With yesterday’s sunny weather, the buildings across the street at work were showing off some beautiful crisp lines and shadows.
This is the view down the street – it’s not so much the buildings you should enjoy, but that lovely low golden light. About as bright as it gets.
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And here’s the view across the street – you can see the years these two were built, and also compare and contrast the degree to which they’ve been taken care of.
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Detail of 1912, it’s got a funky little piece of identifying art at the top: judging from the implements, someone in the building industry (engineer or architest) was the initial owner of the building.
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Here’s 1900 next door with no such identifying marks, but it has a certain respectability to it.
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Snow-clad rooftops against that pale, delicate sky…
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An hour later, the sun had moved enough to cast significant shadow and all the impressive lighting was on the other side of the building.
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Indeed, nothing compares to the magic of a sunny winter’s day. Who knows how many we shall have this year?
Thanks, rq. I needed that. Sunshine has been rare here in the past 2 weeks and that golden pink light in the second shot makes me think of late summer evenings.
I saw the same disparity in upkeep of buildings when I was in Russia. One building in general decay and disrepair and right next to it another building all bright and pretty. The 1912 building has beautiful windows and the symbol on it looks somewhat masonic.
That’s that “Vermeer light” that I love so much. Great shots; thanks for sharing!
It is beautiful light.
For some reason the first picture makes me homesick. I didn’t grow up in an environment like that and even the 12 years I lived in an older building (built 1926), the environment was more modern, but still those walls and roofs feel like home.
But your roofs look steeper than the ones in Helsinki.
Ice Swimmer
I haven’t seen Helsinki up close, all I know is that these roofs become a real hazard when temperatures rise above zero, and especially on particularly sunny days…
I think that “funky little piece of identifying art at the top” shows the building was a Masonic Lodge. It bears resemblance to the square and compass used in Feemasonry.
But that’s beside the point -- the light and shadow and the buildings themselves are grand.
DavidinOz
I don’t think so, due to the common practice of ‘advertising’ the occupation of the owner or main resident of these buildings -- I’ll have to take a few more pictures, but other buildings just down the street show similar identifying marks. Plus, I think this one is more associated with carpentry of some kind (not engineering as I first supposed), and it would have started out as a residential building with several apartments.
I wondered if the 1912 building might be associated with an actual mason, as beneath the compass and square is what could be a stone sled, and it the square resting on a hawk* on the right?
* the thing you carry your mortar on when building a wall, not the bird :-)