Architecture · Observations · Heritage · Paris

Commemorative tiles in the paving of Place de la Bastille in Paris and bronze plaques in Moscow's Prechistenka

In Paris, on the Place de la Bastille, such charming and very stylish little tiles have been set into the paving, recalling the historical monuments that once stood on this spot. How do you like French commemorative practices? I rather like them. Incidentally, in Moscow in the Prechistenka district, for

Architecture · Faith · London · Observations · Heritage

New Coventry Cathedral of the 1960s beside the ruins of the bombed Cathedral of St Michael

In the 1960s the English decided to build a new cathedral beside St Michael's in Coventry, bombed in 1940, right next to the ruins, so that neither the tragedy nor the grandeur of the former building should be forgotten. The old Coventry cathedral was once the largest and

Architecture · Moscow · Observations · Education · Humour

I hardly know how to comment on this Facebook post by the architect and former MARKHI professor Evgeny Ass

I hardly know how to comment on this Facebook post by the architect and former MARKHI professor Evgeny Ass. The gatehouse of MARKHI, which occupies the Volynsky-Vorontsov estate, has turned into this. The structure has undergone several transformations of late; I remember that not long ago it looked like

Architecture · Museums · Observations · People · Humour

The legend of a Kremlin messenger at Pasternak's dacha in Peredelkino

Pasternak's house in Peredelkino, of course, comes wreathed in an entire body of legend. As a child I was very fond of this dacha and gave little thought to how real many of the stories told about it might be. Who could think of criticism when people such

NB! · Architecture · Art · Museums · Paris

A Degas drawing "At the Paris Opera" and those very private partitions in the auditorium of the Paris Opera, on a model of the building in the Musée d'Orsay

NB! · Architecture · Moscow · Science

The eight-petalled dome of GUM, incidentally, was created by our greatest engineer, Vladimir Shukhov

The eight-petalled dome of GUM, incidentally, was created by our greatest engineer, Vladimir Shukhov. So GUM is a relative of Shukhov's television tower, of the Pushkin Museum with its glass roof, and of the Kiyevsky Railway Station with its arched covered train shed

Architecture · Faith · Observations · Heritage

Russian Baroque iconostasis in the neglected Assumption Cathedral of Rostov the Great

Another Baroque iconostasis, this time a Russian one, of the 1730s-1740s. Though in a very sorry state, even if the Dormition Cathedral of 1508 in Rostov the Great does belong to the Russian Orthodox Church. A church on this spot was already reckoned old in the 1100s, new cathedrals

A tiered gilded altar with columns wreathed in grapevines and figures of angels inside a white cathedral interior.

Architecture · Faith · Art

Carved and gilded altar of St Peter's Cathedral in Malmö

Everything You Need to Know About the Baroque, in Two Photographs. The altar of St Peter's Church in Malmö

Architecture · London · Science · Education

The 1743 lunar clock at Queens' College, Cambridge, has no link to Isaac Newton

Contrary to rumour, Isaac Newton has nothing to do with these moon dials at Queens' College. The curious panel appeared on a Cambridge wall in 1743, and to tell the time from it one did indeed need a university education. That is precisely why moon dials never became as

NB! · Architecture · Observations · Heritage · Humour

When next I wax rapturous over the gardens and parks of the Moscow-region country estates, please remind me what the garden and kitchen garden of the Château de Villandry look like, for instance

When next I wax rapturous over the gardens and parks of the Moscow-region country estates, please remind me what the garden and kitchen garden of the Château de Villandry look like, for instance. And do remind me, while you are at it, to light a candle so that Russia

Aristocracy · Architecture · Moscow · Observations · Nature

Prince Nikolay Yusupov and the bitter orange trees in the Arkhangelskoye orangeries

When I wrote that Arkhangelskoye has nothing in common with Versailles, I was slightly mistaken. Prince Nikolai Borisovich Yusupov, great-grandson of the first baptised Yusupov, Abdul-Murza (Dmitry Seyushevich in baptism), who was himself a great-grandson of the founder of the line, the ruling sultan of the Nogai

NB! · Archive · Architecture · Nature

Some of the larches in the park at Arkhangelskoye are two hundred years old, and on plans from the early nineteenth century they appear as tiny saplings half a metre tall

Some of the larches in the park at Arkhangelskoye are two hundred years old, and on plans from the early nineteenth century they appear as tiny saplings half a metre tall. The trees were planted so that their trunks would visually continue the palace colonnade