, now that spring is here.This is Amazon property, between two office buildings called Day One* North and Day One South, but a plaque says the public is welcome to use it. *Day One, since the technology revolution is in it ‘infancy’.Here is an interactive display in one of the windows, with passers-by given the opportunity to take pictures of their mugs, which are then incorporated into the collages. (So of course I looked into the camera. I’m on the far right with black hair and .. part of an old bathysphere outfit?).
I went to the dentist early Monday morning, and had some time to walk around the block nearby to check up on the construction of the Amazon biospheres. There is still some way to go, but the frames are in place.
Here is what is on the drawing board (and nearing completion): the three biospheres in a park-like setting, and across the street Amazon’s new headquarters. (The slim building with the yellowish color on the far right).The ‘Hello Kitty’ streetcar at its stop in downtown Seattle this morning. It is getting ready to head toward South Lake Union.The unusual frameworks of the biospheres are up .. I hope working with the unusual shapes is not driving the construction workers crazy!Here is the main entrance to the Amazon headquarters in the block right across from the biospheres.
I picked up my rental car again today and drove up on Highway 101 from the airport through the city and onto Broadway. Man! There are plenty of one-way streets, stop signs, bus only and bike only lanes, and pedestrians to watch out for. Once I reached Broadway, I told myself : park the car now; you cannot ogle at everything and drive at the same time. I was shocked to actually find a parking space, but I did, and I could walk around a bit to explore Broadway and a few blocks close by.
Here is San Francisco City Hall, on Van Ness avenue. (Van Ness is the Route 101 on the map with Broadway). It is here where Harvey Milk was assassinated in 1978. Milk was an American politician who became the first openly gay person to be elected to public office in California. Sean Penn played his character in the 2008 biographical film about Milk’s life.Beautiful detail from the San Francisco Public Schools Building across the street and a block or two down from City Hall.Street art off Broadway in an alley.It’s up and down around Broadway (it’s where the famous crooked Lombard Street is, as well), and I hope the little white truck’s handbrake is on t-i-g-h-t. Check out the steps on the sidewalks.There is some eye-catching painted artwork on this building as well.The City Lights Books store has creaky wood-board floors, rooms with wooden book-cases inside, and a basement filled that smells musty, of yellowed book pages. It brought back memories of my grandfather’s study with the walls of old books on them.The iconic Transamerica Pyramid Center was completed in 1972. (It faced lots of criticism during its construction, though). Check out the interesting green building just to its right .... it is the Sentinel Building, completed in 1907 in the distinctive copper-green Flatiron style structure. (New York City has some of these buildings as well, and there is also one or two in Seattle).
It was warm here in Denver today : 94 °F (34 °C), the skies clear for most of the day.
I took a few more pictures during lunch time and after work of my favorite Denver buildings.
The blues of the sky and the browns of the Brown Palace come together nicely in this view. The Brown Palace Hotel was built in 1892 of sandstone and red granite and is Denver’s second oldest operating hotel. (Yes, old hotels are nice to look at but generally not very nice to stay in – even if they have been renovated!).
This is the entrance to the Colorado Dept of Education building on Colfax Avenue. The state seal shows that Colorado achieved statehood in 1876, a hundred years after Independence Day for the USA. Indeed, ‘Centennial State’ is one of the monikers of Colorado. And the motto ‘Nil sine numine’ means ‘Nothing without providence’.Every bit of scaffolding has finally been removed from the Colorado State Capitol, bringing its $17 million renovation to completion.
Here’s the beautiful Granite Building here in lower downtown Denver. We had wood-fired pizza just across the street from it tonight.
From the Denver Post : It’s the four-story presence that looms over the southwest corner of Larimer and 15th streets, boasting a history that is appropriately rich, given that it was constructed stone by multicolored stone in 1882, just 24 years after gold prospectors founded Denver.
The Granite Building is also known as the Graham-Clayton Building. Built in 1882, it is 132 years old.
It was a gorgeous Sunday here in Seattle, but it was almost 4 o’clock before I chased myself out of the house to go for a walk. So where to go, I thought? I chose the University District; took the No 43 bus out there and walked around, and made a stop at the great bookstore that is run by the University of Washington.
The main tower of the University Temple building. The church is on 16th Ave across from the University of Washington campus. It belongs to the United Methodist Church. The building was designed in 1925 and constructed just a year later, in 1926... and here is the beautiful artwork of the main entrance of the church.
On my walkabout Monday night I saw that the empty Chutney’s Grille on the Hill restaurant building here on 15th Ave is now clad in wood. The building is ultimately destined to make way for a new four-story, mixed-use apartment building.
The skeleton of the closed ‘Chutneys Grille on the Hill’ is clad with wooden pallet beams .. best I can tell, it’s meant as outdoor art until the demolition man comes.
It was a sombre day in the USA with the 11th anniversary of 9/11. Here are three pictures of the same downtown Pittsburgh scene from my hotel room window Monday night and Tuesday. The very tall building on the left that runs out of the picture is the headquarters of US Steel. It has 64 floors and was completed in 1970. Its outside is steel and it is called – quick, want to guess? – the Steel Building. The Gulf Tower next to it with the colorfully lit top at night has 44 floors and was completed in 1930.
This building is in Capitol Hill in Seattle not far from my house. (The picture is from TIME magazine). There used to be a neighborhood bar in its place where my friends and I would go to many times for a beer! Anyway .. the building is very, very green (energy efficient) and the target for it is to collect energy and use it so sparingly that it can be run ‘off the grid’. I cannot say that the flat roof flush with solar panels does a lot for me from an architectural point of view but hey .. it soaks up the sun rays. (Yes, we do have sun in Seattle!).
Thursday was overcast and cool which made for good picture-taking weather. All the buildings are from the central area of Stellenbosch.
The ‘old main building’ of the University of Stellenbosch was completed in 1886 and recently renovated. It is built in a style that could be called Cape classical.This is the Sasol Art Museum is on Ryneveld Street in a beautiful red Dutch Neo-Classical building dating back to 1907. The building was previously home to the Bloemhof school.This is Crozier House in Victoria street.This is Van der Stel liquor store on Andringa street, a simple building but I love the roof arches and the Victorian style trim.This church is called the ‘Mother Church’ and this building and tower were consecrated in 1863. The style is neo-gothic, built from plans from Carl Otto Hager, a German master builder and architect from Dresden.
Today we started out on Hollywood Rd on Hong Kong Island where all the antique shops are, stopped by the Hard Rock Cafe for lunch and then went to International Commerce Center which has opened its obsevarion deck just a few weeks ago.
Pictures – Man Mo temple on Hollywood Rd burns a lotof incense (spiral coils)! The International Commerce Center comes in at No 4 according to a chart on the observation deck. Notably Chicago boasts two skyscrapers in the top 10 : Willis Tower (Sears Tower’s new name) and Trump’s Tower. (Message to Mr Trump : stick to real estate and stay out of politics). The blue floor with a model of Hong Kong is at one’s feet when stepping out of the elevator on the 100th floor. The tower is in Kowloon, so that’s Hong Kong Island across Victoria Harbor. The observation deck has little mascots (to make it interesting for young visitors?) The picture shows a little of the side, and that’s me in the ‘take a photo’ cube.
We noticed that there’s a number of floors above the observation deck .. that is actually a Ritz-Carlton Hotel (!) occupying floors 102 through 118. It has the world’s highest swimming pool and bar within a building. The 30,000 sqf Presidential Suite which costs 100 000 HKD per night ($US 12,500) is on floor 117.
These pictures are from my outing to Shenzhen yesterday. It was foggy and drizzling, so not the best day to go skyscaper hunting in the city.
From the top down –
Entrance to the Grand Theatre metro station (this is by the mix-C shopping mall) where the cab driver from Dameisha dropped me off / .. and there it is, the King Key Finance Center disappearing into the fog. Not sure of the name of the building in front of it / This is an administrative building of some sort close by / The Shung Hing Square tower (tallest in Shenzhen but about to be overtaken by the King Key Finance Center) / tree with orange spring blossoms at the base of the Shung Hing Square tower/ this is a dorm building for University of Shenzhen students / in the background with the China Southern Power Grid building in the front / the pink step building might belong to Huatai United Securities (that’s what the billboard on it says)
The next few pictures are from inside the mix-C shopping mall .. a tea seller / a hovercraft demonstrated in Toys-R-Us / a 3D puzzle for the Oriental Pearl Tower in Shanghai / Wonderwoman and Medusa (?) at the MAC cosmetics store .. Pow! take that!
Now outside again .. the World Finance Center is also close by the other two towers the first picture of the base and the next from farther away and finally an Art Deco-y apartment building nearby (with the tree in front of it sprouting little green leaves).
It was a long Monday at work – Mondays always seem long! but at least I can post these pictures from yesterday’s visit to the Outside China Town (OCT) theme park. Disneyland or Six Flags it is not – but there is a spectacular and steep aerial tramway up the mountainside to provide panoramic views of Dameisha, the beach and the bay down below.
The parking lot for OCT theme park. We see the tower with the wrap-around screen every night from the Yanba Expressway when we came in from work with the shuttle bus.The entrance: a nod to the Year of the Tiger, and the first of five or six escalators that takes one up the mountainside.A misty pond on the way up to the space shuttle display on one of the levels.Trinkets and refreshments are for sale everywhere, of course.Here’s the Starbucks, with a food vendor in the foreground. If the Starbucks was a little easier to get to, and not inside OCT, I would have visited it every day.The water spray is kicked up by a jet ski, and we did not stay long enough to see what other entertainment was offered in this show.1Here’s the aerial tramway, taking us to the top of the mountain ridge. Those pylons are really tall! That’s Dameisha beach on the right and Mirs Bay in the distance.The arrival point at the top of the tramway. The little tramway cars take only 6 people, at most.Posing for the obligatory photograph at the overlook. This is looking more or less west, with the coastline continuing on towards Shenzhen and Hong Kong.Here’s the skywalk with its glass floor. Yikes. With these things, one has to trust that the civil engineers had double checked their design calculations, and that the builders had followed all the specifications without cutting corners.Looking down at a new ride that is under construction, on the edge of the cliff. I’m too old for these kinds of heart-stopping experiences, so it’s a no for me, thank you very much.Another Chinese only menu to decipher. The pictures are super helpful for the helpless (us), of course. The green section has the cold drinks (such as snow top coffee and iced tea) and hot drinks (black tea, green tea, milk tea, classic coffee).Here is the view from the top, with some main areas and buildings of interest. Dameisha is really ‘big’ Meisha (‘da’ is big) and Xiaomeisha is ‘little’ Meisha (‘xiao’ means small or little).
Buildings in the Marina district have suffered damage to earthquakes on more than one occasion the last century or so, but as Wikipedia notes : physically, the neighborhood appears to have changed very little since its construction in the 1920s.
