Wednesday, July 26, 2006

"Our heritage is our future."

Since I am a dork, I find this very interesting.

A group called the New 7 Wonders is trying to determine the new seven wonders of the world. The group wants to recognize the awesome achievements of humankind since ancient times. And since most of the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World are gone now, the group wants to create a brand new list. If you read their website, these people are very passionate about the project. Anyway, they want the world to vote on the new wonders, and I like this idea. According to their site, "This vote will culminate with a live, worldwide telecaston July 7, 2007 - 07.07.07 to announce the New 7 Wonders of the World."

The nominees for the new list include such wide-ranging structures as the pyramid at Chichén Itzá, the Acropolis in Greece, the Colosseum in Rome, the Taj Mahal, the Sydney Opera House, Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany, the Statue of Liberty, Stonehenge, the statues of Easter Island, and many others. See the full list of nominees here.



I am going to vote, but I have not decided which ones to vote for yet.

Like I said, this is probably to world's dorkiest post, but something about the combination of culture, art, history, and architecture is quite fascinating to me.

9 Comments:

At 8:42 PM, Blogger sherlock posited...

Easter Island and Stonehenge are the most impressive to me. Eighty foot men and Fifty-ton monoliths stacked on top of each other are pretty fantastasmic (fantastic in the cosmic sense).

 
At 9:35 PM, Blogger Kelsi posited...

Things like the Statue of Liberty don't strike me as being a wonder of the world. I know how it was made, and the origins (a french man's idea) don't really perplex me. I'd totally vote for Neuschwanstein. Isn't that Mad King Ludwig's castle?

 
At 10:35 PM, Blogger Carson posited...

Petra, Jordan gets my vote.

Not only is it really cool looking, but it was also used to represent Alexandretta in "Last Crusade" where Indiana Jones found the Holy Grail.

"But choose wisely, for while the true Grail will bring you life, the false Grail will take it from you."

 
At 1:21 AM, Blogger swalker posited...

While I find the concept really cool, I was dissapointed with the choices. for one, I think they should have given more to pick from, but mainly I was dissapointed because, despite this being the new seven wonders, almost all of the choices are very old. I think it would be more interesting to do seven additional wonders of the world, which focuses only on things created by modern societies (even if created in said societies' pasts). It also brings up the interesting dichotomoy of ancient versus modern architecture. In ancient times the only option for creating large structures was stone, and the durability of the material as well as the great effort required to erect anything of large scale meant that all such structures were inhrently permanent (t also meant tha tmore attention was paid to the astethics, as the structures would have long-lasting influence). The advent of steel construction means that in the modern day, nearly every great structure built is impermanent, so despite whatever awe-inspiring qualities they may have, realistically they will probably not last long after the fall of our own societies (both due to natural deterioration and the ease of dissasembly by later peoples for whom the symbolic signifigance of the structures is disadvantageous, or simply the structure's physical existence is inconvenient, or even for re-use of it's materials), so therefore do not have the potential for the cross-cultural influence of the ancient stone structures.

 
At 2:25 PM, Blogger constant_k posited...

La la la, I'm Sam Walker, I used the word dichotomy in a blog comment, la la la.

Sam, you're just pissed because those stupid ancient cultures didn't build any geodesic domes for you to vote for.

And you should make all your buildings out of stone. You can bring Cyclopian architecture into the 21st century!

 
At 5:35 PM, Blogger undulatingorb posited...

The day for voting will be Ringo's 67th birthday. And I don't think this post was the dorkiest post ever, I also find it intriguing and fascinating. I agree that the wonders should hold some mystery, such as Easter Island and Stonehenge, and I think Petra should get extra points for being featured in The Last Crusade.

 
At 12:11 AM, Blogger Jason posited...

Sam, if I'm correct, there was already some preliminary voting done by some 20 million people to narrow down the field to the nominees that now stand.

And Wanninger, did you get this from Newsweek, or did you just post this at exactly the same time they ran an article on it? If yes to the latter, what else do you do with your psychic powers?

 
At 3:49 PM, Blogger constant_k posited...

He buys winning lottery tickets and then doesn't redeem them.

 
At 12:01 PM, Blogger Kelsi posited...

This thread inspired me to buy a clearance-price book at Barnes and Noble about the original Wonders of the World.

 

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