achtitecture – Sally Wakelin – Studies in Creativity

Weimar and Erfurt

Weimar is an elegant historic town, one of the most visited in Germany with its long cultural history and its political importance. The city has been home to the composers Lizt, and Bach, the writers, Goethe and Schiller and the artists and architects, Kandinsky, Klee, Feininger and Gropius at the Bauhaus, the most important German design school of the interwar period.
Standing high on a nearby hill is the memorial tower of Buchenwald concentration camp, it can be seen easily from almost every part of town serving as a reminder of its dark history.

Strolling around the town soon after dusk we came upon the start of an extraordinary evening, a musical event involving the whole town, it began in Theaterplatz, with people stood still, looking forward and holding various music players. There were to be concerts, community bell-ringing, everyone in the town contributing to the musical night. Alan Bern – Sound Installation

Sound Installation – comemmorating the 75th anniversary of the anti-Jewish pogrom throughout Germany on November 9/10, 1938 (“Kristallnacht”).

Unfortunately not speaking German, we had no idea of the events in store and instead of being part of it, we spent the evening elsewhere.

Long shadows on the wall in Kollegiengasse

Smoke around the moon in Platz Der Democratie

Gothe's Door Handle — Gothe’s Door Handle

Some visual notes from a short visit to Erfurt

Cars seen through steel gate, minimalist construction, tiny rivets, water-jet cut steel.

Berlin – Architecture, Streets and People

Architecture, People, Photography

Thomas - Expert Guide — Thomas – Expert Guide, joining the coach in Potsdamer Platz

One day in Berlin is not enough – of course! I was there to visit the Bauhaus Archives, the most comprehensive representation of information about the mid 20th C design school. I also enjoyed a 3 hour coach tour with a certain Thomas who was the most informed and amusing guide I have ever met. He skilfully took us around or past every historic point, every breath-taking piece of modern architecture with an encyclopaedic knowledge of everything Berlin has to offer the coach-bound traveller. Due to lack of time we could only leave the coach twice and for just a few moments, so many of the photos are compromised by having been taken through the coach window as the coach was moving.

Jewish Museum - Daniel Libeskind — Jewish Museum – Daniel Libeskind’s radical, zigzag design

Just one photograph hardly does justice to this complex building, light and shadows dance across the angled facades and jagged chasms and take your breath away. Daniel Libeskind

Berlin Hauptbahnhof – Meinhard von Gerkan

Meinhard von Gerkan The station looks particularly marvellous at night, streaks of light gliding through and out of the enormous glazed tube of a roof.

Topographie Des Terrors - Ursula Wilms (Heinle, Wischer and Partner) and the landscape architect Professor Heinz W. Hallmann — Topographie Des Terrors – Ursula Wilms (Heinle, Wischer and Partner) and the landscape architect Professor Heinz W. Hallmann

The external structure of steel rods or shafts catch the light and cast shadows giving the whole structure a nebulous appearance, quite the antithesis of the stern buildings that preceded it under the Third Reich. Ursula Wilm

The New Art Gallery - Mies Van de Rohe — The New Art Gallery – Mies Van de Rohe

Deutsches Technikmuseum - Helge Pitz and Hoh — Deutsches Technikmuseum – Helge Pitz and Hoh

IBA Housing - Zaha Hadid — IBA Housing – Zaha Hadid

Berlin Shell Haus Emil Fahrenkamp — Berlin Shell Haus – 1932 – designed by German architect Emil Fahrenkamp. Noted for its striking wave-like façade, and for being one of the first steel-framed high-rise buildings in Berlin.

Lots more building projects underway. — Judging by the number of cranes on the skyline, there are many more building projects underway.

bicycle and shed — Bicycle, tarpaulin and timber shed

At first sight this appears to be a man with no head! Actually he is bending his scarf-covered head forward sharply in order to better read his phone.

Daimler Chrysler - Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners — Steps at Daimler Chrysler – Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners

I was too close to be able to capture much of the facade but I love the steps. Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners

Cyclist

Christmas Lights – including the expert installer

Berliners 2 — Two smart Berliners going about their business

Hemispherical concrete bollards – what a lovely curve

Replica of Checkpoint Charlie, complete with actor/soldiers – watched over by Albert Einstein

An ingenious and space-saving bicycle rack, German bikes seem to be characterised by a curved crossbar making them look very decorative in pairs.

Bauhaus Archive

The South Bank

People, Photography

The promenade along the south bank of the Thames is a vast meeting and socialising place especially in good weather. Yesterday, although cold, was sunny and the place was packed. There was a food festival as well as the usual free entertainment of street performers.

Annie Mae’s Mac and Cheese stall sells the best Mac and Cheese I have ever tasted, try some if you get the chance.

The silver-haired gentleman who used to blow bubbles for children seems to have been replaced by a young guy with amazing multi-bubble techniques. The older man would blow bubbles for free all summer and then fly to Spain for the winter living on the donations made to him by grateful and entertained parents and children.

The London Eye seen against the Houses of Parliament.
And again, the London Eye but this time glimpsed through a smeary plate glass window, a beautiful scale model.

Living Architecture has built a boat on the rooftops, it can be hired by the day (at no small expense) but what a marvellous position from which to study the comings and goings on the Thames and to watch the sun go down over the Art Deco buildings on the north bank. A time-lapse video of the construction.

Reflections

Architecture, Photography

It was sunny on Sunday – at last, I walked around the newly refurbished Cutty Sark in Greenwich. The hull of the original ship has been enclosed by a protective glazed gallery affording lots of weird and interesting ghostly interior views overlaid with reflections on the outside.

Canary Wharf in the distance.

London at Night

Architecture, Photography

It was bitterly cold and raining last night but our group braved the elements till our fingers froze to our tripods.
Rain spots on the lens made some soft refraction patterns and I like the way the guy’s phone is lighting up his face.

What looks a little like a twig on the Houses of Parliament Tower is actually the trailing light of an airplane flying West towards Heathrow Airport during the 8 sec exposure.

The Supreme Court, designed by James S Gibson is built in Portland Stone, pale in colour, making a good backdrop for the silhouetted plane tree with its circular seed balls. The interior lighting seems unusually tinged with green and in the first floor window to the left of the entrance there is an eerie figure in a red jacket.

The blue lighting on the London Eye and the trees nearby make a great opportunity to make trailing light photos, this was taken at f10, 13secs, ISO200 and moving the camera slowly downwards on the tripod during the exposure.

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