Prompt: Himeji Castle is the largest castle in Japan. It serves as an excellent example of prototypical Japanese castle architecture, containing many of the defensive and architectural features associated with Japanese castles. The curved walls of Himeji Castle are sometimes said to resemble giant fans (扇子, sensu), but the principal materials used in the structures are stone and wood. Feudal family crests (家紋, kamon) are installed throughout the architecture of the building, signifying the various lords that inhabited the castle throughout its history. The specific style of the castle is a hirayama (平山城 flat hilltop). Two castles that were built during the same time and shared many of the architectural features are Matsuyama Castle (Iyo) and Tsuyama Castle. The Himeji Castle complex is located in the centre of Himeji, Hyōgo on top of a hill called Himeyama, which is 45.6 m above sea level. The castle complex comprises a network of 83 buildings such as storehouses, gates, corridors, and turrets (櫓, yagura). Of these 83 buildings, 74 are designated as Important Cultural Assets: 11 corridors, 16 turrets, 15 gates, and 32 earthen walls.
Prompt: The 11 medieval monolithic cave churches of this 13th-century 'New Jerusalem' are situated in a mountainous region in the heart of Ethiopia near a traditional village with circular-shaped dwellings. Lalibela is a high place of Ethiopian Christianity, still today a place of pilmigrage and devotion. In a mountainous region in the heart of Ethiopia, some 645 km from Addis Ababa, eleven medieval monolithic churches were carved out of rock. Their building is attributed to King Lalibela who set out to construct in the 12th century a ‘New Jerusalem’, after Muslim conquests halted Christian pilgrimages to the holy Land. Lalibela flourished after the decline of the Aksum Empire.
Prompt: In the 16th and 17th centuries, the fortress-city of Fasil Ghebbi was the residence of the Ethiopian emperor Fasilides and his successors. Surrounded by a 900-m-long wall, the city contains palaces, churches, monasteries and unique public and private buildings marked by Hindu and Arab influences, subsequently transformed by the Baroque style brought to Gondar by the Jesuit missionaries. Fasil Ghebbi is located in the Amhara National Regional State, in North Gondar Administrative Zone of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. The serial property consists of eight components. Within the Fasil Ghebbi palace compound are: the Castle of Emperor Fasilidas, the Castle of Emperor Iyasu, the Library of Tzadich Yohannes; the Chancellery of Tzadich Yohannes; the Castle of Emperor David, the Palace of Mentuab and Banqueting Hall of the Emperor Bekaffa. The remaining seven components are located in and around the city of Gondar: the Debre Berhan Selassie (Monastery and church); the Bath of Fasilidas; Kiddush Yohannes; Qusquam (Monastery and Church); Thermal Area; the Sosinios (also known as Maryam Ghemb); the Gorgora (Monastery and Church) and the Palace of Guzara.
Prompt: The ruins of the ancient city of Aksum are found close to Ethiopia's northern border. They mark the location of the heart of ancient Ethiopia, when the Kingdom of Aksum was the most powerful state between the Eastern Roman Empire and Persia. The massive ruins, dating from between the 1st and the 13th century A.D., include monolithic obelisks, giant stelae, royal tombs and the ruins of ancient castles. Long after its political decline in the 10th century, Ethiopian emperors continued to be crowned in Aksum.
Prompt: Tiya is among the most important of the roughly 160 archaeological sites discovered so far in the Soddo region, south of Addis Ababa. The site contains 36 monuments, including 32 carved stelae covered with symbols, most of which are difficult to decipher. They are the remains of an ancient Ethiopian culture whose age has not yet been precisely determined.
Prompt: The fortified historic town of Harar is located in the eastern part of the country on a plateau with deep gorges surrounded by deserts and savannah. The walls surrounding this sacred Muslim city were built between the 13th and 16th centuries. Harar Jugol, said to be the fourth holiest city of Islam, numbers 82 mosques, three of which date from the 10th century, and 102 shrines, but the townhouses with their exceptional interior design constitute the most spectacular part of Harar's cultural heritage. The impact of African and Islamic traditions on the development of the town's building types and urban layout make for its particular character and uniqueness.
Prompt: Konso Cultural Landscape is an arid property of stone walled terraces and fortified settlements in the Konso highlands of Ethiopia. It constitutes a spectacular example of a living cultural tradition stretching back 21 generations (more than 400 years) adapted to its dry hostile environment. The landscape demonstrates the shared values, social cohesion and engineering knowledge of its communities. The site also features anthropomorphic wooden statues - grouped to represent respected members of their communities and particularly heroic events - which are an exceptional living testimony to funerary traditions that are on the verge of disappearing. Stone steles in the towns express a complex system of marking the passing of generations of leaders.
Prompt: The Verla groundwood and board mill and its associated residential area is an outstanding, remarkably well-preserved example of the small-scale rural industrial settlements associated with pulp, paper and board production that flourished in northern Europe and North America in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Only a handful of such settlements survive to the present day. Verla Groundwood and Board Mill, located in the northern part of the Kymi River Valley in southeast Finland, consists of the Mill, the associated residential area and the power plants. The mill buildings and the workers' houses mostly date from the 1890s and from the beginning of the 20th century. The property is a very well preserved example of a forest industry settlement of the late 19th century. Similar communities were established in coniferous forest zones in northern Europe and in North America, where wood as a raw material and water as a source of energy were easily at hand.
Prompt: Built in the second half of the 18th century by Sweden on a group of islands located at the entrance of Helsinki's harbour, this fortress is an especially interesting example of European military architecture of the time. Suomenlinna (Sveaborg) is a sea fortress, which was built gradually from 1748 onwards on a group of islands belonging to the district of Helsinki. The work was supervised by the Swedish Admiral Augustin Eherensvärd (1710-1772), who adapted Vauban’s theories to the very special geographical features of the region. The landscape and the architecture of the fortress have been shaped by several historic events. It has served to defend three different sovereign states over the years: the Kingdom of Sweden, the Russian Empire and most recently the Republic of Finland.
Prompt: Situated on the Gulf of Botnia, Rauma is one of the oldest harbours in Finland. Built around a Franciscan monastery, where the mid-15th-century Holy Cross Church still stands, it is an outstanding example of an old Nordic city constructed in wood. Although ravaged by fire in the late 17th century, it has preserved its ancient vernacular architectural heritage. Situated on the Gulf of Bothnia, Rauma is one of few medieval towns in Finland. The core of the town is Old Rauma, which is composed of some 600 buildings constructed of wood, most of which are privately owned, and covers an area of 29 ha. Originally situated at the seashore, the Old Town is located some 1.5 km inland from the present coastline due to land uplift. Old Rauma is both a commercial and a residential area comprising the town area within the toll boundaries of Rauma in the 19th century. The town plan structure of Rauma has been maintained since the medieval period, including the irregular street network, city blocks, plots of land and courtyards. The buildings are mainly one storey tall, and date back between the 18th and 19th centuries, while some cellars remain from earlier houses.
Prompt: Petäjävesi Old Church, in central Finland, was built of logs between 1763 and 1765. This Lutheran country church is a typical example of an architectural tradition that is unique to eastern Scandinavia. It combines the Renaissance conception of a centrally planned church with older forms deriving from Gothic groin vaults. Built for a small Lutheran parish in central Finland, Petäjävesi Old Church is located on a peninsula at Lake Solikkojärvi and is surrounded by an agricultural landscape with lakes and forests, typical of the region. Construction of this wooden church was led by a local master builder, Jaakko Leppänen. The bell tower was added to the western part of the church in 1821 by the master’s grandson, Erkki Leppänen. Petäjävesi Old Church is representative of the architectural tradition of wooden churches in northern Europe. The Old Church is a unique example of traditional log construction techniques applied by the local peasant population in northern coniferous forest areas. European architectural trends, which have influenced the external form and layout of the church, have been masterfully applied to traditional log construction.
Prompt: Partly built starting in 1145, and then reconstructed over a 26-year period after the fire of 1194, Chartres Cathedral marks the high point of French Gothic art. The vast nave, in pure ogival style, the porches adorned with fine sculptures from the middle of the 12th century, and the magnificent 12th- and 13th-century stained-glass windows, all in remarkable condition, combine to make it a masterpiece. Notre-Dame de Chartres Cathedral, located in the Centre-Val-de-Loire region, is one of the most authentic and complete works of religious architecture of the early 13th century. It was the destination of a pilgrimage dedicated to the Virgin Mary, among the most popular in all medieval Western Christianity. Because of the unity of its architecture and decoration, the result of research of the first Gothic era, its immense influence on the art of Middle Age Christianity, Chartres Cathedral appears as an essential landmark in the history of medieval architecture. The outstanding stained-glass ensemble, monumental statuary of the 12th and 13th centuries and the painted decorations miraculously preserved from the ravages of humankind and time, make Chartres one of the most admirable.
Prompt: The Palace of Versailles was the principal residence of the French kings from the time of Louis XIV to Louis XVI. Embellished by several generations of architects, sculptors, decorators and landscape architects, it provided Europe with a model of the ideal royal residence for over a century. Located in the Île-de-France region, south-west of Paris, privileged place both of residence and the exercise of power of the French monarchy from Louis XIV to Louis XVI, the Palace and Park of Versailles, built and embellished by several generations of architects, sculptors, painters, ornamentalists and landscape artists, represented for Europe for more than a century, the perfect model of a royal residence. The architectural planning and the majestic composition of the landscape form a close symbiosis, serving as a setting for the magnificence of the interior decorations of the apartments.
Prompt: Used by the kings of France from the 12th century, the medieval royal hunting lodge of Fontainebleau, standing at the heart of a vast forest in the Ile-de-France, was transformed, enlarged and embellished in the 16th century by François I, who wanted to make a 'New Rome' of it. Surrounded by an immense park, the Italianate palace combines Renaissance and French artistic traditions. Used by the kings of France from the 12th century, the hunting lodge of Fontainebleau, standing in the heart of the vast forest of the Ile-de-France in the Seine-et-Marne region, was transformed, enlarged and embellished in the 16th century by King François I, who wanted to make it a “new Rome”. Surrounded by an immense park, the palace, to which notable Italian artists contributed, combines Renaissance and French artistic traditions. The need to expand and decorate this immense palace created the conditions for the survival of a true artistic centre.
Prompt: Shortly after its foundation in the 9th century, the Benedictine abbey of Vézelay acquired the relics of St Mary Magdalene and since then it has been an important place of pilgrimage. St Bernard preached the Second Crusade there in 1146 and Richard the Lion-Hearted and Philip II Augustus met there to leave for the Third Crusade in 1190. With its sculpted capitals and portal, the Madeleine of Vézelay – a 12th-century monastic church – is a masterpiece of Burgundian Romanesque art and architecture. The church of St Mary Magdalene is a former French abbey established in Vézelay in Burgundy-Franche-Comté, in the department of Yonne. Located on a high hill, still called the “eternal hill", this landmark of Christianity of the Middle Ages can be seen from afar.
Prompt: Arles is a good example of the adaptation of an ancient city to medieval European civilization. It has some impressive Roman monuments, of which the earliest – the arena, the Roman theatre and the cryptoporticus (subterranean galleries) – date back to the 1st century B.C. During the 4th century Arles experienced a second golden age, as attested by the baths of Constantine and the necropolis of Alyscamps. In the 11th and 12th centuries, Arles once again became one of the most attractive cities in the Mediterranean. Within the city walls, Saint-Trophime, with its cloister, is one of Provence's major Romanesque monuments.
Prompt: This stark Burgundian monastery was founded by St Bernard in 1119. With its church, cloister, refectory, sleeping quarters, bakery and ironworks, it is an excellent illustration of the ideal of self-sufficiency as practised by the earliest communities of Cistercian monks. Located in the Bourgogne Franche-Comté region in the Côte-d’Or Department in the commune of Marmagne, the Cistercian Abbey of Fontenay was founded in 1119 by St Bernard in a marshy valley of Bourgogne. With its austere architecture, church, cloister, refectory, sleeping quarters, bakery and its ironworks, it illustrates the ideal of self-sufficiency as practised by the earliest communities of Cistercian monks.
Prompt: Situated in the Rhone valley, the ancient theatre of Orange, with its 103-m-long facade, is one of the best preserved of all the great Roman theatres. Built between A.D. 10 and 25, the Roman arch is one of the most beautiful and interesting surviving examples of a provincial triumphal arch from the reign of Augustus. It is decorated with low reliefs commemorating the establishment of the Pax Romana. Situated in the Rhône Valley, in the Provence-Alpes-Côte-d'Azur region, the ancient theatre of Orange, with its 103 m long and 37 m high facade, is one of the best preserved of all the great Roman theatres. Built in the beginning of the Christian era, the ancient theatre presents all the components of the Latin Theatre according to Vitruvius: the cavea (semicircular tiers), the lateral accesses and the surprisingly preserved stage wall flanked by parascenia. Columns and numerous statues in niches originally decorated the stage. Only a few vestiges remain of this original decoration, including the statue of Augustus displaced to the large central niche. Closed by Imperial decree in 391, the theatre was abandoned and, later, ransacked and looted by Barbarians.
Prompt: The Royal Saltworks of Arc-et-Senans, near Besançon, was built by Claude Nicolas Ledoux. Its construction, begun in 1775 during the reign of Louis XVI, was the first major achievement of industrial architecture, reflecting the ideal of progress of the Enlightenment. The vast, semicircular complex was designed to permit a rational and hierarchical organization of work and was to have been followed by the building of an ideal city, a project that was never realized.
The Great Saltworks of Salins-les-Bains was active for at least 1200 years until stopping activity in 1962. From 1780 to 1895, its salt water travelled through 21 km of wood pipes to the Royal Saltworks of Arc-et-Senans. It was built near the immense Chaux Forest to ensure its supply of wood for fuel. The Saltworks of Salins shelters an underground gallery from the 13th century including a hydraulic pump from the 19th century that still functions. The boiler house demonstrates the difficulty of the saltworkers’ labour to collect the “White Gold”.
Prompt: Nancy, the temporary residence of a king without a kingdom – Stanislas Leszczynski, later to become Duke of Lorraine – is paradoxically the oldest and most typical example of a modern capital where an enlightened monarch proved to be sensitive to the needs of the public. Built between 1752 and 1756 by a brilliant team led by the architect Héré, this was a carefully conceived project that succeeded in creating a capital that not only enhanced the sovereign's prestige but was also functional. Located in the Alsace-Lorraine-Champagne-Ardenne region, the Place Stanislas, Place Carrière and Place d’Alliance in Nancy comprise one of the most harmonious urban landscapes of the Enlightenment, illustrating in an exemplary and masterful way the idea of the royal square as an urban, monumental and central space. Stanislas Leszczynski, father-in-law of Louis XV, king of France, and unhappy pretender to the Polish throne, received in compensation for his abdication the dukedoms of Lorraine for life. He reigned from 1737 to 1766. The town planning works of Nancy are the most beautiful achievements of the patronage of this prince.
Prompt: The Pont du Gard was built shortly before the Christian era to allow the aqueduct of Nîmes (which is almost 50 km long) to cross the Gard river. The Roman architects and hydraulic engineers who designed this bridge, which stands almost 50 m high and is on three levels – the longest measuring 275 m – created a technical as well as an artistic masterpiece. Located in the Occitanie region, the Pont du Gard is the major element of a 50.02 km aqueduct built in the middle of the 1st century to supply the city of Nîmes, the ancient Roman colony of Nemausus, from the Eure source located near Uzès. A three-storey aqueduct bridge rising to nearly 48.77 m, it enabled the water conduit to cross the Gardon River.
Prompt: The initial property, inscribed in 1988 on the World Heritage List, was formed by the Grande-Île, the historic centre of Strasbourg, structured around the cathedral. The extension concerns the Neustadt, new town, designed and built under the German administration (1871-1918). The Neustadt draws the inspiration for its urban layout partially from the Haussmannian model, while adopting an architectural idiom of Germanic inspiration. This dual influence has enabled the creation of an urban space that is specific to Strasbourg, where the perspectives created around the cathedral open to a unified landscape around the rivers and canals.
Prompt: The outstanding handling of new architectural techniques in the 13th century, and the harmonious marriage of sculptural decoration with architecture, has made Notre-Dame in Reims one of the masterpieces of Gothic art. The former abbey still has its beautiful 9th-century nave, in which lie the remains of Archbishop St Rémi (440–533), who instituted the Holy Anointing of the kings of France. The former archiepiscopal palace known as the Tau Palace, which played an important role in religious ceremonies, was almost entirely rebuilt in the 17th century. Located in the Grand Est region, in the Marne Department, the Cathedral, the Palace of Tau and the Abbey of Saint-Rémi of Reims are closely linked to the history of the French monarchy, and hence, more generally, to the history of France.
Prompt: From the Louvre to the Eiffel Tower, from the Place de la Concorde to the Grand and Petit Palais, the evolution of Paris and its history can be seen from the River Seine. The Cathedral of Notre-Dame and the Sainte Chapelle are architectural masterpieces while Haussmann's wide squares and boulevards influenced late 19th- and 20th-century town planning the world over. The city of Paris is built along a bend in the River Seine, between the confluence of the Marne and the Oise Rivers. The property comprises bridges, quays and the banks of the Seine in the historic part of its course (between the Pont de Sully and the Pont d’Iéna) and the Ile de la Cité and the Ile St Louis. The mastery of the architecture and town planning along the river is evident in the articulation of the Ile de la Cité and Ile St Louis with its banks, the creation of North-South thoroughfares, the installations along the river course, the construction of quays and the channelling of the river. The ensemble, regarded as a geographical and historical entity, forms an exceptional and unique example of urban riverside architecture, where the different layers of the history of Paris.
Prompt: Remarkable as a landscape shaped over three centuries of coal extraction from the 1700s to the 1900s, the site consists of 109 separate components over 120,000 ha. It features mining pits (the oldest of which dates from 1850) and lift infrastructure, slag heaps (some of which cover 90 ha and exceed 140 m in height), coal transport infrastructure, railway stations, workers’ estates and mining villages including social habitat, schools, religious buildings, health and community facilities, company premises, owners and managers’ houses, town halls and more. The site bears testimony to the quest to create model workers’ cities from the mid 19th century to the 1960s and further illustrates a significant period in the history of industrial Europe. It documents the living conditions of workers and the solidarity to which it gave rise.
Prompt: The property encompasses sites where the method of producing sparkling wines was developed on the principle of secondary fermentation in the bottle since the early 17th century to its early industrialization in the 19th century. The property is made up of three distinct ensembles: the historic vineyards of Hautvillers, Aÿ and Mareuil-sur-Aÿ, Saint-Nicaise Hill in Reims, and the Avenue de Champagne and Fort Chabrol in Epernay. These three components – the supply basin formed by the historic hillsides, the production sites (with their underground cellars) and the sales and distribution centres (the Champagne Houses) - illustrate the entire champagne production process. The property bears clear testimony to the development of a very specialized artisan activity that has become an agro-industrial enterprise.
Prompt: The climates are precisely delimited vineyard parcels on the slopes of the Côte de Nuits and the Côte de Beaune south of the city of Dijon. They differ from one another due to specific natural conditions (geology and exposure) as well as vine types and have been shaped by human cultivation. Over time they came to be recognized by the wine they produce. This cultural landscape consists of two parts. Firstly, the vineyards and associated production units including villages and the town of Beaune, which together represent the commercial dimension of the production system. The second part includes the historic centre of Dijon, which embodies the political regulatory impetus that gave birth to the climats system. The site is an outstanding example of grape cultivation and wine production developed since the High Middle Ages. The Climats, terroirs of Burgundy, are small precisely delimited parcels of vineyard located on the slopes of the Côte de Nuits and the Côte de Beaune, natural hillsides with clay-limestone soils of extremely variable composition extending 50 km south of Dijon up to Maranges.
Prompt: Located in a limestone plateau of the Ardèche River in southern France, the property contains the earliest-known and best-preserved figurative drawings in the world, dating back as early as the Aurignacian period (30,000–32,000 BP), making it an exceptional testimony of prehistoric art. The cave was closed off by a rock fall approximately 20,000 years BP and remained sealed until its discovery in 1994, which helped to keep it in pristine condition. Over 1,000 images have so far been inventoried on its walls, combining a variety of anthropomorphic and animal motifs. Of exceptional aesthetic quality, they demonstrate a range of techniques including the skilful use of shading, combinations of paint and engraving, anatomical precision, three-dimensionality and movement. They include several dangerous animal species difficult to observe at that time, such as mammoth, bear, cave lion, rhino, bison and auroch, as well as 4,000 inventoried remains of prehistoric fauna and a variety of human footprints.
Prompt: Taputapuātea on Ra’iātea Island is at the centre of the ‘Polynesian Triangle’, a vast portion of the Pacific Ocean, dotted with islands, and the last part of the globe to be settled by humans. The property includes two forested valleys, a portion of lagoon and coral reef and a strip of open ocean. At the heart of the property is the Taputapuātea marae complex, a political, ceremonial and funerary centre. It is characterized by several marae, with different functions. Widespread in Polynesia, the marae were places where the world of the living intersected the world of the ancestors and the gods. Taputapuātea is an exceptional testimony to 1,000 years of mā'ohi civilization. Taputapuātea is a cultural landscape and seascape on Raiatea Island. Raiatea is at the centre of the “Polynesian Triangle,” a vast section of the Pacific Ocean dotted with islands, the last part of the globe to be settled by humans. At the heart of the property is the Taputapuātea marae complex, a political, ceremonial, funerary and religious centre. The complex is positioned between the land and sea on the end of a peninsula that juts into the lagoon surrounding the island.
Prompt: The Lighthouse of Cordouan rises up on a shallow rocky plateau in the Atlantic Ocean at the mouth of the Gironde estuary in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, in a highly exposed and hostile environment. Built in white limestone dressed blocks at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries, it was designed by engineer Louis de Foix and remodelled by engineer Joseph Teulère in the late 18th century. A masterpiece of maritime signalling, Cordouan’s monumental tower is decorated with pilasters, columns modillions and gargoyles. It embodies the great stages of the architectural and technological history of lighthouses and was built with the ambition of continuing the tradition of famous beacons of antiquity, illustrating the art of building lighthouses in a period of renewed navigation, when beacons played an important role as territorial markers and as instruments of safety. Finally, the increase of its height, in the late 18th century, and the changes to its light chamber, attest to the progress of science and technology of the period. Its architectural forms drew inspiration from ancient models, Renaissance Mannerism and the specific architectural language of France’s engineering sch
Prompt: Nice, located on the Mediterranean, at the foot of the Alps, near the Italian border, in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region, reflects the development of a city devoted to winter tourism, making the most of its mild climate and its coastal situation, between sea and mountains. From the mid-18th century, the site attracted growing numbers of aristocratic and upper-class families, mainly British, who developed the habit of spending their winters there. In 1832, Nice, then part of the Kingdom of Sardinia, set up the “Consiglio d’Ornato” which drew up a city planning scheme and architectural requirements designed to make the city attractive to foreigners. Thus, the “Camin dei Ingles”, a modest path which had been created along the coastline by British winter visitors in 1824, subsequently became the prestigious Promenade des Anglais. After the city was ceded to France in 1860, and thanks to its connection to the European rail network, an increasing number of winter visitors from all countries flocked to the city. This led to successive phases of development of new districts beyond the medieval old town.
Prompt: This transnational serial property comprises eleven spa towns, located in seven European countries: Baden bei Wien (Austria); Spa (Belgium); Františkovy Lázně; Karlovy Vary; Mariánské Lázně (Czechia); Vichy (France); Bad Ems; Baden-Baden; Bad Kissingen (Germany); Montecatini Terme (Italy); and City of Bath (United Kingdom). All of these towns developed around natural mineral water springs. They bear witness to the international European spa culture that developed from the early 18th century to the 1930s, leading to the emergence of grand international resorts that impacted urban typology around ensembles of spa buildings such as baths, kurhaus and kursaal (buildings and rooms dedicated to therapy), pump rooms, drinking halls, colonnades and galleries designed to harness the natural mineral water resources and to allow their practical use for bathing and drinking. Related facilities include gardens, assembly rooms, casinos, theatres, hotels and villas, as well as spa-specific support infrastructure. These ensembles are all integrated into an overall urban context that includes a carefully managed recreational and therapeutic environment in a picturesque landscape.
Dream Level: is increased each time when you "Go Deeper" into the dream. Each new level is harder to achieve and
takes more iterations than the one before.
Rare Deep Dream: is any dream which went deeper than level 6.
Deep Dream
You cannot go deeper into someone else's dream. You must create your own.
Deep Dream
Currently going deeper is available only for Deep Dreams.