GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The annular eclipse by the moon of the sun, leaving only the famous ring of fire showing around the edges of the moon, was visible in parts of Japan and the US, including California and New Mexico, but bad weather blocked the view of it in some areas, including Vancouver, Canada. NPR reports that it was the first time in 25 years that an annular eclipse has been visible in Japan. Nasa’s web site in the US nearly crashed, according to the Los Angeles times, because of the high number of visits.
Links to other sites: Los Angeles Times, Nasa, NPR, Vancouver Sun
Helium hemisphere could change the face of festivals, other events
Image:©2011 EPFL / Alice
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – EPFL and the St Prex Classics Festival have created what promises to be the region’s most talked-about architectural project since the Rolex Learning Center at the polytechnic institute, although far smaller, less expensive and mobile.
The two teamed up to solve the practical problem of how to hold an open-air music and dance festival in the small intimate spaces of a medieval village, protecting performers and concert-goers from bad weather while preserving good acoustics and allowing relations with the neighbours to remain healthy.
Moon over Saint Prex, filled with dance and music, visible from miles away
The project has resulted in an extraordinary architectural structure that will be visible from miles around, with a moon-like floating top of helium that can be lowered in bad weather or as needed.
The installation can be dismantled completely and will offer a rich option over tents for outdoor festivals and other events in the future.
Image:©2011 EPFL / Alice
“Ao” is the code name for the project, after the god of clouds of Polynesian mythology. It is being designed by EPFL’s Space Conception Workshop, known by its French acronym Alice, under the leadership of Alice’s director, Dieter Dietz, with a number of students involved.
Architects Sibylle Koessler and Sara Formery have designed the installation, which will be presented to the public in August 2012 for next year’s St Prex Classics, if the CHF2 million in funds needed to complete the project can be raised on time: fundraising for the newly launched project has just begun.
Saint Prex Classics 2011 is in temporary quarters while new project moves ahead
The 2011 festival (see GenevaLunch report on the festival) kicks off Tuesday evening 16 August with free concerts as part of the new Festival Off featuring student performers, a wide mix of music and food and drink stalls on the main street of Saint Prex, a 12th century village on the shores of Lake Geneva, near Morges. The first major concert, also Tuesday evening, was quickly sold out: Philippe Jarousky and friends, at the 11th century roman church that overlooks the old town and Lake Geneva.
The view from the arena (Image:©2011 EPFL / Alice)
St Prex Classics concerts are being held mainly in the Salle du Vieux Moulin in Saint Prex and the Theatre Beausobres in Morges this year, with three in the St Prex church, rather than in the Grand Rue of the village’s old town, as was the case the first five years.
The complexity of the performances, the growing size of the audience and renovations in the old town excluded the use of the main street for concerts in 2011.
Ticket information for remaining concerts: St Prex Classics.
How the planned new performance arena works
EPFL’s description of the new performance centre, which can be completely dismantled:
“The base of the installation, made entirely of wood, takes its inspiration from the famous theatre of Epidaurus that existed in Greece in the 4th or 3rd century BC, in particular the curve of the tiered seating, opposite the clock tower. The seating can normally hold up to 700 people; this is reduced to 500 when the modular stage is enlarged to accommodate large orchestras or choreography.
“Although the medieval façade, including the clock tower, remains one of the main features of the new structure, the most spectacular element is actually to be found above it. A vast hemisphere of helium – 25 meters in diameter and visible for miles around – will float above the ‘arena’ and the village. Its white polyamide envelope can be illuminated from the inside or be used as a screen to display projected images. In case of bad weather, this balloon can be lowered to completely cover the stage and seating area, thus forming a dome. A transparent membrane, tightened around its circumference would then transform the square into a closed concert hall, without however being
separated from the old walls.”
Image:©2011 EPFL / Alice
Ao can be assembled and dismantled in less than a week, says the Alice team, with only part of the equipment, including the balloon, kept in Saint‐Prex. The structures forming the base of the tiered seating and the
technical ring will be rented each year to specialized companies.
Festival founder calls new structure the perfect fit
Hazeline Van Swaay, founder and director of the festival, is enthusiastic about the new structure. It “will allow us to continue to use the Old Town, while offering an improved level of comfort to the performers and to larger audiences. The cooperation with EPFL has brought an architectural dimension which measures up to the artistic quality of the St Prex Classics, and which truly highlights the location’s historic heritage.”
About Saint Prex
Saint Prex’s clock tower, which will feature as part of the backdrop for the new performance area, is part of a 13th century forge, one of the oldest existing buildings in Saint Prex.
St Prex, vieux bourg (old town), preparing for the St Prex Classics Tuesday 16 August
The area has been occupied by people for more than 7,000 years, first by lakedwellers whose homes were on stilts, and then in waves, by the Helvètes, Romans, Burgundians and Franks.
In 1234 the people along the lakefront, whose lives were regularly in peril from attacks, were offered stability when the archbishop of Lausanne built the bourg, the triangle of land that juts out into Lake Geneva. Villagers, in case of attack, could alert the cathedral across the water by lighting fires.
The village flourished as an agricultural and artisanal hamlet, then in the 18th century it became a summer haven for citizens of Morges. It developed into a glass centre 100 years ago, with a new glass factory in 1911, which today is one of the main glass recycling centres in Switzerland, the world leader in glass recycling.
St Prex tourism office, old clock tower
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NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captures a partial eclipse of the sun by the moon, 7 October 2010 (photo: Nasa)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Reminder: a partial solar eclipse will occur Tuesday morning 4 January, reaching its peak at 09:09 in Geneva, minutes later the further east you are in the country. The weather forecast from the Swiss national weather service is for mostly sunny skies Tuesday, but with some fog on the plain that could affect viewing. The view should be better in the mountains, as long as the rising sun is not obscured by high peaks in your area.
Related story in swissinfo
Tips from Nasa in the US on photographing and filming a solar eclipse
The patterns of bombardment on the Moon by objects from space about four billion years ago may hold clues to what happened on Earth as well, a new study reports in Science. A minute topographical examination of 5,185 craters larger than 20km across indicates that the Moon was likely bombarded in two separate waves. The first started about 4.1bn years ago, the second 3.9bn years ago. The new maps indicate that larger objects hit the moon in the first wave, smaller ones later. The origins of the objects were also different.
James Head of Brown University, who led the research, says: “There seemed to be two stages of impacts and they were “distinctly different.” That’s an important clue about what was going on in the early solar system—including on Earth—because “the same population [of objects] that was hitting the moon certainly was hitting the Earth”, Head said.
Prevalent theories say that the objects hitting the Moon came from the same source but have decreased in frequency.
Links to other sites: The Brown Daily Herald, Christian Science Monitor, Science
Moon craters (photo: Nasa)
The moon definitely has water, US agency Nasa announced 13 November, describing preliminary findings of its lunar crater observation and sensing satellite (Lcross). The satellite “plunged” into a crater of the south pole of the Moon 9 October 200. The water was found in the crater, which is permanently in shadow, as part of a hunt for ice. Nasa says the discovery “opens a new chapter in our understanding of the Moon.”
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Forty years ago, as everyone surely knows by now, the first man, who was American, stepped on the moon: July 21 in the early hours, European time. “The first human stepped on a celestial body” was the more elegant phrase used to describe the moment, by Douglas Griffiths at a commemorative event hosted by the US Mission in Geneva Tuesday evening 20 July. Griffiths is the deputy permanent representative to the United Nations and Other International Organizations in Geneva and charge d’affaires, ad interim.
There were two surprises, among the declarations, reminiscenses and information shared with a community of largely sceintific people at the US Mission in Geneva Tuesday evening 20 July:
Moon rising over Fiesch, Valais, Switzerland 7 December 2008
Moon rising over the A1 autoroute, St Prex, Switzerland, 12 December
Updated 13 December Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The moon is sailing closer to the Earth today than it has for 15 years, reports the BBC’s science staff, and with clear skies the full moon will appear lighter and brighter than usual. The moon rises in eastern Switzerland, in St Moritz, at 16:00 12 December and in western Switzerland, in Geneva, at 16:14. (Click on images to view larger)
