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The Cultural Tutor

@culturaltutor

Aug 21

The world's most famous neoclassical buildings are kind of boring and generic when you actually look at them.

It's even hard to tell them apart: which one below is Versailles, or Buckingham Palace?

So here's why neoclassical architecture (although it's nice) is overrated:

Buckingham Palace, despite being one of the world's most famous and visited buildings, is essentially quite boring and uninspiring from the outside.

There's a certain stateliness to it, but (like most big neoclassical buildings) it's really just a box wrapped in pilasters.

The same is true of Versailles.

Again, it's evidently pretty (largely thanks to the colour of its stone) but there's something weirdly plain about it, almost standardised.

Plus the emphasis on its horizontal lines makes it feel very low-lying, undramatic, and flat.

Read 13 tweets

The Cultural Tutor

@culturaltutor

Aug 17

These aren't castles, palaces, or cathedrals.

They're all water towers, literally just bits of infrastructure relating to water management.

Is it worth the additional cost and resources to make things look like this... or is it a waste?

These old water towers are an architectural subgenre of their own.

There are hundreds, mostly Neo-Gothic, and all add something wonderful to the skylines of their cities.

Like the one below in Bydgoszcz, Poland, from 1900.

But, most importantly, they're just infrastructure.

We don't think of infrastructure as something that can improve how a town looks and feels.

Infrastructure is necessary to make life convenient; but also, we believe, definitionally boring.

These water towers prove that doesn't have to, and shouldn't be, the case.

Read 24 tweets

The Cultural Tutor

@culturaltutor

Aug 8

If one thing sums up the 21st century it's got to be all these default profile pictures.

You've seen them literally thousands of times, but they're completely generic and interchangeable.

Future historians will use them to symbolise our current era, and here's why...

To understand what any society truly believed, and how they felt about humankind, you need to look at what they created rather than what they said.

Just as actions instead of words reveal who a person really is, art always tells you what a society was actually like.

And this is particularly true of how they depicted human beings — how we portray ourselves.

That the Pharaohs were of supreme power, and were worshipped as gods far above ordinary people, is made obvious by the sheer size and abundance of the statues made in their name:

Read 23 tweets

The Cultural Tutor

@culturaltutor

Aug 6

This is St. Anne's Church in Vilnius, Lithuania.

It's over 500 years old and the perfect example of a strange architectural style known as "Brick Gothic".

But, more importantly, it's a lesson in how imagination can transform the way our world looks...

Vilnius has one of the world's best-preserved Medieval old towns.

It's a UNESCO World Heritage Site, filled with winding streets and architectural gems from across the ages.

A testament to the wealth, grandeur, and sophistication of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Among its many treasures is the Church of St Anne, built from 1495 to 1500 under the Duke of Lithuania and (later) King of Poland, Alexander I Jagiellon.

It's not particularly big — a single nave without aisles — but St Anne's makes up for size with its fantastical brickwork.

Read 18 tweets

The Cultural Tutor

@culturaltutor

Jul 31

Tell your friends! Your enemies! Your lovers!

The Spanish edition of my new book, El Tutor Cultural, is now available for pre-order.

It'll be released on 22 October — and you can get it at the link in my bio.

To celebrate, here are the 10 best things I've written about Spain: from why Barcelona looks the way it does to one of the world's most underrated modern architects, from the truth about Pablo Picasso to the origins of the Spanish football badge...

https://x.com/culturaltutor/status/1650333346965192705

What makes Barcelona such a beautiful city? It wasn't an accident — this is the story of how the modern, beloved Barcelona was consciously created:

https://x.com/culturaltutor/status/1650333346965192705

https://x.com/culturaltutor/status/1679890349626466305

And, speaking of Barcelona, here's why the renovation of the Camp Nou is — although necessary — a shame:

https://x.com/culturaltutor/status/1679890349626466305

Read 11 tweets

The Cultural Tutor

@culturaltutor

May 21

When Vincent van Gogh started painting he didn't use any bright colours — so what happened?

It isn't just about art.

This is a story about how we're all changed by the things we consume, the places we go, and the people we choose to spend time with...

The year is 1881.

A 27 year old former teacher and missionary from the Netherlands called Vincent van Gogh decides to try and become a full-time artist, after being encouraged by his brother Theo.

What does he paint? The peasants of the countryside where his parents lived.

Vincent van Gogh's early work is unrecognisably different from the vibrant painter now beloved around the world.

Why?

Many reasons, though one of the most important is that he had been influenced by his cousin, the Realist painter Anton Mauve, who painted like this:

Read 23 tweets

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