From the Palmeral of Elche World Heritage inscription for the Palmeral of Elche: The Palmeral of Elche, a landscape of groves of date palms, was formally laid out, with elaborate irrigation systems, at the time the Muslim city of Elche was erected, towards the end of the tenth century A.C., when much of the Iberian …
From the World Heritage inscription for the Vizcaya Bridge: Vizcaya Bridge straddles the mouth of the Ibaizabal estuary, west of Bilbao. It was designed by the Basque architect Alberto de Palacio and completed in 1893. The 45-m-high bridge with its span of 160 m, merges 19th-century ironworking traditions with the then-new lightweight technology of twisted …
Antoni Gaudí is almost synonymous with Barcelona. The architect was a visionary with an outsized impact on the architecture and building technology of the early 20th century. La Sagrada Familia is Gaudí’s signature building in Barcelona, and it’s been under construction for almost 130 years. Despite the size and scope of this basilica, it’s not …
From the World Heritage inscription for the Palau de la Música Catalana and Hospital de Sant Pau, Barcelona: These are two of the finest contributions to Barcelona’s architecture by the Catalan art nouveau architect Lluís Domènech i Montaner. The Palau de la Música Catalana is an exuberant steel-framed structure full of light and space and …
From the World Heritage inscription for Monticello and the University of Virginia in Charlottesville: Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), author of the American Declaration of Independence and third president of the United States, was also a talented architect of neoclassical buildings. He designed Monticello (1769–1809), his plantation home, and his ideal ‘academical village’ (1817–26), which is still …
From the World Heritage inscription for Independence Hall: The Declaration of Independence was adopted in 1776 in this fine 18th-century building in Philadelphia, to be followed in 1787 by the framing of the Constitution of the United States of America. Although conceived in a national framework and hence of fundamental importance to American history, the …
From the Joggins Fossil Cliffs World Heritage inscription for Joggins Fossil Cliffs: The Joggins Fossil Cliffs, a 689 ha palaeontological site along the coast of Nova Scotia (eastern Canada), has been described as the “coal age Galápagos” due to their wealth of fossils from the Carboniferous period (354 to 290 million years ago). The rocks …
From the Gros Morne National Park World Heritage inscription for Gros Morne National Park: Gros Morne National Park illustrates some of the world’s best examples of the process of plate tectonics. Within a relatively small area are textbook examples of monumental earth-building and modifying forces that are unique in terms of their clarity, expression, and …
From the World Heritage inscription for L’Anse aux Meadows: This archaeological site at the tip of the Great Northern Peninsula of the island of Newfoundland contains the excavated remains of an 11th century Viking settlement consisting of timber-framed turf buildings (houses, workshops, etc.) that are identical with those found in Norse Greenland and Iceland at …