Author: Ms. R.

It’s difficult to imagine today what colonial, Prussian-era Berlin looked like, as one walks around the city’s central district, now dominated by the block-shaped architecture of the old East Germany. But that’s exactly what activists and community organizers are trying to get people to do, to see Germany as it was when the country was among the 13 European colonial powers, plus the United States, that carved up Africa among themselves. The site of Otto von Bismarck’s office and……

Read More

For Nyoka Hrabinsky, growing up in Queensland, Australia, “bush tucker” was a delicious part of everyday life. Of the native foods that have sustained Aboriginal communities for millennia, “wallaby was my favorite. Swamp turtle was my other favorite,” she says. A member of the Yidindji people, Hrabinsky grew up “on country”—in her community’s traditional land—watching her elders, learning to cook game, and harvesting the sour fruit of Australia’s native Davidson plum. Now an ethnobotanist, Hrabinsky researches indigenous plants at……

Read More

In the corner of her house museum in Gori, Georgia, 77-year-old Nazi Stepanishvili sits at a meeting point of the religious and the revolutionary. To her right are images of the Georgian saints, crowned with golden haloes. To her left are portraits of Joseph Stalin, the Georgian-born autocrat who presided over the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1953. Where they meet above her head, an image of a young Stalin, dressed in white and depicted as an Orthodox saint,……

Read More

The Pavillion Le Corbusier owes its existence to one pioneering woman, Heidi Weber. An interior designer, gallery owner, and patron of the arts, Weber commissioned Le Corbusier to create the perfect exhibition venue for her collection of Le Corbusier’s paintings, drawings, tapestries, sculptures, lithographs, and furniture. Le Corbusier designed the building as an architectural legacy of sorts, embodying his design principles such as prefabrication, access ramps, rotating doors, roof gardens, and the architectural promenade.  During the 1960s, Swiss women……

Read More

This car park is situated under the main campus of the University of Melbourne. Proposed in 1970 and constructed in 1971, the car park was created to cope with an increasing demand for parking by students and teachers.  The design of the car park is vastly different from the university buildings and the ambiance inside really has to be felt to be understood. The immediate transition from the leafy, bright lawns above to this dark underbelly is a stark……

Read More

Located in the Chihuahuan Desert, the Gila National Forest is home to incredible views of the arid wilderness, desert wildlife, and a unique opportunity to see ancient rock art. The Dragonfly Trail, which is also located in the forest, is also renowned for its breathtaking scenery. However, the area is perhaps most known for the petroglyphs etched into the rocks approximately two miles from the trailhead. The petroglyphs located in this area are largely credited to the Mimbres, Mogollon……

Read More

In the 1760s, as the Industrial Revolution began to spread throughout Great Britain, there became a greater need for the development of inland transport and trade routes. The United Kingdom became the first country to develop a nationwide canal network, which provided vital connections between cities. The development of the canals and running of the trade routes was overseen by individual private companies and was a competitive business. In order to join up the major trade route of the……

Read More