Category Architecture
Chicago – City of architecture
Every time I come to Chicago I think, Oh man, why don’t I live here? Then I remember the horrible winters and my hankering to move to the Midwest dies down — but doesn’t go away completely. Because just look at that skyline! Any city with architecture like Chicago’s merits special consideration. In my opinion, Chicago is the best city […]
All the happy things
I hope everyone had as good a weekend as I did. Here are the highlights: I. There’s nothing like blowing off work on a Saturday afternoon to eat some tasty barbecue with good friends. My original plan had been to spend the bulk of the day working, trying to get a head start on the […]
Party at the Freer
Tonight was the annual welcome reception for associates who joined the firm during the past year. All the new associates are flown in from our various offices around the world, and we throw a fancy party for them and a selected group of older lawyers — mostly the senior “important” people and younger people with […]
Barcelona, Day 2 – Gaudi, Gaudi, Gaudi
Barcelona was an economic powerhouse in the 19th Century, and it had a lot of money for building. At the turn of the century, while Europe was in the midst of the Art Nouveau movement, the Catalan architects in Barcelona decided to take off in their own direction. Antoni Gaudi is the best known of those […]
Valencia, Day 2 – Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias
Just as the Alhambra motivated our visit to Granada, the Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias motivated our trip to Valencia. Built in the late 1990s in the former bed of the Turia river (which ran through downtown Valencia until the 1960s, when it was diverted after major flooding). The uber-modern architecture is exciting […]
Granada – The Generalife
One thing I had read about the Generalife (a summer palace adjacent to the Alhambra) is that the gardens there are the closest thing on this earth to the Koran’s description of heaven. After seeing those gardens, I must say that they make a very good case for converting to Islam. Everything about them is exquisite — the fountains, […]
Granada – Palace of Charles V
As I mentioned in the Alhambra post, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V built a Renaissance palace on the grounds of the Alhambra. The most remarkable feature is the giant circular courtyard (some people think it was meant to have a dome). The Renaissance style is very different from the medieval Islamic architecture of the Alhambra […]
Granada – The Alhambra
The Alhambra is a fortress-palace complex that dates from the 9th century, with the principal buildings and gardens having been built in the 13th and 14th centuries by the Nasrid emirs. After the Christians conquered the region, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (grandson of Ferdinand and Isabella who funded Columbus) added a large Renaissance palace to the site as well. Amanda and […]
Fez, Day 2: Volubilis
By the second century BC, the Roman empire extended through a network of fishing cities in northern Africa. During the last century BC, they established themselves in Volubilis, not far from current-day Fez. The city remained under Roman control until the Berbers drove them out in the 300s AD. The Arabs took over in the 8th […]
Marrakesh, Day 3: Madersa Ben Youssef
The Ali ben Youssef Medersa was built in the 1560s as a school for Quranic learning. The complex of buildings served primarily as a residence hall for the students, since the courses were all taught in the adjoining mosque. It provides some exquisite examples of the architectural and decorative elements we saw yesterday at the 19th century Bahia Palace. Principal […]
A More Gentlemanlike Manner 