Author Archives: eflaherty

People connecting with landscape via…

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…music.

Most North Americans are overwhelmed by the convenience and connectivity of the various forms of public transport in Switzerland.  It is an effectively interwoven network that begins at the airports and train stations where it is most dense.  Then it gradually thins out as you travel higher into the mountains and further away from the cities.

At the final destination, you can find Swiss people in blissful contact with the landscape, as the following images demonstrate.

How much do you think access to this landscape pleasure is worth in any urban design?

Look at the faces of these people 2,250 meters above mean sea level…transcendental enjoyment if I have ever seen it!  Music, people, landscape.

The landscape above

The landscape above

The landscape below

Alphorns

Alphorn painted details

Alphorn craftsmanship

Landscape, alphorns, people

Landscape, people, music

People and music

People and music

People in the landscape

Washington Irving…

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…writing in the 1820s Tales of the Alhambra, about the palace of the Alhambra:

“…externally it is a rude congregation of towers and battlements, with no regularity of plan or grace of architecture…giving little promise of the grace and beauty which prevail within.”

Might there be a design lesson hidden in that observation regarding something seen from a distance?

Might there be an essential outside vs inside experience?

Might there be seeing when the viewer is moving vs seeing when the viewer is still?

…outside? …inside?

Your City and…Gezi Park

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Isn’t it curious that the loss of a tree in a park, Gezi Park, and rumors of a new shopping center erupted into a huge series of protests in Istanbul?

Not surprising if you ask the question:

How many of us, city dwellers, have safe and easy walks to inspirational gardens and landscapes?

People can only live so long in cities without refreshing and inspirational gardens and landscapes…then they erupt.  People erupt due to a fundamental imbalance in their living conditions.  Fix your city, fix your neighborhood, before the eruption.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEzqu_z9fRo?rel=0&w=560&h=315]

Awkward Beauty: The 23 Club

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I have updated a teaser to the landscape novella I have written, The 23 Club.  Please take a look at it and tell me if it is attractive.

Not sure?

Well, if you like landscapes, gardens, plants, international adventure, problem solving, a dose or two of emotional uncertainty, and a good smile every once in a while…you might just give this teaser a try.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaLU30-1Y_k?rel=0&w=560&h=315]

Gnomes, Chelsea 2013 or otherwise…

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In 2013, the Royal Horticultural Society admitted Gnomes to the Chelsea Flower Show, but only by caveat that they be used to help grow funding to encourage younger people’s interest in horticulture.  This fit nicely into British tradition, well delineated by David Bowie’s 1967 single, The Laughing Gnome, available here on YouTube.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyQxTWDLZ8o?rel=0&w=400&h=300]

But the last word is, in a true Germanic sense, very serious, written by Franz Hartmann 1895, Among the Gnomes, An Occult Tale of Adventure in the Untersberg.  The Untersberg is a mountain on the border of Germany and Austria.  Within the Untersberg are unterwegs connecting…connecting to…Bonigen, Switzerland, where…

 

 

I discovered these fellows doing their duties.