The Louvre by all accounts is one of the biggest art museums on Earth. Whether by the number of visitors, the size of the complex or the actual amount of artworks contained therein, it consistently ranks as the first or second in the world. Yet despite this size, the Louvre is known almost exclusively for the Venus de Milo and Mona Lisa. Of the 15,000 visitors who pass through its halls each day, most zip through the main Louvre galleries from one of these famous expatriate ladies to the other, with scarcely a pause in between. Needless to say, they’re missing out on some of the most unforgettable art they’ve never seen. Here are the most intriguing overlooked Louvre masterpieces.
Sleeping Hermaphroditus
The mattress upon which it lies was sculpted by Gian Lorenzo Bernini in 1620, carved from white marble with such masterful finesse that any viewer would find themselves resisting the urge to give it a test poke. The figure itself was carved by an unknown artist in the second century AD and pulled from the ground in 1608 near the Baths of Diocletian, Rome. This older part generates most of the intrigue surrounding the work. Having the appearance of a sensuous female nude when viewed from behind, this is what most passersby see of Hermaphroditus. Take the time to stop and investigate from the front, and you will receive quite a surprise. Perhaps most surprising of all is that the mattress was commissioned by Cardinal Scipio Borghese, a Catholic Church bigwig at the time, homoerotic art collector and challenger of the idea that history was as small minded as we imagine it.
Location: Denon Wing, Ground Floor
Palmyra Busts
These exquisite funerary busts from the Levant in the second century give us both the likenesses and often detailed life stories of the figures they memorialize, forming some of the earliest portraiture humanity has. The fact that the town of origin, Palmyra, was recently held by the art-destroying insurgent group ISIS adds to the preciousness of the pieces stored safely in the Louvre. It’s ironic the works that so incense militants bore civilians so.
Location: Sully Wing, Ground Floor
St. Mary Magdalene
Depicting the intriguing figure of Christianity and Dan Brown fame, Gregor Erhart’s wooden figure Saint Mary Magdalene recasts the often overlooked fallen-woman archetype as an ascetic mystic, post-salvation, living in a cave, clothed only by her hair. It’s a rarity among female nudes, religious images and 16th-century art.
Location: Denon Wing, Lower Ground Floor
Une Odalisque
With a literal English title of Harem Girl, Une Odalisque, painted by Jean-August-Dominique Ingres, scandalized France when it was unveiled in 1812. Not only because it was a nude that took a modern, rather than historical, subject (the past was considered a far more tasteful time to be nude) but also because the figure was considered a departure from anatomical realism. Indeed, the figure does have a few spinal vertebrae too many. Whether a careless mistake or a deliberate distortion, one thing was certain: abstraction would be the way of the future.
Location: Denon Wing, First Floor
The Wedding at Cana
With the unfortunate fate of being stored in the same room as the Mona Lisa, Paolo Veronese’s The Wedding at Cana, in which Jesus Christ at a wedding party in Cana, Galilee, performs his first miracle by turning water into wine, is fabulous art. The painting, crafted with exceptional skill, is curiously convoluted. More than 100 human figures feature (130 to be exact), and each is unique, with many being radically different. Costumes of antiquity sit next to anachronistic Italian fashion of the artist’s own time. Among the party-goers, several dogs, a cat and even a parakeet are to be found. The profane and the profound sit side by side, getting drunk together. This is a painting begging for a long pause and thorough examination, and yet it hangs barely noticed in the most-visited room in the most-visited museum in the Western world.
Location: Denon Wing, First Floor
View of an Interior, or The Slippers
For a museum housing some 5,500 examples of Western culture’s proudest accomplishments, society’s runner-up gender is shamefully underrepresented at the Louvre, with just 21 female artists featured. Samuel Van Hoogstraten’s View of an Interior represents one of many male comments on female sexuality in which the woman is, quite literally in this case, absent. In an empty household hall, two slippers lie abandoned on the floor, a broom rests against a wall, and a book sits closed on a table next to a freshly extinguished candle. To you, a casual museum stroller on your way to the gift shop, it could almost look like a simple still life. To a viewer in the 17th century, the message would have been obvious: these elements, seemingly discarded around the room at random, are not there by mistake. The broom symbolizes neglected household duties; the closed book, neglected scripture; the slippers, indoor shoes, lying abandoned in the middle of the floor: nakedness. Female sexuality once again brings about the fall of civilization. Perhaps Cardinal Borghese was an exception…
Location: Sully Wing, Second Floor
Samuel van Hoogstraten, View of an Interior | Courtesy
Fayum Portraits
Dating from the Coptic Period in Egypt, the Fayum Portraits, naturalistic likenesses of individual subjects painted onto wooden boards and attached to mummies, bear a striking Greco-Roman, rather than typically Egyptian, influence. Egypt’s arid climate means that these paintings have been remarkably well preserved, giving us the opportunity for a face-to-face encounter with human beings in the first few centuries of the Common Era.
Location: Denon Wing, Lower Ground Floor
Phoenician Sarcophagi
With their origins in the fifth century BC, Phoenician Sarcophagi were principally influenced by Ancient Egyptian funerary art, but they also have notable Greek sculptural influences, resulting in a strange juxtaposition of two familiar and disparate styles, making these an early example of multiculturalism in art.
Location: Sully Wing, Ground Floor
Portrait of Jean II le Bon
Jean II, the Good, was king from 1350 until 1364. A reign that saw numerous events of distant history such as the loss of nearly half of France’s population to the black death and the creation of the Franc, Jean II’s portrait is remarkable for being the oldest example of individual portraiture in France, and possibly all of Western Europe.
Location: Richelieu Wing, Second Floor
Charles V’s Gold Scepter
Although the Louvre is principally known for classic works of painting and artifacts from the ancient world, the 14th-century artifact of King Charles’ Gold Scepter is a rare gem among the Louvre’s jewelry collection. As one of the few relics of the French monarchs of the Middle Ages that wasn’t melted down or lost to time, it’s a rare artifact of pre-revolutionary France and one that lies in a section where tourists seldom stop.
Location: Denon Wing, First Floor
No kad bi mu prebivalište ovisilo o tome odakle dolazi jedan od najpopularnijih poklona koji dobivaju milijuni djece širom svijeta, Djed Mraz bi stanovao nešto bliže i južnije – u danskom Billundu
Gradić od šest tisuća stanovnika u središnjoj Danskoj poznat je po tome što u njemu svoje sjedište ima jedna od najpoznatijih tvornica igračaka – Lego. S 29,6 milijardi kruna prihoda 2017. (tečaj danske krune i hrvatske kune kreće se otprilike u razini 1:1) i više od sedam milijardi kruna dobiti, Lego je, kao i švedska Ikea, posveta skandinavskoj poslovnoj ingenioznosti.
Obična plastična kockica
Naizgled vrlo jednostavan proizvod – obična plastična kockica – već se desetljećima nalazi među najpopularnijim i najpoznatijim igračkama, ali i proizvodima općenito. Usprkos tome, poslovna priča danske kompanije umalo nije završila prije desetak godina.
Gradić od šest tisuća stanovnika u središnjoj Danskoj poznat je po tome što u njemu svoje sjedište ima jedna od najpoznatijih tvornica igračaka – Lego. S 29,6 milijardi kruna prihoda 2017. (tečaj danske krune i hrvatske kune kreće se otprilike u razini 1:1) i više od sedam milijardi kruna dobiti, Lego je, kao i švedska Ikea, posveta skandinavskoj poslovnoj ingenioznosti.
Obična plastična kockica
Naizgled vrlo jednostavan proizvod – obična plastična kockica – već se desetljećima nalazi među najpopularnijim i najpoznatijim igračkama, ali i proizvodima općenito. Usprkos tome, poslovna priča danske kompanije umalo nije završila prije desetak godina.
U Legovoj tvornici Izvor: Profimedia / Autor: Profimedia
Povijest tvrtke seže u tridesete godine prošlog stoljeća. Stolar Ole Kirk Kristiansen je 1932. osnovao obrt koji je proizvodio razne proizvode od drva, među kojima i drvene igračke. Dvije godine kasnije tvrtka je usvojila ime Lego, što je skraćenica od danskih riječi leg godt (igraj se dobro), također Riječ "LEGO" na latinskom može značiti "skupljam", "spajam" i "čitam", što posebno prva dva značenja imaju veliku relevantnost.A što osnivač tada nije znao.
Početak 2. svjetskog rata dočekala je s desetak zaposlenika.
Nakon rata Lego prvi u Danskoj kupuje stroj za izradu plastičnih igračaka, a moderna povijest tvrtke započinje 1958., kad je patentiran danas poznat način spajanja plastičnih kockica Lego i kad je kompaniju preuzeo sin osnivača, Godtfred Kirk Kristiansen. Kompanija je i danas u vlasništvu obitelji Kristiansen, jedne od najbogatijih danskih obitelji.
Uzeli primat Ferrariju i Mattelu
Iako su kockice Lego poznate generacijama djece diljem svijeta, sama kompanija svoje najbolje razdoblje bilježi upravo u posljednjih desetak godina. Prije nepunih godinu dana konzultantska kuća Brand Finance proglasila je Lego najjačim brendom na svijetu. Tu je titulu oduzeo talijanskom proizvođaču automobila Ferrariju, a u prvoj polovici prošle godine Lego je od američkog konkurenta Mattela preuzeo i poziciju najvećeg svjetskog proizvođača igračaka.
Te su titule prvenstveno posljedica vrlo uspješnog poslovanja. Od 2010. prihodi Lega godišnje rastu za više od deset posto. Posljednji dostupni podaci pokazuju da su u prvih šest mjeseci 2018. prihodi porasli čak 18 posto u odnosu na isto razdoblje godinu prije, i to na 14,1 milijardu kruna. Dobit je istovremeno skočila na 3,6 milijardi, osamstotinjak milijuna kruna više nego u prvom dijelu 2017.
Fokus na proizvodnju igrački i preporod
No kompanija je 2004. imala gubitak od gotovo dvije milijarde kruna i bila je na rubu propasti. Te godine je na poziciju glavnog izvršnog direktora izabran Jørgen Vig Knudstorp, a on vodi Lego grupu i danas. Na krilima uspjeha u prethodnim godinama Lego je do 2004. snažno širio poslovanje izvan same proizvodnje igračaka. Tako se kompanija bavila i proizvodnjom odjeće, izdavaštvom, kao i izradom videoigrica. Među najznačajnijim investicijama nalazila se i izgradnja zabavnih parkova, ali oni su 2005. prodani kako bi se poslovna politika ponovno fokusirala na proizvodnju igračaka.
Taj je zaokret donio preporod. Od tada do danas prihodi kompanije rastu, a dodatno je ojačala veza između kupaca i tvrtke. Lego je posebnu pažnju posvetio jačanju brenda, a dio strategije bio je i dugometražni film napravljen u suradnji s producentskom kućom Warner Bros. i prikazan u kinima 2014., a donio je prihode veće od 470 milijuna dolara. Kompanija danas ima prodajne urede u više od stotinu država svijeta, a proizvodnja se obavlja na četiri lokacije: u Billundu u Danskoj, u mađarskom gradu Nyíregyházi, češkom gradu Kladnu te u gradu Monterreyju u Meksiku.
Samo 18 defektnih proizvoda na milijun komada
Krajem prošle godine proizvodnja je trebala krenuti i u Kini, odakle Lego namjerava snabdijevati azijsko tržište. Da se u Legu nadaju još svjetlijoj budućnosti, uz ulaganje u Kini, svjedoči najava širenja proizvodnje u Meksiku. Iz kompanije su objavili da su spremni investirati i više od 100 milijuna eura, no da će pravi iznosi ulaganja ovisiti o budućoj potražnji za proizvodima. Sve u svemu, kompanija danas ima oko 13 tisuća stalno zaposlenih radnika.
Jørgen Vig Knudstorp, izvrši direktor Lega Lego/Autor: Lego
Male plastične kockice čine se kao vrlo jednostavan proizvod za kopiranje i, posebno ako se uzmu u obzir često visoke cijene Legovih setova, punu jeftiniju ponudu na tržištu pa se postavlja pitanje kako Lego uspijeva održati tako visoku profitabilnost i popularnost. Među osnovnim postulatima proizvodnje, na koje su u Legu vrlo ponosni, nalazi se izrazito visoka fokusiranost na kvalitetu izrade i izdržljivost
Kalupi od kojih se izrađuju kockice Lego proizvode se gotovo isključivo u Njemačkoj, a na njihov razvoj troši se mnogo energije i novca. Tolerancija prilikom lijevanja plastike je minimalna, a u kompaniji ističu da to u konačnici u prosjeku dovodi do samo 18 defektnih proizvoda na milijun komada. Visoka izdržljivost i trajnost Legovih kockica jedan je od razloga lojalnosti kupaca jer se kockicama kupljenim i prije dvadeset i trideset godina bez problema djeca mogu igrati i danas. Takva predanost kvaliteti, od samih sirovina do krajnjeg proizvoda, diže cijenu igračkama, zbog čega konačni proizvod nije jeftin.
Legove kolekcije su investicija
Drugi razlog zbog kojeg Lego uspijeva i dalje držati visoku cijenu svojih igračaka je poslovna politika da se određeni tematizirani skupovi igračaka nude na tržištu samo određeno vrijeme. Nakon toga proizvodnja im prestaje, a setovima cijena nerijetko raste zbog kolekcionarske vrijednosti. Dapače, rast cijene može biti i takav da se kupnja Legovih igračaka može smatrati i solidnim ulaganjem.
Kako bi pospješili ovu poslovnu politiku, u Legu su proteklih godina dodatno skratili razdoblja u kojima se pojedini tematski setovi prodaju na tržištu. Tako se neke igračke na policama trgovina mogu pronaći samo godinu dana, a prije su ta razdoblja trajala i po nekoliko godina.
Ovakav potez omogućen je dijelom i prelaskom na digitalnu tehnologiju prilikom dizajniranja setova. Od ideje do konačnog proizvoda u trgovini sada treba otprilike godinu dana, a prije je taj proces trajao i po tri godine.
Legići na temu filma Star Wars trenutno su najpopularniji / Autor: Profimedia
Lego svoj izlet u digitalni svijet nije ograničio samo na kompaniju. Još 2004. kupcima je ponudio računalnu aplikaciju kojom su mogli sami dizajnirati svoju željenu igračku te proslijediti svoj dizajn u tvornicu kako bi se igračka za njih i proizvela. No ta se opcija ipak pokazala preskupom te je onemogućena 2012. iako kupcima i danas ostaje mogućnost da aplikacijom dizajniraju vlastite zamisli te onda podijele dizajn s drugim kupcima Lega diljem svijeta.
Zaštita okoliša i ravnopravnost spolova
Danska kompanija je godinama bila i metom kritika organizacija za zaštitu okoliša zbog toga što kao sirovinu za izradu plastike koristi naftu te zbog toga što visoka kvaliteta plastike garantira da se Legove igračke neće razgraditi tijekom godina kao neki drugi manje kvalitetni plastični proizvodi. U Legu kažu da je izdržljivost njihovih proizvoda jedan od najvažnijih doprinosa zaštiti okoliša jer se oni ne bacaju, nego ih nasljeđuju nove generacije djece. Također, tvrde da recikliraju više od 90 posto otpada koji nastaje prilikom proizvodnje.
Posljednjih godina Lego je dospio i na metu kritika da su im igračke usmjerene prije svega na mušku djecu, na što su u kompaniji odgovorili stvaranjem setova namijenjenih djevojčicama. Najavili su kako će u budućnosti prilikom dizajniranja novih igračaka puno više pažnje posvećivati izjednačavanju zastupljenosti igračaka za oba spola
Danska kompanija je u proteklom desetljeću, a posebno u prošlih pet godina, doživjela renesansu. Širenje proizvodnje i ulaganja znaci su da se u Legu nadaju da će se nastaviti takav trend, a relativno svježa lekcija iz povijesti trebala bi biti osigurač da se nerealne ambicije izvan uske sfere proizvodnje igračaka neće ponavljati. Lojalnost kupaca nalazi se među adutima Lega, no u povijesti biznisa ne nedostaje primjera toga da samo jedan krivi potez može u potpunosti izokrenuti sudbinu i najuspješnijih kompanija.
The architecture of Paris is glorious. From the impressive Louvre Pyramid to the innovative Eiffel Tower, every street offers a spectacle of innovation. But there’s one treasure that most tourists don’t even notice: the smallest house in Paris.
Small but exceptional Parisian architecture
The smallest building in Paris is tucked away unsuspectedly at number 39 rue du Château d’Eau. This is despite what you might be told on the popular Seine river cruises when you glide past this similarly tiny house located at 13 Quai Voltaire in the 7th arrondissement.
Measuring a meagre 1,10 metres wide and five metres high, the smallest house in Paris is actually even smaller than 13 Quai Voltaire. In fact, it’s so tiny that most tourists don’t even notice it exists as a separate building as they stroll through the city.
If tourists do give it a second glance, the building seems to be nothing more than a natural connection between two neighbouring six-floor houses. However, there’s a wealth of mysterious secrets hidden within the ancient walls of this tiny abode.
A mysterious heritage embroiled in a dispute
Despite the quaint appearance and adorable miniature design of Paris‘s smallest building, the origin of this property is said to have been embroiled in a heated dispute between the local neighbours.
The space between the two buildings, located opposite the Town Hall of the 10th district and alongside the Marché Saint-Martin, used to be a narrow passageway open to public use. The house, as it happens, was purposely built right upon this passageway after a dispute between two families but it formed part of a clever, if not risky, plan.
A curious tactic to solve ownership arguments
The house was built at the place of a bustling passage between the streets rue du Château d’Eau and rue du Faubourg Saint-Martin and everyone wanted to claim a share of this very important piece of land.
After a heated argument about who should own the rights of access to the passageway, one of the parties decided to end the argument by simply filling the gap with a new property. If there was no more passageway, then there would be nothing left to argue about. There would simply be no winners and no losers.
Of course, today, this brazing approach would fire up more anger than it hoped to resolve but back then, it clearly worked as it’s stayed up ever since.
Fighting to prove its status
While the house wasn’t knocked down, despite the uproar its impromptu construction naturally caused, the property wasn’t recognised as such until after a little protesting. For a long time, it was seen simply as an obstruction that blocked this once very convenient passageway through Paris.
Eventually, though, the building was officially recognised with its own number in the street and proudly sports the address it won to this day as 39 rue du Château d’Eau.
But for the most part, it was never viewed as more than a tiny shop unit on the ground floor, originally belonging to a shoemaker with a room above, since it connected with the first-floor building at number 41. Only in recent years has it started to be appreciated as an independent structure.
From an old shoemaker’s room to a baby’s abode
The shoe repair shop reigned its busy commerce until the start of the 19th century, at which point, it transformed into a shop selling baby clothes.
A newspaper article at the end of the 19th century describes in greater detail the peculiar design of this miniature property, which seems to explain the inspiration behind its re-transformation.
It explains that the room was mostly used to house a sleeping baby. But, since the room’s space was so limited – just 1,10 metres wide and five metres high – the cot apparently took up the entire space.
Whether this intriguing legend of a whole house for just one baby is an urban myth or not, it would have been a very cosy – and less quarrelsome – space to grow up.
Renault entered 2019 with the RS19 for Nico Hulkenberg and team newcomer Daniel Ricciardo as they plot their way up the grid and try to emulate their race and championship-winning predecessors.
It is always worth remembering that Renault has huge pedigree in motorsport and their foray into modern Formula 1 back in the seventies was as pioneers, who turned – laughing stock – turbo technology (in the very early days it was scoffed at in the F1 paddock) into a potent force in the top flight.
The proud legacy began when Amédée Gordini, who had created Grand Prix cars under his own name, was recruited to design high-performance cars for Renault.
A new factory was founded at Viry-Châtillon, on the edge of the motorway leading from Paris to the south of France. It was inaugurated on 6 February 1969, and it was to be the launch pad for motor sporting success over the following decades.
The initial focus was on a new 2-litre V6 engine, which was officially launched in January 1973. The engine soon proved to be competitive in the prestigious European 2-litre sportscar series. That was followed by a move into the FIA World Sportscar Championship with a turbocharged version of the engine.
Renault Sport was founded in 1976, and that year saw the birth of a parallel single-seater programme with the V6 engine in European F2.
In sportscars the turbocharged Renaults proved to be incredibly fast, securing a string of poles and fastest laps, but bad luck robbed the team of good results. Everything came together in 1978 when Didier Pironi and Jean-Pierre Jaussaud scored a historic victory, with another Renault coming home fourth. With Le Mans success finally secured, Renault could now focus on its other goal – Formula 1.
The option to run a turbocharged engine had been in the rules for many years, but nobody had dared to pursue it until Renault. It had quietly begun track testing with a 1.5-litre version of the turbo engine in 1976, and a short programme of races was scheduled for the following year.
The V6 turbocharged RS01 made its debut in the 1977 British GP in the hands of Jean-Pierre Jabouille. Nicknamed the ‘Yellow Teapot,’ the car retired from its first race, but not before it had made a big impression. Four further outings at the end of the year provided more valuable experience.
‘It was a very special decision to build the turbo,’ recalls Bernard Dudot, who headed the technical programme. “We were a group of young engineers at Viry-Châtillon, all very enthusiastic but having a rare understanding of the future. We were so enthusiastic that we convinced the President of Renault, Bernard Hanon, that we should do F1.”
“It was a really crazy idea at the time. Fortunately he was very enthusiastic as well, particularly about the benefit of ‘la compétition’ and F1.”
Jean-Pierre Jabouille gave the prototype F1 car its first run at the Michelin test track at Clermont-Ferrand on 23 March 1976. It was just the start of a long journey as the team prepared to enter the sport.
“We needed to have the right level of power to fight the atmospheric engines,” says Dudot. “But on the turbo we had the lag of a couple of seconds, and we never knew what to expect on the different types of track.”
“The main problem was assembling the engine and packaging in the small car. It was heavy as well, and the weight balance was not ideal – that was one of our greatest problems at the start.”
Jean-Pierre Menrath, one of the young engineers working on the project at the time recalled the depth of the challenge. “The most recurrent problem we had was to do with lag. The drivers absolutely had to change their driving style.”
“And, of course, the heat dissipation of the turbo engines was the most restrictive aspect in terms of designing a fast race car. The radiators had to be bigger, which made the turbo engines more difficult to fit into single-seaters than the normally-aspirated engines.”
The debut for the RS01 was set for Silverstone. Jabouille started 21st, although retired from the race in a cloud of engine smoke. He also took part in the Dutch, Italian and US GPs, qualifying as high as 10th in Zandvoort.
The car made a big impression, but its propensity for expiring in smoky style earned it the nickname of Yellow Teapot ! It had, however, made a big impression and the team was learning all the time.
The education process continued through 1978. In the first part of the year, Renault concentrated on preparations for Le Mans, which paid dividends as Didier Pironi and Jean-Pierre Jaussaud scored a memorable victory. With the target achieved, the focus now turned fully to F1.
The team missed the first two Grands Prix of the year, but thereafter Jabouille completed a full season with the RS01. He qualified an encouraging third in both Austria and Italy, and scored the marque’s first points with fourth place in the USA. It was the first points for Renault, but also the first for any turbo engine – a real landmark for the sport.
“I have to say that we took some time to achieve the right level of reliability,’ says Dudot. ‘At first we needed to put the suppliers at the right level of service, for example the guys supplying the pistons, valves and so on. We needed to improve quality control. Progressively we achieved it, and over the years we were more reliable, and able to challenge a lot more.”
A move to a twin-turbo set-up for the 1979 Monaco GP proved to be one of the big breakthroughs. The team had finally begun to conquer the critical problem of turbo lag, and Jabouille duly scored the marque’s historical first win on home ground in Dijon, having started from pole. Further poles followed at Hockenheim and Monza while Arnoux earned two poles and three podium finishes.
It was a watershed moment as Menrath recalls: “People started looking at us differently when we won our first race, the French Grand Prix. It was both a radical change and a revelation : suddenly, the turbo-powered cars posed a real threat. It made others realize that they had to start thinking about abandoning normally-aspirated engines and switching to turbo.”
The team ran a second car for the first time in 1980 as Rene Arnoux joined Jabouille. Again, the team covered new ground and achieved progressive success, with Jabouille earning Renault’s first pole position in South Africa with the RS01. An updated car, the RS10 ground effect car, was introduced mid-season.
Meanwhile the engineers continued to experiment, including changes to the radiators and cooling. Progress was rapid. The team went from 520/530bhp in 1979 to over 1,000bhp in the space of five years.
When Alain Prost joined in 1981 the Renault team had developed into a regular pacesetter, and a World Championship contender. Indeed Prost only just missed out on the title in 1983.
His methodology, precision and absolute sense of competition so nearly brought his first world crown and he recalls, “We saw turbo engines develop every year, but the driving style was very different.”
“You had to find the right moment to accelerate – and anticipate when the power would come through. Getting the timing right depended on a lot of factors : the type of corner, speed, grip, the type of tyres, how worn they were and how much the turbo had been used.”
“For the drivers, there were corners where you definitely had to brake a bit earlier, so you could accelerate earlier, and therefore be able to have the required power at the right moment. That’s why there could be such big gaps between the cars, as well as drivers becoming tired towards the end of the race. Your brain had to process things differently.”
Meanwhile one-by-one other teams followed the turbo route, in effect acknowledging that Renault had got its sums right.
In 1983 the company became a supplier for the first time, joining forces with Lotus. Supply deals were also extended to the Ligier and Tyrrell teams in subsequent seasons. In Portugal 1985 Ayrton Senna scored his first-ever GP victory with Renault power, and the Brazilian proved to be one of the stars of the season.
The Renault management decided to close the works outfit at the end of 1985, and focus instead on supplying engines to other teams. Indeed in 1986 the Senna/Lotus/Renault combination proved to the fastest on the grid, as the Brazilian took eight poles – although frustration on race days meant that he scored only two wins.
In 1986 the entire field used turbo engines, and power figures were boosted to way beyond 1,000bhp, a figure even the Renault engineers could not have foreseen just a few years earlier.
‘At the end of 1986, we even had a test engine that was capable of developing up to 1,200bhp thanks to the use of new turbochargers, with a new design,’ Menrath now reveals. ‘At the outset, they were intended to be used at altitude and in the end, at sea level, they produced exceptional performances.’
However, a new challenge was on the horizon. The FIA had decided that turbos were simply now too powerful and thus had to go, and a new formula for 3.5-litre normally aspirated engines was drawn up. Turbos were to be gradually reined in and phased out over the 1987 and ’88 seasons, before being outlawed completely by 1989.
Renault’s first turbocharged Formula 1 adventure lasted for 10 memorable seasons from 1977 to 1986, but its legacy has endured for much longer. The current turbo/hybrid era has not been as kind to the marque but as their illustrious history shows, things can and do change fast in F1.
Iako je nekada bio tek obična lovačka kabina u šumi, Dvorac Chambord (Château de Chambord) je pretvoren u najveći dvorac iz loirske skupine, šest puta veći od ostalih, sa 440 soba, 84 stepenice, 365 kamina, parkom i šumom od 4563 ha, te 33 km velikih zidova koji ga okružuju.
Izgradnja ovog renesansnog dvorca je započela 1519. godine, a naručio ga je francuski kralj Franjo I, apsolutni vladar Francuske koji je htio (po ko zna koji put) demonstrirati svoju moć tako što će izgraditi ogroman ‘lovački dom’, točnije veličanstveni dvorac koji će mu služiti kao odmaralište.
Sama arhitektura dvorca, kojeg je djelomično projektirao Leonardo da Vinci koji je tada živio u Francuskoj (dvorac Amboise) a pod kraljevom zaštitom, nikoga ne ostavlja ravnodušnim, pa čak ni najmoćniji čovjek tog doba – Karlo V., car Svetog Rimskog Carstva nije mogao kriti svoje oduševljenje prilikom posjete Chambordu.
Ovaj netaknuti dragulj koji se krije u sred velike šume i danas oduševljava i ostavlja bez daha sve one koji ga posjete (800.000 turista u 2018. godini).
Za turističke posjete je otvoreno čak 80 soba, a tu je i prilika da se popnu na krov i uživaju u fantastičnom pejzažu u kojem je nekada uživao i najmoćniji čovjek Francuske i Europe tada.
Pretplati se na:
Postovi
(
Atom
)