Discovering something new about something, well, old is perhaps one of the greatest joys of architectural history. Trap doors, hidden rooms, secret bars uncovering the latent lives of great buildings is a tantalizing game for which there exists no shortage of subjects. Take New York’s Grand Central Terminal, whose “secrets” are plentiful: Accessible via a shared elevator…
“The mother art is architecture, ” said Frank Lloyd Wright. “Without an architecture of our own we have no soul of our own civilization.” While the great architect that was Frank Lloyd Wright is no longer with us, today’s working architects seem to be taking his words to heart. Indeed, the last half century has seen the creation of such iconic buildings as the Guggenheim…
2 Nalanda Ruins, Nalanda, Bihar Nālandā was an ancient center of higher learning in Bihar, India. The university of Nalanda is located in the Indian state of Bihar, and was a Buddhist center of learning. The great library of Nalanda University was so vast that it is reported to have burned for three months after the invaders set fire to it, ransacked and destroyed…
A charming city situated by the Mondego River in Central Portugal, Coimbra is home to a treasure trove of historic sites, beautiful gardens, the country’s second style of fado music, and a lively culture that is centered around one of Europe’s oldest universities. One of the best things to do in Coimbra is to simply get lost and discover the many historic attractions…
But when most travelers visit another place, they don’t seek out the same food they eat at home, even if they can find it. We travel to experience what makes a place different, and special, by sampling local specialties. What do we mean by “distinctive?” This is music that people in each city listen to quite a bit, which people in other cities also do not listen to…
Article by SA Rogers, filed under Abandoned Places in the Architecture category Around the world, in places as diverse as Homestead, Florida and Yonaguni, Japan stand monuments and ruins whose origins are shrouded in mystery. Nobody knows exactly why Stonehenge was built, how a set of manmade ruins came to be submerged deep in the ocean or who commissioned a giant…
Early in the 19th century, as wagon trains streamed into the Ohio and Mississippi valleys, settlers came upon vast numbers of abandoned earthworks that they attributed to a sophisticated race of long-gone mound builders. Giving rise to often-loaded questions about human origins, the mounds and the artifacts found within them became the focus of early American efforts…
Monument is any structure that is created to mark an important event, to commemorate a person, something that has become important to a social group as remembrance of their cultural and historical heritage or some important historic heritage. There are hundreds and thousands of beautiful, historic and incomparable monuments around the world, and cannot be ranked or…
Standing 2, 723-feet tall, the Burj Khalifa is just one reason why Dubai is a popular spot for modern architecture. The Khalifa Tower was the vision of the Chicago architecture firm that also designed the Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower). Other examples of amazing architecture include the Burj Al Arab and The World - an artificial archipelago made to resemble…
Want to join the club of famous works of architecture and brick design? Then choose reclaimed paving bricks. New York City, home to possibly the most historical brick buildings in all the U.S., frequently has old buildings dotted with reclaimed bricks from other building sites that are no longer standing. Many Chicago residences and commercial buildings feature bricks…
