March 31st, 2011 | General, Living, Working, Building |
Complete overview of the seven regional routes of the German Half-Timbered House Road © Wolfgang A. Köhler
The German Half-Timbered House Road (German: Deutsche Fachwerkstraße) is a German tourist route leading from the river Elbe in the north to Lake Constance in the south. Along the road you can find nearly 100 cities and towns with remarkable timber-framed houses. It is divided into seven sections, leading through the following states of Germany: Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Hesse, Thuringia, Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg. The total length is nearly 3,000 km (1,864 mi).
In 1975 the ‘ARGE Historische Fachwerkstädte e.V.’ (Association of Historic Half-Timbered House Towns) was founded. Its aim is to preserve the cultural heritage of a huge variety of different styles of half-timbering in Germany.[1] To share this knowledge with other interested people the ‘German Half-Timbered House Route’ (sometimes referred to as the “German Half-Timbered Houses Route”) was founded in 1990. In the meantime 98 half-timbered house towns have joined up under the slogan “Half-timbered houses unites”.
The German Half-Timbered House Road, which covers Germany from north to south, joins unique landscapes, historic sites and carefully restored monuments. Health resorts and festival locations alternate with nature parks and romantic nooks. Cider and Bock beer were invented here and hardly any other tourist route can offer such a variety of German culinary delights.
Germany’s most northern vineyard, the biggest Christmas candle in the world and Germany’s only Ivory Museum are all located on this historical trail. There are many events, festivals and markets throughout the year, which can be explored by car, bicycle, train, or motor-home.
Read more on the official Internet presence of the
German Half-Timbered House Road and
Wikipedia German Half-Timbered House Road.
March 29th, 2011 | Environment |
© BSU
Can a booming trade and service metropolis such as Hamburg, heavy in industry combine both economic success and environmental protection? It can, and Hamburg won the title of European Green Capital 2011, for its efforts.
The title, “European Green Capital”, is a new award developed by the European Commission. Following Stockholm in 2010, Hamburg will hold the title in 2011 as one of the first two cities to receive the award.
The recognition is a great honour for the city, which has a long history of striving toward ambitious environmental protection goals. Simultaneously, the EU Commission designed the title to encourage the exchange of best practices and increase the level of city-to-city competition.
“Hamburg, 2011 winner, has shown major achievements in the past years and at present, has also achieved excellent environmental standards across the board. The city has set very ambitious future plans, which promise additional improvements”.
That was the jury’s conclusion upon choosing Hamburg as European Green Capital 2011. The recognition is both an honour as well as a challenge to continue expanding a booming a trade and service industry, all the while acting as a trailblazer in climate and environment.
The competition was two-phased, in which an independent jury evaluated Hamburg as compared to competitors such as Copenhagen, Vienna, Oslo, Munster and Freiburg.
Read the full article over at hamburg.de. Find further information about dates and events on Hamburg Green Capital.
March 26th, 2011 | Green Buildings, Intelligent Buildings, Living, Working, Building |
Songbird sees an even brighter future at Canary Wharf. Photograph: Scott Barbour/Getty Images
Canary Wharf’s biggest landlord has predicted that the influx of another 10,000 workers over the next few months will lead to a boom in retail in the area.
JP Morgan and Royal Dutch Shell are both moving their headquarters to Canary Wharf, raising the financial hub’s army of workers to 105,000.
“Weekend traffic also continues to be strong,” said David Pritchard, the chairman of Songbird Estates, which owns Canary Wharf Group (CWG). “Long may this continue. We don’t seem to be experiencing the same picture as retailers in the rest of the country.”
CWG rents out 17 of the 35 retail and office buildings on the Wharf. With the arrival of new names such as Tiffany and Aquascutum last year, 99.8% of the shops are let. “Rental is performing well. There is no shortage of tenants wanting to be here,” said Pritchard.
He Pritchard played down fears that the already stretched transport links cannot take the additional strain, saying overcrowding on the Jubilee underground line had been caused by signalling work that is expected to be finished this year and will see the number of trains increased from 20 to 30 every hour. The Docklands Light Railway line has also undergone work to improve it.
Songbird reported a 40% rise in pretax profits to £463.8m in 2010, boosted by the £495m sale of the old Lehman Brothers building to JP Morgan, although it also had to write off over £50m after the Lehman administrators stopped paying rent on the Bank Street offices. The market value of Songbird’s property portfolio rose by 10% to £4.6bn at 31 December.
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Read the full article over at the
Guardian.co.uk.
