Misc (5)

10 Wonders of the New China

13 Jun, 2007 No Comments

10 Wonders of the New China

1. Beijing International Airport , Beijing

Foster & Partners. Under construction, to be completed in late 2007

According to the U.S. Embassy to China, the country will be building 108 new airports between 2004 and 2009 — including what will be the world’s largest: the Beijing International Airport, designed by Foster & Partners. Set to open at the end of 2007, in time for the Beijing Olympics in 2008, the airport terminal will cover more than 1 million square meters, giving it a bigger footprint than the Pentagon.

Church made of Human Bones ….

13 Jun, 2007 No Comments

Church made of Human Bones ….

Truth is sometimes stranger than fiction, and how about 70 kilometers east the capital of the Czech Republic, Prague, lies a small town called Sedlec. It might have been an ordinary enough town, if not for its extraordinary church.The inside of this church is decorated with artworks made of real human bones.The story begins in 1218, when a certain Abbot Henry made a pilgrimage to the holy land and brought back a jar full of soil from cemetery, which he spread over the Church.As a result the church came to be regarded as more sacred and turned into a popular burial spot .By 1318, more than 30,000 bodies were buried there and by 1511, it had become necessary to remove the older bones to make place for the new ones.These later became the material for the macabre creations. In 1870 a local woodcarver was hired by the Duke of Shwartzenberg to decorate the inside of the church with the human remains (approximately 40,000 sets of human bones).Attached are some of the pictures of this Boney Church - its simply astonishing