past glory and nowadays beauty

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another trip back into bad reichenhall's glorious past: the karyatides of the entrance to one of the best hotels back in the ending 19th century. bad reichenhall was so famous in these days that even a bavarian king came there for 5 weeks. the spa offered healing of respiratory problems by inhalating brine dispersed by a 14m high and 200m long layer of twigs. the pumping machinery of that times is still partially functioning, and the excursion to those places is already planned.

from this past wealth only a fraction is there nowadays - tourists prefer to go abroad, and the rich clientel of the splendiferous hotel has sharply decreased in numbers. the beauty of some buildings and the scenery and landscape however has survived.

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percentage for art / kunst am bau

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bad weather with rain, temperatures just above 0°c, low light because i could leave office later than planned. but still, after an uncomfortable day some visual excercise deemed necessary to compensate for all the frowning and sweating because of murky software. the planned target for my activities, the (not so) new synagoge of munich (see here, definitely worth a return) turned out to be not so attractive because of the dull light, and so i headed home. taking a shortcut through a building block however got me immediately hobbled.

that silvery sphere, open-worked and reflecting inside and out, was just amazing, and the tiny rest of daylight together with the lamps in the surrounding offices made up for the most wonderful symphony of reflections. so i stood there and watched and shot until the fingers were numb and the protection filter in front of the lens was sprinkled with raindrops.

up to now i could not make out the artist who had created this sculpture (one of the rare cases where google did not come up immediately with a solution), so there's some work left. and a lesson learnt: don't rule out bad weather, instead go out shooting.

this photo on flickr

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