Tag: architecture
All the articles with the tag "architecture".
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Sagrada Familia: How to Read a Cathedral That Is Still Being Built
Published:• 12 min readGaudí died in 1926 with the Sagrada Familia roughly one-quarter built. A Sagrada Familia audio guide to the basilica that has been under construction for one hundred and forty-four years and is finally close to finished.
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The Acropolis: What to See on the Rock That Built the West
Published:• 11 min readThe Acropolis is a fortified rock with four buildings on top, all finished in the same fifty-year burst. A self-guided tour that works as an Acropolis audioguide for the climb and the four monuments you came to see.
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Notre-Dame de Paris: The Cathedral That Burned and Came Back
Published:• 11 min readNotre-Dame de Paris burned for fifteen hours in April 2019 and reopened five years later. What the fire took, what it saved, and what eight hundred years of stone still does for the people who walk in.
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Brunelleschi's Dome: How a Goldsmith Closed the Biggest Hole in Christendom
Published:• 11 min readBrunelleschi's dome in Florence was started without a finished plan, built without scaffolding from below, and has never needed a major repair. How a goldsmith with a temper closed the largest hole in Christendom.
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Hagia Sophia: The Cathedral That Became a Mosque That Became a Cathedral
Published:• 10 min readHagia Sophia stood as the largest cathedral on earth for nine hundred years before becoming a mosque. The building under the layers is stranger than either.
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The Colosseum: How Rome Built a Stadium That Could Empty Fifty Thousand People in Fifteen Minutes
Published:• 9 min readThe Colosseum could empty fifty thousand spectators in fifteen minutes and flood its own floor for naval battles. A look at the most efficient stadium ever built.
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Pompeii: The City That Vesuvius Buried, and Then Preserved
Published:• 9 min readPompeii was buried alive in a single afternoon in 79 AD. The ash that killed the city is also what saved it. A walk through what the volcano left behind.
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The Pantheon Dome: How Rome Cast a Concrete Sky That Has Not Fallen in 1,900 Years
Published:• 12 min readThe Pantheon dome is still, after nineteen hundred years, the largest unreinforced concrete dome on earth. How the Romans cast it -- and why it has not fallen.
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Who Built the Pantheon: The Three Names Behind a Two-Thousand-Year-Old Roof
Published:• 10 min readWho built the Pantheon? Agrippa's name is on it, Hadrian actually built it, and Apollodorus of Damascus probably designed the dome. Here is how all three fit.
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Pantheon History: How a Pagan Temple Became the Oldest Continuously Used Building in Rome
Published:• 11 min readThe full pantheon history -- Agrippa's lost temple, the fire, Hadrian's rebuild, the conversion to Santa Maria ad Martyres, and the pope who stripped the bronze.