Culture Explorer Profile picture
Sep 16, 2024 21 tweets 5 min read Read on X
Wow, they actually made it better!

Here are 20 remarkable revivals proving that breathtaking architectural restoration is possible. 🧵 Frauenkirche Dresden - 1957 and 2024
1. Dresden (1983 and 2019) Image
2. Boston before and after the "Big Dig." They took the freeway and buried it underground. Credit: ©u/StrategyOdd7170 / Via reddit.com
3. In 2010, a new Beaux Arts building in New York City replaced a 1950s shop building. Credit: ©u/NewYorkvolunteer / Via reddit.com
4. Hereford Square, London (Before and After) Credit: @Culture_Crit
5. A mall in Budapest, Hungary (Before and After the fall of communist regime) Image
6. Warsaw, Poland (1945 and Now) Credit: @Dr_TheHistories
7. Chróstnik Palace 2009 vs. now. Chróstnik, Lubin County, Poland Credit: @tradingMaxiSL
8. Sometimes nature takes over the beauty that existed. Revealing it is a net positive.

Chichen Itza 1892 and 2020 Image
9. Sas-Bahu Temple, Gwalior, India (1869 vs 2019) Image
10. Warsaw, Poland (Then and Now) Image
11. Harlem, New York (Then and Now) Image
12. Berlin Kreuzberg (1985 and 2018) Credit: @ThenvsNowPic1
13. Kossuth square, Budapest (Then and Now) Credit: @Arch_Revival_
14. Dubai (1990 and 2021) Image
15. Ziggaurat of Ur (Before and after excavation) Image
16. Mahabulipuram (Then and Now) Credit: @GemsOfINDOLOGY ·
17. Remodeled health clinic in Csenger (before and after) Credit: @Michael_Diamant
18. Hiroshima (1945 to 2020) Credit: ©u/Adamstowellll / Via reddit.com
19. Walkways at Ohio State University were paved based on the student's desired paths. Image
20. Tsaritsyno Palace, Moscow, Russia (Before and after 2005) Credit: @Culture_Crit

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Culture Explorer

Culture Explorer Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @CultureExploreX

Sep 17
Some restaurants serve food.
These places serve awe and beauty.

Here are 20 of the world’s most breathtaking dining experiences.

Which one would you choose for an Anniversary? 🧵 Kunsthistorisches Museum cafe
1. Le Train Bleu, Paris, France

A Belle Époque palace hidden in Gare de Lyon—frescoes, chandeliers, and royalty in spirit. Le Train Bleu, Paris, France - Travel through time with a meal inside this gilded Belle Époque treasure at Gare de Lyon. More of a restaurant but provides a cafe vibe.  Credit: @WorldScholar_
2. Café New York, Budapest, Hungary (1894)

A café dressed as a palace—dripping gold, frescoes, and overwhelming grandeur.
Read 23 tweets
Sep 13
Why do we stare at faces painted centuries ago?

Because portraits aren’t just about how someone looked. They show us who mattered. What power meant. What beauty was.

Here are 22 portraits that shaped how we see the world — and ourselves. 🧵 Portrait Of Lady Agnew Of Lochnaw by John Singer Sargent at the 	Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh Year (completed): 1892
This isn’t just a pretty girl.

Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring (1665) is quiet, almost plain.

But her gaze follows you. Her lips are parted. She’s thinking something.

We just don’t know what.
Mauritshuis, The Hague, Netherlands Image
Not seductive. Not smiling.
But absolutely unforgettable.

John Singer Sargent’s Madame X (1884) shocked Paris.
He had to repaint the strap to stop the scandal.
She became the most famous woman nobody knew.

Met, NYC Image
Read 23 tweets
Sep 12
In 2004, Navy Cmdr. David Fravor chased a white “Tic Tac” that dropped 50,000 feet in seconds, hovered, and darted off faster than a missile.

Radar and infrared confirmed it.

Physics can't explain it.

What if this sighting and others like it connect to visions in scripture? 🧵
Ezekiel, 6th century BC.

He described “wheels within wheels” of fire, full of eyes, rising and darting across the sky.

Scholars call it prophecy.

Yet the imagery—rotating forms, luminous movement—matches reports from pilots millennia later.

Were they both seeing the same reality?Ezekiel's Vision by Raphael, c. 1518 AD
Fatima, 1917.

Seventy thousand people in a Portuguese field claimed the sun spun, plunged, and threw rainbow colors across the sky.

Eyewitnesses included skeptics and reporters.

Miracle? Mass hallucination?

Or the same luminous disc phenomenon tracked today by pilots and radar?
Read 16 tweets
Sep 11
9/11 didn’t just collapse towers, it collapsed belief.

In Institutions and In purpose.

24 years later, what’s rising in its place isn’t chaos.

It’s something more seductive and far more dangerous. 👇 9/11 Never Forget ...  Credit: Hannah Funderburk
Historians William Strauss and Neil Howe called it The Saeculum — a four-phase cycle of human history:

• The High
• The Awakening
• The Unraveling
• The Crisis

We are now deep inside the last one. The Crisis. The Four Turnings of the Strauss-Howe Generational Theory
Every few generations, society hits a Fourth Turning, a total crisis that tears through its myths and rebuilds from the ashes.

• Revolution
• Civil war
• Depression
• Global war

Each cycle ends the same way: something must be reborn. Image
Read 15 tweets
Sep 7
What if the greatest British export isn’t the language or the empire…

…but a sense of timeless beauty etched in stone and paint?

Most people don’t realize how bold British art and architecture really is.

Let me show you the masterpieces they never taught you about: 🧵👇 Piccadilly Circus, London Credit: Pamela Lowrance
Most cities hide their secrets underground.

London built its greatest secret above ground.

The Royal Naval College in Greenwich looks like something out of ancient Rome yet it was designed by Christopher Wren to be “the Versailles of the sea.”

Its twin domes once trained the world's most powerful navy.
How do you immortalize love, sorrow, and empire… with one sculpture?

Answer: the Albert Memorial.

Critics mocked it when it was built. Now they quietly admit it’s one of the most emotionally overwhelming monuments in Europe.

Gothic, golden, and unapologetically romantic. Image
Read 17 tweets
Sep 5
Poland just became a $1 trillion economy without open borders, without giving up religion, and without tearing down its traditions.

What did Poland do that the West won’t? (a thread) 🧵👇 Gdansk, Poland Credit: Elif Odabaş
Back in 1990, Poland was broke and gray.
Fresh out of Soviet control, it had crumbling factories, dull housing blocks, and a weak economy.

No one expected it to become the EU’s quiet success story.

Image: Warsaw (Then and Now) Image
Today, Poland has become a vibrant society.

Old towns have been rebuilt with care.
Churches restored.

Soviet scars replaced with colorful facades and cobbled streets.

Poland proved something no one talks about:
You can build prosperity without destroying beauty.
Read 19 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us!

:(