La Sagrada Familia to get roof after 127 years

by Abha Malpani on

One of Spain’s most iconic monuments La Sagrada Familia, a humongous Roman Catholic church in Barcelona that has been under construction since 1882, will finally have a roof. Expecting to be ready by 2010, the church will then be able to host services and events inside its premises.

Originally designed by Antoni Gaudi, the church is recognised by its 18 tall towers and its architectural style is a cross between Art Noveau and Cubism.

What’s most interesting about this structure is that it’s not funded by the government or any church. It has been built purely on private donations and money from tourist tickets, the main reason why it’s still under construction for the last 125 years. The church attracts about 2 million visitors annually and standard entrance is €10.

Word is that the structure will be completed in 2026, but since its construction relies heavily on tourist pennies, that date is debatable.

The world famous wonder that it has become, you’d think that an official body would take over its completion; 144 years for a church to be completed is just way out of line. But then again, what’s a dozen more years, eh?

[Via Globorati]

World’s first ecological nightclub opens in London

by Abha Malpani on

Just opened in Pentonville Road, Islington (Greater London) is Surya (Hindi for “Sun” and Sanskrit for “Sun God”), the world’s first green nightclub.

It will generate its own electricity when people move on its floors, will operate on solar and wind energy, has air-flush waterless urinals and low-flush toilets, and free entry for cyclists and walkers. Otherwise club entry is £10 and customers must sign a pledge towards helping combat climate change.

Brainchild of Mr.Charalambous, head of Club4Climate, the club’s dance floor is made of crystal and ceramic, which when trodden on generates electricity under the concept of “piezoelectricity”. This current is fed into nearby batteries, which in turn fuel the club. It is estimated that if a large group of clubbers danced vigorously, they could generate 60% of the club’s energy needs.

With aim of inspiring the youth to get involved in tackling the issue of global warming, Charalambous said in the Times of India: “Unless we stop preaching to people and use an inclusive philosophy we’re never going to create the revolution to combat climate change.” I couldn’t agree more.

Airport calls for blind people to apply to be air traffic controllers

by Abha Malpani on

I’m all for equal opportunities, but St. Mary’s Airport (Isle of Scilly) offering a job application form for an air traffic controller in braille is, for lack of a better word, retarded.

It’s a huge waste of time and money creating forms in braille for jobs the blind just cannot have, and questions the intelligence of those people making the rules and enforcing the “small print” on employment procedures.

According to this article, the airport defended itself by saying that they were “simply abiding by equal opportunity guidelines but the requirements for the job would be 20/20 vision, from this it can be concluded that a person who was blind or partially sighted would not have a chance of obtaining the job.”

Errr…so the point of a braille form exactly? To avoid being penalized by the law? In fact, because they offered a “false” opportunity to a blind person who clearly cannot get the job, they should be penalized for being misinforming and misleading, no?

Eiffel tower to undergo $267 million makeover

by Abha Malpani on

The days of standing in line to enter the Eiffel Tower may be numbered as a $267 million, 10-year plan has been unveiled that will give better and easier access to visitors. Built in 1889, the Eiffel Tower was designed for 500,000 people, today the structure attracts about 7 million visitors a year.

At some point in the future you will be able to reserve a 30-minute slot online, the restaurant will be bigger and cheaper, and there will be a new champagne bar on the third floor. With these changes, they hope to attract not only a larger tourist crowd but also Parisians, and of course increase the Tower’s profit levels too.

Lines to visit tourist hotspots are a major annoyance these days so it’s cool that steps are being taken to cut line-time. The Alhambra and the Tower of London are some of the other places that have done a great job giving people the option of pre-booking their visit online.

Madame Tussauds: Adolf Hitler to return to Berlin soon

by Jeffrey White on

Madame Tussauds, the world’s most overpriced, not to say overrated, tourist attraction, is bucking popular sentiment in Germany and elsewhere by vowing to return a wax statue of Adolf Hitler to its newest museum in Berlin as soon as possible.

I posted last week about a protester who managed to rip the head off the wax statue just minutes after Madame Tussauds officially opened to the public last Saturday.

The museum tells German media that it is working quick to reattach the head, after which it will return the statue to its place in the museum, a display that showed a replica of Hitler’s underground Berlin bunker during the final days of WWII.

“Despite the incident, Madame Tussauds will again show the wax figure of Adolf Hitler in the exhibition. Madame Tussauds is apolitical and neither comments on nor judges the people shown in the exhibition or what they did in the course of their life,” the museum tells the German news magazine Der Spiegel.

The Hitler statue has generated controversy since the museum announced its initial inclusion in the Berlin museum, alongside the likes of other German speaking notables like Boris Becker, Angela Merkel and Albert Einstein.

Not only is it in bad taste to immortalize the architect of millions of deaths in wax, protesters say, but the very location of the museum on Berlin’s posh Unter den Linden, near the Brandenburg Gate, means that the small Hitler exhibit is a stone’s throw from Berlin’s three-year-old Memorial to the Murder Jews of Europe, a massive sea of gray stone less than a two block walk away.

The Hitler display at Tussauds cost about $300,000. No word yet whether the museum is planning heightened security around it when it returns.

Originally the statue was to be positioned next to a wax likeness of Winston Churchill. However, the museum decided to isolate the Hitler statue in a different area of the museum, behind both a desk and a set of ropes to keep neo Nazis from posing for pictures next to it.