Showing posts with label Milan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Milan. Show all posts

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Towers of trees in Milan!






Was sent this email by a student which talks about a fascinating new pair of residential towers called Bosco Verticale being constructed at Milan, Italy. Designed by architect Stefano Boeri, Bosco Verticale is being constructed as a project for metropolitan reforestation that contributes to the regeneration of the environment and urban biodiversity without the implication of expanding the city upon the territory.

Towering over the city's skyline the world's first forest in the sky will be a sight to behold. The 27 storied building will accommodate nearly one hectare of forest trees as tall as oak and amelanchiers in its cleverly designed balconies.

The 365 and 260 foot emerald twin towers will house an astonishing 900 trees, 5,000 shrubs and 11,000 ground cover plants. This is a concept illustration of how Bosco Verticale will look like when completed.

Ah ha, man again thinks he knows best. Frankly I am not impressed and have so many questions of the builder! But anyway lets laud him for his efforts at least at greening our urban jungles where there is no biodiversity save ants, rats and us humans!

Saturday, August 13, 2011

The joys of a book club!






This time we had Gita Aravamudan as our guest of honour, last time it was Jahnavi Barua.Running a book club is interesting. I always wanted to run one to see how other readers like me, enjoy the written word out of a hard copy book, and whose brains I could pick, as most readers are very erudite.

The last book we dissected was Ken Follets The Pillars of the Earth. A wonderful story but was a bit hard to plod on, reading the 1080 odd pages of the book. Inspite of having a Masters in History, I found the going tough at times, but on the whole it did keep me engrossed with his story line.

The 'Pillars' he talks about are to do with the architectural styles that went into building of churches during the peak era of Christianity. It brought to life the Duomo Cathedral I gawped at in Milan. If it wasn't for Padma taking me to Milan for her football jerseys, we might have missed it on our Italian walkabout last year!

Just take a look at the Cathedral - according to history it took 6 centuries to build.One wondered at the drive and ambition to build something as massive and intricate as that.Then in Follet's book the raison d'etre behind the church buildings of the past which served as safe havens in times of war made sense.