Castle Mesen
Photo by aerialphotographer on panoramio.
Located in Lede, the smallest of Belgium’s municipalities, in a park close to the village center, stands the decayed castle Koninklijk Gesticht van Mesen, named after its last owner. At least, according to this photoblog by Rene Knoop, compiled in 2008, the castle still stands, though talks of demolishing the castle have been in circulation since the late 70’s, after procedural mistakes revoked the once in place historic preservation act that had been protecting it. A more recent protection request was submitted for the preservation of the castle, but the ravages of time and nature on its remnants outweighed the proverbial costs it would take the repair it, so the protections proposal failed.
Built in the 16th century, the castle remained in the family Bette until the 1800’s when it was used for the local gin distillery, a sugar refinery, a potash refinery, and a tobacco factory, which was housed in the caves of the castle.
In the 1900’s the castle was sold to a religious order who bult an impressive neo-gothic chapel. After the First World War an institution bought the castle and established a school for the local children, in which a new aisle was added as well as a Dutch pavillion and a boarding school. adding more buildings to the already expansive property that included several outbuildings, like stables and an orangery. In total, Mesen takes up a total of 7 hectares, half the total size of the city of Ledes itself.
Photo by Past Glory.
Sentinels, photo by Opacity.
Forbidden-Places has some really nice comparison images of the current building and the way that same photograph looked in the castle’s prime, as well as more history on the castle. Past Glory also has more photographs and history on Castle Mesen. Both websites, also, have several archives of other abandoned ruins explored.
And just for shits and giggles, telefuncker has a whole thread on abandoned Belgium castles — or slightly smaller but equally majestic mansion.
Structural Sapling
Gilding once told her Dad, she didn’t want a tree house unless it was made out of a tree. Guess what, she never got a tree house. But there is just something so magical about literally being inside of a tree.
These installations by artist Patrick Dougherty bring all those whimsical dreams back.
Spinoffs, Decordova Museum, Lincoln, Massachusettes, 1990. Ph: George Vasquez.
Crossing Over, American Craft Museum, New York, New York, 1996. Ph: Dennis Cowley.
Trailheads, North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC, 2005.
Ph: Courtesy of the North Carolina Museum of Art.
Around the Corner, University of Southern Indiana, New Harmony Gallery, New Harmony, IN, 2003. Ph: Doyle Dean.
Call of the Wild, Museum of Glass, Tacoma, WA, 2002. Ph: Duncan Price.
The Summer Palace, Morris Arboretum of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, 2009. Ph: Rob Cardillo.
With his skills in carpentry and a love of nature, Dougherty began studying primitive techniques of building. From there he began to experiment with tree saplings as construction material. His first work, MapleBodyWrap, built in 1982, was included in the North Carolina Biennial Artist’s Exhibition. By the following year, he had his first one person show. Since then he has build over 150 works throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. The above works are just a sampling — Gilding’s favorites, so to speak. Trust when she says, it was hard to narrow it down to these. More of his works can be seen on Patrick Dougherty’s site.
Axis Mundi Unveils Design for New MoMA
This Jenga puzzle of a building is the proposed design of John Beckmann and his firm, Axis Mundi, for the much-discussed 53 W. 53rd site for the New York City’s Museum of Modern Art planned expansion. The building’s design is an homage to the works of art that will be housed in the new building, its concept a way of outward expression as well as a method for organizing the tall building as a sort of “Vertical Neighborhood.” As inhabitat explains Vertical Neighborhoods, imagine taking a row of several city blocks, rip them off their foundation, turn them on their sides, stack, and voila.
Unlike the traditional school of thought of a stand alone museum, Axis Mundi’s MoMA Vertical Neighborhood mixes and mingles museum space, offices, brownstones, apartment buildings, hotels, restaurants, shops, green spaces, and clubs. In essence a person could live on one floor, which just happens sit above a gallery of priceless works of art, and in the morning, walk the open air corridors and vista bridges to another floor or few to their office, and that even make their way to, say, the third floor to buy groceries to take home — all without ever having to leave the building.
But unlike similar designs — designs such as this are popular in Japan and exist in Manhattan — and their otherwise conventionally industrial, slick design meant to reflect uniformity and cohesion, Axis Mundi’s design reflects the cultural diversity of the city and its inhabitants.
Because of the jenga block-like construction, calld “Smart Blocks,” a myriad of configurations are possible. Meaning single units can exist next to duplexes while holding up triplexes. The units can shift in and out. And each block can be constructed with its own unique surface texture — think floor to ceiling windows spanning three floors in one, next to a single floor unit in wood slatting, underneath a duplex with a concrete veneer, parallel to a living vertical garden.
Keep in mind, this is just one of the designs being considered for the MoMA expansion. Architect Jean Nouvel has also created a design, of which can be seen here as well. [Via inhabitat]
I Wanna Live Like A Jetsen
And to thing, Gilding could have lived a little like a Jetsen.
Nestled along a short stretch of coastline in Northern Taiwan sits this abandoned complex known as The San-Zhi Pod Village. The futuristic, what would have been luxury vacation spot, is a hulking mystery amongst tourists and locals alike as several stories float around as to they Why? they were abandoned and the cirsumstances that led up to its abandonment. What is known is that it was originally constructed for wealthy urbanites looking to escape the city on the weekends.
The most popular of the stories explaining the complex’s sudden abandonment is that there were a number of mysterious accidents ending in several deaths. Locals believe the area then to be haunted by their unresting souls. For this reason too, no one will tear down the abandoned complex — you know, bad feng shui, juju, and all.
Other theories about this 1970’s era construction’s abandonment include poor insulation in a difficult climate. In fact, this first hand account of traversing the abandoned site talks about its obvious poor construction and craftsmanship. Another theory is that of a dissolution of partnetships, though that one doesn’t make too much sense as it was supposedly built by the government of Taipei. Lastly is a prediciton that the failure of a regional real estate bubble as the cause.
More pictures of the pod city can be seen on Craig Ferguson Images along with his first-hand account of touring the ruins, and Cypherone has a flickr set, as well as this flickr set by Yusheng. This site is in Taiwanese but it has some really neat pictures of the complex as it was being built — just keep scrolling, they’re located throughout the page.
Editors Note: According to Cypherone, Taipei government ordered the demolition of San Zhi after it was decided that the structures were a public hazard and an eyesore to the image of the capital city. Demolition of the site began in December 2008. The pod city has since been demolished and the land cleared.
Solar Eclipse Good JuJu with Violent Predictions
So apparently the apocalypse begins tomorrow with the Solar Eclipse. Wonder if Gilding’s Emergency Hurrican Kit is equipped for the apocalypse…?
In truth, Indian astrologers are predicting violence and turmoil across the world will result of tomorrows solar eclipse — which the superstitious and religious view as a sign of potential doom.
In Hindu mythology, two demons, Rahu and Ketu, are said to “swallow” the sun during the eclipse, snuffing out its life-giving light and causing food to become inedible and water undrinkable. Wonder what the mythos has to say about the two demons regurgitating the sun?
Pregnant women are advised to stay indoors, preventing impending birth defects, while praying and fasting and ritual bathing, particularly in holy rivers, are encouraged. You know, Gilding read once that India, per capita, has the most birth defects resulting in severe physical mutations (i.e. Cyclops Baby, the Khan Family, Devendra Harne, and the other half a million babies born in India each year with birth defects).
And while families in India are doing every thing they can to have their June 22nd scheduled caesarian’s rescheduled for any day but that day, astrologers are predicting that with this deeply rooted belief in Indian society, there will be a rise in communal and regional violence in the days that follow the eclipse, particularly in India, China and other Southeast Asian nations — where the eclipse will be seen on Wednesday morning. Why does it have to be violence? Think about it, with such a “cataclismic” event in your belief about to happen, why would you want to react to choas with choas? Isn’t that a bit ironic — or would that be moronic?
One astrologer, Raj Kumar Sharma, has even predicted that some sort of terrorist attack and a natural disaster shall result of the eclipse. To be more specific, he predicts that an Indian political leader could be killed, increasing tensions between the West and Iran, escalating into possible US military action after Saturn moves from Leo into Virgo. For the non-astrology following, that’s “what’s your sign” speak for September.
Sharma says, “The last 200 years, whenever Saturn has gone into Virgo there has been either a world war or a mini world war,” he told AFP.
But, while one astrologer warns of evil portent with Wednesday’s upcoming eclipse, Siva Prasad Tata, who runs the Astro Jyoti website, writes that while eclipses, and their subsequent wacky pull on nature, are a natural phenomenon, there is an upside. During the period of the eclipse, the opposite attracting forces are very powerful, and from a spiritual point of view, that makes for good worshipping juju.
Related Article: Yahoo News– Solar eclipse pits superstition against science
For the people who lived there, their views are different…
Gilding came across an article on Kowloon Walled City, in Hong Kong, last night and while ruminating the things she remembered about it to her husband, she directed him to the post she was sure she made on it — only to not find it on Gilding the Lily any damn where. Was it a lost post? A subject she made note to post on but never got around to it? And while searching today for information on the city it donned on her that perhaps there was no gilded post because the subject, quite frankly, was overly posted, overly talked about, and seemed even a little too gilded already to worry about gilding any further on here.
But after reading article after article and post after bloody friekin’ blog post, Gilding had about had it with all the Western World whining about the fetid decay and inhuman living conditions of the city; its brow-beaten, finger wagged damnation of its very existence.
She had decided by that point that she wouldn’t post on this Walled City and that perhaps this current feeling of disgust, both for the city and the continued reports on it, was what had in fact prevented her original posting on it.
Then she came across this site, and it was one paragraph that caught her attention:
“U.S. News & World Report made a brief notice of the demolition of KWC a few months previous to the actual event. Their description of the city is indicative of outsider’s perceptions about a place, a place not fitting into their ideas of normal, urban living. Although their physical portrayal of the city is accurate – “alleys choked with rubbish, rat-infested alleys and dark stairwells” – the article makes judgments based on these characteristics and ignores that a thriving community survived for over half a century. In fact much of the physical problems that gave the walled city its notoriety were, and are, problems in the rest of Hong Kong (and other world cities); the walled city merely exaggerated these conditions. As KWC, in the piece, is called, “a fetid conglomeration of 359 tenement buildings…[festering] on a 7-acre plot” and, “the cancer of Kowloon” the reader has little choice but to believe the city was an unlivable slum, not a self-organized community (the former implying a second-party perpetuating bad conditions for selfish gain). For people who lived in KWC their views are different…”
The paragraph begins much the same as all the others, but it quickly points out the same thought that Gilding had on the subject — that the reports view it from the eyes of outsider, bent on its high moral views and personal comforts, but never sees beyond that to what else lies in such an environment.
Gilding encourages reading the rest of the article. While Kowloon Walled City isn’t the place she would ever want to live, the author of the site makes an admirable demonstration of the narrowmindedness demonstrated on the subject, both in example (that the rest of the country outside of the wall of KWC has areas just as impoverished) and in deomstrating that there thrived a whole culture that was orderly in its chaos and rich and beautiful and strong.
Though the city was demolished, its existence and the buzz of opinions surrounding it just months before it was torn down demonstrates the importance of cultural reletiveness. Oh, and a lesson best said in a few frank words — not everyone wants to be Americans. Seriously, if America could just learn that, all its best efforts could be just that, best efforts, not overbearing attitudes destined to create embitterment.
Link: Kowloon Walled City
One Wild Shower
Just for the environmentally concious who are pulling out their hair and screeching “the end of water is near…
The “Phyto-Purification Bathroom,” designed by Jun Yasumoto, uses a natural filtering principle, called phyto-purification, for recycling waste water, and thereby reducing the amount of water used while showering. Serving as a mini eco-system, the shower filters and recycles the water used and purifies it via its neat little cleaning system in the wash-basin for re-use.
Surrounded by lemnas and water hyacinths ans reeds and rushes planted next to eachother, the plants offer privacy, are watered in as much as they aid in the filtration process by pulling larger particles and heavy metals from the water. The filtration system is completed by passing through a carbon filter that gathers the remaining micro-particles and returns to you clean, fresh water.
Sounds neat. Looks nice and green and lush. But Gildingcan’t seem to remove the image from her mind that one day soon you’ll have to use a machete to chop your way clear through the reeds and brush just to make an opening to get into your shower. Call the Florida in her, but this is just a little too close to trecking the everglades in her own bathroom for her comfort.
[Via The Design Blog]
Inspired…
Gilding should be cleaning, but instead she is feeling inspired by these two series.
The first set, Bench Monday, Gilding saw a couple of weeks ago and has since been holding onto it. The second, The Sea, The Surge & The Seamstress, she found today, and the two combined have sparked a sort of inspired buzz in Gilding’s bloodstream.
The first, Bench Monday, was seen on Apartment therapy and, as a friend pointed out, had the cartoon remembrance of Tom & Jerry, when the occasional appearance of the Lady of House was seen from the knee down only. Of course, this particular image, which was the first one in the set we saw, helped cement that comical idea.
Gilding wonders just how many places she can think of to perch her feet upon and photograph. She also ponders just how much ambition doing so would take. You can see the entirety of the photographs in this group on their flckr.
The second set, The Sea, The Surge & The Seamstress, came via Twig & Thistle. The series is the creation of Samantha Lamb, and reminds Gilding of this bizarrely random movie — who’s name she can’t recall — that Mr. Gilding made her watch in which the exhuberant girl — and love interest of this rather boring, hum-drum of a guy — took pictures of apples every place that she went — she would literally carry an apple(s) with her to place about in an orderly random fashion to photograph it in that place at that time to commemorate it in her life.
That’s what this series reminds Gilding of. And though these photographs are not so random and are of a compositionally complete nature, they inspired that memory and how Gilding was somehow taken with it even though she rather hated the movie.
The Sea, The Surge & The Seamstress in its entirety can be seen here on Samantha Lamb’s flickr.
Post-traumatic embitterment disorder
Ever had that thought that doctors are either very bored or very greedy? On current debate at the American Psychiatric Association conference is whether or not bitterness is a diagnosable disease. Post-traumatic embitterment disorder, as the new mental health problem will be known, as argued by Dr. Michael Linden, drives people to endless rumination and seething for revenge, which itself isn’t a cure — his opinion, mind you, not Gilding. For Linden, bitterness is a psychiatric problem and requires diagnosis.
Gilding can’t help but feel this is yet one more place the medical professionals are trying to medicate what is a moral belief into something that is tangible and objective and therefore a medicinally treatable problem. As this article agreeably points out, an example of this is the pursuit of homosexuality as a medical “problem”. Just because a person habors what you or society considers an undesirable trait doesn’t mean its a medical problem. And its hard not to see this recent debate as one of two things — hell, probably both — a way of correcting what this doctor sees as an undesirable and/or a way to make profit with (studies, drugs, practice, etc.). As writer Ben Goldacre says, “drug companies with serotonin pills to sell foster a belief that depression is down to serotonin ‑ even though the evidence is contradictory ‑ to a public eager for simple, molecular answers.”
Bitterness just is. Its an undesirable trait, both personally and in others, but its not a medicinal one. Sometimes the tried and true measures of upbringing and learning your lesson are the answer. And while that doesn’t mean we have control over how the other person behaves — as we would with medicinal control — and that often means that we have to deal with people with disdainable personalities and behaviors, that’s all part of being human — so get over it. Really, the need to control everything in life isn’t necessarily a better path, its just more responsibility.
By the way, there was a study done on this. Kevin Carlsmith, Timothy Wilson, and Daniel Gilbert from Colgate, Virginia and Harvard universities conducted an experiment in which players of a game could earn money for co-operating with fellow players, but a player could earn more money at the expense of their fellow players by turning on them.
With the use of programed computer algorithms to be either very nice or very nasty, several trials were taken in which one of the players would warmly encourage co-operation, but by the end would turn on the fellow player, robbing them of “both reward and piece of mind.”
Some of the students were then offered the opportunity to exact payback — an opportunity to punish the one who ripped them off. For every 5 cents they spent, they were able to confiscate 15 cents from the free-loading backstabber. But, guess what, by the end the students reported that the revenge made them feel no better, in fact, they felt worse afterwards. And isn’t that the old parable, the one we’re taught as children by almost every authority figure we come across — that revenge won’t bring us back what we lost, that it won’t make us feel any better.
There’s no accounting for people who behave disdainably, who go against the moral grain of society, its simply human. Doctors need to get a handle on this — or they could be even more ironic and create a pill that makes them get a handle on this.
Bestill a Librarian Heart
So, these amazing libraries were found on a list of 20 of the World’s Most Beautiful Libraries on Oddee, and Gilding has to say, these are her favorite amongst some rather damn awesome libraries.
Abbey Library St. Gallen, Switzerland
Real Gabinete Portugues De Leitura, Rio De Janeiro, Brazil
Trinity College LIbrary, AKA, The Long Room, Dublin, Ireland
Melk Monastery Library, Melk, Austria
Jay Walker’s Private Library
Rijkmuseum Library, Amsterdam
Strahov Monastery – Theological Library, Prague, Czech Republic
Herzog August Library, Wolfenbüttel, Germany
Biblioteca Geral University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
Wiblingen Monastary Library, Ulm, Germany
George Peabody Library, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Library of the Benedictine Monastery of Admont, Austria
[Via Oddee]
Lights Interrupted
Gilding has a fascination for bird cages, stemming from God knows where, but she can’t ‘help but to adore the ornate little things. The more ornate and organic and homey the better. Recently she bought a handful of these wooden birdcages that were rather pretty with their Danish inspired design and peekaboo cutouts and it still takes some very hard earned restraint to keep herself from putting holes in the walls of her rentals to mount them on the wall over the couch as she envisions every time she looks at them. It does mollify her some that they currently sit atop matching painted candle pillars that just a little touch of sophistication and whimsy.
But this installation just may inspire some gilded copying. The outdoor installation of bird cages caught on the lines of fishing rods leaning over the rails of the city’s main bridge, belongs to Madrid’s Luzinterruptus as part of a street festival in Maubeuge, in the North of France.
By the way, that’s not birds caught in the cages. Its light. Its light caught in gilded bird cages reeled up on the lines of fishing rods perched against a bridge — can it get more whimsical and magical than that! [Via ArtMoCo]
Link: luzinterruptus
Gone Cottage
Gilding has been coveting the creations of Gone Cottage for some time now.
Gone Cottage is a unique creature of new furniture formed of old elements. Its a creature somewhere between the folds of shabby chic, primitive, and distinct Florida Coastal cottage style. And where its style is a unique breed, its creation springs forward in the waves of eco-conservatism, making new from something that was old and discarded. Old doors become headboards, shutters become cabinets, hanging beds from dinettes, garden benches, wine cabinets, and more, Oh my! The point is in recycling those cozy elements of past into a new element of function that is chic and “new” and sustainably reusable. Gone Cottage.
Italian Renaissance That Comes Out Only Once a Generation
The British Museum has announced a major new exhbition of Italian Renaissance drawings featuring 15th century artworks so delicate they only go on view once in a generation. Among the 100 or so works will be sketches by Titian, Raphael and Leonardo da Vinci. The exhibition doesn’t open until next summer, but here’s a sneak preview.
Warrior (c1480) by a young Leonardo da Vinci
Head of a Woman (1470s) by Andrea del Verrocchio. The artist was a Florentine goldsmith, sculptor and painter whose busy and productive workshop attracted students such as Leonardo and Lorenzo di Credi
Head of a Woman (1470s) by Leonardo da Vinci, drawn during his time in Verrocchio's studio
Head of a Woman (c1490) by Lorenzo di Credi. The artist drew this long after his apprenticeship with Verrocchio, but it still carries some of the dreamy, introspective style of his master
Virgin and Child With Angels (c1490) by Andrea Mantegna
Two cheetahs (1400-10) by an anonymous artist in Lombardy, Italy. Drawings of animals would be collected together in a book and used as models for embellishing paintings and manuscripts
Study of a Young Woman (c1510) by Titian
Link: Guardian.co.uk– Italian Renaissance drawings at the British Museum
Kinda Sutra
This is hilarious, the tales as explanations that the adults were told about sex and the mystery of birth when they were children. Then to have the children of this generations youth have a fairly high school level of education on the same conundrum — its just plain funny. On another note, it is a little sad that these children won’t have those same or different hilarious tales to reflect on when they are grown. It sort of obliterates the age of innocence with that of enlightenment; its hard to know which is better — is there a better?
