We enjoy reading about exotic places in Poul Anderson's Technic History. See:
Swamp Town and Sumu the Fat's house, here
Indramadju Sqare, here
the Tavern Called Swampman's Ease, here
an undescribed bar on Orma, here
a spaceport in a downpour, here
Ghost Lake, here
Altai at night, here
an Altaian garden, here
a Nyanzan sunset, here
a Scothan garden, here
the planet Scotha, here
the river Flone, here
the Flone valley, here
a tinerin camp, here
a meaningful night sky, here
"The Plague of Masters," Chapter VIII, begins with Flandry on a ledge before a hostel built into a mountain and my rereading of this narrative will continue tomorrow.
As usual, this list has turned out to be considerably longer than I had expected it to be.
12 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I could think of many more places to add to this list, such as the Coral Palace (ENSIGN FLANDRY and A KNIGHT OF GHOSTS AND SHADOWS) or the Crystal Moon (seen in WE CLAIM THESE STARS).
Sean
Kaor, Paul!
I was interested enough in the image you selected to look up Westminster Palace (technically, it's still a Royal residence) to find out which way the river frontage of the Palace was facing the sun. The frontage faces more or less eastwards, so this picture was taken at dawn.
Sean
Sean,
(I tried to respond to your first comment this morning but I have been locked out of the Internet all day and a lot of it has been my fault.)
Yes. I only checked back through the last month.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Goodness! I'm sorry you got locked out. I hope the problem has been resolved.
Sean
Sean,
Well, I am on now! I mainly put it down to atmospheric conditions but forgot to check something on my computer that was the cause.
Paul.
Interesting to reflect that those Victorian neo-Gothic buildings in the picture at the heading were built in a 'historicist' style that is now of respectable antiquity itself. Also how the Eye has become emblematic of London the way the Eiffel Tower is of Paris.
When I was in London recently, it struck me how much the visual aspect of the city had changed from my previous visits (mostly in the 60's and 70's) not so much through new buildings as in the cleaning up of the old ones.
People forget how -grey- London was before the residue of generations of coal-smoke was cleaned up. The older buildings turned out to be much more colorful when they were scrubbed and restored to something like their original appearance.
Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!
Paul: Good! Glad you are back.
Mr. Stirling: when I looked up the "new" Palace of Westminster I read of how there was some grumbling that the designs were not truly neo-Gothic, but was a neo-classical design with Gothic features.
I've not been to London since 1996 so I can't speak accurately from memory of how "colorful" the older buildings were. Perhaps the cleaning was not as thorough then as it is now.
One of my favorite places to visit in London was Westminster Cathedral. I thought using brick for a neo-Byzantine design worked very well for that church.
Sean
Hypothetical buildings: the great Catholic Cathedral in Liverpool that Luytens designed, but which was halted after the crypts were finished. It would have looked like this:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fc/LPoolLutyens-wyrdlight-802726.jpg
Instead they got this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liverpool_Metropolitan_Cathedral#/media/File:Liverpool_Metropolitan_Cathedral_Exterior,_Liverpool,_UK_-_Diliff.jpg
Variously known as "Paddy's Wigwam" and "The Pope's Launching Pad".
Mr Stirling,
The Lutyens Cathedral (bigger than St Peter's?) exists in an alternative history without a WWII.
When I visit Liverpool, I meditate in the Anglican Cathedral.
Paul.
Dear Mr. Stirling,
Darn! I never did get to Liverpool the two times I visited the UK. But I will look up the designs Luytens wanted to use for the Catholic cathedral. I think I did see pictures of the actual Cathedral Liverpool got. If my memory is correct, I was UNDERWHELMED by the design used.
Sean
Sean: that was built during one of the worst periods of Western architecture, IMHO, and an unfortunately self-confident one, when a good deal of fine building was torn down to build atrocities. This was combined with a really, really unfortunate and closely related school of town planning.
The New Towns in Britain, like Milton Keynes, are the result... shudder. And the equivalent form of urban redevelopment in the US, which gave us the "slums in the sky".
Luytens, on the other hand, was a genuinely fine architect; his collaboration with Baker on New Delhi was a work of genius which still gives India a magnificent setting for its central government.
Compare the modernist effort in Islamabad two generations later for how things had gone downhill.
Dear Mr. Stirling,
I certainly agree with how ghastly urban planning was in the US, at various times, such as the hideous "slums in the sky." I remember how Tom Wolfe satirized them in his novel THE BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES.
I looked up Luytens model for the Catholic cathedral he wished to build for Liverpool, and I agree it's a design not without dignity and majesty. But I did think it massively heavy looking. But still better than what Liverpool actually got!
Sean
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