Wallpapers

Carpenter Center, at Cambridge

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Date - 1961 to 1964 timeline
Building Type - university art center
Construction System - reinforced cast-in-place concrete masonry
Climate - temperate
Context - urban campus
Style - Modern
Notes full name - "Carpenter Visual Arts Center" at Harvard University.

Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts
Harvard University24 Quincy Street (at Prescott Street)
CambridgeMassachusetts 02138
USA

The Carpenter Center is Le Corbusier's only building in North America, and one of the last to be completed during his lifetime. Its wonderful collection of concrete forms bring together many of the design principles and devices from Le Corbusier's earlier works: the ondulatoires (windows above left) from La Tourette; the brise soleils (below) originally from the Marseille unité d'habitation but angled later in Chandigarh (but here with glass for the Massachusetts climate); and the original Five Points from the 1920s 'accentuated in a new way: as if the Villa Savoye had been exploded inside out, with ramp and curved partitions extending into the environment.' The ramp and architectural promenade is particularly strong at the Carpenter Center.

'At the heart is a cubic volume from which curved studios pull away from one another on the diagonal. The whole is cut through by an S-shaped ramp which rises from one street and descends towards the other... The layers and levels swing out and back from the grid of concrete pilotis within, making the most of cantilevering to create interpenetrations of exterior and interior, as well as a sequence of spatial events linked by the promenade architecturale of the ramp.'
William J.R. Curtis in Le Corbusier: Ideas and Forms

The cave temples of Ellora

The cave temples of Ellora, a UNESCO world heritage site, are the pinnacle of Deccan rock cut architecture. Over five centuries, generations of Buddhist, Hindu and Jain monks carved chapels, monasteries, and temples from a 2 km long escarpment and decorated them with a profusion of sculptures of remarkable imagination and detail. In all there are 34 caves at Ellora: 12 Buddhist (600-800 CE), 17 Hindu (600-900 CE) and 5 Jain (800-1000 CE).


Ellora represents the renaissance of Hinduism under the Chalukya and Rashtrakuta dynasties, the subsequent decline of Indian Buddhism, and a brief resurgence of Jainism under official patronage. The sculpture shows the increasing influence of Tantric elements in India's three great religions, and their coexistence at one site indicates a prolonged period of religious tolerance.


The masterpiece of Ellora is the Kailasa Temple, one of the most audacious feats of architecture ever conceived. Dedicated to Shiva, it is the world's largest monolithic sculpture, hewn from the rock by 7000 laborers over a 150 year period. Attributed to king Krishna I of the Rashtrakuta dynasty c. 760 AD, the idea was not only to build an enormous and fantastically carved representation of Mt. Kailasa, Shiva's home in the Himalaya, but to create it from a single piece of stone by first cutting three huge trenches into the rock of the Ellora cliff face and then 'releasing' the shape of the temple using hammers and chisels.


Of overwhelming scale, it covers twice the area of the Parthenon in Athens, is 1-1/2 times as high, and entailed removing 200,000 tons of rock. Around the temple are a variety of dramatic and finely carved panels, depicting scenes from the Ramayana, the Mahabharata and the life of Krishna. [-- Adapted from the Lonely Planet, India, 1999]

Le Corbusier

Le Corbusier
(b. La Chaux de Fonds, Switzerland 1887; d. Cap Martin, France 1965)

Charles-Edouard Jeanneret-Gris was born in La Chaux de Fonds, Switzerland, 1887. Trained as an artist, he travelled extensively through Germany and the East.Jeanneret-Gris adopted the name Le Corbusier in the early 1920s.

Le Corbusier's early work was related to nature, but as his ideas matured, he developed the Maison-Domino, a basic building prototype for mass production with free-standing pillars and rigid floors. In 1917 he settled in Paris where he issued his book Vers une architecture [Towards a New Architecture], based on his earlier articles in L'Esprit Nouveau.

From 1922 Le Corbusier worked with his cousin Pierre Jeanneret. During this time, Le Corbusier's ideas began to take physical form, mainly as houses which he created as "a machine for living in" and which incorporated his trademark five points of architecture.
1947, he started his Unite d'habitation. Although relieved with sculptural roof-lines and highly colored walls, these massive post-war dwelling blocks received justifiable criticism. In 1947, he started with sculptural roof-lines and highly colored walls, these massive post-war dwelling blocks received justifiable criticism.

Le Corbusier's post-war buildings rejected his earlier industrial forms and utilized vernacular materials, brute concrete and articulated structure. Near the end of his career he worked on several projects in India, which utilized brutal materials and sculptural forms. In these buildings he readopted the recessed structural column, the expressive staircase, and the flat undecorated plane of his celebrated five points of architecture.

Le Corbusier did not fare well in international competition, but he produced town-planning schemes for many parts of the world, often as an adjunct to a lecture tour. In these schemes the vehicular and pedestrian zones and the functional zones of the settlements were always emphasized.

Angkor, Cambodia-the largest sacred temple complex

Angkor, Cambodia is the largest sacred temple complex in the world. Beautiful and ornate temples extend 40 miles (64 km) around the Cambodian village of Siem Reap.The site is located between the valleys of the Stung Ruluos and Stung Puok, and, part of the construction of the site included excavation of a four meter long canal, the first piece of what was to become an extensive water control system.


The most famous temple in Angkor is Angkor Wat, a huge pyramid temple built by Suryavarman II between 1113 and 1150. It is also the name of one of the medieval Khmer capital cities, containing some of the most spectacular temples in the world, such as Angkor Wat.
The ancestors of the Angkor civilization are thought to have migrated into Cambodia along the Mekong River during the 3rd millennium BC. Their original center, established by 1000 BC, was located on the shore of large lake called Tonle Sap, but a truly sophisticated (and enormous) irrigation system allowed the spread of the civilization into the country side away from the lake.

The Khmer society was a cosmopolitan blend of Pali and Sanskrit rituals resulting from a combined Hindu and High Buddhist belief system, probably the effects of Cambodia's role in the extensive trade system connecting Rome, India and China during the last few centuries BC.
The Khmer society was led by an extensive court system with both religious and secular nobles, artisans, fishermen and rice farmers, soldiers, and the elephant keepers; Ankgor was protected by an army using elephants.


The end of Angkor came in the mid-14th century, and brought about by a change in religious belief in the region, from Hinduism and High Buddhism to more democratic Buddhist practices.


Also Known As: Yasodharapura (the Holy City)

What is a geodesic dome?

What is a geodesic dome?

A Geodesic Dome is a type of structure shaped like a piece of a sphere or a ball. This structure is comprised of a complex network of triangles that form a roughly spherical surface. The more complex the network of triangles, the more closely the dome approximates the shape of a true sphere.
By using triangles of various sizes, a sphere can be symmetrically divided by thirty-one great circles. A great circle is the largest circle that can be drawn around a sphere, like the lines of latitude [Ed. he means longitude] around the earth, or the equator. Each of these lines divide the sphere into two halves, hence the term geodesic, which is from the Latin meaning "earth dividing". [From Mitch Amiano]
The dome is a structure with the highest ratio of enclosed area to external surface area, and in which all structural members are equal contributors to the whole. There are many sizes of triangles in a geodesic, depending on the frequency of subdivision of the underlying spherical polyhedron. The cross section of a geodesic approximates a great-circle line.

Khajuraho temple

Khajuraho is a village in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, located in Chhatarpur District, about 385 miles (620 kilometres) southeast of Delhi, the capital city of India.It has the largest group of medieval Hindu and Jain temples, famous for their erotic sculpture. The name Khajuraho is derived from the Hindi word khajur meaning date palm.

The whole area was enclosed by a wall with eight gates, each flanked by two golden palm trees. There were originally over 80 Hindu temples, of which only 22 now stand in a reasonable state of preservation, scattered over an area of about 8 square miles (21 km²).

Khajuraho temples, constructed with spiral superstructures, adhere to northern Indian shikhara temple style and often to a Panchayatana plan or layout. A few of the temples are dedicated to the Jain pantheon and the rest to Hindu deities - to God's Trio, Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, and various Devi forms, such as the Devi Jagadambi temple. A Panchayatana temple had four subordinate shrines on four corners and the main shrine in the center of the podium, which comprises their base. The temples are grouped into three geographical divisions : western, eastern and southern.With a graded rise secondary shikharas (spires) cluster to create appropriate base for the main shikhara over the sanctum. Kandariya Mahadeva, one of the most accomplished temples of the Western group, comprises eighty-four shikharas, the main being 116 feet from the ground level.

These shikharas - subordinate and main, attribute to the Khajuraho temples their unique splendor and special character. With a graded rise of these shikharas from over the ardhamandapa, porch, to mandapa, assembly hall, mahamandapa, principal assembly hall, antarala, vestibule, and garbhagraha, sanctum sanctorum, Khajuraho temples attain the form and glory of gradually rising Himalayan peaks.These temples of khajuraho have sculptures that look very realistic and are studied even today.

The Khajuraho group of monuments has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Niagara water falls

Location : Niagara Falls (Ontario & New York)
Type : Segmented Block

Total height : 167 ft (51 m)

Number of drops : Horseshoe Falls, American Falls Bridal Veil Falls

Average flow rate : 202,000 cu ft/sec (5,720 m³/s)

Watercourse : Niagara River

Niagara falls in winter

Niagara Falls (French: les Chutes du Niagara) located on the Niagara River in eastern North America, on the Canada–United States border between the Canadian province of Ontario and the U.S. state of New York.

It comprises three waterfalls: Horseshoe Falls in Canada and American Falls and the smaller,
adjacent Bridal Veil Falls in the United States. The falls are located 17 miles (27 km) from the city of Buffalo, New York, and 75 miles (120 km) from Toronto, Ontario.
Niagara Falls is very wide; with more than six million cubic feet (168,000 m³) of water falling over the crestline every minute in high flow, and almost 4 million cubic feet (110,000 m³) on average, it is the most powerful waterfall in North America.

A popular tourist site for over a century, the Falls are shared between the twin cities of Niagara Falls, Ontario and Niagara Falls, New York.

Point :

A point marks a position in space. It serve to mark
- the two ends of a line
- the intersection of two lines.
- The meeting of lines at the corner of a plane or volume
- The center of a field

Point makes its presence felt when placed within a visual field. If the point moves to off center, its field becomes more aggressive. To visibly mark a position in space a point must be projected vertically into a linear form as a tower or column.

Two points :

Two points are connected by a line. It can gives finite length or can be considered as a segment of an longer path. Two points can also suggest an axis perpendicular to the line they describe.
They established in space by columnar elements or centralized forms.
e.g. ‘Torii, Ise Shrine, Mie Prefecture, Japan, A.D. 690

The prime generator of form :

1. Point : Indicates a position in space.

2. Line : An extension of point with properties of
- length
- direction
- position

3. Plane : An extension of line with properties of
- length & width
- shape
- surface
- orientation
- position

4. Volume : An extension of plane with properties of
- length, width & depth
- form & space
- surface
- orientation
- position.

This is the tensile structure we ,the department of architecture,BUET made as our class project.It took us bout 1month.We'd to make a prili model then we amde it in live scale.We made all the parts and jointed them ourselvs.Teachers helped us a lot.We are sure it'll survive for a long time.All students enjoy passing their time here. Here also some additional sheets are given which we presented in a exhibition.

Its a stall in a software fair.Though the design was accepted but we couldn't work on it as oue exam was going on.But hope we can work on more project.

The ohter characters... Its used for a theme as they are going to the birthday prgrm.

We made this cartoon character 'Tiger' in Birth day programme. It was realy enjoying. We also made more characters. I'll post them serially.

This scenery is from the center pint of Dhaka - which is getiing conjusted with concrete.

Another nice creation of nature.

People are always occupied with such wonderful creation.

Such a wonderful creation -1

We should be gratefull to ALLAH as he created this wonderful world and sent us here.HE is such a great architect who design the whole world so logically.

Unknown flower - 2

Unknown flower or KRISHNOCHURA