Infamous Places

Coral Castle Museum

Written by piske91 on 10:46 AM

Coral Castle is a stone structure created by the Latvian-American eccentric Edward Leedskalnin north of the city of Homestead, Florida. The structure comprises numerous megalithic coral stones each weighing several tons.


he grounds of Coral Castle consist of 1,100 tons of stones found in the forms of walls, carvings, furniture and a castle tower. While commonly referred to as being made up of coral, it is actually made of oolite, also known as oolitic limestone. Oolite is a sedimentary rock composed of small spherical grains of concentrically layered carbonate that may include localized concentrations of fossil shells and coral. Oolite is found throughout southeastern Florida from Palm Beach County to the Florida Keys. Oolite is often found beneath only several inches of topsoil, such as at the Coral Castle site.

The stones are fastened together without any mortar. They are simply set on top of each other using their immense weight to keep them together. However, the craftsmanship detail is so skillful that the stones are connected with such precision that no light passes through the joints. The eight foot tall vertical stones that make up the perimeter wall have a uniform height. Even with the passage of decades and a direct hit on August 24, 1992 by the Category 5 Hurricane Andrew, which leveled everything in the area, the stones have not shifted.

Many of the features and carvings of the castle are notable. Among them are a two-story castle tower that served as Leedskalnin's living quarters, walls consisting entirely of eight foot high pieces of stone, an accurate sundial, a Polaris telescope, an obelisk, a barbecue, a water well, a fountain, celestial stars and planets, and numerous pieces of furniture. The furniture pieces included are a heart-shaped table, a table in the shape of Florida, twenty-five rocking chairs, chairs resembling crescent moons, a bathtub, beds and a royal throne.


What is most remarkable about the contents of the Coral Castle is the massive size of the stones used throughout the construction, all the more remarkable when one considers that a single man assembled the entire site using only primitive tools. With few exceptions, the objects are made from single pieces of stone that weigh on average 15 tons each. The largest stone weighs 30 tons and the tallest stones are two monolithic stones standing 25 feet (7.6 m) high each.

A nine-ton revolving gate is the most famous structure of the castle and was documented on the television programs In Search of..., and That's Incredible! The gate is carved so precisely that it fits within a quarter of an inch of the walls on both sides. It was so well-balanced that a child could open it with the push of a single finger. The mystery of the gate's perfectly balanced axis and the amazing ease with which it revolved lasted for decades until the gate suddenly stopped working in 1986. At that time, a team of engineers was brought in for consultation. In order to remove the gate, six men and a fifty ton crane were utilized. Once the gate was removed, the engineers discovered how Leedskalnin had centered and balanced the nine-ton piece of rock. Leedskalnin had drilled a hole from top to bottom of the eight-foot-tall gate with no electric tools and inserted a metal shaft. The rock rested on an old truck bearing. It was the rusting out of this bearing that resulted in the gate's failure to revolve. The nine-ton gate, complete with new bearings, and a replaced shaft was lifted and set back into place on July 23, 1986. The gate failed again in 2005 and was subsequently repaired, however it does not rotate with the same ease it once did.


The structure is considered mysterious by some, mainly because it is said that one man assembled the entire structure. Leedskalnin seems to have gone to great lengths to ensure that he was not observed working. The Castle's official site states that "Ed did much of his work at night by lantern light. The Coral Castle has numerous lookouts along the Castle walls that were designed to help protect his privacy."

There are various theories that hold that Leedskalnin constructed the Castle using some unknown form of science. For example, one website claims that "Ed Leedskalnin left behind the blueprints of nature, a Secret Knowledge of the Ancients". Such theories seem to be discounted by evidence, such as photographs showing Leedskalnin working, apparently using traditional methods like block and tackle.

There is skepticism as to the success of the traditional methods of tripods equipped with pulleys and chains that are in the photographs of Leedskalnin at work. Some point out that the Tripods appear to only rise about 20 feet (6.1 m), while the largest stones are 25 feet (7.6 m) long and stand vertical. They claim that tripods that are made from wooden telephone poles and could not support the larger stones. There are not enough pulleys to lessen the weight of the stones enough that a 100-pound man could exert enough force to lift the stones. The chains, with links 3/8 inch thick, which can still be found in the Tool Room of the Castle Tower and are seen in the photographs, are only rated with a 3.5 ton workload and may not be able to support the weight of the stones. However, these claims have not been rigorously analyzed by either engineers or scientists.

The Coral Castle site states that "if anyone ever questioned Ed about how he moved the blocks of coral, Ed would only reply that he understood the laws of weight and leverage well." He also stated that he had "discovered the secrets of the pyramids", which of course could be interpreted in either esoteric or engineering terms.

Despite the skepticism of traditional building methods at least one person, W. T. Wallington, has shown that he can produce feats of this nature using only simple tools. Given this type of construction method, the statements of Leedskalnin and the evidence surrounding its construction this could be the way Leedskalnin built coral castle.


Credits to: wikipedia and coralcastle.com

Casa Batlló - The House of Bones

Written by piske91 on 1:04 PM

Casa Batlló is a building restored by Antoni Gaudí and Josep Maria Jujol, built in the1877 and remodelled in the 1904–1906, located in Barcelona.

The local name for the building is Casa dels ossos - The house of bones, and indeed it does have a visceral, skeletal organic quality. It was originally designed for a middle-class family and situated in a prosperous district of Barcelona.

The building looks very remarkable — like everything Gaudí designed, only identifiable as Modernisme or Art Nouveau in the broadest sense. The ground floor, in particular, is rather astonishing with tracery, irregular oval windows and flowing sculpted stone work.

It seems that the goal of the designer was to avoid straight lines completely. Much of the façade is decorated with a mosaic made of broken ceramic pieces that starts in shades of golden orange moving into greenish blue. The roof is arched and was likened to the back of a dragon. A common theory about the building is that the rounded feature to the left of center, terminating at the top in a turret and cross, represents the sword of Saint George, which has been plunged into the back of the dragon.

Worcester Cathedral

Written by piske91 on 4:35 AM

Worcester Cathedral is an Anglican cathedral in Worcester, England; situated on a bank overlooking the River Severn. Its official name is The Cathedral Church of Christ and the Blessed Mary the Virgin of Worcester.

The Cathedral was founded in 680 with Bishop Bosel as its head. The first cathedral was built in this period but nothing now remains of it. The existing crypt of the cathedral dates from the 10th century and the time of St Oswald, bishop of Worcester. The current cathedral dates from the 12th and 13th centuries.
Monks and nuns had been present at the Cathedral since the seventh century . The monastery became Benedictine in the second half of the tenth century (one author gives the time range 974-7, another considers 969 more likely). The Benedictine monks were driven out at 18 January 1540 and replaced by secular canons. There is an important connection to Fleury as Oswald, bishop of Worcester 961-92, being prior at the same time, was professed at Fleury and introduced the monastric rule of Fleury to Worcester.
The former monastic library of Worcester contained a considerable number of manuscripts which are, among other libraries, now scattered over Cambridge, London (British Library), Oxford Bodleian, and the Cathedral library at Worcester of today.
Following the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the building was re-established as a cathedral of secular clergy. The cathedral was subject to major restoration work by Sir George Gilbert Scott and A E Perkins in the 1860s. Both men are buried at the cathedral.
The Cathedral has the distinction of containing the tomb of King John in its chancel. Before his death in Newark in 1216, John had requested to be buried at Worcester. He is buried between the shrines of St Wulstan and St Oswald (now destroyed).
The cathedral has a memorial, Prince Arthur's Chantry, to the young prince Arthur Tudor, who is buried here. Arthur's younger brother and next in line for the throne was Henry VIII. Worcester Cathedral was doubtless spared destruction by Henry VIII during the English Reformation because of his brother's Chantry in the cathedral.
Other famous burials include Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin (1867-1947), Bishop of Worcester John Gauden (1605-1662) and Richard Edes (d.1604), a Chaplain to Elizabeth I and James I.

Thirty nine of the misericords date from the 14th century, the other 3 are Victorian replacements (these however are remarkably well done - N-02 Judas in the jaws of Satan, for example). Subject matter is mixed - much is mythological, and religious, however, some examples, such as N-07 allude to folklore of the time "The Clever Daughter. A woman nude, except for a large meshed net draped around her, riding a goat and carrying a rabbit under her arm"..

Worcester Cathedral has three choirs: the Worcester Cathedral Choir (the main choir which has both a boys' and a girls' treble line, which normally work independently), Worcester Cathedral Chamber Choir, and the Worcester Cathedral Voluntary Choir. All three choirs were involved in the BBC broadcast of the midnight and Christmas morning services in 2007, with the boys and the girls of the Cathedral Choir, respectively, taking the lead in the two services.
Worcester Cathedral has a long history of organs dating back to at least 1417. There have been many re-builds and new organs in the intervening period, including work by Thomas Dallam, William Hill and most famously Robert Hope-Jones in 1896. The Hope Jones organ was heavily re-built in 1925 by Harrison & Harrison, and then regular minor works kept it in working order until Wood Wordsworth and Co were called in 1978. It was a large 4 manual organ with 61 speaking stops. It has a large gothic case with heavily decorated front pipes as well as two smaller cases either side of the quire.
This organ (apart from the large Transept case and pedal pipes) was removed in 2006 in order to make way for a new instrument by Kenneth Tickell which was completed in the Summer of 2008. The specification and drawings can be found on Kenneth Tickell's website. The Nave has a three manual Rodgers organ totally electronic instrument.
Notable organists include Thomas Tomkins (from 1596), Hugh Blair (from 1895), Ivor Atkins (from 1897) and David Willcocks (from 1950). The present organist (from 1996) is Adrian Lucas.
An image of the cathedral's west face was featured on the reverse of the Series E £20 note issued by the Bank of England, issued between 1999 and 2007. The notes are gradually being withdrawn from circulation to be replaced by a new series.
A little known oddity is that located in the cathedral's west window is the image of a pink Giraffe. Legend has it that when the images were being crafted the shape of the animal was known but not the color. It can be seen in the bottom right of the two center panels of the stained glass.
The Windows image accompanied a portrait of the composer Edward Elgar who spent the majority of his life in Worcestershire. The first performance of his Enigma Variations took place at the cathedral during the 1899 Three Choirs Festival.