RUSSIA: Kremlin and Red Square, Moscow

Received thanx to Nastya.

From the 13th century to the founding of St Petersburg, the Moscow Kremlin was directly and tangibly associated with every major event in Russian history. The Kremlin contains within its walls a unique series of masterpieces of architecture and the plastic arts - religious monuments of exceptional beauty such as the Church of the Annunciation, Cathedral of the Dormition, Church of the Archangel and the bell tower of Ivan Veliki, and palaces such as the Great Palace of the Kremlin, which comprises within its walls the Church of the Nativity of the Virgin and the Teremnoi Palace. On Red Square is Saint Basil the Blessed, still a major edifice of Orthodox art. Russian architecture was clearly affected many times in its history by influences emanating from the Kremlin. A particular example is the Italian Renaissance.

The Kremlin of Moscow, which according to chronicles dates from 1156, contains an ensemble of monuments of outstanding quality. Ever since the establishment of the Principality of Moscow in 1263 and the transfer to Moscow of the seat of Vladimir's Metropolitan in 1328, this was the centre of both temporal and spiritual power. Some of these original buildings border Cathedral Square, others, such as the Nativity of the Virgin (1393), were incorporated into the Great Palace when it was rebuilt. The nucleus expanded northward with the palace of the Patriarchs and the Church of the Twelve Apostles, erected in the 17th century, and especially with the Arsenal of Peter the Great which fills the north-west angle of the enceinte. The triangular palace of the Senate (today the seat of the Council of Ministers) was built by Kazakov for Empress Catherine II in the north-east sector between the Arsenal and the monasteries of the Miracle and of the Ascension, two splendid structures that were razed in 1932. In the south-east sector Kazakov built another smaller palace for the empress, known as the Nicholas palace, and also destroyed in 1932.

Red Square is closely associated with the Kremlin, lying beneath its east wall. At its south end is the famous Cathedral of St Basil the Blessed, one of the most beautiful monuments of Orthodox art. It was originally one of a pair of churches, the other being the Cathedral of Kazan, erected in 1633 in the vast open area bordering the 'Goum' by Prince Pozarsky to commemorate the victory over the Poles. It disappeared in the early 1930s along with several convents in the neighbouring area (Saviour-behind-the-Images, St Nicholas, Epiphany).

With its triangular enceinte pierced by five gates and reinforced with 29 towers, the Kremlin preserves the memory of the wooden fortifications erected by Yuri Dolgoruki around 1156 on the hill at the confluence of the Moskova and Nieglinnaya rivers (the Alexander Garden now covers the latter). By its layout and its history of transformations (in the 14th century Dimitri Donskoi had an enceinte of logs built, then the first stone wall), it is the prototype of the Kremlin, the citadel at the centre of old Russian towns, such as Pskov, Tula, Kazan or Smolensk.

The influence of the Kremlin style was felt when Rudolfo Fioravanti built the Cathedral of the Dormition (1475-79), and grew stronger with the Granovitaya Palata (Hall of Facets, 1487-91) by Marco Ruffo and Pietro Antonio Solario as well as in the towers of the fortified enceinte, built during the same period by Solario using principles established by Milanese engineers (the Nikolskaya and the Spasskaya both date from 1491). The Renaissance expression was even clearer in the classic capitals and shells of the Church of the Archangel reconstructed from 1505 to 1509 by Alevisio Novi.

Postcards and stamps swap section

Moldova: 2010 Europa set
Moldova: South Africa W.C. set
Romania: WWF set
Waiting for offers.

CHINA: Imperial Tombs of the Ming and Qing Dynasties

Tomb of Ming Dinasty

 The Ming and Qing imperial tombs are outstanding testimony to a cultural and architectural tradition that for over 500 years dominated this part of the world. By reason of their integration into the natural environment, they make up a unique ensemble of cultural landscapes.

From time immemorial, the rulers of China attached great importance to the building of imposing mausolea, reflecting not only the general belief in an afterlife but also an affirmation of authority. When the Ming dynasty came to power (1368), an overall design was adopted. This was characterized by the attempt to achieve great harmony between a natural site meeting certain precise selection criteria and a complex of buildings fulfilling codified functions. The natural site, a plain or broad valley, must offer the perspective of a mountain range to the north, against which the tombs would be built, with a lower elevation to the south. It must be framed on the east and west by chains of hills, and feature at least one waterway. In order to harmonize with the natural setting, a number of buildings are constructed along a main access road several kilometres in length, known as the Way of the Spirits, which may branch off into secondary Ways leading to other mausolea.

An entrance portico with up to five doors marks the beginning of the Way of the Spirits, which subsequently passes through or alongside a number of buildings, in particular a reception pavilion, a pavilion housing the stele of Divine Merits, stone columns and sculptures representing animals, generals and ministers, in pairs. After one or more stone bridges and a Portico of the Dragon and the Phoenix, the sacred way arrives at a complex of buildings that includes a hall of meditation flanked by side pavilions and a Memorial Tower leading to the walled tumulus under which lie the burial chambers. This cultural landscape is imbued with a form of cosmogony that invests it with sacred status.

The Xianling tombs of the Ming dynasty are situated near the town of Zhongxiang, in Hubei Province, over 1,000 km from Beijing. The first work on the mausoleum was carried out by Xing, who planned to be buried there. On genealogical grounds, he was declared Emperor posthumously in 1519. Further work was then undertaken to bring the tomb into harmony with the standards of the Ming dynasty and to create a second tumulus to house the burial chambers of his family, including the empress.

The western Qing tomb contains fourteen imperial tombs and two building complexes: the Yongfu Tibetan Buddhist temple and the temporary palace where the imperial family resided when it came to honour its ancestors. The natural setting is extremely beautiful, in large part owing to the forest of elegant centuries-old pines.

The site of eastern Qing tombs contains 15 mausolea in which 161 bodies were buried - emperors, empresses, concubines and princesses. Among them are the emperors Kangxi and Qianlong, remembered as great sovereigns who actively promoted the development of China, and the Dowager Empress Cixi, who ruled the empire through intermediaries throughout the second half of the 19th century.

GERMANY: Cologne Cathedral

Cologne Cathedral, constructed over more than six centuries, has an exceptional intrinsic value and contains artistic masterpieces. It is a powerful testimony to the strength and persistence of Christian belief in medieval and modern Europe.

Christians met for worship in a private house in Roman Cologne near the city wall. Following the Edict of Milan in 313, when Constantine proclaimed religious freedom, this building was enlarged as a church. Alongside it were an atrium, a baptistry and a dwelling-house, possibly for the bishop. This modest ensemble was extended and enlarged in the following centuries. This immense building, known by the 13th century as 'the mother and master of all churches in Germany', was consecrated in September 70.

Post-Second World War excavations, as well as contemporary documents, provide evidence of its form and decoration - a basilica, with a central nave flanked by two aisles and a large atrium in front of its western facade. A two-storeyed Chapel of the Palatinate, in the style of Charlemagne's chapel in Aachen, was added to the south transept at the beginning of the 11th century, and later that century it was connected by two lofty arcades at the east end with the Collegiate Church of St Mary ad Gradus.

Despite its generous dimensions, this cathedral was found to be too small to accommodate the throngs of pilgrims who visited it after the relics of the Magi were brought there from Milan in 1164. The ambition of Engelbert to make his archiepiscopal cathedral into one of the most important in the Holy Roman Empire led him to urge the construction of an entirely new building, but the start of the work was delayed by his murder in 1225, and it was not until 1248 that work began. In 1560 much of the nave and the four side-aisles had been completed, along with the main structure of the lofty south tower of the west end. Despite numerous efforts, the cathedral remained in an uncompleted state for the following centuries.

When the French seized Cologne in 1794 the Archbishop and Chapter moved to Aachen, and the building was used first for storage of grain and fodder and then as a parish church. Work was to begin again after Cologne passed to Prussia in 1815. Karl Friedrich Schinkel visited the cathedral in 1816 and sent his talented pupil Ernst Friedrich Zwirner there as cathedral architect. The work did not begin, however, until 1840. By 1880 the building was complete, after 632 years and two months.

Cologne Cathedral is a High Gothic five-aisled basilica, with a projecting transept and a two-tower facade. The construction is totally unified. The western section, begun in 1330, changes in style, but this is not perceptible in the overall building. The 19th-century work followed the medieval forms and techniques faithfully. The original liturgical appointments of the choir are still extant to a considerable degree. These include the high altar on an enormous monolithic slab of black marble, the carved-oak choir stalls (1308-11), the painted choir screens (1332-40), the 14 statues on the pillars in the choir (1270-90), and the stained-glass windows, the largest extant cycle of 14th-century windows in Europe. There is an outstanding series of tombs of 12 archbishops between 976 and 1612.

CZECH REPUBLIC: Historic Centre of Prague

   Prague is one of the most beautiful cities in Europe in terms of its setting on both banks of the Vltava River, its townscape of burger houses and palaces punctuated by towers, and its individual buildings.

   The Historic Centre represents a supreme manifestation of Medieval urbanism (the New Town of Emperor Charles IV built as the New Jerusalem). The Prague architectural works of the Gothic Period (14th and 15th centuries), of the High Baroque of the 1st half of the 18th century and of the rising modernism after the year 1900, influenced the development of Central Europe, perhaps even all European architecture. Prague represents one of the most prominent world centres of creative life in the field of urbanism and architecture across generations, human mentality and beliefs.

    Prague belongs to the group of historic cities which have preserved the structure of their development until the present times. Within the core of Prague, successive stages of growth and changes have respected the original grand-scale urban structure of the Early Middle Ages. This structure was essentially and greatly enlarged with urban activities in the High Gothic period with more additions during the High Baroque period and in the 19th century. It has been saved from any large-scale urban renewal or massive demolitions and thus preserves its overall configuration, pattern and spatial composition.

   In the course of the 1100 years of its existence, Prague’s development can be documented in the architectural expression of many historical periods and their styles. The city is rich in outstanding monuments from all periods of its history. Of particular importance are Prague Castle, the Cathedral of St Vitus, Hradćany Square in front of the Castle, the Valdgtejn Palace on the left bank of the river, the Gothic Charles Bridge, the Romanesque Rotunda of the Holy Rood, the Gothic arcaded houses round the Old Town Square, the High Gothic Minorite Church of St James in the Stark Mĕsto, the late 19th century buildings and town plan of the Nave Mĕsto.

As early as the Middle Ages, Prague became one of the leading cultural centres of Christian Europe. The Prague University, founded in 1348, is one of the earliest in Europe. The milieu of the University in the last quarter of the 14th century and the first years of the 15th century contributed among other things to the formation of ideas of the Hussite Movement which represented in fact the first steps of the European Reformation. 

Prague is an urban architectural ensemble of outstanding quality, in terms of both its individual monuments and its townscape, and one that is deservedly world-famous.

SPAIN: Alhambra, Generalife and Albayzín, Granada

   Received thanx to Fabienne.

    
Alhambra: Court of the Arrayanes. Engraved in the 19th century.
  

     Unique artistic creations, the Alhambra and the Generalife of Granada bear exceptional testimony to Muslim Spain of the 16th century. They form an exceptional example of royal Arab residences of the medieval period: neither destroyed nor changed by the alterations of radical restorations, the Alhambra and the Generalife appear to have escaped the vicissitudes of time. Despite the development that followed the Christian conquest, the Albayzín still bears witness to the medieval Moorish settlement, as its urban fabric, architecture and main characteristics (form, materials, colours), were not changed when it was adapted to the Christian way of life, to survive as a remarkable example of a Spanish-Moorish town.
 
Received thanx to Ana

   Archaeological excavations have shown that the hill where the Albayzín is now situated has been occupied continuously from as early as the Roman period. In the mid-8th century the region's governor built a fortress where the Plaza de San Nicolás is now located. After the disappearance of the Caliphate of Cordoba (1031), the ephemeral Zirid Emirate of Granada replaced it until 1090: the emirs devoted themselves to the embellishment of their capital, constructed on a site of exceptional beauty. A new defensive enclosure was added and around this a settlement grew up. The town prospered under the Nasrid dynasty and this was reflected by considerable development of the city, but Granada did not become of the important centres of Muslim Spain until much later - in 1238, when Muhammad ibn al Ahmar founded the present Alhambra.

     The palace was essentially completed in the 14th century by Yusuf I and his son Mohammed V. It is organized around two rectangular courts, the patio de Los Arrayanes and the Patio de Los Lames, and includes a large number of rooms of a highly refined taste, with marble columns, stalactite cupolas, ornamental works in stucco, gaily coloured azulejos , precious wood inlayed and sculpted, and paintings on leather compete with the richness and the delicacy of the natural decor: the water, still and sparkling in immense basins, flows out into the basins of the fountains (the circular fountain of the Court of Lions), glides through narrow canals, and explodes into jets of water or falls in refreshing cascades.

SPAIN: University and Historic Precinct of Alcalá de Henares

  Received thanx to Fabienne.

    

  Alcalá de Henares was the first city to be designed and built solely as the seat of a university, and was to serve as the model for other centres of learning in Europe and the Americas. The concept of the ideal city, the City of God (Civitas Dei ), was first given material expression there, from where it was widely diffused throughout the world.

   Unlike other university cities in Europe, Alcalá de Henares did not develop slowly, adapting itself to its urban surroundings. From the start it was conceived by Cisneros as an entity, which took over a partly abandoned medieval town and converted it into a city whose function was solely that of a university. This involved the creation of houses to lodge professors and students and the provision of services such as a sewer system and paved streets. The little Chapel of St Justus was rebuilt as a church and given the title 'Magistral'. More centres of learning were added progressively: there were eventually to be 25 Colegios Menores, while eight large monasteries were also colleges of the university.

     The primary objective of the university was to train administrators for the Church and for the Spanish Empire. The Complutense Polyglot Bible (1514-17) illustrates the type of work that began in Alcalá: a masterpiece of typography, it took ten years to complete and established the bases of modern linguistic analysis as well as the accepted structure for dictionaries. This work was supported by that of Antonio de Nebrija, author of the first European grammar of a Romance language, published in 1492, which was to be the model for similar grammars in many European and Native American languages. From the mid-17th century, however, the number of students, estimated to have been over 12,000 in the 16th century, begin to decline in favour of Madrid, where the Church had begun to establish university colleges and convents on the Alcalá model. In 1836 the university was transferred to Madrid, where it survives today under the title of the Complutense University of Madrid. In 1974 the university established a School of Economics in Alcalá, and the present University of Alcalá de Henares was inaugurated.

    The University Precinct begins at the Plaza Cervantes and extends to the east of the medieval city. It was enclosed by demolishing part of the earlier medieval walls and prolonging them round the new urban development. The walled medieval precinct has the Iglesia Magistral (cathedral), a Gothic structure, at its core, from which the street network radiates, merging into the former Jewish and Arab quarters. To the north-west is the ecclesiastical precinct, surrounded by its own walls; at its heart is the Archbishop's Palace.

SPAIN: Archaeological Site of Atapuerca

Received thanx to Fabienne.

   The Sierra de Atapuerca sites provide unique testimony of the origin and evolution both of the existing human civilization and of other cultures that have disappeared. The evolutionary line or lines from the African ancestors of modern humankind are documented in these sites. The earliest and most abundant evidence of humankind in Europe is to be found in the Sierra de Atapuerca. The sites constitute an exceptional example of continuous human occupation, due to their special ecosystems and their geographical location. The fossil remains in the Sierra de Atapuerca are an invaluable reserve of information about the physical nature and the way of life of the earliest human communities in Europe.
   The Pleistocene epoch of the Quaternary period is dated to 2.4 million to c 10,000 BP (Note Early dates resulting from scientific dating techniques are expressed as "years BP" - ie years before the conventional date of 1950 on which all radiocarbon dating is based.) The earliest fossil hominid remains in Europe, from c 800,000 BP as established by palaeomagnetic analysis, were found in the Gran Dolina site in the Sierra de Atapuerca, one of the Trinchera del Ferrocarril group. They are associated with simple stone tools of the Pre-Acheulean (Mode I) type, which is consistent with the dating of the earliest levels of this site. Also in the Trinchera del Ferrocarril group of sites are those known as Tres Simas. The oldest human remains from the Galería site have been dated to between 200,000 and 400,000 BP, associated with Acheulean (Mode II) stone tools.

Similar dates have been established for human skeletal remains from the Sima de los Huesos in the Cueva Mayor. The absence of herbivores consumed by humans in this site, where the remains of no fewer than 32 humans have been discovered, suggests that this may have been a mortuary site. If so, it is the earliest yet recorded. The relatively large sample, largely of adolescents and young adults, has permitted a number of important studies to be carried out on the palaeopathology of this population, the growth and development of individuals, and their average size.

ITALY: Residences of the Royal House of Savoy

  Received thanx to LITHTYS

    When Emmanuel-Philibert, Duke of Savoy, moved his capital to Turin in 1562, he began a vast series of building projects (continued by his successors) to demonstrate the power of the ruling house. This outstanding complex of buildings, designed and embellished by the leading architects and artists of the time, radiates out into the surrounding countryside from the Royal Palace in the 'Command Area' of Turin to include many country residences and hunting lodges.
    The relationships and dynastic links that the House of Savoy established with the royal courts in Paris, Lisbon, Madrid, Munich, and Vienna as well as the towns of Italy created a cosmopolitan artistic and cultural milieu at the court of Turin. Emmanuel-Philibert laid the foundations of a court tradition that had not previously existed in Turin. As the two superb volumes of the Theatrum Sabaudiae, published in 1682, demonstrate, the Dukes of Savoy were tireless builders. With ceaseless perseverance, they enriched their family heritage and commissioned internationally famous architects, artists, and gardeners such Ascanio Vitoti, Carlo and Amedeo di Castellamonte, Guarino Guarini, Filippo Juvarra, Michelangelo Garove, Benedetto Altieri, Daniel Seiter, Francesco Solimena, Sebastiano Ricci, Charles Andre Vanloo, Claudio Francesco Beaumont, Francesco Ladatte, Michel Benard, and many others.
    The palace of Venaria was built by Amedeo di Castellamonte in 1675 for Charles Emmanuell II.

AUSTRALIA: Royal Exhibition Building and Carlton Gardens

Received thanx to princessjuju(Julie)

   
     The Royal Exhibition Building and its surrounding Carlton Gardens were designed for the great international exhibitions of 1880 and 1888 in Melbourne. The building and grounds were designed by Joseph Reed. The building is constructed of brick and timber, steel and slate. It combines elements from the Byzantine, Romanesque, Lombardic and Italian Renaissance styles. The property is typical of the international exhibition movement which saw over 50 exhibitions staged between 1851 and 1915 in venues including Paris, New York, Vienna, Calcutta, Kingston (Jamaica) and Santiago (Chile). All shared a common theme and aims: to chart material and moral progress through displays of industry from all nations.