Compagnonnage Models at Cooper Hewitt

On the second floor of the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, there is a small room dedicated to models and prototypes. The current exhibit is densely packed with models of staircases in fine wood and miniature architectural landmarks.

My favorite architectural model was of the Radcliffe Camera building at Oxford University:

I learned these models were created in the 18^th and 19^th as part of apprentice program called Compagnonnage. Artisans study and tour through Europe still today, but there is a deep history dating back to the Medieval times. See many of these models including the wooden staircases made like fine furniture:

One surprising addition was made from ivory in 1782. The model was dedicated to Pope Pius VI as a special commission and called a “Baptistry or Church Architectural Model”

Complete set of my pictures from the museum. You can find the musuem at 2 E. 91st Street, New York, NY. Go visit and explore!

Easter Bonnet Parade 2015

Creative Easter bonnets on display on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, 5 April 2015

Halloween Pet Costumes 2014

Last weekend in Thompson Square Park, there was a parade for pets in Halloween Costumes. My favorite costume was two dogs carrying a moving crate. See the location on OpenStreet Map. Vive la différence.

Red Devil

“Please be kind, rewind.” Bring back the Hollywood glamour of Madeleine de Beaupre.

“Making space for the new”

Moving crew from the rear

Proud Chicken

Warm Embrace after a “Bad Romance” – learn more about the Sphynx cat breed.

“The first three were easy.”

“The Frog Prince; or, Iron Henry” by Brothers Grimm.

Princess holding the Frog Prince

“Don’t let a clown laugh alone.”

Blue Monday

Kings rejoice while thinking “the only true dignity of man is his capacity to despise himself.” – George Santayana

“Punk’s not dead.”

“Christmas was never the same after Santa developed his whey protein allergy.”

San Francisco 2014

The clock is ticking for print media. The local San Francisco newspaper shows a clock with four typewriters in a window on Market Street. A memorial to slow journalism.

Typewriter below clock from above in window on Market Street.

View from our plane window looking north over the city. Twin peaks with the radio towers at the bottom with Golden Gate Park and the Presidio looking toward Sausalito above the bridge. Compare this bird’s eye view with the OSM map at (lat 37.8080, long -122.4625).

Golden Gate Bridge looking east toward Oakland

Visiting a technology hub offers advertizing targeted toward RF engineers on an airport billboard. One of the many reasons, I enjoy going to Silicon Valley.

This Smith Chart from the airport ad reminded me of one favorite lesson from college.

Palace of Fine Arts, a beautiful classic structure surrounded by water. See the location on the map.

Market with Acme Bread at the Embarcadero next to the ferry terminal.

Wall art in Russian Hill. Found two great bookstores while walking around this area: Russian Hill Bookstore and Books, Inc on Chustnut. Highly recommend either one if you are in the area.

Islamic tiles outside El Mansour Moroccan Restaurant in Outer Richmond.

Face at the mall

Face at Castro Street Festival

Sun setting after “Hardly Strictly Blues” festival. My favorite act was Hurray for the Riff Raff.

Lovely Russian Orthodox church at dusk in the distance.

Morning sun at hotel

UPDATE 1: Correction to name of building at 6210 Geary Blvd, San Francisco, CA.
UPDATE 2: Added new heading for first picture of clock and typewriters.

Berlin 2014

---

Hotel
The Apartment Hotel Berlin Hackescher Markt was a wonderful place to stay. Near to Hackescher Markt and S-bahn station. See area on OSM map @ lat 52.522, long 13.374.

Hotel and spa from sidewalk with pink flower pots.

Hotel lobby

Room included a kitchen

Microwave

Terrace off of room on 6th floor

View of Radio Tower

---

Food

Bread was nice, always fresh baked.

Fresh fruits at KaDeWe department store

Käse – cheese decorated for gift giving

Chocolate bread at our local coffee shop

Herrentorte

Meat of many stripes. There was a Vega festival going on at Alexanderplatz, but never found it.

Swedish Knäckebrot

China Wurzer spice. Translation please?

Currywurst Museum

---

Buildings

Hamburg

Glass lobby with reflection

Bauhous curvy wall

---

Dresden

From the bus window

Center courtyard

Palace

People on street

Catholic church

Porchelon wall

Christian II and Johann Georgi

Dreseden Porcelain of pug for 789 euros

Many wind turbines in Brandenberg between Berlina and Dresden

---

Museums

The Pergamon Museum is set to close soon for a five year renovation. We were lucky to get inside. With a three hour line

My next favorite museum was Alte Nationalgalerie Found Portrait of Johann Gottfried Schadow (1832) by Julius Hübner of Düsseldorf school of painting.

Portrait of Kaiser Franz I. von Österreich (1832) by Friedrich von Amerling

Bust of Richard Wagner

The Philosopher Georg Friedrich Wilhelm Hegel (1831) by Jacob Schlesinger (1792 – 1855)

Portrait of Theodor Mommsen (1897) by Franz von Lenbach (1836 – 1904)

Soviet Memorial in Tiergarten

Soviet tank in Tiergarten

---

Bundestag @ Reichstag building

Reichstag front

Reichstag roof with the glass dome Cupola

Inside Reichstag Building included ideas by Norman Forrester, architect.

Stone the shape of Louisiana inside Reichstag

Seats of German parliment, the Bundestag

Christian Boltanski‘s metal boxes for democratically approach representatives from 1990 to 1999.

Angel Merkel’s box in Boltanski’s work

Lightbulb from display by Boltanski.

---

Posdam

King’s Palace

Marble Statue

Marble Statue

Roof

Inside

Inside above door

Clock on mantle

Clock and Frederick

Clock and paintings in red room

Clock in another red room

Painting Gallery (room for one more?)

Outside Painting Gallery

Fountain

Chinese Palace

Tea room inside Chinese Palace

Outside Chinese Palace

Marble Statue

Leaving King’s Palace and the wool slippers behind.

---

Around Berlin

Shopping

Meiner Green book covers of Paul Ricœur, Mose Mendelssohn and John Stewart Mill

Gritty door

Street art with tongue and bowtie

Checkpoint Charlie circa 1961

memorial

Orange chairs

Abrham Lincoln – Change Everything

Circus school

Face missing eye

Older woman

Boy with tape on his face

Red Berlin bear

25 Year Celebration of Fall of the wall in 1989

Pink Trabi

Trabi on wall

Orange beach chairs

Sculptures in the river

Motocycle helmet with mask

For love of classical music – three opera companies and seven professional symphanies.

Contruction and blue water tubes

Street signs – name changes for each block

No smoking sign on train

Model train in underground station with simulated fire

Radio Tower from East Berlin

Refection in car

Self-portrait

Puddle

Rainy night before dinner

Fabric store, organized neatly

Berliners love BBQ, taking classes at night at the academy

Weber Official store

Foosball best played before the BBQ

Closefup of foosball in grill

Spree River at night

Sunset

Chus until we meet again!

Paris 2013

A favorite moment from our trip to Paris came while walking the grounds of Versailles. On an afternoon in the middle of the week, we walked behind a grandfather holding the hand of his granddaughter. We were all near The Queen’s House and the Tour de Malborough Hameau de la reine in the park at Versailles. Seeing a modern French family in peaceful harmony and active engagement. Lovely.

Hotel

Our stay at the wonderful Hotel Emile on 2 Rue Malher offered great views of the Marius section. See the Open Street Map of Marius.

View from our room’s balcony southward toward the church across the street, Eglise Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis. From our bed, we enjoyed watching the morning sun paint the church shades of yellow and gold.

View from hotel window westward down Rue de Rivoli.

Signs

Street Plaques de bouche d’incendie help firefighters find hydrants, showing position to the right in meters.

Metro

Varsailles

Gardens

Hall of Mirrors

Hall of Light bezel on window causing optical effect. No photo manipulation.

Buildings

Effel Tower in the distance from top of Arc de Triomphe.

Courtyard

Detail on roof line.

Flowers in courtyard

Museums

Centre Georges Pompidou

The Crypt at Panthéon.

Panthéon windows in hall leading to the Interior Dome.

Street Views

Faces in window

Paris is the world headquarters for fashion

Fashion, dresses on display in an alley

Shoes in silver outside Stiletto on 92 Rue Saint-Antoine map.

Salvador Dali graffi outside Centre Pompidou

More outside Centre Pompidou

Face on the street

Street art from LeMouvement.eu

Classy knives in a store window

Protection on the top of the Arc de Triomphe de l’Étoile

Street cleaning rules apply

Champaign bottles with anti-theft devices in the Monoprix store on Champs-Élysées.

Aruba 2014

Our resort the Amsterdam Manor.

“Hostess Meeting Place” at the resort

Sunset cruises are popular – another Catamaran was racing us along Eagle beach.

Catamaran on the horizon at sunset

Pre-historic beachcombers – this cyan lizard was keeping a keen eye on us while we went snorkeling off the beach.

Baby Beach

View from beach

Sunset dining

Dinner on the beach after sunset

Firecrackers on the dessert

Compact florescent bulbs hint at the high cost of electricity. There are ten wind turbines on the eastern shores producing 20% of their power. There is a plan to double the capacity soon with the goal of 100% wind power by 2020.

Starry sky. Find Orion’s belt.

Market closed

Market

Dutch influence on storefront

Lighthouse

Tour of caves in the national park

Sunrise

Clouds

Morning walks on the beach

 

Resort pools

Valero Energy advertisement on a trash can. The message encourages all of us to “Keep Aruba Clean”. Our guide told us the local Valero refinery closed in September 2012 impacting 500 jobs. There are talks to reopen the facility.

This sunset reminded me of a common Southern California tee-shirt design from the 1970’s.

Map of Aruba from Open Street Maps.

Stockholm 2013

In December 2013, I had the honor and pleasure of visiting Stockholm, Sweden.

At the airport, packed and ready to go!

GoKart racing at the pub.

Changing of the guard at the royal palace.  Member of Swedish military in uniform.

The streets of the city felt safe at any time of day.

Art and culture on display for all ages.

Stadsteatern is a hub for stage theater productions.  Several eating options are available inside including an indoor map of the city with model buildings:

Model 3D map of the city.

One of my favorite spots.  A place to relax with a view at the Bibliotek Film & Musik.

After the race, relaxing with my co-workers.

Raven on display in a store window.

The comic book stores in Gamla stan were impressive.

The city was beautiful at night.

Nobel Week was in full swing during my stay.  See city hall in the distance. Candles everywhere at the doorsteps of most stores and ringing the base of city hall for the Nobel banquet event.

Cobblestone streets of the old section of the city, Gamla stan.

City at night

Entrance to the office

View from inside one of the buildings.  Plenty of natural light near the desks made for a pleasant work environment.

Modern architecture.

History of communication from past to present.

Some public street art was modern.

In December at high a high latitiude of 59 degress, the days were short, only six hours in duration.  The sun would set before 15.00 (3:00 PM CET) and rise around 8.45 (8:45 AM CET).  The timing allowed me to see both the sunrise and the sunset from the office. On many days the skyline was lovely with many colors.

Seal used to indicate a Royal appointment by the King.

Regeringskansliet is a Swedish national administrative authority.  My translation of a quoting from Wikipedia in Swedish: “The Authority is a politically driven organization, where the government determines direction of the work and the questions that should be prioritized. The officials in government offices, most of which are non-political, working to investigate various issues, control authorities and provide data to the government’s decision.”

One title from the local library, I translated as the “Register of Cases from the Courts of Appeals 1986-1990″. A slim volume which suggests the legal system operates smoothly and efficiently.

One of many nice royal emblems outside the palace.

Nordic glass mugs displayed a distinctive style.

Nordic glassware from Finland.

Cafeteria food was amazing: fresh, healthy and delicious.  The freshly baked bread was a treat. Glasses of fresh water easy to find.

I did not read the label closely.  Expecting a vitamin water, I ended up with a caffeine drink.  Since my diet is caffeine-free, this small drink kept me up all night long. Lesson learned.  Watch out for “koffein”.  I’ll read more labels next time.

The sidwalks were covered with sand, not salt.  A bit icy and slippery to walk, but another reminder of the Swedish concern for the environment.

I look forward to another trip to see even more of the city and to expand my understanding of Swedish culture. See more pictures from my trip.

Map of Gamla stan, Stockholm from Open Street Maps

Chicago 2009

My friend Brian was born and raised in Chicago. The place is in his blood. Brian is an energetic ambassador and a thoughtful educator. These travel pictures are a tribute to his city and to his personal style. They were taken from our trip to see the city back in 2009. He encouraged us for years to go see and experience the mood. We had a great time there. Thank you, Brian.

Sunrise over Lake Michigan.

Flowers near the lake shore with buildings in the background.

Anish Kapoor’s Cloudgate without the crowds at daybreak.

Magical view from under Cloudgate with crowds enjoying the suprise.

The chest in our hotel had drawer pulls that reminded me of the Cloudgate sculpture. Small art easily forgotten. Keep your eyes open and plan a trip to Chicago to find hidden treasures.

View complete map of the Chicago Loop.

Zinneke Parade 2012

While travelling in Brussels last May, I had the pleasure of witnessing the Zinneke Parade. The revellers in coordinated costumes and choreographed movements wound through the streets around the Grand-Place for several hours. The theme of “Disorder” left much up to my imagination to fill in the gaps. The event was neatly organized and proudly community-based.  Each group works for many months under the guidance of a professional artist to build their community spirit and to encourage cross-cultural harmony.  Noble pursuits with the goal of sharing their enthusiasm with me, a guest of their city.

If you ever have the chance, you should try to attend this grand show in person.

Woman looking up at one of the many loud and visually appealing distractions

Woman blowing like a gentle breeze

Child seriously playing a character role

Organizer directing participants and answering our questions

View my complete photo set from Brussels.

Further Reading:

• Zinneke Parade
• Enjoy Philippe Clabots’s photo set from the same event.
• Grand-Place, Brussels
• Map of Brussels, Belgium from OpenStreetMap at GeoLocation: lat=50.844951&lon=4.352839