Consciousness and Architecture

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Vizcaya Museum & Gardens

Vizcaya Museum and Garden is another important landmark in Miami. Located almost bordering downtown, this beautiful garden and its museum are magnificent. One simply does not expect to find such an amazing garden in a metropolitan area like this. The entrance is only a few blocks away from the highway but once you enter the property you no longer feel that you were just on a highway 2 minutes ago.

** Tip- Students can gain entrance to Vizcaya at a discounted rate of $ 10 by showing the student ID. Trust me, you are going to appreciate what you see for the money you pay.

I started the tour by viewing the main house. Constructed in the early 1900's was the winter residence of James Deering from 1916 up until his time of death in 1925. Destroyed during a hurricane in 1926, it was restored in 1933 - 1934. Later Deering's heirs sold the house and the garden to Dade County below market value to be turned into a public museum. It opened to the public in 1953.

Originally Vizcaya was 180 acres, but after Deering's death and presumable subsequent trouble with finances led the majority of the land to be sold for real estate development. In 1955, the county bought back some of the land from the village and integrated it back to the Garden and the Museum. When you are at the museum, you can find the maps and pictures from the original estate.

The main house is still in very beautiful condition. Credit should be given to those who worked on the restorations all these years. Most of the original fixtures and almost all original furniture are still on display at the museum. Photography is not allowed inside the main house. I am not at all surprised about this considering how old all the wall paintings, furniture, ornaments and rugs, etc. are. It reminds me of a small palace or a European villa.

There were 3 designers involved in the construction of the house and the garden. Paul Chalfin supervised the project as the Artistic coordinator. The Architect for the house and other buildings was F. Burral Hoffman and Diego Suarez was the landscape architect. Together they created one of the most treasured architectural masterpieces in Miami.

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Science Museum, Universe and possibilities

As a part of the local attractions we were taking my parents to, we visited the Science Museum of Miami. It is more fun for Children I would say but we, the young at heart (heheh), much enjoyed the trip as well.

There were a few shows particularly educative and fun for the kids like the Lazer planetarium show and the Science or Magic show. I love planetariums because the universe is always inspirational. The Planetarium in Miami is no match to the Planetarium in New York yet it triggers the same inspirations and emotions.

I can't help but to wonder a few times a week what is out there. All those millions and billions of stars, potential "suns" that have solar systems just like ours. They must be having at least a handful of "live" planets with intelligent beings. We can't be the only ones out here alone. I wonder, what kinds of languages must exist in this universe, what kind of species are out there, what do they do?

One way to find out is to have an exoprojection. An exoprojection is an Out-of-Body Experience that takes place in out space, beyond the atmosphere of our earth. There are many recorded accounts of these experiences; among the most notable are books by Dr. Waldo Vieira, Robert Monroe, Robert Crookall, and Ernesto Bozzano. I found this article written by Wagner Alegretti on Exoprojections in the IAC Website.

I would love to have an exoprojection and visit another world. It would be quite amazing to be able to see and learn about life outside of our little blue planet and how they do things. Imagine, if we can see if they have superior technology that can help us help people better here on earth, that would be just fantastic. I would love to learn about architecture outside of earth... exoarchitecture - not as in computers but exoarchitecture as in architecture outside of our planet. That would be a pretty cool thing to study...

Monday, January 4, 2010

Coral Castle - Miami, FL

Happy 2010! I am hoping this year would bring new challenges and that everyone would find strength to face them successfully.

Also, Thank you for visiting my blog last year and continuing to visit.... I'm really enjoying this....

On the 2nd of January, we visited one of the local attractions here in Miami - the Coral Castle. Latvian American Edward Leedskalnin built it all by himself. Built entirely out of stone, there are a couple of megaliths and many beautiful stone furniture. The history of the Coral Castle is as interesting as the things you find there...

There are megaliths, polaris telescope, water well, fountain and a sun dial. If you are in Miami, I would recommend you to take a trip to the Coral Castle and I am sure you would enjoy it....

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Last week's trip to NYC

Thursday 17th of December

So we visited the glorious Metropolitan Museum of Art. It is the 6th or the 7th time I've visited there during the past two and a half years. Its just an amazing place. I love going there, each time. There are new things to see each time I go there and never get tired of looking at paintings, sculptures and various artifacts.

We spent a lot of time in the Egyptian section this visit. Over 4000 years old, its amazing how they must have created all those amazing structures. For a long time it was speculated that huge armies of slaves built the pyramids and the great temples. Archeologists and experts now say these workers who built these great structures were skilled craftsmen who voluntarily worked at these sites. Looking at the artifacts at the MET, I am not surprised if all the workers who built them are skilled and trained craftsmen.

Then we went over to the Greek and Roman Section. Its almost retrocognetive...

Friday 18th of December

On Friday we visited the Rockefeller center observation deck. The panoramic view of New York city is quite amazing.

One of these days I should try and figure out how to make a panoramic pictures....

Then I showed the Times Square to my parents.

We walked to the Grand Central from there, my favorite building in New York. I have an entire post about Grand Central - read it here.

Saturday 19th of December

We visited the American Museum of Natural History & Hayden planetarium on Saturday. If you are a student, don't forget to get your student rate. Also the IMAX space show and the Hyden planetarium are a must see...!!

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

I'm back

Sorry I didn't post for a while... again!!! My final exams are finally over and my parents finally arrived in the US for the first time. So its time to sit back and blog again... :)

While I was in NYC last week with my parents I watched 2 randomly selected movies that had an alien back-theme, which now looking back is a kind of a coincidence... because we visited the AMNH and the Planetarium also. It was a good cosmic dose ;) .... The movie "Contact" had such a wonderful concept to it, it was amazing. if you haven't watched it already, I would highly recommend it to you. There was an awesome line there, here it is;-
Young Ellie: Dad, do you think there's people on other planets?
Ted Arroway: I don't know, Sparks. But I guess I'd say if it is just us... seems like an awful waste of space.

That is such a cool line. Its something to think about.... We could potentially be surrounded by hundreds and thousands of other planets that has life on them, and they could be of all different shapes and sizes. They could have total different everything that we can't even imagine of them...

Think of all the possibilities ...!! What if there are consciousnesses out there who can inhabit machines? And what are defined as machines in these places? (Strictly speaking we are also using a very organic machine)... Ahhh !! the endless possibilities....

I was thinking about all the movies that came out this year with stories that has Aliens in them. Its so cool because it will be so natural for all the kids who are growing up now to know about existence of life forms outside of our little earth.

I used to get so excited thinking about the universe when I was a kid and at 29, I still get as excited as much and I'm glad. Since I can't afford to go to space yet and I don't think I will be an astronaut like I wanted to be when I was 15, I have to settle in for seeing the movies and stuff... better yet, an Exoprojection: an out of body experience where a person travels to outer space...!!

Happy Holidays and catch you around soon....

Saturday, November 28, 2009

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Back in Lisbon

We are back in Lisbon after visiting the campus. It was such a lovely experience to be there. Taking the labs and seeing everyone from around the world, you just can't compare the feeling to anything ...

We had one more day to do touristy stuff before we head back to US and we decided to make the best of it. We head back to square Rossio. There is an observation deck that you can visit near the square and you can see the skyline of the entire city. You have to take this beautiful old-style elevator to get to the deck. (Tip - If you buy an entire day pass for 4.50 Euros, you can use the train & the bus as much as you want. There was a bonus, we found out that we can gain entrance to the elevator using the same pass, for Free !!! )

The elevator itself was quite charming. It was built in Gothic style architecture, complimenting what you are about to see when you go up the elevator.

Once we finished admiring the skyline, we decided to see what is at this level in the city. There is a small bridge from the elevator connecting to a higher elevation of the city. There were some ruins of what seem to be an ancient Gothic Cathedral or something like that and we decided to explore that. I must say, that was one of the best decisions I made during this trip.

It was a structure that built in 1389 and was destroyed during the earthquake in Lisbon on the 1st of November 1755. Church of Carmo Covent was then turned into a museum and it houses all the remaining original pieces of the building and other artifacts from the monasteries of the era. The building is massive, one can see where the ceilings must have been looking up at the ruins of the vaults. Its a very tall building, typical of traditional Gothic architecture. Beautiful pointed arches and elaborate, decorated columns are just breath taking...

The indoor display section also house many, many beautiful artifacts.

I have so many more pictures and so much to tell but I want to tell about the other places I went to so I would stop about the Church of Carmo Covent for now. But I would highly recommend for you to take time to visit this place.

Our next stop was to be the Castle you can see across from the Church / Museum. So we walked back to Square Russio. We didn't take the elevator, instead we walked through beautiful narrow roads of Lisbon. Its amazing how narrow the streets are but how people drive cars in both direction and still manage not to knock the pedestrians down.

Back at the Square, it was packed with people. We immediately knew all these people were tourists from Bosnia who were there to see the Portugal vs Bosnia Soccer match. It was like a sea of people wearing Blue and Yellow clothing, drinking beer, singing (I assume) were Bosnian songs. It was quite entertaining actually.

Then we head off to the Castle. You can get entrance to the Castle of S. Jorge for 5.oo Euros if you are a student and I think around 15.00 Euros for others. By the time we arrived there, I was pretty tired so I didn't look around much for the history but I found some details in the internet later. You can read more about the castle here.

We decided to walk down the hill instead of taking the bus down back to Sq. Rossio. On the way back we saw the most oddly shaped, majestic Gothic Church - Church of Santa Maria Maior.

Don't be fooled and think this is just a beautiful Gothic cathedral. Once you finish seeing the beautiful church, buy a ticket and go to the Archeological dig... You will be just fascinated - I was! This cathedral was built on ruins from 1st and 4th century A.D !!! Archeologists have dug up Roman streets, steps and stores; also Islamic and medieval structures. There are parts of structures from 14th & 18th Century as well. ....!! It was interesting, all that history in one place and to feel the energy from all these different times.....

Church of Santa Maria Maior is a must see if you are in Lisbon.!!!

We are leaving Lisbon tomorrow. I'm sad. It's a beautiful city. And I haven't even seen a fraction of it's beauty. But I will be back again, hopefully next year. Until then ... Adeus Querida Lisboa..!!