These traditional balconies are found all over Malta. Their origins go back to the Arabic architectural feature of a muxrabija. This was a wooden frame which screened the window space completely. It allowed a person on the inside to observe all that was going on outside, whilst not being visible to anyone in the street below.
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Much of Manila is modern, manic and frenetic. While there are sights to be explored these are scattered and separated by long drives in slow-moving traffic. But Intramuros is different. The name means ‘within the walls' or 'inside the walls’, for this is the small historic walled area where the city began.
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The people who live in some houses do literally ‘live in colour’. Blues, pinks, yellows, reds – or even all of them at once! While we do have some cheerfully painted houses in the UK, they tend to be the exception, and even then, pastel colours are usually preferred over brights. But in other parts of the world, it seems, the brighter the better.
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My interest in Frank Lloyd Wright was sparked by Paul Simon's song on 'Bridge Over Troubled Water'. Over the intervening decades I’ve seen many images of his buildings, read a bit about them, and visited one, the Guggenheim Museum in New York City. But only one.
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A kitchen can tell you a lot about a home. Whether it’s a basic one in a simple home or a much more elaborate one in a grand mansion, the kitchen will reflect not only the physical nature of the house but also the lives of the people who live or lived there.
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In Viking times this was the capital of Norway. Today it is a busy modern city with an impressive cathedral. It lies where the Nidelva river meets Trondheim Fjord, creating an excellent sheltered harbour. Although south of the Arctic Circle and therefore experiencing neither Polar Night nor Midnight Sun, in the summer months it remains light enough all night for artificial lighting only to be needed in poor weather.
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Koprivshtitsa is no ordinary town but rather a time capsule. Several of its houses are associated with significant players in the 1876 April Uprising against Ottoman rule. The uprising failed, but a fire had been ignited. The brutalities committed by the Turks while suppressing it led to widespread condemnation across Europe which was the trigger for the Russo-Turkish War. This ended in Turkish defeat. Thus the April Uprising can be regarded as having eventually achieved its original aim, the liberation of Bulgaria from the Ottoman Empire.
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Many of the houses in Guatapé are decorated with friezes along the lower portion, known as zócalos.
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How does it feel to step back in time and immerse ourselves in the world our parents, our grandparents, our great-grandparents knew? There are places where we can do just that, living museums that collate and preserve not just objects but the buildings that housed them and the environments in which those buildings sat. One such place is Beamish, in north east England.
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Koprivshtitsa is not a regular sort of town; all the buildings of the town centre constitute a museum. Together they form a sort of time-capsule, encapsulating the atmosphere of the Bulgarian National Revival period of the 19th century. Wandering its streets you can feel yourself transported back in time; and exploring its historic houses opens your eyes to a difficult period in the country's past.
