NB! · Architecture · Moscow · Humour

Or, as the public prefers to think, Stalin's sewage bunker

Inside the church: a painted dome with windows, a gilded openwork chandelier with candles and shafts of light falling on the wall frescoes.

Architecture · Faith · Moscow · Observations

Church of the Life-Giving Trinity in Vishnyaki on Pyatnitskaya Street, Moscow, built in 1815

How beautiful Russian churches are 💜. Church of the Life-Giving Trinity in Vishnyaki, Moscow, Pyatnitskaya Street. The Neoclassical building was erected in 1815

NB! · Archaeology · Architecture · Heritage

In the Croatian city of Pula, a Roman amphitheatre survives in splendid condition, and the locals call it their Colosseum

Architecture · Books · Paris · People

Cocteau in “The Difficulty of Being” on his house as a refuge far from the Palais-Royal

In 1947 Jean Cocteau moved into a seventeenth-century château near Fontainebleau, which remained his permanent residence until the end of his days. In La Difficulté d'être [“The Difficulty of Being”] he wrote of it: “This house was waiting for me. Here I am as in a refuge,

NB! · Architecture · Moscow · Observations · Heritage

The white-stone foundation of the Kitay-gorod wall, in the underground passage at the metro exit towards Zaryadye

The white-stone foundation of the Kitay-gorod wall, in the underground passage at the metro exit towards Zaryadye. In its day, in the sixteenth century, Kitay-gorod was one of the mightiest Russian fortresses: on a wall six to seven metres thick, two teams of horses could pass each

Architecture · Observations

Birchblackpavilion by architect Helga Blocksdorf in the historic quarter of Weimar

Good architectural morning. All those troubled by modern buildings that mangle the image of old cities, allow me to introduce this project by the German architect Helga Bloxdorf. Birchblackpavilion is a new pavilion, open to the public, in the historic quarter of the city of Weimar, with a splendid viewing

Coming Up · Architecture · Art · Moscow · Observations

The artist Vladimir Seleznev, in the company of the curator Vladislav Efimov, talks about his project "Oseyev", devoted to an invented utopian metropolis, the result of uncontrolled standardised building on urban land, which proved to be unwanted and fell

The artist Vladimir Seleznev, in the company of the curator Vladislav Efimov, talks about his project "Oseyev", devoted to an invented utopian metropolis, the result of uncontrolled standardised building on urban land, which proved to be unwanted and fell into decline. Seleznev problematises the frenzied mass construction in

Architecture · Faith · The East · Humour

The wooden crocodile in Seville Cathedral, a gift from the Egyptian sultan to Alfonso X

In Seville Cathedral, the largest Gothic church in Europe, there hangs a crocodile. There are, of course, many treasures and relics there, such as paintings by Velázquez, Goya and Murillo and the sarcophagus of Christopher Columbus, but the crocodile is the most memorable of them all. Not a real one,

A dark iron anchor shaped like a cross on a stone wall with peeling white plaster.

NB! · Architecture · Humour

A façade anchor with tie rods on a wall with peeling plaster

What is a facade anchor with tie rods, or what does iron patience look like? Rather like the back of a television presenter's head after a facelift

Architecture · Moscow · Observations · Heritage

Specialists correct the tilt of the pedestals of late Empire style gates

Restorers in the Neskuchny Garden Rescue the Ceremonial Gates of the Alexandrinsky Palace - "Seasons" With time, the pedestals for the statues had leaned badly towards one another and looked alarming. The gates, created in the Late Empire style, are an architectural masterpiece of the mid-nineteenth century, and

Chests, knightly shields, bags and poles beside a red basement entrance of a brick building.

NB! · Architecture · Books · Moscow · Humour

Knight Ivanhoe caught up in Moscow's renovation programme in 2021

Sir Ivanhoe falls victim to renovation. Moscow, 2021

Architecture · Art · Moscow · Observations

Dobryninskaya Metro Station (formerly Serpukhovskaya) Is Adorned with 16 Refined Bas-Reliefs by Yelena Yanson-Manizer, Wife of the Author of the Bronze Sculptures at Ploshchad Revolyutsii

The marble reliefs depict, for the most part, agricultural workers. This is presumably meant to allude to the chief farming trade of each Soviet republic. Why 16 republics? There were 15 Union republics, the RSFSR included, from 1956 onwards; in 1950, however, when the station opened, there was still the