Archive for Vauban
11 hours in Lille
Posted in Books, Travel, Wines with tags beer, bellfry, Chambre de Commerce et d'Industrie, Citadel, conurbation, day trip, ferret, Flanders, Gare du Nord, Lille, Louis XIV, Nord, street view, TGV, Vauban, Vieille Bourse, waffles, War of Spanish Succession on July 19, 2025 by xi'an
sixteen ways to defend a walled city [book review]
Posted in Statistics with tags book review, Briançon, Engineering, fantasy, fortifications, French Alps, Italian Alps, P.D. James, siege, Vauban on September 2, 2020 by xi'an
The title of this book, sixteen ways to defend a walled city, enticed me to order it and after a slow beginning I became hooked to the story. I had forgotten I had read and enjoyed a book by K.J. Parker before, namely Devices and Desires, which was quite pleasant as far as I remember! (Not to be confused with another book under the same title by P.D. James.) The concept is somewhat similar, with the same universe if eons laters: boosted medieval warfare seen from an engineer’s perspective. (Devices and Desires started the Engineer Trilogy to make it clear to everyone!) Which makes for a pleasant change as devious ingenuity usually trumps frontal strength and there is at last attention paid to good, I mean in the sense of good delivery, resources, shortage, &tc.! The style is light and funny, the characters are somewhat too nice overall (until they die), but this makes for a tolerable kind of pastiche, most enjoyable to stand a heatwave! A second book just came out and I may be tempted to buy it, heatwave or not. Although the first one concluded in a rather definitive way, making a sequel unlikely… I may also complete the Engineer Trilogy.
c’est une maison bleue [jatp]
Posted in Mountains, pictures, Running, Travel with tags 17th Century house, Alps, Briançon, Cité Vauban, fortifications, Hautes Alpes, jatp, kind of blue, Oisans, summer 2020, Unesco World Heritage List, Vauban on August 25, 2020 by xi'an
the dawn ½ dome, plus X
Posted in Statistics with tags Alps, Þe Norse face, Briançon, dawn, fortifications, Half Dome, morning light, morning run, Oisans, Serre Chevalier, sunrise, vacations, Vauban on August 21, 2020 by xi'an
MUDAM
Posted in Books, Kids, pictures, Travel with tags Ad Reinhardt, Claude Monet, internship, Luxembourg, Ming Pei, MUDAM, Sun-Me Tsei, Vauban on October 22, 2017 by xi'an
As our son is doing an internship in Luxembourg City this semester, we visited him last weekend and took the opportunity to visit the Museum of Modern Art (or MUDAM) there. The building itself is quite impressive, inserted in the walls of the 18th Century Fort Thüngen designed by Vauban, with a very luminous and airy building designed by Ming Pei. 
The main exhibit at the MUDAM is a coverage of the work on Su-Mei Tse, an artist from Luxembourg I did not know but whom vision I find both original and highly impressive, playing on scales and space, from atoms to planets… With connections to Monet’s nympheas. And an almost raw rendering of rock forms that I appreciate most particularly!
The bottom floor also contains an extensive display of the political drawings of Ad Reinhardt, who is more (?) famous for his black-on-black series…
