A – Z Challenge – Page 4

K for Kafka

frizztext hosts a weekly A – Z Challenge

Event Type: General Blogging

Start Date: Tuesdays, recurring weekly

Description: Every Tuesday I offer the “A to Z challenge”, walking step by step through the alphabet.

If you would like to join in then please click here.

This exhibition on the life and work of Prague’s most famous literary son, entitled ‘City of K’, is the third in a series of exhibitions about world writers and their cities. It explores the intimate relationship between the writer and the city that shaped him through the media of documents, photography and video.

J for Jawab

frizztext hosts a weekly A – Z Challenge

Event Type: General Blogging

Start Date: Tuesdays, recurring weekly

Description: Every Tuesday I offer the “A to Z challenge”, walking step by step through the alphabet.

If you would like to join in then please click here

The Taj Mahal, still one of the Seven Wonders of the World, attracts millions of visitors each year. The traditional southern view of the white domed mausoleum doesn’t always demonstrate the sheer scale of the building, nor take into affect the remainder of the integrated structures on the complex and its harmonious proportions.

Jawab - facing west — Jawab – facing west

At the far end of the complex, there are two grand red sandstone buildings that are open to the sides of the tomb. These identical buildings flank the main tomb effectively and help to present the white marble monument in an aesthetic setting and form an integral part of the Taj design.

At the western side is the mosque (masjid) facing east, reported to have been built by Isa Muhammed 1631-1648. More about this when we reach M. On the eastern side is the Jawab (literally “answer”; a building mirroring the mosque) and providing aesthetic balance to the site. At the time of my visit the Jawab was covered in scaffolding, so I wasn’t able to go inside.

One of the most beautiful structural compositions in the world, the Taj Mahal was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1983.

I for Iron Bridge

frizztext hosts a weekly A – Z Challenge

Event Type: General Blogging

Start Date: Tuesdays, recurring weekly

Description: Every Tuesday I offer the “A to Z challenge”, walking step by step through the alphabet.

If you would like to join in then please click here.

Following on from my bridge last week is another iron bridge, this time from Shropshire and much closer to home. This Iron Bridge is in the Severn Gorge and has a town named after it. It was the first arch bridge in the world to be built from cast-iron and it opened on New Year’s Day 1781, the result of work by the architect Thomas Pritchard (whose work can be seen in many Shropshire towns including Ludlow) and Abraham Darby III.

It is one of the great symbols of the Industrial Revolution and visited by many. Directly across from the bridge is the Tontine Hotel.

The word Tontine is a noun “an annuity scheme by which several subscribers invest in a common fund out of which they receive an annuity that increases as subscribers die until the last survivor takes all!”.

The idea of building a hotel here started as soon as people realised the attraction of the Iron Bridge. Those involved in the venture included Abraham Darby III, Samuel Darby, William & Richard Reynolds, John Wilkinson, Joseph Rathbone and others who were involved in the construction of the bridge.

The hotel opened in 1784. Inside are Victorian fireplaces with the traditional tiles of the area, photographs showing the area in different stages, with coracle men and their coracles, people standing on the river under the bridge when it froze on the 5th February 1917, collections of old local bottles etc.

source: Ironbridge Tourist Information and Visitor Centre.

View from the bridge – Wharfside

Cast-iron railings

The Old Coracle Shed

If you ever find yourself in Shropshire, then try to make some time to visit this once heavily industrialised, now pleasantly picturesque, town, not just for the Iron Bridge, but also its many other attractions.

H for Harbour Bridge (Sydney)

frizztext hosts a weekly A – Z Challenge

Event Type: General Blogging

Start Date: Tuesdays, recurring weekly

Description: Every Tuesday I offer the “A to Z challenge”, walking step by step through the alphabet.

If you would like to join in then please click here.

The Sydney Harbour Bridge is a steel through arch bridge across Sydney Harbour that carries rail, vehicular, bicycle and pedestrian traffic between the Sydney central business district and the North Shore. Opened March 19 1932. Wikipedia

I have walked across it, driving across in a car, taken a train over and driven under in the tunnel. I have climbed up one of the towers you can see at either end to get some lovely photographs, but I have never climbed the bridge, and I never will!

If you have a spare AUS$200 then maybe you’d like to try it? Or perhaps you have.

Harbour Bridge and Opera House from the Manly Ferry

G for Gehry (Frank) and the Fred and Ginger Building

frizztext hosts a weekly A – Z Challenge

Event Type: General Blogging

Start Date: Tuesdays, recurring weekly

Description: Every Tuesday I offer the “A to Z challenge”, walking step by step through the alphabet.

If you would like to join in then please click here.

Tančící dům (The Dancing House)

This week brings us to Prague where this unusual modern building can be found alongside the River Vltavar. Originally named Fred and Ginger (after Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers – because the house resembles a pair of dancers) the house stands out among the Baroque, Gothic and Art Nouveau buildings for which Prague is famous.

It was designed by Croatian-Czech architect Vlado Milunić in co-operation with Canadian architect Frank Gehry on a vacant riverfront plot (where the previous building had been destroyed during the Bombing of Prague in 1945). The building was designed in 1992 and completed in 1996.

I’ll let you decide which one is Ginger 🙂