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Japan opts for wind and hydrogen to help achieve its green future

Japan is seeking to develop alternative energies such as offshore wind and hydrogen, which can adapt to the country’s geography, but also to the climate events it experiences.

Producing alternative energy is a priority for Japan. The country aims to reach between 36%-38% of renewable power supplies and reduce its greenhouse emissions by 46% by 2030, and energy policies will be one of the issues at the top of the agenda at the G7 Summit to be held in Japan in mid-May.

Its technology is at the forefront of this green revolution, and in this latest episode of Spotlight, we travel to the remote Goto Islands in the Prefecture of Nagasaki, in the South of Japan, to visit a milestone offshore floating wind farm.

Goto’s floating wind farm

With limited land but a large coastal area, offshore wind power could be the answer to Japan’s future energy needs, but it comes with challenges.

Goto is one of the most hard-hit typhoon areas in Japan, a strategic testing zone for the resistance of these floating turbines.

Japan relies on both floating and bottom-fix turbines to generate power. The bottom-fix wind power station of Akita was the first large-scale offshore wind farm in the country. Both types are adapted to Japan’s complex topography and natural disasters.

“The fixed type has to be fastened to the seabed, but in Japan the sea gets deep very quickly,” explained Ushigami Kei, the Executive manager of Goto Floating Wind Farm LLC.

“It is built by setting first a foundation on the seabed, so it is affected by the topography and geology of the seabed. The floating type is connected by a chain, but it is strong against earthquakes because it is not affected by the sea ground topology.”

The challenge for these floating structures is to deal with typhoons and the power of waves. Stabilisation mechanisms take knowledge from shipbuilding technology to minimize the swaying.

“The structure is designed to be stable by lowering the centre of gravity with heavy concrete elements on the lower part of the floater. This makes the structure resistant to the strong winds of typhoons,” Ushigami Kei added.

Ground surveys play a key role in designing cutting-edge facilities like Goto’s to withstand natural disasters.

Professor Ishihara from the University of Tokyo is one of the most renowned engineers working on risk evaluation of wind.

“In the case of Japan, not only are very strong typhoons blowing, but the usual winds are not very strong. Therefore, we need to solve those two problems at the same time,” he explained.

“One solution is to lengthen and slim down the blade. By increasing the length, the normal power generation also increases. Thinner blades also reduce excess wind during typhoons. By using Japanese carbon fibre technology, it is possible to create very long, thin and strong blades.”

Goto Wind Farm will start commercial operations in January 2024.

Hydrogen cargo vessels

The port of Kobe is home to the world’s first liquified hydrogen carrier. Hydrogen is another clean energy that Japan is focusing on. It was the first country to draw up a hydrogen strategy in 2017.

Now it is planning an ambitious new target to boost annual supply to 12 million tonnes for 2040. Hydrogen is produced in Australia and shipped to Japan by sea, freezing it to minus 253 degrees Celsius and compressing it into a liquid.

It has done the round trip twice since it was launched in 2021.

“Here we have the hydrogen tank, here in blue you have the mouth and under there is the tank. The size of the tank is 1,250 cubic meters,” revealed Yamamoto Shigeru, the Executive Officer and Deputy General Manager of the Hydrogen Strategy Division for Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Ltd.

Kawasaki Heavy Industries has developed a full hydrogen supply chain in Kobe, providing heat and power supply to the urban area.

Japan relies largely on the import of hydrogen. To use it as a regular energy source, it is necessary to reduce the costs.

“The cost of hydrogen can be reduced by transporting it in larger quantities. In order to bring the cost down to the same or even less than fossil fuels it is necessary to scale up first,” Yamamoto Shigeru explained. “To reach that purpose, we will build large ships and also large tanks at the receiving base. We would like to create a larger infrastructure and scale it up for commercialisation.”

The next project is a large-scale vessel more than 100 times bigger.

With this focus on innovation, Japan is pioneering the global clean energy transition and moving closer to achieving its climate change ambitions.

If we want to solve it, Europe’s water crisis should be treated at the local level

In some European countries, we will need to stop thinking that we have an automatic right to cheap, plentiful water which we can use to clean our streets, wash our cars, or fill our swimming pools whenever we wish, Mark Smith writes.

Last Thursday, the Spanish government held an extraordinary meeting about the economic impact of the drought currently ravaging the country.

Spain has experienced drought more severely and for longer than other European counties, but the whole of Europe is set for a worse summer drought than that of 2022, already its worst for 70 years.

On the face of it, it might seem obvious that our leaders should be looking at this drought as a pan-European problem or even a pan-European, Middle Eastern and African one.

East Africa is currently ravaged by drought, with 700 million people in the region anticipated to be displaced by water shortages by 2030.

Meanwhile, low-lying desert countries like the United Arab Emirates are being menaced by rising sea levels and increasing their reliance on high-emitting desalination programmes.

Is water in Europe really that abundant?

Climate change is increasingly manifesting itself as a water crisis; in the case of Spain, it is droughts, but we’re also experiencing more floods and storms.

People in Andalucia are certainly experiencing the climate crisis for what it is — a water crisis.

Until we reverse the global emissions that are causing climate change, the medium-term solution for Spain and Europe involves managing water. This is where the solution becomes much less global.

When it comes to water management, we hear a lot about water scarcity issues. But in fact, what we mostly have is overconsumption combined with water access problems.

There is a prevalent attitude in Europe that water is plentiful and cheap, which persists right up until it is no longer available.

Indeed, there is a prevalent attitude in Europe that water is plentiful and cheap, which persists right up until it is no longer available.

There are definitely parts of the world that are genuinely running out of water. Andalucia, home to the only desert in the EU, is one of them.

But even in southern Spain and in other desert regions such as parts of East Africa, water exists, and we know its location. We just don’t have access to water — or rather, we don’t have clean access to it.

Drought is not resolved by pumping more groundwater

For example, in Andalucia — where the reservoirs are at record low levels – communities are increasingly looking to exploit groundwater reserves to maintain their current consumption levels.

There is a proliferation of private wells being drilled and exploited to maintain lifestyle choices.

The groundwater is pumped and consumed, but since the resources are not recharged during drought, the groundwater is continually being depleted.

Typically, the reaction to this situation is — rather than addressing the politically and socially difficult topics of ever-increasing demand — to continue to pump the groundwater.

Rather than talking about how to handle the water crisis at a European level … we need to be talking about what the water crisis looks like in the specific local areas we are dealing with.

This ultimately means the water table goes down, and the water becomes more contaminated, especially near the coastal regions with saline intrusion.

Eventually, the water either dries up or becomes untreatable and is no longer drinkable and then there really is a water crisis.

In turn, rather than talking about how to handle the water crisis at a European level, or even at a national level as Spain is now doing, we need to be talking about what the water crisis looks like in the specific local areas we are dealing with.

You can’t simply zap it from one part of the country to another, either

This is mainly because even with the best water infrastructure in the world — something which Japan has the privilege of possessing, though the Netherlands comes a close second — water cannot be easily moved around between regions.

Water is heavy: every time you push it, it costs money and burns fuel. Unlike electricity, you can’t just zap it from Madrid to Malaga.

For this reason, all local communities need to look at what water actually exists in the area where they are. Communities have to tackle demand as well as supply.

If the demand is too high for the region, difficult decisions need to be made because we cannot solve the problem through endless large desalination plants and pipelines.

If the demand is too high for the region, difficult decisions need to be made because we cannot solve the problem through endless large desalination plants and pipelines.

In Spain, plans are afoot to create a 100-kilometre transfer pipeline from Manilva and a 142-km pipeline from the Cordoba province to supply water to Costa del Sol.

However, these projects are expensive and disruptive, will take years to build, and will inevitably contribute to Spain’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Our right to plentiful water is not a given

It is crucial that the solution to a community’s water crisis must not in itself contribute to the underlying cause of that crisis, climate change.

Thankfully, in most parts of the world, there is sufficient water for everyday use, but it’s often undervalued and overexploited, and it ultimately becomes polluted and unusable.

What we have is not a planet-wide water shortage problem but a geographically sensitive clean water access problem, and this problem is growing globally.

Now, every region of Europe needs to be looking urgently at what water resources are available and how they can be managed, cleaned and accessed, all at the local level.

Now, every region of Europe needs to be looking urgently at what water resources are available and how they can be managed, cleaned and accessed, all at the local level.

This may well mean that in some European countries, we will need to stop thinking that we have an automatic right to cheap, plentiful water which we can use to clean our streets, wash our cars, fill our swimming pools or water our decorative municipal floral displays whenever we wish.

Otherwise, what is happening in Spain will cease to be the exception and become the norm.

Mark Smith is a strategic business development director for the water sector at the environmental and engineering business, the RSK Group. He is a former chief executive of the UK’s Water Research Group and chair of the Future Water Association.

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Falling energy prices boost EU’s growth outlook, Commission says

GDP in the EU is now forecast to reach 1.0% in 2023 and 1.7% in 2024, up from a previous forecast of 0.8% and 1.6%.

The European economy continues to show resilience in a challenging global context and is now expected to grow more than expected over the coming two years.

This is due to lower energy prices, abating supply constraints and a strong labour market that supported moderate growth in the first quarter of 2023, dispelling once and for all fears of a recession.

These were the main findings from the European Commission, which presented its Spring Forecast in Brussels on Monday.

This better-than-expected start to the year lifts the growth outlook for the EU economy to 1.0% in 2023 (up from 0.8% in the Winter Interim Forecast) and 1.7% in 2024 (1.6% in the winter), according to the data.

Upward revisions for the euro area are of a similar magnitude, with GDP growth now expected at 1.1% and 1.6% in 2023 and 2024 respectively.

Ireland is expected to post the highest growth of the bloc’s 27 member states with 5.5% this year and 5.0% in 2024. Sweden and Estonia are however seen contracting this year with GDPs of -0.5% and -0.4% respectively. For the Baltic country, 2023 should therefore be the second year in a row with negative growth but it is then forecast to rebound strongly and grow by 3.1% in 2024.

The bloc’s economic powerhouse, Germany, should meanwhile post anemic growth this year of just 0.2%, followed by 1.4% next year. France should fare a bit better this year — 0.7% — and double that the following year.

But it’s not all good news. On the back of persisting core price pressures, inflation has also been revised upwards compared to the winter, and is now forecast to reach 6.7% in 2023 and 3.1% in 2024 with lower forecast for the euro area.

Hungary will be the most impacted, with inflation seen reaching 16.4% this year, followed by Czechia and Poland with readings close to 12%.

Luxembourg, Belgium and Spain should have the lowest inflation readings — between 3% and 4% — this year.

“The EU economy is holding up remarkably well in the face of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, leading to an upgrade in today’s growth forecast for 2023”, said Valdis Dombrovskis, Executive Commission Vice-President in a statement.

“With energy prices clearly down, governments should be able to phase out support measures and reduce their debt burdens.”

Markedly lower energy prices are working their way through the economy, reducing firms’ production costs. Consumers are also seeing their energy bills fall, although private consumption is set to remain subdued as wage growth lags inflation.

After peaking in 2022, headline inflation continued to decline in the first quarter of 2023 amid a sharp deceleration of energy prices. Core inflation (headline inflation excluding energy and unprocessed food) is, however, proving more persistent.

In March it reached a historic high of 7.6%, but it is projected to decline gradually over the forecast horizon as profit margins absorb higher wage pressures and financing conditions tighten.

“Inflation has proved stickier than expected but it is forecast to decline gradually over the remainder of 2023 and in 2024. And the improvement in public finances is set to continue as energy support measures are progressively withdrawn”, EU Economy Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni told reporters.

The Commission publishes two comprehensive forecasts (spring and autumn) and two interim forecasts (winter and summer) each year. The interim forecasts cover annual and quarterly GDP and inflation for the current and following year for all Member States, as well as EU and euro area aggregates.

The European Commission’s Summer 2023 Economic Forecast will update GDP and inflation projections and is expected to be presented in July 2023.

EU to issue ‘warning’ to countries supporting Russia in next sanction package, VDL says

The next round of EU sanctions against Russia aims to close loopholes and crack down on circumvention and could target companies and countries that help Russia acquire sanctioned goods.

An intense diplomatic week is starting for the EU on Tuesday with the bloc determined to put support for Ukraine and sanctions against Russia at the centre of discussions.

The first summit of the week will be in Reykjavik, Iceland where the leaders of 46 members of the Council of Europe will convene. The leaders of France, Germany, Italy and the heads of the European Commission and Council will then head to Hiroshima, Japan, for a G7 leaders’ summit. The latter two will then hop over to Seoul for an EU-South Korea summit.

Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, told reporters on Monday that the main underlying message the EU will be keen to push is the bloc’s united determination to support Ukraine for as long as it takes as it fights Russia’s invasion and to ensure Moscow is held accountable for the war and the atrocities committed.

At the G7 summit, where the US, UK, Canada and Japan, also sit at the table, the EU wants members to take stock of the packages of sanctions already rolled out against Russia as well as those in the making.

EU countries are currently negotiating an 11th round of sanctions aimed at closing loopholes and tackling circumvention. The new measures will allow the bloc to target companies and countries that are believed to help Russia evade the penalties.

One of the worries is that some third countries have been importing sanctioned EU goods and then exporting them to Russia, thus allowing Moscow to acquire dual-use technology that can be used by the military despite the bloc’s export ban.

Von der Leyen said of the planned measure that “it’s basically a warning that we are serious about our sanction that we could ban these goods from going to that third country if there is clear evidence that this is a circumvention of sanctions and deliverable deliveries to Russia.”

She also said the proposed raft of sanctions could extend the list of EU products banned from transiting via Russia.

“We see that there is a discrepancy between what starts in the European Union, transits Russia and then ends up in the third country. And therefore, we are discussing as a deterrent the question of whether there should be such a transit ban. There are several watch points within the mechanism to make sure that it is justified,” she added.

But the EU knows it also needs to focus on outreach, Michel said, in particular with developing countries to not only strengthen ties but also explain the sanctions against Russia.

This will be primarily addressed at the G7 summit where eight other nations — Australia, Brazil, Comoros, India, Indonesia, South Korea, the Cook Islands, and Vietnam — have also been invited.

Some countries in the Global South have repeated the Russian narrative that the West is endangering global food security despite the fact Russian agrifood products have not been sanctioned and can therefore be exported worldwide and transit through the EU.

“We will discuss openly and frankly about why we are convinced these sanctions are necessary and justified. Russian propaganda is built on lies and conspiracy. We are fighting back with the facts and figures,” Michel told reporters.

“Developing and emerging countries have expressed concerns that the G7 is focusing too much on Ukraine and not paying enough attention to their needs and priorities. And we have heard their concerns. We want to build strong partnerships with developing and emerging countries in ways that are mutually beneficial.

China will be the other main topic as the EU and other Western allies seek to “de-risk” by reducing economic dependencies on Beijing. The EU wants for instance to toughen its arsenal to ensure key infrastructure and technologies remain under European control with the deployment of an outbound investment screening or advanced export controls.

Finally, the green transition and the need to accelerate the rollout of clean tech should also be on the agenda of the various summits.

Surprise national holiday declared in Latvia after ice hockey bronze

The country enjoyed an unexpected holiday after unprecedented success at world championships.

While Monday was a holiday in many European countries, Latvians woke up to discover they’d been granted a last-minute day off too – thanks to their ice hockey team.

The country took bronze at the world championship, which it was co-hosting with Finland, after defeating the United States.

It’s the country’s first-ever world championship medal and led to a late-night meeting of parliament to agree the public holiday.

In a ten minute session at a quarter to midnight, members of parliament unanimously agreed to the holiday.

The bill’s sponsors said it was to “strengthen the fact of significant success of Latvian athletes in the social memory of the society.”

Tens of thousands of people gathered in Riga on the last-minute holiday to welcome their hockey heroes home.

However, given the last-minute nature of the holiday there was a little bit of confusion over who it applied to. Exams scheduled for the day went ahead, while court hearings were cancelled.

Aigars Rostovskis, the president of the Latvian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, told broadcaster LSM: “It will be chaos for many.”

UK government launches advertising campaign to put off migrants from Albania

The messages, which will run on social media, come as net migration in the UK rises

The UK government is to launch an advertising campaign which aims to deter Albanian nationals from crossing the English Channel.

Posters issued by the Home Office, the government department which handles immigration, warn that people face being “detained and removed” if they make the journey.

The department also promised to outline the “perils of the journey” in the campaign, which will run in Albanian on Facebook and Instagram.

The campaign comes as UK net migration grew to 606,000 in 2022, 164,000 higher than in 2021. Of those numbers, about 114,000 arrivals to the UK were from Ukraine following the outbreak of war.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak believes the numbers are too high and he wants to bring them down. He has made tackling people coming across the English Channel in small boats one of his main pledges.

Immigration minister Robert Jenrick said: “We are determined to stop the boats and the campaign, launching in Albania this week, is just one component of the Home Office’s work upstream to help dispel myths about illegal travel to the UK, explain the realities and combat the lies peddled by evil people smugglers who profit from this vile trade.”

However, opposition party Labour condemned the campaign.

Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said: “It beggars belief that as Channel crossings continue to rise and the asylum system is in chaos, all the Conservatives can come up with to stop the criminal gangs is an ad campaign.

“At every turn, the Tories so-called solutions fail to meet the scale of the crisis. All they are doing is tinkering at the edges.”

Home Secretary Suella Braverman has been very publicly pushing for lower immigration.

Writing in the Sun on Sunday newspaper, she said: “This government knows that in the years to come, we cannot simply rely on foreign workers to plug gaps.

“And Brexit means we can finally build a high-skill, high-wage economy liberated from Brussels red tape.”

Speaking to Sky News on Sunday, Health Secretary Steve Barclay admitted that the “domestic supply” of nurses and doctors had to increase, but that the UK’s health service would still rely on “international recruitment”.

Russia launches pre-dawn attack on Kyiv, killing at least one resident

At least one person has been killed in a third successive night of drone and missile attacks on Ukraine’s capital city. Although Kyiv’s air defences reportedly shot down most of the incoming missiles, fires were caused by falling debris.

Russia launched a pre-dawn attack on Ukraine’s capital Tuesday, killing at least one person and sending Kyiv’s residents again scrambling into shelters to escape a relentless wave of daylight and nighttime bombardments. Moscow authorities reported a drone attack on the Russian capital.

At least 20 Shahed drones were destroyed by air defence forces in Kyiv’s airspace in Russia’s third attack on the capital in the past 24 hours, according to the Kyiv Military Administration.

The buzzing of drones could be heard over the city, followed by loud explosions as they were taken down by air defence systems.

In Moscow, residents reported hearing explosions and Mayor Sergei Sobyanin later confirmed there had been a drone attack.

Sobyanin said in a Telegram post that the attack caused “insignificant damage” to several buildings and that no one has been seriously hurt, without elaborating.

Residents of two buildings damaged in the attack were evacuated, Sobyanin said.

There was no immediate comment on the attacks from Ukrainian officials.

It was the second reported attack on Moscow after authorities said two drones targeted the Kremlin earlier this month in what was labelled an attempt on President Vladimir Putin’s life.

In the attacks overnight on Kyiv, one person died and three were injured when a high-rise building in the Holosiiv district caught fire. It was not immediately clear what caused the blaze but frequently the falling debris from drones being hit and the interceptor missiles have caused damage on the ground.

The building’s upper two floors were destroyed, and there may be people under the rubble, the Kiyv Military Administration said. More than 20 people were evacuated.

Resident Valeriya Oreshko told The Associated Press in the aftermath that even though the immediate threat was over, the attacks had everyone on edge.

“You are happy that you are alive, but think about what will happen next,” the 39-year-old said.

Oksana, who only gave her first name, said the whole building shook when it was hit.

“Go to shelters, because you really do not know where it (the drone) will fly,” she advised others. “We hold on.”

Elsewhere in the capital, falling debris caused a fire in a private house in the Darnytskyi district and three cars were set alight in the Pechersky district, according to the military administration.

The series of attacks that began Sunday included a rare daylight attack Monday that left puffs of white smoke in the blue skies.

On that day, Russian forces fired 11 ballistic and cruise missiles at Kyiv at about 11:30 a.m., according to Ukraine’s chief of staff, Valerii Zaluzhnyi. All of them were shot down, he said.

Debris from the intercepted missiles fell in Kyiv’s central and northern districts during the morning, landing in the middle of traffic on a city road and also starting a fire on the roof of a building, the Kyiv military administration said. At least one civilian was reported hurt.

The Russian Defense Ministry said it launched a series of strikes early Monday targeting Ukrainian air bases with precision long-range air-launched missiles. The strikes destroyed command posts, radars, aircraft and ammunition stockpiles, it claimed. It didn’t say anything about hitting cities or other civilian areas.

‘Russian spy’ whale spotted off Swedish coast

A beluga whale previously accused of spying for the Russian navy was seen swimming near the Swedish coast on Sunday.

The several-metre-long white whale was first sited a few years ago wearing a camera harness near Norway, fuelling suspicions it was being used for espionage.

It has since been nicknamed Hvaldimir, combining the words hval (whale in Norwegian) and the common Russian first name Vladimir.

When first spotted in 2019, the whale’s harness was fitted with a base for a small camera with “Equipment St. Peterburg” printed on the plastic strap.

The biologists who found Hvaldimir were able to remove the harness fixed around his head.

The Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries speculated at the time the whale had escaped from an enclosure where it was possibly trained by the Russian Navy since it was accustomed to human company and would approach ships.

Moscow has never officially commented on the case.

On Sunday, Hvaldimir was seen near Hunnebostrand in west Sweden, further south than its first appearance in 2019, according to OneWhale organisation’s Sebastian Strand.

Hvaldimir has been moving in the southern direction quicker than its normal pace, Strand said.

Strand noted the whale is moving away from the condition that Belugas naturally favour – the colder waters of Greenland and the Russian and Norwegian Arctic.

The Barents Sea and the North Atlantic are strategic areas for the Western and Russian navies, which have placed submarines in the zone.

“We don’t know why it’s moving so fast at the moment,” he said, acknowledging that Hvaldimir’s quest to find a partner could be one of the possible reasons.

“It could be hormones urging it to find a mate. Or loneliness, as belugas are very social, he could be looking for others,” he said.

Hvaldimir appears to have been in good health in recent years, according to Strand, and is feeding on fish attracted by the large salmon farms in Norway.

But OneWhale is concerned about his ability to fetch food, saying it has already identified signs of weight loss.

Culture Re-View: One of eight attempts on Queen Victoria’s life is made in London

On 30 May, 1842, Queen Victoria survived the second attempt on her life in as many days.

Many monarchs manage to avoid attempts on their lives for their entire reign, but Queen Victoria was not so lucky.

On 29 May, the British monarch was returning to Buckingham Palace after a church service with her beloved husband Prince Albert beside her in the royal carriage. Hiding as the horse-drawn vehicle made its way down The Mall in London, John Francis, a 20-year-old cabinetmaker – described by Albert as “a little, swarthy, ill-looking radical” pointed a gun at the Queen.

When the weapon failed to fire, Francis fled the scene and disappeared into crowds in nearby Green Park.

Immediately after the event, the then-Prime Minister Robert Peel – widely regarded as the father of modern British policing – agreed to help in identifying the culprit.

Clearly, that wasn’t enough as, when Victoria and Albert decided to ride out again the next day, escorted by only two outrider equerries, John Francis took his chance at killing the monarch once again.

While some may say the decision was foolish, the famously stubborn Queen Victoria refused to be confined to Buckingham Palace until the perpetrator was caught, rightly believing the best way to flush him out was to leave.

The royal pair were no doubt nervous but, unbeknownst to Francis, the crowds watching the royal pair pass by were infiltrated with plain-clothed Metropolitan police officers. After firing his gun and missing – again – the attempted-killer was wrestled to the ground by law enforcement, just five paces away from the carriage containing Victoria and Albert.

The hapless would-be-assassin was initially sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered but the Queen later showed mercy towards him, commuting the sentence to banishment for life. Francis lived out the rest of his 63 years in Australia, remaining there until his death in 1885.

Remarkably, Francis’ two attempts on the Queen’s life were not isolated incidents.

Just two years before, in June 1840, 18-year-old barkeep Edward Oxford fired his duelling pistol at Victoria, who was four months pregnant with her first child, also called Victoria. Just outside the gates of Buckingham Palace, Oxford fired twice at the monarch but missed both times – the second down to Victoria’s quick decision to duck from the assailant.

After the attack, a crowd surrounded the shooter and tackled him to the ground, while Victoria and Albert continued on their planned journey to Hyde Park. At the time, Prince Albert wrote, “We took a short drive through the park, partly to give Victoria a little air, partly also to show the public that we had not, on account of what had happened, lost all confidence in them”.

Edward Oxford, said to be seeking notoriety, was found guilty but insane and spent 24 years in an asylum, later to be deported to Australia.

Despite the concerning attacks, a further five attempts were made on the Queen’s life over her 63 year rule.

Just five weeks later, 17-year-old John William Bean, who was suffering from spinal deformity and was desperate for a new life – even if that meant a life in jail – also shot at the monarch. After his attempt was foiled, he was sentenced to 18 months of hard labour.

Possibly due to increased security around the Queen, the attempted assassinations became much further spaced out, with shots fired in 1849, 1872 and 1882. Only in 1850 did an assailant use something other than a gun while trying to kill Victoria – and, interestingly, it was the only occasion in which she was actually hurt.

On 27 June that year, former British Army officer Robert Pate, who struggled with his mental health and was widely known for his manic behaviour, approached the Queen outside Cambridge House in central London, striking her on the forehead with his lightweight cane.

As the crowd dealt with Pate, Victoria found her footing and told onlookers, “I am not hurt” – despite the bruising and black eye that were beginning to show on her face.

Robert Pate was sentenced to seven years in the penal then-colony of Van Diemen’s Land, now known as Tasmania.

Despite the numerous attempts on Queen Victoria’s life, she lived to the ripe old age of 81, dying at her residence on the Isle of Wight 22 January 1901. Her reign was longer than any of her predecessors and was only surpassed last year by Queen Elizabeth II, who spent 70 years and 214 days on the British throne.

Two exhibitions pay tribute to Brazilian architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha

This is the year of late architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha at Casa da Arquitectura, in Matosinhos, northern Portugal. Two exhibitions dedicated to the Brazilian Pritsker opened to the public.

“I think it was the best exhibition I have seen of Paulo’s work, because in addition to being complete, it’s been very well taken care of… the photos, the models. I have never seen anything like this”, says Helene Afanasieff, the widow of Paulo Mendes da Rocha, one of the greatest Brazilian architects, who died in 2021.

Helene can’t hide her emotion. She has just attended, with her children and dozens of guests, the pre-opening of two exhibitions dedicated to the Brazilian Pritzker at Casa da Arquitectura (House of Architecture), in Matosinhos, northern Portugal.

Four years ago, the Brazilian architect donated the totality of his archives to the Casa da Arquitectura.

Helene recalls the controversy caused in Brazil by her husband’s decision: “You cannot imagine. The USP (University of São Paulo), the people in Brazil, were very offended”. But she says that her husband just replied: “I know how the collections are conserved at FAU-USP (The Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism, University of São Paulo). They are kept in tubes in the middle of the corridor. I am sure that Portugal will take good care of it”.

Paul is not here anymore, but Helene thinks he wouldn’t regret his decision.

“Geography is the first architecture”

Paulo Mendes da Rocha’s work over seven decades is revealed in the exhibition “Constructed Geographies: Paulo Mendes da Rocha”, in the main gallery of Casa da Arquitectura. An unprecedented extent has been extracted from the immense collection he donated to the Portuguese institution.

“We chose to work on the theme of geography, saying that this is the first architecture. When man arrives at a place and decides to implant his humanity, his daily life, his poetry there, that is the first architecture. All of us are architects in some way”, says Vanessa Grossman, co-curator of the exhibition along with Jean-Louis Cohen.

Twelve major projects are featured from their origins to their current state, from Butantã House (1964-1967), in São Paulo, to some of his latest projects, like the National Coach Museum (2008-2015), in Lisbon, or Sesc 24 de Maio (2001-2017), in São Paulo.

“Throughout his troubled career, which was marked by the dictatorship, and despite everything, he managed to make projects that range from true domestic experiments, like the house that became a space of invention for him, to a public school on the outskirts of São Paulo, where recreation gained a very broad dimension, but also apartment buildings and cultural facilities”, says Grossman.

The exhibition features 138 original drawings, original models and eight new models produced for this event, along with ten videos made for the exhibition about the architect’s featured works. There are also 44 original drawings by Flávio Motta related to the exhibition project of the Osaka Pavilion, which were censored by the military dictatorship in Brazil (1964-1985).

His architecture was very austere, very respectful of this economy of means, but very poetic.

“His architecture was very austere, very respectful of this economy of means, but very poetic. So, there was this tension between poetics and austerity, which I think runs through his work, which is manifested, for example, in the beauty of the drawings, but also in the models he made out of paper”, highlights the curator.

Anyone who comes here and doesn’t know Paulo Mendes da Rocha’s work will practically discover the history of Brazil.

Breaking the association with concrete and metal

“I think he is an architect very much associated with the language of concrete and, later on, he experimented a lot with metal, but I think his work goes beyond this issue of matter and materiality,” explains co-curator Grossman. “I think that for him concrete was an opportunity, it was a field of invention, it was a technological field that would bring infrastructure.”

Grossman says that she and her colleague Jean-Louis Cohen “wanted to break this simplistic association between his architecture and concrete” in this exhibition. In fact, she thinks that “the great substance that runs through the exhibition is really water, the water of his childhood, of his father, who was a naval architecture engineer and he was very marked by the port experience, as he was born In Vitória” (on 25 October, 1928).

“In Brazil, road transport has created a chaotic urbanism and an occupation of territory that is very irrational. So, he always talked about reversing the course of disaster through this reconciliation between cities and waters, which is somehow ecological thinking,” continues Grossman. “For some it is difficult to associate Paulo with ecology, but this issue between culture and nature is really very characteristic of his thinking and his buildings were, shall we say, a critical approach to the world”.

“Anyone who comes here and doesn’t know Paulo Mendes da Rocha’s work will practically discover the history of Brazil, the history of a very committed architect, who was very anchored in his adoptive city, São Paulo, despite coming from a port city, which is Vitória”, she concludes.

Talking with Paulo Mendes da Rocha

In the Casa da Arquitectura’s Gallery we can find another exhibition entitled “Paulo: Beyond Drawing – Talking with Paulo Mendes da Rocha”, curated by Marta Moreira and Rui Furtado.

Moreira shared her “immense joy and emotion” for having worked on what she described as a very rich process, having talked to many people who knew the architect, to get to know “the enchanting universe of Paulo’s ideas and work”.

“We were concerned with showing people in general that there was a very coherent, very consistent, very constant speech that guided Paulo’s life and, therefore, his work,” says Moreira.

“We kept putting together small videos from different moments of Paulo’s speeches, whether more formal speeches, classes, or more informal conversations, and that’s how the exhibition was made”, she explains.

The Brazilian co-curator says Paulo Mendes da Rocha’s main principle is “the total negation of the exploitation of one person by the other” and this is reflected in his architecture, for example, “in building a city for all”.

“In this exhibition, we wanted people to be able to hear him”, says Portuguese co-curator Rui Furtado. “We wanted people to really hear him talking about what guided his life and what guided his life were very simple things and they were all linked to a concept that was the continuity of the human species on the planet. And he uses this concept as a criterion for the options and choices in his life”.

Parallel Programmes in Lisbon, São Paulo and New York

There is a parallel programme, curated by Nuno Sampaio, Catherine Otondo and Vanessa Grossman, that includes debates, conferences and site visits, with the most diverse personalities from the world of architecture who have crossed paths, directly or indirectly, with Paulo Mendes da Rocha.

The events will take place in Portugal, Brazil and the US.

A 456-page catalogue has been published in two independent versions, Portuguese and English, with critical essays by leading Brazilian, European and North American scholars revisiting the work of Paulo Mendes da Rocha. There is also an interview with the Portuguese architect Eduardo Souto de Moura, by the curators Jean-Louis Cohen and Vanessa Grossman.

The two exhibitions dedicated to Paulo Mendes da Rocha in Casa da Arquitectura (House of Architecture), in Matosinhos, northern Portugal, will be open until February 2024.