Le Chalet de Montbovon

The chalet placed mid-way between the Chemin de Fer entrance and the Place des Nations entrance is a charming and suprising sight in the Jardin des Nations. I've been curious about it from the moment I first saw it. It's specially beautiful in summer, when surrounded by a riot of colourful flowers, and in winter after a snowfall.

It turns out that the Chalet is an authentic Swiss chalet built on 1668 in the town of Montbovon, in Gruyère. It was transported from there to Geneva in 1896, as part of the "Village Suisse" exhibition on the occasion of the Exposition Nationale Suisse. After the Exposition, the chalet was bought by the Gustave Revilliod Foundation (for 50 Swiss francs, what a bargain!) and installed in the Ariana park. It was Gustave Revilliod who, in his will, had donated the Ariana park to the City of Geneva in 1890.

Here is a picture of the Chalet at the time of the Exposition (picture taken by Geneva photographer Fréderique Boissonnas, part of his souvenir postcard set on the Village Suisse):

Sources:

http://bern-1914.org/genf_1896/

http://www.geneve.ch/fao/2005/doc/20050826.pdf

http://www.genevabriefingbook.com/chapters/palais.html

The Conquest of Space

Monument and contrails, originally uploaded by lectureral.

I created the blog sometime ago, but have been so busy that have been unable to start. I found this excellent picture on Flicker, so I thought why not start with this, since it's a landmark in the Palais des Nations garden.

The sculpture was donated in 1971 to the United Nations by the Soviet Government in honor of "The Conquest of Space". Like a shiny metal spear, it pierces the air. While beautiful, I have always found it aggressive, maybe reflecting the spirit of the donor nation at the time, during the glory days of the Cold War.

It is also fitting that the 50th anniversary of the Sputnik being launched into space (October 4, 1957) took place a few days ago. With that satellite, the Soviet Union truly inaugurated the Space Age (and US-USSR Space Race).

From the NASA webpage (http://history.nasa.gov/sputnik/):
"The world's first artificial satellite was about the size of a beach ball (58 cm.or 22.8 inches in diameter), weighed only 83.6 kg. or 183.9 pounds, and took about 98 minutes to orbit the Earth on its elliptical path. That launch ushered in new political, military, technological, and scientific developments."

The sculpture in question was created by sculptors A.P. Faidysh-Krandievsky and Yuri Neroda, and architects Alexander N. Kolchin and M.O. Barshch . It is covered in titanium, and you are sometimes blinded when the sun shines and you look at it at a certain angle. It certainly stands tall at 26 meters (85 feet) and is as impressive as I'm sure its donors wanted it to be. I wonder if Frank Gehry had seen it before he went on to construct all his amazing and impossible metal buildings.

Through some googling, I found out that three of the creators of the monument (Faidysh, Kolchin, and Barshch) also collaborated previously on a similar monument in Moscow, also created to commemorate the launch of the Sputnik.

The monument won a competition out of 350 proposals for the best design of an obelisk celebrating the opening of the Space Era. The grand opening of the monument was on October 4, 1964, on the day of the 7th anniversary of the Sputnik 1 launch (Source: "Monument to the Conquerors of Space" Wikipedia entry). You can see the Moscow monument at http://wikimapia.org/51192/.

Au Jardin

I was so enchanted by my peaceful, summer lunch break in the gardens of the Palais des Nations that I decided I would start recording the things I love about it. It is a truly beautiful place to work in.

What do I love about it? It's location, with the unobstructed view of the Leman Lake and of the Mont Blanc. It's trees, many ancient and majestic, others younger and happily growing. It's fauna, from birds to mammals, big and small, domesticated and wild. It's flowerbeds, which change constantly according to the seasons and thanks to the constant work of gardeners. It's architecture(s), from the main Palais building to the villas (and one chalet) dotting the gardens.


The photo in this post comes from http://www.genevemarathon.ch/geneve/index.php