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Stepping into the extraordinary Eighty Years’ War heritage of Hoorn

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About Hoorn and the 1573 Zuiderzee Battle for freedom and democracy

 

Stepping into the extraordinary Eighty Years’ War heritage of Hoorn

History and trade 

They say it takes a proud predilection for history to re-enact a historic event. An event that occurred 450 years ago when the Spanish fleet was defeated by the Dutch rebels “watergeuzen”. Geuzen translates in English as beggars. Yes, we are stepping into the heritage of Holland by travelling to a former home base of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and a very prosperous centre of trade at the time. We drove to Hoorn, about 40 km north of Amsterdam, a beautiful city with a rich past, full of monumental buildings and a museum brimming with treasures. Only to emphasise its importance in the 16th and 17th centuries, Cape Horn located off the southern tip of South America was named after this little town. Another contribution to world history includes Hoorn’s close ties with the East India Company (VOC). Hoorn was one of the 6 chambers (regional bases) of the VOC and ships sailed from here all around the world. From its foundation, the Dutch East India Company had dual objectives; it was a trading company and an instrument in the Eighty Years’ War against Spain.

Quest for freedom 

During 80 years in between the 16th and 17th centuries, the Netherlands formed part of the Spanish Empire. Emperor Charles V, born in Ghent and raised in the Netherlands, inherited what is now called the Benelux, and the Spanish kingdom. During the 16th century Protestantism rapidly gained ground in northern Europe. Its rise fuelled by the expanding trade. In a society dependent on trade, freedom and tolerance are considered essential. However, Charles V’s son, Philip II, sought to eradicate Protestantism in favour of an increased central authority  in matters of religion, law and taxes. The Dutch Revolt, or Eighty Years’ War, was a series of battles fought in between 1568 and 1648 against the dominant power structure of the Spanish government and Catholic Church that had been enforced by Philip II. Many Dutch provinces rebelled. They opposed the idea of religious persecution, wanted to trade without paying exorbitant taxes and more personal freedom. Moreover, the Spanish repression and religious wars slowed down the quest for self-determination and unification of the Netherlands. 

Stepping into the extraordinary Eighty Years’ War heritage of Hoorn
Stepping into the extraordinary Eighty Years’ War heritage of Hoorn

The Battle of the Zuiderzee 

In 1573, an exciting naval battle took place in the port of Hoorn during this Eighty Years’ War. The Republic of the Seven United Provinces was in the middle of its struggle for independence. As the supply routes for the cities like Amsterdam almost exclusively passed the Zuiderzee, the Dutch Watergeuzen attempted to disturb this sea route as much as possible in small skirmishes and raids against ports of call dominated by the Spanish. In 1573 the Spanish Governor Maximilian de Henin, Count of Bossu was so fed up with these raids that he sent a fleet comprising of 30 ships with a crew of over 1,300 people to Hoorn with the prerogative to halt the attacks and destroy the enemy force. Bossu and his fleet left Amsterdam on October 5 and immediately hit a standstill amid attacks from the Watergeuzen. For the rebels, it seems like a battle lost in advance: Bossu’s Spanish admiralty ship was apparently invincible with its enormous size and armament. Not until October 11th, 1573, the Dutch could execute a surprise attack in the waters of the Hoornse Hop. The Watergeuzen do what they can, even attacking the Spanish enemy in rowing boats.

Courageous sailor Jan Haring

A sailor from Hoorn, Jan Haring manages to board the Spanish admiralty ship. In a flash he decides what to do. He climbs into the rigging of the Admiralty ship and pulls down the Admiralty flag with his own hands. It turns out to be a turning point in the battle. Shot from the mast of the ship  by Spanish soldiers, Jan Haring falls fatally wounded on the deck and dies. Other Spanish ships assume that Admiral Bossu has surrendered and flee. Bossu, realising that further resistance is idle, surrenders and is imprisoned in Hoorn together with 200-300 soldiers. Jan Haring’s body is carried through Hoorn with reverence and laid out in the Oosterkerk.  After winning the Battle of the Zuiderzee, a period of great prosperity starts for the northern part of the Zuiderzee, now called Ijsselmeer. The enemy has been driven out  and will not return. Free trade can be conducted from the northern Zuiderzee port cities and Hoorn becomes the administrative centre. Amsterdam, which has stayed in Spanish hands, could no longer trade by sea for years to come and the West Frisian cities take over maritime shipping, especially to the Baltic Sea and the Mediterranean.

Stepping into the extraordinary Eighty Years’ War heritage of Hoorn
Stepping into the extraordinary Eighty Years’ War heritage of Hoorn

450 years after 

In October 2023, it will be exactly 450 years since the Battle of the Zuiderzee took place and Hoorn freed itself from the Spaniards through this epic naval battle. The event was a turning point in Dutch history and in hindsight contributed greatly to the establishment of the Dutch nation and its national identity. After the lost Zuiderzee battle and the failed siege of the nearby city Alkmaar, the Spanish realised that the struggle to conquer North Holland was lost. Later they abandoned Amsterdam as well and returned to Spain. On October 14 and 15, 2023 Hoorn commemorated the anniversary of this historic event, re-enacting the battle.

The re-enacting made us realise that it is necessary to celebrate the importance of freedom then and now, even centuries after the historic event took place. The best thing we can do is to reconstruct the experience and add some history to our daily lives to remember the importance of preserving the fundamental freedoms that define life in a free, democratic society.

Westfries Museum Hoorn

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Van Nelle Rotterdam & the architectural challenge of the ‘ideal factory’

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Van Nelle factory: an icon of 20th-century industrial architecture in Europe & Unesco world heritage site

 

Van Nelle Rotterdam & the architectural challenge of the ‘ideal factory’

Van Nelle articulates the  ‘ideal industrial factory’

On my visits to Rotterdam, the Dutch port city, I was often told that there was one place I should go: the Van Nelle Factory. It is one of the most remarkable icons of industrial architecture in The Netherlands, de facto in the world. It is also a textbook example of the Dutch “Nieuwe Bouwen” or “New Building” representing various modern building styles (1915 to 1960) that focus on functionality combined with aesthetics.

The story of Van Nelle started in 1782 when Johannes van Nelle opened a coffee, tea and tobacco shop at the Leuvehaven in Rotterdam. After the death of the founders, their son continued to run the company until the Van der Leeuw family took over the entire Van Nelle company in 1845. Van Nelle bears witness to the long history of importing, processing and trading tropical products such as coffee and tea through the port of Rotterdam.

Family Van Der Leeuw 

Coffee, tea and tobacco became increasingly relevant around the turn of the century, contributing to the success of the family Van Der Leeuw. Using pragmatism as a business tool, the family established worldwide trade contracts and founded their very own coffee and tea plantations in the Dutch West Indies. With business going well, the demand for bigger premises grew. In 1916, CEO Cees van der Leeuw bought a site close to Schie, a waterway between Rotterdam and Schiedam. Van der Leeuw was not your average director. Interested in spirituality, art and architecture, Cees had a good eye for talent. He hired architect Michiel Brinkman as architect for the new Van Nelle. Brinkman, well known for his Spangen  “streets in the sky” project, worked in the Dutch modernist tradition. After completing the first sketches, Michiel Brinkman suddenly died in 1925. A successor was found in his son, Johannes Brinkman, who studied at the Delft Technical College. Alongside Johannes a more experienced architect was called for. Leendert van der Vlugt was appointed. This successful collaboration led to the architectural office Brinkman & Van der Vlugt (1925 – 1936).

Van Nelle Rotterdam & the architectural challenge of the ‘ideal factory’
Van Nelle Rotterdam & the architectural challenge of the ‘ideal factory’

Nieuwe Bouwen and the 1rst daylight factory in Europe

The van Nelle factory is a textbook example of the so-called “Nieuwe Bouwen” architecture. Van der Leeuw and architects Brinkman and Van der Vlugt wanted to realise the ‘ideal factory’:  functional, beautiful and open with characteristic facades of steel and glass and ‘mushroom columns’ made of reinforced concrete. The ‘ideal factory’ showed that Van Nelle cared about the physical and mental well-being of his employees. More daylight provides pleasant working conditions and radiates openness to the outside world. Van Nelle also provided large sanitary facilities in the factory. The workers often experienced poor living conditions and could wash on-site before work. Good hygiene was necessary for production as well. There were slightly more women than men employed and to prevent distraction, there were separate work places and stairs for men and women. The famous Rotterdammer W.H. Gispen designed the chrome work of the notably beautiful stairwells. 

The glass palace

Built between 1927 and 1931 the complex consists of three connected factories for coffee, tea and tobacco. Each floor was intended for one step of the processing process: seven for tobacco, five for coffee and three for tea. Each of the processed gods – tobacco, coffee and tea used a separate section of the building and its form and size responded to the processing needs. The idea was to start each process on top of the building. The raw material was brought to a higher floor to go down a floor after each stage of the treatment. This explains the difference in building levels. The tobacco section needed eight treatments, coffee five and tea three levels. The characteristic bridges serve as connecting corridors to transfer products hanging from rails between the factory and the warehouses. After its completion in 1931, the Van Nelle Factory was the most modern factory in the Netherlands. Not surprisingly, because of its gigantic glass facade, the building was soon called “The Glass Palace”.

Van Nelle Rotterdam & the architectural challenge of the ‘ideal factory’
Van Nelle Rotterdam & the architectural challenge of the ‘ideal factory’

Unesco World Heritage site

On June 21, 2014, the Van Nelle Factory was awarded a World Heritage site by UNESCO. The Van Nelle Factory is one of those iconic buildings, unique for its time in material and form promoting light, air and space, and far ahead of its time from a social point of view. The inclusion of the Van Nelle Factory on the UNESCO World Heritage List is a recognition of the architectural quality of this modernist peace palace and the ultimate culmination of the repurposing process. The recognition did not come out of the blue but is the result of years of preparatory work by many people from the van Nelle Factory, the municipality of Rotterdam and the Cultural Heritage Agency. The fact that the Van Nelle factory is still in full use as a functional and unusual event location, office complex and museum presents an exciting challenge between ‘conservation’ and ‘use’.

Adress: Van Nelleweg 1, 3044 BC Rotterdam

Website Van Nelle

Le-Corbusier---Venice-hospital-project

What remains of Le Corbusier’s fascinating hospital project in Venice?

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Le Corbusier Venice Hospital project

Venice missed a huge opportunity in the 1960s to include contemporary architecture in its city shape. At the time, the French modernist architect Le Corbusier was invited to build an open-form hospital on three levels in San Giobbe. The idea was to extend the hospital site into the lagoon by building on stilts. Sadly, any hope to see the project completed faded in August 1965, when Le Corbusier died of a heart attack.

What remains of Le Corbusier’s fascinating hospital project in Venice?

A love affair with Venice

I have affection or respect for other cities, but with Venice, it is more: I treasure the architecture of this floating city. Fenced in by the rippling water of the lagoon, Venice has many admirers, including some you would not expect. None other than Swiss-French architect Charles Édouard Jeanneret-Gris, known as Le Corbusier, fell in love with Venice since his first visit in October 1907. Over time, the figurehead of modernism and a critic of many urban developments travelled again and again to the lagoon. Le Corbusier loved the human proportions of the Venetian alleys, the small arteries of the city. For the site in San Giubbe, Le Corbusier’s design strategy is an attempt not to eradicate history, but to translate it into the future, to shape it into something new. Le Corbusier seems to be someone who can transform the events of his own history or knowledge in architectural designs. It take a genius to fit a modernist building into a centuries old urban environment. 

Research of urban proportions

Talk about a new hospital in San Giobbe started in 1959. In 1962, Mayor Giovanni Favaretto Fisca contacted Le Corbusier and asked him to be the architect in charge of the project. After some heated public debates, Venice decided on April 20, 1963, to announce a competition for Italian architects and engineers to submit proposals for the hospital project. With no clear winner of the competition, the hot potato arrived again on Le Corbusier’s plate. Le Corbusier moved to Venice for a first survey of the Venetian urban fabric in August 1963 . He calculates the proportions of Venetian streets and squares. The architecture of Venice is clearly horizontal, and the average building height 13.66 metres. There are only a few vertical exceptions, such as the tower of San Marco. Venice is a small city of only 8 km2, comparable to the historic city centre of Amsterdam. Like Amsterdam, buildings lay down on water, held up by stilts. The idea of a building on stilts extending over water, may originate from Le Corbusier’s interest in prehistoric lake dwellings in central Europe. 

What remains of Le Corbusier’s fascinating hospital project in Venice?
What remains of Le Corbusier’s fascinating hospital project in Venice?

A horizontal hospital

Based on his research Le Corbusier concluded it was best not to alter the urban city shape, but rather extend it on stilts within the lagoon landscape. The Venice Hospital should not be built vertically, but built as a ‘horizontal hospital.’ In November 1964, a first draft arrived in Venice accompanied by a letter: “A hospital is the house of man. The key is the man, his height, his step, his eye, his hand. That is why the starting point will be his accommodation, the hospital room”. Three main levels were planned. The ground level with general services makes a connection with the city. On this level it is all public access. The second level is for medical care and technology. And the third level serves as the zone for hospitalization, plus a visitor area. The number 4 is leading. 4 rooms are placed side by side to form a so-called “care unit”. 4 care units are grouped together and are served by 4 “calli” or alleys. The route along the alleys, where patients can meet and relax, is organized in a similar way as the alleys of Venice. 

Venice, a unique phenomenon

One of the most interesting contributions Le Corbusier made is his reflection on the position of the patient. Forced into his bed, the patient cannot enjoy a view of Venice. In Venice there is this thing called the “transenna”. It is the way buildings, water and light merge into a completely different image. Le Corbusier designed a system of ceilings and windows that capture these variations of natural light in the lagoon. Like this the patient can feel the “transenna” of Venice. Le Corbusier’s hope to see the Venice project completed vanished in August 1965 when he died of a heart attack, 87 years old, swimming below the cliffs at Eileen Grey’s house in Cap Martin, France.

Venice is a totality. It is a unique phenomenon” wrote Le Corbusier once. He saw Venice as a fluid city of human proportion, a city “of total harmony, integral purity and unity of civilization. In its most hidden corners and you will realize that in this urban enterprise one finds, everywhere, tenderness.” It is fitting, perhaps, that his final project was for Venice, the city he came to love so deeply.

What remains of Le Corbusier’s fascinating hospital project in Venice?

Le Corbusier unbuilt hospital project in Venice

 

See also our article about the light and architecture of Venice

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Foodie’s paradise Chelsea market in New York City has something for everyone

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Chelsea market

has it all

We eat 3 times a day, so why not grab a bite at Chelsea Market when you are in the neighbourhood? Considered a foodie’s paradise, Chelsea Market is home to some of the best food in the city. Plus, it is located in a beautiful industrial building with a long history definitely worth a visit. Chelsea Market was constructed in the 1890s as the National Biscuit Company (Nabisco) factory, where the original Oreo Cookie was made in 1912.

Meatpacking District and Chelsea Market 

The Manhattan location of Chelsea Market always involved food. Centuries ago, on the banks of the Hudson River, the Algonquin Indians traded there their game and crops. Fast forward to the 1880s. Around that time, the transformation of the area into a commercial marketplace began. First to open was the Gansevoort open-air Farmer’s Market, selling fresh produce grown in the region. West Washington Market was next, featuring wholesale meat, poultry and dairy. Gansevoort preluded the slaughterhouses and packing plants of a small area in Manhattan surrounded by Chelsea, Greenwich Village, and West Village called the Meatpacking District. The Meatpacking District thrived until the 1930s, becoming the 3rd largest meat processing industry in the U.S. The Gansevoort Farmer’s Market Meat Centre built on the site of the former Farmer’s Market is still in operation today.

Foodie’s paradise Chelsea market in New York City has something for everyone
Foodie’s paradise Chelsea market in New York City has something for everyone

Constructed in the 1890s for the National Biscuit Company

Chelsea Market was constructed in the 1890s by the National Biscuit Company (Nabisco) as its production facility. It is here where the original Oreo Cookie was made for the first time in 1912. Being so close to the wholesale butchers of the Meatpacking District meant the easy availability of lard, very convenient for a company that manufactured Crackers. Other products followed: Fig Newtons, Nabisco Wafers, Anola Wafers, Barnum Animal Crackers, Cameos, Lorna Doones and Oreos in 1912. When Nabisco sold the building in 1958 and moved to Fair Lawn, New Jersey, the Chelsea building sat vacant for decades. It was a sign of the times. In the 1960s and 1970s industries started to relocate from Manhattan. In the late 1980s, the building even witnessed a gruesome triple murder. Two men had been executed in the basement, while a third man died from his wounds due to a robbery. Outside it wasn’t any safer. Prostitution was booming in the deserted streets. 

At the time it was a bold move to focus on a food hall

It was not until the 1990s, that a group of developers took the initiative for a food market. The idea was to combine wholesale with small retail outlets to promote local entrepreneurs and artisans. Thanks to New Yorker Irwin Cohen and daughter Cheryl, who were pushing the development of the project, Chelsea Market began to take shape. Central is the idea that food works, just because the amount of food that’s consumed in New York is so great. 

Fortunately the developers preserved many of the original architectural features of the building, such as the exposed brick walls and industrial ceilings. They also kept many of the original wooden beams and columns used to support the weight of the once-heavy machinery. Chelsea Market opened on Nov. 12, 1997. In 2018, Google paid $2.4 billion to snap up the property with its long history and the stripped-down brick architecture.

Foodie’s paradise Chelsea market in New York City has something for everyone
Foodie’s paradise Chelsea market in New York City has something for everyone

Come hungry and dig in at Chelsea Market

It is clear that Chelsea Market became an iconic culinary destination. Chelsea Market attracts 6 million local, national and international visitors annually. It is one of the City’s most written-about, filmed and photographed destinations. Chelsea Market has around fifty first class restaurants and food stalls, catering to virtually all food preferences. One can go to the Market in the morning and not exit until after lunch without getting bored or hungry. And we are not talking here only about foodies. Chelsea Market has  more claims to fame than only food or the Oreo cookie.

Address 75 Ninth Avenue (between 15th & 16th St.) NYC, NY 10011 Market Hours Mon – Sat | 7 AM – 9 PM & Sunday | 8 AM – 8 PM

Website https://www.chelseamarket.com/

Jacques-Cousteau-Calypso-Search-for-Atlantis-traveljus

Cousteau’s fascinating quest for the remains of Atlantis near the Greek island of Pseira

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“But afterwards there occurred violent earthquakes and floods; and in a single day and night of misfortune all your warlike men in a body sank into the earth, and the island of Atlantis in like manner disappeared in the depths of the sea. For which reason the sea in those parts is impassable and impenetrable, because there is a shoal of mud in the way; and this was caused by the subsidence of the island.”
*Timaeus, by Plato. Written 360 B.C. Translated by Benjamin Jowett.

Sea explorer Jacques Cousteau search for Atlantis

What if Atlantis lies drowned in the Aegean Sea? There is only one way to find out. To look for archaeological clues that can support or contradict the theories according to which Atlantis and the Minoan civilization are one. “He who dives,” says Cousteau, “ends up in heaven.”

Cousteau’s fascinating quest for the remains of Atlantis near the Greek island of Pseira

The story of Plato’s Atlantis

Around 360 B.C. the ancient Greek philosopher Plato wrote in Timaeus and Critias about the cataclysmic destruction of the civilization of Atlantis. It is a story that still captures our imagination. As nobody found any traces of Atlantis yet, it justifies the question is Atlantis fiction or not? According to Plato, the founders of Atlantis were half god and half human. They created a utopian civilization, which became a mighty Mediterranean maritime trading empire. According to Plato, Atlantis reigned over all of Libya, all the way to Egypt’s far borders. Atlantis became so powerful, aggressive and evil that it merited divine punishment. When Atlantis waged an unprovoked war on the parts of Asia and Europe it was destroyed by a disaster, an earthquake and tsunami. The presumption is that the islands of Crete and Thera, later called Santorini, formed the “Lost Continent of Atlantis” as they were ravaged by a volcanic eruption in around 1450 B.C.

Cousteau’s search for Atlantis

In 1975 the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Greek Tourism Organisation invited world-renowned French explorer Jacques Cousteau to Greece to shoot a series of documentary films named “Calypso’s Search for Atlantis”. Greek archaeologists and a research team from the newly established Institute of Marine Archaeology (HIMA) participated in the mission too. Atlantis is a myth people like to fantasise about, but what is the truth behind the myth? In “Calypso’s Search for Atlantis” Cousteau and his team are looking for clues that can support or contradict the theories about Atlantis and/or any link with the Minoan civilisation. Cousteau’s famous ship the Calypso anchored for a few days near Pseira, an island in the Gulf of Mirabello in North-Eastern Crete with the archaeological remains of the Minoan and Mycenean civilisation. While exploring one of the underwater hills near the harbour of ancient Pseira, divers found a real “cliff” of ceramic products. It stretched over a hundred meters in length and formed an inclined wall at a depth of 8 to 30 m. 

Cousteau’s fascinating quest for the remains of Atlantis near the Greek island of Pseira
Cousteau’s fascinating quest for the remains of Atlantis near the Greek island of Pseira

Archaeological discoveries of this magnitude are rare

This wall of pottery or “warehouse” of ceramics belonged to the Minoan period. Next to hundreds of thousands of vases, vessels, mugs and cups on the seabed, Calypso’s divers discovered hewn building stones. And, stumbled upon perfectly preserved remains of a wall, most likely part of an embankment to moor and shelter ships from the fierce north-western winds. The dived up pottery is more than 3000 years old. Moreover, it is surprising that all these products are of approximately  of the same age and have been preserved mostly in an excellent condition.

It is all something of an enigma. How could such a huge accumulation of clay products mount up in one single place? Yet even more mysterious, why does most of the pottery look intact, despite the effects of sea water and the inexorable passing of time? Does it indicate the remnants of Atlantis? Or is it the outcome of a shadowed memory of past events reshaped by human imagination?

More…

Read also our story about Elphida Hadjidaki, a woman, the Cretan sea and a Minoan shipwreck. Elphida Hadjidaki started to dive in 2003 for a Minoan shipwreck, not far from the Pseira diving site of Jacques Costeau.

More info about this part of Calypso’s Atlantis quest you can find on YouTube:

https://youtu.be/oHvGsD8QwqE?si=ojv6ZTARgqtXEb0b

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The Steichen collections present the bittersweet years of photography

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A man, his camera and The Family of Man

The Steichen Collections in Luxembourg bring together unique photographic masterpieces connected with the long and varied career of artist and photographer Edward J. Steichen (1879-1973).

The Steichen collections present the bittersweet years of photography

The Family of Man

Curated by Edward Steichen, The Family of Man exhibition was first shown at The Museum of Modern Art in NYC in January 1955. Often hailed as the most successful exhibition of photography ever put together, the Family of Man toured the world for eight years and was on view in over 150 museums worldwide. Until 1994, when the complete exhibition was permanently installed as the Steichen collection in Clervaux Castle in Luxembourg, Edward Steichen’s birth country.

The Family of Man is composed of the original black and white prints made by 273 artists from 68 countries.  All the traveling left most of the prints in such a fragile state that two large-scale restoration campaigns were necessary to preserve them. The Family of Man summarized Steichen’s approach to photography. Photographs were chosen for their capacity of communication and grouped together in themes to form a photographic essay. Now in its 65 plus years anniversary, the Family of Man still going strong as the greatest photography exhibition ever.

The Bitter Years

The Bitter years refer to the years from 1935 to 1943, during and after the Great Depression (made worse by a terrible drought), in which many people in rural America were passing through a period great distress and poverty. One-third of the nation was so ill-housed and ill-nourished that President Roosevelt established the Farm Security Administration (FSA). The FSA needed information. What’s more, the visual information provided by photographs.

The FSA created an extensive photography archive consisting of 175.000 negatives. The documentary photographs reveal an experience of American life that was unique. Made by photographers like Paul Carter, John Collier, Jr., Jack Delano, Walker Evans, Theo Jung, Dorothea Lange, Russell Lee, Carl Mydans, Arthur Rothstein, Ben Shahn, John Vachon, and Marion Post Wolcott, portray scenes of the Great Depression, farms, small-town life, and the build-up of American industry for WWII. The Waassertuerm in Dudelange, Luxembourg features 200 of them.

The Steichen collections present the bittersweet years of photography
The Steichen collections present the bittersweet years of photography

The Family of Man (1955) in Clervaux and The Bitter Years (1962) in Dudelange

The Steichen Collections in Luxembourg (both in Clervaux and Dudelange) bring together unique photographic masterpieces. Steichen had always stayed a Luxembourger at heart. In 1963, when he met Grand Duchess Charlotte at a state visit in the White House, Steichen introduced himself as ‘e Lëtzebuerger Jong’ (a Luxembourg boy). In accordance with Steichen’s wishes, the United States government presented in 1966 his native country Luxembourg with a traveling edition of The Family of Man. After his death, Steichen paid again tribute to his country of origin. He bequeathed a large part of his work to Luxembourg. The Family of Man (1955) in Clervaux, and The Bitter Years (1962) in Dudelange not only illustrate his work as a curator but also his vision on photography and life in general.

Edward Jean Steichen 

Edward J. Steichen began taking photographs at the age of 16, going on to become one of the most famous American photographers of the twentieth century. In the 1950s and 1960s Steichen was known for his work for the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. Born in Bivange, Luxembourg on March 27, 1879, Edward J. Steichen emigrated to the United States in 1881, where he studied photography and painting in the 1890s. He participated in various photo exhibitions in Europe and the USA. In the early 1900s a critic wrote admiringly that Steichen “is not satisfied showing us how a person looks, but how he thinks a person should look.” In New York, he met the famous Alfred Stieglitz who bought his photographs. Stieglitz and Steichen co-founded the Photo-Secession Movement in 1902, and in 1905, the Little Galleries in New York City. From 1906 to 1914 Steichen managed to work as a painter and photographer in France, where he also served as head of aerial photography for the USA Air Force during WWI.

The Steichen collections present the bittersweet years of photography

Photography exhibitions

In need of money, Steichen threw himself into the world of commercial photography, devoting 15 years to Condé Nast publications, and the J. Walter Thompson agency, besides his own studio. During WWII Steichen started to guest curate the exhibitions “The Road to Victory,” or “Power in the Pacific”. As director of the department of photography at the Museum of Modern Art NYC, he curated “The Family of Man” in 1955, seen by 9 million people, but not without its critics. 

Kato-Zakros-Archaeological-site

Archaeological sites are theatres of another time – Minoan Kato Zakros

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Exploring the silence of  stones

Almost at the far edge of eastern Crete, in a barren, mostly unspoilt landscape, you’ll find the Minoan Palace of Kato Zakros close to the shores of the Libyan Sea. The Minoan palace of Kato Zakros fascinates once you start imagining its past. Its existence is an act open to possibilities. The palace had about 300 rooms arranged around a central courtyard and covered an area of about 8,000 square meters. It is the fourth largest Minoan palace complex on Crete. Exploring the site you are bound to pick something up from its silent stones. 

Archaeological sites are theatres of another time – Minoan Kato Zakros

Historical footprint

The palace of Kato Zakros may not be as imposing or widespread as the more well-known palaces of Phaistos or Knossos, but its historical footprint is revelatory. From its establishment around 1900 BC until 1450 B.C. the palace of Kato Zakros was the religious, administrative, and economic centre of eastern Crete. Evidence of trade with the East were found in a storeroom in the West Wing consisting of four elephant tusks and six bronze talents. Since the Zakros Palace operated as a commercial outlet from and to the East, the palace also had access to a port through its main gate at the northeastern side.

An often overlooked trade exchange with the East was cultural. Sovereigns from Canaan and Egypt for example would hire Minoan artists to paint stylish Minoan frescoes on their palace walls. Excavations at the site of Tell el-Dabʿ in the Nile Delta region of Egypt revealed high-quality wall paintings executed in Minoan technique and style. In these palaces, dating back to the Thuthmoside period, the walls were covered with  Minoan court emblems and motifs, such as bull-leaping and wrestling scenes, such as seen mainly in Knossos. 

Zakros and Knossos

One of the historical enigmas of Zakros is its status in relationship to Knossos. At the time Eastern Crete was an area of strategic importance and kept an extensive trade network with the Near and Middle East. One theory assumes that Zakros, because it lacked sufficient agricultural land to sell or exchange produce, made its living from importing luxury items for Knossos. There is likewise the presumed theory that Zakros was one of the major naval bases of the Minoan fleet in Crete. And what does this say about the political structure of Minoan Crete? Was Zakros governed independently or as part of an autonomous region controlled by the monarch of Knossos?

Archaeological sites are theatres of another time – Minoan Kato Zakros

A considerable number of Minoan buildings and clay imprints

Kato Zakros was first excavated in 1901 by the British archaeologist and scholar D. Hogarth. The remains of a Minoan settlement came to the surface, indicating a flourishing and sophisticated civilisation. Hogarth found around 300 clay stamps. These clay imprints indicated an administrative system for the stock counting of (commercial) products. Some of these clay stamps dating back to 15th century B.C. originate from Knossos, another sign of a possible close relationship between Knossos and Zakros. When a typhoon hit the area in the summer of 1901 Hogarth was forced to abandon the excavation. He almost drowned, but managed to escaped by miracle.

Spectacular craftmanship

Sixty years later, in October 1961, the Ephore of Cretan Antiquities N. Platon started a new excavation in the valley of Kato Zakros. The Greek archeologist was convinced that Kato Zakros was much more than a harbour or a naval settlement. The 1960s excavations discovered a large palace complex with many typical Minoan architectural features. These include a large central court (30x12m), secondary courts, porticos, a monumental stepped entrance, one and two storey buildings, and storage rooms. Some rooms were embellished with frescos similar to those at Knossos, depicting bulls, spirals and double axes.

Archaeological sites are theatres of another time – Minoan Kato Zakros

Contrary to palaces of Knossos, Malia and Phaistos, the palace of Zakros was not looted. During millennia it was covered by earth and left untouched. The remote location surely helped. Artefacts of great aesthetic and artistic value were found, ceremonial pots and vessels, including the most beautiful stone vessel of the Cretan-Mycenaean era. One of the highlights as well is the small (16 cm) rhyton carved in rock crystal. A real masterpiece of craftsmanship and technical skill exhibited in the Heraklion Archaeological museum. The body is made of a single core of hard stone. The neck is attached to the body by a ring of crystal beads and gilded ivory discs. Nobody knows which techniques were used to carve it or how they made the handle of spherical crystal beads threaded onto a bronze wire.  To work the crystal you need a material that is harder than the crystal itself.

Archaeological sites are theatres of another time – Minoan Kato Zakros

The architecture of the palace of Kato Zakros

The architecture of the palaces of Knossos, Phaistos, Malia and Zakros in the first period around 2000-1900 B.C. seems to be based on an organic building structure. The natural environment, mostly the climatic and geological conditions,  dictated the construction more than geometric principles.

The palace was not only the king’s residence, but also the centre of religious, economic and political life. Living quarters, reception halls, sanctuaries, warehouses and workshops are all grouped around a central courtyard. Columns are a fundamental element of Minoan architecture. The living quarters are often located on the east side, sometimes spread over several floors, connected by stairs. On the west side are the warehouses and the religious spaces. From the terraces with overhanging gardens, colonnades and loggias, one looks out over the landscape.

Similar to many other Minoan buildings on Crete, the Zakros palace and the town were suddenly destroyed around 1450 BC, marking the end of the Neopalatial period.

Underwater diving Minoan Shipwreck Pseira Crete

Exciting ancient Minoan finds in the waters near Crete

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A woman, the Cretan sea and a Minoan shipwreck

There is a land called Crete in the midst of the wine-dark sea, a fair, rich land, begirt with water, and therein are many men, past counting, and ninety cities.
*Homer, Odyssey

Elphida Hadjidaki, a Greek sea archaeologist 

Ancient Crete has intrigued and seduced archaeologists for a long time. For sea archaeologist Elphida Hadjidaki-Marder this seduction started early. Growing up in Chania, Crete certainly helped. Jumping in and out of the sea from a young age too. Combine this with being an avid reader of books on ancient Greece, and it is clear how Elphida developed her passion for sea archaeology that became to define her life. Her interest in ancient harbours and her many dives allowed Elphida Hadjidaki to make significant contributions to the field of underwater archaeology. One of the highlights of her archaeological career was finding the first-ever Minoan shipwreck near the coast of Crete. “I always wanted to find a Minoan shipwreck,” she said in interviews, “so I started looking for one near the island of Pseira.”

Exciting ancient Minoan finds in the waters near Crete

Crete is known as the island of the Minoans

It was the British archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans who came up with the name Minoans, and not the Minoans themselves. Evans named the Minoan civilization after the legendary king Minos. However, their origin probably lies elsewhere. DNA analysis of Minoan skeletons indicates that these Minoans are probably descendants of a people that reached Crete about 9000 years ago as part of a migration wave from Anatolia. The Minoan era, this sophisticated ancient Bronze Age civilization, lasted approximately from 3100 B.C. to 1050 B.C. 

The Minoans, the legendary people of the sea

The earliest ruler known to have possessed a fleet was King Minos. He made himself master of the Greek waters and subjugated the Cyclades. Minoan seafaring opened up trade routes with other parts of the Mediterranean basin. There are plenty enough images of ships on frescoes, but a Minoan shipwreck was never found. Until sea archaeologist Elphida Hadjidaki and her team received funding from the Aegean Prehistory Institute in 2003 to dive for Minoan shipwrecks near Crete.

Following your instincts pays off

After receiving the grant Elphida and her team started sonar scanning the seabeds. They detected 20 possible sites, however, these sites did not provide anything interesting to research further. In the last days of the 2003 sea survey, Hadjidaki decided to follow her instincts and take her team to the area around the small island of Pseira on the northeastern coast of Crete, opposite Mochlos. She knew that the area was first researched by the famous sea explorer Jacques Cousteau in 1975-1976. At the time Cousteau was looking for signs of the lost continent of Atlantis within a certain diameter of the island of Santorini. Instead, Cousteau found Minoan pottery in the waters near Pseira. At the time Cousteau assumed the pottery to come from sunken ships in the harbour of Pseira, the result of a volcanic eruption around 1500 B.C. Nowadays the pottery is believed to come from the collapsed harbour houses on Pseira. Elphida Hadjiki and her team resolved not to go to the spot where Cousteau dived, but just off it and dive deeper. Actually they did not have to dive deep, soon on the sea floor they found an area lined up with amphoras, cups and jugs.

Pseira island Crete and some underwater pottery found there

Pseira island Crete and some underwater pottery found there

Pottery from the Middle Minoan period around 1800-1700 B.C.

In 2004 she returned with a bigger team to map the site. The year 2005 saw the start of a large-scale excavation. Unfortunately, no wood from the ship survived. The assumption is that the ship capsized with the cargo down and the hull on top. That is also the most likely scenario to explain why no wood has been preserved underwater. As they excavated further they found some objects identifiable as amphoras and jars probably used for the transportation of wine or olive oil, but also cups and the fishing gear of the ships’ crew. When Philip Betancourt, a Minoan pottery expert, examined the ceramics he was convinced that the pottery all originated from the East of Crete. And, that the pieces of pottery came from the same period, the so-called Middle Minoan period around 1800-1700 B.C. In total Hadjidaki’s team brought to the surface some 209 ceramic vessels, of which 80 are nearly whole.

Collage of Minoan fresco, example Minoan ship and pottery

Collage of Minoan fresco, example Minoan ship and pottery

Coast-hopping Minoan seafarers

Based on what has been found, the ruminants of the wreck seem to indicate that the shipwreck has been busy with coast-hopping journeys. Imagine a small coastal vessel making stops along the coast of Crete. It also indicates that for local traders sea trade was much easier than crossing the mountains from north to south or east to west.

Hadjidaki and her team completed the excavations at the end of September 2009 feeling accomplished to have found the first and only Minoan shipwreck to date. Moreover, it contained the largest complete clay vessel cargo ever excavated from the Middle Minoan IIB period. And even more valuable, it provides information about the seafaring Minoan people and their success as traders.

clay seal Minoan ship found on Pseira

clay seal Minoan ship found on Pseira

A marvellous glimpse into a time when the Minoans first started building their palaces

It really gives a glimpse into a time when the Minoans first started building their palaces. The shipwreck’s cargo not only indicates local trade on the eastern Mediterranean shores, it also validates other archaeological findings. Trade was done by sea.  Minoan ships were capable of importing many of the raw materials required to fuel the development of one of Europe’s first great civilizations. This was all done by sea.

How the ships looked we don’t know exactly although there are frescoes and some old stone seals that depict images of different types of ships. The Minoans traded throughout the Mediterranean. The Minoans were good seamen, seafaring was in their blood. The Minoans maintained trade routes with Egypt, Syria, and the Greek mainland. The routes may even have extended as far west as Italy and Sicily. The world really should thank Elpida Hadjidaki-Marder for having the instinct and knowledge to look for the Pseira ship. Finding and excavating the first example of a Minoan vessel shed light on a hidden world that could change our perceptions of the capabilities and sophistication of ancient Greek civilizations.