The call of a perfect summer afternoon on a bike crossing Amsterdam—dodging crowds, slipping from old building to new building, under a blanket of white clouds and green trees—sounds utopian.
Tag: Architecture
The Atomium
The scale of Belgium’s Atomium seems to be poorly captured in pictures—perhaps because it’s difficult to capture the structure and its surroundings together, or perhaps because the 102-m-tall structure so resembles something we might be more comfortable seeing at 10 m scale. The shrinking lines of sculptural lampposts helps a bit, but it’s night that I believe truly fixes the scale issue. See the band of red in the topmost sphere? That band is the array of full-length windows of the restaurant at the top of the structure, and the red light is the lighting inside.
Bushnell Night Angle
The great glowing verticality of Bushnell Tower at night reveals the strengths in I.M. Pei’s original design.
Cook and Goodwin Woodward
This block of neo-gothic dormitories at Trinity College was, I discovered last week, not just the place where I spent several of my own years; it was also home to my father-in-law 40 years earlier.
Between the City and the City I
In China Miéville’s book, tunnels like this one served as the passageway between two cities in alternate dimensions that overlapped with one another. While I could detect no visible dimensional transition in moving from one side to the other, I think the Rijksmuseum is nonetheless impressive.
Capitol Dome in Summer
The golden dome of Connecticut’s Capitol looks perfect against a sunset sky. My favorite detail is the concert happening on the lawn of Bushnell Park in the background.
Capitol on the Hill
The highest hill in Hartford is the site of the State Capitol… in 2024. But before being relocated, this was once the home of Trinity College.
Sun Behind the Chapel
Sunset light shining through the bells of Trinity College’s chapel is an entirely new sight for me.
A Spring Morning at Trinity College
Perfect, breezy, warm, and effulgent spring days have sprawled across Trinity’s campus, rather like students on the quad. Grading papers in my office can at least be softened by an open window and the resulting smell of flowers.
Scope of the Gaol
Another view of the interior of Kilmainham Gaol further emphasizes the enormous enclosed volume—and the number of lives enclosed therein.
Beneath the Kilmainham Stairs
The enormous internal volume of Kilmainham Gaol’s later wing makes the iron stairs and bridges spanning it extremely imposing—which was, I suppose, kind of the point.
Faithful Symmetry
For all of the mirror symmetry imparted by St. Canice’s architecture, the sunlight entering through windows (or not) shows that the external world is always ready to break some symmetry.
Sunset Light on Clement
Warm golds and deep reds match autumn skies and Trinity’s neogothic architecture.
Portraits of the Red Room
While Kilkenny Castle has its share of nooks and crannies, the grand hall that is the Red Room really shouts, “Castle interior!” This roof is apparently not original—a beautiful later addition (and a practical one, given how the first roof evidently leaked.)
Around Kilkenny Castle
Venturing beyond Dublin, we visited Kilkenny Castle. Though an imposing manor from the outside…
…The rooms and passages inside were bright and decorated for the season.
Stepping to a window, the scale of the grounds become apparent.
