Hand-Crafted.

St. George's Hall in Liverpool hides one of the finest Victorian floors in the world, over 30,000 hand-crafted Minton tiles, usually kept covered and only uncovered for a few weeks each year ...

Storage.

The chair storage room at Castle Howard, 1980s.

Thanks to Walker's Arms.

Happy Birthday, Stickley

Stickley, Craftsman Farms Log House,1917

It should be the privilege of every worker to take advantage of all the improved methods of working that relieve him from the tedium and fatigue of purely mechanical toil, for by this means he gains leisure for the thought necessary to working out his designs, and for the finer touches that the hand alone can give. So long as he remains master of his machinery it will serve him well, and his power of artistic expression will be freed rather than stifled by turning over to it work it is meant to do.

The trouble is that we have allowed the machine to master us. The possibility of quick, easy and cheap production has so intoxicated us that we have gone on producing in a sort of insane prolificness, and our imaginary needs have grown with it. Originally intended to make simpler and easy the doing of necessary things, the introduction of machinery with its train of attendant evils has so complicated and befuddled our standards of living that we have less and less time for enjoyment and for growth, and nervous prostration is the characteristic disease of the age.

Gustav Stickley, born on this day in 1858

Done.

Done and done.

Restored.

Viollet-le-Duc's cross has been restored and returned to the roof above Notre-Dame ...

On the banks of the Seine, passers-by stopped and looked up to contemplate the new ballet offered by the Notre Dame construction site. On Friday, May 24, the cathedral of Paris regained the cross on the roof over the apse. (The cross and rooster-shaped reliquary over the transept were replaced earlier.) As this cross was the only roof ornament to have miraculously escaped the devastating flames of the tragic fire of April 15, 2019, it was a particularly symbolic moment before the cathedral's scheduled reopening on December 8, 2024.

Suspended in the air at the end of a crane, this work by Viollet-le-Duc has returned to its original position at the top of the apse of the choir roof, once again watching over the capital and its inhabitants.

From above, a clamor rises: The ironworkers and roofers who worked on its restoration turn to the journalists with a shout of victory. From below, cheers and applause respond, as if to thank the hard work of the craftsmen who have spent more than 1,000 hours restoring this two-ton cross, dented by its fall.

Happy Birthday, Sonck

Sonck. Ainola, 1904

Lars Sonck, the architect of Jean Sibelius' glorious home, Ainola, was born on this day in 1870.

Imbued.

A notable figure of his day ...

Chandor had embarked on his greatest masterpiece with 3.5 acres of barren land as his canvas.  With the aid of picks, shovels, and dynamite the hillside evolved into a series of “garden rooms” featuring English and Chinese motifs.  He planted over 150 trees along with hundreds of flowers and masses of wisteria and peppered the Gardens with water features, intricate stonework, timeless sculptures and delightful surprises around every corner.

While working on the gardens the Chandors began meeting with architect Joseph Pelich to design what would be the artist’s studio and the couple’s home.  Built in 1936, the home was originally constructed primarily as a studio with a bedroom, kitchen, and bath to be lived in for six months out of each year.  Half of each year was spent in New York City where Douglas also kept a studio.  Additions to the home were built in the 1940’s and once again in the 1960’s.  From the soaring 27 foot tall ceiling of the artist’s studio with its 17 foot tall window at the north end, to the lovely antique French chandelier that graced the domed ceiling of the couple’s bedroom, the home was imbued with a vibrant atmosphere of cultural richness. 

Happy Birthday, Dr. Weller

Peter Weller, born on this day in 1947, has turned his life around ...

Peter Weller, an actor best known for playing the title character in the 1987 film "RoboCop," is also a scholar and Renaissance art historian. He enrolled in Syracuse University's summer Italian art program with Professor Gary Radke when he was 51. Three years later, he entered the Syracuse Florence Italy graduate program, earning a master's degree in Italian Renaissance art history. He went on to earn a Ph.D. in Italian Renaissance art history at UCLA in 2014.

The series he did for History, Engineering an Empire, is outstanding.

Happy Birthday, MacIntosh

MacIntosh, Library at Glasgow School of Art, 1909

You must be Independent, Independent, Independent - don't talk so much but do more - go your own way and let your neighbour go his ... Shake off all the props - the props tradition and authority give you - and go alone - crawl - stumble - stagger - but go alone.

Charles Rennie Mackintosh, born on this day in 1868

Orangery.

In 1663 the Palace of Versailles was endowed with an orangery built by Louis Le Vau. 

\\

Thank you, Dr. Herban.

Doorways.

From Luke Sherlock's top ten English church doorways ...

Great.

Housed in the North West Tower of York Minster, "Great Peter" is the fourth largest bell in England; the others being "Great Paul," at St. Paul’s Cathedral, "Great George," at Liverpool Cathedral, and "Big Ben," at Palace of Westminster.

Rather than being a part of the peal of change-ringing bells that are housed in the North East Tower though, Great Peter is the single bell that marks the hour at the culmination of the clock chime; the boom of its toll, so sonorous, it can be heard across the length and breadth of the city.

Depicted: Great Peter being delivered by Taylor’s Bell Foundry in 1927.

Thank you, londonista59

More at St. Mary's Episcopal Cathedral

Changed.

Stephen Fry documents Johannes Gutenberg and his medieval machine that changed the world ...

Wonder.

Agrippa, Pantheon, 25 BC

The Paris Review scales the roof of the Pantheon ...

Most people see the Pantheon and think, What a neat-looking old thing.

Others look at it and can only wonder how and when they’ll get to the top. 

“Although it may come as no surprise that the Pantheon’s roof is off-limits in our highly litigious times,” Matt Donovan writes, “groups of scholars and artists from the American Academy in Rome climbed the dome on a regular basis as recently as the 1970s.  One visitor described the short walk as a straining and vertiginous affair, ‘a bit like rock climbing up a slope on a hike in the Appalachians.’  He also told me that once those exterior stairs end, a climber feels utterly precarious. 

Differences in temperature between the building’s cool interior and the sun-warmed roof created downdrafts that could literally suck someone through the opening. 

In what might be read as a blurring of prudence, humility, and reverence, visitors needed to creep toward the roof’s opening on their stomachs in order to peer through its oculus—a full twenty-seven feet across, and known as the ‘eye of God’—down into the space below.”

University of Michigan Professor of Ancient History, Dr. Garrett Ryan, explorers The Pantheon ...

Mount.

Saint Michael's Mount, Cornwall ...

Borromini.

Borromini, Section of the Barberini Palace Staircase, 1745

Done.

Done and done.

Thirsty-Throated.

The truth about Gothic architecture is, first, that it is alive, and second, that it is on the march. It is the Church Militant; it is the only fighting architecture. All its spires are spears at rest; and all its stones are stones asleep in a catapult. In that instant of illusion, I could hear the arches clash like swords as they crossed each other. The mighty and numberless columns seemed to go swinging by like the huge feet of imperial elephants. The graven foliage wreathed and blew like banners going into battle; the silence was deafening with all the mingled noises of a military march; the great bell shook down, as the organ shook up its thunder. The thirsty-throated gargoyles shouted like trumpets from all the roofs and pinnacles as they passed; and from the lectern in the core of the cathedral the eagle of the awful evangelist clashed his wings of brass, and amid all the noises I seemed to hear the voice of a man shouting in the midst like one ordering regiments hither and thither in the fight; the voice of the great half-military master-builder; the architect of spears. I could almost fancy he wore armor while he made that church; and I knew indeed that, under a scriptural figure, he had borne in either hand the trowel and the sword.

G.K. Chesterton, from "The Architect of Spears"

Establish.

A good morning window looks out on some kind of constant object or growing thing, which reflects the changes of season and the weather, and allows a person to establish the mood of the day as soon as he wakes up.

Christopher Alexander, from A Pattern Language, “Sleeping to the East”

Happy Birthday, Mackintosh

Mackintosh, Queen's Cross Church, Maryhill, Glasgow, Scotland, 1899

Art is the Flower - Life is the Green Leaf. Let every artist strive to make his flower a beautiful living thing, something that will convince the world that there may be, there are, things more precious more beautiful - more lasting than life itself.  You must offer the flowers of the art that is in you - the symbols of all that is noble - and beautiful - and inspiring - flowers that will often change a colourless leaf - into an established and thoughtful thing. 

Charles Rennie Mackintosh, born on this day in 1868