Friday, August 19, 2016

Cool Stuff in Rio

There is cool stuff to see, if you can tear your eyes away from the shoreline...
The Australian Women's Swim Team... God bless 'em.
At least they aren't out falsifying police reports or trashing gas station bathrooms...

I'm talking about Portuguese pavement-
The promenades at the beaches in Ipanema and at Copacabana have very iconic designs...

In Copacabana the promenade is about just over two miles long and is covered with a 'wave' pattern designed and implemented in the 1930s.



It's an impressive work, and is a very memorable part of the scenery at Copa.

The promenade at Ipanema is also a very recognizable design...




Portuguese pavement is a very arduous process...
A little research showed a number of examples around the world, but sadly it is becoming a dying art. The exceptionally low pay for apprentice artists, coupled with the fact that the pavement itself is dangerous as hell -it's a little too uneven and is slippery as greased weasel shit when its wet- makes it more and more unattractive to municipalities.

The process is very cool...


The paving stones are prepped by hand.


The designs are placed by hand, carefully following a repeating pattern or implementing a single design in a paved area.
One the design or area is finished the spaces between the stones is filled with a thin cement mixture.


A finished example of Portuguese paving...

Cool stuff...

TBG - - ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE

2 comments:

Luc said...

Was in Portugal last May. I can concur. Very cool stuff.

Old NFO said...

Cool and you're right, slick as owl s**t when wet!!! Geez...