Villard de Honnecourt was a French man, who had a passion for drawing. He is still known to the World because his sketchbook survived. It includes around 250 drawings of many different subject matters. Many sketches show buildings, such as the Laon Cathedral in Paris. While past researchers concluded he was an architect, but more recent opinion is that he had …
Poetry Gambling
In 17th century Japan, citizens began betting on games of poetry. The precursor to the development of the art form of haiku, haikai was a parlor game that spread from the scholars and aristocrats to the common people.
The weirdly beautiful church of Barcelona
The Sagrada Familia, is a church in Barcelona, Spain, which was built around 100 years ago. Well, actually it’s still unfinished. Its architect, the Spaniard Antoni Gaudí (1852–1926) only lived to see about a quarter of it made. While having a very unorthodox shape inside and out, it has already been added to the Unesco World Heritage sites, despite not being …
The first Selfie
Robert Cornelius (1809-1893) was a lamp manufacturer from Philadelphia, USA. In the late 1830s, he started spending much of his free time messing around with photography.