Riverfront paving detail near The Black Diamond - Copenhagen, Denmark.

[Portuguese post on Apr 13th, 2008]

Category: A CLOSE LOOK

Comment by Pilia Emmanuele - 2008-08-13 - 02:13:03
This is like street of city (civitavecchia, near Rome)!

Comment by AM.MA - 2008-08-13 - 19:28:49
A general lack of imagination nowadays, may be?
And does the paving in Civitavecchia also have glass stripes? I specialy like these stripes.

Comment by Pilia Emmanuele - 2008-08-25 - 15:08:45
Ya! In civitavecchia worked architects like Bramante and Borromini, and now Fuksas and... me :). So, more street have glass in paving, specially near the sea, for see object from Rome and Etrurian... (My english is so terrible... :S )

Comment by AM.MA - 2008-08-31 - 01:36:13
There's also a paving with glass stripes at the docklands of Dublin (Ireland): the new Grand Canal Square by American Landscape Arquitect Martha Schwartz... It doesn't matter, glass stripes are nice anyway!
May be you could write in Italian? I only hope that you use simple and short sentences (please) - and may be you could understand my Portuguese blog? Portuguese has a very clear latin root and I suggest that you try it and take a look at this post:
http://aimagemdapaisagem.nireblog.com/post/2008/08/14/170-a-arquitectura-de-palladio

Comment by Pilia Emmanuele - 2008-10-01 - 16:26:46
Per me è molto difficile capire il portoghese, perchè la grammatica dei verbi è molto diversa. Ho letto che è la lingua più difficile da studiare!
Ma ho molti amici brasiliani, forse loro possono tradurre per me! :)
Pero provo a leggere ugualmente anche se sò che non capisco!
Ciao, a presto! :)

Comment by AM.MA - 2008-10-02 - 01:34:00
No, it's not true that Portuguese is difficult! Anyway it's not more difficult than Italian, for sure!
I hope I will soon add new posts here, since I haven't for a while - only in Portuguese, because it's so much easier...

Feb. 2009: Image down to 20% of ORIGINAL SIZE (click to see). Comments closed.

DEN SORTE DIAMANT or THE BLACK DIAMOND is a recent building (1995-99) on the riverfront of «Castle Island» (Slotsholmen) - Copenhagen, Denmark.

This building had several architecture awards and is an extension / expansion to the Royal Library of Copenhagen (the original brick building can be seen on the pictures and dates back to 1906).
Its shape, the leaning façade on the water and the polished black granite cladding (from Zimbabwe), make this building one of the most striking elements on this area of the city.
However, it has a general gray (and not black) tone under certain light and atmosphere conditions, due to the reflective properties of the polished stone.

[Portuguese post on April 11th, 2008]

Category: THE ARCHITECTURE

Comment by Pilia Emmanuele - 2008-08-13 - 02:11:39
Ehi, this is like a Fuksas's project... I don't find any image, but it is in France, and was build in 1987... :)

Comment by AM.MA - 2008-08-13 - 19:25:56
Unfortunately I don't know very well the work of Massimiliano Fuksas. I went through a quick search on Google images and couldn't find anything similar by Fuksas.
If you find something on the internet I appreciate if you let me know!

Feb. 2009: Images down to 20% of ORIGINAL SIZE (click to see). Comments closed.

The Palm trees along the Alameda dos Oceanos (images on previous post) are Queen Palms - Syagrus romanzoffiana, syn. Arecastrum romanzoffianum, family Palmae.

The Queen Palm in blossom, mid October - Caldas da Rainha, Portugal.

[Portuguese post on April 10th, 2008]

Category: THE TREE

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Surprising and charming - the Water Volcanoes were one of the major attractions along the Alameda dos Oceanos, ten years ago, by the time of Lisbon Expo '98.

Alameda dos Oceanos during Lisbon Expo '98 (the site is now known as Park of the Nations, Parque das Nações).

NOTE: See also some very good pictures by Dias dos Reis.

[Portuguese post on April 9th, 2008]

Category: THE WATER

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My other blog (my special one) was under hackers' attack:

About two months ago (early May), I've started another blog of images, less documentary - let's say more artistic - A Wonderful World, as announced here.
Allright, the title had no originality. Furthermore, I know now that there are already many other blogs [blogspot and wordpress] with similar titles, and that's not nice at all.

During the first couple of weeks, I had twice as much visitors (from Google) as I had during the hole six weeks thereafter. The first week this month, my visitors from Google were: zero!
It took some time to rationally understand (my intuition told me so before, but I didn't know it for a fact) that my blog had been the target of hacking - something that it appears to be happening to many othere people: what happens is that all the links, as well as the blog address, simply disappear from search engines (at least from Google).
How? Why? No one knows for sure. What is clear is that whoever does this is headquartered in the United States of America, through the ISP Performance Systems International and with an IP address always started by 38.
Read this other testimony from an American blog, which is quite explicit.

For these reasons, I have decided to delete the content of my A Wonderful World. I hope soon to overcome the sorrow I feel and continue the same project with another title. Meanwhile, here is the last picture I've published there.

Sea otter, Lisbon Oceanarium - Portugal.

[Portuguese post on July 19th, 2008]

ADDENDUM: on July 21st, 2008: A couple of days ago, I found out that the exactly same thing has been happening to this blog, in both versions - Portuguese and English. Lately, I simply have no visitors from Google-Images to The Landscape Image (but there were several before).
And from time to time I have the visit of that same IP, same ISP, same location, same details ...

Meanwhile, I have bothered to go through a systematic advanced search on Google-Images and, in fact, this search engine knows absolutely nothing about any of my images (except for the badges and logos on the sidebar). This means that the links were for sure removed in some way.

Category: NATURALLY

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Comment by Anthony - 2008-07-21 - 10:21:52
That's a shame. Unbelievable!
These bastards not only kill your work, they also deny access to information and images to other people all over the world.
But cheer up and don't give up (remember Peter Gabriel?).

Comment by Anthony - 2008-07-21 - 10:31:01
And also: so cute, the otter!

Comment by AM.MA - 2008-07-21 - 17:43:33
Thank you so much Anthony for your support. That's really nice.
No I'm not giving up, I'm already fighting back.

Dec. 2008: Image down to 20% of ORIGINAL SIZE (click to see). Comments closed.

RECREATION - The act of recreating, or the state of being recreated; refreshment of the strength and spirits after toil; amusement; diversion; sport; pastime.
[The Online Plain Text English Dictionary].

Recreation boats (barcos de recreio), recreation basin (porto de recreio). Vila Real de Santo António - Algarve, Portugal.

And this is one of the nowadays' best concept of recreation...

[Portuguese post on April 8th, 2008]

Category: THE COASTAL LAND

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Green are the fields...
(There's a poem by Luis de Camões starting like this).

GREEN are the plants (most of them anyway).

Ajuda Botanic Garden (Jardim Botânico da Ajuda) - Lisbon, Portugal.

GREEN are the receipts (the receipts' paper is coloured green) of the about 900 000 people working in this country (Portugal) as if they were freelancers when they are actually employed by one particular organization (including many, many, many Public services). These people have all the duties of a regular employee, but none of the usual intrinsic rights.
There's more on this subject in the blog Um Jardim no Deserto. [A Garden in the Desert - English translation provided].

[Portuguese post on April 7th, 2008]

Category: PARKS AND GARDENS

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The genus Hippeastrum covers a large number of hybrids, commonly known as Amaryllis. However, in botanic terms, Amaryllis is a different genus of this family.
Lisbon, late March.

[Portuguese post on April 6th, 2008]

Category: FLORA E VEGETATION

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Comment by Pilia Emmanuele - 2008-07-18 - 23:06:23
Ehi, wonderfull flower! I love it... :)

Comment by AM.MA - 2008-07-19 - 17:30:31
And a huge one too!
Big flowers are not my favourites, but this one is really beautiful.

Dec. 2008: Images down to 20% of ORIGINAL SIZE (click to see). Comments closed.

The countryside in northern Switzerland: an excellent example!

(For all the reasons of life sustainability on Earth and also because ugliness is also a form of pollution [of the landscape] - unfortunatelly I no longer remember who said this).

The village of Thalheim and the surrounding countryside - Commune of Brugg, Canton Aargau.

[Portuguese post on April 4th, 2008]

Category: MOUNTS AND VALLEYS

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(a small tribute to one extraordinary man and to all the people, non-showoffs, who are day-by-day working on a better Mankind - for all of us).

[Portuguese post on Apr 3rd, 2008]

Category: LOOSE LEAVES

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Different stones, different walls.

Top line, in Italy: Sirmione on the left; Vicenza on the right.
Bottom line, in Portugal: Gouveia on the left; Alcoutim on the right.

[Portuguese post on April 3rd, 2008]

Category: QUARTERS

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We think that today, December 10th 2006, is a day in which we can do something for them [THE ANIMALS]. The change in their situation is all up to us, because, unfortunately, they cannot do it, they cannot be here today because they are confined in “farms”, “fishing farms”, labs, slaughterhouses or lorries leading them towards these places. They are being mutilated, separated from their families, murdered, in sum up massacred. They cannot claim what is fair for them with their own voices, but we can do it. We are not going to die if we speak up for them, but they are definitely going to die if we don’t speak out loud against their slavery.
Excerpt from the Animal Equality manifesto for International Animal Rights Day (my bold).

IMPORTANT NOTES:

1 - On March 9th, 2008 España Liberal states: Centroamericana Art Biennial - MURDER AS AN ART FORM. Centroamericana Art Biennial: they kill dogs - (unfortunately only available in Spanish) Bienal Centroamericana de Arte - EL ASESINATO COMO ARTE. Bienal Centroamericana de Arte: matan perros.

2 - There is an ongoing on line petition against the participation in the Centroamericana Biennial Honduras 2008 of Habacuc, Guillermo Vargas, who was the author of a MAQUIAVELLIAN performance in the Costarricense Visual Arts Biennial (Bienarte) 2007 - the murder of a dog during an art exhibition:
During the exhibition some people asked for the dog to be released, but the artist denied it. The name of the dog was Natividad [Spanish for Birth], and he was left to die of hunger to the view of everyone, as if the death of a poor dog was a shameless mediatic show in which nobody does anything else than to applaud or to watch astonished.

PLEASE READ, SIGN UP AND TELL YOUR FRIENDS about this petition! Let's boycott the 'art' of Habacuc!

3 - With a special salute to the Blog Zoo.

UPDATE on April 3rd, 2008: there is explicit and detailed information on the blogs Remember Natividad (includes the English translation of the Petition text and a letter addressed to the Minister for Arts and Culture of Costa Rica, March 21st, 2008) and Soy donde no Pienso (this one in Spanish), which I recommend.

ADDENDUM on November 25th, 2008: on this subject, the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) says - No excuses for cruelty.
The petition achieved more than 4 000 000 signatures, but Habacuc was nevertheless admited in the Biennial.
The message from the petition's author, Mr Jaime Sancho, on Nov 13th 2008: My gratitude - Many thanks to you all.

[Portuguese post on April 1st, 2008]

Category: THE UNIVERSAL TEXTS

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Covering an area of about 630 acres (255 hectares) in the centre of Berlin, the Large Tiergarten - Großer Tiergarten - owes its name to the fact that it was originally a hunting ground. It was designed as an English landscape-style Park, by Peter Joseph Lenné, at the beginning of the nineteenth century.

In the western area, near the Zoo, the Lichtensteinallee and the Siegessäule (Victory Column).

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The eastern area, close to the new Bundeskanzleramt (German Chancellery).

[Portuguese post on April 1st, 2008]

Category: PARKS AND GARDENS

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These images stand as historical references, since the Convent of Nossa Senhora do Espinheiro (Our Lady of the Thorn) has recently (in the beginnings of our century) been recovered and turned into a luxury hotel, in the outskirts of Évora - Portugal.

Remarkable building founded in the 15th century and invaluable pantheon of the Alentejo's nobility, it was begun in the year of 1458, integrated in the order of St. Jerome [...].
Translated from Túlio Espanca, Évora - Arte e História (Évora - Art and History). 1980.

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The complex of the former convent includes two National Monuments - the Church of Nossa Senhora do Espinheiro and the Chapel tomb of Garcia de Resende.

On the left, the main entrance to the church - behind the iron gate, the marble classic portal, on the axis, from 1566, above which stand the images of the Virgin of the Thorn, S. Jerome and St. John Baptist.
Idem, ibidem.

On the right, the Chapel tomb - The funeral monument, typical example of Manueline-mudejar art, consists of three separate bodies: porch, nave and chancel, in a rectangular miniaturized plan.
Idem, ibidem.

NOTE: According to Wikipedia - In modern usage, «convent» almost invariably refers to a community of women, as opposed to the «monastery», for men; but in historical usage they are often interchangeable.
The Convent of Nossa Senhora do Espinheiro was actually for monks. See also SANTA MARIA DE CELAS MONASTERY, which was for nuns.

[Portuguese post on Mar 31st, 2008]

Category: THE HERITAGE

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