Category: Architecture

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Sunday/ Alaskan Way viaduct: almost gone

I went down to the railing at the top of Pike Place Market today, to go check on the Alaskan Way viaduct demolition. Only some support beams for the now-demolished double-decker viaduct, are still there.

A few blocks away more of the new Amazon buildings are nearing completion, gleaming glass and steel on the outside.

Here’s the view looking south: no sign of the viaduct! Yay! (P.S. A pity that railway tunnel and line is still there, though. Just as I was leaving, a noisy coal train came chugging through, probably headed up north to the coal export terminal in British Columbia. We don’t like coal trains in Seattle. As the freight cars cross the roadways, motorists are backed up for blocks. And in a Nov. 2016 trial against rail company BNSF, scientists testified that a million or more coal particles per second come off of each rail car, dumping mercury, arsenic, and hundreds of other pollutants into rivers, lakes and oceans along BNSF rail lines. And then of course, somewhere all the coal will get burned, become CO2  and contribute to the climate change crisis).
Here are some of the remaining support beams that will be demolished, looking north from the same spot.
Here is what the corner of Blanchard St & 7th Ave looks like now. The two shiny buildings are Amazon Block 21. The oval one is McKenzie luxury apartments (1 bed, 1 bath: $3,000 pm). To the left rises Amazon Block 18, a 17-story office building. Quite a transformation .. not that many years ago, I would bring my Toyota Camry to the Toyota service station that used to be right here, in Block 21.
New bike lane, watch for bicycles as you cross, pedestrians! I wonder if the bicycle picture will eventually have to be updated to include say, electric scooters.
This is the nearby Amazon Block 20 tower that has been completed for a few months now. Amazon employees must have started to move into it.
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Tuesday/ the ‘Most Beautiful House’ in Germany

A new brick house in Münster, Germany, won the 2019 architectural award from 200 submissions, for the ‘Most Beautiful House’ in Germany.

I saw the report in a newspaper while I was in Germany, and looked up these pictures from the website of Die Welt newspaper.

The brick house with the asymmetrical, stepped facade and copper garage door in the Buddenturm neighborhood in Münster, Germany. [Source: Die Welt newspaper/ hehnpohl architektur bda]
Lots of exposed concrete and wood on the inside. [Source: Die Welt newspaper/ hehnpohl architektur bda]
Is it old? Is it new? Is it quite finished, with that concrete ceiling and all? I love those black lamp shades and hey, if had I lived there I am very sure I would get used to it!  Those floor-to-ceiling doors/ windows are great, too. [Source: Die Welt newspaper/ hehnpohl architektur bda]

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Tuesday/ central Oslo & Aker Brygge

I spent the day running down the interesting architecture sights around central station, and the Aker Brygge (Aker docks), a little further along the waterfront.
I also checked into some stores and some bookstores.
I have so far come up empty handed, as far as finding Tintin books in Norwegian, to add to my collection.

Brunost cheese on display at breakfast here in the hotel. It’s a cheese made with whey, milk, and/or cream .. and it is very tasty.
Here’s the type of tram that gets one around central Oslo. Lots of buses available as well.
A selfie with the help of a food truck’s polished surface . I’m on my way the Astrup Fearnley Museum, the structure in the distance.
Find the mechanical reindeer in the picture! Polished marble and glass in the modern office and apartments around Aker Brygge.
Here’s the Astrup Fearnley Museet, a museum of  modern art. It’s been here awhile (since 1993), and was designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano.
Melkesjokolade .. hmm, yes, a very large slab of milk chocolate, and spelled almost identically to the way it is in Afrikaans: melksjokolade.
And a stuffed reindeer.
The Stortingsbygningen (Storting building) in central Oslo. It is the seat of the Storting, the parliament of Norway. It was designed by the Swedish architect Emil Victor Langlet and taken into use in 1866.
Here’s the regional train called the T-bane (so no U-bahn in Oslo!), coming into Carl Berners Plass station (Carl Berner plaza station).
I’m standing on the Akrobaten pedestrian bridge close to Central Station, and watching the trains come in. That’s the Nordenga road bridge in the distance. It opened in 2011.
To my left is the Akrobaten pedestrian bridge that I am standing on. The buildings on the other side of the tracks are called the Barcode buildings: twelve narrow high-rise buildings of different heights and widths.
Just a closer view of the glass, brick and steel of another one of the Barcode buildings.
Here is the new building for the (Edvard) Munch Museum, scheduled to open in spring 2020. The Munch museum collection, that includes the famous ‘The Scream’, is currently located in Toyen. (Is the building craning its neck to take a closer look at the water?).
The Oslo Opera House, at the head of the Oslofjord (but just a stone’s throw from Central Station, actually). It opened in 2008, and is the home of the Norwegian National Opera and Ballet, and the national opera theatre in Norway.

 

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Monday night/ arrival in Oslo

My Norwegian Air flight had an hour delay out of Hamburg. There was a baggage mix-up in the airplane cargo hold that had to be resolved, but we made it into Oslo with no incident, after that.

The express train from Oslo Gardermoen airport to Oslo Sentralstasjon (central station) took only 21 minutes. The central station is so modern and sleek inside, that it has the same feel as an airport.

Here’s the view from the train coming into Oslo central station, some modern buildings lined up in the background.
Here’s our sleek express train called Flytoget at Oslo Central Station. It’s a GMB Class 71 electric train, capable of 130 mph (210 km/h). It is the only high-speed rail service in Norway, though.
I took a quick walk around the central station before the sun set completely. This is the town square right by the central station. Look for a big bronze tiger at the bottom right.
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Sunday/ the Deichtorhallen

There was a persistent rain today, that made walking around without an umbrella, and not getting really wet, impossible. So I checked into the Deichtorhallen (“the levee gate halls”) art & photography museum.
These halls were built from 1911 to 1914 as market halls, on the grounds of the former Berliner Bahnhof railway station (Hamburg’s counterpart to Berlin’s Hamburger Bahnhof). Wikipedia says they ‘constitute one of the few surviving examples of industrial architecture from the transitional period between Art Nouveau and 20th century styles’.

This is a side view of the Deichtorhalle (‘levee gate hall’) that houses the art collection ..
.. and a view of the Deichtorhalle that houses the photography collection.
The ceiling of the art collection hall is in itself a work of art (as it should be, right?).
‘Freundinnen (Friends)’ (1965/1966) by Sigmar Polke, large oil on canvas made with raster scan dots. The artist used a paint pistol and a template to create the overlapping dots in different colors. This results in moiré patterns: large-scale interference patterns produced when an opaque ruled pattern with transparent gaps is overlaid on another similar pattern.
This giant work of mixed media on paper covers an entire wall in a small room. It is also by Sigmar Polke (1968-1971) with the strange title ‘Die Fahrt Auf Die Undendlichkeits-acht (Der Motorfahrrader)’ Eng. The Ride On the Eight of Infinity (The Motorcyclist)‘.
I thought the photography hall’s pictures were weird. (Should they be?). It had a lot of interesting/ ugly human face photos, and new-born babies, and other strange, strange pictures. I liked this scary hare staring down the camera, though. The artist was not noted, only that it is a gelatin print on paper, of a hare, made in 2000.
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Saturday/ the Elbbrücken station

Well, I did run out to the Elbbrücken station on the U4 line today.
It opened in Dec 2018.
I also went up to the viewing platform of the St. Nikolai Memorial.
The city’s 1968 Heinrich Hertz Tower (280 m/ 918 ft) has long been closed to visitors, but it might reopen in a few years.

Here’s the new end of the U4 line: the Elbbrücken station. It’s right by two steel truss bridges that go over the Elbe river: one for road traffic and one for rail.
There’s the U4 station in the distance on the left, then the steel bridge for cars*, and on the right edge, the train bridge.  These are the Freihafenelbbrücke, constructed in 1926. (The Elbe river has a north and a south branch, with at least a dozen bridges). *And what are these go-carts doing on the road? Best I could tell, is that it is a group that did a jolly ride circuit around Hafencity. Shortly afterwards, all of them headed back from where they came from.
Here is a collage of images taken at different intervals, of the LED light boxes at the HafenCity Universität U-bahn station one stop down from the Elbbrücken station.
Here is the neo-Gothic St. Nikolai Memorial. At its completion in 1874 as St. Nikolai Kirche with a 147 m/ 482 ft spire, it was the tallest building in the world. Central Hamburg and its surroundings suffered terrible damage during WWII, though. In 1943 the church building was destroyed during Operation Gomorrah, but the spire escaped relatively unscathed. Today there is a plaza where the church building used to be, and a museum in the basement of the tower.
A gargoyle from St Nikolai looking over the Rathaus (city hall) from the spire’s viewing platform at 76 m/ 250 ft ..
.. and another view, revealing the rooftop of the Elbphilharmonie concert hall.
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Friday/ U-bahn stations

Here are my favorite U-bahn station photos, so far.
There is a brand new station at the end of the U4 line that I will go and check out tomorrow.

Messberg station on the U1 line.
The entrance hall at Rathaus station on the U3 line.
Jungfernstieg station on the U2 and U4 lines.
Hauptbahnhof Süd station on the U3 line.
Berliner Tor station on the U2, U3 & U4 lines.
Niendorf Markt station on the U2 line, northeast of the city.
Emilien Strasse station on the U2 line.
Schlump station on the U2 and U3 lines.
Sierich Strasse station on the U3 line. The train cars are model DT5’s, made by Alstom & Bombardier. The DT5’s were put in service in 2012 and were the first cars to have air conditioning and gangways between cars. And yes: there is a DT6 in the works, that will be able to be operated without a driver.
Here is an inside view from my seat in a DT5 car. Hamburger Hochbahn AG, founded in 1911, operates most of the underground train lines in Hamburg.
The entrance hall to Saarland Strasse station on the U3 line features squares and rectangles.
I love the blue glass panes at Hamburger Strasse station. (Yes, people living in Hamburg are Hamburgers! – but not the kind that we eat!).
I had just stepped off the train at Gänsemarkt station on the U2 line, and there it went, sucked in by the end of the tunnel.
Aw. Live a dream – a career in the Hamburg police force, says this recruitment poster for the Hamburg police force.
Shades of blue and gray at the Überseequartier station on the U4 line.
And here is the platform of Überseequartier station on the U4 line.
This is HafenCity Universität station. The color of the boxes of overhead lights changes all the time.
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Thursday/ more Hamburg

I walked around Altstadt (Old City) and Hafencity today.
There is still a lot of new construction going on in Hafencity.

Trains and platforms inside the cavernous Hamburg Hauptbahnhof (main train station).
The hotel’s fire alarm roused all of us just before midnight, and soon the Feuerwehr (fire brigade) arrived as well. There was no fire, though .. and we got to go back in after 15 minutes. We were not told why the fire alarm went off.
Here is the neo-Renaissance Hamburg Rathaus (city hall), completed in 1897. The white globes are part of a display for Hamburger Klimawoche (climate week), promoting Klimaschutz (climate security) and sustainable policies for Earth’s resources.
Poster in the subway: ‘What We Eat Must Not Cost The World’.
Beautiful Baroque entrance to a police station in a building constructed in 1907. This is near the Chilehaus from yesterday.
Beautiful brickwork and decorations on the Sprinkenhof office building. It is right across the Chilehaus in Hamburg’s Kontorhausviertel. It was built in three phases from 1927 to 1943.
Here’s the spectacular and landmark Elbphilharmonie Hamburg: one of the world’s largest and most acoustically advanced concert halls. It opened in January 2017.
And here is the LEGO model of the Elbphilharmonie, at a LEGO store.
There is a lot of old and beautiful brickwork to be seen in the old restored warehouses in the Hafencity ..
.. and I like the outline of the old smokestack that was put in, as a nod to the building’s past, I assume.
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Wednesday/ Chilehaus

The highlight of my day was to walk around the Chilehaus (Chile House) building, inside and out, and admire it.

From Wikipedia: The building was designed by the architect Fritz Höger and built between 1922 and 1924. It was commissioned by the shipping magnate Henry B. Sloman, who made his fortune trading saltpeter from Chile, hence the name Chile House.

It is an exceptional example of the 1920s Brick Expressionism style of architecture. The Chilehaus building is famed for its top, which is reminiscent of a ship’s prow, and the facades, which meet at a very sharp angle at the corner of the Pumpen- and Niedernstrasse.

 

 

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Tuesday/ arrival in Hamburg

It was a long night & day of travel, but I made it into Hamburg early Tuesday evening without too much trouble.
The 5 hr train ride proved to be little long after that 11 hr red-eye flight into Amsterdam, but hey – now I will know better next time.

Here’s the Boeing 777-200ER from KLM, named ‘Litomyšl Castle’ at the gate at Cape Town International Airport just before we started boarding. Litomyšl Castle is a large Renaissance castle in the Czech Republic.
Here’s the ‘backside’ of Amsterdam Centraal Station: the side that faces Lake Ijssel (IJsselmeer). I created an optical illusion by using the glass panes on the left as a mirror.
Here’s a panorama shot. The upper deck (for buses) and the roof structure is a straight line, bent into a curve by panning the camera.
Here’s my train route from Schiphol Airport to Hamburg Central Station. 5 h 37 mins in all; three segments, so two transfers to other trains. A little bit of a pain if you have as much luggage as I have!
This is Hamburg’s Hafen City district, the sun just setting as our train arrived into Hamburg Central Station.
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Monday/ the National Library of South Africa

I spent a little time in the Cape Town branch of the National Library of South Africa today.
I was hunting down some of my favorite childhood books and magazines copies, but it turned out to be harder than I thought it would be.
I had all the information handy, gleaned from their online catalog. The public is not allowed in that section of the library, though – so the librarian had to retrieve the books for me.
Alas, the book I wanted most, could not be found immediately.  They will let me know if they have it.

The neoclassical main building of the National Library of South Africa in Cape Town on Government Ave. Its design by W.H. Kohler is based on the Fitzwilliam Museum at the University of Cambridge. As it happens, the building was opened on this day, Sept. 16, in 1860 .. 159 years ago to the day. [Picture: Wikipedia]
This is the hall inside the National Library’s main building on Government Ave.
Detail of a chandelier in one of the reading rooms, with a beautiful round skylight. (Just getting to the point where someone is going to have to replace those dead light bulbs, right?)
This is the Center for the Book Building at 62 Victoria Street. It was designed by British architects Hawke and McKinley in the Edwardian style, and completed in 1913.
Just around the corner is De Tuynhuys (Garden House), completed in 1790 in the Cape Dutch style. Tuynhuis the Cape Town office of the Presidency of the Republic of South Africa.
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Sunday/ Stellenbosch

I was in Stellenbosch today and took a few pictures (of course).
Here is a little bit of the town’s Cape Dutch Period origins and history, from a 2015 post.

The bell was tolling at 5 o’clock while I was taking this picture of the Moederkerk building (‘Mother Church’), of the Dutch Reformed church. It has a Neo-Gothic Tower designed by Carl Otto Hager from Dresden in Germany. The building was completed in 1863.
This is 43 Victoria Street, housing the offices of Student Career Services, and an appropriate address for a Victorian-style building. I could not find the year in which it was built, though.
This building dates back to 1779 (inscribed below the triangular gable), when it was built by building contractor Philip Hartog as his own home. Currently it serves as the offices of the Mother Church nearby.
These steps are on JS Marais Square (‘Red Square’), leading down to the entrance to the subterranean library of the University of Stellenbosch.
The Old Main Building of the University of Stellenbosch was also designed by architect Carl Otto Hager. The building was completed in 1886.
The campus of the University of Stellenbosch has plenty of Strelitzia (‘Bird of Paradise’) flowers. These are native to South Africa.
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Friday/ the Rainier Square Tower has topped out

The construction of the Rainier Square Tower has topped out at its designated 58 stories. At 850 ft (260 m) tall, it is now the city’s second tallest tower ⁠— bested only by the 1982 Columbia Center at 937 ft (285 m).

I walked around Rainier Square Tower today and took these pictures.

Looking north from the corner of 4th Ave and University St. Now there is a real 1977 Rainier Tower and a virtual 1977 Rainier Tower (reflection of it on the new Rainier Square Tower)! The architect of the 1977 Rainier Tower is Minoru Yamasaki, who also designed the original 1973 World Trade Center twin towers in New York City.
Walking towards 5th Ave on University St ..
.. and seen from 5th Ave. The 1977 Rainier Tower with its pedestal is on the left.
The view from Fifth Ave while walking towards Union St ..
.. and the view from the corner of Fifth Ave and Union St.
The view towards the south, from Pike St and Third Ave.
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Sunday/ Amazon’s Block 20 & Block 21 buildings

My Sunday afternoon walk in the Denny Triangle was thwarted a little by a rain shower.  I did get a few pictures of the newest Amazon buildings that are almost completed, though.

The brown building with 8 storeys is Amazon Block 20, seen from the corner of 8th Ave and Blanchard.
This water feature is on the other side of the Block 20 building, on 7th Avenue.  It was designed by local sculptor Gerry Tsutakawa and is part of the public plaza there.
Here is Amazon Block 21 (2200 7th Ave), seen from the corner of 7th Ave and Blanchard St. It is part of Amazon’s expanding headquarters. The office tower on the left is 24 stories tall, and the building in the foreground 8 stories.  The oval building in the back is the McKenzie Apartments building, 40 stories tall. It was completed last year, and has 450 apartments.
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Saturday/ the new apartments at Cap.Hill train station

The construction crews are making good progress on the three new apartment buildings by the Capitol Hill train station.

The three new buildings called A, B and C, from a draft proposal that I found online. The buildings are 7 stories tall and will offer a total of some new 350 apartments. I believe the assumption is that these apartment dwellers will NOT own cars. They have trains and buses (and Uber drivers) on their doorstep to take them anywhere in the city, after all.
The view from Denny Way, looking northeast. This is as tall as the new apartment buildings will go. The open space between the A building (left edge of the picture) and the B buildings (right) will be a public plaza.
This is a late afternoon picture, looking north on 10th Avenue with the B buildings on the left.  The homeowners on the right are getting some shade from the warm sun in summer, but they have lost a lot of sunlight that they used to have in winter!
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Sunday walkabout

The walkways around the Denny Substation opened yesterday, and I went to take a look today.

The view at the top of the walkway at Denny Substation. This is at a 2nd floor elevation, and close to the corner of Denny Way & Stewart St.
One can now stand under the ‘Transforest’ artwork and, um, learn to appreciate it a little more!
Here’s a view from Stewart Street towards the Space Needle. The site in the middle of the picture is under construction (1200 Stewart St), and this current view will change dramatically over the next 18 months or so. Two 45-story towers on a 3-story podium will be constructed with some 1,050 apartments and retail space. (Whoah). The new building partially fitted with its glass windows is 1120 Denny Way: a complex of two 41-story apartments buildings. Upon completion, it will be the largest apartment building in the city’s history with 1,179 apartments.
The construction of the new ‘Building Cure‘ for Seattle Children’s Research Hospital is about to be completed. I love the mirror finish on the lettering. This is on Terry Avenue.
Also by the Building Cure are these colorful sidewalk chairs that can swivel.
A giant astronaut in the lobby of the Hyatt Regency Hotel, promoting an exhibit of the 1969 moon landing in Seattle’s Museum of Flight.
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Sunday walkabout

It was very pleasant this weekend in Seattle (69°F/  21°C). We had none of the turbulent, stormy weather that swept through the Midwest and elsewhere.
Here are two pictures from my downtown walkabout this afternoon.

Construction on these newest Amazon buildings, on the corner of Blanchard and 7th Avenue, have both topped out. There are 24 stories on the left tower, and 8 stories on the right. I trust that those crane bases and moorings have been double & triple-checked after the bad accident at the Google construction site. (The little red car is a Tesla Model 3).
And nearby on 5th Avenue, as always, was the monorail train doing its short run from the Space Needle to Westlake Center downtown. I think it’s pulling off quite a feat: it manages to look both retro AND futuristic at the same time!
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Monday/ Rainier Square Tower taking shape

Here are two pictures that I took today, of the Rainier Square Tower. Construction workers have started to install the glass panels on the swooping side of the tower. Boy, I hope it will not be too tricky for window cleaners to scale down that side of the building to clean those slanted surfaces!

The construction of the Rainier Square Tower is at about 35 floors by my count. It will eventually be an 850-ft tall skyscraper (260 m), with 58 stories.
The new Rainier Square Tower is located at Union Street between 4th and 5th Avenues, adjacent to the existing Rainier Tower (the 41-story building on the pedestal, on the left).
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Monday

Heartbreaking to see Notre Dame cathedral stand in flames. This must be what the end of the world will look like.

The Cathedral of Notre-Dame, was built in French Gothic Style and completed in 1345. One of the most iconic symbols of beauty and history in Paris – and the world –  it was engulfed in flames on Monday, leading to the collapse of part of its spire. Credit: Francois Guillot/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The damage to Notre Dame cathedral. [Source: Google Maps, Tim Meko, Aaron Steckelberg & Monica Ulmanu, The Washington Post]