Read + Write + Report
Home | Start a blog | About Orble | FAQ | Sites | Writers | Advertise | My Orble | Login

Minature Paris created from trash

June 25th 2008 09:09
Paris made out of Garbage recreated in a garden
Paris is a city that people often praise for its architecture. Between the standout buildings and the fascinating neighborhoods, it's a city that invariably leaves its mark on your memory.


I had a friend from Europe who visited Sydney; we took her for a movie in Paddington, which is one of Sydney's nicer suburbs. She looked at it and said that it was almost like Paris, but still so far from it. Of course, I've never been to Paris, so I couldn't empathize with her, though I did like the idea of seeing a city that could provoke such a strong reaction.

How much do people love Paris? Well, some French people love it so much that they're willing to recreate it - in the medium of garbage.

That's right - Gerard Brion has spent 15 years meticulously recreating the heart of Paris, complete with a fake Eiffel Tower and an Arc de Triomphe. Best of all, it's in Vaissac, in South France, so visitors to the Mediterranean coast of France can skip the real thing and visit Brion's tribute.

He's made the sculpure garden out of 'old concrete blocks, baby food jars and soup tins.' according to BoingBoing. Now, if he could only make a recreatiion of the other major cities in Europe, perhaps with disposable diapers and old car tires, we could feel good about recycling.



(found on BoingBoing)


42
Vote
Shared on
   


The Morning Glory Pool

June 23rd 2008 23:51
Morning Glory Pool

Fine, it's not a building. That is, people didn't build it.

The Morning Glory Pool is a hot spring in Yellowstone Park, named in this peculiar manner, not because it arouses men first thing in the morning, but because it, apparently, resembles a morning glory flower.

The colours are due to bacteria, which give it the bright, comic-book style colours, but that's a-changin'.

Here's the webpage for the Pool on the Park's website. They tell us why the pool is meeting with a sad fate:

"However, this beautiful pool has fallen victim to vandalism. People have thrown literally tons of coins, trash, rocks, and logs into the pool. Much of the debris subsequently became embedded in the sides and vent of the spring, affecting water circulation and accelerating the loss of thermal energy. "

Yes, there are few things more revitalizing to the human spirit than to travel to a national park, find some example of the raw beauty of nature, then throw garbage at it. Huh-huh huh, I threw an old show in. Mwa ha ha!

Image originally from Subtire, but found on Reddit, with all sorts of fun comments.

44
Vote
Shared on
   


Fabulous Japanese Marble Mazes

May 9th 2008 04:30
Marble Madness Rube Goldberg machine
This may not be a huge, impressive building, but on the other end of the scale, these intricate marble mazes look like a lot of fun!

Found on Gizmodo:

"Apparently, there's a subculture in Japan that makes really elaborate marble mazes that look like models from a train set or something."



The above picture is not of the maze, but a Rube-Goldberg set that you can buy and construct. Gizmodo has a fun video of the set in action, which is kooky enough to satisfy all your Road Runner/Wile E. Coyote dreams.

28
Vote
Shared on
   


St. Michael's Golden Domed Monastery

April 23rd 2008 05:39
St. Michael's Golden Domed Monastery

St. Michael's is located in Kiev, Ukraine, west of the Dnieper River, and is famous for the, obviously, golden dome that cries out across the city.

The picture that you see here is not the original Monastery, though... it was destroyed by the Soviets in 1934, instead planning to build an administrative office.

The reason for the demolition? A question of architecture. The original monastery was believed to have been built in the 1050s, by Prince Iziaslav Yaroslavych as a tribute to St. Demetrius, and was reconstructed and added to in the next hundred years, getting upgrades and power ups in the 16th and 17th centuries, due to the vandalism by the Mongols, who stripped the gold from the domes.

When the USSR formed, the Soviets decided that little of the original Byzantine architecture remained, so the building was to be demolished. From Wikipedia:

"Before its demolition (June 8–July 9, 1934), the structure was carefully studied by T.M. Movchanivskyi and K. Honcharev from the recently purged and re-organized Institute of Material Culture of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences.[10] On the basis of their survey, the cathedral was declared to belong primarily to the Ukrainian Baroque style, rather than to the twelfth century as was previously thought, and thus did not merit preservation due to its lack of historical and artistic value. This conclusion backed up the Soviet authorities' plans to demolish the entire monastery.

Local historians, archaeologists, and architects agreed to the monastery's demolition, although reluctantly. Only one professor, Mykola Makarenko, refused to sign the demolition act; he later died in a Soviet prison"

Kids - always agree with Soviet authorities, even when it means demolishing your golden-domed monastery.

41
Vote
Shared on
   


Flying Spaghetti Monster at courthouse
The Cumberland County Courthouse in Crossville, Tennessee was granted the gift of his noodly appendage.

Yes, the Flying Spaghetti Monster was in full view at the courthouse, drawing non-believers into his margharita sauce of forgiveness.

Well, actually, it's a statue, erected by the happy folks at the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

One reader asked the inevitable question:

""Why are you erecting a religious statue on public property?"

Which was answered loudly and defiantly to anyone within a garlic breadstick's distance:

"To the last "Anonymous": I believe the finding about the display of religion on public property was this-- If you allow one belief, then you must equally allow all others who request. The door was opened last year when the County allowed Jesus sculptures to be placed on the Courthouse steps and the Courthouse lawn. Now Cumberland County must welcome all requests equally. I expect our Courthouse lawn to become an open forum for personal expression. Our county property now looks Cheesier than ever. Got any Parmesan?"
80
Vote
Shared on
   


The Oriental Pearl Tower

February 28th 2008 09:49
Pearl Tower at night on the Huangpu river in Shanghai
Pshaw! Your feeble Sydney Tower has nothing on the magnificent Oriental Pearl Tower, a communications tower in Pudong, a suburb of the beautiful, commerically frisky, success-story city called Shanghai.

It's the tallest tower in Asia, and the third tallest in the world. The first (now the second) tallest tower is a tower for hosers, though. I don't know anybody that would want to go up there, eh


[ Click here to read more ]
58
Vote
Shared on
   


65
Vote
Shared on
   


Broadway Tower incredible photo England
This is a stunning photo of the Broadway Tower in England, uploaded under a Creative Commons license for Wikimedia Commons. The author is Newtown2.

It's located in the village of Broadway, in Worcestershire, England. It's presumed that they have barrels of the sauce in the cellar of the tower, but this is just hearsay


[ Click here to read more ]
80
Vote
Shared on
   


CN Tower

December 24th 2007 15:54
CN Tower in Toronto Ontario
The CN Tower is an iconic Canadian building, located in Toronto, Ontario, and used to be the tallest free-standing building in the world, until 2007.

CN stands for Canadian National, the rail company in Canada that built the tower. I'm not sure why they needed a tower, but, at one point, CN was one of the most powerful companies in Canada... after all, you needed a train to cross the frozen wastelands of the Canadian Shield


[ Click here to read more ]
57
Vote
Shared on
   


The Manhattan of the Desert

September 19th 2007 03:07
Shibam mud brick city in Yemen desert
Shibam is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and for good reason... this village in Yemen is right in the middle of a dusty desert, far from any modern conveniences.

The desert city of Shibam consists of 500 buildings, all built with mud bricks from the local clay, and they tower in size, from 5 to 9 storeys high. That's right, there are literally skyscrapers in the middle of this desert


[ Click here to read more ]
38
Vote
Shared on
   


More Posts
2 Posts
1 Posts
1 Posts
25 Posts dating from June 2006
Email Subscription
Receive e-mail notifications of new posts on this blog:
Moderated by kartik
Copyright © 2006 2007 2008 On Topic Media PTY LTD. All Rights Reserved. Design by Vimu.com.
On Topic Media ZPages: Sydney |  Melbourne |  Brisbane |  London |  Birmingham |  Leeds     [ Advertise ] [ Contact Us ] [ Privacy Policy ]