Constructivist composer

All photos © Richard Pare, English photographer known for his work documenting Soviet modernist architecture.

Burevestnik Factory Club in Moscow by architect Konstantin Melnikov. The Club, built in 1929-32, was commissioned by the cooperative of the Burevestnik shoe factory.

Centrosoyuz or Tsentrosoyuz Building is a government structure in Moscow, constructed in 1933 by Le Corbusier and Nikolai Kolli. 

Chekist Communal House (photo --» 2002)

The Chekist Communal House was designed by Aleksandr Typikov in Nikzhni Novgorod (1929-32) for the Cheka, the secret police that will become the KGB.

Chekist Communal House

Chekist Communal House

Communal House of the Textile Institute, designed by Ivan Nikolaev, was erected in 1929-1931 in the Donskoy District of Moscow.

Izvestia Building was built in 1926–27 and designed by Grigori Barkhin in Moscow.

Izvestia, still a Russian daily newspaper, was the official newspaper of the Soviet government (in contrast to Pravda which was the Party newspaper). 

The Izvestia building in Pushkin Square was built 10 years after the Revolution to house both the offices and printing presses of Izvestia and other papers.

The building facade is heavily glazed and asymmetrical in the Constructivist style.

Kirov Physiotherapy Institute in Leningrad

Lensoviet Communal House (photo --» 1999)

Melnikov House (1927) by architect Konstantin Melnikov in Moscow

Palace of Culture in the Proletarian District (1931-37) in Moscow by architects Alexander and Victor Vesnin (photo --» 1995).

Pravda building (finished 1935) in Moscow by architect Panteleimon Golosov. Pravda is a Russian political newspaper associated with the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. 

Red Banner Textile Factory in Leningrad was designed by Erich Mendelsohn and built in 1926–1937.

Erich Mendelsohn incorporated abstract forms and concrete into his designs to evoke an imposing sense of practicality and the here-and-now. The architect’s avant-garde vision complimented Constructivism’s geometric and conservative style that emerged from the Soviet Union in the 1920s.

Redefining Constructivism Today: The Red Banner Textile Factory

The Rusakov Workers' Club in Moscow is a notable example of constructivist architecture. Designed by Konstantin Melnikov, it was constructed in 1927-28. 

The VTsIK Residential Complex in Moscow by architect Boris Iofan.

Water Tower for the Socialist City of Uralmash by architect Moisei Reisher, 1929.

The Zuev Workers’ Club in Moscow is a prominent work of constructivist architecture. Designed by Ilya Golosov, the club was built in 1927-29 and housed various facilities to educate and entertain Moscow workers.

Zuev Workers Club (1928) by Illya Golosov

Source: theconstructivistproject

Moist montane forest

Fog forest taken in Kaohsiung County, Taiwan, by Pohan

The Vivid Niltava – Niltava vivida – is a species of bird in the Muscicapidae family. It is found in China, India, Laos, Myanmar, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam. 

Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical moist montane forest.

The male is deep purplish blue on the head, back, tail and lesser wing coverts, and bright rufous orange below. Its throat, face, wings and iris are black as are its legs and bill. The female is olive-brown overall, lighter below, with a light buffy throat and greyish-brown crown and nape. 

The Taiwan subspecies, vivida, is distinctly smaller than the mainland race oatesi. 

(Source) 

The bird tends to perch in an upright stance and prefers the middle storey and canopy of the forest.

Vivid Niltava is resident year-round in Taiwan, coming to lower elevations in winter and sometimes forming small flocks at fruiting trees. (Source)

All Vivid Niltava photos taken in Taiwan by John&Fish

John&Fish on flickr with the tag Vivid Niltava

Marine study on a rainy day

Sketch of Mackerel (c. 1835-40)

On Sunday morning Scientific illustration @ tumblr reblogged the watercolor Sketch of Mackerel (see the post here). My eyes were caught.

Landscape and history painter, master draughtsman and watercolorist, tireless traveller, poet and teacher, Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851) exemplifies the energy, imagination and enquiring spirit of his time. 

He was considered a controversial figure in his day, but is now regarded as the artist who elevated landscape painting to an eminence rivaling history painting.

Although renowned for his oil paintings, Turner is also one of the greatest masters of British watercolor landscape painting. He is commonly known as the painter of light.

Be welcome to check out these beautiful fish on a beach watercolor sketches and studies by JMW Turner, on a cloudy spring day.

 Study for Unidentified Vignettes: Cod on the Beach (c. 1835)

 Study for Unidentified Vignettes: Lobsters on the Beach (c. 1835)

 Study for Unidentified Vignettes: Mackerel on a Beach (c. 1835)

 Study of a Tench (c. 1822)

 Study for Unidentified Vignettes: Wreck Buoy, Gurnet Dogfish and Plaice (c. 1835)

Study of Fish: Two Tench, a Trout and a Perch (c. 1822-24)

Sketch of Three Mackerel (c. late 1830s)

See the results of Sketch of Three Mackerel in Google Search by Image. 

Google's algorithm for "Visually similar images" is a mystery for almost everybody I know…

Where giant ships go to be torn apart

photo by Andrew Holbrooke

Supertankers and giant cargo ships are chipped down bit by bit, usually by hand, and stripped of every last bit of value. 

photo by Brendan Corr 

Fauzdarhat, 20 kilometers northwest of Chittagong in Bangladesh, is where many of the world's ships go to die.

In 1960, when Bangladesh was still known as East Pakistan, a cyclone left a ship, the SS Clan Alpine, beached near the port of Chittagong. Since then, ship-breaking has become Bangladesh’s main source of steel.

photo by Brendan Corr

Over 20 ship-breaking yards dot the 16 miles of Bangladesh’s coastline. It is an industrial wasteland of epic proportions, where thousands of workers are forced to scratch their meager existence out of these hulking steel ruins, working with rudimentary protection, risking injury and illness, poisoned by toxic fumes and exposure to asbestos and other hazardous materials.

photo by Claudio Cambon

For Bangladesh, this is big business. Some 700 ocean-going vessels are scrapped each year, and about 100 of them are ripped apart in Bangladesh. 

photo by Edward Burtynsky

The ship-breaking market is like a parable of the promises and pitfalls of globalization.

photo by Jan Moller Hansen

In rich Western countries, ship-owners used to have to pay royally to have their craft taken apart by expensive machinery in dry docks.

photo by Jana Asenbrennerova

Now, they can sell the decommissioned ships to ship-breakers, who have them dismembered along poverty-stricken beaches, with anything from 300 to 500 workers employed on each ship.

photo by Jana Asenbrennerova

But there are snags. Ship-breaking is dangerous for its workers and damaging to the environment.

photo by John Vidal

The countries that dominate the market—Bangladesh, China, India, Pakistan and Vietnam—typically offer cheap, unorganized labour and lax environmental controls.

photo by Larry Luxner

Ship-breaking relies on ill-paid casual workers risking injury, mutilation and death. 

photo by Peter Steyn

Numbers are hard to gauge, since few have an interest in publicizing them. But the Bangladeshi press has estimated that more than 400 workers have died in the past 20 years. And more than 4,000 have suffered serious injuries. 

photo by Saiful Huq Omi

They are also exposed to long-term health risks: from the asbestos used for insulation in older ships, and from paint containing lead, cadmium and arsenic. 

photo by Shabbir Ferdous

Workers are poorly compensated when injured, and often, in between ships, have no work and no income. 

photo by Steve McCurry

Many live in squalor. According to Young Power in Social Action, an NGO campaigning on ship-breaking in Chittagong, 51% of workers are under 22 years old and 46% are illiterate. 

Source: moreintelligentlife

Excepts from Iron Crows (2009), documentary by Bong-Nam Park