The post that was quoted here has been removedIn my home town Porto, the riverside view is breathtaking (ok, ok, I'm biased), and the D. Luis metal bridge cuts through the landscape beautifully. Here are two pics, one of the riverside and the other one including the bridge. It's hard to find a photo that captures both at the same time, as the bridge is off to one side of the riverside. Which live is actually nice as it doesn't cut through the view but completes the scenario's background.
http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/Europe/Portugal/North/Porto/Porto/photo778179.htm
http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/Europe/Portugal/North/Porto/Porto/photo455195.htm
http://i1.trekearth.com/photos/56595/img_2223.jpg
Internationally, it's hard to chose from such a great variety of great buildings. Since I'm a hardcore Gaudi fan, I'd chose Park Guell, but since it isn't a building in the conventional sense, I'll go with Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. Because Gaudi died before finishing it, the construction is still ongoing after an interruption of many years. This makes it hard to find a panoramic view without some cranes sticking out.
http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/photo350682.htm
http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/photo439839.htm
Originally posted by rbmorrisI have no romance in my head for the 20's and 30's. 😞
I think it helps if you enjoy the era when they were popular. I like F. Scott Fitzgerald, Somerset Maugham...etc., and love reading about things that occurred during that time period. I think that makes a difference, if you're like me and you sort of romanticize that whole era in your head.
The post that was quoted here has been removedYou should walk around Christ's Church, Spitalfields, and St. Anne's, Limehouse, designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor. Those places are frightening.
Liverpool's full of curiosities. I liked the Babylonian designs on some building I passed near the ferry landing. Not sure what function the building had -- a pump station or something.
Cape Town has a lot of charming buildings, but nothing I could be bothered posting about. The real architecture is in the mountains.
For a life changing architectural orgy, I recommend visiting Tallinn.
Next to one of the most gorgeous and conservated old towns in Europe, you can find the Stalinist gray, thick, massive, block buildings which, in the case of residential ones, were supposed to be temporary for the movements of troopers' families... and that was more than 4 decades ago.
Ugliness and beauty, almost involuntary.
I like those contrasts when paying attention to the urban landscape.
one of my favourites is cesar manrique's lanzarote house, which is basically a conversion of 5 lava bubbles, and very james bond.
Manrique discovered his site by walking the lava fields that surround much of Tahiche. The green tip of a fig tree caught his eye growing just above the sea of black volcanic rock and on closer inspection he found that this emerged from one of five large bubbles that had been created within the flow. http://www.lanzaroteguidebook.com/article/fundacion-cesar-manrique
The post that was quoted here has been removedMany say his chimney's are too similar to Cappadocia to be a coincidence.
Actually, if I remember correctly, Gaudi almost never used blueprints. However, once way he designed proportions was by using threads with dispersed weights (balls), and reflecting them on a mirror to get organic upward looking shapes.