On the Road | Urban Rivers

I am always fascinated by water in urban environments. Water is actually the main reason why cities come to existence, since ancient times, before trains, cars and airplanes any body of water —from oceans to rivers and lakes— represented a main transportation and communication means.
Rivers in special way intrigue me as their flow, in constant movement, and part of a cycle. Downtown Pittsburgh arises from the intersection of three rivers: is the confluence of three rivers: the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers, which form the Ohio River.

Bridges are sculptural expressions; you can find any example of structural vocabulary in the 446 bridges spanning from Pittsburgh in a spider web fashion. As a matter of fact Pittsburgh is also been called as "the City of Bridges" as well "the Steel City" for its  and former steel manufacturing base.
Pittsburgh and more generally Pennsylvania made me think of a land where man power encounters the power of nature: landscapes of steel crosses a varied topography where the land is cut by water,

camminando | Ohiopyle: Rivers, Trains and Views from Above

The state forest of Ohiopyle of the Laurel Highlands offers great scenic beauty. The Youghiogheny River can be seen by white whatever rafting, or more quietly from above. Twenty-seven miles of abandoned train rail tracks from the Great Allegheny Passage overlook the river crossing over a forest, whose towering trees can be seen from an usual view from above.

On the Road | Fallingwater: Architecture, Nature, Money

Today was my first visit to one of the most iconic places of architecture: Fallingwater, or Kaufmann Residence, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1935. The house is located in the rural Laurel Highlands of southwestern Pennsylvania. The house was built partly over a waterfall on Bear Run and is probably the most famous examples of organic architecture as integration of nature within man-made constructions. Bridges, terraces, roofs made of steel and concrete follow curvilinear shapes to engage in an harmonious dialogue with the natural features.

The total house cost at the time of construction was $155,000, about thirty times the cost of a house of a similar square footage (2885 sq. ft. interior) in Pennsylvania at the time.

Fallingwater was used by the Kaufmann family (Edgar Kaufmann Sr. (1885-1955), Liliane S. Kaufmann (1889-1952), and their son, Edgar Kaufmann jr. (1910-1989) as a weekend home  until 1963, when it was entrusted by Edgar Kaufmann, jr., to the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy.

 Architecture follows nature in details: concrete slab opening to allow a tree to penetrate the man-made construction

 Countryside surrounding the Fallingwater site

on the road | Industry, Nature and History

My road trip has began, leaving Manhattan crossing the Lincoln Tunnel and adventuring through industrial landscapes, many resembling archeological sites: the New Jersey Pulaski skyway, Kearney, finally crossing the Pennsylvania border and arriving to the Bethlehem Steelstacks ruins. Here I encounter a very meaningful quoteL

Imagination is more important than knowledge. For

knowledge is limited to what we know and understand 

while imagination embraces the entire world, and all 

there will be to know and understand.

-Albert Einstein      

                                         

The Bethlehem steelscape turns into green rolling hills often covered by cornfields crossing the Allegheny Mountains, part of the Appalachian Range whose homonymous trail I encounter in Port Clinton.
I was not familiar with the utterly beauty of rural Pennsylvania, whose inspiring natural scenes are crossed by history in the state portion of the Lincoln Highway (Route 30).

Memorial Fountain (1878) in the main square of Chambersburg (founded in 1734) was dedicated to  the Civil War soldiers

Eon Stony Creek Wind Farm

camminando | Down by the River

 The Storefront for Art and Architecture

Total walk length: 10.3km

On the Beach | Tutti al Mare

I miss very much the friendly blue Mediterranean sea, but I humbly respect and even enjoy the majestic grey roaring Atlantic Ocean. My visual memoir from a sunny hot, when to escape a hot steamy 105F NYC we drove to Jones Beach (25F cooler).

 The escape from the Manhattan island to Long Island begin with the crossing of the Quensboro Bridge

Roaring waves

 People and seagulls enjoy the refreshing waves

 Enjoying the sunset crossing back the Bay, in a sequence of islands withing the islands