Google Maps: Summer, then Winter
An interesting bit of German scenery from Google Maps, if you go forward one step, you go suddenly from a summer view:
To a Stark-cold winter one:
This serendipitous discovery (more discussion at Reddit) brought delight.
Guggenheim Museum in New York
I stopped by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum yesterday for the first time. While not as large as the nearby Met or MoMA, its unique Frank Lloyd Wright designed architecture and internal spiral-staircase layout make it worth a visit if you’re in the Upper-West side neighborhood. Internally, the artworks is arranged in chronological order, winding up the spiral structure from oldest to newest, bottom to top. A tip for visitors is to take the elevator to the very top, and walk down to view the art.
The Guggenheim Museum
Designed by Frank Lloyd Wright
The exterior features a winding helix stack, part of the original Frank Lloyd Wright design in 1959, and a square atrium expansion which was added in 1992 by the museum’s foundation. A massive exterior renovation occurred from 2005 to 2008, removing the original paint, laser/echo mapping cracks in the concrete structure and repairing them after determining that the superstructure was structurally sound.
The interior’s main feature is the winding spiral, housing galleries affixed the walls, terminating in a twelve-paned skylight that allows natural light to fall on the pieces contained within. The curved walls the museum make hanging paintings flush with the walls impossible.
The museum does not allow internal photography, but I jotted down the names of some of my favorite pieces. Here’s a brief sampler of the art you can see in the Guggenheim museum. In spirit of presentation, I’ve arranged it chronologically as well:
Google’s 2010 Christmas Holiday Doodle
Chinese readers should check out Wendy’s great post 来自谷歌首页的圣诞祝福!
Combining 17 different images together, Google’s prime Doodler Micheal Lopez spent 250 hours to create their latest Christmas-card masterpiece, a beautiful, abstract rendition approximating the Google logo. According to the WSJ, Chief-Doddler Lopez said, “We want to end the year with a bang.”
As seen on Google’s homepage
Each of the 17 images represents an image of holiday cheer, a sort of cultural Christmas card. So, the entire Google represents a global merry Christmas! Below, I will explode each image into its component links.