Thursday, May 31, 2018

Tarnowskie Góry Lead-Silver-Zinc Mine and its Underground Water Management System Poland)

Located in Upper Silesia, in southern Poland, one of the main mining areas of central Europe, the property includes the entire underground mine with adits, shafts, galleries and other features of the water management system. 
Most of the property is situated underground while the surface mining topography features relics of shafts and waste heaps, as well as the remains of the 19th century steam water pumping station. 
The elements of the water management system, located underground and on the surface, testify to continuous efforts over three centuries to drain the underground extraction zone and to use undesirable water from the mines to supply towns and industry. 
Tarnowskie Góry represents a significant contribution to the global production of lead and zinc.

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Wednesday, May 30, 2018

Sacred Island of Okinoshima and Associated Sites in the Munakata Region (Japan)

Located 60 km off the western coast of Kyushu island, the island of Okinoshima is an exceptional example of the tradition of worship of a sacred island. 
The archaeological sites that have been preserved on the island are virtually intact, and provide a chronological record of how the rituals performed there changed from the 4th to the 9th centuries AD. 
In these rituals, votive objects were deposited as offerings at different sites on the island. 
Many of them are of exquisite workmanship and had been brought from overseas, providing evidence of intense exchanges between the Japanese archipelago, the Korean Peninsula and the Asian continent. 
Integrated within the Grand Shrine of Munakata, the island of Okinoshima is considered sacred to this day.







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Tuesday, May 29, 2018

Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy (Italy)

The nine Sacri Monti (Sacred Mountains) of northern Italy are groups of chapels and other architectural features created in the late 16th and 17th centuries and dedicated to different aspects of the Christian faith. 
In addition to their symbolic spiritual meaning, they are of great beauty by virtue of the skill with which they have been integrated into the surrounding natural landscape of hills, forests and lakes. 
They also house much important artistic material in the form of wall paintings and statuary.

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Monday, May 28, 2018

Cultural Landscape of Honghe Hani Rice Terraces (China)

The Cultural Landscape of Honghe Hani Rice Terraces, China covers 16,603-hectares in Southern Yunnan. 
It is marked by spectacular terraces that cascade down the slopes of the towering Ailao Mountains to the banks of the Hong River. 
Over the past 1,300 years, the Hani people have developed a complex system of channels to bring water from the forested mountaintops to the terraces. 
They have also created an integrated farming system that involves buffalos, cattle, ducks, fish and eel and supports the production of red rice, the area’s primary crop. 
The inhabitants worship the sun, moon, mountains, rivers, forests and other natural phenomena including fire. 
They live in 82 villages situated between the mountaintop forests and the terraces. 
The villages feature traditional thatched “mushroom” houses. 
The resilient land management system of the rice terraces demonstrates extraordinary harmony between people and their environment, both visually and ecologically, based on exceptional and long-standing social and religious structures.







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Sunday, May 27, 2018

Vizcaya Bridge (Spain)

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 steel ropes. 
It was the first bridge in the world to carry people and traffic on a high suspended gondola and was used as a model for many similar bridges in Europe, Africa and the America only a few of which survive. 
With its innovative use of lightweight twisted steel cables, it is regarded as one of the outstanding architectural iron constructions of the Industrial Revolution.

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Friday, May 25, 2018

Late Baroque Towns of the Val di Noto (South-Eastern Sicily) - Italy

The eight towns in south-eastern Sicily: Caltagirone, Militello Val di Catania, Catania, Modica, Noto, Palazzolo, Ragusa and Scicli, were all rebuilt after 1693 on or beside towns existing at the time of the earthquake which took place in that year. They represent a considerable collective undertaking, successfully carried out at a high level of architectural and artistic achievement. 
Keeping within the late Baroque style of the day, they also depict distinctive innovations in town planning and urban building.

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Thursday, May 24, 2018

The Climats, terroirs of Burgundy (France)

The climates are precisely delimited vineyard parcels on the slopes of the Côte de Nuits and the Côte de Beaune south of the city of Dijon. 
They differ from one another due to specific natural conditions (geology and exposure) as well as vine types and have been shaped by human cultivation. 
Over time they came to be recognized by the wine they produce. 
This cultural landscape consists of two parts. 
Firstly, the vineyards and associated production units including villages and the town of Beaune, which together represent the commercial dimension of the production system. 
The second part includes the historic centre of Dijon, which embodies the political regulatory impetus that gave birth to the climats system. 
The site is an outstanding example of grape cultivation and wine production developed since the High Middle Ages.

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Wednesday, May 23, 2018

West Lake Cultural Landscape of Hangzhou (China)

The West Lake Cultural Landscape of Hangzhou, comprising the West Lake and the hills surrounding its three sides, has inspired famous poets, scholars and artists since the 9th century. 
It comprises numerous temples, pagodas, pavilions, gardens and ornamental trees, as well as causeways and artificial islands. 
These additions have been made to improve the landscape west of the city of Hangzhou to the south of the Yangtze river.

The West Lake has influenced garden design in the rest of China as well as Japan and Korea over the centuries and bears an exceptional testimony to the cultural tradition of improving landscapes to create a series of vistas reflecting an idealised fusion between humans and nature.

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Tuesday, May 22, 2018

Renaissance Monumental Ensembles of Úbeda and Baeza (Spain)

The urban morphology of the two small cities of Úbeda and Baeza in southern Spain dates back to the Moorish 9th century and to the Reconquista in the 13th century. 
An important development took place in the 16th century, when the cities were subject to renovation along the lines of the emerging Renaissance. 
This planning intervention was part of the introduction into Spain of new humanistic ideas from Italy, which went on to have a great influence on the architecture of Latin America.

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Monday, May 21, 2018

Villa d'Este, Tivoli (Italy)


The Villa d'Este in Tivoli, with its palace and garden, is one of the most remarkable and comprehensive illustrations of Renaissance culture at its most refined.
Its innovative design along with the architectural components in the garden (fountains, ornamental basins, etc.) make this a unique example of an Italian 16th-century garden.
The Villa d'Este, one of the first giardini delle meraviglie, was an early model for the development of European gardens.

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