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

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

[Originally posted on Feb 21st, 2008]

Category: THE HERITAGE

The Cork Oak (Quercus suber, family Fagaceae) 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.

[Originally posted on Feb 20th, 2008]

Category: A STORY ABOUT CORK OAKS

Pictures taken during the floods of January 1996, nearby Coruche (Tagus Valley). The trees are Cork Oaks.

Our Minister of Environment thinks it's quite fine to built major complexes on the Tagus flood plane - read more, 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 Nature Conservation Association (Associação Nacional de Conservação da Natureza) points out the wrong territory policies.

The blog Um Jardim no Deserto (A Garden in the Desert) says: The citizens' tragedy, the governors' unresponsiveness!

[Originally posted on Feb 19th, 2008]

Category: MOUNTS AND VALLEYS

- the challenges of Architecture.

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

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

[Originally posted on Feb 18th, 2008]

Category: THE ARCHITECTURE

Top line - the Mallard (Anas platyrhyncos); bottom line - the Sparrow (Passer domesticus). The males on the left, the females on the right.

[Originally posted on Feb 17th, 2008]
Category: QUARTERS

[Originally posted on Feb 16th, 2008]

Category: THE WATER 

- of TAVIRA in the Algarve, Portugal.

The "scissors' (de tesoura) roofs", sometimes also called treasury's (de tesouro) and the latticed shutters or screens (called 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 a better ventilation and coolness, inside the houses, and can be seen in simple or erudite residencies.

[Originally posted on Feb 15th, 2008]

Category: DOORS AND WINDOWS

Copenhagen, Denmark.

[Originally posted on Feb 13th, 2008]

Category: THE CITY

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

[Originally posted on Feb 12th, 2008]

Category: FLORA AND VEGETATION

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

[Originally posted on Feb 11th, 2008]

Caregory: A CLOSE LOOK

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."
(Translated from Portuguese, António Pena & José Cabral, Roteiros da Natureza - Madeira, Nature's Routes - Madeira).

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

"... 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 developmente environment". (idem, ibidem).

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.

[originally posted on Feb 10th, 2008]

Category: MOUNTS AND VALLEYS

Textures and colours of paving stones.

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

[originally posted on Feb 9th, 2008]

Category: QUARTERS

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

NOTE: THE PORTUGUESE GOVERNMENT WANTS TO PUT AN END TO THE NATIONAL CONSERVATOIRE! Started in the 19th century, the Conservatoire 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.

[originally posted on Feb 8th, 2008]

Category: PARKS AND GARDENS

... "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 (translated from Portuguese)

Fagus sylvatica "Atropunicea" (Purple European Beech), 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.

[originally posted on Feb 7th, 2008]

Category: THE TREE

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.

[originally posted on Feb 6th, 2008]

Category: THE WATER

At Bombarral, a small town in the Leiria district - Portugal.

[originally posted on Feb 6th, 2008]

Category: LOOSE LEAVES

"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.

London centre, England

Vienna centre, 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...

[originally posted on Feb 5th, 2008]

Category: THE CITY