Petite France, Strasbourg
Petite France is a historic quarter of the city of Strasbourg in eastern France. It is located at the end of the Grande Île. Petite France forms part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Grande Île, just upstream of Petite France, the River Ill flows through the Barrage Vauban, a defensive structure built at the end of the 17th century. These four channels are spanned by the Ponts Couverts, a defensive structure of three bridges and four towers that, despite its name, has not been covered since the 18th century. The sloping roofs of many of the buildings include open lofts where hides were once dried, three of the four channels flowing through the quarter run over weirs that once drove mills and other industries, whilst the northernmost channel is navigable. This passes through a lock and the Pont du Faisan swing bridge in the centre of the quarter, on the north bank of the Ill at the heart of the quarter is the Maison des Tanneurs, home of the Tanners Guild, and Place Benjamin-Zix. From this square lead several streets, including the Rue du Bain-aux-Plantes, the name Petite-France was not given for patriotic or architectural reasons.
It comes from the hospice of the syphilitic, which was built in the fifteenth century on this island, to cure persons with syphilis
Bridge
A bridge is a structure built to span physical obstacles without closing the way underneath such as a body of water, valley, or road, for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle. There are many different designs that each serve a particular purpose, the Oxford English Dictionary traces the origin of the word bridge to an Old English word brycg, of the same meaning. The word can be traced back to Proto-Indo-European *bʰrēw-. The word for the game of the same name has a different origin. The first bridges made by humans were probably spans of cut wooden logs or planks and eventually stones, using a simple support, some early Americans used trees or bamboo poles to cross small caverns or wells to get from one place to another. Dating to the Greek Bronze Age, it is one of the oldest arch bridges still in existence, several intact arched stone bridges from the Hellenistic era can be found in the Peloponnese. The greatest bridge builders of antiquity were the ancient Romans, the Romans built arch bridges and aqueducts that could stand in conditions that would damage or destroy earlier designs.
An example is the Alcántara Bridge, built over the river Tagus, the Romans used cement, which reduced the variation of strength found in natural stone. One type of cement, called pozzolana, consisted of water, sand and mortar bridges were built after the Roman era, as the technology for cement was lost. In India, the Arthashastra treatise by Kautilya mentions the construction of dams, a Mauryan bridge near Girnar was surveyed by James Princep. The bridge was swept away during a flood, and repaired by Puspagupta, the use of stronger bridges using plaited bamboo and iron chain was visible in India by about the 4th century. A number of bridges, both for military and commercial purposes, were constructed by the Mughal administration in India and this bridge is historically significant as it is the worlds oldest open-spandrel stone segmental arch bridge. European segmental arch bridges date back to at least the Alconétar Bridge, rope bridges, a simple type of suspension bridge, were used by the Inca civilization in the Andes mountains of South America, just prior to European colonization in the 16th century.
During the 18th century there were innovations in the design of timber bridges by Hans Ulrich Grubenmann, Johannes Grubenmann. The first book on bridge engineering was written by Hubert Gautier in 1716, a major breakthrough in bridge technology came with the erection of the Iron Bridge in Shropshire, England in 1779. It used cast iron for the first time as arches to cross the river Severn, with the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century, truss systems of wrought iron were developed for larger bridges, but iron does not have the tensile strength to support large loads. With the advent of steel, which has a tensile strength, much larger bridges were built. In 1927 welding pioneer Stefan Bryła designed the first welded bridge in the world
Vosges
The Vosges, called the Vosges Mountains, are a range of low mountains in eastern France, near its border with Germany. Together with the Palatine Forest to the north on the German side of the border, they form a single geomorphological unit and it runs in a north-northeast direction from the Burgundian Gate to the Börrstadt Basin, and forms the western boundary of the Upper Rhine Plain. The Grand Ballon is the highest peak at 1424 m, followed by the Storkenkopf, and the Hohneck. The elongated massif is divided south to north into three sections, The Higher Vosges or High Vosges, extending in the part of the range from Belfort to the river valley of the Bruche. The rounded summits of the Hautes Vosges are called ballons in French, in addition, the term Central Vosges is used to designate the various lines of summits, especially those above 1000 metres in elevation. The French department of Vosges is named after the range, erosive glacial action was the primary catalyst for development of the representative highland massif feature.
Geographically, the Vosges Mountains are wholly in France, far above the Col de Saverne separating them from the Palatinate Forest in Germany, the latter area logically continues the same Vosges geologic structure but traditionally receives this different name for historical and political reasons. From 1871 to 1918 the Vosges marked the border between Germany and France, due to the Franco-Prussian War, the Vosges in their southern and central parts are called the Hautes Vosges. These consist of a large Carboniferous mountain eroded just before the Permian Period with gneiss, granites, in the north and west, there are places less eroded by glaciers, and here Vosges Triassic and Permian red sandstone remains are found in large beds. The grès vosgien, are embedded sometimes up to more than 500 metres in thickness, the Lower Vosges in the north are dislocated plates of various sandstones, ranging from 300 to 600 metres high. The Col de Saales, between the Higher and Central Vosges, reaches nearly 579 m, both lower and narrower than the Higher Vosges, with Mont Donon being the highest point of this Nordic section.
Both areas exhibit steeper slopes towards the Rhine River and a gradual descent on the other side. This occurs because both the Vosges and the Black Forest were formed by uplift, in a response to the opening of the Rhine Graben. The Rhine Graben is an extensional basin. When such basins form, the thinning of the crust causes uplift immediately adjacent to the basin, the temperature is much lower in the west front of the mountains than in the low plains behind the massif, especially in summer. On the eastern slope economic vineyards reach to a height of 400 metres, on the hand, in the mountains, it is a land of pasture. The Moselle and Sarre rivers and their numerous affluents all rise on the Lorraine side, in the High Moselle and Meurthe basins, moraines and polished rocks testify to the former existence of glaciers which once covered the top of the Vosges. Over the centuries, settlement increased gradually, as was typical for a forested region, forests were cleared for, inter alia, agriculture and early industrial factories and the water mills used water power
Strasbourg Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art
The Musée dArt Moderne et Contemporain de Strasbourg is an art museum in Strasbourg, which was founded in 1973 and opened in its own building in November 1998. It owns a total of 18,000 works, numerous exhibitions are organized annually, showing either the works of a particular artist or a retrospective of an artistic genre. The art library of the museums, the art book shop of the municipal museums. The spacious roof terrace accommodates a museum cafe, the municipal collection of modern and contemporary art of the city of Strasbourg has been constantly enlarged and enriched since 1871 and the founding of the Reichsland Alsace-Lorraine. There had already been plans to erect an independent museum since the 1960s, the building was constructed on the left bank of the Ill River from 1995 until 1998. It was designed by the Parisian architect Adrien Fainsilber, who had designed the Cité des Sciences et de lIndustrie in the French capital. A horse sculpture, Hortus conclusus, by the Italian artist Mimmo Paladino is placed on the museums roof and it is served by its own tramway stop on the Strasbourg tramway.
A further accent is set by contemporary German painters, who give a glimpse of an art genre which is otherwise rarely seen in France. The artistic video collection has works of Bill Viola, Nam June Paik, Woody Vasulka, Olaf Breuning and many others.391 artists as of 19 June 2016
Siege of Strasbourg
The Siege of Strasbourg took place during the Franco-Prussian War, and resulted in the French surrender of the fortress on 28 September 1870. After the Battle of Wörth, Crown Prince Frederick detached General August von Werder to move south against the fortress of Strasbourg, at the time, Strasbourg was considered to be one of the strongest fortresses in France. Werders force was made up of 40,000 troops from Württemberg and Baden, the French garrison of 17,000 was under the command of the 68-year-old General Jean Jacques Alexis Uhrich. Werder understood the value of capturing the city, and ruled out a siege of starvation. He instead decided on an action, bombarding the fortifications. On 23 August Werders siege guns opened fire on the city and caused damage to the city. The Bishop of Strasbourg went to Werder to beg for a ceasefire, Uhrich refused to relent, and soon enough Werder realized he could not keep up such a bombardment with the amount of ammunition he had. Werder continued bombing the city, this time targeting selected fortifications, the German siege lines moved rapidly closer to the city as each fortress was turned into rubble.
On 11 September, a delegation of Swiss officials went into the city to evacuate non-combatants and this delegation brought in news of the defeat of the French at the Battle of Sedan, which meant no relief was coming to Strasbourg. On 19 September the remaining civilians urged Uhrich to surrender the city, that same day Werder stormed and captured the first of the citys fortifications. This event caused Uhrich to reconsider his ability to defend the city, on 27 September Uhrich opened negotiations with Werder, and the city surrendered the following day. The fall of Strasbourg freed Werders forces for operations in northeastern France. His next move was against the city of Belfort, which was invested in November
Prussia
Prussia was a historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg, and centred on the region of Prussia. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organised, with its capital in Königsberg and from 1701 in Berlin, shaped the history of Germany. In 1871, German states united to create the German Empire under Prussian leadership, in November 1918, the monarchies were abolished and the nobility lost its political power during the German Revolution of 1918–19. The Kingdom of Prussia was thus abolished in favour of a republic—the Free State of Prussia, from 1933, Prussia lost its independence as a result of the Prussian coup, when the Nazi regime was successfully establishing its Gleichschaltung laws in pursuit of a unitary state. Prussia existed de jure until its liquidation by the Allied Control Council Enactment No.46 of 25 February 1947. The name Prussia derives from the Old Prussians, in the 13th century, the Teutonic Knights—an organized Catholic medieval military order of German crusaders—conquered the lands inhabited by them.
In 1308, the Teutonic Knights conquered the region of Pomerelia with Gdańsk and their monastic state was mostly Germanised through immigration from central and western Germany and in the south, it was Polonised by settlers from Masovia. The Second Peace of Thorn split Prussia into the western Royal Prussia, a province of Poland, and the part, from 1525 called the Duchy of Prussia. The union of Brandenburg and the Duchy of Prussia in 1618 led to the proclamation of the Kingdom of Prussia in 1701, Prussia entered the ranks of the great powers shortly after becoming a kingdom, and exercised most influence in the 18th and 19th centuries. During the 18th century it had a say in many international affairs under the reign of Frederick the Great. During the 19th century, Chancellor Otto von Bismarck united the German principalities into a Lesser Germany which excluded the Austrian Empire. At the Congress of Vienna, which redrew the map of Europe following Napoleons defeat, Prussia acquired a section of north western Germany.
The country grew rapidly in influence economically and politically, and became the core of the North German Confederation in 1867, and of the German Empire in 1871. The Kingdom of Prussia was now so large and so dominant in the new Germany that Junkers and other Prussian élites identified more and more as Germans and less as Prussians. In the Weimar Republic, the state of Prussia lost nearly all of its legal and political importance following the 1932 coup led by Franz von Papen. East Prussia lost all of its German population after 1945, as Poland, the main coat of arms of Prussia, as well as the flag of Prussia, depicted a black eagle on a white background. The black and white colours were already used by the Teutonic Knights. The Teutonic Order wore a white coat embroidered with a cross with gold insert
Bas-Rhin
Bas-Rhin is a department in the Grand Est region of France. The name means Lower Rhine, geographically speaking it belongs to the Upper Rhine region and it is the more populous and densely populated of the two departments of the traditional Alsace region, with 1,112,815 inhabitants in 2014. The prefecture and the General Council are based in Strasbourg, the INSEE and Post Code is 67. The area is home to some of the foothills of the Vosges Mountains. To the north of Bas-Rhin lies the Palatinate forest in the German State of Rhineland-Palatinate, to the south lies the department of Haut-Rhin, the town of Colmar and southern Alsace, and to the west the department of Moselle. On its southwestern corner, Bas-Rhin joins the department of Vosges, the Bas-Rhin has a continental-type climate, characterised by cold, dry winters and hot, stormy summers, due to the western protection provided by the Vosges. However, the Alsatian climate is less continental than that of Burgundy, the average annual temperature is 10.4 °C in the lowlands and 7 °C on high ground.
The annual maximum temperature is high, the average rainfall is 700 mm per year. Established according to data from the Infoclimat station at Strasbourg-Entzheim, over the period from 1961 to 1990 and this is the last French department to have kept the term Bas meaning Lower in its name. The same phenomenon was observed for the inférieur departments such as Charente-Inférieure, Seine-Inférieure, Bas-Rhin is one of the original 83 departments created on 4 March 1790, during the French Revolution. Strasbourg, the lieu of Bas-Rhin is the official seat of the European Parliament as well as of the Council of Europe. The demography of Bas-Rhin is characterized by density and high population growth since the 1950s. In January 2014 Bas-Rhin officially had 1,112,815 inhabitants and was 18th by population at the national level, in fifteen years, from 1999 to 2014, its population grew by more than 86,000 people, or about 5,800 people per year. But this variation is differentiated among the 527 communes that make up the department, the population density of Bas-Rhin is 234 inhabitants per square kilometre in 2014 which is more than twice the average in France, which was 112 in 2009.
The first census was conducted in 1801 and this count, renewed every five years from 1821, with 540,213 inhabitants in 1831, the department represented 1. 66% of the total French population, which was 32,569,000 inhabitants. From 1831 to 1866, the department gained 48,757 people, demographic change between the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 and the First World War was higher than the national average. Over this period, the population increased by 100,532 inhabitants, the population increased by 9. 23% between the two world wars from 1921 to 1936 compared to a national growth of 6. 9%. Like other French departments, Bas-Rhin experienced a boom after the Second World War
Drawbridge
A drawbridge or draw-bridge is a type of movable bridge typically associated with the entrance of a castle and a number of towers, surrounded by a moat. Medieval castles were usually defended by a ditch or moat, crossed by wooden bridge, in early castles the bridge might be designed to be destroyed or removed in the event of an attack, but drawbridges became very common. It would be backed by one or more portcullises and gates, access to the bridge could be resisted with missiles from machicolations above or arrow slits in flanking towers. The bridge would be raised or lowered using ropes or chains attached to a windlass in a chamber in the gatehouse above the gate-passage, only a very light bridge could be raised in this way without any form of counterweight, so some form of bascule arrangement is normally found. The raising chains could themselves be attached to counterweights, in some cases, a portcullis provides the weight, as at Alnwick. In France, working drawbridges survive at a number of châteaux, in England, two working drawbridges remain in regular use at Helmingham Hall, which dates from the early sixteenth century. A bridge pivoted on central trunnions is called a turning bridge, the inner end carried counterweights enabling it to sink into a pit in the gate-passage, and when horizontal the bridge would often be supported by stout pegs inserted through the side walls.
This was an arrangement, and many turning bridges were replaced with more advanced drawbridges. Bascule bridge Drawbridge mentality Portcullis Linkspan
Weir
A weir /ˈwɪər/ is a barrier across the horizontal width of the river that alters the flow characteristics of the water and usually results in a change in the vertical height of the river level. There are many designs of weir, but commonly water flows freely over the top of the weir crest before cascading down to a lower level, Weirs are commonly used to prevent flooding, measure discharge and help render rivers navigable. In some locations the terms dam and weir are synonymous, a dam is usually specifically designed to impound water behind a wall, whilst a weir is designed to alter the river flow characteristics. A common distinction between dams and weirs is that flows over the top of a weir or underneath it for at least some of its length. Accordingly the crest of a spillway on a large dam may therefore be referred to as a weir. Weirs can vary in size both horizontally and vertically, with the smallest being only a few inches in height whilst the largest may be hundreds of metres long, some common weir purposes are outlined below.
Weirs allow hydrologists and engineers a method of measuring the volumetric flow rate in small to medium-sized streams/rivers or in industrial discharge locations. Since the geometry of the top of the weir is known and all flows over the weir. However, this can only be achieved in locations where all water flows over the top of the weir crest, if these conditions are not met it can make flow measurement complicated, inaccurate or even impossible. The discharge calculation can be summarised as, Q = C L H n Where Q is flow rate of fluid C is the flow coefficent for the structure, Flow measurement weirs must be well maintained if they are to remain accurate. As weirs are a physical barrier they can impede the movement of fish and other animals up. This can have an effect of fish species that migrate as part of their breeding cycle. For example, weirs in the Great Lakes region have helped to prevent invasive Sea lamprey from colonising further upstream, mill ponds are created by a weir impounding water that flows over the structure.
The energy created by the change in height of the water can be used to power waterwheels and power mill, Weirs are commonly used to control the flow rates of rivers during periods of high discharge. Sluice gates can be altered to increase or decrease the volume of flowing downstream. Weirs of this purpose are commonly found upstream of towns and villages, by slowing the rate at which water moves downstream even slightly a disproportionate effect can be had on the likelihood of flooding. On larger rivers a weir can alter the characteristics of a river to the point that vessels are able to navigate areas previously inaccessible due to extreme currents or eddies. Many larger weirs will have built in that allow boats and river users to shoot the weir
Gargoyle
Architects often used multiple gargoyles on buildings to divide the flow of rainwater off the roof to minimize the potential damage from a rainstorm. A trough is cut in the back of the gargoyle and rainwater typically exits through the open mouth, Gargoyles are usually an elongated fantastic animal because the length of the gargoyle determines how far water is thrown from the wall. When Gothic flying buttresses were used, aqueducts were cut into the buttress to divert water over the aisle walls. It is connected to the French verb gargariser, which shares a Latin root with the verb gargle and is likely imitative in origin, the Italian word for gargoyle is doccione or gronda sporgente, an architecturally precise phrase which means protruding gutter. When not constructed as a waterspout and only serving an ornamental or artistic function, there are regional variations, such as the hunky punk. Just as with bosses and chimeras, gargoyles are said to frighten off and protect those that it guards, such as a church, however, in common usage, the word gargoyle is generally used to describe any monstrous sculpture, whether intended as a waterspout or not.
La Gargouille is said to have been the typical dragon with wings, a long neck. There are multiple versions of the story, either that St. Romanus subdued the creature with a crucifix, or he captured the creature with the help of the only volunteer, a condemned man. In each, the monster is led back to Rouen and burned, the head was mounted on the walls of the newly built church to scare off evil spirits, and used for protection. In commemoration of St. Romain, the Archbishops of Rouen were granted the right to set a free on the day that the reliquary of the saint was carried in procession. The term gargoyle is most often applied to work, but throughout all ages some means of water diversion. In Ancient Egyptian architecture, gargoyles showed little variation, typically in the form of a lions head, similar lion-mouthed water spouts were seen on Greek temples, carved or modelled in the marble or terracotta cymatium of the cornice. An excellent example of this are the 39 remaining lion-headed water spouts on the Temple of Zeus, there were originally 102 gargoyles or spouts, but due to the heavy weight, many have snapped off and had to be replaced.
Many medieval cathedrals included gargoyles and chimeras, the most famous examples are those of Notre Dame de Paris. Although most have grotesque features, the term gargoyle has come to all types of images. Some gargoyles were depicted as monks, or combinations of animals and people. Unusual animal mixtures, or chimeras, did not act as rainspouts and are properly called grotesques. They serve more as ornamentation, but are now synonymous with gargoyles, both ornamented and unornamented water spouts projecting from roofs at parapet level were a common device used to shed rainwater from buildings until the early eighteenth century
Statue
A statue is a sculpture representing one or more people or animals, normally full-length, as opposed to a bust, and at least close to life-size, or larger. A small statue, usually enough to be picked up, is called a statuette or figurine. Statues have been produced in many cultures from prehistory to the present, the worlds tallest statue, Spring Temple Buddha, is 128 metres, and is located in Lushan County, China. Many statues are built on commission to commemorate a historical event, many statues are intended as public art, exhibited outdoors or in public buildings. Some statues gain fame in their own right, separate from the person or concept they represent, Ancient statues often survive showing the bare surface of the material of which they are made. For example, many people associate Greek classical art with white marble sculpture, most of the colour was weathered off over time, small remnants were removed during cleaning, in some cases small traces remained which could be identified.
Richter goes so far as to say of classical Greek sculpture, All stone sculpture, whether limestone or marble, was painted, medieval statues were usually painted, with some still retaining their original pigments. The colouring of statues ceased during the Renaissance, as excavated classical sculptures, the Löwenmensch figurine from the Swabian Alps in Germany is the oldest known statue in the world, and dates to 30, 000-40,000 years ago. The Venus of Hohle Fels, from the area, is somewhat later. Throughout history, statues have been associated with images in many religious traditions, from Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece. Egyptian statues showing kings as sphinxes have existed since the Old Kingdom, the oldest statue of a striding pharaoh dates from the reign of Senwosret I and is the Egyptian Museum, Cairo. The Middle Kingdom of Egypt witnessed the growth of block statues which became the most popular form until the Ptolemaic period, the oldest statue of a deity in Rome was the bronze statue of Ceres in 485 BC.
The oldest statue in Rome is now the statue of Diana on the Aventine, the wonders of the world include several statues from antiquity, with the Colossus of Rhodes and the Statue of Zeus at Olympia among the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. While Byzantine art flourished in various forms and statue making witnessed a general decline, an example was the statue of Justinian which stood in the square across from the Hagia Sophia until the fall of Constantinople in the 15th century. While making statues was not subject to a ban, it was hardly encouraged in this period. Starting with the work of Maillol around 1900, the human figures embodied in statues began to move away from the schools of realism that had held them bound for thousands of years. The Futurist and Cubist schools took this even further until statues, often still nominally representing humans, had lost all. By the 1920s and 1930s statues began to appear that were abstract in design
