Architecture · Moscow · Observations · Heritage
Another brainchild of Melnikov: the Gosplan Garage on Aviamotornaya Street, 1936. Originally the main floor space of the garage was given over to the departmental cars of Gosplan; from the 1950s it housed the 8th taxi depot, and since the 1990s it has been home to assorted organisations, car workshops,
Architecture · Moscow · Heritage · People · Reportage
Today marks the 130th birthday of the Russian architect Konstantin Stepanovich Melnikov. In honour of the jubilarian, my team and I from the Shchusev Museum of Architecture visited the surviving Moscow monuments of his work. A sorry picture, it must be said. All of them, with the exception of the
Archive · Books · Mores · People · Pop Culture
The German accountant Matthäus Schwarz decided to gather in a single book every outfit he had ever worn, annotate them at length and explain the circumstances that had prompted him to choose those very costumes. The fascinating life of a humble bookkeeper, from his childhood, when at the age of
Archaeology · Observations · Heritage · Humour
In this connection I cannot help recalling my address to an archaeological conference a couple of years ago, when I proposed borrowing the American practice of preserving rock art in situ by planting devilishly thorny plants that would bar vandals from direct access to the surface of the stone. For
Museums · Observations · Heritage
I am not at all sure about the concept of introducing to the beautiful creatures who are as yet incapable of observing elementary rules of conduct WITHOUT simultaneous titanic educational efforts to bring their behavioural pattern into order. I understand all those lovely theories that the child in its mother&
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Coming Up · Architecture · Observations · Heritage · Society
How heartening that Russia has people like the team and volunteers of Tom Sawyer Fest. If you have not yet heard of this organisation, you will like it: people united by a love of the historical and cultural heritage of their native parts simply rescue decrepit, abandoned and ruined monuments.
Architecture · Faith · Heritage
The Institute of Breton Culture is opening a fundraising appeal for the restoration of the seventeenth-century organ of Nantes Cathedral of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, almost entirely destroyed in the fire of 18 July. The instrument survived the years of the Revolution, but was badly damaged in the
NB! · Observations · Science
I adore Dmitry Dmitrievich Belyaev. And, by way of a footnote to the news from Russian science
Art · Observations · Mores · Humour
An exceedingly rich child in a cradle, a painting by the early Baroque Bolognese artist Lavinia Fontana. 1583. That the cradle resembles a tomb has its reverse side: Jesus in the sepulchre, at this time and earlier, is sometimes depicted as if lying in a bed. As for the sumptuous
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