Cathedral of St. Etienne at Bourges

If there's any buildings on my hitlist right now, it would be the Cathedral of St. Etienne at Bourges. I discovered it's existence while doing research for a history essay and it's a place I'll have to visit at some point. Initially erected as a Romanesque temple, it was later remodelled at a larger scale in the Gothic style, and the construction of it spanned centuries.

The building itself if breath-taking, with its paired aisles that rise in height to support the high vaults, and one of the broadest Gothic facades in the world. The nave itself is striking in its height, which is also matched by the flanking aisles, an unusual solution that allows an even longer view towards the altar. Thanks to this, the spatial effect is one of breadth and expansiveness.

Guess it's time to start saving up for next summer!

Summer.

Well... the summer is coming our way big time, and to be honest for the first time I'm starting to get excited about the architecture I will experience this time round. It will be hard to beat the Gaudi trail I followed through Barcelona last year, but with visits in Turkey and homeland Poland lined up I'm not complaining. If somehow I manage to sketch in the impossible heat of Turkey and gether enough money, there'll be no stopping me from having a cheeky wee visit to Istanbul.

 And when it comes to Poland, it'll be time to revisit the city I have been to so many times but never actually seen it - Breslau.

I'll probably be posting about it later on in the year. Excited!

Final.

With the end of year review approaching, its hard to wrap your head around the work that were expected to present to do ourselves justice for the year's work we'd done.

 It's also quite funny realising that here were are, at the end of year one already, even though it feels like we'd only just got here. Exciting but at the same time quite scary that were on the brink of being second years, with new challenges and much higher expectations, knowing that we won't be able to hide behid the fact that we're new to this anymore. I can't help but look out to next year with a kind of nervous excitement, not knowing what projects are coming our way. Just at the end of one year, we'd learned so much already, but it just makes us realise that there's still so much more out there to find out, with the summer just approaching, full of possibilities for our own research.