Gol Stavkirke

Gol Stavkirke, Oslo, Norway, 1212 AD

Gol Stave Church (Gol Stavkirke) is a stave church originally from Gol, Hallingdal, Norway. It is now located in the Norwegian Museum of Cultural History at Bygdøy in Oslo, Norway. When the city built a new church around 1880, it was decided to demolish the old stave church. It was saved from destruction by the Society for the Preservation of Ancient Norwegian Monuments, which bought the materials in order to re-erect the church elsewhere.

It was acquired by King Oscar II, who financed its relocation and restoration as the central building of his private open-air museum near Oslo. The restoration, overseen by architect Waldemar Hansteen, was completed in 1885. In 1907 this early open air museum, the world’s first, was merged with the Norwegian Museum of Cultural History, which now manages the stave church, still nominally the property of the reigning monarch. The church was dated to 1212 by the characteristic patterns of the annual growth rings in the timber construction.

A modern replica of the Gol Stave Church is in the mediaval park Gordarike. The copy was built in the 1980s and consecrated by the bishop of Tunsberg in 1994. In the summer evening on Wednesdays there is a devotional and sometimes musical performance. The church is often used for weddings. The woodwork inside the church is adorned with beautiful carvings and details.

Source: dariaendresen

Well of Chand Baori

Photographer Unknown, Well of Chand Baori, Abhaneri, India

The Well of Chand Baori is situated in the village of Abhaneri in the state of Rajasthan, India.. There are 3500 narrow steps extending for a height of thirteen stories. It extends approximately one hundred feet into the ground making it one of the deepest and largest stepwells in India. It was built by King Chanda of the Nikumbh dynasty between 800-900 CE and was dedicate to Hashat Mata, Goddess of Joy and Happiness upon completion.

The well was designed to conserve as much water as possible in the extremely dry area of Rajasthan. At the bottom of the well, the air remains about 6 degrees cooler than the temperature at ground level. it is used as a gathering place for locals during intense heat of the day. The site has been used as a filming location for the movies “The Dark Knight Rises” and “Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”.

Calendar: May 29

A Year: Day to Day Men: 29th of May

Friend to Man

May 29, 1453 marks the end of the Byzantine Empire with the fall of the city of Constantinople.

The Byzantine empire was the continuation of the Roman Empire in the East lasting into the Middle Ages. The capital of this empire was Constantinople, the site of ancient Byzantium. It survived the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century AD and continued to exist for an additional thousand years. During most of its existence, the empire was the most powerful economic, cultural, and military force in Europe.

The borders of the empire evolved significantly over its existence, as it went through several cycles of decline and recovery. During the reign of Emperor Maurice from 582-602 AD, the Empire’s eastern frontier was expanded and the north stabilized. However, his assassination caused the Byzantine-Sasanian War, which lasted from 602 to 628 AD, exhausted the empire’s resources, and contributed to major territorial losses during the seventh century. In a matter of years the empire lost its richest provinces, Egypt and Syria, to the Arabs.

The empire recovered again during the reigns of the Komnenian family; by the 12th century, Constantinople had become the largest and wealthiest European city. However, the city was delivered a mortal blow during the Fourth Christian Crusade. During this crusade, Constantinople was sacked in 1204 and the territories that the empire formerly governed were divided into competing Byzantine Greek and Latin realms. Despite the eventual recovery of Constantinople in 1261, the Byzantine Empire remained only one of several small rival states in the area. For the final two centuries of its existence, the empire’s remaining territories were progressively annexed by the Ottomans.

The capture of the capital of the Byzantine Empire by the invading Ottoman army occurred on May 29, 1453. The attackers were commanded by the then 21-year-old Sultan Mehmed II, who defeated an army commanded by Emperor Constantine XI Palaiologos and took control of the imperial capital, ending the seige of the city. After conquering the city, Sultan Mehmed transferred the capital of his Empire from Edime to Constantinople, and established his court there. The Hagia Sophia was converted into a mosque, the Greek Orthodox Church was allowed to remain intact, and Gennadius Scholarius was appointed the Patriarch of Constantinople.

The fall of Constantinople was a watershed moment in military history. The substantial fortifications of ramparts and city walls of the city had been a model followed by other cities throughout the Mediterranean region and Europe. The Ottomans ultimately prevailed due to the use of gunpowder which fueled their cannons.

Gothic Raygun Rocketship

Gothic Raygun Rocketship, Pier 14, San Francisco, California

The sculpture installation first landed at Burning Man event in 2009, and has subsequently appeared at the NASA “Ames for Yuri’s Night” and is now at Pier 14 in San Francisco.

This spectacular forty foot tall sci-fi sculpture is the creation of Bay Area artists Sean Orlando, Nathaniel Taylor, David Shulman and the dedicated crew of the Five Ton Crane Arts Group, who helped to bring their fantastic vision to fruition – a larger than life 1930’s-1940’s pulp fiction space ship, gleaming silver legs forever prepped for lift off, three interior chambers fitted with all of the whimsical knobs and dials that you dreamed of as a kid.

Originally created as a 2009 art installation for the Burning Man Festival in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert, the large-scale immersion based piece currently resides on Pier 14, illuminated and dreamy at night and flashing with retro ingenuity during the day. Its presence inspiring the imaginations of all who see it, it stands tall as a symbol of what could have been, but never was.

Calendar: May 22

A Year: Day to Day Men: 22nd of May

Bouyancy and Surface Tension

May 22, 1842 marks the discovery of Howe Caverns in New York state by Lester Howe and Henry Wetsel.

The Howe Caverns is a cave system in Schoharie County, New York. Geologists believe the formation of the cave, which lies 156 feet below ground, began several million years ago. The cavern is composed mainly of two types of limestone from different periods in the Earth’s early history, deposited hundreds of millions of years ago when the Atlantic Ocean stretched far inland. The cave is at a constant temperature of 52 degrees Fahrenheit, irrespective of the outside weather.

The Howe Caverns is named after farmer Lester Howe, who discovered the cave on May 22, 1842. Noticing that his cows frequently gathered near some bushes at the bottom of a hill on hot summer days, Howe decided to investigate. Behind the bushes, Howe found a strong, cool breeze emanating from a hole in the Earth. Howe proceeded to dig out and explore the cave with his friend and neighbor, Henry Wetsel, on whose land the cave entrance was located.

The cavern was open eight hours during the day for public tours in 1843. As the site became popular, a hotel was built over the entrance to the cave. From 1890 until the turn of the century, as visitors steadily decreased, a small community of management, quarry workers and their families sprang up in the hamlet now known as Howes Cave. While the Cave House Hotel had a steady business form 1871 to 1890, it eventually became a boarding house and later office space.

The rebirth and successful commercial development of Howe Caverns, as it is known today, between the years 1927-1929, is in large part attributable to two men, John Mosner of Syracuse and Walter H. Sagendorf of Saranac Lake. Mosner, an engineer, proposed the modern engineering developments that would make the cave easily accessible-even comfortable-to the average visitor. Mosner who was impressed by his visit to Howe’s Cave in 1890, believed that with a shaft for elevators sunk at the opposite end of the cave and the addition of electric lighting, Howe’s Cave would become a leading tourist attraction.

Sagendorf provided the organization for the Mosner plan; his brother John owned most of the land on which today’s Visitor Center is located. Howe Caverns, Inc. was organized as a closed stock corporation on October 11, 1927. Work began the next year under difficult conditions. The 156-foot elevator shaft was built at a cost of $1,100 per foot. A work force of well over 50 men constructed the walks and bridges and the above-ground facilities. The much-awaited grand re-opening of Howe’s Cave as Howe Caverns, Inc. took place on May 27, 1929. On the occasion more than 2,000 visitors toured what was once known as “Blowing Rock,” Lester Howe’s great wonder, down under.

Calendar: May 21

A Year: Day to Day Men: 21st of May

Opposites: Torrid and Frigid

May 21, 1792 is the date of Japan’s Mount Unzen’s deadliest volcanic eruption.

Mount Unzen consists of a group of composite volcanic domes located on Japan’s Shimabara Peninsula east of Nagasaki. This area has seen extensive volcanism over millions of years. The oldest volcanic deposits in the region date from over 6 million years ago, and extensive eruptions occurred over the whole peninsula between 2.5 and 0.5 million years ago.

Unzen’s deadliest recorded eruption occurred on May 21 in 1792, with a large igneous rock lava flow coming from the Fugen-dake dome. The east flank of the Mayu-yama dome collapsed unexpectedly following a post-eruption earthquake, creating a landslide into Ariake Bay. This caused a mega-tsunami that reached a height of 330 feet. The wave surge devastated nearby areas, causing further widespread damage and death. Most of the estimated 15,000 deaths caused by the event are believed to have resulted from the landslide and the tsunami. The scar created from the Mayuyama landslide remains visible today.

After 1792, the volcano remained dormant until November 1989 when an earthquake swarm, a series of earthquakes in a short time, began about 12 miles underneath and 6 miles west of the Fugen-dake dome. Over the following year, earthquakes continued, their hypo-centers gradually migrating towards the summit. The first steam blast eruptions began in November 1990, and after inflation of the summit area, fresh lava began to emerge on May 20, 1991.

The threat of further disastrous events prompted authorities to evacuate 12,000 residents from their homes. On June 3, 1991, the volcano erupted violently, possibly as a result of depressurization of the magma column after a landslide in the crater. A pyroclastic flow triggered by the collapse of a lava dome reached 3 miles from the crater and claimed the lives of 43 scientists and journalists, including volcanologist Katia and Maurice Krafft and Harry Glicken.

From 1993 onward, the rate of lava effusion gradually decreased, and eruptions came to an end in 1995. Since then heavy rains have frequently caused pyroclastic material, rocky debris and water to flow down the slopes. Dikes have been constructed in several river valleys to channel the lava flows away from vulnerable areas.

Seiganto-ji & Nachi Falls in Wakayama, Japan

Photographer Unknown, Seiganto-ji & Nachi Falls in Wakayama, Japan

The Seiganto-ji Temple is the oldest structure in Wakayama. It is registered as a UNESCO World Heritage site as part of “Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range.” Though the year of is establishment is not recorded, there are signs that nature worship has been carried out since ancient times in the area and a legend that the temple was founded during the 4th century.

From the middle period to the early modern period, the temple along with the adjacent Kumano Nachi Taisha Grand Shrine flourished as Shugenjo, a place for ascetic training.

The main highlight is a three-story red pagoda reconstructed in 1972. Its main hall, built in 1590, is designated as Important Cultural Property of Japan and exhibits a waniguchi drum, the largest Buddhist altar drum of its kind in Japan. The enshrined principal image, Nyoirin Kannon, Bodhisattva of Compassion, is said to grant any wish, including wishes for wealth, wisdom, and power.The public may view Nyoirin Kannon only on one day once a year, on August 17th.

This 3-meter high wooden image that was carved by Shobutsu Shonin during the reign of Empress Suiko which was from 592 – 628 AD. Inside the chest cavity, there is a small golden image of Kannon said to be just “1 sun 9 bu”, about six centimeters tall. This tiny golden Kannon was said to be the personal image that Ragyō the hermit enshrined in his hermitage in the 4th century. However, it is more likely to have been the personal image belonging to Empress Suiko.

Calendar: May 18

A Year: Day to Day Men: 18th of May

A Bright New Day

May 18, 1927 marks the opening day of Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood, California.

Grauman’s Chinese Theater is a movie palace on the historic Hollywood Walk of Fame. After the success of his Egyptian Theater, Sid Grauman secured a long-term lease on the property site at 6925 Hollywood Boulevard from Francis Bushman, the owner of the existing mansion located at that address. The firm of Meyer and Holler, with Raymond Kennedy as the principal architect, was contracted to design a “palace-type theater” of Chinese design. Grauman financed the theater’s two million dollar cost and owned one-third interest in the theater. His partners, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and Howard Schenck owned the remaining two thirds.

During construction, Grauman hired Jean Klossner to formulate an extremely hard concrete for the forecourt of the theater. Norma Marie Talmadge, the American actress and film producer of the silent era, is traditionally recognized as the first person to put a footprint in the concrete. The theater’s third founding partner, Douglas Fairbanks, was the second celebrity to be immortalized in the concrete. Nearly two hundred Hollywood celebrity handprints, footprints and autographs are now imprinted in the concrete of the theater’s forecourt.

The exterior of Grauman’s theater is meant to resemble a giant, red Chinese pagoda. The design features a huge Chinese dragon across the facade, with two authentic Ming Dynasty guardian lions guarding the main entrance and the silhouettes of tiny dragons along the sides of the copper roof.

One of the highlights of the Chinese Theatre has always been its grandeur and décor. In 1952, John Tartaglia, the artist of nearby Saubt Sophia Cathedral, became the head interior decorator of the Chinese Theatre, as well as the theatre chain then owned by Fox West Coast Theaters. Celebrities also contributed to the theater’s decor. Xavier Cugat painted the trees and foliage between the pillars on the side walls. Keye Luke painted the Chinese murals in the lobby. The lobby features programs from some of the Hollywood premieres that have been hosted there, as well as a collection of classic movie costumes.

The Chinese Theatre was declared a historic and cultural landmark in 1968, and has undergone various restoration projects in the years since then.In 2000, Behr Browers Architects, a firm previously engaged by Mann Theaters, prepared a restoration and modernization program for the structure. The program included a seismic upgrade, new state-of-the-art sound and projection, new vending kiosks and exterior signage, and the addition of a larger concession area under the balcony.

Calendar: May 7

A Year: Day to Day Men: 7th of May

A Man with Attitude

On May 7, 558, the great dome of the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople completely collapsed.

Hagia Sophia is a cathedral located in Istanbul, Turkey. It is one of the greatest surviving examples of Byzantine architecture. The original cathedral was finished in 360 A.D., but due to a future of riots, rebellions, and the fall of empires, the structure was rebuilt multiple times, each version more grand than the last. Due to this rich history, the cathedral has crowned the bodies of both the Christian and the Muslim world.

The size and measurements of the Hagia Sophia are much larger than other religious buildings of its time. This structure is world renown for the colossal dome that sits over its central space. The dome is 56 meters from ground level, 32 meters from North to South and 31 meters from East to West. It was the largest pendentive dome in the world until the completion of Saint Peter’s Basilica in 1626, and has a much lower height than any other dome of such a great diameter.

Earthquakes in August 553 and December 557 caused cracks in the main dome and eastern half-dome. The main dome collapsed completely during a subsequent earthquake on May 7th in the year 558, destroying the altar steps, the altar, and the structural canopy over the altar. The collapse was due mainly to the unfeasibly high bearing load and to the enormous sheer load of the dome, which was too flat. These caused the deformation of the piers which sustained the dome.

Emperor Justian I ordered an immediate restoration. He entrusted it to Isidorus the Younger, nephew of Isidore of Miletus, who rebuilt with lighter materials than previously used and elevated the dome by another thirty feet– giving the building its current interior height. Moreover, Isidorus shaped the new cupola like a scalloped shell or the inside of an umbrella, with ribs that extend from the top down to the base. These ribs allow the weight of the dome to flow between the windows, down the pendentives, and ultimately to the foundation.

Hagia Sophia is famous for the light that reflects everywhere in the interior of the nave, giving the dome the appearance of hovering above. This effect was achieved by the insertion of forty windows around the base of the original structure. The insertion of the windows in the dome structure, beside letting more light enter, lessened its weight upon the underlying structure. This reconstruction of the Hagia Sophia dome, giving the church its present 6th-century form, was completed in 562. The rededication of the basilica presided over by Patriarch Eutychius occurred on December 23, 562.

Calendar: April 10

A Year: Day to Day Men: 10th of April

In Cool Water

Mount Tambora’s eruptions reached a violent climax on April 10, 1815.

Mount Tambora is on the island of Sumbawa in Indonesia. It experienced several centuries of dormancy before 1815, caused by the gradual cooling of the hydrous magma in its closed magma chamber. During this cooling, crystallization of the magma occurred. resulting in an over-pressurization of the chamber and a rising of the temperature. In 1812, the volcano began to rumble and generated a dark cloud.

On the 5th of April in 1815, a very large eruption occurred, followed by thunderous detonation sounds heard in Makassar on Sulawesi 240 miles away, and as far as Ternate on the Molucca Islands 870 miles away. On the morning of April 6, volcanic ash began to fall in East Java with faint detonation sounds lasting until the 10th of April. Detonation sounds were heard on April 10th at Sumatra, more than 1,600 miles away.

At about 7 pm on April 10th, the eruptions intensified. Three columns of flame rose up and merged. The whole mountain was turned into a flowing mass of “liquid fire”. Pumice stones of up to 8 inches in diameter started to rain down around 8 pm, followed by ash at around 9–10 pm. Pyroclastic flows cascaded down the mountain to the sea on all sides of the peninsula, wiping out the village of Tambora. Loud explosions were heard until the next evening, April 11. The ash veil spread as far as West Java and South Sulawesi.

The explosion had an estimated Volcanic Explosivity Index of 7 (on a scale of 0 to 8) making it one of the most powerful in recorded history. An estimated 10 cubic miles of pyroclastic rock were ejected, weighting about 10 billion tons. This left a caldera measuring about four miles across and 2,300 feet deep. Before the explosion, Mount Tambora’s peak elevation was about 14,100 feet, making it one of the tallest peaks in the Indonesian archipelago. After the explosion, its peak elevation had dropped to 9,354 feet, about two thirds of its previous height.

The 1855 Zollinger report puts the number of direct deaths at 10,000, probably caused by pyroclastic flows. On Sumbawa island, 38,000 people starved to death; on Lombok island about 10,000 people died from disease and hunger. However, other journal reports put the combined deaths from volcanic activity and from post-eruption famine and epidemic diseases higher at 70,000 to 100,000 people. The ash from the eruption dispersed around the world, lowering global temperatures and triggering harvest failures.

James Clear

James Clear: Photo Study of The Blue City of Chefchaouen, Morocco

Chefchaouen is a small city hidden deep within the Rif Mountains of Northwest Morocco. The ancient part of the city known as the medina is covered in all shades of blue paint. The men wander the streets in long wool robes with pointed hoods known as jellabas. Locals wear then in all weather. The women make handmade Moroccan rugs and carpets using wool, camel hair, cactus fiber and natural dyes.

James Clear is an American author, photographer and entrepreneur. He takes a photography trip every three months to different parts of the world.

Please credit the photographer when reblogging. Thanks.

Calendar: March 31

Year: Day to Day Men: March 31

Changing His Tunes

The thirty-first of March in 1889 marks the official opening date of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. The wrought-iron lattice tower was constructed as the centerpiece for the 1889 Paris Exposition, and as a memorial to commemorate the centennial anniversary of the French Revolution.

Maurice Koechlin and Émile Nouguier, two senior engineers employed by Alexandre Gustave Eiffel’s company Compagnie des Établissements Eiffel, produced a sketch of a great metal pylon, narrowed as it rose, for the centerpiece of the Paris Exposition. With the assistance of Stephen Sauvestre, the company’s head architect, the men refined the design with the addition of decorative arches at the base of the tower and a glass pavilion on the first level. Gustave Eiffel approved the design and bought the patent rights for their design. This design for the Eiffel Tower was on display at the 1884 Exhibition of Decorative Arts under the company’s name.

On the thirtieth of March in 1885, Gustave Eiffel presented his plans to the Society of Civil Engineers at which time he discussed the technical difficulties and emphasized both the practical and symbolic aspects of the structure. Little progress on a decision was made until Édouard Lockroy was appointed Minister of Trade in 1886. A budget for the Paris Exposition was passed and requirements for the competition being held for the exposition’s centerpiece were altered. All entries were now required to include a study for a three-hundred meter, four-sided tower on the Champ de Mars. A judging commission set up on the twelfth of May found all proposals, except Eiffel’s design, either impractical or lacking in details.

Gustave Eiffel signed the January 1887 contract in his own capacity rather than as a representative of the company. The contract granted him 1.5 million francs toward the construction cost, less than a quarter of the expected cost. Eiffel was to receive all income from the commercial exploitation of the structure during the Paris Exposition and for the following twenty years. To manage the construction, he established a separate company for which he provided half the necessary capital.

The French bank, Crédit Industriel et Commercial, CIC, helped finance the Eiffel Tower’s construction through acquiring funds from predatory loans to the National Bank of Haiti. As a result, the Haitian government was sending nearly half of all taxes collected on its exports to finance the construction of the tower. While the tower was being built as a symbol of France’s freedom, the newly independent Haiti’s economy was hindered in its ability to start schools, hospitals and other basic establishments necessary for an established country.

Work on the Eiffel Tower’s foundations began at the end of January in 1887 with the formation of the four concrete slabs for the legs of the tower. While the east and south legs were easily done; the west and north legs, being closer to the Seine River, needed pilings twenty-two meters deep to support their concrete slabs. All four slabs supported blocks of inclined limestone for the ironwork’s supporting shoes. The foundation structures of the Eiffel Tower were completed at the end of June.

An enormous amount of preparatory work was done for the assemblage of the ironwork. Seventeen hundred general drawings and over thirty-six hundred detailed drawings of the eighteen thousand separate parts were needed. The task of drawing the components was complicate by the complex angles in the design and the degree of precision required; the position of the rivet holes were specified to within one millimeter. No drilling or shaping was done on site; all finished components, some already partially assembled, arrived on horse-drawn carts from the factory. If any part did not fit, it was sent back to the factory. The entire structure was composed of over eighteen thousand pieces joined with two and a half million rivets.

The main structure of the Eiffel Tower was completed at the end of March in 1889. On the thirty-first of March, Gustave Eiffel led a group of government officials and members of the press to the top of the tower. As the lifts were not yet in operation, the ascent by foot took over an hour; most of the party chose to stay at the lower levels. Gustav Eiffel, Émile Nouguier, the head of construction, Jean Compagnon, the City Council president, and the reporters from “Le Figaro” and “Le Monde Illustré” completed the ascent. Eiffel hoisted a large Ticolor flag as a twenty-five gun salute was fired at the first level.

The Eiffel Tower was not opened to the public until the fifteenth of May, nine days after the opening of the Paris Exposition. The lifts, however, were still not completed. Nearly thirty-thousand visitors climbed the seventeen thousand steps to the top before the lifts opened on the twenty-sixth of May. Notable visitors to the tower included inventor Thomas Edison, Edward VII the Prince of Wales, stage actress Sarah Bernhardt and “Buffalo Bill” Cody whose Wild West show was part of the Exposition.

Calendar: March 22

A Year: Day to Day Men: 22nd of March

The Fire Fighter

The Emerald Buddha was moved with great ceremony on March 22, 1784 to His current place in Wat Phra Kaew, Thailand.

Phra Kaeo Morakot, the Emerald Buddha, is considered the palladium of the Kingdom of Thailand; an figure of great antiquity on which the safety of Thailand is said to depend. The figure of the meditating Buddha seated in a yogic posture is made of semi-precious jade, clothed in gold and 26 inches tall in His seated position. Historical sources indicate the the figure of the Buddha surfaced in northern Thailand in the Lanna kingdom in 1434.

In 1779, the Thai General Chao Phraya Chakri put down an insurrection, captured Vientiane, the capital of Laos where the Buddha had resided for 214 years, and took the Emerald Buddha to Siam. It was installed in a shrine close to Wat Arun in Thonburi, Siam’s new capital. Chao Phraya Chakri took control of the country and founded the Chakri Dynasty of Rattanakosin Kingdom. He adopted the title ‘Rama I’ and shifted his capital across the Menam Chao Phra River to its present location in Bangkok.

There Rama I constructed the new Grand Palace including Wat Phra Kaew within its compound. Wat Phra Kaew was consecrated in 1784, and the Emerald Buddha was moved with great pomp and pageantry to its current home in the Ubosoth, the holiest prayer room, of the Wat Phra Kaew temple complex on 22 March 1784.

The Emerald Buddha is adorned with three different sets of gold seasonal costume; two were made by King Rama I, one for the summer and one for the rainy season, and a third made by King Rama III for the winter or cool season. The clothes are changed by the King of Thailand, or another member of the royal family in his stead, in a ceremony at the changing of the seasons – in the first waning of lunar months around March, August and November.

King Rama I initiated this ritual for the hot season and the rainy season, Rama III introduced the ritual for the winter season. The robes, which adorn the figure of Buddha, represent those of monks and the King, depending on the season, a clear indication of highlighting its symbolic role “as Buddha and the King”, which role is also enjoined on the Thai King who formally dresses the Emerald Buddha image. The costume change ritual is performed by the Thai king who is the highest master of ceremonies for all Buddhist rituals.

Calendar: March 7

Year: Day to Day Men: March 7

Gold Pinstripes

The seventh of March in the year 1837 marks the birth date of American physician and amateur astronomer Henry Draper. Both a professor and Dean of Medicine at City University of New York, he was one of the pioneers in the field of astrophotography.

Born to John William Draper, a professor at New York University, and Antonia Caetana de Paiva Pereira Gardner, daughter of the royal physician to the Emperor of Brazil, Henry Draper completed all his medical courses at the City University of New York’s School of Medicine by the age of twenty. Too young to graduate, he toured Europe for a year and became acquainted with the work of Irish astronomer William Parsons, Third Earl of Rosse. Draper’s interest in photography and the Earl of Rosse’s observatory would later become the basis of his career.

On his return from Europe, Draper received his Medical Degree and began working as a physician at Manhattan’s Bellevue Hospital. In 1860, he received appointment at the City University of New York as Professor of Natural Science. Draper joined the Twelfth New York Infantry Regiment’s S Company in May of 1862 as a surgeon during the Civil War. His brother, John Christopher Draper, joined him as an assistant surgeon; they served together as surgeons until October in 1862. Draper became Chairman of the Department of Physiology at City University in 1866.

Henry Draper met Mary Anna Palmer, the daughter of Connecticut merchant and real estate investor Courtlandt Palmer, and married her in 1867. A well-educated woman, Mary Anna Draper collaborated with her husband in his expeditions, research and photography. Upon her father’s death in 1872, she became heir, along with her three brothers, to her father’s fortune. Henry and Mary Anna Draper relocated to their summer home in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, where they constructed an observatory with a 71 cm (28 inch) reflecting telescope and began a fifteen-year research partnership.

Interested in the application of photography to astronomy, Draper started making daguerrotypes of the sun and moon; however in 1872, he succeeded for the first time in photographing the stellar spectrum of the star Vega. Draper discovered in 1879 that the newly developed dry-photographic plates were more sensitive and convenient than the older wet-collodion ones. By 1882 with the use of the newer photographic plates, he was able to obtain over a hundred stellar spectra images, including those of the Moon, Mars, Jupiter (1880) and the Orion Nebula. Draper also succeeded in directly photographing the Orion Nebula, first in September of 1880 with a fifty-minute exposure and later with a one hundred-forty minute exposure though the use of a more accurate clock-driven telescope.

In 1882, Henry Draper resigned from City University to concentrate on his astrophotographic work for which he hoped to obtain higher resolution images. On the twentieth of November in 1882, Draper suffered an untimely death at the age of forty-five from double pleurisy, an inflammation of the membranes that surround the lungs and line the chest cavity.

After his death, Mary Anna Draper funded the Henry Draper Award of the National Academy of Sciences for outstanding contributions to astrophysics. She founded the Henry Draper Memorial Fund which financed the famous Henry Draper Catalogue, a nine-volume collection published between 1918 and 1924 that contains spectra details of two hundred twenty-five thousand stars. Draper’s donations enabled astronomer Edward Charles Pickering to continue his classification of stars based on their spectra. She also funded the construction of the Mount Wilson Observatory as well as ongoing research at the Harvard Observatory.

Calendar: March 3

Year: Day to Day Men: March 3

Warmth of the Sun

The third of March in 1585 marks the inauguration of the Teatro Olimpico designed by Italian Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio. Since 1994, the Olympic Theater, along with other Palladian-styled buildings in and around the city of Vicenza, have been listed together as a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Site.

Born Andrea di Pietro della Gondola in Padua, Republic of Venice in November of 1508, Andrea Palladio was influenced by Roman and Greek architecture and is considered one of those individuals who most influenced the history of architecture. He trained under noted sculptor Bartolomeo Cavazza de Sossano as an apprentice stonecutter for six years. When his contract was finished, Palladio permanently relocated to Vicenza where his career was unexceptional until 1538.

Between 1538 and 1539, Palladio rebuilt the Villa Trissino, the Cricoli residence of poet and scholar Gian Giorgio Trissino who was engaged in a lifetime study of ancient Roman architecture. Due to his work, Palladio received the formal title of architect in 1541. He took several trips, accompanied by Gian Trissino, between 1541 and 1547 to study classical monuments in Rome, Tivoli, Paletrina, and Albano. As a mentor, Trissino introduced Palladio to the history and arts of Rome as well as bestowed on him the name ‘Palladio’ which means the Wise One.

Throughout his career in Vicenza, Andrea Palladio designed many villas and governmental palaces. His first construction project involving a large town house was the Palazzo Thiene in Vicenza. After the death of its architect Giulio Romano, Palladio finished its construction. He used Romano’s design for the villa’s windows but altered the facade to express a new lightness and grace. Among the villas attributed to Palladio’s architectural designs are the Villa Pisani, his first patrician villa for a Venetian family, and Villa Cornaro, a villa at Piombino Dese that was a mixture of villa rusticate (country house) and suburban villa with a grand salon designed for entertaining.

In 1550, Palladio began construction on the Palazzo del Chiericati, an urban palace built on a city square near Vicenza’s port. It was designed with a two-story facade with a double loggia divided by rows of Doric columns. Paladio’s Palazzo del Capitaniato, the offices of the regional Venetian governor, was a contrasting design of red brick and white stone. The four brick half-columns of its facade formed a strong vertical element that balanced the horizontal balustrades and projecting cornice at the top. Designed in 1565, the Palazzo del Capitaniato was built between 1571 and 1572.

Ranked among his highest masterworks, the Teatro Olimpico was Palladio’s final architectural design and was not completed until after his death. In 1579, the Olympic Academy obtained the rights to build a permanent theater in the old fortress, Castello del Territorio, which had been both a prison and storage depot for gun powder before falling in disuse. Asked to produce a design, Palladio used the space to recreate an academic reconstruction of the Roman theaters he had closely studied. In order to fit a stage and seating area into the building’s wide and shallow space, Palladio had to flatten the semicircular seating area of a Roman theater into an ellipse.

Andrea Palladio died in August of 1580, only six months after the construction on the theater had started. His sketches and drawings were used as a guide; Palladio’s yongest son, Silla Palladio, and Vicenza architect Vincenzo Scamozzi oversaw the final construction work. Scamozzi contributed several rooms to the design and built the rusticated entrance archway that was fitted into the rough, well-worn walls. As Palladio had not left any plans for the onstage scenery, Scamozzi created trompe l’oeil scenery with oil-lamp lighting to give the appearance of long streets receding into the distance. The full Roman-style wood and stucco backscreen is the oldest surviving stage set still in existence.

The Teatro Olimpico was inaugurated on the third of March in 1585 by a production of Sophocles’s “Oedipus Rex” with music by composer and organist Andrea Gabrieli. After only a few productions, the theater was essentially abandoned. The scenes created for the production were never removed and still exist in place. The original lighting system of glass oil lamps has been used only a few times over the years due to the risk of fire; they were lit in 1997 for a production of “Oedipus Rex”.

Due to conservation issues, current performances in the Teatro Olimpico are limited to four hundred attendees. As heating and air conditioning could damage the delicate wooden structure of the stage sets, performances are held only in the spring and autumn. The theater was a film location for the 1979 film “Don Giovanni” and the 2005 “Casanova”.