(via St. Johns Bridge • Autumn Fog | Flickr - Photo Sharing!)

Matthew Wiebe

Castillo de Peratallada MESURA Architects

The Peratallada Castle, a heritage building dated from the 10th century, is where we find this unique private villa garden. A magic place for a retreat in the heart of a village that preserves in every street a trace of it’s medieval past.

Images and text via MESURA Architects

Architecture in Norman Sicily: the Palatine Chapel

Many Normans, Christian descendants of the Vikings, left France for southern Italy around AD 1000. Pilgrims and mercenaries soon became conquerors and rulers. The Norman mercenary Count Roger de Hauteville founded a dynasty that reigned over Sicily for a century. During that time the island became a prosperous and influential Mediterranean superpower.

Under Roger’s son, Roger II, Sicily was characterised by an unusual, but fragile, religious tolerance. Jews, Muslims, Orthodox Greek Byzantines, Christian Normans and Italians lived together in one multi-ethnic kingdom. Roger welcomed scholars of all races and faiths to his court and a new art and architecture emerged from the mixture of influences, centred on the king’s court at the Norman Palace in Palermo.

At the heart of the palace, the Palatine Chapel (Cappella Palatina) was the jewel in the crown of Roger’s architectural achievements. It was consecrated on Palm Sunday, 28 April, in 1140, although its decorations were not entirely completed at this time. It combined a church with a hall for royal audiences, complete with platform and throne. Byzantine mosaic artists adapted their skills for western church architecture. Southern Italian artisans made the inlaid marble floor. Most impressive, however, was the ceiling created by Fatimid woodworkers and painters from North Africa. Star-and-cross patterns framed by ‘honeycomb’ vaulting created a complex stalactite structure. Every inch was plastered and painted with Arabic inscriptions and scenes from Roger’s court, which was based on that of the Fatimids in Egypt.

In this video Exhibition Curator Dirk Booms gives a quick introduction to the chapel and its impressive decoration.

Learn more about Norman Sicily and its unique art and architecture in our exhibition Sicily: culture and conquest (21 April – 14 August 2016).

Sponsored by Julius Baer

In collaboration with Regione Siciliana

Palatine Chapel, Palermo, Sicily. © Prefettura di Palermo, Servizi Comuni Siciliani.

work in progress. atelier: 4.35h da manhã. 

projecto parcial de centro de interpretação do Aqueduto das Águas Livres. Monsanto.

por Tiago Sá Gomes 

Swing by the Perelman Building and check out “Mythography: Sources for Classical Myth,” on view in the Museum Library now through February 19. With a selection of classically-inspired works from the 1300s to the 1800s, the installation explores changing perspectives on the work of Homer and his peers.

“Homer, His Iliads,” translated by John Ogilby in 1660, engraving by Cornelis van Caukercken after Abraham van Diepenbeeck

The City: A Formalist View of American Urban Architecture William W. Fuller

A 35 year photography project on architecture in great American cities culminates in the first book of William W. Fuller fine-art large format B&W work. His work captures the urban thread of our cities in clean black and white images, emphasizing the play of light and dark, texture and patterns, building and sky. 

Images via text via