Tverrfjellhytta / Hjerkinn, Norway

As in the post below, large windows and a spectacular view. From snohetta.com: "The building design is based on a contrast between ideas - a rigid outer shell and a soft, organic inner core.  The wooden core is shaped like rock or ice that has been eroded by natural forces like wind and running water, and is placed within a rectangular frame of raw steel and glass."

Vega Cottage / Vega Island, Norway

http://www.kolmanboye.com/vega
"The house stands on the island of Vega in the Norwegian archipelago not far from the polar circle. The site is distinctive for its grand and harsh northern landscape with wide panoramas of the Norwegian Sea and the jagged mountains rising from it."
The house looks beautiful and it must be hard to top those vistas on a nordic landscape. The only draw-back might be that this place is 700 km north of Trondheim, the closest larger city.

Movie suggestion: The things of life / Les choses de la vie

A successful architect who lives in a triangular relationship is fatally wounded in a car accident. In his few final hours he recalls seemingly small and irrelevant events in his life on which he develops a different perspective while dying. The main characters are played by Michel Piccoli and the incredibly beautiful Romy Schneider. Amazon sells dvds with English subtitles.

Paintings by Mark Keathly

From Mark's website (http://markkeathley.com/node/3):
"“We are too busy these days,” he says, speaking about our need to slow down,  sit a while, and think about life. Our kids are growing up alone, our schedules are jammed full, and there is no time to contemplate what life should be about. “I want my paintings to inspire people to be still, to listen to that quiet voice, and then rise up assured that they are a part of something bigger than their schedule.”
Although I don't think that Mark has found his own style (too much alike Thomas Kinkaide), I certainly appreciate his work so far. Here are a few examples:

Paintings by Eugene Galien Laloue

From Wikipedia (excerpt): "Eugène Galien-Laloue (1854–1941) was a French artist of French-Italian parents and was born in Paris on December 11, 1854. He was a populariser of street scenes, usually painted in autumn or winter. His paintings of the early 1900s accurately represent the era in which he lived: a happy, bustling Paris, la Belle Époque, with horse-drawn carriages, trolley cars and its first omnibuses."

Paintings by Antoine Blanchard

From Wikipedia (excerpt): Like Édouard Cortès (1882–1969) and Eugène Galien-Laloue (1854–1941), Antoine Blanchard essentially painted Paris and the Parisians in bygone days, often from vintage postcards. The artist began painting his Paris street scenes in the late 1950s, and like Cortès, often painted the same Paris landmark many times, in different weather conditions or various seasons.

Architectural Marker Renderings

In the age of Autocad and the like there is not much use for handrendering architectural plans. The results look great, however. Here are some examples drawn by a Chinese artist. I like the Falling Water visualization just as much as works by the master FLW himself.

Merry Christmas

From Wikipedia (edited):
"Thomas Kinkade was an American painter of popular realistic, bucolic, and idyllic subjects. A key feature of Thomas Kinkade's paintings are their glowing highlights and saturated pastel colors. The fine-art world overwhelmingly derided Kinkade's work as little more than commercially successful kitsch." That said, I don't like all of his paintings, but there are some that I just simply find beautiful and like the atmosphere which they convey. Here is one of them:

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Soviet advertisemt

Contrary to popular western believe people in the USSR did not starve. Life was not splendid, but people somehow got by. Here are a couple of original advertisements of the later day Soviet Union.
Interesting: the beer-ad references the product to southern Bavaria

What is true, however, is the fact that many products were of poor and very poor quality. Here is a picture from wikipedia displaying Belomorkanal Cigarettes. The greyish part contained crumbling tobacco and the white pipe was used as a simple filter against tobacco crumbs. The smoke itself was perhaps the heaviest sort that I ever inhaled.