Tag: architecture

It just occurred to me that the full extent of my time in Chicago this year will be the time I spend captive in the Southwest terminal at Midway, en route to Phoenix. To me one of the most dispiriting things about air travel is a short layover in a city I love, especially if that city is near a sister I love even more but only infrequently see. Sigh.

Photo: Towers along East Randolph Street, reflected in Anish Kapoor’s Cloud Gate (aka, The Bean). For skyline aficionados, the buildings are (from left to right, and mirrored in reverse of their normal orientations) the Jay Pritzker Pavillion, 340 on the Park, the Blue Cross Blue Shield Tower, Aon Center (aka “Big Stan”), Two Prudential Plaza, One Prudential Plaza (constructed in 1955, and still looking mighty good), Millennium Park Plaza, Trump Tower (in distance), Crain Communications (formerly the Smurfit-Stone Building), and The Heritage Millennium Park. This photo was originally posted in 2013. Please click to enlarge.

Buckhorn Baptist Church, Como, North Carolina.

Buckhorn Church was founded in 1835. The current Gothic Revival structure was built in 1913, to replace the original timber frame church built around 1846. The massive entrance and belfry are additions made sometime after 1920.

Architectural elements of note include the belfry’s five pinnacles, which are clad in weathered copper, with copper finials. And the middle section of the tower displays an oddly canted trapezoid with a distinctive eye-shaped stained glass window. 

Somehow the church’s building committee has managed to refrain from covering the entire structure with vinyl siding: the church is still clad in original weatherboard. Likewise, the stained glass is not obscured by retrofitted storm windows. Most remarkable of all, the louvered pointed-arch openings at the top of the tower have not been covered with wire mesh. There may be actual bats in this belfry. 

Bonus etymology: belfry is derived from the Old French word berfroi, meaning a wooden siege tower on wheels (and thus free to move). The word came to be used in the 1400’s for the chime towers of churches (or campaniles) which were generally detached from the main church structure. Over time the spelling of belfry was altered by dissimilation or association with the etymologically unrelated word bell. 

Buckhorn Baptist Church, Como, North Carolina.

Buckhorn Church was founded in 1835. The current Gothic Revival structure was built in 1913, to replace the original timber frame church built around 1846. The massive entrance and belfry are additions made sometime after 1920.

Architectural elements of note include the belfry’s five pinnacles, which are clad in weathered copper, with copper finials. And the middle section of the tower displays an oddly canted trapezoid with a distinctive eye-shaped stained glass window. 

Somehow the church’s building committee has managed to refrain from covering the entire structure with vinyl siding: the church is still clad in original weatherboard. Likewise, the stained glass is not obscured by retrofitted storm windows. Most remarkable of all, the louvered pointed-arch openings at the top of the tower have not been covered with wire mesh. There may be actual bats in this belfry. 

Bonus etymology: belfry is derived from the Old French word berfroi, meaning a wooden siege tower on wheels (and thus free to move). The word came to be used in the 1400’s for the chime towers of churches (or campaniles) which were generally detached from the main church structure. Over time the spelling of belfry was altered by dissimilation or association with the etymologically unrelated word bell.