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Jun 19

This is China Central Television HQ in Beijing, the world's first "looped" skyscraper.

Some say it's the greatest building of the 21st century, and others, including Xi Jinping, have called it weird.

Either way, CCTV HQ has (accidentally) inspired an architectural revolution...

China Central Television (CCTV) were based in this building, now the China Media Group Headquarters, built in the 1980s.

It is, by all accounts, an entirely ordinary 20th century skyscraper.

But in the early 2000s CCTV decided they needed a new, purpose-built headquarters...

And so they turned to the Dutch architect and theorist Rem Koolhaas, who founded the international architectural firm OMA in 1975, to design it.

Koolhaas, depending on who you ask, is either a modern genius or the supervillain of contemporary architecture.

Read 21 tweets

The Cultural Tutor

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Jun 16

On this day 544 years ago one of the most famous people in history was born.

Though you don't know her name, you definitely know her face.

Here is the story of the woman with the world's most famous smile, Lisa Gherardini, who never even saw her own portrait...

Lisa Gherardini was born in the Republic of Florence on 15th June, 1479.

She came from an old and aristocratic Florentine family which, though well off, wasn't quite as wealthy or influential as it used to be.

The Gherardinis made money from farms they owned around the city.

She was the eldest of seven children, and the family moved around Florence several times, eventually settling near the famous Santa Croce (seen here before its 19th century restoration).

Here the family may have befriended Piero da Vinci, the father of Leonardo.

Read 24 tweets

The Cultural Tutor

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Jun 15

This 600 year old painting has a hidden secret.

It might seem like an ordinary Renaissance work of art, but look closer — the halo around Mary's head has an inscription written in Arabic.

What does it say? Well, that's where it gets interesting...

That version of the Madonna and Child was painted by the influential Florentine artist Masaccio in the 1420s.

The "Arabic" he placed on Mary's halo is gibberish — it's an imitation of Arabic rather than the real thing.

Masaccio did this in many of his other paintings.

But Masaccio's use of pseudo-Arabic (sometimes called pseudo-Kufic) wasn't unusual.

Throughout the Italian Renaissance it was common practice to decorate the halos or robes of Mary and Jesus with this sort of garbled Arabic script.

But... why?

Read 22 tweets

The Cultural Tutor

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Jun 13

What is the greatest font of all time?

Arial

A classic font, designed in 1982 by Robin Nicholas and Patricia Saunders, and once the default for things like PowerPoint and Excel.

But Arial has a secret: it's a knock-off with exactly the same letter width as another font in this list...

Arnold Böcklin

Designed by Otto Weisert in 1904 and named after the painter (most famous for the Isle of the Dead), this might be the most evocative typeface ever created.

It oozes Art Nouveau, though it *isn't* the same font used by Hector Guimard in his Paris Metro signs.

Read 25 tweets

The Cultural Tutor

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Jun 13

This is the Sacra di San Michele, a 1,000 year old monastery in the mountains of northern Italy.

It is one of the greatest achievements of Medieval architecture, and it inspired Umberto Eco to write The Name of the Rose...

At the entrance to the Susa Valley in Piedmont, northern Italy, there rises a rocky pinnacle 1,000 metres above sea level called Mount Pirchiriano.

The Romans had a fortress here and in the Dark Ages the Lombards built a castle. You can see why; this is the view it commands.

And high upon Mount Pirchiriano, in about 980 AD, a monastery was founded and built on the foundations of those earlier structures.

Little remains of the original abbey other than the crypt, which shows some influence from Byzantine architecture, and a few other elements.

Read 22 tweets

The Cultural Tutor

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Jun 12

On this day 2,346 years ago Alexander the Great died in Babylon after a night of heavy drinking.

But what made him so great? And why was he mentioned in both the Bible and the Quran?

This is the story of the man who conquered the world before he was 30 years old...

Alexander was born in 356 BC in a city called Pella, the capital of Macedonia, to the north of Greece.

As a boy he was tutored by the famous Greek philosopher Aristotle, and imbued with a burning ambition by his mother, Olympias.

Later legends would say he was the son of Zeus.

Alexander's father, Philip II, has been overshadowed by his son.

For when Philip came to power in 359 BC Macedonia was in a terrible state, threatened by Thrace and Illyria and by the Greek cities, and on the brink of collapse.

But he was the right man at the right time...

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