For the final episode of season 2 we’re heading to Moscow on suggestion of a listener to learn about the history of the famously colourful St Basil’s Cathedral.

St Basil’s Cathedral is a monument of many colours and many names, with Vivan describing it as “a Disneyland looking castle with colourful vaguely onion shaped domes”, and John describing it as “the Sean ‘Puff Daddy’ Combs” of churches. Located in Moscow’s Red Square along with the Kremlin, St Basil’s Cathedral is actually a combination of 10 churches including what was originally known as the “Trinity Cathedral”

The Trinity Church was originally built out of wood in 1555 under direction of Russia’s first Tsar, Ivan IV, also knows as Ivan The Terrible. He would commission the building of a new church after each war he won, and by the end of his rampage the Trinity Church had been enclosed with 7 other churches, at which time he ordered the construction of the wooden Church Of Intersession, followed by orders a year later to replace the original wooden Trinity Church with a stone cathedral.

A number of legends surround Ivan IV and the cathedral, such as the cathedral being dedicated to his fourth son, the first who did not die within a year of birth and so was to be his heir, although it is said that living up to his name he later beat this son to death over a disagreement. Other myths or legends include the story a missing ninth church appearing by a miracle when Ivan touched the cathedral during its consecration ceremony in July of 1561, or the story of Ivan IV blinding the architect so that he could never recreate it or build anything so beautiful again. But since Yakovlev is later credited with more architectural work, it’s fairly likely this was just a big authoritarian brag.

As with any large scale monument a great deal of maintenance is required for it to stand the test of time. In the case of St Basil’s it was burned down in 1583, rebuilt 10 years later, and burned down once again in 1737 before being restored a second time in 1812. Later in 1812 Napoleon invaded and looted the church and ordered its demolition which was ultimately unsuccessful.

Yet another round of restorations were ordered in the early 1900s, but this were interrupted by the First World War and the communist revolution. While Vladimir Lenin quite liked the cathedral and ordered it to become a museum rather than be torn down, Stalin did not hold the same view and wanted it demolished so he could parade tanks through the Red Square. As dictators are known for terrible urban planning decisions, Petr Baranovsky, the man responsible for the surveying the site just prior to demolition, would refuse to complete this work, even threatening suicide to stop Stalin from moving forward. Ultimately he was successful in preventing the destruction of this monument, and by 1990 it was declared a UNESCO world heritage site, and following the fall of the USSR it now operates as both a museum and church, with ongoing restoration work being completed today.

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Image Gallery

Exterior | Interior 1 | Interior 2 | The Kremlin | Elevation/Plan Drawings | History of The Layouts |

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Learn more at: MeasuredInMetric.com | Facebook | Instagram

Music by: John Julius - Bandcamp.com

Edited by: Astronomic Audio

This episode we’re back on the road(s) again! Vivian’s been itching to do another roads episode ever since the Via Appia all the way back at the start of season 1, and today we’re not just exploring one road but an entire road system: Norway’s tunnel highways.

The decision to take this podcast road trip through Norway started when Vivian was sent a YouTube video of one of Norway’s road systems, a tunnel leading to a roundabout inside the tunnel, with one leg exiting the roundabout into a giant suspension bridge back to yet another underground roundabout, which she describes as a “car disco.” Because of its rocky geography and many fjords, Norway is home to more than 900 road tunnels, included the longest road tunnel in the world measuring a whopping 24.5km long.

Back in 2009 Norway was ranked one of the worst countries in the world for road quality, lagging behind Portugal, Croatia, and the famously bankrupt Greece, and far behind other countries with similar economics and geography such as Sweden or Switzerland. One such road was the infamous E39 highway, which runs along the west coast of the country spanning 1,100km, but taking a full 21 hours to drive as a result of 7 separate ferry crossings along the way. In 2017 the decision was made to reinvest a portion of the country’s oil profits back into infrastructure and remove these ferry crossing as part of a scheme that would cost the equivalent of $50,000,000,000CAD, adding a number of bridges and tunnels and cutting the travel time by half through a series of mega projects.

Many of these projects involve mind boggling civil engineering feats, such as the Rogfast, which will be longest sub-sea tunnel in the world once completed, a full 26.7km long and going as deep as 392 metres below sea level, and will include a diamond-style undersea interchange complete with two separate roundabouts. In addition to the challenges of building the road and tunnels themselves, other challenges will include robust ventilation systems, fire safety systems, electrical systems, and even special types of concrete that will self seal cracks under explosive pressure to protect against potential terrorist attacks.

The innovations involved in the modernization of the E39 will also include some rare structures like floating bridges, and even never-before built structures such as underwater, floating tunnels, suspended by floating concrete pontoons to allow for boat passage through the fjords. This sort of innovation is exemplary of Norway’s future-facing transportation strategy, and as such it is no surprise that the country has the world’s largest fleet of electric plug-in vehicles, per capita, with more than half of vehicles sold in 2019 being electric.

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Image/Video Gallery

Vallavik tunnel (underground roundabout) | Vallavik Tunnel to Hardanger Bridge video | Hardanger bridge | Trollstigen Road | Rogfast Undersea Junction | Coastal Highway Project Map (courtesy of The Norwegian Public Roads Administration)

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Learn more at: MeasuredInMetric.com | Facebook | Instagram

Music by: John Julius - Bandcamp.com

Edited by: Astronomic Audio

From Basilica to Cathedral to Mosque to Museum, this episode’s monument spans across 1,600 years, multiple empires, and centuries upon centuries of dedicated engineers and architects keeping it in proper repair: The Hagia Sofia

In the city that today is known as Istanbul, the first iteration of the Hagia Sofia was built in 360AD, at a time when the city was still known as Byzantium. Constructed out of wood, it was burned to the ground during riots, then rebuilt once again out of wood in 415AD only to be once again burned during riots. Then in 537AD under Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian I, and supervised by engineer Anthemius of Tralles the Hagia Sofia was rebuilt out of stone, and has stood to this day.

Under the Eastern Roman Empire, each new Emperor would add to, repair or extend the Hagia Sofia, up until the 13th century when the city and the Hagia Sofia itself were looted by the Venetian Crusaders. All the gold and silver were stripped from the building and it would be converted in purpose from a Byzantine Orthodox Basilica to a Roman Catholic Cathedral as the city changed from Byzantium to Constantinople.

The now Cathedral would change hands again when Constantinople was conquered by Mehmed II and renamed to Istanbul, this time changing from a Catholic Cathedral to an Islamic Mosque. Under Mehmed II additions would be made such as wooden minarets, it’s famous giant chandelier, and some additional parts to facilitate Islamic prayer traditions. Painting of Jesus and other Christian iconography was covered with plaster rather than removed or destroyed, which allowed for these icons to later be restored prior to the Turkish president secularizing the building in 1934 and turning it into a Museum. History for the monument is still being written, as just this year Turkish President Erdogan has covered it back to a Mosque, with Christian imagery this time concealed behind curtains.

Beyond the monument’s changing hands, the Hagia Sofia provides us an opportunity to learn about the Eastern Roman building techniques the allowed for the monument’s iconic and surprisingly thing dome, 6th century fireproofing methodology, and some theorizing around how Pi would have been approximated at this time in history.

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Image Gallery

Mary & Jesus Mosaic | Dome and Pendentives | Interior with crowd | Islamic Symbols and Christian Mosaic side by side | Exterior view of Hagia Sofia | A very young Vivian & John

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Learn more at: MeasuredInMetric.com | Facebook | Instagram

Music by: John Julius - Bandcamp.com

Edited by: Astronomic Audio