Punjabi for “first bookâ€; the sacred book of the Sikhs. It is also known as the Guru Granth Sahib.The Adi Granth contains almost 6,000 hymns written by Sikh Gurus and other saints. The hymns are mostly arranged according to the musical modes in which they are sung. (more…)
Sucevita Monastery, one of the most magnificent religious buildings in Romania, is a monument to two 16th century local chiefs and the murderess Elizaveta, who poisoned her husband so that her sons could inherit the throne. All of these figures are featured in splendid frescoes that adorn the walls of the complex. The monastery church was built in 1584, the outer walls a little later. (more…)
The term Gothic was unknown to the architects of the Middle Ages who practiced the style. They called their idiom – marked by soaring walls with vast windows – the “French Style,†for the country form which it sprang, through the midwifery of a Benedictine Abbot named Suger in the year 1144. That was when Suger unveiled the rebuilt abbey and church of St. Denis, outside Paris. (more…)
At the age of 20, fed up with the life at court, Ivan Rilski moved into a cave in a remote part of Bulgaria to do penance. His reputation for sanctity attracted many disciples, who built a hermitage a short distance southeast of the present monastery. Here, the saint’s tomb can still be seen, together with his cell and a chapel dedicated to St. Luke. (more…)
Bernard Maybeck viewed the architectural canon as a style smorgasbord. Gothic, Romanesque, Asian, Arts and Crafts, Classicism – all were there to be sampled, interpreted, and reintroduce as California Craftsman. His belief in pure materials – untreated redwood shingles, exposed reinforced concrete, raw timber trellises – was balanced by unbridled curiosity for new materials, colours, and patterns combined in untested ways. (more…)
A religion practiced by people of African descent in Haiti, and by people who have emigrated from Haiti. Haiti is a country that occupies the western third of the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean. The Dominican Republic occupies the other two-thirds. (more…)