The NASA event I helped out on this past weekend is called the “Great Moonbuggy Race.”  I’ve helped photograph it several times before.  As with SLP, students from both high schools as well as colleges compete, but this event has a much more international flavor with teams coming from all over the globe.  This year there were teams from as far away as Russia, India, Germany and Puerto Rico.  The Puerto Ricans sent several teams in both the high school and college categories.  They ended up winning first place in the college competition by coming in with the fastest combined time.

The New Britain (CT) High School entry clears one of the final obstacles before the finish line.

Participants are required to construct a vehicle based on the design of the original moonbuggy, the one that traversed the surface of the moon during several of the U.S. lunar landings.  The vehicle must conform to certain size limitations and must be only human-powered.  It must carry two crew members (from a group of six) over a half mile course out at the Alabama Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama.  Points are awarded for speed in assembly, safety considerations and the time it takes to make two separate course runs over the two-day competition.

Moonbuggies prepare for the start of the race under the shadow of a Shuttle mockup at the Alabama Space & Rocket Center.

The course that the buggies must follow includes a number of hazards and obstacles including a portion that simulates the surface of the moon itself.  The vehicles must be constructed strong enough to withstand the punishment of the moguls, sandpits and craters, but light enough for two people to be able to carry it to the start line and pedal it over the undulating terrain.  Some teams do it with relative ease, while others experience bent wheels, broken bicycle chains and worse, as they try to make it completely around the track.

India’s Chandigarh Group of Colleges entry at the start line.

Team Russia representing the International Space Education Inst. easily negotiates the course finishing second in the college category.

These vehicles are considered test vehicles, not production models and as such are allowed to make modifications just before and between races.  Make-shift garages are set up in the adjacent parking lot of the space center.  Sparks fly as teams makes constant adjustments and fine-tune their buggies.  Unfortunately, even the seemingly best built vehicles can’t stand up to the punishment that the course inflicts.  Many teams’ buggies are rendered undriveable even after the very first obstacle.  If the drive-chain breaks and is unrepairable on-the-fly, participants must resort to dismounting and pushing their buggy the rest of the way, a physical challenge to say the least.

Team 1 from Pittsburgh State University find themselves stuck at the first obstacle.

A bent wheel spells bad news for Toronto’s Marc Garneau Collegiate Institute team.

The East Central H.S. team from Hurley, Mississippi try a novel approach with small balloon tires.

The year’s winners:

High School 3rd Place: Jupiter High School Team 2, Jupiter, Fla.

High School 2nd Place: Jupiter High School Team 1, Jupiter, Fla.
High School 1st Place: Teodoro Aguilar Mora High School Team 1, Puerto Rico

College 3rd Place: Middle Tennessee State University Team 1, Murfreesboro, TN 
College 2nd Place: The International Space Education Institute, “Team Russia,” Leipzig, Germany 
College 1st Place:  University of Puerto Rico-Humacao, Humacao, Puerto Rico

I will be leading a Kelby Worldwide Photo Walk of Athens, Alabama on October 13. This will be my fourth walk, but the first one I am leading.  If you’ve never heard of the Photo Walk, check out the link below and see if you would like to participate.  It’s free and you don’t need to be any sort of expert photographer.  Your only requirement is that you own a camera.  It can be anything from a point-and-shoot camera to a Hasselblad.  Even disposables are permitted.  After we explore downtown Athens and take some amazing photos, we’ll all gather up at Village Pizza for lunch (not provided) and compare notes.  You are invited to submit your best photos and we will submit single best Athens photo to the national level.  The best entries will win prizes and be included in a book.  We are limited to a total of 50 participants, so sign up via the link soon.  See you on Oct. 13!

Athens Worldwide Photo Walk – Oct 13, 2012

The whimsical rooftop of Gaudi’s La Pedrera

At the end of my last post (June), I mentioned that I would also try to post some photos of Antoni Gaudi’s second most recognizable structure in Barcelona – La Pedrera.  On our recent trip to Spain, and prior to our visit to Sagrada Familia, we decided to visit La Pedrera, a warm up for the main act.  Having only two days to spend in Barcelona, we actually squeezed in visits to both Gaudi masterpieces on the same day, something that I would not recommend.  In our case, it was unavoidable.  If you have the time, devote at least a full day to each building.

La Pedrera’s (sometimes called Casa Mila), undulating stone facade, wrought iron balconies and windows were quite controversial for its time.  Built between 1905 – 1910, but not completely finished until 1913, it was originally built for a wealthy widow whose husband made his fortune in the American colonies.  Gaudi was a devote Catholic, and looked on La Pedrera to be a spiritual symbol.  He incorporated religious elements and statuary into the design as a testament to his great faith.  La Pedrera was constructed to house apartments and offices, however, the owner had difficulty renting the apartments because prospective tenants thought they would have problems furnishing the rooms, as they were irregularly shaped.  There is not a right angle to be found in the structure.

Undulating facade of concrete and wrought iron

La Pedrera owes its name to its rough outer appearance, similar to an open quarry.  It was built as two apartment blocks with separate entrances, linked by two inner courtyards, one larger than the other.  The exterior’s wavy facade mirrors the flow of the interior.  Concrete hangs off  of a steel skeleton which is adorned with numerous wrought iron decorative elements highlighted by the free-formed balconies.  The floor plan is open and expansive, representational of apartments designed for the more affluent citizens of the day.  Considered one of Gaudi’s most ambitious works, it is one of the most famous buildings of the Catalan Art Nouveau period.

Chimneys stand as sentinels

The building marked a break in the style of Gaudi’s work with respect to the functional and ornamental aspects.  Designed late in his career, Gaudi was able to exercise a bit more creative license with his rather unorthodox structure.  His whimsical talents are most evident on the rooftop which is a virtual garden of farcical structures, but which all have an underlying functionality to them.  It is the place where most visitors gather and linger.  The roof’s surface rolls under your feet, only interrupted by organically shaped stairways and abutments.  The ventilation towers and chimneys form a storybook-like forest of imaginative shapes, crafted out of a variety of materials, predominantly mosaics and plaster.

Apartment laundry

Kitchen stove

An architect, not unlike America’s own Frank Lloyd Wright, Gaudi looked on architecture as a total art.  He was involved with all aspects of the design, from the fundamental structural considerations, to the type of decorative molding to place around the doors.  Also, like Wright, Gaudi was interested in nature and organic forms and shapes, but did not discount the important technological innovations of the time.  Visitors can walk through an entirely renovated apartment, styled as it would have been during the early 1900′s for a typical well-heeled Catalan.  It is remarkably reserved in the style of modernism and does not display too many of the flights of fancy so common on the rooftop or even in the central courtyards or stairways.

Mosaic and plaster chimneys

Chimneys take on a distinctive helmet-like shape

The roof also affords a spectacular vantage point.  From it you can easily see Sagrada Familia off in the distance.  Scaffolding and construction cranes surround the structure as the city races to complete it by 2026, the centennial of Gaudi’s death.  La Pedrera is located on Passeig de Gracia, directly along one of the main tourist bus routes.  Open almost every day of the year, but lines still form down the street due to the space limitations inside.  If you happen to be a senior citizen, be sure to make your presence known, as you will be escorted to the front of the line.  Who said age doesn’t have its rewards?

Sagrada Familia’s Passion facade

A few years ago when we lived in Luxembourg, our family took a tour of Spain by car. While we didn’t go to Madrid, but we did visit all the other major cities including Barcelona.  I wanted to see the works of architect, Antoni Gaudi, specifically his La Pedrera apartment house and his church, La Sagrada Familia (Sacred Family).  We arrived in Barcelona late in the afternoon, tired from a long drive and facing the challenging task of finding a place to stay for the night.  Now, I have driven in most of the major cities of Europe.  At one time or another, I have taken on the boulevards of Paris, the roundabouts of London, the circuitous narrow streets of Munich and the one-car wide goat paths of Tuscany.  I felt that I could handle anything the continent had to offer.

The altar viewed from the nave

That was before I came to Barcelona.  It wasn’t the fact that the roads were in any worse shape than anywhere else in Europe, in fact, they were in pretty good repair, no doubt due to efforts made to upgrade facilities prior to the Olympics held in Barcelona a year before our visit.  What got me frazzled was the overwhelming number of motorcycles and scooters that share the road with the millions of cars, trucks and other vehicles which seemingly abide by no rules of the road, whatsoever.  They zip in and out of traffic, drive between lanes and consider traffic lights and stop signs as mere suggestions.  These two-wheel drivers are fearless.   They only know how to ride fast and stop only when absolutely necessary.  So stressed did I become, that I asked my wife and navigator to find me the quickest route out-of-town.

Columns shaped like trees support the ceiling

My appreciation for Gaudi’s landmark would have to wait.  So, we left Barcelona, and although we hoped we would return soon, it wasn’t till just a couple of weeks ago that we finally made it back to this amazing city.  It was the jumping off point for a Mediterranean cruise we were taking.  We flew into Barcelona and had two days to explore the Catalonian capital.  I’ll be the first to admit that it’s much easier to navigate the still-frantic streets of Barcelona via the relative safely of a double-decker tourist bus.  The city’s two-line bus route takes you close to every major attraction including both Gaudi’s La Pedrera and Sagrada Familia.

Sagrada Familia is the Roman Catholic basilica begun in 1882 and is still under construction.  Completion is not expected until 2026.  The halfway mark was reached in 2010.  A Catalonia publisher first conceived it and after he and the original architect could not agree on a design, Antoni Gaudi took over and would devote the next 40 years to the church’s construction.

The interior of the Nativity facade

The design combines Gothic with curvilinear art nouveau forms.  The basilica, when completed will comprise 18 towers, the tallest reaching almost 600 ft.  The towers representing in ascending order of height the Twelve Apostles the four Evangelists, the Virgin Mary and, tallest of all, Jesus Christ.  Eight spires have been built to date, corresponding to four apostles at the Nativity facade and four apostles at the Passion facade.  The completion of the spires will make Sagrada Familia the tallest church in the world.

Spiral staircase in the Narthex

The Church will have three grand facades: the Nativity facade to the East, the Passion facade to the West, and the Glory facade to the South (yet to be completed). The Nativity Facade was built before work was interrupted in 1935 and bears the most direct Gaudi influence. The Passion facade is especially striking for its spare, gaunt, tormented characters, including emaciated figures of Christ being scourged at the pillar; and Christ on the Cross. These controversial designs are the work of Josep Maria Subirachs. The Glory facade, on which construction began in 2002, will be the largest and most monumental of the three and will represent one’s ascension to God. It will also depict various scenes such as Hell, Purgatory, and will include elements such as the Seven Deadly Sins and the Seven Heavenly Virtues.

Whimsical towers of the Passion facade take shape

The church plan is that of a Latin cross with five aisles. The central nave vaults reach forty-five meters while the side nave vaults reach thirty meters. The transept has three aisles. The columns are on a 7.5-meter grid.  However, the columns of the apse, resting on the foundation, do not adhere to the grid, requiring a section of columns of the ambulatory to transition to the grid thus creating a horseshoe pattern to the layout of those columns. The crossing rests on the four central columns of porphyry supporting a great hyperboloid surrounded by two rings of twelve hyperboloids (currently under construction). The central vault reaches 200 ft.  The apse is capped by a hyperboloid vault reaching 250 feet.  Gaudi intended that a visitor standing at the main entrance be able to see the vaults of the nave, crossing, and apse, thus the graduated increase in vault loftiness.

Carved wooden door of Sagrada Familia

Sagrada Familia is an awe-inspiring and amazing structure.  In a very significant way, it affirms man’s faith and devotion to a higher being.  It is also a testament to man’s creativity and his tenacity in seeing a project of this scale through to the end.  Gaudi knew that he would never live to see his basilica completed.  In fact, his life was cut short tragically when he was killed in a tram accident in 1926.  The completion of the basilica is planned to coincide with the 100-year anniversary of Gaudi’s death. Incidentally, not only does the Sagrada Familia function as a cathedral, but it also holds the tomb of the Antoni Gaudi as well as a museum underground dedicated to informing the public of the construction process of the cathedral from day one.

Watch for my next posting.  In a few weeks I hope to post some images from Gaudi’s other masterpiece in Bacelona – La Pedrera.