Arts travel tips and stories. Vacations ideas, cruises spa and resorts

 

In 1879, French postman Ferdinand Cheval began building a structure that was inspired by the shape of a stone he tripped over one day. He wasn’t a mason and not more an architect and spent 33 years building his “Ideal Palace” using stones he collected on his daily mail route. The Palace was finished in 1912, took over 10,000 days and 93,000 hours to construct.
 

Ferdinand Cheval searching for stones in odd shapes, tree trunks, crown jewels, plates, rings, insects, sea shells, beads, flowers, tubes, horns, fossils and many others. The little stones he could put in his pocket, but large stones he must carry on his back.

 

The palace is considered an extraordinary example of native art architecture. Today, in the village of Hauterives, France, The Palace ideal is a national monument with more of the 120,000 annual visitors.

The National Library of Belarus, Minsk is a curious structure that was just completed in 2006. The library is located in new 72 meter tall building in Minsk. It has 22 floors. There are a number of biblical quotations inscribed on the building’s facade, in Belorussian, Russian, English and Arabic, amongst others.

The complex includes four separate conference rooms: The large conference hall with 500 seats, two round-shaped conference rooms, and a small conference room for private talks.
The local network consists of more than 100 servers and 1,400 personal computers.  Electronic resources comprise 80 databases representing history, culture, the arts of Belarus.

The National Library of Belarus is lit at night in stunning fashion by 4646 color-changing  fixtures. The authors suggested hiding the light sources behind the glass to create an illusion of a giant color display. One controller manages up to four STAR fixtures and consists of LED drivers, brightness control, diagnostics, and communication modules.

 Cubic House, Rotterdam, Netherlands 

One of the major attractions in the Rotterdam architecture are the Cubic Houses. The cubes are tilted and sit on hexagon-shaped structures.These are 39 cube-shaped dwellings, built in 1984 by Piet Biom, which are still inhabited. The living areas are divisions into three levels – the triangle-shaped lower level contains the living area, the middle level contains the sleeping area and a bathroom, and the top level is used a bedroom and relax place, offers a great view since the apex.

The Ufo House, Sanjhin, Taiwan 

This is an abandoned resort in Sanjhih - small town on the North coast of Taiwan, that locals call “UFO House”. It was built as a holiday resort in the 1970s, by a keeper of a rubber company. It was costs 7-8 hundred million new Taiwan dollars. They planed to make it 5 stars resort hotel with the first yacht dock in the North coast of Taiwan.  However, the rubber company closed down in the energy crisis in 1980.

The hole hotel, Texas, USA 

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Mammy’s Cupboard, Natchez, MS

Mammy’s Cupboard is located only a few miles from Natchez, MS, USA. It’s a restaurant built inside a 28-foot tall black woman’s skirt. “She” is 28 feet tall, and “she” has a 20-foot diameter skirt. Mammy was built by Henry Gaude in 1940 and has endured cycles of decay and restoration. The restaurant is open for lunch Tuesday through Saturday, 11 am to 2 pm.

The Public Library, Kansas, USA

The Newton Public Library is located in Newton, Kansas at 720 North Oak Street, in Military Park. This public library in Kansas City is made to look like a giant bookshelf.
Open hours: Monday – Thursday 9 a.m. – 9 p.m. and Friday – Saturday 9 a.m. – 6 p.m.

“House Attack” by Erwin Wurm, Vienna.

Wurm’s most recent work – “House Attack” was opening at 19 October, 2006 in Vienna, Austria. It’s a family-home, which hits the facade of the museum like a “bombs”. Erwin Wurm said: “House attack is a symbol for an everyday occurrence as well as small-mindedness”.

The Museum of Applied Arts contains one of Budapest’s most interesting art collections. The Museum was the third museum to be built in Europe after fellow institutions in London (1857) and Vienna (1864). This beautiful building was designed by Odön Lechner and completed in 1896. It houses a number of interesting exhibitions with a permanent display of arts and crafts and furniture in the upstairs area.

The building is characterized by the oriental ornamentation of early secession. The harmony of function, high artistic standards and unique forms is secured by modern static structures. The breath-taking exterior includes colorful tiled towers, stained-glass domes and mosaic floral motifs – all typical features of secessionist architecture, the most popular building style during Budapest’s heyday in the late 19th and early 20th C.

Permanent exhibitions:
- Textiles – Eastern carpets, French silks, needleworks, laces, medieval chasuble.
- Ceramics – Old porcelains from Herend and from world-famous ceramic guilds.
- Furniture – Signed French furniture from the 18th C., valuable, old musical instruments.
- Goldsmith works – Gold, silver, bronze, copper, metal works, including Renaissance and Baroque silver works of art, masterpieces of the Esterha’zy-treasury.

Opening hours:
Every day: 10am – 6pm
Closed on Mondays!