The Library: A World History Presents a Stunning Visual Survey of The World’s Great Libraries

in Architecture, Art, Books, History | December 3rd, 2013

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Volu­mi­nous­ly well-read author and ama­teur librar­i­an Alber­to Manguel opens The Library at Night, a com­pen­dious trea­tise on the role of the library in human cul­ture, with a star­tling­ly bleak ques­tion. “Why then do we do it?” He asks, why do we “con­tin­ue to assem­ble what­ev­er scraps of infor­ma­tion we can gath­er in scrolls and books and com­put­er chips, on shelf after library shelf” when “out­side the­ol­o­gy and fan­tas­tic lit­er­a­ture, few can doubt that the main fea­tures of our uni­verse are its dearth of mean­ing and lack of dis­cernible pur­pose.” Manguel goes on—in beau­ti­ful­ly illus­trat­ed chap­ter after themed chapter—to list in fine detail the host of virtues each of his favorite libraries pos­sess­es, answer­ing his own ques­tion by ref­er­ence to the beau­ti­ful micro­cos­mic orders great libraries man­i­fest.

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A new book, The Library: A World His­to­ry by author James Camp­bell and pho­tog­ra­ph­er Will Pryce, takes a more work­man­like approach to the sub­ject, steer­ing clear of Manguel’s meta­physics. Even so, the book will deeply move lovers of libraries and his­to­ri­ans alike, per­haps even to ecsta­sy. One Ama­zon review­er put it sim­ply: “Book Porn at its best.”

Boing Boing calls Pryce’s pho­tographs “the cen­ter­piece of the book,” and you can see why in a cou­ple of selec­tions here. Even with­out his eye­sight, this is a project that would have delight­ed that rhap­sodist of the library, Jorge Luis Borges. At the top, see the Stra­hov Abbey library in Prague. Halfway across the world, we have the Trip­i­ta­ka Kore­ana library in South Korea (above). CNN has a gallery of Pryce’s pho­to­graph­ic trib­utes to the world’s great­est libraries, and find here a crit­i­cal review of the book by The Guardian’s Tom Lam­ont, who laments that the book sole­ly “focus­es on insti­tu­tions cre­at­ed for the priv­i­leged.”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

A Look Inside Mar­i­lyn Monroe’s Per­son­al Library

The Odd Col­lec­tion of Books in the Guan­tanamo Prison Library

David Fos­ter Wallace’s Love of Lan­guage Revealed by the Books in His Per­son­al Library

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

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Be His Guest: David Sedaris at Home in Rural West Sussex, England

in Architecture, Books, Life, Travel | October 20th, 2013

Note:  Watch the entire 25-minute inter­view here. There’s a brief intro­duc­tion in Dutch, after which the con­ver­sa­tion switch­es to Eng­lish.

Dutch TV jour­nal­ist Wim Brands looks a bit dour to be inhab­it­ing the role of World’s Luck­i­est Man, but that’s sure­ly how bazil­lions of David Sedaris fans will view him, wish­ing they too had been invit­ed to cozy up to their favorite author’s kitchen table. Par­tic­u­lar­ly since that table is sit­u­at­ed in the rus­tic, six­teenth-cen­tu­ry West Sus­sex house that pro­vid­ed the set­ting for “Com­pa­ny Man”, one of his more delight­ful New York­er sto­ries of late.

Sedaris has made a for­tune pass­ing him­self off as a self-involved fuss-pot, but in this episode of Boeken op Reis (Dutch for “Books on Tour”) he’s the per­fect host.

He sup­plies thought­ful respons­es to Brands’ unsmil­ing ques­tions and affa­bly points out the home­’s notable fea­tures, includ­ing off-kil­ter door­ways and a taxi­der­mied lap­dog (“We call him Casey because he’s in a case.”)

He brings a plas­tic bag on a stroll through the sur­round­ing coun­try­side in order to col­lect lit­ter  — an endear­ing rou­tine, even if it’s a scoop Brands must share with the BBC’s Clare Bald­ing.

Best of all, he oblig­es his guest with a cou­ple of live read­ings, the first from the afore­men­tioned  New York­er piece, the oth­er hav­ing to do with his youngest sis­ter’s sui­cide this sum­mer.

“I always fig­ure that what­ev­er most embar­rass­es you is some­thing that every­one can relate to,” he mus­es, effec­tive­ly sum­ming up the secret of his suc­cess. If you ever feel like Sedaris is over­do­ing the craven com­plain­er bit, this vis­it will set the record straight.

Watch the entire inter­view here. Non-Dutch speak­ers, please be advised that the seg­ment switch­es to Eng­lish once Brands sets the scene for his intend­ed audi­ence.

-Tip of the hat to Michael Ahn for the idea.

Ayun Hal­l­i­day’s teenage daugh­ter wrote David Sedaris a fan let­ter and David Sedaris sent a hand­writ­ten reply on a post­card. Classy!  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

Relat­ed Con­tent:

David Sedaris Reads You a Sto­ry By Miran­da July

David Sedaris and Ian Fal­con­er Intro­duce “Squir­rel Seeks Chip­munk”

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Interact with The New York Times Four-Part Documentary, “A Short History of the Highrise”

in Architecture, History, Life, Photography | October 15th, 2013

“A Short His­to­ry of the High­rise,” a four-part inter­ac­tive New York Times “Op-Doc” reminds me of a pop-up book. The very first lever I pulled (actu­al­ly it was a wood­en buck­et) added a cou­ple of sto­ries to a medieval tow­er! I even snagged a cou­ple of com­pli­men­ta­ry fac­toids about the Tow­er of Babel! Bonus!

The kids are gonna love it!

There are doors to push, scenic post­cards to flip, a lit­tle Roman guy to drag to the right… what a cre­ative use of the Times’ mas­sive pho­to morgue. Direc­tor Kate­ri­na Cizek skit­ters through­out his­to­ry and all over the globe, swing­ing by ancient Rome, Mon­tezu­ma’s Cas­tle cliff dwelling, Chi­na’s Fujian province, 18th cen­tu­ry Europe, and Jacob Riis’ New York. Appar­ent­ly, ver­ti­cal hous­ing is noth­ing new.

( I did find myself won­der­ing what direc­tor Cizek might be angling for at the Dako­ta. The sto­ried apart­ment build­ing was long ago dwarfed by taller addi­tions to New York City’s urban land­scape, but its mul­ti­ple appear­ances in the series indi­cate that it’s still its most desir­able. Mer­ci­ful­ly, none of the inter­ac­tive fea­tures involve John Lennon.)

Would that a sim­i­lar restraint had been exer­cised with regard to nar­ra­tion. I would have glad­ly lis­tened to Pro­fes­sor Miles Glendin­ning, the mass hous­ing schol­ar who lends his exper­tise to the pro­jec­t’s sub­ter­ranean lev­el. Alas, the non-inter­ac­tive por­tion is marred by a bizarre rhyme scheme meant to “evoke a sto­ry­book.” If so, it’s the sort of sto­ry­book no adult (with the pos­si­ble excep­tion of the singer Feist, who was hope­ful­ly paid for her par­tic­i­pa­tion) wants to read aloud. A sam­ple:

Pub­licly spon­sored hous­ing isn’t every­where the diet

Beyond Europe, North Amer­i­ca and the Sovi­et Union, high rise devel­op­ment is ram­pant­ly pri­vate.

Seri­ous­ly?

Giv­en the lev­el of dis­course, I see no rea­son we were deprived of a rhyme for “phal­lic sym­bol.” Those ani­mat­ed build­ings do reach for the sky.

If it all gets a bit much you can head straight for “Home.” The final install­ment jet­ti­sons the cutesy-boot­sy rhymes in favor of a love­ly tune by Patrick Wat­son, which makes a pleas­ant sound­track to read­er-sup­plied pho­tos of their bal­conies. The images have been arranged the­mat­i­cal­ly — pets, storms, night — and the cumu­la­tive effect is charm­ing. Click “More read­ers’ sto­ries of life in high-ris­es” to read the first-hand accounts that go with these views. If your perch is high enough, you can sub­mit one of your own.

You can watch a video trail­er for “A Short His­to­ry of the High­rise” up top and Part 1 of Cizek’s film below that. But to get the full inter­ac­tive expe­ri­ence you’ll want to head over to the New York Times web site.

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Ten Build­ings That Changed Amer­i­ca: Watch the Debut Episode from the New PBS Series

The ABC of Archi­tects: An Ani­mat­ed Flip­book of Famous Archi­tects and Their Best-Known Build­ings

The His­to­ry of West­ern Archi­tec­ture: From Ancient Greece to Roco­co (A Free Online Course)

Ayun Hal­l­i­day has tem­porar­i­ly relo­cat­ed to the ground floor, but she still can bust a rhyme. Fol­low her@AyunHalliday

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Watch Antoni Gaudí’s Unfinished Masterpiece, the Sagrada Família, Get Finally Completed in 60 Seconds

in Architecture, Religion | October 11th, 2013

In 1883, Antoni Gaudí, the great Cata­lan archi­tect, began work­ing on his mag­num opus, the Sagra­da Família, the church that has become one of the most pop­u­lar tourist attrac­tions in Barcelona. Before his death in 1925, Gaudí man­aged to com­plete the crypt, apse and part of the Nativ­i­ty facade. Work on the basil­i­ca slowed dur­ing the 1930s and 40s, espe­cial­ly dur­ing the Span­ish Civ­il War, but picked up again in the 1950s. A series of archi­tects car­ried on Gaudí’s work, com­plet­ing new tow­ers and facades. In 2000, the cen­tral nave vault­ing was com­plet­ed, and, since then, mod­ern tech­nol­o­gy has put archi­tects on track to com­plete the church decades ahead of sched­ule. The new tar­get date is 2026 — the cen­te­nary of Gaudí’s death. Thanks to a com­put­er-gen­er­at­ed video released by the Sagra­da Famil­ia Foun­da­tion, you can see what the basil­i­ca, almost 150 years in the mak­ing, will look like when it’s all done. You can also take a vir­tu­al tour of the inte­ri­or of the UNESCO land­mark here.

via Slate

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The His­to­ry of West­ern Archi­tec­ture: From Ancient Greece to Roco­co (A Free Online Course)

Take a 3D Vir­tu­al Tour of the Sis­tine Chapel, St. Peter’s Basil­i­ca and Oth­er Art-Adorned Vat­i­can Spaces

Sal­vador Dalí’s 100 Illus­tra­tions of Dante’s The Divine Com­e­dy

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10th Graders Draw Pictures Imagining Philosophers at Work

in Architecture, Art | September 21st, 2013

philos at work 3The Tum­blr called Philoso­phers at Work has gath­ered togeth­er a fun series of draw­ings by 10th graders from Madi­son WI, who were asked by their teacher to  — you guessed it — “draw a philoso­pher at work.” I will leave it to you to peruse the gallery of draw­ings. But I’ll just say this: What­ev­er their virtues, the draw­ings don’t look any­thing like real philoso­phers. (For some pic­tures of real philoso­phers, see, of course, the Looks Philo­soph­i­cal tum­blr.) Nor do tenth graders, no dis­re­spect to them, depict philoso­phers near­ly as artis­ti­cal­ly as Renée Jor­gensen Bolinger, whose paint­ings of Wittgen­stein, Frege and Rus­sell we showed you a few weeks back. If you missed her paint­ings, I’d encour­age you to see Philoso­pher Por­traits: Famous Philoso­phers Paint­ed in the Style of Influ­en­tial Artists. Enjoy your week­end.

philosophers at work

Note: if you click on the images above and below, you can see each in an expand­ed for­mat.

via Leit­er Reports

Relat­ed Con­tent:

10 Famous Philoso­phers in Words and Images

Pho­tog­ra­phy of Lud­wig Wittgen­stein Released by Archives at Cam­bridge

Phi­los­o­phy: Free Cours­es

The His­to­ry of Phi­los­o­phy … With­out Any Gaps

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Building The Eiffel Tower: Three Google Exhibitions Revisit the Birth of the Great Parisian Monument

in Architecture, Google, History, Technology | July 19th, 2013

eiffeltower

One of the most stun­ning views a trav­el­er can have in Paris is to round a cor­ner and see the mas­sive four-legged base of the Eif­fel Tow­er. One of the beau­ti­ful things about Eiffel’s tow­er is that it is so colos­sal and yet so airy and del­i­cate.

The view from the top is also amaz­ing (though truth be told the views from Notre Dame and Sacré-Coeur may be bet­ter because they include the Eif­fel Tow­er too)—so much so that Google pho­tog­ra­phers hoist­ed their panoram­ic Street View cam­era into the tow­er and record­ed breath­tak­ing views from the three main lev­els.

The day Google showed up was a typ­i­cal­ly over­cast Paris day. The sky is even a lit­tle threat­en­ing. After so much gaz­ing out at the city, you might want to dip into a café for un petit café crème.

But keep your lap­top with you. The Street View exhib­it is one of three that Google now offers about the tow­er. Google’s Cul­tur­al Insti­tute col­lab­o­rat­ed with the Eif­fel Tow­er Oper­at­ing Com­pa­ny to cre­ate three addi­tion­al exhibits: The Birth of the Eif­fel Tow­er, the tower’s con­struc­tion, and anoth­er about its inau­gu­ra­tion and ear­ly vis­i­tors.

One of the coolest pieces of archival mate­r­i­al is a record­ing of tow­er engi­neer Gus­tave Eiffel’s voice made by Thomas Edi­son, who was a big fan of the tow­er.

Built to dis­play France’s engi­neer­ing prowess at the cen­te­nary of the French Rev­o­lu­tion, the tower’s con­struc­tion is amaz­ing to con­tem­plate. Four men were need­ed to install one riv­et: one to heat it up, anoth­er to hold it in place, a third to shape the head and a fourth to beat it with a sledge­ham­mer. A total of 2,500,000 riv­ets were used to hold the tow­er togeth­er.

For a much old­er view of the ride up the tower’s ele­va­tor, check out this film by the Lumière broth­ers, made the year the tow­er opened in 1898.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Climb Three of the World’s High­est Peaks on Google Street View

Google Street View Takes You on a Panoram­ic Tour of the Grand Canyon

Google Street View Opens Up a Look at Shackleton’s Antarc­tic

Kate Rix writes about dig­i­tal media and edu­ca­tion. Fol­low her on Twit­ter @mskaterix. Learn more about her work by vis­it­ing .

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Bauhaus, Modernism & Other Design Movements Explained by New Animated Video Series

in Architecture, Art, Design | June 5th, 2013

UK’s Open Uni­ver­si­ty has devel­oped a fun way to mar­ket their design cours­es: a series of six short ani­ma­tions called “Design in a Nut­shell” that briefly sur­vey impor­tant move­ments in the arts and architecture—from the late-nine­teenth cen­tu­ry Goth­ic Revival to late-twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry Post­mo­d­er­mism. While the for­mer looked far into the past, seek­ing to pre­serve tra­di­tion, the lat­ter looked every­where, glee­ful­ly dis­man­tling, recy­cling, and recom­bin­ing frag­ment­ed and irrecov­er­able his­to­ries.

Between the two extremes, three inter-relat­ed post-WWI move­ments sought to make peace with the indus­tri­al present and design for a har­mo­nious future. The first one fea­tured, the Bauhaus move­ment (above)—founded in Weimar, Ger­many by Wal­ter Gropius in 1919—integrated the fine arts and indus­tri­al design into one school. Famous teach­ers includ­ed artists Paul Klee and Wass­i­ly Kandin­sky. Bauhaus designs per­me­ate the larg­er move­ment known as Mod­ernism.

The ani­ma­tion above gives us the briefest gist of Mod­ernism, a sweep­ing umbrel­la term for a host of rad­i­cal ‑isms in the arts, lit­er­a­ture, design, and architecture—impressionism, cubism, fau­vism, futur­ism, bru­tal­ism, sur­re­al­ism…. Euro­pean and Amer­i­can artists turned their back on the old-world past after the mass slaugh­ter of World War One. Not all Mod­ernists found solace in the break­down of the old order. Writ­ers like T.S. Eliot found much rea­son to despair. But design­ers like Eero Saari­nen and the hus­band and wife team Charles and Ray Eames embraced indus­tri­al tech­niques and mass pro­duc­tion to cre­ate for­ward-look­ing, min­i­mal­ist fur­ni­ture and build­ings that still define the way we live now.

The episode above, “Amer­i­can Indus­tri­al Design,” describes how indus­tri­al design­ers made inno­v­a­tive use of new mate­ri­als and pro­duc­tion meth­ods to cre­ate sleek, stream­lined prod­ucts that rein­vig­o­rat­ed the Amer­i­can mar­ket in the midst of the Great Depres­sion. Design­ers like Nor­man Bel Ged­des cre­at­ed a futur­is­tic land­scape that inspired faith in tech­no­log­i­cal progress, even as much of the coun­try still lived on strug­gling farms.

Bel Ged­des’ most notable achieve­ment was his design of the “Futu­ra­ma” ride (which gave the ani­mat­ed show its name) at the 1939–40 World’s Fair. Part of the Gen­er­al Motors exhib­it, “Futu­ra­ma” whisked rid­ers past detailed minia­tures of “the world of tomor­row.” The opti­mism of some Mod­ernist design­ers would be shat­tered by the tech­no­log­i­cal hor­rors of World War Two. But for a few brief decades, the future looked entire­ly man­age­able with the right designs, tech­niques, mate­ri­als, and savvy mar­ket­ing.

You can find all six videos appear­ing in the Design in a Nut­shell series on YouTube.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The ABC of Archi­tects: An Ani­mat­ed Flip­book of Famous Archi­tects and Their Best-Known Build­ings

Charles & Ray Eames’ Icon­ic Film Pow­ers of Ten (1977) and the Less­er-Known Pro­to­type from 1968

Wass­i­ly Kandin­sky Caught in the Act of Cre­ation, 1926

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Wash­ing­ton, DC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

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Take a 3D Virtual Tour of the Sistine Chapel, St. Peter’s Basilica and Other Art-Adorned Vatican Spaces

in Architecture, Art, Religion | May 24th, 2013

For­get the air­ports, the tick­et lines, and the crowds. Now you can step right into the Vat­i­can’s most sacred spaces and inspect the won­ders of Renais­sance art and archi­tec­ture with just a click of a mouse. The Vat­i­can has post­ed a series of vir­tu­al tours cre­at­ed by stu­dents and fac­ul­ty in the com­mu­ni­ca­tion and com­put­ing sci­ence depart­ments at Penn­syl­va­ni­a’s Vil­lano­va Uni­ver­si­ty. The four Papal Basil­i­cas are includ­ed, along with the small­er Sis­tine and Pauline chapels. Here are six links to six amaz­ing vir­tu­al tours:

Basil­i­ca of St. Peter: Designed by Michelan­ge­lo and oth­ers, St. Peter’s is the focal point of the Vat­i­can, and per­haps the most famous exam­ple of Renais­sance archi­tec­ture. You can scroll up and down to inspect the walls and ceilings–including the famous dome–and zoom in for a close look at Michelan­gelo’s mas­ter­piece the Pietà or Bernini’s ornate canopy, or bal­dachin, over the Papal Altar.

The Sis­tine Chapel: The most famous build­ing in the Vat­i­can, after St. Peter’s, is the Sis­tine Chapel, a part of the Pope’s offi­cial res­i­dence, the Apos­tolic Palace. Fres­coes by Raphael, Berni­ni, Bot­ti­cel­li and oth­ers adorn the walls–and on the ceil­ing, one of the great mas­ter­pieces in the his­to­ry of art: Michelan­gelo’s ear­ly 16th cen­tu­ry depic­tion of scenes from the Book of Gen­e­sis, cov­er­ing some 12,000 square feet. On a walk­ing tour you would bare­ly have enough time to rec­og­nize some of the major scenes. With this vir­tu­al tour you can spend all the time you want scan­ning around and zoom­ing in to study the details.

Arch­basil­i­ca of St. John Lat­er­an: The Pope’s offi­cial eccle­si­as­ti­cal seat, St. John Lat­er­an is the old­est Papal Basil­i­ca. But many of its most famous fea­tures are rel­a­tive­ly recent.  The basil­i­ca is per­haps best known for its neo­clas­si­cal façade by Alessan­dro Galilei, com­plet­ed in 1735.

Basil­i­ca of Paul Out­side-the-Walls: Built out­side the old city walls, this basil­i­ca con­tains the tomb of St. Paul. You can see the tomb and oth­er fea­tures of the grace­ful church (which was rebuilt in the 19th cen­tu­ry after a dev­as­tat­ing fire) on the tour.

Basil­i­ca of St. Mary Major: This basil­i­ca is actu­al­ly locat­ed out­side the Vat­i­can City com­pound, in Rome, but has extrater­ri­to­r­i­al sta­tus sim­i­lar to that of a for­eign embassy. Built in the fifth cen­tu­ry, with some lat­er addi­tions, the basil­i­ca is a beau­ti­ful exam­ple of clas­si­cal Roman archi­tec­ture.

The Pauline Chapel: Anoth­er chapel in the Apos­tolic Palace, the Pauline Chapel is sep­a­rat­ed from the Sis­tine Chapel by the Sala Regia, or “Regal Room.” Although less well-known than the Sis­tine Chapel, the Pauline Chapel hous­es two great fres­coes by Michelan­ge­lo: “The Con­ver­sion of Saul” and “The Cru­ci­fix­ion of St. Peter.”

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

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