Some aspects of Santa Maria de Celas' cloister - Coimbra, Portugal.

A Cistercian feminin Monastery from 1210 and a National Monument (Monumento Nacional) decreed on June 6th 1910 (by that time Portugal was a Monarchy!). It is still nowadays one of the most important examples of Portuguese Medieval Art and Architecture.

NOTE: See also THE CLOISTER OF NOSSA SENHORA DO ESPINHEIRO and THE CONVENT OF NOSSA SENHORA DO ESPINHEIRO.

[Portuguese post on Feb 21st, 2008]

Category: THE HERITAGE

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The Cork Oak (Quercus suber, Fagaceae family) is a big tree, native to Portugal. And this is a story to continue...
In the next posts, I'll insert a ruler, so that we can measure their growth. The acorns were seeded on January 15th - the plants' age is referenced to that date.
Cascais, Portugal.

[Portuguese post on Feb 20th, 2008]

Category: A STORY ABOUT CORK OAKS

Dec. 2008: Comments closed.

Pictures taken during the floods (January 1996) nearby Coruche (Tagus Valley), Portugal. The trees are Cork Oaks - Quercus suber, Fagaceae family.

Our Minister of Environment thinks it's quite fine to built major complexes on the Tagus flood plane - read more on this, about Castanheira do Ribatejo...

Our Minister of Environment even thinks that the problem about yesterday's floods is the lack of cleaning... according to different sources.

On this subject, Quercus - the National Association of Nature Conservation (Associação Nacional de Conservação da Natureza) points out the wrong territory management policies.

The blog Um Jardim no Deserto (A Garden in the Desert) says: The citizens' tragedy, the governors' unresponsiveness! [English translation provided].

[Portuguese post on Feb 19th, 2008]

Category: MOUNTS AND VALLEYS

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- new challenges in Architecture.

Canopy over the central atrium of the Sony Centre (eight buildings complex), Potsdamer Platz in Berlin - Germany.

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Glass canopy over the main entry to the DG Bank building (a project by Frank O. Gehry), Pariser Platz in Berlin - Germany.

[Portuguese post on Feb 18th, 2008]

Category: THE ARCHITECTURE

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On the top line - the Mallard (Anas platyrhyncos) photographed in Germany.
On the bottom line - the Sparrow (Passer domesticus) photographed in Portugal.
The males on the left, the females on the right.

[Portuguese post on Feb 17th, 2008]

Category: QUARTERS

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Comment by Anthony - 2008-03-20 - 02:27:15
Lovely ducks, lovely birds, aren't they? Nice blog.

Comment by AM.MA - 2008-03-20 - 09:57:35
Indeed they are... Thanks, Anthony.

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[Portuguese post on Feb 16th, 2008]

Category: ATMOSPHERES

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- of TAVIRA, a city and a municipality in the Algarve, Portugal.

The scissor's (de tesoura) roofs, sometimes also named treasury's (de tesouro) and the latticed shutters or screens (portadas de reixa) on doors and windows - which are made of thin timber strips - are the most significant elements of local traditional architecture.
Both solutions were developed to allow for better inside ventilation and coolness, and can be seen in simple or erudite residencies.

NOTE: See also the post PORTUGUESE VERNACULAR ARCHITECTURE.

[Portuguese post on Feb 15th, 2008]

Category: DOORS AND WINDOWS

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[Portuguese post on Feb 13th, 2008]

Category: THE CITY

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A species of the genus Crinum (probably C. moorei) of the Amaryllidaceae family. Begining of June - private garden in Lisbon, Portugal.

[Portuguese post on Feb 12th, 2008]

Category: FLORA AND VEGETATION

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Volcanic glass' cladding on a façade. Copenhagen, Denmark.

[Portuguese post on Feb 11th, 2008]

Caregory: A CLOSE LOOK

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The archipelago of Madeira is part of the so called Macaronesian Islands - Azores, Madeira and Savages, Canaries, Cape Verde.

The Laurisilva (a Laurel forest type, relict of Mediterranean forests from the Tertiary Period) is to be found only in these archipelagos - except for Cape Verde which is now too dry - in places with very high relative humidity and low temperature's variation. It is characterized by dense, shady and misty woods [...] where the vegetation is dominated by big trees of the Lauraceae family.

Its natural essence is well presented by abrupt slopes, almost vertical, covered by an impenetrable and polystratified green mantle.

... the condensation clouds (or dense mists) occur especially from 700 to 1300 metres altitude [about 2300 to 4300 yards] and that's where the Laurisilva finds its optimum development environment.
[Translated from Portuguese, António Pena et José Cabral, Roteiros da Natureza - Madeira, Nature's Routes - Madeira].

The Laurisilva of Madeira is the only Portuguese Natural Site in UNESCO's World Heritage List.

In fact, it is in Madeira Island that the Laurisilva is nowadays kept under better conservation conditions and has more endemisms (species that are native only to this Island and to no place else in the World).

The forest canopy's predominant trees are the Madeira Laurel (Til), Ocotea foetens, and the Baytree (Loureiro), Laurus azorica. Among smaller tree species, there are the Madeira Mahogany (Vinhático), Persea indica, and the endemic Lily of the Valley Tree (Folhado), Clethra arborea.

[portuguese post on Feb 10th, 2008]

Category: MOUNTS AND VALLEYS

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Different textures and colours of paving stone materials.

From top to bottom: in Seville (Andalusie, Spain) - Copenhagen (Denmark) - Lourinhã (Lisbon district, Portugal) - Faro (Algarve, Portugal).

[Portuguese post on Feb 9th, 2008]

Category: QUARTERS

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Bandstand in the gardens of the Estói Palace nearby Faro - Algarve, Portugal.

See also another post on these gardens: THIS PIECE OF SCULPTURE.

What this post is about: The PORTUGUESE GOVERNMENT wants to put AN END to the NATIONAL CONSERVATOIRE!
The Music School of the Lisbon National Conservatoire was launched in the 19th century. It has about 900 (NINE HUNDRED) students nowadays, but will probably have no more than a few 50 (FIFTY) of them next year, because of the recent proposals to reform the system by the Ministre of Education.

ADDENDUM: An online petition against this reform reached 19 143 signatures and was presented to the Assembly of the Republic (Assembleia da República), the Portuguese parliament, on Feb 20th 2008.

[Portuguese post on Feb 8th, 2008]

Category: PARKS AND GARDENS

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... are the most beautiful, the most immediate of analogies.
[...] to rise like them, from the multiple roots to the unity of the trunk and from the unity of the trunk to the diversity of the branches stretched to all directions in space.
Jean Prieur, Les Témoins de l'Invisible (Testimonies of the Invisible - translated from Portuguese).

A magnificent Purple European Beech (Fagus sylvatica Atropunicea, Fagaceae family) in the Leiden Hortus Botanicus - the Netherlands.
The trunk and the main branches had been all bandaged up in order to control their perspiration, because of a root's disease.

[Portuguese post on Feb 7th, 2008]

Category: THE TREE

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Light - shade. Heat - coolness. Green - white. Outside - inside. Movement - quietness. Sound - silence ...

The gardens of Generalife (Granada, Spain), one of the oldest surviving Moorish gardens, are part of a major cultural site in the UNESCO's World Heritage List - Alhambra, Generalife and Albayzín.

Ponds and bowls, channels and fountains, spouts and sprinkles:
the water (movement - quietness, sound - silence) is the essence.

[Portuguese post on Feb 6th, 2008]

Category: THE WATER

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Two different houses, one forged iron gate. Bombarral - Leiria district, Portugal.

[Portuguese post on Feb 6th, 2008]

Category: DOORS AND WINDOWS

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THE HEART OF THE CITY was the motto for the eighth Congrès International d'Architecture Moderne - International Congress of Modern Architecture - that took place in Hoddesdon, England, in 1951. More recently, an International Architecture Conference on The Heart of the City was the opening event for the Lisbon Architecture Triennale (June-July 2007).

One of the main principles approved during that Congress, nearly 60 years ago, was that the city centre ought to be a place without traffic, where pedestrians can move freely and easily.

Two examples of pedestrianised streets in european capitals' city centre: London, England (on top) and Vienna, Austria.

During the 1950 decade, the centre of the American city Fort Worth (Texas) was renewed according to that principle, so that the traffic disappeared within an area of 256 hectares (about 640 acres!).
The result: new cultural and leisure attractions and a city centre bustling with life - the area of retail increased 300%, the one of offices 60% and the one of hotels 80%.
THERE ARE NO DOUBTS about the benefits for everybody of the pedestrian's city centres!
[Source: Eng. Ferreira do Nascimento, Planeamento e Circulação Urbanas, Urban Planning and Traffic, Lisbon 1961].

In spite of this, and still nowadays in Portugal, some retail managers keep on influencing local politicians as much as they can, to maintain the traffic just outside their doors, because (they say) that's what's good for business...

[Portuguese post on Feb 5th, 2008]

Category: THE CITY

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