Oslo Architecture 08-30-08

One thing Oslo is probably not famous for is it's architecture. Nevertheless, we found one or two very cool buildings, a couple of very ugly buildings, a gigantic iceberg and the usual run of the mill Roman/Greek municipal building knockoffs.

As you can see, our first two items fall in the latter category while the third item is simply sort of interesting and reminiscent of some English style or other that Andy termed Victorian and with which I disagreed though I offered no justification and no alternative. I try at all times to be as informative and reasonable as possible...

No idea what this building is besides exceedingly ugly. It's next to/near the art museum (quick tour: the Norwegians came to painting late and painted some lovely scenes, few of which have become famous as masterpieces). This building is also near/on the University of Oslo campus, so perhaps if you are desperate to know what it is, you can find information there.

The last building of this series was cool, so I hope you enjoy that one. =)

As you can probably imagine this is some sort of government building. No, I'm afraid I don't recall which one, but it sits fairly near the piers where we took the boat tour and the boat to get to the Viking ship museum. It has a nice little garden beside it and some naked* statues (Norwegians prefer their statues naked, thank you).

Finally, we have the iceberg/glacier opera house. From a distance, I think it looks more like an iceberg, but since I've never seen a glacier** I suppose I really wouldn't know. You're invited and encouraged to climb all over the opera house with the safety of knowing there are no giant crevices waiting to swallow you whole and hold you in their bowels until you freeze to death. Somehow the exhilaration was simply not up to expectations... Nonetheless, once you were on the opera house, it did kind of seem like a glacier - they used some sort of sparkly stuff, which caused a lovely blinding effect, just like walking on new, slightly icy snow in the sun. It was kind of neat, but I don't know what glaciers have to do with opera...

*Sorry, that's supposed to be nude isn't it?

**Actually, I've never seen an iceberg in person either.

Bilbao Architecture 08-10-11-08

Most of this is just really cool Bilbao architecture, and has nothing to do with anything other than that I liked it. =) Unlike most modern cities in the US, I think Bilbao has wonderful examples of beautiful modern architecture that respects what has come before rather than attempting to slough it off. On the other hand, it has examples of blatant disregard and disgust for the old, as you can see in the modern looking church below.

The second photo is of some official looking building that here acts as a representative of attractive modern architecture. There were more buildings like this, but apparently we didn't take pictures of them. 0=)

The building on the far right was really freaking cool, but it's hard to tell just how cool it is. It sort of looks like there was a building between it and the building behind it, but that building has now been removed. So this one very skinny building was just standing all by itself in the middle of everything, but unfortunately the shot doesn't quite capture it.

The statue portrays the Basque hero (whose name I have now forgotten) conquering Neptune, the god of the sea. It's a monument to Cosme Damián Churruca y Elorza who according to the translated version of his Spanish Wikipedia page did some stuff relating to seafaring. =) Andy's going to love that one.

The church that we didn't get to go into because it was too late. =(

Andy decided that when we build our dream home, it will look like the first photo before. I have decided it will either look like the middle one or the the top floor and a half of the third one. Who do you think will win?