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EESTI ELU reedel, 24. aprillil 2020 — Friday, April 24, 2020
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Architecture Integrated with Nature: Comparing the Arvo Pärt Centre and Vancouver’s VanDusen Botanical Garden Visitors Centre has written about not including an obvious beginning or end in With issues of population the building, and this non-im growth and the encroachment posing quality reflects the way on natural environments oc both Arvo Pärt’s music and a curring simultaneously, archi forest works. On a social level, tects are at the forefront of visitors are allowed to ex constructing our world in a perience the beautiful forest and brand new way, so that we Arvo Pärt’s music without can continue to be productive exterior influence. and also take care of the en Within one year of its open vironment that sustains us. ing in October 2018, the Arvo In both Canada and Estonia, Pärt Centre attracted 33,000 there are vast swathes of un visitors, proving itself as an touched land. 80% of Canada is example of thoughtful archi uninhabited. 55% of Estonia is tecture that can also function uninhabited. While it is unlikely economically and socially from that this space will suddenly be the ground up. occupied any time soon, bio Conversely, biophilic design philic concepts are increasingly can jump-start the popularity of applied in the sustainable de an existing site, as in the velopment of public spaces and VanDusen Botanical Garden dwellings, to directly or in Visitor Centre in Vancouver. directly integrate people with This Centre also functions as a nature. community space, but more The Arvo Pärt Centre, located than that, it’s a passage for visi half an hour west of Tallinn, tors to the garden. It’s a struc was designed with these very ture that excites visitors about concepts in mind. Trees sur what’s to come. One way the round the Centre, creating a architects at Perkins and Will continuing sense of structure achieved this is by using undu from the inside of the building lating, rounded forms (similar outward. There isn’t a harsh to the walls of the Arvo Pärt division where the building be Centre). gins. Whether visitors are con Visitors are reminded of how ducting research or attending a the shape of leaves and foliage concert, their indoor experience flow. It’s an example of bio is in the same line of sight as philia in design not only by the habitat outside, and vice- showing nature around it, but versa. by having a similar appearance. Just as there are no 90 degree The building bathes in light angles in the natural world, from above, for people to enjoy Spanish architectural firm Nieto inside. Sunlight produces elec Sobejano Arquitectos did not tricity and warm water, just like use any right angles in their a leaf generates glucose from creation. That said, the vertical sunlight and carbon dioxide in precision of columns within the photosynthesis. building emulates the stark, up True sustainability is likened right appearance of surrounding to a three-legged stool. In con trees. struction, as any other sector, The landscaping of the consideration should be given Centre’s grounds is not overly- to whether a new build is finan manicured and access is given cially viable, socially beneficial, to those said trees. The archi and environmentally sound. tects have keenly observed the Especially when a structure is value of this relationship to land built on a green field site where in Estonian culture, just like no construction has taken place they recognized the grounding before. However, these Cana psychological importance of dian and Estonian buildings seeing water and open sky with have shown how successfully the inclusion of a tower. this can be achieved by archi Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos tects now and into the future.
Vincent Teetsov
Photo: https://www.dezeen.com/2019/02/19/nieto-sobejano-arquitectos-arvo-part-centre/
Photo: https://perkinswill.com/project/vandusen-botanical-garden-visitor-centre/
Language Lounge: “Kass kodunt ära, hiirtel pidu” Vincent Teetsov “If the cat is away, then the mice will party.” It’s an evocative image. A group of mice peering out of their holes in the kickboards of a house. They run past the hiirelõks (mousetrap) rigged with a hunk of Edam juust (cheese), and into the great wide open to party until the sun comes up. The cat is nowhere to be seen, and as long as that cat is gone, the party will go on. The most apparent inter pretation of this vanasõna (pro verb) is that when those in charge of a group of people are gone, there is a tendency for the group to forget their rules and responsibilities. Leaders, or the proverbial cat, are said to re mind people of rules and conse quences. Imagine parents who leave their teenage kids at home for the weekend, and come back home to the aftermath of a raging house party! This old saying can be examined more literally, too.
The CCP Virus (Continued from page 8)
Consider the following. A medical professional, Dr. Shawn Whatley, no less than a Past President of the OMA (the Ontario Medical Association), wrote, “I first learned about the damage by the new aggressive Wuhan Virus from the Epoch Times. Kudos to ET for doing what we pay the departments of health billions of dollars to do.” The entire special issue is in credibly revealing. The editorial especially so. Its title: Why the Coronavirus should be called the CCP Virus.” The editor explains “the name holds the CCP accountable for its wanton disregard of human life and consequent spawning of a pan demic … while creating wide spread fear and devastating the economies of nations trying to cope with this disease.” For proof, ET notes that those nations and individuals “close to the communist re gime” are suffering the worst effects – the surge in infections in China’s ally Iran, and eco nomic partner – the only one from the G7 – Italy. Both count ries have many Chinese
Keeping mice and other rodents outside, out of the house, has long been a human fixation. Archaeologists have discovered ancient Egyptian pottery that functioned as rodent traps. For thousands of years, people have kept pests away for reasons of sanitation and health. In ex treme circumstances, rodents can spread bacteria and transmit diseases through biting, conta minating food, and transporting fleas. Mice may nibble at food packaging and make a mess with their excrement. To prevent this, traps and cages of all kinds have been devised, including one parti cular mousetrap in the Eesti Rahva Muuseum collection, from Lüganuse parish in northern Estonia, circa 1867. It consists of two heavy planks of wood and a thin piece of wood in between that effectively works like a class one lever. The thin piece of wood is held down by the weight of some morsel of food, and on the other end of this lever is all that separates the two heavy planks from crushing whatever moves the bait. Aside from traps, we also domesticate some animals,
namely cats, to stalk and fight it out with other animals we’d rather not have around. Both tactics point to a desire for control over our environment, just like how rules are intended to maintain order. This old saying advises us to keep responsible leaders around. Teachers are needed to keep their pupils on track. A captain keeps the ship going in the right direction. A quarterback leads their team to the end zone. This vanasõna colourfully describes day-to-day life as it might have been in an Estonian country house. Cats were essen tial to the function of a home, to guard precious food and maintain the health of inhabi tants. However, for all its descriptiveness and lessons, I can’t help but notice a slightly authoritarian tone in this pro verb. For what it’s worth, this might say something about how life was controlled in the times of Baltic manors and serfs. The tone of the phrase “kass kodunt ära, hiirtel pidu” leaves me wondering if this might be something we tell ourselves when we don’t trust our own ability to lead ourselves indivi dually.
nationals working for low wages in manufacturing and construction. Had the Communist regime reacted earlier, the death count everywhere would be much, much lower and perhaps a global flattening of the curve might have been already reached. ET’s editor cites a re cent study by the University of Southampton. Impartial, for sure. That study noted that if preventive measures such as early detection, cordon sani taire, travel restrictions, iso lation would have been put in place by the CCP three weeks earlier than actual disclosure, cases could have been reduced by 95%. Two years – 86%, one year 66%. This would have significantly limited the geo graphical spread of the virus. Beijing’s cover-up is revealed in detail. An interesting fact. Privacy advocates in the free world have been bemoaning the use of cell phone monitoring to track the advance of the disease. The Chinese regime requires all Chinese to use their cellphones to generate a health code. Without that physical move ment in China is banned. ET’s April special has an article not ing that there are 21 million
fewer cellphones in use in China since the outbreak. This may suggest a high CCP virus death toll, greater than what the CCP has owned. As well, funer al homes were working 24/7 in Wuhan, shipments of urns to the city where COVID-19 was first noticed in November belie the official death toll. And now the blockade of Wuhan has lifted, yet wet markets are still operating. For Canadians ET provides a timeline of how the cover-up affected Canada’s actions. Mindboggling to read what Health Minister Patty Hajdu said, “China has been very open” on February 17 when in fact the cover-up was gathering steam. Read this special issue of ET. Make up your own mind, research trusted sources, look at the denials from a left-wing media and wonder why this is being done. We know what communism is capable of. A sinister plan to weaken Western economies? Some dare suggest that, yet that may be farfetched. Let’s not swallow any more propaganda and lies ema nating from the communist r ulers of Beijing, entirely re sponsible for this global pan demic. TÕNU NAELAPEA
