September 27, 2010

Anniversary of Tudela and the monastery of Sant Cugat

With the issue of two stamps commemorating the 1200 anniversary of the founding of Tudela (Navarra) and the Millennium of the monastery of Sant Cugat (Barcelona).

Although there is evidence of the existence of a Roman settlement in Tudela, confirmed by the discovery of the mosaic of The Ramalete, the real founders of the capital of the Bank Merindad the Arabs, namely Ibn al-Muwallad Amrus, a representative of the Emir of Cordoba. The city of Tudela, since its conquest by Alfonso the Battler, highlighted as a model of religious coexistence equilibrium and integrating cultures. It remained to be expelled Jews and Moors in 1498 to 1610.

Stamp Issue: 2002-04-15

200 Anniversary of the Engineering School of Civil Engineering and Port

It commemorates the second anniversary of the founding of the Engineering School of Civil Engineering and Port to issue a souvenir sheet and an independent label. The momentum of public works took on Spain in the early nineteenth century necessitated the creation of the School of Civil Engineering, opened in 1802. The promoter of the idea was Agustin de Betancourt, who is considered father of civil engineering in our country. Born in Puerto de la Cruz (Tenerife) in 1758. Of good education and with a great capacity for science and mechanical arts, he studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid, where he acquired a solid knowledge of mathematics, physics and drawing. For his great skill, was entrusted with studying the operation of the mercury mines of Almaden and won a scholarship to study mining engineering in Paris. Their work covers many different areas of science, such as "fire bomb" or steam engine double acting, hydraulic, electrical and optical telegraphy. He performed in major public works of the era and its ideas, outlined in a document of 1803 the Minister of State under the title News about the state of roads and waterways of Spain, became the program of actions for the coming years. In 1807 he left Spain and after passing through Paris was established in St. Petersburg (Russia), where he died in 1824.

Studies of Civil Engineers began in 1802 in the palace of the Buen Retiro (Madrid). In the first group left five students. After several interruptions, in 1834 the school finally opened under the direction of José Agustín de Larramendi. He stepped down Juan Suberco, who expanded and improved the curriculum and raising the scientific level of the station at the height of the most prestigious of the time. In the souvenir sheet, consisting of three stamps, reproduce Tui International Bridge, which links to Valença do Minho (Portugal), Strait Dam Bridge (Lorca) and the Port of Musel (Gijón). In the vignette is a picture of Agustín de Betancourt.

Stamp Issue: 2003-03-21

ARCHITECTURE

The Bizkaia bridge is a striking civil work inaugurated in 1893. Its author was engineer Alberto de Palacio, disciple of Eiffel. It was the first bridge in the world with a transporter suspended above the river. It is an exponent of the iron Architecture and is still in use.

Stamp Issue: 2007-04-26

EXPO ZARAGOZA 2008

The International Exhibition Zaragoza 2008 whose main theme is water and sustainable development will take place in Zaragoza from the 14th June to the 14th September. Correos has already issued a stamp depicting the logo and mascot of the Expo Zaragoza 2008, and on this occasion the stamp in this issue depicts the Bridge-Pavillion and Water Tower (Pabellón Puente and Torre del Agua), two architectural compounds which will be left for posterity as landmarks of this International Exhibition.

The Pabellon Puente (Bridge-Pavillion) is the work of Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid and the engineering company Arup. It is a slim building slightly curved resting on the banks of the river Ebro and a central island in its waters. It has an organic shape that criss-crosses and resembles a gladiola or diamond opening and closing like a natural element. The bridge goes from side to side, on mounds descending gently toward the banks. It is one of the most significant buildings of the exhibition and will allow visitors to access three different exhibition areas providing a smooth transition between the city across ramps planted with gardens and the Conference Centre (Palacio de Congresos). 

Another of the most relevant buildings of the exhibition is the Water Tower (Torre del Agua) work of architect Enrique de Teresa, which will house the exposition “Water for Life”. It is a glass building 76 m. high that looked at from above resembles a drop of water The building has two differentiated areas : base and tower. The base is made up of three floors, two of which are underground and the ground floor above. The base includes the column of the tower, which rises to a height of 70 metres above ground level. The façade comprises a glazed curtain wall and at the entrance there’s a water fountain and a sculpture called “Splash“. 

Stamp Issue: 2008-02-22

EXPO ZARAGOZA 2008

The souvenir sheet is made up of three stamps and depicts an aerial view of the scale model of the Expo compound. One of the stamps depicts de Pabellón-Puente (Bridge-Pavilion) with a slender, organic, pleated shape which is one of the main entrances to the Exhibition. On the left hand side stands one of the six Themed Plazas on Aquatic inspirations. This space is located between the Bridge Pavilion and the Third Millennium Bridge. It is the only Themed Plaza where a large-scale show will take place instead of an exhibition. It is a shell shaped building with a bioclimatic design specially made to host the show “El Hombre Vertiente“. The other five Themed Plazas are built along the banks of the Ebro River and are called: Extreme water, recreating a breaking wave, aiming at making visitors conscientious of the perils of water; the Thirst Plaza gives a new perspective to thirst by portraying it as progress and the driving force behind the development of extraordinary techniques, culture and knowledge. The Oikos, water and energy plaza is an exposition facility in the open air (mostly) designed to show the visitor that it is possible to transform and store energy using the technology we have available in a manner that shows respect for the environment, is cheap, available to everyone, and which maintains our level of well-being. The Cities of Water Plaza is an exposition installation, with no walls, and its contents are visible from outside. Its main process refers to water as an “urban resource”, underlining the great value of this natural element in the process of improving quality of life in cities. The importance of a change of attitude among citizens to revalue the relationship of water in the city is highlighted. The last of the plazas, Shared water is structured in five different parts and encourages new thinking on shared water management. On the background of the souvenir sheet are depicted pavilions and infrastructures of the Expo.

Stamp Issue: 2008-07-04

ARQUITECTURA 2009

The Puente de los Tilos, is a bridge built by engineers Santiago Pérez-Fadón Martinez and José Emilio Herrero Beneítez and their team near San Andrés y Sauces in the island of La Palma (Canary Islands). It was inaugurated on the 18th December 2004 and it consists of a 255m span arch. The arch and spandrel piers are made of high resistance concrete. The length of the bridge is 357 m and stands more than 150m high over the del Agua gully. With this bridge, the authors broke the span record in the building of concrete arches in Spain.

The Canal de Castilla is one of the most important civil engineering constructions in Spain. It was built as a means of communication for the region of Tierra de Campos so that agricultural produce could be transported along the canal to the northern sea ports. It was finished by 1849 and has an inverted Y shape with a total length of 270 km running through the provinces of Palencia, Burgos and Valladolid. With the arrival of the train, the canal lost its purpose as a means of communication and became an irrigation channel in 1909. Since 1972 the Hydrographic Confederation of the Duero River is in charge of its management and maintenance.


 Stamp Issue: 2009-09-09

September 24, 2010

Girder bridge

The next issue of the series “Architectural constructions. Bridges” is devoted to the girder bridges. Bridges with frameworks, the main load-carrying structures of which are beams or girders, are the most widespread in a modern bridge building. They are used in complex road interchanges. Distinctive feature of the girder system is that only vertical loads are transferred from the bridge superstructures to the piers and horizontal one are absent. Load transfer is carried out by a flexural element of a construction. Bridge structure depends on the size of overlapping of superstructures, the load on the bridge and the intensity of movement.


Depicted on the stamps:  
  1. Jubilee Bridge over the River Volga in Yaroslavl 
  2. Bridge across the Moscow Canal in the village Khlebnikovo Moscow region 
  3. Viaduct over the valley of the river Matsesta in Sochi 
  4. Bridge across the Kola Bay in Murmansk. 
Stamp Issue: 2010.09.15

Arched bridges

Arched bridge is a bridge with spans bearing arches as the main load-carrying structures.
The main peculiarities of arched bridges are that their thrust is not only vertical, but also horizontal and arches predominantly work for pressure. Arched bridges are usually constructed for ride at their upper side; their construction is light and they are architecturally bright.

Stamps represent vivid examples of such bridges in Russia:
  1. Sartakov bridge across Oka river in Nizhny Novgorod;
  2. Bridge across Irtysh river in Khanty-Mansiysk;
  3. Viaduct across the valley of Matsesta river in Sochi;
  4. Bridge across Don river in Rostov-na-Donu.
Stamp Issue: 2009-08-12

Cable-stayed bridge

Cable-stayed bridge - the type of suspension bridge, which consists of one or more of the pylons, connected with the road through a straight wire ropes - rigging. The advantage of these bridges - the relative immobility of the roadway, which makes them suitable as a rail. This is one of the most economical designs of bridges. It is widely distributed in the world. 

  
On the stamps are clear examples of bridges of this type in Russia:
  1. Big Obukhovsky bridge in St. Petersburg,
  2. Picturesque bridges in Moscow, 
  3. The bridge across. Ob (Surgut), 
  4. Bridge across. Volga (Kimry).
 Stamp Issue: 2008-11-28 

September 22, 2010

750 years of Tczew

Polish Post has issued on the occasion of the 750th value Tczew anniversary of granting civic rights. The first mention of this village date back to the 1198th. Burned down in 1577 the fault of the troops Stefan Batory Foundation, the reconstruction of the effects of the war hit him with Sweden.

In the nineteenth century saw the rapid development of infrastructure. In the interwar period was built the first school in Poland sea. At the moment Tczew has 60,232 people. The biggest attractions include the stamp should be visible on the nineteenth-century bridge over the Vistula River (837 m), the Gothic Church of the Holy Cross in the thirteenth century with a baroque interior, and the neo-Gothic town hall of the early twentieth century (see in the FDC).

Stamp Issue: 2010-05-27
number 4336

September 21, 2010

Aleksander Gierymski - painter

Alexander Gierymski (born January 30, 1850 in Warsaw, died in the period between 6-8 March 1901 in Rome) - Polish painter, representative of realism in painting, Polish precursor of Impressionism.


Gierymski images created in Warsaw period, as "Orange Woman", "A gate in the Old Town", "Marina in Solec", "Trumpets", "Sandblaster" (1887), and other topics are taken from the Vistula and the poor living Town. Great work with the Warsaw period has not found sufficient understanding in contemporary Polish society. He misunderstood and unappreciated in his homeland, deprived of the means of subsistence, he left Warsaw in 1888 and went abroad.

Stamp Issue: 1959-06-29
number 962

Poniatowski Bridge in Warsaw

Originally built between 1904 and 1914, it was damaged in each of the World Wars and rebuilt afterwards.
The 506 m long steel bridge, consisting of eight spans, was designed by Stefan Szyller. Its construction, started in 1904, was supervised by engineers Mieczysław Marszewski and Wacław Paszkowski.


Stamp Issue: 1966-09-15

number 1560
 
Between 1963 and 1966 the bridge was widened, a tram track was separated from the carriageway and the bridge was connected to the "Wisłostrada" expressway on the left bank of the Vistula by means of a long looping sloped roadway section which reminded some contemporary commentators of a snail's shell.


Issue: 1970-05-08

Cp 438