Suceava Fortress
-
Yet another small update. I have added floor boards on the walls and railing. I don't know how accurate are wooden boards on the walls...but I'm not sure if this type of fortress had completely rock walls or not and I know that in the walls there were chambers for various uses so I'm going with wood at the moment.
If you are wondering when I'll be detailing the interior buildings well...I keep delaying them because there are a few thing which are different in the references I found and I need to figure out which what how...
-
Well, IF there was some wooden flooring there (I doubt however), your boards are definitely out of scale, Marian. They are too big IMO.
Anyway, these small details will add the realism eventually. I like the whole building very much so far. Maybe the terrain colour could be changed...
-
You're the expert. I was merely going with one of the examples I used as reference. It's clear that these differences between the references mean that not a lot is known about most of the details or only a handful of experts are privy to such information.
About the terrain, what do you suggest? At the moment it is the texture google earth. -
Well, as it is now, it's a kind of clay render so I would not bother myself with the terrain texture. However, later you may wish to add something different (it's Kerky, isn't it? So some instanced vegetation and such could add some nice surround...)
-
@gaieus said:
it's Kerky, isn't it?
No, it's Simlab Composer. I could add trees later on when the model is more complete.
I think the interior side of the wall is too high, I'll have to raise the buildings a little.
Here's another render, without the boards and with a simple terrain colour.
-
-
It's also a great application (I have it although I am not sure if the latest version...)
-
Yup, It's a pretty good piece of software. You should upgrade, it's free, unless you want to upgrade it from the rendering to animation version.
I've done a bit more tweaking. I have united the back wall with the interior building, similar to the physical model at the museum...added a bit more height to the walls and added the road and bridge.
I'll have to do a bit more work on how the bridge joins the road.
I'm also going to add a draw bridge.
-
So far it really looks great! Nice project (I can imagine how you enjoy it).
-
Thanks
@gaieus said:
(I can imagine how you enjoy it)
I do enjoy it and this project made me become even more fascinated with the architecture and history of castles and fortresses, even fortified houses and churches. There is something special in a fortified structure that I can't really put my finger on. I searched for these structures in my country and found out about some treasures I didn't know existed, some of them unfortunately lost to history.
I don't know exactly why I only now attempt to model this fortress that has been part of my life for a long time. It's interesting that this was not one of my first projects when learning SU or I didn't try it when you suggested it some time ago. Maybe it was my recent visit to Alba Iulia and witnessing the beauty and grandure of its Vauban style fortress now being reconstructed in all its glory included with guards in Austrian-Hungarian military uniforms. I think this made me long for something of equal measure that I could link myself to and be proud of my home town.
Unfortunately the ruins that now remain of the Suceava fortress while are interesting and somewhat impressive are underwhelming compared to its complete shape this why I opted for the reconstruction and not just modeling its ruins.
But enough ranting... -
A couple of years ago there were some talks about the Arad Fort becoming part of the World Heritage but I cannot find any info on it now (it is my sister-city and back then I used to work for the Town Hall here).
Also, there were plans to reconstruct much of it although the current GE imagery does not show if that happened.
-
That's awesome, I didn't know of this one either. It looks intact but overgrown. Maybe I'll do a model of this one too someday.
I couldn't find anything on its reconstruction either so I doubt they did anything. It's the same thing with the Suceava fortress they talk about rebuilding it for more than 20 years. In the 80's it was partially rebuilt. In recent years they keep making projects for European funding 2007- project for 23 million euros, 2009-17 million euros and 2010 14 million. This year...they'll write a project to make it from matchsticks.
You can see I'm really iritated with the way things work around here, everything is linked to politics and nothing gets done, or it takes ages....
Anyway...I found something interesting about Timisoara, unfortunately it's all written in Romanian.
http://art-historia.blogspot.com/2010/04/timisoara-otomana_23.html
http://art-historia.blogspot.com/2010/11/timisoara-austriaca.html
The gist of it is that Timisoara has a rich and tumultous history, being conquered by the Ottomans and remaining Ottoman for 162 years then being conquered by the Austrians.
The important thing in those articles are the reconstructions of the fortresses of those periods.
-
Well, Timisoara (Temesvár) was under the longest Turkish rule and indeed it was quite fortified - especially after the Turkish wars at the end of the 17th century. Those images are great however.
It was taken by Soliman the "Magnificent" in 1552 and during his last campaign in 1566 to occupy Szigetvár, he died during the siege here, about 30 kms from my place. The pashas kept his death in secret however and the Turks took the castle (and of course, all the defenders were slaughtered as they did not want to give the castle up).
Now it seems that the Turkish government wants to "rent" the castle (for 99 years or what) and they are planning to renovate it and reconstruct it to the state it was in the 16th century.
The siege in a contemporary depiction:
Mosque in the castle
The memorial of Zrínyi (Zrinski in Croatian as he was partly of Croatian origin), the defender and Soliman
-
It looks very well preserved and yeah that blurry line in GE just ruins it.
That thing about the Turkish government wanting to "rent" the fortress and restore it is an interesting solution. Maybe we should try and "rent" some of our castles to Hungary, I mean we share more history with you guys then the Turks do. I can imagine the nationalistic headlines on both sides... -
@marian said:
I can imagine the nationalistic headlines on both sides...
Ah, tell me about it...
BTW my grandfather was born in Transylvania (my other grandfather in nowadays Slovakia) and some of our family is still in Serbia...
My wife's family is also from Transylvania but her father was already born in Slovakia.I doubt however that our government would want to rent any of those castles BTW. Not nowat least.
BTW this is the main square of my town - and guess what; with a Turkish mosque (now used as a Catholic church) in the middle.
-
I don't know my ancestry very well but most of my ancestors are from Moldova. My grandfather, from my father's side, says that our ancestors originally came from across the mountains in Ardeal/Transylvania maybe 150-200 years ago.
Our family name, Rodu, is rather unique in general and not very common. Other people around the country with the same name are almost certainly related to me.
This makes me think that my distant ancestors could be Polish, rodu in Polish means family and knowing the history between Poland and Moldova that seems more plausible, but who knows, it can be a perfectly normal Romanian name that got altered when was first written in official documents.The building's architecture looks interestingly well suited to both a mosque and church.
Also the cross on top of the crescent is very unique, at least I have never seen it represented that way.
-
It was reconstructed around 1940 to this "original looking" state. It used to have some Baroque additions from the 18th century:
So not everything is impossible or hopeless!
-
Was it damaged in the war? I shudder to think at demolishing anything added to a historical building that is more than 100 years old even if it's not to original spec.
-
No, we were lucky. There was a panzer SS regiment in town but their heavy weapons and ammunition never arrived and they left without trying to defend the city. The Americans dropped a couple bombs around the railway station (well they destroyed the brothels there at least) and the Russians marched in without a single shot.
-
I'm happy that nothing valuable got ruined during the war.
What I was trying to ask was, why did they demolish the baroque elements and tower? Those were also of historical value.
Great progress. 
Advertisement