Journal 2

Well, lest start by saying that there are five English courses that we have taken during our career. I think that its great that people, by doing an exam can prove their English skills and jump one or even two English levels, even though, I think that as to many people sometimes the course is really easy, for other people it is really hard, because there’s people who knows English, and there’s other that don’t know nothing at all, and these English courses cant start by teaching truly basic things… it is something hard to solve by the way hehehe… I enjoyed it, because it wasn’t a class of grammar at all, it was interesting aspects of architecture in another language, so I really enjoyed it, and think that it help me as a professional to be.

As I was saying, I enjoyed English courses, it really enlarged my vocabulary… but I don’t until which level English courses can improve because as I just said, in a class there is a large range of knowledge of this language so maybe things that I think can help me, maybe just wont help someone who does not speaks English at all… There’s something that we just have to now clearly, and is that, to people that don’t know English at all, in 5 trimesters wont improve as much as teachers and the same university would like, because of the thing that those 5 levels are balanced into people that knows and people that don’t.

Having the online componet was very useful to me, I could do classes from home, and get to know some helpful tools in the web that may be useful in my future, for example the blogger, which I’ve explained in Journal 1.

I think that English courses shouldn’t be obligatories, they should be part of our pensum by in the Electivas part, and then maybe it can be not more hard but yet more intense, like
History in English… well, Architecture in English, and teach things that maybe we don’t see in other courses of the career.

By the way, you all teachers are really good and I really appreciated your time given to us and enjoyed you classes!

Bye!!!!

Journal 1

Well, lets see...
My blog is an accumulation of activities that I do in my English course at university (Simon Bolivar University) and some interesting stuff that I find on the web. In the blog there are several posts that consist of a combination of text and pictures related to it; the design of the blog is easy for the viewer, but the bad thing is that if there's too many posts, they just accumulate in one side of the page so people dont know sometimes that those posts exists.

I like my blog because the design is nice, and clear. The things that're posted are completed, although there might be some missing, the pictures on my blog are nice, and truly related to architecture, and the black background just highlights the texts and pictures.

In a language class as mine (english course) it is important to use and have a blog for the interaction between all the students. It is really good to share jobs with other students, not only of our class but also people all around the world... so all of us learn more and get to have tons of interesting information.

In our future, a blog may be helpful and also very useful as a consulting web-book, the architect may see others work and get ideas for his own works...although, I think that a blog is more useful for a class, not for a professional, but that is how I think nowadays, so I really don’t know... who knows!!! maybe I'll be writing here in 5 or 10 years as a professional. =)

Montreal

Montreal is the second largest city in Canada and the largest city in the province of Quebec.

As in most parts of Quebec, French is the most common spoken language in the city. Nevertheless, Montreal has a substantial anglophone population and many of the residents are bilingual. Montreal is a "Gamma" global city, hosting a multitude of international festivals and events including the XXI Summer Olympiad, Juste pour Rire (Just for Laughs), the Montreal Jazz Festival, the Formula One Canadian Grand Prix, the Montreal World Film Festival, and many others. During the period of prohibition in the USA, Montreal became well-known as one of North America's "sin cities" with unparalleled nightlife a reputation it still holds today.

Downtown Montreal lies at the foot of Mount Royal, which is designated as a major urban park. The Downtown area contains dozens of notable skyscrapers — which, by law, cannot be higher than Mount Royal — including the aforementioned 1000 de La Gauchetière and 1250 René-Lévesque, as well as Ieoh Ming Pei's Place Ville-Marie. The Tour de la Bourse is also a significant building in Montreal, as it is where all stock and derivative trades take place, and is also home to a successful program to encourage nesting peregrine falcons.

Montreal is known for the contrast between old and new. The Maison des Cooperants (a 146 m / 479 ft tall building) is right in front of an old church. Much of Old Montreal has been kept the way it was back in the day Montreal was first established. Old Montreal was a worldwide port, but shipping has been moved further east to the Port de Montreal site, leaving the Old Port/Vieux-Port as an historical area. The most recent trip to the North Pole departed from that specific port. The Montreal Skyline is ranked eighth in the Emporis in skyline views, a focal point in Montreal's recognition. The reason the Olympic Stadium was built 6 kilometres (3.7 miles) from downtown is that the owners thought that Montreal's downtown would expand to where the Olympic Stadium now stands.

Old Montreal

Southeast of downtown is Old Montreal (Vieux-Montréal), an historic area with such attractions as the Old Port, Place Jacques-Cartier, City Hall, the Marché Bonsecours, Place d'Armes, Pointe-à-Callière Museum, and the Notre-Dame de Montréal Basilica. Architecture and cobbled streets in Old Montreal have been maintained or restored to keep the look of the city in its earliest days as a settlement, and horse-drawn calèches help maintain that image. Old Montreal was a worldwide port, but shipping has been moved further east to the Port de Montreal site, leaving the riverside area of Old Port/Vieux-Port as an historical area now restored and maintained by Parks Canada.

BRIDGES

WHAT IS A BRIDGE?
A bridge is a structure built to span a gorge, valley, road, railroad track, river, body of water, or any other physical obstacle.

TYPES OF BRIDGES
There are four main types of bridges: beam bridges, cantilever bridges, arch bridges ,etc.

By use
A bridge is usually designed for trains, pedestrian or road traffic, a pipeline or waterway for water transport or barge traffic. In some cases there may be restrictions in use. For example, it may be a bridge carrying a highway and forbidden for pedestrians and bicycles, or a pedestrian bridge, possibly also for bicycles.

An aqueduct is a bridge that carries water, resembling a viaduct.

Decorative and ceremonial bridges

To create a beautiful image, some bridges are built much taller than necessary. This type, often found in east-asian style gardens, is called a Moon bridge, evoking a rising full moon.

Other garden bridges may cross only a dry bed of stream washed pebbles, intended only to convey an impression of a stream.

Often in palaces a bridge will be built over an artificial waterway as symbolic of a passage to an important place or state of mind. A set of five bridges cross a sinuous waterway in an important courtyard of the Forbidden City in Beijing, China. The central bridge was reserved exclusively for the use of the Emperor, Empress, and their attendants.

TECHNOLOGY INVOLVED IN BUILDING BRIDGES
New bridges are built either to replace old structures that no longer meet the demands of modern traffic or to cross obstacles on a new transportation route. Old bridges are replaced when repairs cannot be made economically or when traffic becomes too heavy for the old bridge. New transportation routes are built when traffic levels have outgrown the capacity of existing routes or simply to make it faster to get from one busy place to another. Often, new transportation routes are part of government programs to promote regional economic development.

In the United States, state and local transportation agencies determine where new bridges are needed and pay a small portion of the cost. The federal government usually pays for most of the construction expense, using money generated from taxes. Bridges funded by tax dollars are used free of charge. The few bridges for which a toll is charged to drivers for use are funded through the sale of bonds to raise money for construction. The money collected from the toll is used to pay back the bonds. The use of tolls and borrowing to finance bridge construction was more widespread in the past than it is today.

MARACAIBO'S LAKE BRIDGE

One of the longest bridges in the world (8km), built in 1962 over Lake Maracaibo, connected by a 55km strait to the Gulf of Venezuela. Developed since 1918 by foreign concerns keen to capitalize on the riches of oil production. A-frame pylons support a single cable at each side.

Name:
Lake Maracaibo Bridge,

General Rafael Urdaneta Bridge
Built:

1958 - 1962
Status:

in use
Location:

Maracaibo, Zulia, Venezuela
Crosses:

Lake Maracaibo

Designer:

Riccardo Morandi

Structural Type:
Cable-stayed bridge
Function / usage:
Motorway bridge / freeway bridge


Chronology
1957
International competition
24 August 1962
Opening
April 1964