Alte Zürcher Blog - Landmarks & Buildings

The Old Town Hall

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 10:24:00-0400

The old town hall in my village is now the local library. Taken this morning as I waited on the early Postauto into town. Cold weather and snow for the last couple of weeks has resulted in the picturesque, but also some of the best local skiing conditions for years

Herren

Wed, 28 May 2008 23:54:00-0400

A couple of days ago Peter in Paris posted some French sounding urinals. Here's a German sounding one. Also for Freefalling whose comment yesterday seemed to be craving such a thing

St Peter's Kirche

Mon, 12 May 2008 10:59:00-0400

This church and clock has featured in various photos on the blog. There seems to be some dispute, but it is listed in Wikipedia as the largest church clock face in the world at 8.7m diameter (so it must be true!). By comparison Big Ben is 7m, but of course isn't even a church....

Sculpture

Sat, 10 May 2008 22:39:00-0400

I've shown this sculpture in Werdstrasse before, but without the building in front of which it stands.

Augustinergasse

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 10:31:00-0400

I have many perfect photos of the top end of Augustinergasse, with St Peters clocktower in the background, but on glancing at this, for all it's "faults", it had something I liked. Maybe just that all the others are a bit static. The building on the right is home to the James Joyce Foundation, the one on the left is home to my hairdresser

Grossmünster, Zwingliplatz

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 23:24:00-0400

Downtown Zurich

Sun, 13 Jan 2008 08:19:00-0400

I haven't posted too many standard photos of Zurich, so here is the start of maybe a little series. The city is dominated and characterised by the River Limmat as it issues from Lake Zurich. The old town is split on both sides of the river. Here we see on the left the twin spires of the Fraumünster and St Peters. At the extreme left is the Fraumünster post office, scene of an infamous robbery in 1997 when 25 million Swiss Francs was stolen. Apparently 70 million was there for the taking, but they could only fit 25 million in their car... Just below this, at the waterside is the open air Frauenbad swimming pool - ladies only. At the right, behind the big tree is the Wasserkirche

The Fraumünster houses the famous Chagall stained glass windows, and St Peters houses the famous "largest clock face in Europe". Not sure what the Wasserkirche houses..

Happy New Year

Tue, 01 Jan 2008 23:07:00-0400

I know some people in Scotland who will be feeling a little bit like this today

Sculpture on the fountain outside Zurich Hauptbahnhof commemorating Alfred Escher, the driving force behind Swiss railway engineering projects such as the Gotthard tunnel

Returning home

Wed, 26 Dec 2007 13:16:00-0400

I am fascinated taking photos around this pigeon loft above the Limmat on the Lindehof. The viewpoint is always the same, with the backdrop of the Grossmünster, but you never know exactly what you are going to get with this kind of shot as an entire Squadron of birds attempts to land at the same time, everything happens so quickly. I've posted a similar shot before, but this is slightly different (more pigeons)

Chinagarten

Sun, 23 Sep 2007 16:14:00-0400

Architecture of a different sort. Just a stone's throw from the Heidi Weber house (smash!) is the Chinese Garden. A gift from the Chinese city of Kunming in 1994 for help provided in renovating their drinking water and drainage systems. It's supposed to be the biggest of its type in Europe.

You can also rent it for private parties, and it's not too expensive if you have a big occasion in mind. (it caters for 100 people and will cost 900CHF for an evening of riotous partying from 19.00 - 00.30). But you have to leave it clean and tidy of course.

Limmat and Grossmünster

Sat, 15 Sep 2007 23:19:00-0400

Some pigeons keep watch over the early morning sun

Leica M3 50mm summicron Ti-X

Kunsthaus

Thu, 13 Sep 2007 20:35:00-0400

A precoccupied attendant in the Kunsthaus. Probably phoning the police to come and get rid of the guy with the camera

Flughafen

Tue, 11 Sep 2007 23:29:00-0400

This is taken from the same vantage point as one of my earliest images on this blog. That was taken with a digital Camera (EOS300D) and verticals corrected in Photoshop. The interesting thing about this one, in comparison, is it was shot with an Olympus OM1 and the Zuiko 35mm PC-shift lens. This allows you to make perspective adjustments in-camera and has some advantages over doing it in photoshop. When you do it in photoshop by using the transform tool for example, you always lose some of the image. This may be ok, but it may be that you lose something that you included at the time of capture becasue it was interesting. With a PC-shift lens, you see in the viewfinder what you will get

Augustinergasse

Mon, 27 Aug 2007 07:26:00-0400

Another shot of Augustinergasse, Zurich's most photographed street I imagine. Many of the photos on this site are taken in or around this small, curving row of shops and restaurants, leading of Bahnhofstrasse

This one for example, is the tables outside Cantinetta Antinori at the bottom of the street

St Peters Kirche

Thu, 16 Aug 2007 21:31:00-0400

Did I ever say that this is the biggest clock face in Europe? Well now I have, and I guess that's what these three (yes there are three) are rubbernecking at. Zurich Altstadt in glaring sunshine

Bronica GS1 100mm TMAX400