Nation- (and City-) Specific Victory City Markers

@ossel:

Just an update, found some really good shots of that tower next to Barmaley Fountain in Stalingrad (Volgograd). It’s still standing!

That’s a neat find!  Comparing it with the movie set pictures from my earlier post, it looks as if the horizontal section of the railway station building has been demolished since the war, with only the tower section surviving (and no doubt refurbished to repair wartime damage).  It’s good that you found such a detailed shot of this elaborate tower, since that’ll be the complicated part of the building to model; the horizontal section is much simpler in appearance, so it’ll be easier for you to include it in the marker sculpt. I guess they didn’t bother reconstructing most of the original station after WWII because they built a completely new Volgograd railway station not far from there, in the heavy-handed Stalinist architectural style that was popular at the time.  There are two reproductions of the Barmaley Fountain in Volgograd today (one white and one grey), so the one you found must be the one which is close to the original station’s location.  Looking forward to seeing the upcoming marker!

Now that there are good solutions in place for the two cities that were giving us our biggest headaches (Stalingrad and Manila), I’m revisiting the four remaining VCs that don’t have obvious iconic structures (Calcutta, Warsaw, Shanghai and Hong Kong) to see if the suggestions which have already been made for them can be improved upon.

I started with Calcutta and Warsaw, and in both cases I ended up reconfirming my original preferences.  For Calcutta, I was all set to recommend replacing my earlier recommendation (the Dakshineswar Kali Temple) with a different building that I discovered today, the fantastic-looking Calcutta Birla Mandir.  Then I noticed that it had been built between 1970 and 1996…so it’s definitely not appropriate for use as a WWII marker.  As a consolation, however, I found a much better picture of the Dakshineswar Kali Temple (see below), which – at 159 years of age – easily fits the WWII requirement.

After Calcutta, I read a bit about Warsaw’s architectural history and I also tried to see whether I could find any great-looking structures that were closely associated with the 1939 siege of Warsaw.  The Wikipedia article on the planned destruction of Warsaw, which includes a list of notable damaged or destroyed structures, was another interesting source.  It turns out that Warsaw has buildings in a plethora of architectural styles, from the gothic period onward, so in a sense it doesn’t have any uniquely representative style of construction.  So I returned to my original approach of looking at churches, especially Catholic ones, given that over 90% of Poles are Catholics and that the Church is so influential in Poland.  For each building, I asked myself if it would look out of place in a western Europeam country – say, Britain or France or Germany.  If the answer was “no”, I eliminated it as insufficiently distinctive in terms of national styles.  The one I liked best from the remaining buildings turned out to be my previous recommendation, the Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary and of St. Joseph – more commonly known as the Carmelite Church of Warsaw, which is a much easier name to manage. The central onion dome and the two belfries shaped like censers are the features I like the best, and which I think give the church a somewhat Slavic / East European appearance.

Tomorrow I’ll have a closer look at Hong Kong to see if the current choice for that city (the Main Altar of the Wong Tai Sin Temple) still holds up.  As for Shanghai, I watched a documentary about it this afternoon and it seems like the city was architecturally chaotic: each Western-dominated enclave in the city had its own imported building style (French, British, etc.), the Chinese parts of town were on the whole quite poor, and there was also a push in the 1920s and 1930s to modernize the city by building skyscrapers.  The walled “Old City of Shanghai” is perhaps the most authentically Chinese part of town, and one building there that might be worth considering is the Dajing Ge Pavilion.  Although partially dismantled in 1912, the surviving part of the structure (which has a nice pagoda roof) incorporates the last remaining portions of the old city’s walls (which have rectangular crenels, and hence look like military fortifications rather than just plain walls), and it’s currently protected as a heritage building.  One advantage it might have over Dianchun Hall (the current marker candidate) is that the Yu Garden buildings have repeatedly been damaged and/or destroyed since the 19th century, so it’s hard to be sure if the current Dianchun Hall structure (repaired from 1956 to 1961) looks the way it would have looked prior to WWII (when it was again damaged).  So I’m thinking that the Dajing Ge Pavilion might be a better option.  Thoughts?

I’ve completed my review of Hong Kong and it looks like the Main Altar of the Wong Tai Sin Temple remains the best choice.  Hong Kong’s got huge numbers of modern buildings (which obviously aren’t suitable for this project), and the various structures it retains from the British colonial era don’t tend to have Chinese designs.  Of the Chinese-style heritage buildings in Hong Kong that I’ve checked out, the Main Altar at Wong Tai Sin is in my opinion still the best-looking one.  The pagoda at the Ten Thousand Buddhas Monastery, with its nine-tiered roof, is the only one that rivals Wong Tai Sin in terms of being dramatically Chinese in its style, but it’s way too tall relative to its height to make a stable marker sculpt, its surrounding buildings are uninteresting, and it doesn’t seem to be as well-known as Wong Tai Sin (which is said to be one of the most iconic temples in Hong Kong).

One surprising thing which I discoved from my review today was that the Wong Tai Sin picture from Wikipedia which I posted last week was actually a bit misleading: it mostly shows the Main Altar’s gateway rather than the principal building.  The Main Altar consists of a principal building to which is attached a bracket-shaped colonnaded portico that creates a small courtyard.  The left-side and right-side colonnades have a simple sloped roof; the gateway has a single pagoda-style roof tier; and the principal building has two pagoda-style roof tiers.  There are a few additional buildings nearby on the temple grounds, but the only one that would need to be modeled is the Main Altar, whose roof and portico are very distinctive-looking.

@CWO:

I’ve completed my review of Hong Kong and it looks like the Main Altar of the Wong Tai Sin Temple remains the best choice.  Hong Kong’s got huge numbers of modern buildings (which obviously aren’t suitable for this project), and the various structures it retains from the British colonial era don’t tend to have Chinese designs.  Of the Chinese-style heritage buildings in Hong Kong that I’ve checked out, the Main Altar at Wong Tai Sin is in my opinion still the best-looking one.  The pagoda at the Ten Thousand Buddhas Monastery, with its nine-tiered roof, is the only one that rivals Wong Tai Sin in terms of being dramatically Chinese in its style, but it’s way too tall relative to its height to make a stable marker sculpt, its surrounding buildings are uninteresting, and it doesn’t seem to be as well-known as Wong Tai Sin (which is said to be one of the most iconic temples in Hong Kong).

One surprising thing which I discoved from my review today was that the Wong Tai Sin picture from Wikipedia which I posted last week was actually a bit misleading: it mostly shows the Main Altar’s gateway rather than the principal building.  The Main Altar consists of a principal building to which is attached a bracket-shaped colonnaded portico that creates a small courtyard.  The left-side and right-side colonnades have a simple sloped roof; the gateway has a single pagoda-style roof tier; and the principal building has two pagoda-style roof tiers.  There are a few additional buildings nearby on the temple grounds, but the only one that would need to be modeled is the Main Altar, whose roof and portico are very distinctive-looking.Â

Marc, I’m sorry that I don’t know enough about these two cities to comment, but I’m trusting your judgment, because you have doing a great job on the research of each cities architectural structures. I’m sure Ossel will get some idea of how he will implement on what you have researched.

It is really cool to read and see these neat structures from all over the world.

Thanks again for all this great information. :-)

John

John

I’ve been doing some more research on Shanghai, for which the building suggestions so far still don’t seem to be optimal, and I think I’ve found two stronger candidates for the marker sculpt.  I found them both in a 2004 book called Touring Shanghai. The first option is the Longhua Pagoda.  It was built in the 5th century.  It’s 40 meters tall, and its 7 stories have an octogonal shape.  It’s one of the largest of the 16 pagodas in Shanghai. The second option is the Square Pagoda of Songjiang, built in 1068.  It has 9 stories and, at 48.5 meters in height, it was once the tallest building in Shanghai.  It’s considered to be the most beautiful pagoda in the lower region of the Yangtse River.

Both of these tall, slender buildings would contrast nicely with the contender for the Hong Kong marker, the Main Altar of the Wong Tai Sin Temple, which is low and broad.  Both would work fine in my opinion, but I have a slight preference for the Longhua Pagoda because it’s a little less tall and because its octogonal shape gives it a rounder appearance than the Square Pagoda of Songjiang, which would further distinguish it from the rectangular Wong Tai Sin Temple.

@CWO:

I’ve been doing some more research on Shanghai, for which the building suggestions so far still don’t seem to be optimal, and I think I’ve found two stronger candidates for the marker sculpt.  I found them both in a 2004 book called Touring Shanghai. The first option is the Longhua Pagoda.  It was built in the 5th century.  It’s 40 meters tall, and its 7 stories have an octogonal shape.  It’s one of the largest of the 16 pagodas in Shanghai. The second option is the Square Pagoda of Songjiang, built in 1068.  It has 9 stories and, at 48.5 meters in height, it was once the tallest building in Shanghai.  It’s considered to be the most beautiful pagoda in the lower region of the Yangtse River.Â

Both of these tall, slender buildings would contrast nicely with the contender for the Hong Kong marker, the Main Altar of the Wong Tai Sin Temple, which is low and broad.  Both would work fine in my opinion, but I have a slight preference for the Longhua Pagoda because it’s a little less tall and because its octogonal shape gives it a rounder appearance than the Square Pagoda of Songjiang, which would further distinguish it from the rectangular Wong Tai Sin Temple.

I would be happy with either one. They both look good.

@CWO:

I’ve been doing some more research on Shanghai, for which the building suggestions so far still don’t seem to be optimal, and I think I’ve found two stronger candidates for the marker sculpt.  I found them both in a 2004 book called Touring Shanghai. The first option is the Longhua Pagoda.  It was built in the 5th century.  It’s 40 meters tall, and its 7 stories have an octogonal shape.  It’s one of the largest of the 16 pagodas in Shanghai. The second option is the Square Pagoda of Songjiang, built in 1068.  It has 9 stories and, at 48.5 meters in height, it was once the tallest building in Shanghai.  It’s considered to be the most beautiful pagoda in the lower region of the Yangtse River.

Both of these tall, slender buildings would contrast nicely with the contender for the Hong Kong marker, the Main Altar of the Wong Tai Sin Temple, which is low and broad.  Both would work fine in my opinion, but I have a slight preference for the Longhua Pagoda because it’s a little less tall and because its octogonal shape gives it a rounder appearance than the Square Pagoda of Songjiang, which would further distinguish it from the rectangular Wong Tai Sin Temple.

Pagoda of Songjiang is my vote

Wow!  I was confident that you’d do a great job on this marker, but this is even better than I expected – “fantastic” would be the best way to express it!  I like the way you captured both the horizontal and vertical elements of the station building, and gave good prominence to the circular fountain, and how you even included a detailed secondary building off to the side (along with the usual little cube-shaped permimeter structures).  Are you sure this marker is really just the size of a coin?  ;)

@ossel:

Ok, without further ado…
STALINGRAD

Had some trouble with Shapeways on this one, so it took me a couple of uploads to get it right, but let me know what you guys think.

Man, this one of the best ones you’ve done. Highly impressed by this piece! :-D

I was looking at the expanded view of the Moscow marker (the isometric projection) and I noticed that the section all the way at the back includes some orange lines which I assume are leftovers from the drafting stage of the drawing.  Are they still a part of the file that could affect the output of the marker when it gets 3-D printed?

@ossel:

No, this is simply where I my mouse had passed over those features as I was taking the screenshot  :-D  Shouldn’t affect anything.

Great – thanks!

Ossel & others,

Sorry, but it’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve been on the site.

@ossel:

Paul,
  That’s definitely an option.

Heck, if you wanted to get the Victory City Marker Set “Donald Trump Edition”, you could drop $480 each for 14K gold!  :lol:

––Nobody would ever mistake me(or my finances) for Donald Trump,…haha. My point was simply that I’ve seen some of the wonderful Shapeways pieces that utilized the least exspensive (and detailed) plastic,…and the result was a very grainy and UGLY finish that IMHO nobody would want.
For me,…I’d rather pay tweo or three dollars each for something that I could be proud of rather than
.25 cents each for something I’d be ashamed to show anyone. Just check out some pics on the internet.
----Here are some pics. Notice the extremely rough surface on the upper wings.

Tall Paul

Ossel & others,

––I must say that I’m extremely happy at the rapid progress that’s been made on this project by Ossel with some wonderful research help of CWO Marc. GREAT WORK, guys!
––I agree with everything accomplished so far except:
IMHO Correigadore, a.k.a. “The ROCK”, which guards the approaches to Manila Harbor would be much more representative for the Phillipines than Fort Drum. MacArthur raised the flag there when he “returned”. It would be cool if you could model a tiny flagpole on “lowerside”. The 503rd Airborne that assaulted the “Rock” thought so much of the battle on this island that it’s name and image were utilized in their shoulder patches.
----Again,…Great Work!

Tall Paul

Thanks for the input and encouragement, Tall Paul.  On the subject of output quality, I agree that it should be very high – it would be a shame for Ossel’s fine modeling to get translated into a rough 3-D print.  In his Reply #71 of April 27, Ossel mentioned that he was planning to order for himself a prototype batch of the finished models to check on their quality, so he will undoubtedly make absolutely sure that these markers meet a high production standard before he starts making them in larger quantities.

As for Corrigedor, it was one of the initial ideas which I mentioned in my Reply #56 of April 26.  The problem with Corrigedor Island would be similar (but to an even greater degree) to the one that we ran into with the initial version of the Honolulu marker, which covered a large geographical area running from Pear Harbor to Diamond Head.  Given how small the markers will be, and given that the modeling is (of necessity) somewhat abstracted, large geographic areas end up looking somewhat generic unless they happen to contain a large and impossible-not-to-recognize structure (as in the case of San Francisco Bay, whose Golden Gate Bridge is instantly identifiable).  Corrigedor Island has an interesting saddle shape, but it doesn’t contain any large iconic structures, so the marker would basically just depict a large island, which would look odd compared to all the other markers (all of which have structures as their defining element.)  Fort Drum, on the other hand, is much smaller that Corregidor Island, so it can be depicted in much more detail than Corregidor; it’s so small that its gun turrets occupy a good percentage of its surface area, so using it would be analogous to modeling a battleship-sized (and approximately battleship-shaped) structure.  It has a very distinctive appearance, and the link I provided leads to some amazingly detailed shots of a scale model of Fort Drum from many different angles, so Ossel will have lots of material to work from in creating a model for it.  But anyway, that’s just my opinion.

@ossel:

Thanks again for the input guys.

Just an update:
I have been working with Shapeways on the subject of manufacturability lately, and specifically the subject that Tall Paul is referring to. The problem I’m having is that some materials (some that people might want, like gray plastic or steel) have different “smallest feature” values, so are giving me errors on upload. I need to figure out if these errors are going to be a problem in production. I’ve thought of maybe increasing the overall scale of the cities, but this doesn’t seem to be fixing it. I’ll keep everyone updated as I figure things out.

Right now, I’m munching on some sourdough for some inspiration for my next piece… :wink:

Thanks Ossel for the update. I hope you figure it out. This would be sad if you couldn’t produce these because of the quality of material. Good luck to you. :-)

ossel & others,

@ossel:

Thanks again for the input guys.

Just an update:
I have been working with Shapeways on the subject of manufacturability lately, and specifically the subject that Tall Paul is referring to. The problem I’m having is that some materials (some that people might want, like gray plastic or steel) have different “smallest feature” values, so are giving me errors on upload. I need to figure out if these errors are going to be a problem in production. I’ve thought of maybe increasing the overall scale of the cities, but this doesn’t seem to be fixing it. I’ll keep everyone updated as I figure things out.

––So far I’ve bought about two dozen different designs from Shapeways and I thought I pass along what worked and IMHO looked the best as far as “materials” that are available.
Let’s use the HBG Minor Factories as an example. For a package of twelve(12) you can get them in the following “material” versions with different levels of detail and price. A link is provided below.

http://www.shapeways.com/model/1085367/minorfactory-x12.html?li=shop-results&materialld=62

(1.) POLISHED STRONG & FLEXIBLE PLASTIC-White
“White Nylon plastic polished to reveal a smooth matte finish” for $11.95

(2.) DETAIL PLASTIC: FROSTED DETAIL
“Matte translucent plastic with fine print lines that reveals small details” for $19.95

(3.) DETAIL PLASTIC: FROSTED ULTRA DETAIL
“Matte translucent plastic that showcases fine and intricate details” for $24.95

––I truly prefer option #3 above as the details are truly AMAZING! I mean you can see and feel the individual rivits on the aircraft wings,…wow!
----And speaking of the HBG Minor Factories I should have pics of the ones that “Allworkandnoclay” should have finished by this weekend.
----I can’t give you any advice on any of the metal materials available as I haven’t ordered any yet. I believe that I would prefer my “City Markers” to be made in Detail Plastic: Frosted Ultra Detail as they don’t need the extra weight and they should be easier to paint if they were plastic also.
––Please continue this very interesting project as I want to buy a complete set.
––Also, as far as delineating the differences between the Capitol cities and the Victory Point cities, I plan on having a small flag flying on the Capital cities.

Tall Paul