Jan '05 - Jan '07
one exam down, 4 to go. history of romanian arch. u don't get to study that, do you?! well you don't miss a lot.
this summer i took a sightseeing tour around romania, and thanks god there still are some pretty interesting things to see. for example the oldest wooden church in the world( XIV century), the highest wooden building in the world (only the tower has 54meters, the whole church 72m) and some monasterys in moldavia. the funny part about those monasteries is that they have so many visitors that the sisters don't have any private time at all. they mostly work with turists, selling tickets and other commercial stuff. the opening hours are from 8-18 so i wonder if they have any time to pray. in addition they all behaved arogant and stupid. thare was a single monastry which was peacefull and had only 2 visitors, and here the sisters didn't care about us. it was really nice to see them working in the garden or doing their stuff. that monastery suffered an pretty impressive intervention during the 70s, i hope i'll manage to show u some pics of it.
but the funniest part of this trip happened in a small village. ceausescu (the dictator who died '90) wanted a sculpture of a knight on his horse, oversized of course (comunists!), so that you could see him from far away. only when the sculptor brought the gips form, the people didn't like it, they said it had no proportions.
so it remained unfinished in a yard along with another piece of art, from the same sculptor. i haven't found out if it was an irony of the artist or a request, but along with the horse and knight he made a huge dinosaur(6-7 meters high, 9 meters long), out of gips. now the horse and the knight are put in front of the dinosaur, and the knight's head is on the ground. the hole composition is covered with woodboars, except for the dino's head and tail, which are covered separatedly , due to their dimensions., it really looks hilariuos, and i could kill myself for not having my camera with me that day.now they say someone in china wants the dino.
instead i'll give you a link where you can see some of the wooden churches. in the backround of the first picture you can see the new church, the whole pride of the people, an extraordinary piece of real kitsch. unbelievable that people ages ago had better tastes than people have today. progress, right?
2 Comments
I find it very interesting that you only just now took a tour of your country, a seemingly small country. I was wondering why you hadn't visited the sites earlier. Have you ever traveled abroad? Maybe it is not possible, but if it is, I would highly suggest that you take the time to travel around all of Europe, seeig as you can easily do so by bus or train. It is a melting pot of so many different cultures and architectures in such a small place, in comparison to the rest of the world, and you don't need to get on a plane to see it. If you want to, email me directly at olearys1@wit.edu I'm interested in hearing from you. ~Suzy
i have travelled abroad, several times, til now only in europe. germany, austria, prague, hungary, italy. actually i'm planning a longer trip for this summer and hope to see more of EU, as i'm driving there. the car gives you a certain freedom of movement.
as about your question: actually i've seen that part of my country before, except for moldavia. i've always wanted to do such a tour, but only now had the chance to drive there. the car is the best vehicle for this kind of trip (we made several thousands km in 2 weeks and still haven't seen all we wanted).
i also do believe travelling is a key point in becoming arch. a week of touring can't be replaced by a month of school. learning arch from pictures is ... artificial. when i hear those guys on the discussions saying they pass each day nearby a famous building... i envy them. i mostly get to do that once a year. for me, the perfect combination for learning this job, or for connecting with it, is 2-3 years of arch school, then a year off school and just travell around the world, and afterwards back to school. only who has that luxury ?
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