Beverley Hills Apartment Block

Beverley Hills is a landmark historic apartment development at 65 Darling Street South Yarra, Victoria, designed by the architect and developer Howard Lawson, and built in 1935-36. Consisting of two blocks in a shared landscape including a swimming pool, they are the best known of a larger precinct of at least 15 apartment buildings in the immediate area. all developed by Lawson and business partner Reginald Biffen in the 1930s, .
Howard Lawson.
Howard Ratcliff Lawson (1886–1946) was an architect, property developer and builder most noted for his series of apartments constructed in South Yarra during the interwar period. Unable to gain registration as an architect due to his property development activities, Lawson famously advertised himself as ‘the architect who builds’. Lawson was best known for the many apartment blocks he designed and built in South Yarra, with the Beverley Hills complex being his largest and most notable.
Context.
By the 1920s in Australia, the apartment was growing more common as an accepted means of housing, as areas like Potts Point and Darlinghurst in Sydney began to embrace higher-density living. However, despite an increasingly affluent clientele, there was still a widely held belief that flats were not fit for a home and high-density living was still often associated with the crowded workers tenements of North America and Europe. This led to attempts to ban flats outright by some local governments in NSW and Victoria and the different laws introduced by governments in the two states begin to create differing languages of design in the two cities, with Melbourne’s stricter laws creating a unique character of apartments in the city. Melbourne apartment buildings were very rarely more than three storeys, ie. ‘walk ups’ without lifts, and usually set back from boundaries with sometimes large front gardens, unlike their sometimes larger scale Sydney counterparts. This type of development allowed the inner south and eastern suburbs of Melbourne where apartment development concentrated, around St Kilda, Elwood and South Yarra, to maintain a suburban image. Unlike Sydney, only one highrise block was built in the CBD itself.
It was against this backdrop that Lawson constructed his Beverley Hills blocks, which, at a total of seven storeys high, caused a stir amongst nearby residents. Lawson’s future work on the site was subsequently restricted to three storeys, making the Beverley Hills complex unique in the area and indeed Melbourne for its size and character.
Description.
The development consisted of two separate blocks, with the larger Block 2 set behind and uphill from Block 1, on a steep sloping site up from Darling Street. Each block is nominally 5 storeys, but with the slope allowing for flats below the main entrance, the front building, Block 1 is six floors and the rear Block 2 is seven. They are set within a landscape of steep stairs and paths, balustrades and platforms, amongst heavy planting of trees and shrubs, with the famous pool part way up the site.
Each block includes a tall narrow light well/courtyard which includes the access stairs, allowing some light and air to penetrate into the building.
Most apartments are 1 or 2 bedrooms, tightly planned with a small kitchen, and bathroom, with the emphasis being on the living and bedroom spaces. Most apartments maintain a strong visual connection to the outside through balconies, opening to the land along or on upper levels sweeping views north towards the Yarra River and over the flat suburb of Richmond beyond.
Key influences and design approach.
Arguably the most flamboyant of Lawson’s work in South Yarra, Beverley Hills can be broadly described as Spanish Mission style, but in Lawsons own eclectic version, with a dash of Hollywood-esque glamour. The style was particularly popular in California, New Mexico and Florida and brought together elements of Spanish Baroque with a romanticized image of the simplicity and monastic qualities of the early Californian Spanish Missions. Brought to Australia in 1918 by Leslie Wilkinson, professor of Architecture at Sydney University, the style was popularized by many Hollywood stars during the interwar period, and became associated with glamour and luxury, influencing a number of up-market homes in and around Sydney. As evident in the name ‘Beverley Hills’, a clear reference to upscale Beverly Hills in Los Angeles, Lawson’s otherwise modest flats express the opulence and grandeur of 1930s Hollywood, even featuring an under-water window into the swimming pool.
Architecturally, the building features the motif of a circle and a cross in the balustrading and detailing, seen in much of Lawson’s work. Spanish Mission style elements include the rough textured grey stucco used throughout, the barley sugar-twist columns, the elaborate patterning on the window cills and above some of the windows, and the steep red tiled roofs. Some medieval ‘Old English’ features also appear, in the lettering of the signage and the diamond pattern leadlight windows.
The large mass of the buildings are varied by the use of shallow bay windows, inset balconies, and projecting horizontal balconies at the top floor, and the deep raves of the roofs (which are effectively just for show, with flat roofs used a patios behind).
Like the architecture, the choice of planting heavily references the Hollywood Spanish style, with palms and cactus featuring throughout the complex, as well as vines and creepers which soften the greyness of the stucco finish.


Russian Revival architecture

The Russian Revival style (Pseudo-Russian style, , Neo-Russian style, , Russian Byzantine style, ) is the generic term for a number of different movements within Russian architecture that arose in the second quarter of the 19th century and was an eclectic melding of Byzantine elements and pre-Petrine (Old Russian) architecture.
The Russian Revival architecture arose within the framework that the renewed interest in the national architecture, which evolved in Europe in the 19th century, and it is an interpretation and stylization of the Russian architectural heritage. Sometimes, Russian Revival architecture is often erroneously called Russian or Old-Russian architecture, but the majority of Revival architects did not directly reproduce the old architectural tradition. Being instead a skilful stylization, the Russian Revival style was consecutively combined with other international styles, from the architectural romanticism of first half of the 19th century to the modern style.
Cultural background.
Like the Romantic revivals of Western Europe, the Russian Revival was informed by a scholarly interest in the historic monuments of the nation. The historicism resonated with the popular nationalism and pan-Slavism of the period. The first illustrated account of Russian architecture was the project of Anatoly Nikolaievich Demidov, 1st Prince of San Donato and French draughtsman André Durand, the record of their 1839 tour of Russia was published in Paris in the 1840s as "Voyage Pittoresque et Archéologique en Russie". Durand's lithographs betray a foreigner's sensitivity to the seeming otherness of Russian architecture, displaying some curiously distorted features, and while they are, on the whole, fairly accurate representations, the folios that he produced belong to the genre of travel literature rather than historical inquiry.
The attempt to discern the chronology and development of Russia's building begins in earnest with Ivan Snegirev and A.A. Martynov's "Russkaya starina v pamyatnikakh tserkovnago i grazhanskago zodchestva" (Moscow, 1851). The state took an interest in the endeavour by sponsoring a series of folios published as "Drevnosti rossiiskago gosudavstva" (Moscow 1849–1853, 6 vol.) depicting antiquities and decorative works of art. By this time the Moscow Archaeological Society undertook research on the subject, formalising it as a field of study. A series of triennial conferences was instituted from 1869 to 1915, and its reports included studies of the architecture of the Kievian Rus' and early Moscow periods. Perhaps the Society's most significant achievement was the publication of the "Kommissii po sokhraneniiu drevnikh pamyatnikov" in 6 volumes between 1907 and 1915. Also the St. Petersburg Academy of fine Arts commissioned research from VV Suslov in the form of his two multi-volume works "Pamyatniki drevnyago russkago zodchestva" (1895–1901, 7 vol.) and "Pamyatniki drevne-russkago iskusstva" (1908–1912, 4 vol.). With the application of positivist historical principals the chronology of Russian architecture was firmly established by the time of the publication of that definitive 6-volume survey of Russian art "Istoriya russkogo isskustva" (1909–1917), edited by Igor Grabar, the appearance of the final volume was, however, interrupted by the revolution.
Development.
1825–1850.
The first extant example of Byzantine Revival in Russian architecture and the first example ever built stands in Potsdam, Germany, the five-domed Alexander Nevsky Memorial Church by Vasily Stasov (builder of neoclassical Trinity Cathedral, St. Petersburg, father of critic Vladimir Stasov). The following year, Stasov completed the larger five-domed Church of the Tithes in Kiev.
The Russo-Byzantine idea was carried forward by Konstantin Thon with the firm approval by Nicholas I. Thon's style embodied the idea of continuity between Byzantium and Russia, perfectly matching the ideology of Nicholas I. Russian-Byzantine architecture is characterised by mixing the composition methods and vaulted arches of Byzantine architecture with ancient Russian exterior ornaments, and were vividly realised in Thon's 'model projects'. In 1838, Nicholas I "pointed out" Thon's book of model designs to all architects; more enforcement followed in 1841 and 1844. Buildings designed by Thon or based on Thon's designs were Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, the Grand Kremlin Palace and the Armoury in Moscow, also cathedrals in Sveaborg, Yelets, Tomsk, Rostov-on-Don and Krasnoyarsk.
Official enforcement of Byzantine architecture was, in fact, very limited: it applied only to new church construction and, to a lesser extent, to royal palaces. Private and public construction proceeded independently. Thon's own public buildings, like the pseudo-Renaissance Nikolaevsky Terminal, lack any Byzantine features. A closer look at churches constructed in Nicholas' reign reveals many first-rate neoclassical buildings, like the Elokhovo Cathedral in Moscow (1837–1845) by Yevgraph Tyurin. Official Byzantine art was not absolute in Nicholas reign; it is scarce in our days, as the Byzantine churches, declared 'worthless' by Bolsheviks, were the first to be demolished in the Soviet era.
1850s.
Another direction taken by the Russian Revival style was a reaction against official Thon art, influenced by Romanticism, Slavophilism and detailed studies of vernacular architecture. The forerunner of this trend in church design was Alexey Gornostaev (in his later years, 1848–1862), notable for reinventing Northern Russian tented roof motif augmented with Romanesque and Renaissance vault structure. An early extant example in civil architecture is the wooden in Devichye Pole, Moscow, by Nikolai Nikitin (1856).
Post-1861.
The Emancipation reform of 1861 and subsequent reforms of Alexander II pushed the liberal elite into exploring the roots of national culture. The first result of these studies in architecture was a birth of "folk" or Pseudo-Russian style, exemplified by 1870s works of Ivan Ropet (Terem in , 1873) and Viktor Hartmann (Mamontov printing house, 1872). These artists, in alliance with Narodnik movement, idealized the peasant life and created their own vision of "vernacular" architecture. Another factor was the rejection of western eclecticism that dominated civil construction of 1850s-1860s, a reaction against "decadent West", pioneered by influential critic Vladimir Stasov.
Ivan Zabelin, a theorist of the movement, declared that "Russian "Khoromy", grown naturally from peasants' log cabins, retained the spirit of beautiful disorder... Beauty of a building is not in its proportions, but on the contrary, in the difference and independence of its parts" ("русские хоромы, выросшие органически из крестьянских клетей, естественно, сохраняли в своем составе облик красивого беспорядка... По понятиям древности первая красота здания заключалась не в соответствии частей, а напротив в их своеобразии, их разновидности и самостоятельности"). As a result, "ropetovschina", as Ropet's foes branded his style, concentrated on hoarding together vivid but not matching pieces of vernacular architecture, notably high-pitched roofs, barrel roofs and wood tracery. Wood was the preferred material, since many fantasies could not be physically built in masonry. This was good and bad for "dopetovschina". Bad, because wooden structures, especially those unconventionally shaped, were not scalable and had a very short life span. Very few survive to date. Good, because speed of construction and unorthodox looks were a perfect match for exhibition pavilions, coronation stands and similar short-term projects. The trend continued into 20th century (Fyodor Schechtel) and 1920s (Ilya Golosov).
For a short time in the 1880s, a less radical version of Pseudo-Russian style, based on copying 17th century brick architecture, almost succeeded as the new official art. These buildings were built, as a rule, from the brick or whitestone, with the application of modern construction technology they began to be abundantly decorated in the traditions of Russian popular architecture. The characteristic architectural elements of this time, such as "pot-bellied" columns, low arched ceilings, narrow window-loop holes, tented roofs, frescoes with floral designs, use of multicolored tiles and massive forging, are manifest both in the external and in the internal decoration of these structures. A typical example is the Historical Museum (1875–81, architect Vladimir Sherwood) which completed the ensemble of Red Square.
1898–1917.
At the turn of the centuries, the Russian Orthodox Church experienced a new trend; construction of unusually large cathedrals in working-class suburbs of big cities. Some, like Dorogomilovo Ascension Cathedral (1898–1910), rated for 10,000 worshippers, were launched in quiet country outskirts that increased in population by the time of completion. Christian theorists explain the choice of such remote locations with the desire to extend the reach of Church to working class, and only working class, in the time when wealthier classes stepped away from it. Byzantine architecture was a natural choice for these projects. It was a clear statement of national roots, against the modern European heresies. It was also much cheaper than grand Neoclassical cathedrals, both in initial costs and subsequent maintenance. The largest examples of this type were all completed after the Russian revolution of 1905:


Metz-Ville station

The Gare de Metz-Ville is the main railway station serving the city of Metz, capital of Lorraine, France. Sometimes spoken of as the "Station Palace" as it displays the apartments of the German Kaiser Wilhelm II, Metz station has been registered as a Historic Monument since 15 January 1975. This designation gives legal protection to the station's facade, the roof, the departure hall, the honorary lounge, and the former station restaurant with its interior decorations.
History and strategic role.
The station in Metz was a central point of plans for a new urban area in Metz, now called the Imperial Quarter, which was built during the first annexation of Metz into the German Empire. In order to "Germanify" the city, Kaiser Wilhelm II decided upon the creation of a new district shaped by a distinctive blend of Germanic architecture. The district was conceived by German architect Conrad Wahn and is now commonly called the Imperial District.
The railway station constitutes the cornerstone of this district, not far from the historic downtown. Its first aim was military usage and it had to answer a strategic need: For the success of the Schlieffen plan, the Kaiser had to be able to transport his troops from France to Russia in just 24 hours. This resulted in a sizeable station with platforms large enough to accommodate troops on foot and on horseback. So the Metz railway station was directly linked to Berlin via the Cannons Railway.
Architecture.
The railway station is a 350-metre-long neo-Romanesque building built between 1905 and 1908 by German architect Jürgen Kröger, assisted by the architects Jürgensen and Bachmann, as well as by the sculptor Schirmer. It was built in the pale grey stoneware of Niderviller, in marked contrast to the other buildings of the city, which are mainly built in yellow limestone. Because of the swampy soil of the area, the station and its water tower are built on 3,034 foundation piles which run from ten to seventeen metres deep, made from the system of reinforced concrete which had just been developed by the French engineer François Hennebique.
The station building is architecturally reminiscent of the shape of a church in the departure hall area, with a clock tower rising 40m in height (said to be designed by Kaiser Wilhelm himself); on the other hand, the arrivals hall and restaurant echo the form of an imperial palace. The purpose of this is to represent the religious and temporal powers of the Holy Roman emperors. The statue of the Knight Roland at the angle of the clock tower represents Imperial protection over Metz. In the great hallway a stained glass window depicts the Emperor Charlemagne sitting on his throne. Kaiser Wilhelm appreciated his travels to Metz and the imperial territory of Alsace-Lorraine, which was administered directly by the imperial government in Berlin. So at the railway station can be seen the apartments he used during his visits to the city; today they have been transformed into offices for the SNCF Railway Company.
The forecourt of the railway station is adorned by street furnitures designed by Philippe Starck.
Transport.
The Gare de Metz-Ville is connected to the French TGV high speed train network, which provides a direct rail service to Paris, the city of Luxembourg, Dijon, Lyon, Marseille, and Montpellier. The time from Paris East station to Metz railway station is about 82 minutes. Additionally, Metz railway station is connected to the Lorraine TGV station, located at Louvigny, at the south of Metz, for high speed trains going to Nantes, Rennes, Brussels, Bordeaux and France international Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport (without stopping in Paris).
Also Metz is one of the main stations of the regional express trains system named Métrolor. One of its main lines is the Nancy-Metz-Luxembourg line, completed by many lines going to main cities of the area.


Royal Palace of Milan

The Royal Palace of Milan (Italian: "Palazzo Reale di Milano") was the seat of government in the Italian city of Milan for many centuries. Today, it serves as a cultural center and it is home to international art exhibitions.
It spans through an area of 7,000 square meters and it regularly hosts modern and contemporary art works and famous collections in cooperation with notable museums and cultural institutions from across the world. More than 1,500 masterpieces are on display annually.
It was originally designed to include two courtyards but these were later dismantled to make room for the Duomo.
The Palazzo is located to the right of the Duomo's facade, opposite to Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II. The facade of the Palazzo creates a recess in Piazza del Duomo which functions as a courtyard, known as the "Piazzetta Reale" (literally, a "Small Royal Square").
The famous "Hall of Caryatids" can be found on the main floor of the building, heavily damaged by World War II's air raids.
After the war the Palazzo remained abandoned for over two years and its condition further deteriorated.
Many of the Palazzo's neoclassical interiors were lost in this period.
History.
Origins.
The royal palace has ancient origins. It was first called "Palazzo del Broletto Vecchio", and it was the seat of city's government during the period of medieval communes in the Middle Ages.
The palace became a key political center under the Torriani, Visconti and Sforza households.
After the construction of the Duomo Cathedral, the Palazzo was heavily renovated thanks to the efforts of Francesco Sforza's government.
16th century.
Until the early 16th century, the Dukes of Milan had their official residence in Castello Sforzesco.
When the Sforza dynasty ended and the French invaded Milan, this castle became progressively more a fortress apt for warfare rather than an elegant noble residence.
It was therefore under the French rule of Louis XII and of François I that the court was moved to Palazzo Reale.
The Palazzo flourished under Governor Ferrante Gonzaga, who took permanent residence in Milan in 1546.
The Gonzaga family refurbished and transformed the ducal court into a palace suitable for a governor, with expanded and newly inaugurated rooms dedicated to official functions.
To pursue these expansions, governor Gonzaga demolished the old church of Sant'Andrea al Muro Rotto, annexing its land to the Palazzo's complex.
An interior passageway in an enclosed courtyard was created to connect the royal palace to the Church of San Gottardo, which became at this time the official church of the court.
At the end of the 16th century, Governor Antonio de Guzman y Zuniga, Marquis of Ayamonte, recruited Pellegrino Tibaldi to conduct further renovation at the royal palace.
Tibaldi, archbishop Charles Borromeo's trusted architect, was at the time already working on the Duomo, on the Archbishop's Palace and on Cortile dei Canonici.
Between 1573 and 1598 he coordinated work at the royal palace which completed overhauled the pictorial decorations of the apartments' porticoes, of the private chapel and of the Church of San Gottardo.
Several major artists of the time attended to this work: Aurelio Luini, Ambrogio Figino, Antonio Campi and naturally Pellegrino Tibaldi himself.
Some stuccoes and Gothic works were created by Valerio Profondavalle, a Flemish artist-impresario who had also worked on the windows of the Duomo.
It is in this time that the Court Theater was completed, the first of a series of theaters built in Milan only to be lost to fire and replaced, until eventually La Scala was erected in the 18th century.
17th and 18th centuries.
On the night of 24 January 1695 a fire destroyed the Court Theater.
Reconstruction and expansion of a new ducal theater would begin only in 1717 under the patronage of the Count of Loewenstein, the new Austrian governor of the city of Milan following the War of Spanish Succession.
The new theater was designed by Francesco Galli Bibbiena and his pupils Giandomenico Barbieri and Domenico Valmagini.
The theater was larger, with four tiers of boxes and a gallery in the shape of a horseshoe; on the side was a small "ridottino" for gambling and a shop for drinks, sweets and costumes.
It was completed on 26 December 1717 and it was inaugurated with the opera "Costantino" by Gasparini.
In 1723 a new fire accident damaged the ceremonial halls of the palace.
The Austrian magistrate Wirich Philipp von Daun then commissioned restorations.
The wings of the Cortile d'Onore (Honor Courtyard) were updated in a livelier style, introducing whitewashed walls and baroque window frames designed by Carlo Rinaldi.
The church of San Gottardo was also re-decorated in painting, stucco and gilding and upgraded to be a proper "Royal-Ducal Chapel".
Salone dei Festini and Salone di Audienzia (now Hall of Emperors), both on the "piano nobile" (noble floor), were also restored.
The Cortile d'Onore wings housed the chancery, the magistrate and accounting offices and other administrative and financial offices.
The Governor and the Privy Council met in new rooms built on the north side of the garden.
The Governor was housed in the newly built northern and southern wings of the courtyard.
In 1745, Gian Luca Pallavicini became governor and minister plenipotentiary of Milan.
He recruited the famous architect Francesco Croce of the Cathedral Workshop to completely refurbish the palace interiors (furniture, silverware, chinaware and chandeliers) at his personal expenses.
Croce commissioned tapestries reproducing Raphaelite works from the Gobelins factories.
The halls of Festini and Audienzia were merged to create an enormous 46 by 17 meter ballroom (current "Hall of the Caryatids"), inclusive of side boxes to hold an orchestra.
Pallavacini also requested a hall destined to host gala dinners – a new trend coming from France.
When Pallavacini left in 1752, he sold his furniture and decor to the city of Milan.
Reconstruction by Piermarini.
The Archduke Ferdinand of Austria-Este, son of Maria Theresa of Austria, married Maria Beatrice d'Este in Milan in 1771.
For their wedding, "Ascanio in Alba" by Mozart was staged in the Palazzo.
Mozart was initially offered a post as Maestro in the Milan court, only to be rejected at last by the Empress Maria Theresa.
Maria Beatrice was heir of the Duchy of Modena and Reggio, governor of the Duchy of Milan and in a decade she would also be appointed Duchess of Lombardy.
The archduke Ferdinand had hoped to build a new palace, but eventually settled on remodeling the royal palace by moving out many of the administrative offices to increase the size of the royal residence.
The renovation work in 1773 was directed by Giuseppe Piermarini in collaboration with Leopold Pollack.
Piermarini was tasked with the difficult job of balancing the demands of the archduke, who was not willing to live in the royal palace unless it was grandly renovated, and the financial limitations imposed by Vienna.
For the exterior he opted for an austere look, abandoning the baroque style and introducing the neoclassical in Milan.
One major modification was the elimination of the wing of the courtyard adjacent to the Duomo, to create Piazzetta Reale, then larger than the square of the Cathedral.
He also built the famous neoclassical facade of the Palazzo that can be still admired to this day.
Fire struck again, destroying the Court Theater on February 26, 1776.
It was decided at this time that the fire-prone Court Theater was to be built elsewhere: Teatro Alla Scala was erected, to become arguably the earliest public opera house in the world.
A smaller court theater, now Teatro Lirico, was built closer to Palazzo Reale by demolishing a nearby school.
As per the interior work, the rooms was repurposed to meet the archduke's requests.
The most notable modification is the creation of the famous Hall of Caryatids (named after 40 caryatid sculptures by Gaetano Callani.)
At the same time, the ducal chapel of San Gottardo was provided with a new altar and fully redecorated in neoclassical style.
Only the bell tower was preserved without changes, being considered a model of architectural beauty by Azzone Visconti.
The Archduke ordered more Gobelin tapestries depicting stories of Jason to be placed side by side with the original ones by Pallavicini.
The rooms were stuccoed by Albertolli and frescoed by Giuliano Traballesi and Martin Knoller.
Renovation works in the palace rooms will continue, ending only in the 19th century with the final contributions by Andrea Appiani and Francesco Hayez.
Piermarini officially completed his work on 17 June 1778, when the Archduke officially took residence into the new Palazzo Reale.
Napoleonic era and restoration.
In 1796, Napoleon Bonaparte - still a general of the French army - occupied Milan and made it capital of the newly proclaimed Cisalpine Republic, following his victory in the battle of Lodi.
The Palazzo was then renamed the "National Palace" and became initially the seat of the Cisalpine Republic's military command and then its Directorate.
When the Austro-Russians regained control of Milan in 1799, the French government quickly auctioned most of the Palazzo's furnishings and allowed the rest to be looted by the general population.
After being damaged considerably, the Palazzo returned to and even surpassed its former splendor in 1805, when it was eventually named "Royal Palace": Milan had become the capital of the Kingdom of Italy, ruled by Napoleon's adoptive son Eugène de Beauharnais, who was appointed Viceroy and chose it to be his official residence.
Milan was now the capital of a vast kingdom spanning all across northern Italy and the Palazzo Reale was therefore renovated to ensure it was worthy of its title.
The damaged interiors were repaired and replaced with new and lavish furniture; Andrea Appiani worked on new frescoes in the main official rooms (Sala delle Udienze Solenni, Sala della Rotonda and Sala della Lanterna).
As per the exterior, Eugène de Beauharnais invited Luigi Canonica to create an entire new block called "La Cavallerizza" ( nowadays occupied by the city council offices).
New stables, a large riding school and a place to give equestrian public performances, together with many offices were built in the new block in austere neo-classical style. The project was completed years later by Giacomo Tazzini, who also worked on the Via Larga's facade.
The complex was connected to the royal theatre (Cannobiana Theatre, at the time) through a bridge on via Restrelli.
With the fall of Napoleon in 1814, the Kingdom of Italy toppled and the huge Palazzo, together with Milan, returned in Austrian hands.
The Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia was formed and the royal palace remained the official seat of power of a wide realm even under Austrian rule.
Recent era and loss of the Hall of Caryatids.
When Lombardy was annexed to the Kingdom of Sardinia in 1859, the royal palace became the residence of the new governor of Milan, Massimo d'Azeglio.
D'Azeglio could only enjoy the Palazzo for less than a year, though: following the events that led to the proclamation of the kingdom of Italy in 1861, it became the Savoy monarch's royal residence, even if it was not often occupied once the capital was moved to Florence.
Umberto I preferred the Villa Reale di Monza to the Palazzo and his son too, Vittorio Emanuele III, avoided Milan and only visited the Palazzo Reale during official ceremonies.
The last official royal reception held in Milan was in 1906, during the World Fair.
Palazzo Reale was to host its last official visit in 1919, when the U.S. president Woodrow Wilson was invited in Milan by Vittorio Emanuele III of Savoy. Later that year, on October 11, the palace was sold by the House of Savoy to the Italian state, on condition that apartments would remain available for the Savoy royal family when necessary. Members of the family, among whom most notably the Duke of Bergamo, will continue to live in the royal palace until the Second World War.
Big changes at the Palazzo were to follow its sale.
In 1850 the side nearest to the Duomo was reduced in size to allow better road traffic, thus altering radically the monumental proportions of the palace. A second disruption occurred in 1925, when the Royal Stables were demolished and then again in 1936-37 when the so-called "long sleeve" (a narrow and long wing) was shortened by at least 60 metres to build Palazzo dell'Arengario.
The whole building was heavily damaged on the night of 15 August 1943, when the city was caught in heavy shelling by the British forces.
Even if the bombs only hit a small part of the roof, damages quickly extended across the whole structure because of a colossal fire that was not noted and quenched in time, testament to Milan's general state of disarray on that eventful night.
All wooden fixtures and furnishings went lost but the high temperature damaged even the famous stuccoes and Appiani's paintings, ruining the Hall of Caryatids beyond repair. Its wooden beams collapsed and trusses smashed on the floor, damaging it together with the vault, the balcony and the gallery.
The other halls were also damaged by water seepage, after many of the roof tiles went lost in the raid.
After a few years being left to itself, repair works at the Palazzo commenced in 1947, after the end of the war.
Italy's Cultural Heritage Superintendence started the refurbishment of the building and the Hall of Caryatids.
A new floor and a new roof were built in a much simpler style, purposely leaving aside any ornate past decoration as a testament to the atrocities of the war. Fortunately it is still possible to admire the magnificent decorations of the Hall of Caryatids before its destruction in many paintings and photographs.
The Hall, deprived of its ancient luster, was brought back to international attention in 1953 when it was chosen by Picasso to host an exhibition. The Spanish artist's work "Guernica" was the main feature of the exhibition, symbolically displayed in the now much plainer Hall of Caryatids.
Starting in year 2000, the Italian government has commissioned a fuller restoration of the royal palace.
The Hall of Caryatids was not redecorated to bring back its former splendor but only conservatively preserved, by removing the blackening on the walls, reinforcing the structural units and cleaning the remaining paintings.
Sketches of the old ceiling were drawn on the cover of the new white ceiling, to give an impression of what the room looked like in the past.
The Museum of the Palace.
At the beginning of the 21st century, more than fifty years after its destruction, Palazzo Reale found a new central role in the social and cultural life of Milan.
Three phases of restoration were completed, even if the palace did not fully recover its original magnificence.
The original purpose of the restorations was to create a "Palace Museum" to show the four historical seasons the Palazzo went through: the Neoclassical era, Napoleon's period, the Restoration and the Unification of Italy.
The first phase of restoration undertook the complex task of refurbishing of the original furniture, to provide a stylistic representation of the life of the Ducal Court. Then the neoclassical halls were restored, to bring back the vision of Giuseppe Piermarini and the splendor of the "enlightened" era, when the city had a major role in Europe. The third phase focused on the old Apartment of Reserve, to portray the life of 19th century Austrian royalty.
Unfortunately the original idea was abandoned and the Museum of the Palace was never inaugurated, despite the completion of its third phase of restoration in 2008.
Cultural centre.
The Royal Palace is now a cultural centre in the heart of Milan, coordinated in conjunction with three other exhibition venues: Rotonda della Besana, Palace of Reason and Palazzo dell'Arengario.
The building plays an important role within Milanese artistic life, having hosted in recent years prestigious exhibitions including works by Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso and other internationally renowned painters and sculptors.
Turn-point for its prestige as exhibition hall was the 2009 show to celebrate Futurism's centenary.
Since November 4, 2013 a wing of the palace was repurposed to host the Great Museum of the Duomo of Milan.


Sisak Cathedral

Cathedral of Exaltation of the Holy Cross () is a cathedral in the Diocese of Sisak. It is located in the center of Sisak on Ban Jelačić Square.
History.
The church was built in the 18th century and dedicated in 1765. The spire was built in 1760.
After an earthquake in 1909, the old Baroque facade was replaced with a Neoclassical facade, with details in the Art Nouveau style. The interior of the church was renovated too, including the altar. The church was also damaged in 1991, during the Croatian War of Independence.
On 5 December 2009, Pope Benedict XVI established the Diocese of Sisak. As a result, the parish church became a cathedral.
The church was severely damaged in the 2020 Petrinja earthquake.


Temple Israel (West Bloomfield, Michigan)

Temple Israel is a Reform Jewish synagogue in West Bloomfield, Michigan.
The congregation was founded in 1941 in Detroit. In 1949 the congregation erected an Art Deco temple designed by architect William Kapp. It moved to West Bloomfield in 1980; the original temple is now the Word of Power Church and is included in the National Register of Historic Places as part of Detroit's Palmer Park Apartment Building Historic District.
Temple Israel is among the largest Reform congregations in the country. As of 2012 its website states that it is the largest in North America, and the official database of the Union for Reform Judaism confirms this, reporting a membership of 3,383. In 1995, Temple Israel was the first reform congregation to open a mikveh (ritual bath).
In September 2016, Temple Israel officially announced a major renovation on the synagogue and display cases. It was completed in September 2017.


Stevenson Peters House

The Stevenson Peters House is a historic farm complex near the city of Circleville in Pickaway County, Ohio, United States. Built in the mid-19th century, the complex has been named a historic site.
Stevenson Peters was descended from one of Pickaway County's earliest families of settlers. By the mid-19th century, Peters had made himself one of Walnut Township's most extensive landowners. On the present property he erected the present house in 1852, and here he resided until his death in 1887. Later generations of the Peters family owned the property until 1978, when it was inherited by a family named Bartholomew. Accordingly, it has also been known as the "Peters-Bartholomew Residence."
Peters' farmhouse is a brick double-pen building with four-over-four windows, two-and-a-half stories tall and five bays wide. Because of its location on a hill, the house appears especially large to the viewer and can be seen from a particularly long distance. Nine additional buildings are located on the farmstead, which encompasses approximately around the house.
In 1984, the Peters House was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, qualifying because of its distinctive historic architecture. Six of the ten buildings on the farmstead qualified as contributing properties, while the other four were deemed non-contributing. Particularly crucial to this designation was its four-over-four design, which represented an uncommon variation in its rural area.


Congregation Beth Israel (Gadsden, Alabama)

Congregation Beth Israel () was a Reform synagogue, located for most of its history at 761 Chestnut Street in Gadsden, Alabama. An outgrowth of Gadsden's Jewish religious school, it was founded in 1908 and incorporated in 1910. It moved into its Chestnut Street building in 1922, and joined the Union of American Hebrew Congregations in 1924.
From 1911 to 1944 it had no rabbi, and was led by "lay-religious-leader" Hugo Hecht. In 1944, Beth Israel hired its first full-time rabbi, Ernest Appel.
The synagogue was fire-bombed and its windows smashed in 1960, during a Friday night service. Two members who rushed outside were wounded with a shotgun by the attacker, a young Nazi sympathizer.
Membership was never high; the congregation had 38 members families in 1918, and this grew to 60 families in 1960. Membership fell as major employers closed operations, and Jews emigrated from Gadsden. By 2008, family membership was down to 26. The synagogue closed in 2010.
Early history.
Founded in 1908, and incorporated in January 1910, Beth Israel grew out of Gadsden's Jewish religious school, which was established in 1903. Initially the congregation had no rabbi. Every second Sunday from 1910 to 1911, Ferdinand Hirsch, a student rabbi, would come to Gadsden and teach the Sunday School in the morning and hold services in the afternoon.
Hugo Hecht, a young immigrant from Germany, acted as "lay-religious-leader" from 1911 to 1944. He conducted Shabbat and funeral services, wrote sermons, taught the Sunday school, and acted as secretary and treasurer. After a number of years, officers of the temple decided he should be given a remuneration of $20/week for his work.
Membership was 38 families by 1918. The congregational school held classes weekly, and had 15 students and 3 teachers. That year the synagogue's total income was $700 (today $).
Beth Israel broke ground and laid the cornerstone for its Classical Revival building at 761 Chestnut Street in March 1922, and moved in the following year. The Masonic dedication service was attended by hundreds of Gadsden citizens, and the main speaker was Reverend W.R. Rigell of the First Baptist Church. The completed structure had a stained-glass window with the Biblical verse fragment () above the front door.
The congregation joined the Union of American Hebrew Congregations in 1924. Gadsden's Jewish community was not as badly affected by the Great Depression as others in more agriculturally-based towns, and benefited from an influx of Jewish servicemen from nearby Camp Sibert during World War II.
Full-time rabbis.
In 1944 Beth Israel hired its first full-time rabbi, Ernest Appel. From a long line of rabbis from Breslau, Germany (now Wrocław, Poland), Appel emigrated to the United States in 1936 as a refugee from Nazi Germany. By 1946, when he moved to a synagogue in Maryland, the congregation had grown to nearly 30 families.
After receiving ordination from Hebrew Union College, Saul J. Rubin became Beth Israel's rabbi in September, 1958. There he met and married Elsie Parsons, Hecht's granddaughter. Rubin served until 1960, when he became assistant rabbi at Congregation Beth Ahabah in Richmond, Virginia.
Antisemitic attack.
On March 25, 1960, the synagogue and its members were subject to an antisemitic attack. About 180 members were attending a Friday evening service to dedicate the new Zemurray Social Hall, and led by then-rabbi Saul Rubin and Rev. John Speaks and Dr. Franklin Denson of First Methodist Church, when windows were smashed and the synagogue fire-bombed. Two members—Alvin Lowi and Alan Cohn—who rushed out to see what was happening were met by Jerry Hunt, a 16-year-old Nazi sympathizer, who wounded them both with a shotgun, then fled. Lowi was just shot in the hand, but one of Cohn's aortas was nicked, and he almost died, requiring of blood. Earlier that week Hunt had attended a rally for antisemitic and white supremacist politician John G. Crommelin, and had had a fight with a Jewish boy over a chess game at the Gadsden Community Centre.
Decline.
Membership peaked in 1960, at 60 families. In the 1970s and 1980s factories of major employers such as Republic Steel, and many Jewish-owned stores closed and younger members emigrated in search of employment. Following a significant period without a full-time rabbi, the congregation engaged Rabbi Arnold Fertig from 1977 to 1979. In the 1980s and early 1990s the rabbis were Fred Raskind and Mark Peilen. Family membership was still 57 in the early 1980s, but dropped to 43 in 1993, 38 in 2000, and only 26 by 2008. That year the youngest member was 48, and there were no children for the educational programs.
, the rabbi was Scott Saulson of Atlanta, who came in once a month to provide services. A former member of the Peace Corps, graduate of Hebrew Union College, and PhD in Semitics from the University of South Africa, Saulson was also chaplain at the Atlanta Jewish Family & Career Services, and was a speaker for the Darfur Coalition of Georgia. The congregation still held services weekly, but, as was the case during most of its early history, they were lay-led.
In 2010, the congregation ceased operation. The congregation's website stated that the synagogue had closed, effective July 1, 2010.


Hale Hall

Hale Hall is a historic building of the Ohio State University main campus in Columbus, Ohio. It was built in 1909-11 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. The building was formerly the Ohio Union, and had numerous other names through its history. It was the fourth student union building built in the U.S., and the first at a state university in the country. It is only one of four buildings on campus on the National Register; the others are the Ohio Stadium and Hayes and Orton Halls.
The building was designed by George S. Mills and built from 1909 to 1911. Although built as a student union, the building was replaced by Building 058, completed in 1951. The old building was then remodeled for student services, completed by 1953. The student health service moved out in 1969, and most of the remaining student services had moved by 1976. The property was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979, despite opposition from the university's executives.
From 1989 to 2020, the building served as the Frank W. Hale Jr. Black Cultural Center, a student center and gathering space for Black students at the college. It was named for the former vice provost for Diversity and Inclusion and professor emeritus at Ohio State, who spent years creating opportunities for students of color while creating safe spaces for these students. The students had fought for their own space, resulting in the center's establishment. The center lost its space in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic and the building was converted for classroom use. Black student groups are working to have the space return to acting as a cultural center.


Iglesia de San Pablo, Valladolid

The Iglesia conventual de San Pablo or San Pablo de Valladolid is a church and former convent, of Isabelline style, in the city of Valladolid, in Castile and León, Spain. The church was commissioned by Cardinal Juan de Torquemada between 1445 and 1468. It was subsequently extended and refurbished until 1616. Kings Philip II and Philip IV of Spain were baptized in the church, and it was visited by Napoleon. It is one of the buildings considered most emblematic of the city.
History.
The church construction was commissioned by Cardinal Torquemada to replace a previous church, which had a timber ceiling and was adjacent to a Dominican convent that had been founded in 1270. After Torquemada's death, bishop Alonso de Burgos funded the building of the cloister, refectory, and lower façade, as well as of the adjacent Colegio de San Gregorio with its funerary chapel. Artists who worked to the church in this period include the Spanish-Flemish Juan Guas and Simón de Colonia. Around 1550, Cardinal Juan Garcia Loaysa, confessor of the emperor Charles V, built the sacristy, covered with a dome decorated by stars, coat of arms of the order and figures of Dominican saints. The nave features rib vaults, supported by corbels in Renaissance style, added around 1540.
After the capital of the Kingdom of Spain was moved from Valladolid to Madrid, the church came under the patronage of the Duke of Lerma, who had its façade renovated and added numerous artworks in the interior. In 1613–1616 Juan de Nates, following a design by Francisco de Mora, executed the patronal tribune, and the Doric gate of the sacristy.
Description.
Typically for the late Gothic style dominant at the time, the church has a single nave, with side chapels opening between buttresses, with a raised choir and transept. At the ends of the transept are two stone portals from the workshop of Simón de Colonia, dating to c. 1490. The left one gives access to the Chapel of the Crucifix, while the right one led to the funerary chapel of Alonso de Burgos.
The façade, designed by Simón de Colonia, was completed in 1500. Two phases can be distinguished in it: the first one, including the section up to the top of the central rose window, features gargoyles and sided by two spires. The entrance portal is surrounded by a large arch with a wavy profile, in which is a relief with the Coronation of the Virgin in the presence of bishop Alonso de Burgos. The upper part of the façade features rectangular spaces up the summit tympanum. For its decoration were used some Gothic elements taken from other buildings and new ones, in the course of the renovation program funded by the Duke of Lerma, which also included the construction of the two side towers. The stars in the background refer to the coat of arms of the Sandoval y Rojas family, of which the Duke was a member; he is buried inside the church.
The interior has two absidal chapels, housing an image of "St Dominic of Guzmán", by Gregorio Fernández, and a "Christ" by the same artist, who also executed works in the presbytery.
In the transept are two paintings by Bartolomé de Cárdenas: "Calling of St Peter" and the "Conversion of St Paul"


Humboldt County Courthouse (Iowa)

The Humboldt County Courthouse is located in Dakota City, Iowa, United States, and dates from 1939. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003 as a part of the PWA-Era County Courthouses of IA Multiple Properties Submission. The courthouse is the second building the county has used for court functions and county administration.
History.
Dakota City was established as the county seat in 1857, but a courthouse was not built until 1873. The two-story building was constructed for $5,000. Plans to build a new courthouse were defeated in 1923 when voters suspected plans to move the county seat to neighboring Humboldt.
Plans for the current courthouse were approved in 1936. The Des Moines architectural firm of Dougher, Rich & Woodburn were retained to design the building. The county applied to the Public Works Administration, or PWA, to assist with the funding. The grant was approved in 1937. The contract to build the building was given to Holtze Construction Co. of Sioux City, Iowa. The cornerstone was laid on April 30, 1938, and the new building was dedicated on February 25, 1939. The courthouse was built for $185,000. Iowa Supreme Court Justice Richard Mitchell delivered the main address at an open house.
Architecture.
The courthouse is a rectangular structure that measures . The architectural style of the building is known as Depression Modern or PWA Moderne. The building features a symmetrical façade. Two lower sections were designed to flank the main block, but were never built. The exterior is composed of buff-colored brick and Bedford limestone trim. It is three stories tall and built on a raised basement. On the interior, the central corridors extend the length of the building, with the county offices opening onto the corridors. The building features multi-colored terrazzo floors, marble wainscoting and acoustic tiles. The courtroom was originally decorated in dark wood tones and Art Deco ornamentation.
The building is located on the courthouse square immediately west of the central business district and just to the east of Humboldt. The previous courthouse was also located here. The square itself is a contributing site on the courthouse's nomination to the National Register of Historic Places, and the original flagpole in front of the building is a contributing object.


Donald Barger House

The Donald Barger House, at 2972 Front St., at the corner of Main St., in Petersburg, Boone County, Kentucky, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.
It was deemed significant "as a good and particularly well-preserved representative of approximately a dozen hall-parlor cottages in Petersburg, and of the ten hall-parlor houses surveyed in the rest of Boone County."


St Katharine Cree

St Katharine Cree is an Anglican church in the Aldgate ward of the City of London, on the north side of Leadenhall Street near Leadenhall Market. It was founded in 1280. The present building dates from 1628–30. Formerly a parish church, it is now a guild church.
History.
Former building.
The parish served by the church existed by 1108, when it was served by the Augustinian Holy Trinity Priory, Aldgate, also called Christ Church, which was founded by Maud, queen at the time of King Henry I. The parishioners used the priory church but this proved unsatisfactory and disruptive to the priory's activities.
The prior partly resolved the problem in 1280 by founding St Katharine Cree as a separate church for the parishioners. The site of the present church was originally in the priory's churchyard and it is possible that the church began as a cemetery chapel. It took its name from the priory, "Cree" being abstracted from forms like "Crichurch", which were abbreviations of "Christ Church" (H. A. Harben, "A Dictionary of London" (1918)). It was initially served by a canon appointed by the prior but this did not prove satisfactory either, so in 1414 the church was established as a parish church in its own right. The present tower was added about 1504.
Describing the building at the end of the 16th century, John Stow wrote
"this church seemeth to be very old; since the building whereof the high street hath been so often raised by pavements that now men are fain to descend into the said church by divers steps, seven in number."
Current building.
The present church was built in 1628–30, retaining the Tudor tower of its predecessor. It is larger than the previous church, incorporating a piece of ground previously occupied by a cloister on the north side, and the floor level is considerably higher. The rebuilt church was consecrated by William Laud, Bishop of London on 31 January 1631. His vestments and the form of service that he used for the consecration were later held against him in his trial and conviction for heresy, when Puritans accused him of having displayed Catholic sympathies through his "bowings and cringings." He is commemorated by a chapel in the church.
The church escaped the Great Fire of London in 1666 and suffered only minor damage in the London Blitz of the Second World War. However, structural problems required extensive restoration in 1962. It is now one of the City's Guild churches.
St Katharine Cree is a significant church of the Jacobean period, a time when few new churches were built. It is the only Jacobean church to have survived in London. The identity of its architect is unknown. It has a high nave, linked with the narrow aisles by arcades supported on Corinthian columns. The church is long and wide; the height to the ceiling of the nave is .
The chancel has a rose window, reputedly modelled on the much larger one in Old St Paul's Cathedral (destroyed in the Great Fire). The window and its stained glass are original, dating from 1630. The baptismal font dates from around 1640. The vaulted ceiling bears bosses of the arms of 17 of the City's livery companies; From the East end the Bosses are:
North Aisle – Mercers, Drapers, Skinners, Salters, Dyers and Pewterers
Naïve – The City of London, Fishmongers, Merchant Taylors, Ironmongers, Clothworkers and Leathersellers; and
South Aisle – Grocers, Goldsmiths, Haberdashers, Vinters and Brewers
This dates mostly from the restoration of 1972 and tradition says that these Companies used St Katharine Cree for a time after the Great Fire of London of 1666, whilst their own Guild Churches were being rebuilt.
The church is a Grade I listed building.
By the south wall of St Katharine's is a memorial to "HMT Lancastria", a troopship lost at sea during the Second World War in 1940. It includes a model of the ship and the ship's bell.
St Katharine's has a ring of six bells. Lester and Pack of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry cast five of them including the treble bell in 1754. Thomas II Mears of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry cast the tenor bell in 1842. The church clock has a bell, also cast by Lester and Pack in 1754. In the summer of 2007 they were rung for the first time since 1880. An appeal to raise £60,000 to restore the bells to full ringing order was launched in November 2007, and he project was completed in 2009. It is the only tower in the City where the bells are rung from a ground floor ringing chamber.
Today St Katharine's is a guild church and has no parish, but chose some years ago to dedicate its ministry to the worlds of finance, commerce and industry.


Appenzell Castle

Appenzell Castle () is a castle in the Appenzell District of the canton of Appenzell Innerrhoden in Switzerland. It is one of a few 16th century stone buildings in Appenzell. It is part of the Swiss heritage site of national significance.
History.
The castle was built in 1563 as an elegant mansion the doctor Antoni Löw. Antoni was an enthusiastic supporter of the Protestant Reformation in Appenzell. In 1584 he was captured, judged and sentenced to death by the local Catholics for slandering a priest. After his death the castle was taken by the city and given to the Franciscans. They remained in the castle for almost a century, until 1682 when they moved into the newly completed St. Mary of the Angels. When the Franciscans moved out, the castle was sold to Antoni Speck who owned it until his death in 1708. It then passed to Johann Baptist Fortunat and then into the possession of the Sutter family. On 15 February 1875 Doctor Anton Alfred Sutter became the sole owner of the castle. He established his practice in the castle, leading to it being known as the "Doctor's House". Today the castle remains the property of the Sutter family.
See also.
List of castles and fortresses in Switzerland


Snowdon Theatre (Montreal)

The Snowdon Theatre was a Streamline Moderne style cinema in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, located on Decarie Boulevard in the neighbourhood of Snowdon. After the theater closed, it was re-purposed as mini-shopping center with gymnastics studio, and then later demolished to build condominiums. Only its exterior facade survives.
History.
The theater opened in February 1937 with a lavish art deco interior by designer Emmanuel Briffa, designer of the interior of the Rialto Theatre and 60 other cinemas in Canada.
In 1950 the entrance facade was modified and a new marquee was added. In 1968 it showed X-rated movies. In 1972 it screened Charlie Chaplin films for approximately an entire year. The cinema closed in May 1982 and was vacant. In 1990 it was re-purposed as a small shopping center. The 25,000 square foot interior was rebuilt by Rafid Louis and Emile Fattal, splitting the theater into two floors and sub-dividing the remaining space. The theater's original wall and ceiling art deco remained intact on the second floor, where a gymnastics center operated for a number of years. In 2013 the building was vacant again, then boarded up and left abandoned.
Demolition.
The building was not a success with its retail shopping and offices and by the late 1990s was mostly vacant. Flexart Gymnastics, the last tenant, was evicted in late 2013 due to safety concerns with the building's roof.
In January 2016, the city of Montreal, who owned the building, put it up for sale. On March 26, 2016 a fire on the second floor caused heavy damage to the roof. On May 4, 2017, the city found a buyer, who planned to demolish it for either a commercial or residential building project. The sale went through on February 3, 2018 for $1.6 million, with the only condition that the building's exterior front facade and sign be preserved.
In April 2019, the building was completely demolished, with only the front façade wall left standing with its marquee sign. As of April 2021, the condominiums are under construction.


Toklu Dede Mosque

Toklu Dede Mosque (, where "mescit" is the Turkish word for a small mosque), was an Ottoman mosque in Istanbul, Turkey. The building was originally a Byzantine Eastern Orthodox church of unknown dedication. It was almost completely destroyed in 1929.
Location.
The edifice lay in Istanbul, in the district of Fatih, in the neighborhood () of Ayvansaray. The only remaining part of the building – the south wall – is enclosed in a modern house at "Toklu Ibrahim Dede Sokak", a few meters inside the walled city, a short distance from the shore of the Golden Horn, at the junction between the Blachernae wall and the largely pulled down Golden Horn walls.
Byzantine Age.
The origin of this building, which was erected at the northern foot of the sixth hill of Constantinople in the neighborhood of "ta Karianou", part of the Blachernae quarter, is obscure. The small shrine lay on the inner side of the Wall of Heraclius, less than 100 m west of the now demolished Gate of Küçük Ayvansaray (in Greek the Koiliomene Gate) of the Golden Horn Walls, and east of the Gate of Blachernae. The church, – in common with the nearby Atik Mustafa Pasha Mosque, also originally a Byzantine church – has been identified with Saint Thekla of the Palace of Blachernae (Greek: , "Hagia Thekla tou Palatiou tōn Vlakhernōn"). However, the building lay too far from the Blachernae Palace, so that this identification, based only on the similarity of the name, should be rejected. Stylistically the church belongs to the Komnenian era (middle/second half of the 11th century). At the beginning of the 14th century – in the Palaiologan era – the church underwent minor architectonic changes and its fresco decoration was renewed.
Ottoman and Turkish Age.
After the Fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453, between the end of the 15th and the beginning of the 16th century the church was converted into a small mosque (Mescid) by Toklu Ibrahim Dede, a former soldier of Mehmed the Conqueror, who was the custodian of the nearby "türbe" of Ebû Șeybet ül Hudrî, like the more famous Abu Ayyub al-Ansari (the standard bearer of Muhammad), a companion of the Prophet. Both died during the first Arab siege of Constantinople and were buried outside the wall of Heraclius. The "türbe" of Ebû Șeybet ül Hudrî is now placed in the citadel between the Wall of Heraclius and that of Leo the Armenian.
In 1929 the owner of the building demolished it almost completely, leaving in place only the south wall and the apse. With the demolition the paintings, whose existence was known since 1890, came again to light. The first surveying of the remains occurred in 1954. As of 2012, only the surviving south wall, enclosed in a new building, and the name of the road where it once lay remember the small edifice.
Description.
The building had a rectangular plan with external sides of 14.2 m and 6.7 m. A square single nave was surmounted by a barrel vault and covered at its center by a dome with a diameter of about 4 m. This was supported by arches carried by angular piers. The nave was preceded by an esonarthex and ended towards East with a bema and a polygonal apse adorned internally and externally with shallow niches. The plan of the building is similar on a reduced size to that of the Chora Church. The edifice's brickwork consisted of courses of rows of white stones alternating with rows of red bricks. The external wall were divided with half pillars and with lesenes surmounted by arches. The church was decorated with 14th-century frescoes, among them images of the Saints Eleuterus, Abercius, Polykarpos, Spyridon, Procopius and Nicetas, some of them framed in medallions. The barrel vault above the altar was decorated with a fresco representing the Nativity of Jesus.


Park Hyatt Toronto

The Park Hyatt Toronto is a historic hotel opened in 1936 as the Park Plaza Hotel, located in the Annex area of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
History.
The hotel is located at the northwestern corner of Bloor Street and Avenue Road. The first known building on the site was a small wayside inn built in 1820 and named Tecumseh Wigwam. Then a considerable distance from the city it served travellers on their way north out of town. The inn was demolished around 1875.
Originally planned to be called the Queen's Park Plaza it was designed by Hugh G. Holman. Construction began in 1928 and was due to be completed in 1929; however, the stock market crash and the beginning of the Great Depression caused its builder to go out of business. The steel framed structure was left partially completed for several years as various attempts to restart it failed. It was finally completed and opened for business in 1936, with rooms costing $3 per night and up. It was expanded with a second tower added to the north, the new building being a modernist structure designed by Peter Dickinson.
Located across the street from the University of Toronto the hotel became especially known as one of the centres for Canadian literature, authors and opera singers, especially the rooftop patio that has existed since it opened. As a result, the hotel has appeared in works by a number of Canadian writers including Margaret Atwood, Morley Callaghan, Mordecai Richler, and Hugh Garner. Near Queen's Park, it was also a popular site for many provincial government officials, with the Premier Bill Davis government's "Big Blue Machine" holding frequent meetings there.
In the 1971, the Four Seasons opened across Avenue Road and the Park Plaza lost its title as the most prestigious of the Yorkville hotels. In 1995, the hotel went into receivership, but was purchased by new owners who began a complete overhaul. Added were such features as an almost penthouse, to woo back the wealthiest guests.
In 1999 the Hyatt chain purchased the structure, at what was then calculated to be the highest cost per room ever paid in Canada.
The hotel closed on December 1, 2017 for an extensive renovation. The south tower will be converted to 65 luxury rental units, while the north tower is undergoing refurbishment to continue operating as a hotel. The two-story podium and vehicle forecourt that connected the towers will be demolished and replaced by a new larger podium that will make up a streetwall.


Dominion Square Building

The Dominion Square Building, also known as the Gazette Building, is a landmark office building in Downtown Montreal facing Dorchester Square on its northern side. It is located at 1010, Sainte-Catherine Street West, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
The building is named after the old name of the Square and its southern access is provided by Dorchester Square Street, which connects Peel Street to Metcalfe Street and offers access to a 600-lot parking garage under the building.
Architecture.
Completed between 1928 and 1930 in the Beaux Arts style, the Dominion Square Building is both a commercial office tower and a shopping mall. The site was formerly occupied by the Erksine Presbyterian Church c. 1866.
Designed by the architectural firm of Ross and Macdonald, the building comprises twelve floors above ground and a 'T' shaped shopping concourse. The main entrance primarily serves The Gazette with the escalators leading to a mezzanine looking out onto the ground floor below. The main floor was conceived as an interior shopping arcade at a time when such a notion was highly experimental. Moreover, the original design allowed access to the retail spaces on the ground floor from outside and in. From the third floor up, the facade is twice set back; however, this is not as a result of municipal regulations (only the upper most levels are so regulated), but rather aesthetic choices designed with multiple 'prestige clients' in mind. As such, the twin setbacks form a double comb shape which provides ample sunlight throughout the building while further permitting natural light to pass through the setbacks onto Sainte-Catherine Street below. By doing so, the building maximizes the total amount of available rental space for comparatively small city block. Moreover, multiple offices within have several different views, and recessed corners provide additional corner offices on the 9th and 10th floors.
The façade is of Alabama Rockwood limestone and is described as having an unconventional, yet plentiful Italianate decor.
During the last major set of renovations, undertaken in 1989, a second and third floor extension was made, jutting out as a protective arcade with green-glass solarium on top, along the southern side of the building.
Current tenants and services.
Until late 2019, the principal tenant was "The Gazette", which had placed a marquee title holder atop the arcaded entrance along Saint Catherine Street. Current principal tenants include the main Montreal Tourism office (facing Dorchester Square), and a women's wear retailer along Metcalfe Street. Global Television Network moved their CKMI-DT station onto the 7th floor. The broadcast station includes a virtual television studio whereby anchors sit in front of a green screen and robotic cameras are controlled from remote cities.
Relation to the urban environment.
The building was conceived as an ingenious solution to the multitude of building height and size regulations imposed by the City of Montreal during the early part of the 20th century. Moreover, it was conceived as an element of a new urban environment, and thus provided not only two levels of interior shopping and two levels of underground parking, but the city's first escalators as well. It was built at a time when there was significant interest (on the part of builders and promoters) to involve all elements of society, not just those who happened to work there. Furthermore, the available shopping space within was further conceived to be accessible from two sides, permitting the entire building to participate in social traffic exchange. Its modern conveniences and amenities, the prestige of location and effective beauty of the design made it an exceptionally important commercial office tower in the era before Modernist Skyscrapers.


Wings Place

Wings Place, formerly Ditchling Garden Manor, also known as Anne of Cleves House, is a Grade I country house in Ditchling, East Sussex, England. It is a Tudor house, said to be one of the best examples in the country.
History.
Wings Place was one of the properties which was part of the manor of Ditchling Garden, one of five manors in the parish of Ditchling. Ditchling Garden Manor dates to 1095 or earlier, when it was mentioned as part of the Priory of St. Pancras in Lewes and was described as a "garden with houses and the land which is between the two roads, with the wood adjoining it". After the Dissolution of the Monasteries, came into possession of it and granted Anne of Cleves the estate following their divorce. After her death in 1557, it was given back to The Crown, but by the 1570s it was owned by Henry Poole, a former Member of Parliament for the rotten borough of Wootton Bassett, who had moved to Ditchling after his marriage. Poole died in 1580, and the house may have been rebuilt after that: its present appearance is largely 16th-century.
The Browne family acquired the property in 1688, and later residents included William Pitt and the Duke of Wellington. The rooms in the upper floors also were the venue for conducting secret Catholic services. During the Brownes' ownership, part of the house was converted into a public library. By the mid-19th century, the building was divided into cottages or tenements, but in 1936 it was restored to its original layout as a single house after being auctioned the previous year. Later in the 20th century, it was owned for about 30 years by a reclusive American businessman and then for about 10 years by television presenter Jamie Theakston, who put it on sale in 2014 for a reported £2 million. After the asking price was reduced in early 2015, Theakston completed the sale in August 2015.
The original name of the house was Ditchling Garden Manor, reflecting its position as the manor house of the estate of that name. It later became known as Wings Place, but the name Anne of Cleves House has been used interchangeably for many years. When it was given listed status in 1952, the list description named it "Wings Place (Anne of Cleves House)". Writing in 1947, one author referred to it as "Anne of Cleves' House, or Wings Place as it was sometimes called in the past". The "Buildings of England" series refers to it solely as "Wings Place". Anne of Cleves never lived in the house, although local tradition claims that she did. It was just one of many manors granted to her by —including that of Southover, near Lewes, where there is another Anne of Cleves House.
Wings Place was listed at Grade I on 17 March 1952. Such buildings are defined as being of "exceptional interest" and greater than national importance. As of February 2001, it was one of 31 Grade I listed buildings, and 1,250 listed buildings of all grades, in the district of Lewes.
Architecture and features.
The architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner described the house as "eminently picturesque in a watercolourist’s way". Other descriptions include "the most spectacular house ... in a village full of antiquity" and "a noble Tudor building ... the pride of the village". Particularly in the 19th and early 20th centuries, local stories claimed the present building was much older than its 16th-century vintage: a former vicar of St Margaret's Church recalled residents telling him it was built by Alfred the Great or by William de Warenne's wife Gundrada and when it was auctioned in 1894 the sale documents repeated the Alfred the Great myth. The building was originally larger, however: the surviving section forms the western part of the original house.
The house faces St Margaret's Church and is oriented north–south on West Street, on which it is the only building to "[make] a major effect". There are projecting wings to the west and east, of which the latter has a brick entrance porch with an ogee-headed hood mould above an arch. This may have been moved here from an older building. The building is largely late-16th-century and is of timber frame construction filled with plasterwork, and with some brickwork and studding to the ground floor. The western part of the upper storey is jettied, supported on brackets and bressummers. Above this is an oriel window and a decorative gable with bargeboards.
With more than of living space, it has five bedrooms over three floors, with a sitting room, library, study and drawing room on the ground floor, which have high ceilings. The hall at the entrance has arched forms with space for ceiling. Part of the walls on the ground floor are built with bricks. Windows are of the casement type. The roof is fixed with tiles.


Monumento del Llano Amarillo

Monumento del Llano Amarillo is a monument in the Spanish territory of Ceuta, in the North of Africa, at the bottom of Mount Hacho. The fifteen metre monument was moved here from Morocco in 1962 and it is one of the few sculptures left that record Spain's period of Nationalism following the Spanish Civil War.
History.
The monument records an "oath before the battle" made by generals, led by General Yagüe, involved in the conspiracy that gave rise to the Spanish Civil War on 12 July 1936. The monument was designed by the sculptor Bonifacio López Torvizco and the architect was Francisco Martínez Hernanz. It was unveiled on 13 July 1940 in Llano Amarillo, in the Spanish Protectorate of Morocco (now independent Morocco). The monument is a symbol of the eventual defeat of the republican forces. The main monolith is fifteen metres high with stylized wings. General Yague led his mutinous troops across the Straits of Gibraltar from Ceuta. He joined up with other soldiers near Seville. Yague is a controversial figure as he is known to have killed thousands including civilians and hospital patients to avoid taking prisoners.
The work was damaged by a five-person team financed by the Catalan banker and exile Josep Andreu Abelló. The team used paint to create the message "Amnesty and Freedom" which was a reference to Spanish political prisoners at that time.
In 1962 and as a result of the independence of Morocco the monument was moved to Ceuta. It was disassembled stone by stone in Morocco and it was then rebuilt at this location.
The monument is one of the few in Spain which commemorate the time when General Franco ruled Spain, and while it is still controversial there have been no recent attacks on the monument.


Burghley House

Burghley House () is a grand sixteenth-century English country house near Stamford, Lincolnshire. It is a leading example of the Elizabethan prodigy house, built and still lived in by the Cecil family. The exterior largely retains its Elizabethan appearance, but most of the interiors date from remodellings before 1800. The house is open to the public on a seasonal basis and displays a circuit of grand and richly furnished state apartments. Its park was laid out by Capability Brown.
The house is on the boundary of the civil parishes of Barnack and St Martin's Without in the Peterborough unitary authority of Cambridgeshire. It was formerly part of the Soke of Peterborough, an historic area that was traditionally associated with Northamptonshire. It lies south of Stamford and northwest of Peterborough city centre.
The house is now run by the Burghley House Preservation Trust, which is controlled by the Cecil family.
History.
Burghley was built for Sir William Cecil, later 1st Baron Burghley, who was Lord High Treasurer to Queen Elizabeth I of England, between 1555 and 1587, and modelled on the privy lodgings of Richmond Palace. It was subsequently the residence of his descendants, the Earls, and since 1801, the Marquesses of Exeter. Since 1961, it has been owned by a charitable trust established by the family.
Lady Victoria Leatham, antiques expert and television personality, followed her father, Olympic gold-medal winning athlete, IAAF President and MP, David Cecil, the 6th Marquess, by running the house from 1982 to 2007. The Olympic corridor commemorates her father. Her daughter, Miranda Rock, is now the most active live-in trustee. However, the Marquessate passed it in 1988 to Victoria's uncle, Martin Cecil, 7th Marquess of Exeter, and then to his son, William Michael Anthony Cecil, both Canadian ranchers on land originally bought by the 5th Marquess, who have not lived at Burghley.
The house is one of the main examples of stonemasonry and proportion in sixteenth-century English Elizabethan architecture, reflecting the prominence of its founder, and the lucrative wool trade of the Cecil estates. It has a suite of rooms remodelled in the baroque style, with carvings by Grinling Gibbons. The main part of the house has 35 major rooms, on the ground and first floors. There are more than 80 lesser rooms and numerous halls, corridors, bathrooms, and service areas.
In the seventeenth century, the open loggias around the ground floor were enclosed. Although the house was built in the floor plan shape of the Letter E, in honour of Queen Elizabeth, it is now missing its north-west wing. During the period of the 9th Earl's ownership, and under the guidance of the famous landscape architect, Capability Brown, the south front was raised to alter the roof line, and the north-west wing was demolished to allow better views of the new parkland. A chimney-piece after the design of Venetian printmaker Giovanni Battista Piranesi was also added during his tenure.
The so-called "Hell Staircase" and its neighbour "The Heaven Room" has substantial ceiling paintings by Antonio Verrio, between 1697 and 1699. The walls to the "Hell Staircase" are by Thomas Stothard, who completed the work about a century later. The Bow Room is decorated with wall and ceiling paintings by Louis Laguerre.
Art collection.
Although depleted of a number of important pieces by death duties in the 1960s, the Burghley art collections are otherwise mainly intact and are very extensive. The house still displays several hundred paintings, a large proportion of which are of the 17th century, bought in Italy by John Cecil, 5th Earl of Exeter (–1700), and by Brownlow Cecil, the 9th Earl (1725–1793). They visited Italy eight times, bringing back large quantities of art. John Cecil purchased 300 works of art during his 22 years in Burghley and spent on his last visit to Europe £5,000 (c. £535,000 in 2017 currency).
The Chapel has a large altarpiece by Paolo Veronese and his workshop, and two large paintings by Johann Carl Loth, a German painter active in Venice with few works in British collections. There are in total seven works by Luca Giordano, including a self-portrait.
In the Pagoda Room, there are portraits of the Cecil family, Elizabeth I, Henry VIII, and Oliver Cromwell. Many delicately painted walls and ceilings of the house were done by Antonio Verrio. The Billiard Room displays six oval portraits of members of the Order of Little Bedlam, the 5th Earl’s drinking club.
There are a number of outstanding pieces of furniture including work by celebrated 18th-century cabinet makers, Ince and Mayhew, in addition to silver, tapestry and collections of porcelain, much of this is on public display in the state rooms.
A new "Treasury" space in the Brewhouse displays annually changing exhibitions highlighting aspects of the collections.
Parkland.
The avenues in the park were all laid out according to the 1755-1779 designs by Capability Brown, paying due respect to pre-existing plantings, some of which were from the 16th century or earlier.
Brown also created the park's man-made lake in 1775-80. He discovered a seam of waterproof "blue" clay in the grounds, and was able to enlarge the original nine-acre (36,000 m2) pond to the existing 26-acre (105,000 m2) lake. Its design gives the impression of a meandering river. Brown designed the Lion Bridge at a cost of 1,000 guineas (£1,050) in 1778. He was paid £23,000 in total of the park designs in Burghley. Brown's landscape has been conserved by planting 30,000 new trees between 2012 and 2016.
Originally, Coade-stone lions were used as ornamentation. After these weathered, the existing stone examples were made by local mason Herbert Gilbert in 1844. Queen Victoria and her husband Prince Albert planted two trees to commemorate their visit.
As well as the annual Burghley Horse Trials, the park plays host to the "Burghley Run" for Stamford School and an annual meet for the Cambridge University Draghounds.
Recent developments have included starting a sculpture garden around the old ice house and, in 2007, a "garden of surprises" was created using traditional ideas of water traps, shell grottos and a mirror maze, but in a 21st-century style. The Burghley House trust has commissioned contemporary artwork in the grounds from leading artists.
The parkland and gardens of Burghley House are listed Grade II* on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.
Today.
The Lincolnshire county boundary crosses the park between the town of Stamford and the house. Burghley is located in the ancient Soke of Peterborough, once a part of Northamptonshire but now for ceremonial purposes in Cambridgeshire; for planning and other municipal functions the house is in the Peterborough unitary authority.
The house is a Grade I listed building, with separately Grade I listed north courtyard and gate. The listing document for the House provided this summary: "C19 and C20 formal gardens and pleasure grounds, developed from those originally designed by Lancelot Brown, surrounded by a park of C16 origins for which Brown provided extensive plans between 1754 and 1777".
The residents of the house since 2007 were Miranda Rock, director of the Burghley House Preservation Trust, granddaughter of the 6th Marquess of Exeter and daughter of Lady Victoria Leatham with Orlando Rock (chairman of Christie’s UK) and their family. Data before the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom indicated that the number of visitors to the site each year had almost doubled during Miranda Rock's tenure, to 110,000. As of early July 2020, only the gardens had reopened to visitors, with advance booking; because social distancing would not be practical indoors, the House was not expected to reopen until March 2021.
Filming.
Burghley House has been featured in several films. Its virtually unaltered Elizabethan façades and a variety of historic interiors make it an ideal location for historical and period movies.
Films and television programmes made at Burghley include:
Lost village.
The medieval settlement of Burghley, mentioned in Domesday, was abandoned by 1450. Failure to locate its site leads to the supposition that the settlement was near Burghley House, and perhaps lies below the estate.


Modernisme Plaza of the City Hall of Valencia

The Modernisme Plaza of the City Hall of Valencia was the transformation of the square of the City Hall of Valencia by Javier Goerlich in 1931 (instead the former that was the called "Bajada de San Francisco"), now in its site is the current Plaza of the City Hall and its fountain.
The Dr. Daniel Benito Goerlich (nephew of architect Goerlich Lleó), Professor of Art History and Curator of Cultural Heritage of the University of Valencia, assures that the reform of the 1930s "belongs to a very specific social context, and was destroyed a few years later in a completely different context, the repressive postwar, towards the "disaffected" to the political regime of the time." Benito Goerlich, is, curiously, nephew of architect Goerlich Lleó.
History of the square.
The work of the Plaza del Ayuntamiento ended the previous "Bajada de San Francisco", so it was expropriations that caused expected unrest among the owners and neighbors. The subsequent Plaza and Parque de Emilio Castelar is part of the height of the architectural work of Goerlich Lleó starring purist, Art Deco and Modernisme styles. Which was destined to become the new civic center of the city, competing with the plazas de la Reina and de la Virgen, it was then carried out by a high and triangular platform. The corners, culminated with fountains, representing the three provinces of the region.
The square had the bad nickname "tortada" (caked), referring to the upper platform, and it mainly included two elements: the steps of classic style and Mercado de las Flores (Flower Market). The latter was an underground space, that inserted into the square itself, served for florists of the city sell their product. However, they were strongly opposed to be housed inside from the start. The space them was narrow and dark and, although it was a badge element to the square and the city, considered that supposed its "commercial ruin".
The architect.
The architect behind the popular Plaza de Emilio Castelar was the son of the consul of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Javier Goerlich Lleó. This decisive man in the image of the city of Valencia signed buildings like the headquarters of Bank of Valencia, in addition to expanding streets and avenues among which stand de la Paz, Poeta querol or Barón de Cárcer. Among other buildings of major streets of the downtown, Goerlich Lleó replaced the old "Bajada de San Francisco" by this.
Destruction of this square.
Finally, after years of disputes with florists to the front, they left in 1944 from underground. Just over a decade later the platform began to dismantle, to finally lose its appearance at different levels giving way to a flat space and demystified of all its baroque motifs. Shortly thereafter, the balcony of the City Hall of Valencia became a platform designed to preside over the military parades -work by Emilio Rieta and Román Jiménez- with a nondescript plaza and specially designed, according to the consulted historians, to carry out acts of falles traditMies van der Roheions. That is, able to accommodate a lot of people, host the mascletá and the falles of the City Hall.
The square -then "del Caudillo"- passed to house from 1962 the light fountain by Engineer Carlos Buigues and the equestrian statue of General Francisco Franco, designed by Valencian sculptor José Capuz and is currently located at the military base of Bétera. The Plaza of the City Hall of Valencia hosts few symbolic values for much of the year, beyond the buildings that surround it.
Criticism.
However, the architecture shown by the "Goerlich reform" does not find favor among some Valencian architects. Rafael Rivera, municipal architect of Valencia during the 1980s and professor of urbanism at the School of Architecture of Valencia, considered "a horror the square" of Goerlich. "I read with surprise the comments on Facebook. People talk about the square with enthusiasm for the old, but not because it is something old of original form. In the 1930s Mies van der Rohe then was doing wonders for Europe and why the work only talks about the cultural poverty of the power and the bourgeoisie of that time in Valencia".
This same Rivera stresses that "there is a total absence of the flowers and it bury the posts, something that makes no sense. However, the subsequent result not I think not commendable because it is conditioned by a single use (referring to the Falles). the plaza of the City Hall is part of an axis completely abandoned by the Valencians between La Estacioneta (Pont de Fusta) and the Estación del Norte".
This architect points out that, in addition, "people should think it would have been difficult for a public expression as the 15-M movement if had occurred in the modernisme square. That versatility also makes it modern, but lacks of distinctive elements to adds a statue to Francesc Vinatea, a character of second order pointless for a square of that importance".


Church of Saints Simon and Helena

The Church of Saints Simon and Helena () (), also known as the Red Church () (), is a Roman Catholic church on Independence Square in Minsk, Belarus.
This neo-Romanesque church was designed by Polish architects Tomasz Pajzderski and Władysław Marconi. The cornerstone was laid in 1905 and the church was completed in 1910. The bricks for its walls were sourced from Częstochowa, whilst the roof tiles came from Włocławek. Its construction was financed by (1847-1928), a prominent Belarusian-Polish landowner, businessman and civic activist. The church was named and consecrated in memory of Woyniłłowicz's two deceased children, Szymon and Helena.
History.
In 1903, about 2,000 of Minsk's Catholics wrote a petition to the local authorities asking for a site to start building a new Catholic church. This request was approved and construction started in 1905. The church was consecrated on 20 September 1910. On 21 December 1910, the church was opened. At this time, Minsk was part of the Minsk Governorate of the Russian Empire.
In 1921, Minsk became the capital of the Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR) within the Soviet Union and the church was sacked by the Red Army. In 1932, it was closed down by the Soviet authorities and was secularised. It was transferred to the State Polish Theatre of the BSSR. It was later used as a cinema. In 1941 during the Second World War, the German occupation administration returned the building to its original use as a church. After the war, it was again closed by the Soviet authorities and again used as a cinema.
In 1990, after two hunger strikes which were organized by the Minsk Catholic activists Anna Nicievska-Sinevicz and Edward Tarletski, the building was returned to the Roman Catholic Church. The church's interior has been fully restored and it is now an important centre of religious, cultural and social life in Minsk. It has also become a centre for the revived Belarusian Greek Catholic Church.
In 2006, the earthly remains of Edward Wayniłłowicz and his wife were reburied in the church. In 1921, Wayniłłowicz, the donor who had the church built, was forced to leave his home and lands in Slutsk, Belarus, due to the territorial changes after the First World War as stipulated in the Peace of Riga. He resettled in Bydgoszcz, Poland where he died in 1928.
On 26 August 2020, during an anti-government demonstration in Independence Square, law enforcers blocked the doors of the church were blocked by the police while there were about 100 people inside. The auxiliary bishop of the Minsk-Mogilev Catholic Archdiocese, Yuri Kasabutsky, protested against the actions of the police force, describing those as "illegal".


Ortnevik Church

Ortnevik Church () is a parish church of the Church of Norway in Høyanger Municipality in Vestland county, Norway. It is located in the village of Ortnevik on the south shore of the Sognefjorden. It is one of the two churches for the "Bjordal og Ortnevik" parish which is part of the Sunnfjord prosti (deanery) in the Diocese of Bjørgvin. The red, wooden church was built in a long church design and a dragestil style in 1925 using designs by the architect Lars Norevik, who lived in the village. The church seats about 292 people.
History.
The chapel was built and consecrated in 1925, ending a period of hundreds of years where the parishioners had to cross the Sognefjorden by boat to get to their church (Kyrkjebø Church). It had the status of a chapel until 1 January 1997 when it was upgraded to a church. At the same time the new parish of "Bjordal og Ortnevik" was created with Ortnevik Church and Bjordal Church being the two parish churches. This meant that all the people in Høyanger on the south side of the fjord now had their own parish.


Bletchingdon Park

Bletchington Park is a Grade II* listed Palladian country house in Bletchingdon, Oxfordshire.
History.
Bletchington's medieval manor house was rebuilt by Sir Thomas Coghill in about 1630. It was fortified and garrisoned by 200 Cavaliers under Colonel Francis Windebank during the First English Civil War, before being over-run by Roundheads during Cromwell's raid in 1644. The Coghill family sold it to Lord Valentia in 1716.
The present house is a Palladian country house built in 1782 next to the parish church by James Lewis for Arthur Annesley, 5th Earl of Anglesey (also the 6th Viscount Valentia). Bletchington village was originally built around a green, but the houses on the north side were pulled down when Bletchingdon Park was extended.
The estate remained in the Valentia family until 1948, when Lord Valentia sold it to the Hon. William Astor, who resold it in 1953 to the Hon. Robin Cayzer, later Lord Rotherwick. In 1993, the estate was bought by Dr. Michael Peagram, a chemicals industrialist and philanthropist, who had the house historically restored. In 2012, the 22,600-square-foot house was listed for sale at a price of 20 million pounds.