Photography
Walking up to and around the Centro Storico (the old town) of Saluzzo in Piemonte, the colour is overwhelmingly red terracotta, both the bricks and the tiles of the buildings. The patterns and the consistency but variations of the hand-made items excite the eye. The interiors of the churches are magnificent though the interiors of most of the other buildings have been revaged over the ages and through the wars. Noticeable that the eagle and white cross on a red shield of the Kingdom of Savoy / Savoie is still visible in several public places.
Villa Durango (1906), achitect Pierre Julien
Le Lauzanier; No 33, Avenue Ernest Pellotier
The villas mexicaines of Barcelonnette
Many stunning villas built in the “Mexican Colonial” style have survived in Barcelonnette and Jausiers in the Valley of the Ubayé in the Alpes of Haut-Provence. The first villas were built by returning émigrés in the late nineteenth century, the French Belle Époque, when development in the valley was being systematically encouraged by Paris following the insurrection of 1851 against the rule of Napoléon II and the Treaty of Turin of 1860.
Some new proprietors had found fortune having joined the two French interventions in Mexico (supported by England and Spain), including the Battle of Camerone (Camarón) of 1863, commemorated annually since by the French Foreign Legion. Others returned from commercial success in Arnaudville, Louisiana.
Burrell Crane Engine No 3829, “His Majesty”, built in 1907, PB9687
McLaren Road Locomotive No 1652, “Boadicea”, built in 1918, WF1864
“His Majesty” (1907), “Boadicea” (1918) and “The Great North” (1901): powerful steam vehicles arriving in Brighton for the sixtieth Historic Commercial Vehicle Society rally. All three engines are in steam and under power as the convoy enters Brighton; the engine in front is towing the two engines behind plus a low loader carrying a 132kV, 45,000 kVA mains electricity grid transformer made by Fuller, representing the old technology hauling in the new. Seeing, hearing and smelling these historic engines move under their own power was one step beyond seeing them on static display at the many rallies they grace with their presence.
An impressive amount of participation in sport on a Sunday morning in Preston Park, Brighton.
At first sight this is another huge high-rise development in former docklands to the east of London. But there’s more to the architecture of London City Island than that. The island location (known locally as “Bog Island”) is in the deep part of one of the curves of the River Lea just before Leamouth, the confluence with the River Thames at East India Docks. The geographical location fundamentally softens the architecture which is indeed otherwise relentlessly rectilinear and very vertical, reaching far higher than power lines in Canning Town on the far side of the River Lea.
