layers of history

while in istanbul a few weeks ago, i visited the ayasofya. it must be one of the most magnificent human made structures in the world. built by justinian starting in 532, it has stood stoically through regimes and wars and earthquakes and fires, shifting religions and rises and falls of empires. it remains, implacable, its scars visible, but none able to mar its beauty.

the layers of its history are there to be seen - mosaics of kings and saints side by side with enormous quotes from the quran in arabic. tiles on the floor that saw the coronation of emperors and sultans. stone staircases worn smooth by the feet that trod on them for millennia.

we got in at the very end of the day, so there weren't many people. it was quiet and monumental. and in the quiet it felt like if you listened hard enough, you could hear the whispers of the stories that vast, ancient place had seen - the multitude of voices which had passed through, the games played, palace intrigues conducted, prayers said, speeches and sermons proclaimed. all of those stories whispering from the walls. i wanted to hide in some corner and stay after closing, to hear them all...

* * *

i'm so sad - andrei bitov is dead. 

i wrote my master's thesis on pushkin house and

had i finished my Ph.D., i would have written on his work.
but 81 is no bad age. my dad nearly made it there as well.
and today he would have been 85.

missing my new york window

it's rather easy, when you're walking down the busy streets of new york city, to forget to look up. cyndy tried to warn us about this, but i'm not sure i fully appreciated it until wandering alone on my last day. i looked up at the imposing structures lining 5th avenue ahead of me and found them quite surprising and surprisingly the opposite of beautiful. they are dominant, cold, masculine, insurmountable, full of inhuman perfect lines and squareyness. they're not comforting or hyggeligt. at all. and i wonder whether they were shaped by the people who made them or whether the people who made them were shaped by them. or whether those lines blurred along the way and it's now impossible to say. do they inspire a cold, clinical, hard view of the world? one that resulted in the hubris of the financial crisis, which we're all still trying to shake off? would the world be a different place if the architecture of new york city was different? but could the architecture of new york city be any different than it is? or was it destined to be this way?

what is it that draws us to a place? makes us love it? or hate it almost instantly? everyone always told me that i would love new york. and in many ways, i did. the pulse, the vibe, the walkability, the whole sense that it was just alive and happening in every imaginable way. the food. the people having total screaming matches on the street at another person or into a telephone. the diversity. but i wouldn't want to live there. i think it would get to me after awhile. all that erect, hard, agressive squareyness.

so while i loved every minute of my first trip to new york, i'm not a new york person. i didn't fall head over heels for it the way i did with cape town. or london. or istanbul. or seattle. or san francisco. or moscow. to be fair, i'm not sure i'd fall for moscow in the same way today. it had to do with a certain phase and time of my life. and perhaps i just missed my new york window.

* * *

the architecture of new york city got amy thinking as well. 

quaint little churches: part II

Hejnsvig

Stenderup

i'm beginning to think my theory that all danish churches have dutch renaissance architecture is a little off. two more little country churches dash my theory. so i have a new theory: churches in denmark are painted white. or is it just a hypothesis? (i knew i should have paid attention in high school science class instead of reading dostoevsky.)

quaint little churches

i've suddenly started noticing quaint little country churches in sleepy little towns everywhere i go (and i go through quite a lot of sleepy little towns these days). most danish churches have a dutch renaissance architecture to them, but in recent days i've been noticing ones that don't.

despite not at all being religious, i do love churches as buildings. the thoughtfulness that has gone into their design - whether it's simple or extravagant - can always be admired. it's an architecture that somehow does often capture some holiness or at the very least a reverent hush.

i only snapped these as i went by, hopping out of the car on a windy, cold day to quickly capture them and then get back on my way, but i do love to go inside. especially if there's no one there. the quiet and the smell of warm wax are soothing. you can always find a moment of respite in the quiet, calm, holiness of a church space. and if there's anywhere that god (or odin or thor or whatever name you like to use) might be listening, it's surely in one of this little country churches.

the potato holiday

no real posts 'til sunday when we get home. we're on the kartoffelferie - potato holiday - the traditional autumn holiday that kids in denmark get from school because once upon a time they had to help gather the potato crop. now they don't do that so much, they get dragged around from one cultural experience to the next. today, i landed from istanbul and we headed off immediately for the wilds of jutland (that bit of denmark that's attached to germany). the ceramics exhibition at koldinghus was actually pretty cool. fantastic exhibition space that does that ultimate danish thing...combining old and new in a fresh, new way. tomorrow, the west coast.

and if i haven't been by to visit you lately, please forgive me. i'm on deadline at work and trying to sell the house and go to istanbul and then be on holiday and all.....but i haven't forgotten you and i'll be by soon!

in the meantime, another shot of the amazing light and the amazing space at koldinghus...

stars in my eyes

here's what i got to see of kuala lumpur today. i spent the whole day in this building that's covered in these starlike thingies. so the entirety of what i saw of KL (other than the airport, which for reasons unfathomable to me, claims to be the world's favorite (just not sure what world)) was through this starry lens...

look, it's the petronas towers!

and some kind of tower thingie that's even taller (i'm really tuned into the sights of KL, eh?)

the architecture was all over the place

but it looked charming from the 17th floor.

entire building covered in this stuff.

and strangely, the main entrance was through the car park.

i think they may have blinded the architect BEFORE he built it.

more tomorrow....
wishing you an adventure-filled weekend.
wherever you are.

on interviews and antiques and other random thoughts

maybe because i am myself now an antique of sorts, it feels entirely different to go to an interview today than it was when i got a part-time job at a gannett paper during college. i've just got so much more experience now. and a network that means something. i just speak about myself and my experience in an entirely different way. with authority, even. after all these years of feeling i was faking it (they actually taught us how to do that at the U of C), i actually know what i'm talking about now. that said, i feel really good about the interview, even if i don't get the job, it was a good conversation that gave me a lot of much-needed energy.

and afterward, i hit all the antique stores on ravnsborggade in nørrebro, which was wonderful and just what i needed to clear out yesterday's case of SAD. i never did ask the price of the old ship above, but we know how much i love ships, so i'm going to print out this picture and place it around the house with the address of the shop where i saw it, as a hint to husband. although we agreed not to do christmas presents, maybe he could make an exception since it's effectively recycling and doesn't represent the manufacture of new goods, which should fit nicely with his inner thomas friedman.

* * *

a couple of notes regarding the danish news...lots of fuss over the death of jørn utzon, danish architect most famous for the sydney opera house. i find the fuss a bit much since he was never really accepted in denmark, which was why he had to go to sydney. it's always the way that when someone does well, they're suddenly accepted and loved and claimed by their homeland.

the other news of note in denmark is the collapse of something called IT Factory in a huge swindle by its director, who has absconded with 500 million danish kroner ($90 million USD) and disappeared without a trace. they've actually got interpol on the case. who knew they were real? there is much whining and expression of surprise, especially by the banks and investors who were involved, but i find it difficult to feel sorry for any of them. there are just so many people out there doing so many dodgy things these days, who can keep track?

and one more thing...on monday, the front page headline of berlingske, which is denmark's answer to the NYT, concerned the fact that danish actors have started to use agents. yes, i realize it's a small market and that perhaps it's business news that they weren't really using agents before, but seriously, is that worthy of the front page? aren't there people darfur being slaughtered or starved or something?

* * *

and i leave you with a teaser...tomorrow, i'm going to have a meeting with two of my favorite people. they also happen to be two of the most creative people that i know. and hilarious. one of them was accused by three children in first class on a gulf air flight last year of being mr. bean, so that should give you some idea of the level of funny here. more stories about them tomorrow.

an intellectual life

today i drove across the disturbingly windy øresundsbro (that's a bridge) to sweden to attend an all-day symposium in honor of my father-in-law. it's the one that upset me so much when i received the invitation a few months ago. i was pleased to see that there is still a glimmer of being pleased that i'm crossing a border to another country, even tho' it's pretty much like going to another state. i do apparently retain some of my former awe of living in europe (to be said to oneself in a hushed tone). but, i digress.

as i listened to a danish architect speak about urban planning and how he has basically lived his life in a reaction to the modernism of mies van de rohe and le corbusier, and a retired seagoing captain speak about regional cultures and identities and a rector of a university speak about the meaning of an entirely new field invented by my father-in-law, it struck me that i am living an insufficiently intellectual life.

how much time do i spend thinking about what makes cities tick? what makes a great urban space a great urban space? and how do our surroundings affect us? what effect will places like dubai have on the people who live there? you might think that i would have no business spending any intellectual energy on such questions, but you would be wrong. perhaps if i devoted more time to these questions, i would get to the bottom of what makes me uncomfortable about singapore's pristine, clean, safe streets.  would i be able to live there and keep my sense of self as i know it? should i even want to? should i be more open to change than that? shouldn't i ponder those questions in a bit more depth?

and the question of culture and identity is certainly relevant for a person who is going on ten years outside the country of her birth. what remains of the culture and identity i grew up with and what has been layered on top of it? and what does that mean to my identity? who am i today because of the things i've experienced. why is it that i can take the piss with sarah palin's cross-eyed flute performance when my adelaide from guys & dolls in the miss south dakota pageant was no doubt no better or more successful? what aspect of who i am today distances me so far from that person that i was that i'm ok with that?

what am i really doing with the chance i'm being given to write about one of the most important industries in the world? 90% of the stuff on the planet is transported by ship at some point and there is an enormous shortage of people to sail those ships. and i'm writing about that these days (when i'm not experiencing a total writer's block). am i doing enough with that chance? i could have a real effect on an industry that's undergoing an enormous change. have i devoted sufficient intellectual energy to the questions before me?

after today, my answer is that i could do better. and if i do, it would make peter proud. wherever he is. and for some reason, that seems really important.

5 masterpieces - #5 frank lloyd wright's robie house

situated in hyde park on the campus of the university of chicago and gifted to the university and held in trust is frank lloyd wright's robie house. it was built in 1909 by a wealthy manufacturer (of bicycles, if i recall correctly) for his wife. for me, it was an awakening to lloyd wright and the entire arts & crafts movement and a marvelous example of how a living space should be thoroughly thought through and designed. 

the house, which is open for daily tours, has a ship-like quality, when you stand in the upstairs living room, looking out over the campus, it feels a bit like standing on the bridge of a ship. i love the feeling that creates. this house has definitely influenced my notion of good architecture.

the roof jutting out long past the windows reminds me of the opera house in copenhagen, designed by henning larsen, so lloyd wright's design notions live on in reinterpretation, as good architecture should. 

on all of his houses, he disguises the main entrance, so that where it appears to be from the street isn't where it really is. you might think the door is straight on, but then you'll find instead, when you approach, that it's to the left or right of where you thought it was. i love that and something i love about our house is that it has that quality (just by coincidence).

another striking feature of robie house and other of lloyd wright's other houses in oak park, are the dining rooms and the furniture he designed for them. he thought that the atmosphere around the table should be intimate and private, so he designed high-backed chairs like this one below to further enclose the dining experience. in his own home in oak park, the dining room is a rather small octagonal room that's very intimate. we once looked into having such chairs made, but abandoned the idea when we got the hans j. wegner Y chairs as a birthday gift to my husband. however, i still love the idea of creating intimacy around the dining table. 

i guess i did manage to stray from the paintings for one of these masterpiece-themed postings this week. it's always so much fun for me to see where i will end up with these little assignments that i give myself. it's never where i thought i would be when i started, but i guess life is like that.

i love airports

i know it sounds strange, but i love airports. i love the energy they have. here in the nordic countries, it has to do with their architecture--high to the ceilings, light, airy, use of beautiful natural woods together with steel and glass constructions. the architecture of the airport lends to the atmosphere. when it's high to the ceiling and light and bright, it feels like anything is possible. an energetic, happy expectation fills the air.

people are either headed out on a holiday or a business trip that's full of possibility. or they're arriving home after a trip, happy to be home. so, generally, people in airports exude a positive, expectant energy. it has also to do with liminality (that favorite topic of mine which i haven't visited in awhile). an airport is a purely liminal space--on the border between what was and what is yet to come. everyone is full of the potential for change--to be changed by the sights seen on a holiday, to be changed by the next business deal, to be changed by the new people they encounter and the experiences they will have. they are on the threshold, in transition. maybe that's what i love about an airport. its liminality.

it's lucky i love them, because i seem to spend quite a lot of time there.

work in progress

ceiling of one of what will be five naves in la sagrada familia

modern relief door of the sagrada familia. i wanted to capture "pilat," since i have a fascination for pontius pilate from bulgakov's master and margarita

gaudi's la sagrada familia in barcelona is totally amazing. in fact, saying that doesn't even begin to express how amazing it is. they've been working on it for 125 years and it is still very much under construction. it's more than just a building or a church or a temple, it's a work of art. a breathtaking, mind-boggling, stunning work of art.

art and architecture like this doesn't happen today. there is too much expectation of buildings being finished quickly. there is too little experimentation. there is too little artistry in architecture. contractors cost too much and dare too little. it is a testament to barcelona that they continue the work on this amazing artwork. that they innovate gaudi's vision...as you can see above with the modern face of the bronze word-relief doors and the carved stone knight with his amazing, fluid lines. it is a humbling place, even if you aren't the least bit religious...you could nearly become religious about art and architecture visiting it. and it's somewhere that would be worth going back to again and again to see the progress and absorb the overwhelming details. it would give richly on repeated visits, of that i am certain.