CNN: Inside Europe's stunning abandoned churches

 Across Europe, hundreds of churches that were once filled with worship and song are now at the mercy of the elements. With religion's role declining sharply around the continent in recent decades, the most promising outcome for many of these centuries-old structures is being reincarnated as residential or commercial properties.

Hoping to capture their faded splendor before it's too late, French photographer Francis Meslet has spent almost a decade documenting abandoned churches, chapels and priories in varying states of disrepair. His stunning images show dilapidated pipe organs, overgrown cloisters, long-empty pews and sunlight pouring into naves strewn with dust and rubble. [...]

Featuring images shot across France, Belgium, Germany, Italy and Portugal, his new book, "Abandoned Churches: Unclaimed Places of Worship," offers an eerie tribute to a building type he describes as "very special in the history of architecture and the history of men." Meslet, who once wanted to be architect, has a sharp eye for structural symmetry, with his collection spanning styles from gothic to neoclassical.

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Conscientious Photography Magazine: The Print, the book, the screen

On their own, photographs have no meanings. Actually, even to talk about photographs “on their own” makes very little sense. We always see photographs in some context. We never see photographs outside of any context. One could argue that latent photographs exist “on their own”. But here, I don’t want to deal with the metaphysics of photography. [...]

For example, once digital photography had become widely established, there were a lot of things you could do easily that in the analogue world were very difficult and that often carried negative connotations. A good approach would have been to simply accept the fact that digital photographs can be “manipulated” easily and in a large variety of ways — instead of sticking with photographic orthodoxy and worrying about the supposed ill effects of manipulation. [...]

Obviously, it doesn’t help that the commercial world of photography — galleries and collectors — just love the idea of the unique object. If it’s not fully unique (most photographs simply aren’t — they can be made in any number), then they will have to be artificially limited: editions. [...]

It might help to consider the case of literature: a book in its original language isn’t the same as a translated one. In fact, there are different schools of translation, and as far as I understand it, the jury is still out what exactly is meant by the term ” a good translation”. Is it a translation that stays as close as possible to the original, even if the two languages operate quite differently? Or is it a translation that stays close to the spirit of the book, while making good use of the language it’s translated into?

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Architizer: The Power of Tradition: Russia Unveils a Massive Cathedral Dedicated to the Military

The Russian Revival style of architecture, which combines historical details with modern building materials and techniques, remains popular in Russia. In fact, one of the largest and most ambitious buildings ever created in this style was just opened last month.

The Main Cathedral of the Russian Armed Forces is dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the Red Army’s Victory in the Great Patriotic War, which is what Russians call World War II. In addition to being a place of worship for practitioners of the Russian Orthodox faith, the cathedral is a monument to Russian military might, both in World War II and in all other historical conflicts where Russian armies prevailed. [...]

Clearly, the church was built with the intention that it would stand alongside St. Basil’s and other important Orthodox cathedrals as a significant Russian landmark. When the project was announced, in 2018, Russian President Vladimir Putin said it would be “one more symbol of the indestructibility of our national traditions, of our loyalty to the memory of our forefathers and their achievements,” according to a report in the Times of London. [...]

The dimensions of the church are symbolic. The diameter of the drum of the main dome is 19.45 meters, symbolizing the final year of World War II, 1945. The belfry is 75 meters heigh, representing the 75 years that have passed between 1945 and 2020, the year of the church’s consecration. And finally, the height of the small dome is 14.18 meters, reflecting the 1,418 days and nights that the conflict lasted. The steps to the cathedral are rumored to be clad in metal sourced from melted-down Nazi tanks.

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Deutsche Welle: In search of identity: The new generation of photo artists from China

The Alexander Tutsek Foundation is now showing "About Us," an exhibition of contemporary photography from China, with works by internationally renowned artists such as Chen Wei, Ren Hang and Yang Fudong, as well as names that are still largely unknown outside China, such as Gao Mingxi and Liang Xiu.

Seventy photographs from the last 20 years by 14 Chinese artists are presented in the show — works reacting to the radical changes in Chinese society.

The themes of this new generation of artists revolve around self-perception, subjective experiences, and daily life. They look at memory and history, melancholy and resistance, dreams and visions, the body and individuality — and the common denominator for all of them is the search for their own identity. How can one anchor oneself in a country that is changing as rapidly as China?

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The Guardian: Berlin's battle scars remain 75 years after end of WWII – in pictures

8 May marks the 75th anniversary of the end of the second world war in Europe. Parts of the destruction that resulted from the fight for Berlin are still visible decades later.

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Business Insider: People in Wales are creating witty travel posters encouraging visitors to stay away

While the United Kingdom remains in lockdown, there have been reports of day-trippers still visiting the country.

In an attempt to discourage travel and give people a laugh, Owen Williams designed witty posters. [...]

The idea sparked when the country's tourism body, Visit Wales, tweeted out: "Visit Wales. Later."

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VICE: Photos of the Most Egregious 'Anti-Homeless' Architecture

At its core, hostile or "defensive" architecture amounts to a forever campaign waged, consciously or otherwise, by designers, landlords, and developers to force people to use property in exactly one way. Sometimes, the end result isn't exactly a tragedy; skaters might have to go somewhere else, for instance. But in its most malignant form, hostile architecture can deter homeless folks from resting. In those cases, public or quasi-public spaces of cities—often defined by unequal access to transit, groceries, and other essentials—become a visceral extension of society's collective disregard for their fate. [...]

Previously, when asked about their strategy for managing public spaces, a spokesperson for the California Department of Transportation (DOT)—which had placed boulders where folks once camped in the Bay Area—said they "use fencing and landscaping elements to prevent and discourage.... illegal encampments." It’s worth noting that many people sleeping outdoors within U.S. city limits are doing so illegally, although due to the 2018 Martin v. Boise court decision, they might not be punished for doing so on public property unless the city in question provides adequate indoor space. It's still unclear what this decision will mean to the estimated 550,000 homeless people in the country, nor the growing population in the Bay Area, which has massively increased over the past two years. [...]

As "hostile architecture" posts have in the past, the story blew up for a few days on social media—until the Coalition deleted their original, having determined the restaurant was "a valued member" of the community and "supportive of its homeless neighbors." That may be true, as the business explicitly denied anti-homeless intent, pointing to the rock as part of a Japanese garden. And this isn't the place for a debate about whether or not businesses are in the right or wrong even if they do choose to shoo homeless people away. Because when it comes to hostile architecture, it's more important to realize the effects than the intent, whether aesthetic or otherwise. And you can't do that without knowing what it looks like.

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BoredPanda: Teacher Stumbles Upon Baby Bears ‘Dancing’ In Finland Forest, Thinks He’s Imagining It

“The cubs behaved like little children,” Valtteri told Bored Panda. “They were playing, and even started a few friendly fights. I felt like I was on a playground in front of my house, where small children frolic around. That’s how much they reminded me of little children. At one point, the three of them got up on their hind legs and started pushing each other. It was like they were dancing in a circle.” [...]

Like the cubs have successfully proven us, bears are agile and strong. They use their forelegs very effectively for both hunting and getting around. Moreover, they’re very good swimmers and climbers. Basically, they’re the whole package. [...]

However, the fact that Valtteri managed to get such clear shots of the family is really fascinating. Bear will typically try to avoid humans as best as they can. Humans rarely see them in the wild since these animals almost always retreat immediately after detecting our presence. Keen senses and the ability to move silently make them perfect at this game of hide and seek.

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RareHistoricalPhotos: The last public execution by guillotine, 1939

Rather then react with solemn observance, the crowd behaved rowdily, using handkerchiefs to dab up Weidmann’s blood as souvenirs. Paris-Soir denounced the crowd as “disgusting”, “unruly”, “jostling, clamoring, whistling”. The unruly crowd delayed the execution beyond the usual twilight hour of dawn, enabling clear photographs and one short film to be taken.

After the event the authorities finally came to believe that “far from serving as a deterrent and having salutary effects on the crowds” the public execution “promoted baser instincts of human nature and encouraged general rowdiness and bad behavior”. The “hysterical behavior” by spectators was so scandalous that French president Albert Lebrun immediately banned all future public executions. [...]

Compared to many forms of capital punishment practiced to this day, the guillotine remains one of the best if we are judging based on pain and “cleanness”. In fact, the guillotine was developed with the idea of creating the most humane way to execute people. The condemned don’t feel pain, death is almost instantaneous and there are very few ways for things to be botched. The head of the victim remains alive for about 10-13 seconds, depending on the glucose and blood levels in his brain at the time. However, the head is believed to be more than likely knocked unconscious by the force of the blow and blood loss.

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The Calvert Journal: Tashkent's first documentary photo gallery is striking out into new and untested waters

Following the death of president Islam Karimov in 2016, Uzbekistan has liberalised some of its social, economic, and political life. Meaningful change, however, still needs time to take root. In a country where visual art is nascent and official censorship still exists, encouraging free expression is a crucial yet often risky task. The 139 Gallery, therefore, is a badly needed forerunner. [...]

But Karpov’s vision is wider than the 139 Gallery. Apart from showcasing the work of local and foreign artists, the space will also provide a platform for discussions about art, social and cultural issues, and the changing reality of Uzbekistan. “Our goal is to build a space where everyone — artists, journalists, filmmakers, communities, and the government — everyone can work together on issues that concern us. It will be a place of dialogue. I have chosen art as a kind of mediator,” he says.

Karpov believes that out of all the visual arts, documentary photography is uniquely positioned to help Uzbek society start to discuss issues facing the country today, as well as to act as a stepping stone to open up new forms of art. “The moment you start doing something uncommon, there are always misunderstandings and criticism from society,” Karpov says. “But from my experience, when you show people documentary photography, very true photography, in which they see the reflection of their own lives, they understand. They see it as part of their being. This is what is so great about documentary photography.”

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Creative Boom: Photographs of abandoned factories and industry in the former Soviet state of Georgia

Koopmans and Wexell visited some of the country's most striking industrial sites and found a fascinating collision of the past and present. "Many places seem to be frozen in time," says Koopmans. "It's as if the machines have suddenly stopped working and as if the workers left from one day to the next.

"Some question the beauty and value of these places, as they come with a history that many, especially Georgians, find to be very problematic. However when you look at them as archeological relics, as indicators of a unique past in place and time, there's an interest that draws us to photograph them before they disappear forever."

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The Guardian: When Soviets met Stans: the tower blocks of central Asia – in pictures (3 May 2019)

Shares 544 Two Italian photographers, Roberto Conte and Stefano Perego, documented Soviet-era buildings in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan – and saw how Eastern characteristics crept into the brutal USSR designs.

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The Calvert Journal: Central Asia's unique Soviet architecture in all its brutal glory

The photographs in this book highlight the distinctive architecture created in the towns and cities of Central Asia during the final decades of the Soviet regime, featuring buildings that embody the ideas of modernity that were arriving from far-distant Moscow. Soviet residential buildings tend to have two distinct characteristics: first, although varied in style, they are standardised and mass-produced; second, they are decorated with motifs intended to reflect local culture and the national folklore of the various republics. The standardised nature of these buildings conforms to the Soviet political project: to create the same living conditions in every city, from the Baltic states to the Pacific, from the shores of the northern seas to the border with Afghanistan.

The mass construction of large blocks of flats began only during the last 30 years of the Soviet Union and Soviet ‘modernity’ was therefore largely confined to city centres and industrial areas. For the city-dwellers of Central Asia, the prospect of living in immense standardised residential buildings held little appeal. Large families, used to homes where three generations lived together in neighbourhoods with close community bonds, could not adapt to the small apartments of the new Soviet housing blocks. As a result, areas with different characteristics coexisted in many cities and a considerable proportion of the population, although involved in Soviet public life, remained attached to their old family homes.

The capitals of the five Central Asian Republics had particularly large areas that conformed to Soviet planning directives. Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan, was badly damaged by an earthquake in 1948 and was rebuilt in Soviet style. Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, suffered an earthquake in 1966 that destroyed many of its older quarters, providing an opportunity for widespread reconstruction using mass-produced buildings. Cities such as Navoiy in Uzbekistan and various smaller towns in Kazakhstan, that had been completely rebuilt or were newly constructed to meet the needs of those employed in mining or in fertiliser production for cotton cultivation, closely followed the Soviet model.

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99 Percent Invisible: The Kirkbride Plan

Today, there are more than a hundred abandoned asylums in the United States, many of them not all that different from Buffalo State. It’s one of the reasons we’re all so familiar with the idea of the big empty asylum in the woods. Few stop to wonder where all these structures came from, but, in fact, all of this was part of a treatment regimen developed by a singular Philadelphia doctor, a physician who was obsessed with architecture and how it could be harnessed therapeutically to cure those who’d become insane. [...]

In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, when someone was deemed insane, it was often thought to be the person’s own fault. “The assumption was they were […] forsaken by God or they were possessed by demons or they had done something to deserve to be in such a desperate condition,” says Carla Yanni, an architectural historian at Rutgers and author of the book The Architecture of Madness: Insane Asylums in the United States. She says that what happened to someone labeled insane in the early 19th century would have depended mostly on their class. Wealthy families often kept insane relatives at home or paid for them to live in private madhouses. Poorer people fared worse. They were cast out alone, and a lot of them ended up in jails or hospices. [...]

By the mid 20th century, the buildings had become overcrowded. Buffalo’s asylum, which was was designed for 600 was treating 3,600 patients in house. The state mental hospitals constructed during the early 20th century grew even larger, resembling institutional buildings, even prisons, the very thing Kirkbride had wanted to avoid. The largest, Pilgrim State Hospital on Long Island, at one point housed over 14,000 patients. By 1955, over half a million Americans were confined in state mental hospitals.

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BBC: In pictures: Thousands join Pride parade in Taiwan

More than 2,000 same-sex couples have married since then, and many of them took part in Saturday's festival, one of the largest Pride events in the region.

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The Calvert Journal: Bucharest modernism

Many of the houses in Anghel’s collection are designed by Marcel Janco, one of the founders of the Dadaist art movement. Janco and his Romanian contemporaries trained in Zurich, Paris, and Vienna before bringing International Style back home to Bucharest. Their repertoire is simple: flat roofs, layered cuboid shapes, porthole windows, glass brick, rounded corners. Some of the houses incorporate more traditional or art deco features. But generally speaking, their clean contours turn their back to the flourishes of Art-Nouveau; their stripped down lightness contrasts with the heavy neo-Romanian and neo-gothic style of the buildings that nestle side by side on central Bucharest’s streets.

Much of the modernist architecture in Bucharest, however, differs from the other, similar movements sweeping Europe at the same time. In Vienna, Berlin, and Frankfurt, the International Style was not purely an aesthetic concern, but a political project. Many of the era’s leading architects were motivated by the idea that beautiful housing should be open to the working classes as well as the rich. Aesthetics and politics were inextricably linked. They built functional, affordable, bright, large-scale social housing. In contrast, Romanian architects mostly served private clients. Janco and others returned from Western Europe to find Bucharest a fertile ground for their aesthetic projects: the capital’s educated urban elite were infatuated with modernism and commissioned the architects to design small residential blocks and private villas. [...]

Their opaque legal status explains the buildings’ wounds and exposed brickwork: many of the structures are now crumbling. Anghel says he doesn’t know anyone who lives in these houses due to their architectural merit. The people who care about these modernist structures can’t afford to buy them. Even listing these homes as architecturally valuable (as many already are) can’t save them, as it makes restoration an expensive business. There are those among Bucharest’s political and business elite who are simply waiting for these buildings to collapse, so that they can use the valuable land beneath to build bigger, more lucrative apartment blocks, Anghel tells me.

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The Calvert Journal: Afro-Poland: a revolutionary friendship, captured in rare photos from 1955-

Between 31 July and 14 August 1955, the 5th World Festival of Youth and Students was held in Warsaw. The festival — organised by the anti-imperialist and left-wing World Federation of Democratic Youth — gave Poles the opportunity to meet around 30,000 delegates from 114 countries, incorporating other Eastern Bloc allies, revolutionaries from South America and young socialists from the postwar capitalist West. 911 African delegates from colonial states still largely subordinate to European powers were also in attendance. For the communist leaders of the Polish People’s Republic (PRL), this was a timely occasion to promote socialism and solidarity to the soon-to-be independent African states. For Polish citizens, this was one of the first opportunities to interact with non-white people after the destruction of the multicultural Second Polish Republic during the Second World War. [...]

Nowicki’s exhibition revealed the myriad ways in which PAD stood alongside white Poles during the communist era. The World Festival of Youth and Students was simply a starting point, after which students from Africa were encouraged to study at Polish universities — as well as elsewhere in the Soviet sphere of influence. This was most keenly emphasised in Poland following the events of 1960, when 17 African countries declared independence from colonial rule. The arrest and murder of the Congo’s first democratically-elected Prime Minister, Patrice Lumumba, was widely covered in the Polish press, alongside solidarity protests in Warsaw. Photos from these demonstrations show Polish students hand-in-hand with PAD. According to Nowicki, this was — in part — a technique to depict a humane Poland in contrast to a brutal West. “They were really fighting against the Americans on the level of race,” he explains. “You could see how horrible American race rhetoric was, look what was happening to the people — lynching, and so on.” [...]

Omolo suggests that while Poles may have less contact with non-white people — compared to those in countries such as the United Kingdom, France or Germany — this does not entirely explain why PAD experience racism in Poland. Instead, he believes that Polish people have often been exposed to literature and screen media that demean those from the African continent, thereby perpetuating the idea that white people are superior. For Omolo, this makes Poles more likely to believe negative, unfounded stereotypes about PAD, such as those espoused by the PiS party leader, Jarosław Kaczyński. “When Kaczyński said that Europe should not accept refugees from Africa because they’re carrying some diseases that are not in Europe — most of them bought it actually,” Omolo recounts. “What about Poles who visit Africa and come back? Are they not coming with some protozoa?”

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The Calvert Journal: This new book captures the history and reality of the black experience in Russia and Europe

These collective issues relate to the experience of being “a black citizen living in Europe”. The book — illustrated by gritty, original photography — details Pitts’ quest to offer up a more unified picture of black communities across the continent. His aim was to explore “blackness” as something “taking part in shaping European identity at large” as opposed to a sub-plot in a frequently whitened history. He writes that the term “Afropean” suggests “the possibility of living in and with more than one idea: Africa and Europe, or, by extension, the Global South and the West, without being mixed- this, half- that or black- other. That being black in Europe didn’t necessarily mean being an immigrant.” [...]

Afropean adds to a rarely acknowledged but rich body of literature detailing black experience in Russia. The most famous account comes from a group of African-American writers and artists who traveled to the Soviet Union in 1932. Frustrated with the lack of fair representation in Hollywood, they saw the Soviet Union as a place where people of colour could be portrayed in the arts as more than white projections of black identity. Though many eventually became disillusioned with the communist project, their initial impressions were overwhelmingly positive. “I’d read so many pieces of literature by the likes of Langston Hughes, Paul Robeson, Claude McKay, black actors and poets and writers who had all gone to Moscow and had a great time,” says Pitts. “A lot of those writers — Harlem renaissance writers specifically — were looking for places they might get equality and Russia seemed like it was leading the way. It seemed here was a real viable alternative.” [...]

A recent report by the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance concluded that although the number of hate crimes and racist murders has declined in Russia, “comprehensive anti-discrimination legislation is still lacking and racist and homo/transphobic hate speech is widely used in public discourse”; in March 2019, a professional Russian footballer was fined and given a suspended ban for telling a local newspaper it was “laughable” to have black players in the Russian National team, before later apologising for his comments.

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The Guardian: Goodbye to Gomorrah: the end of Italy's most notorious housing estate

In 2004, the tower blocks were seared into the popular imagination when a feud exploded between the ruling Di Lauro Camorra clan and a breakaway faction, the Secessionists. Their fight for control of the drug trade raged for almost a year. At its zenith it saw more than a murder per day, and more syringes per square mile in northern Naples than in all of Italy combined. [...]

But the demolition also marks the symbolic failure of Italy’s postwar dream of social housing. Built between 1965 and 1980 by the Neapolitan architect Franz di Salvo, Le Vele was meant to replace the slums and squalor of the medieval city centre. Di Salvo, inspired by Le Corbusier, was operating in the spirit of the case per tutti, or houses for everyone. The seven blocks (three have since been demolished), each to house between 210 and 240 families, were to fulfil the role of the traditional neighbourhood, with a central backbone walkway running through the heart of each tower to encourage community relations. [...]

When finished, the corridors were narrower than planned, the tower blocks closer together and the proposed transport links and social spaces non-existent. The effect was to isolate hundreds of the city’s most destitute families without access to work in a vast concrete slum. [...]

Meanwhile, in the absence of services – the maintenance company contracted to look after the blocks never showed up to do any work, and was eventually indicted for embezzling state funds – it was the Comitato that became a de facto state. It documented the residents, mediated relationships between them and helped the unemployed find work.

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The Atlantic: Photos of Huawei’s European-Themed Campus in China

China’s Huawei Technologies is the largest telecommunications-equipment manufacturer in the world, with production and development centers in more than a dozen countries. One of its newest facilities, located in Dongguan, China, is being built as a collection of replicas of European landmarks. The 3.5-square-mile Ox Horn research and development campus is being developed as 12 separate “towns,” with names such as Paris, Verona, and Bruges. Research buildings are being modeled after famous castles, palaces, and more. The Ox Horn campus is designed to accommodate 25,000 employees, and is connected by private trams and trains to other nearby Huawei campuses and to company housing in Shenzhen. Kevin Frayer, a photographer for Getty, was able to visit the still-growing campus, and returned with these images.

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