Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Other Wonderful monuments of the world

Arc de Triomphe  
is one of the most famous monuments in Paris. It honours those who fought and died for France in the French Revolutionary and the Napoleonic Wars, with the names of all French victories and generals inscribed on its inner and outer surfaces. Beneath its vault lies the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier from World War I.                                                          more Photos


Eiffel Tower

is apuddle iron tower located on the Champ de Mars in Paris. Built in 1889, it has become both a global icon of France and one of the most recognizable structures in the world. The tower is the tallest building in Paris and the most-visited paid monument in the world; millions of people ascend it every year. Named for its designer, engineer Gustave Eiffel, the tower was built as the entrance arch to the 1889 World's Fair.
The tower stands 324 metres (1,063 ft) tall, about the same height as an 81-storey building. Upon its completion, it surpassed the Washington Monument to assume the title of tallest man-made structure in the world, a title it held for 41 years, until the Chrysler Building in New York City was built in 1930; however, due to the addition in 1957 of the antenna, the tower is now taller than the Chrysler Building. Not including broadcast antennas, it is the second-tallest structure in Franceafter the 2004 Millau Viaduct.
The tower has three levels for visitors. Tickets can be purchased to ascend, by stairs or lift, to the first and second levels. The walk to the first level is over 300 steps, as is the walk from the first to the second level. The third and highest level is accessible only by elevator. Both the first and second levels feature restaurants.
The tower has become the most prominent symbol of both Paris and France, often in the establishing shot of films set in the city. Photo



Hagia Sophia 
is a former Orthodox patriarchal basilica, later a mosque, and now a museum in Istanbul, Turkey. From the date of its dedication in 360 until 1453, it served as the cathedral of Constantinople, except between 1204 and 1261, when it was converted to a Roman Catholic cathedral under the Latin Patriarch of Constantinople of the Western Crusader established Latin Empire. The building was a mosque from 29 May 1453 until 1931, when it was secularized. It was opened as a museum on 1 February 1935.   Photos

Mount Rushmore
is a sculpture carved into the granite face of Mount Rushmore near Keystone, South Dakota, in the United States. Sculpted by Gutzon Borglum and later by his son Lincoln Borglum, Mount Rushmore features 60-foot (18 m) sculptures of the heads of former United States presidents (in order from left to right)George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. The entire memorial covers 1,278.45 acres (5.17 km2) and is 5,725 feet (1,745 m) above sea level. 




Big Ben 
is the nickname for the great bell of the clock at the north end of the Palace of Westminster in London, and is generally extended to refer to the clock or the clock tower as well. Some believe this extension to be incorrect, but its usage is now entirely commonplace. It is the largest four-faced chiming clock and the third-tallest free-standing clock tower in the world. It celebrated its 150th anniversary in May 2009, during which celebratory events took place. The clock was finished being built on April 10, 1858. The clock tower has become one of the most prominent symbols of both London and England, often in the establishing shot of films set in the city.





Manneken piss
is a famous Brussels landmark. It is a small bronze fountain sculpture depicting a naked little boy urinating into the fountain's basin. It was designed by Jerome Duquesnoy and put in place in 1618 or 1619. It bears a similar cultural significance as Copenhagen's Little Mermaid.


is a monumental sculpture in marble now in the Vatican Museums,Rome. It shows the Trojan priest Laocoön and his sons Antiphantes and Thymbraeus being strangled by sea serpents.


is a skyscraper in Malmö, Sweden, located on the Swedish side of the Öresund strait. It was designed by the Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava and officially opened on 27 August 2005. The tower reaches a height of 190 metres (623 feet) with 54 stories. Upon completion, it was the tallest building in Scandinavia, the tallest residential building in the EU and the second tallest residential building in Europe, after the 264-metre (866 ft) high Triumph-Palace in Moscow. A similar, taller skyscraper featuring a 90° twist is the Infinity Tower, currently under construction in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Prior to the construction of Turning Torso, the 86-metre (282 ft) high Kronprinsen had been the city's tallest building.


Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Amazing views of World heritage sites.

You can view 275 UNESCO declared World Heritage sites at 360 degree 3D panorama X bottom to top 180 degree panorama.


Click on the link below. you will find a search box there. Any place in the world which is declared World Heritage site by UNESCO can be typed into the search box, with in seconds you will discover wonders as if you were really there.


For example type Victoria Terminus in the search box and see the wonderful top to bottom Interior and exteriors of Chatrapati Shivaji terminus, Mumbai.


http://www.world-heritage-tour.org/

Monday, April 18, 2011

Seven Wonders of the World


New Seven Wonders of the World
was a project that attempted to update the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World concept with a modern list of wonders. A popularity poll was led by Canadian-Swiss Bernard Weber and organized by the Swiss-based, government-controlled New7Wonders Foundation, with winners announced on July 7, 2007 in Lisbon.
The New7Wonders Foundation claimed that more than 100 million votes were cast through the Internet or by telephone. Nothing prevented multiple votes, so the poll was considered "decidedly unscientific". According to John Zogby, founder and current President/CEO of the Utica, New York-based polling organization Zogby International, New 7 Wonders Foundation drove the largest poll on record.
 Seven Winners
is a large pre-Columbian archaeological site built by the Maya civilization located in the northern center of the Yucatán Peninsula, in the Yucatán state, present-day Mexico.
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 is a statue of Jesus Christ in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; considered the second largest Art Deco statue in the world. It is 39.6 metres (130 ft) tall, including its 9.5 metres (31 ft) pedestal, and 30 metres (98 ft) wide. It weighs 635 tonnes (625 long,700 short tons), and is located at the peak of the 700-metre (2,300 ft) Corcovado mountain in the Tijuca Forest National Park overlooking the city. A symbol of Christianity, the statue has become an icon of Rio and Brazil It is made of reinforced concrete.
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is an elliptical amphitheatre in the centre of the city of Rome, Italy, the largest ever built in the Roman Empire. It is considered one of the greatest works of Roman architecture and Roman engineering.
Occupying a site just east of the Roman Forum, its construction started in 72 AD under the emperor Vespasian and was completed in 80 AD.
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is a series of stone and earthen fortifications in northern China, built originally to protect the northern borders of the Chinese Empire against intrusions by various nomadic groups. Several walls have been built since the 5th century BC that are referred to collectively as the Great Wall, which has been rebuilt and maintained from the 5th century BC through the 16th century. One of the most famous is the wall built between 220–206 BC by the first Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang. Little of that wall remains; the majority of the existing wall was built during the Ming Dynasty.
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is a pre-Columbian15th-century Inca site located 2,430 metres (7,970 ft) above sea level. It is situated on a mountain ridge above the Urubamba Valley in Peru, which is 80 kilometres (50 mi) northwest of Cusco and through which the Urubamba River flows. Most archaeologists believe that Machu Picchu was built as an estate for the Inca emperor Pachacuti (1438–1472). Often referred to as "The Lost City of the Incas", it is perhaps the most familiar icon of the Inca World.
The Incas started building the "estate" around AD 1400 but abandoned it as an official site for the Inca rulers a century later at the time of the Spanish Conquest. Although known locally, it was unknown to the outside world before being brought to international attention in 1911 by the American historian Hiram Bingham. Since then, Machu Picchu has become an important tourist attraction.
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6. Petra
is a historical and archaeological city in the Jordan. It is known for its rock cut architecture and water conduits system. Established sometime around the 6th century BC as the capital city of the Nabataeans, it is a symbol of Jordan as well as its most visited tourism attraction. It lies on the slope of Mount Hor in a basin among the mountains which form the eastern flank of Arabah (Wadi Araba), the large valley running from the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Aqaba. Petra has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1985.
The site remained unknown to the Western world until 1812, when it was introduced by Swissexplorer Johann Ludwig Burckhardt.
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is a mausoleum located in Agra,India. It is one of the most recognizable structures in the world. It was built by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his third wife, Mumtaz Mahal. It is widely considered as one of the most beautiful buildings in the world and stands as a symbol of eternal love.
Taj Mahal is the finest example of Mughal architecture, a style that combines elements from Persian, Islamic and Indian architectural styles.
In 1983, the Taj Mahal became a UNESCO World Heritage Site. While the white domed marble mausoleum is the most familiar component of the Taj Mahal, it is actually an integrated complex of structures. The construction began around 1632 and was completed around 1653, employing thousands of artisans and craftsmen. The construction of the Taj Mahal was entrusted to a board of architects under imperial supervision, including Abd ul-Karim Ma'mur Khan, Makramat Khan, and Ustad Ahmad Lahauri. Lahauri is generally considered to be the principal designer.




Sunday, April 17, 2011

Types of Bridges

There are many types of construction of bridge. Which type is to be used for building a bridge is depending on utilization of the bridge and many  other circumstances.Bridges around the world are built using different types of construction. Some are a combination of two or more types.
Main types of bridge construction are

Truss Bridge 
Cable stayed Bridge
Arch Bridge
Suspension Bridge
Cantilever Bridge

Some of the world famous bridges.

Bosphorus Bridge       This is the only bridge in the world which joins two continents (Asia and Europe)
This was the world's longest bridge when built in 1973. Today it is the world's 16 th longest bridge.


Golden Gate Bridge
This is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate, the opening of theSan Francisco Bay into the Pacific Ocean.  It connects the city of San Francisco on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula to Marin County. The Golden Gate Bridge was the longest suspension bridge span in the world when it was completed in 1937.


Bandra - Worli Sea Link
is a cable-stayed bridge with pre-stressed concrete viaduct approaches, which links Bandra and the western suburbs of Mumbai with Worli and central Mumbai, and is the first phase of the proposed West Island Freeway system.


Donghai Bridge
was the longest cross-sea bridge in the world until Hangzhou Bay Bridge opened on May 1st 2008. It was completed on December 10, 2005. It has a total length of 32.5 kilometres (20.2 miles) and connects mainland Shanghai and the offshoreYangshan deep-water port in China.


Hangzhou Bay Bridge
is a long highway bridge with acable-stayed portion across Hangzhou Bay in the eastern coastal region of China. It connects the municipalities of Jiaxing and Ningbo in Zhejiangprovince. At 35.673 km (22 mi) in length, Hangzhou Bay Bridge is the longest trans-oceanic bridge in the world, but it does not have the longest cable-stayed main span. It is also second in the world in overall length.


Robindra Setu (Howrah Bridge)
Construction of the New Howrah Bridge was started on 1937. The Cantilever Era was prevailing at that time, and engineers felts that cantilever bridges were more rigid than suspension bridges. This bridge is one of the finest cantilever bridges in the world - a gift to India from the Purulian engineers. It is also known as Howrah Bridge.

Friday, April 8, 2011

Famous Indian Architects

 Famous Indian architects of the 20th century
  • Laurie Baker   (2 March 1917 – 1 April 2007) 
    was an award-winning British-born Indian architect, renowned for his initiatives in cost-effective energy-efficient architecture and for his unique space utilisation and simple but beautiful aesthetic sensibility. In time he made a name for himself both in sustainable architecture as well as in organic architecture.
    He went to India in 1945 in part as a missionary and since then lived and worked in India for over 50 years. He obtained Indian citizenship in 1989 and resided in Thiruvananthapuram (Trivandrum), Kerala, since 1970 , where he later set up an organization called COSTFORD (Centre of Science and Technology for Rural Development), for spreading awareness for low cost housing.
    In 1990, the Government of India awarded him with the Padma Shri in recognition of his meritorious service in the field of architecture.   
  • Achyut Kanvinde (1916–28 December 2002)
Designed IIT KanpurNational Science Centre, Delhi, NII Pune, numerous dairy buildings       under NDDB and many other great buildings.
  • Anant Damodar Raje  (1929 - 2009)Ananth Raje was born in Mumbai, India. He studied at the Sir J.J college of Architecture. He worked with Louis Kahn in Philadelphia, where he also taught at the University of Pennsylvania. As Kahn's student, he devoted his life to see the completion of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, which Kahn did not live to see completed. For over thirty years he has taught at the Faculty of Architecture, CEPT UniversityAhmedabad. He also taught at the University of New Mexico, in The United States of America, and was a visiting professor at many universities in America and Europe. His well known works include the Executive Management Centre at the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad, India, the Forest Management Institute in Bhopal, India and the Institute of Statistics in New Delhi.
  • B. V. Doshi    (26 August 1927)  
  • B. V. Doshi worked in London then for four years with Le Corbusier. He returned to Ahmedabad to supervise Le Corbusier's work. His studio, Vastu-Shilpa (environmental design), was established in 1955. Doshi worked closely with Louis Kahn and Anant Raje, when Kahn designed the campus of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. In 1958 he was a fellow at the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts. He then started the School of Architecture (S.A) in 1962.
Doshi is a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects and has been on the selection committee for the Pritzker Prize, the Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts, and the Aga Khan Award. He is also a Fellow of the Indian Institute of Architects
After initial study at the J J School of Architecture, Bombay, he worked for four years with Le Corbusier as Senior Designer (1951–54) in Paris and four more years in India to supervise his projects in Ahmedabad. His office Vastu-Shilpa (environmental design) was established in 1955.
Dr Doshi has been a member of the Jury for several international and national competitions including the Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts and Aga Khan Award for Architecture.
Apart from his international fame as an architect, Dr. Doshi is equally known as educator and institution builder. He has been the first founder Director of School of Architecture, Ahmedabad (1962–72), first founder Director of School of Planning (1972–79), first founder Dean of Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology (1972–81), founder member of Visual Arts Centre, Ahmedabad and first founder Director of Kanoria Centre for Arts, Ahmedabad. Dr. Doshi has been instrumental in establishing the nationally and internationally known research institute Vastu-Shilpa Foundation for Studies and Research in Environmental Design. The institute has done pioneering work in low cost housing and city planning.
As an academician, Dr. Doshi has been visiting the U.S.A. and Europe since 1958 and has held important chairs in American Universities.
In recognition of his distinguished contribution as a professional and as an academician, Dr. Doshi has received several international and national awards and honours.
In 2008, 100hands director Prjmit Ramachandran released a documentary interviewing Doshi.
Doshi was the teacher for contemporary designer and University of Pennsylvania professor Anuradha Mathur.


Charles Correa (born September 1, 1930)
Charles Correa was born in Hyderabad, India. He studied architecture at the University of Michigan and at Massachusetts Institute of Technology after which he established a private practice in Mumbai in 1958.


The following Indian architects also have a grate role in the field of architecture. 


Eugene Pandala

Saturday, April 2, 2011

Indian Art - Architecture

Indian architecture, belonging to different periods of history, bears the stamp of respective periods. Though the cities of Indus Valley provide substantial evidence of extensive town planning, the beginnings of Indian architecture can be traced back to the advent of Buddhism in India. It was in this period that a large number of magnificent buildings came up. Some of the highlights of Buddhist art and architecture are the Great Stupa at Sanchi and the rock-cut caves at Ajanta. Indian Architecture is categorized mainly in the following styles.


Colonial Architecture
Like all other aspects, colonization of Indian also had an impact on architecture styles. With colonization, a new chapter in Indian architecture began. The Dutch, Portuguese and the French made their presence felt through their buildings but it was the English who had a lasting impact on architecture. See some of the examples of colonial architecture in India.

Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus, Mumbai  
Designed by British architect Frederick William Stevens. The station building was designed in the Victorian Gothic style of architecture. The building exhibits a fusion of influences from Victorian Italianate Gothic Revival architecture and traditional Indian architecture.
                   

Vasai Fort          Photos


Indo Islamic Architecture
The medieval period saw great developments in the field of architecture. With the coming of Muslims to India, many new features came to be introduced in buildings. The development of Muslim Style of Architecture of this period can be called the Indo-Islamic Architecture or the Indian Architecture influenced by Islamic Art. The Indo-Islamic style was neither strictly Islamic nor strictly Hindu.
Taj mahal           Photos
Charminar         Photos



Ancient Architecture
Indian architecture is as old as the history of the civilization. The earliest remains of recognizable building activity in the India dates back to the Indus Valley cities. Among India's ancient architectural remains, the most characteristic are the temples, Chaityas, Viharas, Stupas and other religious structures.
Harappan Architecture          Photo


Rock Cut Cave Architecture
The cave architecture in India is believed to have begun in the third century BC. These caves were used by Buddhist and Jain monks as places of worship and residence. Initially the caves were excavated in the western India. Some examples of this type of cave structure are Chaityas and Viharas of Buddhists.
The Rock-cut structures present the most spectacular piece of ancient Indian art specimen. Most of the rock-cut structures were related to various religious communities. In the beginning, remarkable Buddhist and Jain monuments were produced in areas such as Bihar in the east and Maharashtra in the west.
Ajanta Caves         Photos
Karle caves           Photos


Temple Architecture
In ancient India, temple architecture of high standard developed in almost all regions. The distinct architectural style of temple construction in different parts was a result of geographical, climatic, ethnic, racial, historical and linguistic diversities. Ancient Indian temples are classified in three broad types. This classification is based on different architectural styles, employed in the construction of the temples.


Kandhariya Mahadeo Mandir, Khajuraho

Shiv mandir, Ambernath     Photos
Ghrishneshwar temple, Daulatabad.      Photos
Modern Indian Architecture
Modern Indian architectural styles are imitations of western styles. However some modern Indian monuments are praiseworthy for their originality and creativity in design.
Chandigadh Secretariat
Phiroze Jeejeebhoy Tower 
Lotus Temple, Delhi 
Infosys campus, Pune
Infosys campus Coimbatore
Matrimandir, Auroville, Tamilnadu.
Maharashtra vidhan bhavan


 More posts will be added time to time.

Indian Art - Sculpture


Indian sculptures are idealistic and stylised in comparison with European sculptures.
Indian sculptures are decorative. they show ideals or symbols of beauty.
Some of the very famous Indian sculptures that you must know are
Sculptures at Ellora caves
Sculptures at Ajanta caves