Archive for the ‘architecture’ Category

2011 SAQA Auction Quilt

Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011

This 12″ square textile, just completed but as yet untitled,  is my offering for this year’s SAQA Benefit Auction  At this link you can see some of the early submissions to this year’s auction list, and find full details of how you can particpate and acquire a fine small art quilt for your textile or quilt collection  (I suggest mine of course! )

The Auction will run online from September 12th to October 2nd.

This piece fits in with the Timetracks series, and yet I think I may have another title in mind, but am thinking it over.  No rush.

Architectural Oddities Department

Wednesday, January 14th, 2009


About this time of year I often publish an architectural or structural oddity, normally something I have noticed on our travels. Sometimes I have found actual follies, but that’s too strong a term for this one, really. It’s a new house near the town of Piriapolis, Uruguay, where we have just enjoyed some seaside and beach time with visiting family.

It reminds me of those pre-calculator day things called ‘slide rules’ – my DH was old enough to have had and used one, I didn’t, probably because I didn’t get enough involved in mathematics, and then calculators began to appear not too long after that. They are a mystery to me, but watching my father use one, I do recall how they involved sliding one part with numbers or symbols back and forth against gradations on another part – sliding the pieces apart or back together – to get some kind of answer to some kind of question …. anyway, this reminds me of them. they’re actually a real collector’s item right now.

So, it seems the house has been “pulled a bit apart” to reveal the first floor deck, which is clearly the chief outdoor area. So far, anyway.

This is the back, from a bit further up the hill. I don’t know the people, so can’t be sure, but with the absence of a chimney up on the deck it would seem the essential outdoor BBQ, aka the parilla, is not up there but somewhere lower down, maybe along near the car somewhere. It would have to have been part of the essential planning – everyone has one and everyone uses theirs, often.

Just note how dry the grass surrounding the house is. The whole country is tinderbox dry, and no sign of rain. Fires either deliberately lit or ones that escaped from campsites were fanned by strong winds late last week, resulting in a lot of property damage and some loss of life. At least one person has been imprisoned, other charges may follow. There is no open fire ban law like most parts of Australia, but considering the huge number of eucalypts, introduced, and now all over the country, this is something Uruguayans should be looking at. There are disasters waiting to happen here.

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Architectural Oddities – A Tasmanian Folly

Wednesday, July 30th, 2008

On a wet windy and really cold sunday during my recent visit to Australia, I was sunday driving with an aunt from Launceston, Tasmania…. where I was born and bred. I always enjoy going back. When we were very young, back in the ’50’s, sunday drives after sunday lunch with our grandmother and aunts were a bit of a family tradition. In those days not too many people had family cars and each drive was quite an expedition. The routes were often repeated – but we loved them anyway. Sometimes we had an icecream or a snowball en route, quite often we stopped for a case of apples or some veggies from someone’s farm or dropped in at more or less afternoon teatime to some family friend or vaguely distant relation of my grandmother’s. When you consider it is not altogether joking to comment that Tasmanians are all related to each other somehow, this pretty well covers anyone third generation or longer on the island …. and most back then also had some connection to the land, just as people still do here in Uruguay.

Anyway time’s moved on, and this time it was me sunday driving my aunt. We’d actually had to stop first at the airport out that way to collect a small extra bag I’d completely forgotten I’d checked in Perth WA, containing overflow items, complicated by having to collect up several quilts I hadn’t started with when I left Montevideo. A bit of a worry – but, by the time I realised, on reaching my hotel about half an hour after landing, the airline’s airport office had closed. A small place, Lonnie, and I didn’t worry, knowing they’d be safely secured for the night; and sure enough someone was phoning me by 7am the next morning . So with that collected, we continued on. First town past the airport is Evandale, where we happily browsed some time in an antique shop with a cosy fire in the front room of a beautiful old, very old, early colonial building – very Jane Austenish in character. (some lacey little bits I bought will be subject of another post) after which we had a nice lunch at the local bakery. Continuing on just after lunch, this one really stopped me in my tracks, and despite the freezing wet windy weather I just had to get out and capture a pic for my ongoing series on follies and such. A worthy addition. QED.

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Montevideo Architectural Gems

Tuesday, March 27th, 2007

The architecture in Montevideo includes some very beautiful buildings, many of them from the heyday of the Art Deco style. My regular readers know DH and I have a thing for this period. Along with the buildings there’s a lot of beautiful antique furniture from the period in the many antique shops and auctions. Montevideo is a popular source area for collectors in other parts of the world, since there was a lot of wealth here here at that time, and much of the best europe had to offer was imported. By the same process, today the young people here want whatever modern stuff the rest of the world has; and all but the very savvy ones are ignoring the Art Deco treasures around them. Mind you, I am a fan of drop dead modern design as long as it comes with comfort, which the best does, and imho current sleek modern furniture styles can be quite compatible with art deco pieces, well they are in our own living room, anyway!

If I know I am going to be out and about with some time to visit a fav street I try to remember to take my trusty little digital camera along. Boulivar España is one of the most stylish streets in the whole Pocitos area which itself is rich with such gems once you move back from the apartments blocks along the Rambla. I recently took this pic in late afternoon light beautifully highlighting the intricate trims and decorations on these two houses. Sadly it is often impossible to get a picture without power poles or wires intruding.

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Architectural oddities dept.

Saturday, June 24th, 2006

Close to the downtown area, this really caught my eye and I found myself wondering what it would feel like to occupy one of these apartments without even a small balcony,
front or back. it stands on a very narrow triangular block where roads converge or diverge depending on your point of view.

We had a force 3 hurricane here in Montevideo nearly a year ago – I just feel the slender construction of this building might have made that an even more unpleasant time for the occupants than for those of us in buildings of a larger footprint/height ratio. Posted by Picasa

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