An ondulating mirror...

Today the weather must have been optimal for taking pictures of "reflections in canals". It was bright and the water was moving, but not to much. I love this picture.

       

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Sometimes there is to much wind, or the water is to warm and becomes restless. Until now I thought winter was the best time. When it gets cold, almost freezing, the water becomes a bit "slow"; that's ideal.

Spring is coming…. and so are the tulips.

    

This morning I got a mailing from the “Keukenhof” it opens on March 24. It must be almost spring then…. 

The “Keukenhof” is the fairy tale park with tulips and all all other bulbs you can think of. Tulips are for many people the equivalent of Holland and maybe even of springtime in Holland. 

Of course springtime is more than tulips; the soft green leaves starting to grow on the trees, the crisp air that puts you into a mood to clean the house, getting up in the morning with the sun already shining (when it doesn’t rain).

Just 2 years after Columbus discovered America, the first tulip bloomed in the Hortus Botanicus at Leiden (Holland 1594). People went crazy about this flower and 40 years later this culminated in the Tulipmania. Now we would say a Tulip-bubble. In that time also the Tulipière became fashionable. 

 

So, if you want to see tulips in Holland there is one place you cannot miss. It is this “Keukenhof”. The word "keukenhof" refers to the use as a kitchen garden of a mansion. Ages ago herbs for use in the kitchen were collected on this spot.

And there is more. There are of course the fields where the tulips are grown. Most of the fields are near the coast in the provinces of North- and South-Holland. The bulbs need a mixture of sand and clay.

Not only along the coast there are bulb fields. Also in the “Noord-Oost polder” are large fields full of colorful tulips and other bulbs.

The tulips are special, but look at these tender frittillaria or the daffodils.

  Or this blue river of grape hyacinths that runs through the "Keukenhof"......

See also on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/47357125@N08/sets/72157626286247464/

A "Barbapapa house"

The moment I read this, I hear the song of the Barbapapa family; Barbapapapa….  Summer holidays. Driving through Europe with the kids in the back of the car, listening to tapes of Barbapapa, Pippi, the bear Colargol…. Just one rather big tape recorder and they didn’t have the earphones yet. So coming home we could dream a wide repertoire of children stories and songs.

But this is a real serious “Barbapapa house” designed by Atelier Van Lieshout (Zie ook NRC cultuurblog van 2011/01/05). The building looks like a big terracotta bloc with something (also terracotta) crawling around it. Off course I think straight away of the buildings of Hundertwasser and a bit later of the buildings of Gaudi.

From whatever time ago I saw the first pictures of the works of Hundertwasser and Gaudi I was in love with these multicolor structures. Although, Gaudi has also done some pretty “depressing gray” stuff. The Hundertwasser museum in Vienna (Kunsthaus Wien) is a feast of color and fantasy. Two floors of full of pictures in a flowing building. Some years ago in Rotterdam in the “Kunsthal”, there was an exhibition of his models of towns and houses. 

This Atelier Van Lieshout (AVL) certainly makes intriguing art projects. (try the link). It probably did also this man walking in the Hofvijver in The Hague in the summer of 2004.

And what about the monkey like hands coming out of the water in the same year? Is it also from this AVL? I was searching the web, but nothing about this.  And if they are not made by AVL, then who did it? I really would like to know……..