In Our Age of Abundance

we maybe should learn to control our consumption, so Mies van der Rohe's dictum "Less is more" regains again in meaning and importance.

A nice reminder of my inherent local patriotism, for Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was born in Aachen ;).

Ab Oriente - Aachen and St Pancras

Suddenly last December when waiting for the Eurostar to depart from St Pancras International I was strongly reminded of Aachen and its Palatine Chapel. Allegedly it is the most beautiful edifice north of the Alpes and I must agree. Charlemagne robbed the pillars from Ravenna and had his chapel built in the Byzantine style (still Aachen's French name is Aix-la-chapelle).

Oh holy Charlemagne - at least to me , for he is a local saint, venerated only in the diocese of Aachen nowadays, but since this is where I'm living I certainly may pray to him :-). Moreover when he still was venerated by the whole of the Roman Catholic church, pilgrims came to Aachen and as a sign of worship, they would crawl underneath his throne, errected in the chapel. Thanks to the kindness of the late auxiliary bishop August Peters I had the opportunity to do the same, oh holy Charlemagne.

But then Aachen had its white elephant in the 9th century, a gift from Harun al-Rashid to Charlemagne. What more does one need to fuel one's imagination?!

And it is believed that the cathedral at Aachen was the model for James Ensor's etching The Cathedral: