Home Posts tagged "architecture" (Page 10)

Tag: architecture

Puzzle: Via dell’Amore by Rod Chase


Size: 500 pieces
Dimensions: 48.26cm x 35.56cm
Producer: The Canadian Group, Sure-Lox
Artist: Rod Chase
Video: The Love Story behind Via dell’Amore
Notes: The Cinque Terre towns were extremely isolated until the last century. Villagers rarely married anyone from outside their town. After the blasting of the second train line in the 1920s, a trail was made between the first two towns: Riomaggiore and Manarola. A gunpowder warehouse was built along the way, safely away from the townspeople. (That building is today’s Bar dell’Amore.)

Happy with the trail, the villagers asked that it be improved as a permanent connection between neighbors. But persistent landslides kept the trail closed more often than it was open. After World War II, the trail was reopened, and became established as a lovers’ meeting point for boys and girls from the two towns. (After one extended closure in 1949, the trail was reopened for a Christmas marriage.) A journalist, who noticed all the amorous graffiti along the path, coined the trail’s now-established name, Via dell’Amore: “Pathway of Love.” [Smithsonian.com site]

Puzzle: Sagrada Familia


Size: 141 pieces (101 crescents, 40 border edges)
Dimensions: 43.18cm x 66.04cm
Producer: Imagination Project, Panda Enterprises, Tesselz, Crescent series
Notes: The Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família (English: Basilica and Expiatory Church of the Holy Family), commonly known as the Sagrada Família, is a large Roman Catholic church in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, designed by Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí (1852–1926). Although incomplete, the church is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. [Wiki]

Tesselz is a new series of jigsaw puzzles where the SHAPE of the pieces is as important as the image itself! Tesselz have unusual shaped pieces that “tessellate” or tile together every way you turn them, adding a unique twist to jigsaw puzzles.

The brain-teasing twist of Tesselz’s repeating identical shapes will revolutionize the way you’ll think of puzzles. No longer is fitting shapes together enough – you need to take a good look at the lines, colors, and patterns to get the right pieces in place! The curious nooks and details of this wondrous architectural master-piece ensure a fun and thrilling challenge. [Puzzle box]

Crescent Series Notes: The emphasis on structure within the puzzle’s design ties perfectly to the thematic link of this series: Designs in Architecture. Take our selected image here as one example and then begin to see on your own how the elements of geometry, symmetry, and asymmetry have been utilized throughout history in the buildings and structures erected by man, to form monuments of enduring and inspiring beauty.

The designer, Dr. Haresh Lalvani, based in the field of architecture is a leading researcher in morphology. He is known for his use of higher dimensions as a means of visualizing new geometries for architecture and mapping transforming structures. He is a tenured professor at the School of Architecture at the Pratt Institute, where he has been teaching since 1970. Today, he continues his exploration of advanced geometry at the Pratt Institute and as an artist-in-residence at the Cathedral of St.John the Divine in New York. [Puzzle box]

Sagrada Facts – Did you know??

  • The Sagrada Familia is one of the longest running construction projects under way in the world today.
  • In the Middle Ages, cathedrals routinely took centuries to build.
  • The tower representing Christ, which has not been built yet, is shown in some drawings to be nearly twice the height of the existing towers.
  • Construction is being aided today by computer-guided saws that can chisel granite in one-sixth of the time it takes by hand.

[Puzzle box]

Puzzle: La Santorini, Greece


Size: 1000 pieces
Dimensions: 51.12cm x 66.52cm
Producer: MB Puzzles, Big Ben
Notes: Santorini (Greek: Σαντορίνη) is a volcanic island located in the southern Aegean Sea, about 200 km southeast from Greece’s mainland. A giant central lagoon, more or less rectangular, and measuring about 12 by 7 km, is surrounded by 300 m high steep cliffs on three sides. The island slopes downward from the cliffs to the surrounding Aegean Sea. On the fourth side, the lagoon is separated from the sea by another much smaller island called Therasia; the lagoon merges with the sea in two places, in the northwest and southwest. The water in the centre of the lagoon is nearly 400 m deep, thus making it a safe harbour for all kinds of shipping. The island’s harbours all lie in the lagoon and there are no ports on the outer perimeter of the island; the capital, Fira, clings to the top of the cliff looking down on the lagoon. [Wiki]

Puzzle: Plaza de España, Spain

Plaza de Espana, med
Size: 1000 pieces
Dimensions: 73cm x 48.6cm
Producer: Impressions, Sure-Lox
Notes: The Plaza de España is a building in Maria Luisa Park, in Seville, Spain built in 1928 for the Ibero-American Exposition of 1929. It is a landmark example of the Renaissance Revival style in Spanish architecture. The Plaza de España, designed by Aníbal González, was a principal building built on the Maria Luisa Park’s edge to showcase Spain’s industry and technology exhibits. González combined a mix of 1920s Art Deco and ‘mock Mudejar’, and Neo-Mudéjar styles. The Plaza de España  complex is a huge half-circle with buildings continually running around the edge accessible over the moat by numerous beautiful bridges. In the centre is a large fountain. By the walls of the Plaza are many tiled alcoves, each representing a different province of Spain. [Wiki]

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Puzzle: Architecture, Puri, India by Jim Zuckerman


Size: 1000 pieces
Dimensions: 73cm x 48.5cm
Producer: Sure-Lox
Painting: photo
Artist: Jim Zuckerman left his medical studies in 1970 to pursue his love of photography and turn it into a career. He has taught creative photography at many universities and private schools… The work of Jim Zuckerman has been used for packaging, advertising and editorial layouts in more than forty countries. He has been published in calendars, posters, greeting cards and corporate brochures and annual reports, and his work is also sold as fine art prints in scores of furniture store outlets across the United States. [Jim Zuckerman site]

Notes: Puri is a city situated about 60 kilometres south of state capital Bhubaneswar, on the eastern coast of the Bay of Bengal in the Indian state of Odisha. It is also known as Jagannath Puri after the Jagannath Temple (built in the late eleventh century). It is a holy city of the Hindus as a part of the Char Dham pilgrimages. It is considered that a pilgrimage of the temples of India is not complete without making the journey to Puri. [Wiki]

Puzzle: Catherine Palace, Pushkin, Russia


Size: 1000 pieces
Dimensions: 51.12cm x 66.52cm
Producer: MB Puzzles, Big Ben
Notes: The Catherine Palace (Russian: Екатерининский дворец) was the Rococo summer residence of the Russian tsars, located in the town of Tsarskoye Selo (Pushkin), 25 km south-east of St. Petersburg, Russia.

The residence originated in 1717, when Catherine I of Russia engaged the German architect Johann-Friedrich Braunstein to construct a summer palace for her pleasure. In 1733, Empress Anna commissioned Mikhail Zemtsov and Andrei Kvasov to expand the Catherine Palace. Empress Elizabeth, however, found her mother’s residence outdated and incommodious and in May 1752 asked her court architect Bartolomeo Rastrelli to demolish the old structure and replace it with a much grander edifice in a flamboyant Rococo  style. Construction lasted for four years and on 30 July 1756 the architect presented the brand-new 325-meter-long palace to the Empress, her dazed courtiers and stupefied foreign ambassadors. [Wiki]

Puzzle: Le passage by Vadik Suljakov

Le passage, med
Size: 750 pieces
Dimensions: 59.70cm x 39.37cm
Producer: Sure-Lox
Painting: photo
Notes: Since arriving in the United States over a decade ago, master Russian artist Vadik Suljakov (pronounced Shul-ya-kov) has established himself as one of the most distinguished young impressionists in the country. Suljakov, born in the cultural center of Moscow in 1960, comes from an intellectual family with many generations of artists and writers. [Monsoon Gallery]

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Puzzle: Bremen, Germany


Size: 500 pieces, 3 missing
Dimensions: 35cm x 48cm
Producer: Canada Games, Windsor
Location: The City Municipality of Bremen is a Hanseatic city in northwestern Germany. A commercial and industrial city with a major port on the river Weser, Bremen is part of the Bremen-Oldenburg metropolitan area (2.4 million people). Bremen is the second most populous city in North Germany and tenth in Germany.

Bremen is connected with a fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm, the Town Musicians of Bremen, although they never actually reach Bremen in the tale. [Wiki]

Puzzle: Chambord Château


Size: 1000 pieces
Dimensions: 73cm x 48.5cm
Producer: Sure-Lox
Notes: The royal Château de Chambord at Chambord, Loir-et-Cher, France is one of the most recognizable châteaux in the world because of its very distinct French Renaissance architecture that blends traditional French medieval forms with classical Italian structures.

The building, which was never completed, was constructed by King François I in part to be near to his mistress the Comtesse de Thoury, Claude Rohan, wife of Julien de Clermont, a member of a very important family of France, whose domaine, the château de Muides, was adjacent. Her arms figure in the carved decor of the château. [Wiki]

Puzzle: Machu Picchu, Peru


Size: 750 pieces
Dimensions: 86.36 cm x 30.48 cm
Producer: Panorific, Sure-Lox
Box: photo
Notes: Machu Picchu is a pre-Columbian 15th-century Inca site located 2,430 metres  above sea level. It is situated on a mountain ridge above the Urubamba Valley in Peru, which is 80 kilometres northwest of Cusco and through which the Urubamba River flows. Most archaeologists believe that Machu Picchu was built as an estate for the Inca emperor Pachacuti (1438–1472). Often referred to as “The Lost City of the Incas”, it is perhaps the most familiar icon of the Inca World.

The Incas started building the “estate” around AD 1400 but abandoned it as an official site for the Inca rulers a century later at the time of the Spanish Conquest. Although known locally, it was unknown to the outside world before being brought to international attention in 1911 by the American historian Hiram Bingham. [Wiki]

Puzzle: Twilight in the Park by Rod Chase


Size: 500 pieces
Dimensions: 48.26cm x 35.56cm
Producer:  The Canadian Group, Sure-Lox
Artist: Rod Chase, Photorealist
Painting: Twilight in Central Park
Notes: Rod Chase is known to his collectors for producing photo-realism at its finest. The talented artist says, “Being a photorealist, I am dependent on finding accurate reference material for each painting.” Chase works with acrylics on canvas, spending hundreds of hours on each painting with the ultimate goal of presenting a fresh, unique, and elegant approach to familiar subjects. The detail in each painting is remarkable, but the mood each is equally impressive. [Rod Chase site]

Puzzle: Golden Gate Park, San Francisco


Size: 1000 pieces
Dimensions: 73cm x 48.5cm
Producer: Impressions, Sure-Lox
Notes: Golden Gate Park, located in San Francisco, California, is a large urban park consisting of 412 ha of public grounds. Configured as a rectangle, it is similar in shape but 20% larger than Central Park in New York, to which it is often compared. It is over 5 km long east to west, and about half a mile north to south. With 13 million visitors annually, Golden Gate is the third most visited city park in the United States after Central Park in New York City and Lincoln Park in Chicago.

The 2 ha Japanese Tea Garden is the oldest public Japanese garden in the United States. The garden was designed by Makoto Hagiwara for the California Midwinter International Exposition of 1894, including still-standing features such as the Drum Bridge and the tea house. Subsequent additions included a pagoda and Zen garden. It is the site of the introduction of the fortune cookie to America. [Wiki]

Puzzle: Notre-Dame Basilica of Montreal


Size: 1000 pieces
Dimensions: 73cm x 48.5cm
Producer:  Sure-Lox, Impressions series
Location: site
Notes: Notre-Dame Basilica (French: Basilique Notre-Dame de Montréal) is a basilica in the historic district of Old Montreal, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The church is located at 110 Notre-Dame Street West, at the corner of Saint Sulpice Street. It is located next to the Saint-Sulpice Seminary and faces the Place d’Armes square.

The church’s Gothic Revival architecture is among the most dramatic in the world; its interior is grand and colourful, its ceiling is coloured deep blue and decorated with golden stars, and the rest of the sanctuary is a polychrome of blues, azures, reds, purples, silver, and gold. It is filled with hundreds of intricate wooden carvings and several religious statues. Unusual for a church, the stained glass windows along the walls of the sanctuary do not depict biblical scenes, but rather scenes from the religious history of Montreal. It also has a Casavant Frères pipe organ, which comprises four keyboards, 97 stops, over 9000 individual pipes and a pedal board. [Wiki]

Puzzle: The Old Town, Cracow, Poland


Size: 1000 pieces
Notes: Kraków Old Town is the historic central district of Kraków, Poland. It is one of the most famous old districts in Poland today and was the center of Poland’s political life until King Sigismund III Vasa relocated his court to Warsaw in 1596. Medieval Kraków was surrounded by a 3 km defensive wall complete with 46 towers and seven main entrances leading through them. The fortifications around the Old Town were erected over the course of two centuries. In the 19th century most of the Old Town fortifications were demolished. The moat encircling the walls was filled in and turned into a green belt known as Planty Park. [Wiki]

Puzzle: Pabellon Mudejar, Sevilla, Spain


Size: 750 pieces
Dimensions: 59.37cm x 39.4cm
Producer:  Sure-Lox, Impressions series
Location: site
Notes: The Museum of Arts and Traditions of Sevilla is a museum in Seville, Andalusia, Spain, located in the María Luisa Park, across the Plaza de América from the Provincial Archeological Museum. The museum occupies the Mudéjar Pavilion (Pabellón Mudéjar) designed by Aníbal González and built in 1914. The exterior is ceramic over brick, and has three doors with archivolts adorned with glazed tiles (azulejos). [Wiki]