Kings and Things

Kings and Things

This is a place where we share various things that we've been looking into and find interesting. Usually that involves historical people, historical architecture, or historical media that bridges that gap between past and present.

Episodes

England's Lost Country Houses

December 26, 2024 • 18 mins
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The Return of Classical Architecture

December 24, 2024 • 15 mins
Having become nearly extinct in the mid 20th century, Classical Architecture and related styles like Gothic and Art Deco have been making a comeback in recent decades. Here I showcase some of the notable buildings that have resulted from this trend.
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When Skyscrapers Looked Like Cathedrals

December 22, 2024 • 10 mins
For centuries the tallest buildings in the world were Gothic cathedrals. At the dawn of the age of skyscrapers some architects looked back to these buildings for inspiration. Using the Gothic style they could express the soaring height of these towers, and create such iconic structures as the Woolworth building in New York, or Chicago's Tribune Tower.
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When Europe tried to build Chinese Architecture

December 20, 2024 • 15 mins
In the 18th century, Chinese houses, pavilions and palaces were erected across Europe as part of a fascination with all things oriental. However, Europeans still had a very limited understanding of what China was like, and mixed eye witness accounts and motifs found on imported goods with their own imagination and taste. The result is called Chinoiserie, and in this video I show some noteworthy examples of the buildings this moveme...
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The Unbuilt Monuments of New York City

December 18, 2024 • 16 mins
From a colossal Gothic monument to George Washington to a Native American Memorial rivalling the Statue of Liberty, New York City's skyline could have looked very different. This video reveals the stories behind bold and ambitious monuments that were planned but never built.
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Some of the oldest photos you will ever see

December 16, 2024 • 19 mins
In the spring of 1842, a wealthy scholar and artist called Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey embarked on a grand tour of the Eastern Mediterranean. With the use of his camera, a technology that had been released to the public just three years before, he documented the local sites and people, and created a collection of photos that in many cases are the earliest to survive of the countries depicted. In this video, we’ll use Giraul...
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These Gothic Cathedrals Took 500+ Years to Build

December 14, 2024 • 17 mins
Gothic Cathedrals that were never finished in the Middle Ages. For various reasons these massive building projects dragged out, and were only completed in the 19th and even 20th centuries!
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How the Year 2440 was Imagined in 1771

December 9, 2024 • 40 mins
In 1771, French author Louis-Sébastien Mercier published the novel "The Year 2440: A Dream If Ever There Was One" Written from the perspective of an 18th century man who falls asleep and wakes up in Paris nearly 700 years later, the book is a fascinating example of utopian retro-futurism. Mercier imagines a world transformed by philosophy and reason, with an agrarian society that has invented hologram-like technology. The video del...
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The Royal Palaces of the Baltic Republics

December 8, 2024 • 17 mins
Europe is home to numerous splendid palaces that either are or have been inhabited by royalty. But not all are as well known as Versailles in France or Buckingham Palace in Britain. In this video we’ll explore the royal past of the Baltics through the residences of the region's former rulers. From the Baroque summer palace of Peter the Great in Estonia, to the splendid residences of the Curonian Duke Ernst Johann von Biron in Latvi...
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Japan is Rebuilding its Ancient Capital

December 6, 2024 • 22 mins
For the majority of the 8th century, Nara was home to Japan’s first permanent capital. Known as Heijō-kyō it was a massive planned city with somewhere between 100,000-200,000 inhabitants. But it was suddenly abandoned when the court moved to what would become Kyoto. Buried under farmlands for over 1,000 years, many remains of this lost city have now been excavated, and some of its most important buildings are being reconstructed. T...
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This is what Victorian people sounded like

December 5, 2024 • 35 mins
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