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| 1 | 7 World Trade Center is a building in New York City located across from the World Trade Center site in Lower Manhattan. It is the second building to bear that name and address in that location. The original structure was completed in 1987 and was destroyed in the September 11 attacks. The current 7 World Trade Center opened in 2006 on part of the site of the old 7 World Trade Center. Both buildings were developed by Larry Silverstein, who holds a ground lease for the site from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. The original 7 World Trade Center was 47 stories tall, clad in red exterior masonry, and occupied a trapezoidal footprint. An elevated walkway connected the building to the World Trade Center plaza. The building was situated above a Consolidated Edison (Con Ed) power substation, which imposed unique structural design constraints. When the building opened in 1987, Silverstein had difficulties attracting tenants. In 1988, Salomon Brothers signed a long-term lease, and became the main tenants of the building. On September 11, 2001, 7 WTC was damaged by debris when the nearby North Tower of the WTC collapsed. The debris also ignited fires, which continued to burn throughout the afternoon on lower floors of the building. The building's internal fire suppression system lacked water pressure to fight the fires, and the building collapsed completely at 5:21:10 pm. The collapse began when a critical internal column buckled and triggered structural failure throughout, which was first visible from the exterior with the crumbling of a rooftop penthouse structure at 5:20:33 pm. Construction of the new 7 World Trade Center began in 2002 and was completed in 2006. The building is 52 stories tall, making it the 29th tallest in New York. It is built on a smaller footprint than the original, allowing Greenwich Street to be restored from TriBeCa through the World Trade Center site and south to Battery Park. The new building is bounded by Greenwich, Vesey, Washington, and Barclay streets. |
| 2 | Following Alexander the Great's death in 323 BCE, Judea was contested between the Ptolemaic Kingdom in Egypt, and the Seleucid Empire based in Syria and Mesopotamia. Seleucid Emperor Antiochus III's victory over Egypt in the Battle of Panium brought Judea under Seleucid control. The Jewish population of Jerusalem had aided Antiochus during his siege of the Baris, the fortified base of Jerusalem's Egyptian garrison. Their support was rewarded with a charter affirming Jewish religious autonomy, including barring foreigners and impure animals from the Temple's precincts, and an allocation of official funds for the maintenance of certain religious rituals in the Temple. Despite being allowed religious freedom, many Jews were enticed by and adopted elements of the prestigious and influential Greek lifestyle. The imperial culture offered a route to political and material advancement, and this led to the formation of Hellenistic elites among the Jewish population. Hellenization produced tensions between observant Jews and their brethren who had assimilated Greek culture. Antonio Ciseri's Martyrdom of the Maccabees (1863), depicting an episode from Antiochus IV's (seated) persecution of the Jews. Antiochus IV Epiphanes ascended the Seleucid throne in 175 BCE. Shortly afterward, the Emperor was petitioned by Jason for appointment to the position of High Priest of Israel—an office occupied by his brother Onias III. Jason, himself thoroughly Hellenized, furthermore promised to increase the tribute paid by the city and to establish within it the infrastructure of a Greek Polis, including a gymnasium and an ephebion. Jason's petition was granted, yet after a three-year rule he was ousted by Antiochus and forced to flee to Ammon. In the meantime, Antiochus IV had launched two invasions of Egypt, in 170 BCE and again in 169 BCE, and routed the Ptolemaic armies. Antiochus' victories were short-lived. His intent to unify the Seleucid and Ptolemic kingdoms alarmed the rapidly expanding Roman state, which demanded that he withdraw his forces from Egypt. |
| 3 | Angkor Wat is a temple complex at Angkor, Cambodia, built for the king Suryavarman II in the early 12th century as his state temple and capital city. As the best-preserved temple at the site, it is the only one to have remained a significant religious centre since its foundation – first Hindu, dedicated to the god Vishnu, then Buddhist. It is the world's largest religious building. The temple is at the top of the high classical style of Khmer architecture. It has become a symbol of Cambodia, appearing on its national flag, and it is the country's prime attraction for visitors. Angkor Wat combines two basic plans of Khmer temple architecture: the temple mountain and the later galleried temple, based on early South Indian Hindu architecture, with key features such as the Jagati. It is designed to represent Mount Meru, home of the devas in Hindu mythology: within a moat and an outer wall 3.6 kilometres (2.2 mi) long are three rectangular galleries, each raised above the next. At the centre of the temple stands a quincunx of towers. Unlike most Angkorian temples, Angkor Wat is oriented to the west; scholars are divided as to the significance of this. The temple is admired for the grandeur and harmony of the architecture, its extensive bas-reliefs, and for the numerous devatas (guardian spirits) adorning its walls. The modern name, Angkor Wat, means "City Temple"; Angkor is a vernacular form of the word nokor, which comes from the Sanskrit word nagar, Thai, Nakon, meaning capital or city. Wat is the Khmer word which comes from Sanskrit word "Vastu". Prior to this time the temple was known as Preah Pisnulok (Vara Vishnuloka in Sanskrit), after the posthumous title of its founder, Suryavarman II. Angkor Wat lies 5.5 km north of the modern town of Siem Reap, and a short distance south and slightly east of the previous capital, which was centred at Baphuon. It is in an area of Cambodia where there is an important group of ancient structures. It is the southernmost of Angkor's main sites. |
| 4 | The Anthony Roll is a record of ships of the English Tudor navy of the 1540s, named after its creator, Anthony Anthony. It originally consisted of three rolls of vellum, depicting 58 naval vessels along with information on their size, crew, armament, and basic equipment. The rolls were presented to King Henry VIII in 1546, and were kept in the royal library. In 1680 Charles II gave two of the rolls to Samuel Pepys, who had them cut up and made into a single volume, which is now in the Pepys Library at Magdalene College, Cambridge. The third roll remained in the royal collection until it was given by William IV to his daughter, Mary Fox, who sold it to the British Museum in 1858; it is now owned by the British Library. The Anthony Roll is the only known fully illustrated inventory of ships of the English navy in the Tudor period. As the work of a successful state official in 16th century England, the artistic value of the Anthony Roll has been described as being characterised by "naive draughtsmanship and conformity to a pattern" though its artistic aspects display "a decent amateur grasp of form and colour". While the inventories listed in its text have proven to be highly accurate, most of the ship illustrations are rudimentary and made according to a set formula. The level of detail of the ship design, armament and especially rigging has therefore proven to be only approximate. Nevertheless, through their depiction of the ceremonial ornamentation the illustrations in the Roll have provided relevant secondary information to the study of Tudor period heraldry, flags and ship ornamentation. The only known contemporary depictions of prominent Tudor era vessels like the Henry Grace a Dieu and the Mary Rose are contained in the Anthony Roll. As the Mary Rose sank by accident in 1545 and was successfully salvaged in 1982, comparison between the information in the Roll and the physical evidence of the Mary Rose has provided new insights into the study of the naval history of the period. |
| 5 | The Battle of Alexander at Issus (German: Alexanderschlacht) is a 1529 oil painting by the German artist Albrecht Altdorfer (c. 1480–1538), a pioneer of landscape art and a founding member of the Danube school. It portrays the 333 BC Battle of Issus, in which Alexander the Great secured a decisive victory over Darius III of Persia and gained crucial leverage in his campaign against the Persian Empire. The painting is widely regarded as Altdorfer's masterpiece, and exemplifies his affinity for scenes of monumental grandeur. Duke William IV of Bavaria commissioned The Battle of Alexander at Issus in 1528 as part of a set of historical pieces that was to hang in his Munich residence. Modern commentators suggest that the painting, through its abundant use of anachronism, was intended to liken Alexander's heroic victory at Issus to the contemporary European conflict with the Ottoman Empire. In particular, the defeat of Suleiman the Magnificent at the Siege of Vienna may have been an inspiration for Altdorfer. A religious undercurrent is detectable, especially in the extraordinary sky; this was probably inspired by the prophecies of Daniel and contemporary concern within the Church about an impending apocalypse. The Battle of Alexander at Issus and four others that were part of William's initial set are in the Alte Pinakothek art museum in Munich.Alexander III of Macedon (356–323 BC), best known as Alexander the Great, was an Ancient Greek king of Macedon who reigned from 336 BC until his death. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest military tacticians and strategists in history, and is presumed undefeated in battle. Renowned for his military leadership and charisma, he always led his armies personally and took to the front ranks of battle. By conquering the Persian Empire and unifying Greece, Egypt and Babylon, he forged the largest empire of the ancient world and effected the spread of Hellenism throughout Europe and Northern Africa. |
| 6 | Belton House is a Grade I listed country house in Belton near Grantham, Lincolnshire, England. The mansion is surrounded by formal gardens and a series of avenues leading to follies within a larger wooded park. Belton has been described as a compilation of all that is finest of Carolean architecture, the only truly vernacular style of architecture that England had produced since the Tudor period. The house has also been described as the most complete example of a typical English country house; the claim has even been made that Belton's principal facade was the inspiration for the modern British motorway signs which give directions to stately homes. Only Brympton d'Evercy has been similarly lauded as the perfect English country house. For three hundred years, Belton House was the seat of the Brownlow and Cust family, who had first acquired land in the area in the late 16th century. Between 1685 and 1688 Sir John Brownlow and his wife had the present mansion built. Despite great wealth they chose to build a modest country house rather than a grand contemporary Baroque palace. The contemporary, if provincial, Carolean style was the selected choice of design. However, the new house was fitted with the latest innovations such as sash windows for the principal rooms, and more importantly completely separate areas for the staff. As the Brownlows rose from baronets to barons upward to earls and then once again became barons, successive generations made changes to the interior of the house which reflected their changing social position and tastes, yet the fabric and design of the house changed little. Following World War I (a period when the Machine Gun Corps was based in the park), the Brownlows, like many of their peers, were faced with mounting financial problems. In 1984 they gave the house away—complete with most of its contents. The recipients of their gift, the National Trust, today fully open Belton to the public. It is in a good state of repair and visited by many thousands of tourists each year. |
| 7 | Bodiam Castle is a 14th-century moated castle near Robertsbridge in East Sussex, England. It was built in 1385 by Sir Edward Dalyngrigge, a former knight of Edward III, with the permission of Richard II, ostensibly to defend the area against French invasion during the Hundred Years' War. Of quadrangular plan, Bodiam Castle has no keep, having its various chambers built around the outer defensive walls and inner courts. Its corners and entrance are marked by towers, and topped by crenellations. Its structure, details and situation in an artificial watery landscape indicate that display was an important aspect of the castle's design as well as defence. It was the home of the Dalyngrigge family and the centre of the manor of Bodiam. Possession of Bodiam Castle passed through several generations of Dalyngrigges, until their line became extinct, when the castle passed by marriage to the Lewknor family. During the Wars of the Roses, Sir Thomas Lewknor supported the House of Lancaster, and when Richard III of the House of York became king in 1483, a force was despatched to besiege Bodiam Castle. It is unrecorded whether the siege went ahead, but it is thought that Bodiam was surrendered without much resistance. The castle was confiscated, but returned to the Lewknors when Henry VII of the House of Lancaster became king in 1485. Descendants of the Lewknors owned the castle until at least the 16th century. By the start of the English Civil War in 1641, Bodiam Castle was in the possession of John Tufton. He supported the Royalist cause, and sold the castle to help pay fines levied against him by Parliament. The castle was subsequently dismantled, and was left as a picturesque ruin until its purchase by John Fuller in 1829. Under his auspices, the castle was partially restored before being sold to George Cubitt, 1st Baron Ashcombe, and later to Lord Curzon, both of whom undertook further restoration work. |
| 8 | There is no written record of who built Borobudur or of its intended purpose. The construction time has been estimated by comparison between carved reliefs on the temple's hidden foot and the inscriptions commonly used in royal charters during the 8th and 9th centuries. Borobudur was likely founded around 800 CE. This corresponds to the period between 760 and 830 CE, the peak of the Sailendra dynasty in central Java, when it was under the influence of the Srivijayan Empire. The construction has been estimated to have taken 75 years and been completed during the reign of Samaratungga in 825. There is confusion between Hindu and Buddhist rulers in Java around that time. The Sailendras were known as ardent followers of Buddhism, though stone inscriptions found at Sojomerto suggest they may have been Hindus. It was during this time that many Hindu and Buddhist monuments were built on the plains and mountains around the Kedu Plain. The Buddhist monuments, including Borobudur, were erected around the same time as the Hindu Shiva Prambanan temple compound. In 732 CE, the Shivaite King Sanjaya commissioned a Shivalinga sanctuary to be built on the Wukir hill, only 10 km (6.2 mi) east of Borobudur. Construction of Buddhist temples, including Borobudur, at that time was possible because Sanjaya's immediate successor, Rakai Panangkaran, granted his permission to the Buddhist followers to build such temples. In fact, to show his respect, Panangkaran gave the village of Kalasan to the Buddhist community, as is written in the Kalasan Charter dated 778 CE. This has led some archaeologists to believe that there was never serious conflict concerning religion in Java as it was possible for a Hindu king to patronize the establishment of a Buddhist monument; or for a Buddhist king to act likewise. However, it is likely that there were two rival royal dynasties in Java at the time—the Buddhist Sailendra and the Saivite Sanjaya—in which the latter triumphed over their rival in the 856 battle on the Ratubaka plateau. |
| 9 | The Boydell Shakespeare Gallery in London, England, was the first stage of a three-part project initiated in November 1786 by engraver and publisher John Boydell in an effort to foster a school of British history painting. In addition to the establishment of the gallery, Boydell planned to produce an illustrated edition of William Shakespeare's plays and a folio of prints based upon a series of paintings by different contemporary painters. During the 1790s the London gallery that showed the original paintings emerged as the project's most popular element. The works of William Shakespeare enjoyed a renewed popularity in 18th-century Britain. Several new editions of his works were published, his plays were revived in the theatre and numerous works of art were created illustrating the plays and specific productions of them. Capitalising on this interest, Boydell decided to publish a grand illustrated edition of Shakespeare's plays that would showcase the talents of British painters and engravers. He chose the noted scholar and Shakespeare editor George Steevens to oversee the edition, which was released between 1791 and 1803. The press reported weekly on the building of Boydell's gallery, designed by George Dance the Younger, on a site in Pall Mall. Boydell commissioned works from famous painters of the day, such as Joshua Reynolds, and the folio of engravings proved the enterprise's most lasting legacy. However, the long delay in publishing the prints and the illustrated edition prompted criticism. Because they were hurried, and many illustrations had to be done by lesser artists, the final products of Boydell's venture were judged to be disappointing. The project caused the Boydell firm to become insolvent, and they were forced to sell the gallery at a lottery. |
| 10 | In the 18th century, Shakespeare became associated with rising British nationalism, and Boydell tapped into the same mood that many other entrepreneurs were exploiting. Bramall Hall is a Tudor manor house in Bramhall, within the Metropolitan Borough of Stockport, Greater Manchester, England. It is a timber-framed building, the oldest parts of which date from the 14th century, with later additions from the 16th and 19th centuries. The house, which functions as a museum, and its 70 acres (28 ha) of landscaped parkland with lakes, woodland, and gardens are open to the public. Dating back to Anglo-Saxon England, the manor of Bramall was first described in the Domesday Book in 1086, when it was held by the Masseys. From the late 14th century it was owned by the Davenports who built the present house, and remained lords of the manor for about 500 years before selling the estate of nearly 2,000 acres in 1877 to the Manchester Freeholders' Company, a property company formed expressly for the purpose of exploiting the estate's potential for residential building development. The Hall and a residual park of over 50 acres was sold on by the Freeholders (though not the lordship of the manor) to the Nevill family of successful industrialists. In 1925 it was purchased by John Henry Davies, and then, in 1935, acquired by the local government authority for the area - Hazel Grove and Bramhall Urban District Council. Bramall Hall is owned now, following local government reorganisation in 1974, by Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council (SMBC), which describes it as "the most prestigious and historically significant building in the Conservation Area".The name "Bramall" means "nook of land where broom grows" and is derived from the Old English noun brom meaning broom, a type of shrub common in the area, and the Old English noun halh, which has several meanings – including nook, secret place and valley – that could refer to Bramall. The manor of Bramall dates from the Anglo-Saxon period, when it was held as two separate estates owned by the Anglo-Saxon freemen Brun and Hacun. The manor was devastated during William the Conqueror's Harrying of the North. |
| 11 | Brougham Castle is a medieval building about 2 miles (3.2 km) south-east of Penrith, Cumbria, England. It is a Scheduled Monument and open to the public. Founded by Robert de Vieuxpont in the early 13th century on the site of a Roman fort, it sits near the confluence of the rivers Eamont and Lowther. In its earliest form, the castle consisted of a stone keep, with an enclosure protected by an earthen bank and a wooden palisade. When the castle was built, Robert de Vieuxpont was one of only a few lords loyal to the king in the region. The Vieuxponts were a powerful land-owning family in North West England and also owned the castles of Appleby and Brough. In 1264 Robert de Vieuxpont's grandson, also named Robert, was declared a traitor and his property was confiscated by Henry III. Brougham Castle and the other estates were eventually returned to the Vieuxpont family, and stayed in their possession until 1269 when the estates passed to the Clifford family through marriage. With the outbreak of the Anglo-Scottish Wars in 1296, Brougham became an important military base for Robert Clifford, 1st Baron de Clifford. He began refortifying the castle: the wooden outer defences were replaced with stronger, more impressive stone walls, and the large stone gatehouse was added. The importance of Brougham and Roger Clifford was such that in 1300 he hosted Edward I at the castle. The second Roger Clifford was executed as a traitor in 1322, and the family estates passed into the possession of Edward II, although they were returned once Edward III became king. The region was often at risk from the Scots, and in 1388 the castle was captured and sacked. Following this, the Cliffords began spending more time at their other castles, particularly Skipton Castle in Yorkshire. Brougham descended through several generations of Cliffords, intermittently serving as a residence. However, by 1592 it was in a state of disrepair as George Clifford was spending more time in southern England due to his role as Queen's Champion. |
| 12 | Bristol, the largest city in South West England, has an eclectic combination of architectural styles, ranging from the medieval to 20th century brutalism and beyond. During the mid-19th century, Bristol Byzantine, an architectural style unique to the city, was developed, of which several examples have survived. Buildings from most of the architectural periods of the United Kingdom can be seen throughout Bristol. Parts of the fortified city and castle date back to the medieval era, as do some churches dating from the 12th century onwards. Outside the historical city centre there are several large Tudor mansions built for wealthy merchants. Almshouses and public houses of the same period survive, intermingled with areas of more recent development. Several Georgian-era squares were laid out for the enjoyment of the middle class. As the city grew, it merged with its surrounding villages, each with its own character and centre, often clustered around a parish church. The construction of the city's floating harbour, taking in the wharves on the River Avon and Frome, provided a focus for industrial development and the growth of the local transport infrastructure. Key elements of which include the Isambard Kingdom Brunel designed Clifton Suspension Bridge and Temple Meads terminus; the latter served from 2002 to 2009 as the British Empire and Commonwealth Museum, but is now closed pending a planned move to London. The 20th century saw further expansion of the city, the growth of the University of Bristol and the arrival of the aircraft industry. During World War II, the city centre suffered from extensive bombing during the Bristol Blitz. The redevelopment of shopping centres, office buildings, and the harbourside continues to this day. The city was defended in medieval times by Bristol Castle, a Norman fortification built on the site of a wooden predecessor. The castle played a key role in the civil wars that followed the death of Henry I. Stephen of Blois reconnoitred Bristol in 1138 and claimed that the town was impregnable. |
| 13 | The main buildings of Jesus College, one of the colleges of the University of Oxford, are located in the centre of the city of Oxford, England, between Turl Street, Ship Street, Cornmarket Street, and Market Street. Jesus College was founded in 1571 by Elizabeth I upon the petition of a Welsh clergyman, Hugh Price, who was treasurer of St David's Cathedral. Her foundation charter gave to the college the land and buildings of White Hall, a university hall that had experienced a decline in student numbers. Price added new buildings to those of White Hall, and construction work continued after his death in 1574. The first of the college's quadrangles, which includes the hall, chapel, and principal's lodgings was completed between 1621 and 1630. Construction of the second quadrangle began in the 1630s, but was interrupted by the English Civil War and was not completed until about 1712. Further buildings were erected in a third quadrangle during the 20th century, including science laboratories (now closed), a library for undergraduates, and additional accommodation for students and fellows. In addition to the main site, the college owns flats in east and north Oxford, and a sports ground. The chapel, which was dedicated in 1621 and extended in 1636, was extensively altered in 1864 under the supervision of the architect George Edmund Street. The alterations have had their supporters and their critics; one historian of the college (Ernest Hardy, principal from 1921 to 1925) described the work as "ill-considered". The hall's original hammerbeam roof was hidden by a plaster ceiling in 1741 when rooms were installed in the roofspace. The principal's lodgings, the last part of the first quadrangle to be constructed, contain wooden panelling from the early 17th century. The Fellows' Library in the second quadrangle dates from 1679 and contains 11,000 antiquarian books; it was restored at a cost of 700,000 in 2007. A new Junior Common Room, about twice the size of its predecessor, was completed in the third quadrangle in 2002. |
| 14 | The buildings of Nuffield College, one of the colleges of the University of Oxford, are to the west of the city centre of Oxford, England, on the former site of the largely disused basin of the Oxford Canal. Nuffield College was founded in 1937 after a donation to the University by the car manufacturer Lord Nuffield; he gave not only land for the college but 900,000 (approximately 43,040,000 in present day terms) to build and endow it. The architect Austen Harrison, who had worked in Greece and Palestine, was appointed by the University to design the buildings. His initial design, heavily influenced by Mediterranean architecture, was rejected by Nuffield, who called it "un-English" and refused to allow his name to be associated with it. Harrison reworked the plans, aiming for "something on the lines of Cotswold domestic architecture", as Nuffield wanted. Construction of the second design began in 1949 but was not finished until 1960. Progress was hampered by post-war building restrictions, and the effects of inflation on Nuffield's donation led to various cost-saving changes to the plans. In one change, the tower, which had been planned to be ornamental, was redesigned to hold the college's library. It was the first tower built in Oxford for 200 years and is about 150 feet (46 m) tall, including the fleche on top. The buildings are arranged around two quadrangles, with residential accommodation for students and fellows in one and the hall, library and administrative offices in the other. The chapel has stained glass windows designed by John Piper. The architectural historian Sir Howard Colvin said that Harrison's first design was Oxford's "most notable architectural casualty of the 1930s"; it has also been described as a "missed opportunity" to show that Oxford did not live "only in the past". Reaction to the architecture of the college has been largely unfavourable. In the 1960s, it was described as "Oxford's biggest monument to barren reaction". The tower has been described as "ungainly", and marred by repetitive windows. |
| 15 | Bruce Castle (formerly the Lordship House) is a Grade I listed 16th-century manor house in Lordship Lane, Tottenham, London. It is named after the House of Bruce who formerly owned the land on which it is built. Believed to stand on the site of an earlier building, about which little is known, the current house is one of the oldest surviving English brick houses. It was remodelled in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. The house has been home to Sir William Compton, the Barons Coleraine and Sir Rowland Hill, among others. After serving as a school during the 19th century, when a large extension was built to the west, it was converted into a museum exploring the history of the areas which constitute the present London Borough of Haringey and, on the strength of its connection with Sir Rowland Hill, the history of the Royal Mail. The building also houses the archives of the London Borough of Haringey. Since 1892 the grounds have been a public park, Tottenham's oldest. The name Bruce Castle is derived from the House of Bruce, who had historically owned a third of the manor of Tottenham. However, there was no castle in the area, and it is unlikely that the family lived nearby. Upon his accession to the Scottish throne in 1306, Robert I of Scotland forfeited his lands in England, including the Bruce holdings in Tottenham, ending the connection between the Bruce family and the area. The former Bruce land in Tottenham was granted to Richard Spigurnell and Thomas Hethe. The three parts of the manor of Tottenham were united in the early 15th century under the Gedeney family and have remained united since. In all early records, the building is referred to as the Lordship House. The name Bruce Castle first appears to have been adopted by Henry Hare, 2nd Baron Coleraine (1635–1708), although Daniel Lysons speculates in The Environs of London (1795) that the usage of the name dates to the late 13th century. A detached, cylindrical Tudor tower stands immediately to the southeast of the house, and is generally considered to be the earliest part of the building; |
| 16 | Buckingham Palace, in London, is the principal residence and office of the British monarch. Located in the City of Westminster, the palace is a setting for state occasions and royal hospitality. It has been a focus for the British people at times of national rejoicing and crisis. Originally known as Buckingham House, the building which forms the core of today's palace was a large townhouse built for the Duke of Buckingham in 1705 on a site which had been in private ownership for at least 150 years. It was subsequently acquired by George III in 1761 as a private residence for Queen Charlotte, and known as "The Queen's House". During the 19th century it was enlarged, principally by architects John Nash and Edward Blore, forming three wings around a central courtyard. Buckingham Palace finally became the official royal palace of the British monarch on the accession of Queen Victoria in 1837. The last major structural additions were made in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including the East front which contains the well-known balcony on which the Royal Family traditionally congregate to greet crowds outside. However, the palace chapel was destroyed by a German bomb in World War II; the Queen's Gallery was built on the site and opened to the public in 1962 to exhibit works of art from the Royal Collection. The original early 19th-century interior designs, many of which still survive, included widespread use of brightly coloured scagliola and blue and pink lapis, on the advice of Sir Charles Long. King Edward VII oversaw a partial redecoration in a Belle Epoque cream and gold colour scheme. Many smaller reception rooms are furnished in the Chinese regency style with furniture and fittings brought from the Royal Pavilion at Brighton and from Carlton House. The Buckingham Palace Garden is the largest private garden in London. The state rooms, used for official and state entertaining, are open to the public each year for most of August and September, as part of the Palace's Summer Opening. |
| 17 | Campbell's Soup Cans, which is sometimes referred to as 32 Campbell's Soup Cans, is a work of art produced in 1962 by Andy Warhol. It consists of thirty-two canvases, each measuring 20 inches (510 mm) in height x 16 inches (410 mm) in width and each consisting of a painting of a Campbell's Soup can—one of each of the canned soup varieties the company offered at the time. The individual paintings were produced by a printmaking method—the semi-mechanized silkscreen process, using a non-painterly style. Campbell's Soup Cans' reliance on themes from popular culture helped to usher in pop art as a major art movement in the USA. Warhol, a commercial illustrator who became a successful author, publisher, painter, and film director, showed the work on July 9, 1962 in his first one-man gallery exhibition as a fine artist. The combination of the semi-mechanized process, the non-painterly style, and the commercial subject initially caused offense, as the work's blatantly mundane commercialism represented a direct affront to the technique and philosophy of abstract expressionism. In the United States the abstract expressionism art movement was dominant during the post-war period, and it held not only to "fine art" values and aesthetics but also to a mystical inclination. This controversy led to a great deal of debate about the merits and ethics of such work. Warhol's motives as an artist were questioned, and they continue to be topical to this day. The large public commotion helped transform Warhol from being an accomplished 1950s commercial illustrator to a notable fine artist, and it helped distinguish him from other rising pop artists. Although commercial demand for his paintings was not immediate, Warhol's association with the subject led to his name becoming synonymous with the Campbell's Soup can paintings. Warhol subsequently produced a wide variety of art works depicting Campbell's Soup cans during three distinct phases of his career, and he produced other works using a variety of images from the world of commerce and mass media. |
| 18 | A castle (from Latin castellum) is a type of fortified structure built in Europe and the Middle East during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars debate the scope of the word castle, but usually consider it to be the private fortified residence of a lord or noble. This is distinct from a palace, which is not fortified, from a fortress, which was not always a residence for nobility, and from a fortified town, which was a public defence – though there are many similarities among these types of construction. Usage of the term has varied over time and has been applied to structures as diverse as hill forts and country houses. Over the approximately 900 years that castles were built they took on a great many forms with many different features, although some, such as curtain walls and arrowslits, were commonplace. A European innovation, castles originated in the 9th and 10th centuries, after the fall of the Carolingian Empire resulted in its territory being divided among individual lords and princes. These nobles built castles to control the area immediately surrounding them, and were both offensive and defensive structures; they provided a base from which raids could be launched as well as protection from enemies. Although their military origins are often emphasised in castle studies, the structures also served as centres of administration and symbols of power. Urban castles were used to control the local populace and important travel routes, and rural castles were often situated near features that were integral to life in the community, such as mills and fertile land. Many castles were originally built from earth and timber, but had their defences replaced later by stone. Early castles often exploited natural defences, and lacked features such as towers and arrowslits and relied on a central keep. In the late 12th and early 13th centuries, a scientific approach to castle defence emerged. This led to the proliferation of towers, with an emphasis on flanking fire. |
| 19 | Catherine de' Medici's building projects included the Valois chapel at Saint-Denis, the Tuileries Palace, and the Hotel de la Reine in Paris, and extensions to the chateau of Chenonceau, near Blois. Born in 1519 in Florence to an Italian father and a French mother, Catherine de' Medici was a daughter of both the Italian and the French Renaissance. She grew up in Florence and Rome under the wing of the Medici popes, Leo X and Clement VII. In 1533, at the age of fourteen, she left Italy and married Henry, the second son of Francis I and Queen Claude of France. On doing so, she entered the greatest Renaissance court in northern Europe. King Francis set his daughter-in-law an example of kingship and artistic patronage that she never forgot. She witnessed his huge architectural schemes at Chambord and Fontainebleau. She saw Italian and French craftsmen at work together, forging the style that became known as the first School of Fontainebleau. Francis died in 1547, and Catherine became queen consort of France. But it wasn't until her husband King Henry's death in 1559, when she found herself at forty the effective ruler of France, that Catherine came into her own as a patron of architecture. Over the next three decades, she launched a series of costly building projects aimed at enhancing the grandeur of the monarchy. During the same period, however, religious civil war gripped the country and brought the prestige of the monarchy to a dangerously low ebb. Catherine loved to supervise each project personally. The architects of the day dedicated books to her, knowing that she would read them. Though she spent colossal sums on the building and embellishment of monuments and palaces, little remains of Catherine's investment today: one Doric column, a few fragments in the corner of the Tuileries gardens, an empty tomb at Saint Denis. The sculptures she commissioned for the Valois chapel are lost, or scattered, often damaged or incomplete, in museums and churches. |
| 20 | The Chicago Board of Trade Building is a skyscraper located in Chicago, Illinois, United States. It stands at 141 W. Jackson Boulevard at the foot of the LaSalle Street canyon, in the Loop community area in Cook County. Built in 1930 and first designated a Chicago Landmark on May 4, 1977, the building was listed as a National Historic Landmark on June 2, 1978. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on June 16, 1978. Originally built for the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT), it is now the primary trading venue for the derivatives exchange, the CME Group, formed in 2007 by the merger of the CBOT and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. The 141 W. Jackson address hosted the former tallest building in Chicago designed by William W. Boyington before the current Holabird & Root structure, which held the same title for over 35 years until being surpassed in 1965 by the Richard J. Daley Center. The current structure is known for its art deco architecture, sculptures and large-scale stone carving, as well as large trading floors. A three-story art deco statue of Ceres, goddess of agriculture (particularly grain), caps the building. The building is a popular sightseeing attraction and location for shooting movies, and its owners and management have won awards for efforts to preserve the building and for office management. On April 3, 1848, the Board of Trade opened for business at 101 South Water Street. When 122 members were added in 1856, it was moved to the corner of South Water and LaSalle Streets. After another temporary relocation west on South Water Street in 1860, the first permanent home was established within the Chamber of Commerce Building on the corner of LaSalle and Washington Streets in 1865. In 1871, the Great Chicago Fire destroyed this building. The exchange temporarily reopened two weeks after the fire in a 90 feet (27 m) wooden building known as "the Wigwam" at the intersection of Washington and Market Streets, before reclaiming its home in a new building constructed at the Chamber of Commerce site one year later. |
| 21 | The Clemuel Ricketts Mansion (also known as the Stone House, the William R. Ricketts House, and Ganoga) is a Georgian-style house made of sandstone, built in 1852 or 1855 on the shore of Ganoga Lake in Colley Township, Sullivan County, Pennsylvania in the United States. It was home to several generations of the Ricketts family, including R. Bruce Ricketts and William Reynolds Ricketts. Originally built as a hunting lodge, it was also a tavern and post office, and served as part of a hotel for much of the 19th century. After 1903 the house served as the Ricketts family's summer home; they kept it even as they sold over 65,000 acres (26,000 ha) to the state of Pennsylvania from 1920 to 1950. The house was included in the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) in 1936 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) in 1983. A group of investors bought the lake, surrounding land, and house in 1957 and developed them privately for housing and recreation. The house became the Ganoga Lake Association's clubhouse, and is not open to the public. The original mansion is an L-shaped structure, two-and-a-half stories high, with stone walls 2 feet (0.6 m) thick. It was built in a clearing surrounded by old-growth forest with a view to the lake 900 feet (270 m) to the east. In 1913 a 2 1-2-story wing was added to the north side of the house and the original structure was renovated. The house has twenty-eight rooms, four porches, and its original hardware and woodwork. Dormers and some windows were added in the renovation, and electrical wiring and modern plumbing have been added since. According to the NRHP nomination form, the Clemuel Ricketts Mansion "is a stunning example of Georgian vernacular architecture". The Clemuel Ricketts Mansion is on the southwest shore of Ganoga Lake in Colley Township in the southeastern part of Sullivan County. The mansion and lake are on a part of the Allegheny Plateau known as North Mountain; the plateau formed about 300 to 250 million years ago in the Alleghenian orogeny. |
| 22 | Cloud Gate, a public sculpture by Indian-born British artist Anish Kapoor, is the centerpiece of the AT&T Plaza in Millennium Park within the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois, United States. The sculpture and AT&T Plaza are located on top of Park Grill, between the Chase Promenade and McCormick Tribune Plaza & Ice Rink. Constructed between 2004 and 2006, the sculpture is nicknamed "The Bean" because of its bean-like shape. Made up of 168 stainless steel plates welded together, its highly polished exterior has no visible seams. It is 33 by 66 by 42 feet (10 by 20 by 13 m), and weighs 110 short tons (100 t; 98 long tons). Said to have been inspired by liquid mercury, the sculpture's surface reflects and distorts the city's skyline. Visitors are able to walk around and under Cloud Gate's 12-foot (3.7 m) high arch. On the underside is the "omphalos" (Greek for "navel"), a concave chamber that warps and multiplies reflections. The sculpture builds upon many of Kapoor's artistic themes, and is popular with tourists as a photo-taking opportunity for its unique reflective properties. The sculpture was selected during a design competition. After Kapoor's design was chosen, numerous technological concerns regarding the design's construction and assembly arose, in addition to concerns regarding the sculpture's upkeep and maintenance. Various experts were consulted, some of whom believed the design could not be implemented. Eventually, a feasible method was found, but the sculpture's construction fell behind schedule. It was unveiled in an incomplete form during the Millennium Park grand opening celebration in 2004, before being concealed again while it was completed. Cloud Gate was formally dedicated on May 15, 2006, and has since gained considerable popularity, both domestically and internationally. Lying between Lake Michigan to the east and the Loop to the west, Grant Park has been Chicago's front yard since the mid-19th century. |
| 23 | The Cottingley Fairies appear in a series of five photographs taken by Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths, two young cousins who lived in Cottingley, near Bradford in England. In 1917, when the first two photographs were taken, Elsie was 16 years old and Frances was 10. The pictures came to the attention of writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who used them to illustrate an article on fairies he had been commissioned to write for the Christmas 1920 edition of The Strand Magazine. Conan Doyle, as a spiritualist, was enthusiastic about the photographs, and interpreted them as clear and visible evidence of psychic phenomena. Public reaction was mixed; some accepted the images as genuine, but others believed they had been faked. Interest in the Cottingley Fairies gradually declined after 1921. Both girls grew up, married and lived abroad for a time. Yet the photographs continued to hold the public imagination; in 1966 a reporter from the Daily Express newspaper traced Elsie, who had by then returned to the UK. Elsie left open the possibility that she believed she had photographed her thoughts, and the media once again became interested in the story. In the early 1980s Elsie and Frances admitted that the photographs were faked using cardboard cutouts of fairies copied from a popular children's book of the time, but Frances continued to claim that the fifth and final photograph was genuine. The photographs and two of the cameras used are on display in the National Media Museum in Bradford. In mid-1917 ten-year-old Frances Griffiths and her mother – both newly arrived in the UK from South Africa – were staying with Frances' aunt, Elsie Wright's mother, in the village of Cottingley in West Yorkshire; Elsie was then 16 years old. The two girls often played together beside the beck (stream) at the bottom of the garden, much to their mothers' annoyance, because they frequently came back with wet feet and clothes. Frances and Elsie said they only went to the beck to see the fairies, and to prove it, Elsie borrowed her father's camera, a Midg quarter-plate. |
| 24 | Crown Fountain is an interactive work of public art and video sculpture featured in Chicago's Millennium Park, which is located in the Loop community area. Designed by Catalan artist Jaume Plensa and executed by Krueck and Sexton Architects, it opened in July 2004. The fountain is composed of a black granite reflecting pool placed between a pair of glass brick towers. The towers are 50 feet (15.2 m) tall, and they use light-emitting diodes (LEDs) to display digital videos on their inward faces. Construction and design of the Crown Fountain cost $17 million. Weather permitting, the water operates from May to October, intermittently cascading down the two towers and spouting through a nozzle on each tower's front face. Residents and critics have praised the fountain for its artistic and entertainment features. It highlights Plensa's themes of dualism, light, and water, extending the use of video technology from his prior works. Its use of water is unique among Chicago's many fountains, in that it promotes physical interaction between the public and the water. Both the fountain and Millennium Park are highly accessible because of their universal design. Crown Fountain has been one of the most controversial of all the Millennium Park features. Before it was even built, some were concerned that the sculpture's height violated the aesthetic tradition of the park. After construction, surveillance cameras were installed atop the fountain, which led to a public outcry (and their quick removal). However, the fountain has survived its somewhat contentious beginnings to find its way into Chicago pop culture. It is a popular subject for photographers and a common gathering place. While some of the videos displayed are of scenery, most attention has focused on its video clips of local residents; hundreds of Chicagoans visit the fountain hoping to see themselves appearing on one of the fountain's two screens. The fountain is a public play area and offers people an escape from summer heat, allowing children to frolic in the fountain's water. |
| 25 | The Disasters of War (Spanish: Los Desastres de la Guerra) are a series of 82 prints created between 1810 and 1820 by the Spanish painter and printmaker Francisco Goya (1746–1828). Although Goya did not make known his intention when creating the plates, art historians view them as a visual protest against the violence of the 1808 Dos de Mayo Uprising, the subsequent Peninsular War of 1808–14 and the setbacks to the liberal cause following the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy in 1814. During the conflicts between Napoleon's French Empire and Spain, Goya retained his position as first court painter to the Spanish crown and continued to produce portraits of the Spanish and French rulers. Although deeply affected by the war, he kept private his thoughts on the art he produced in response to the conflict and its aftermath. He was in poor health and almost deaf when, at 62, he began work on the prints. They were not published until 1863, 35 years after his death. It is likely that only then was it considered politically safe to distribute a sequence of artworks criticising both the French and restored Bourbons. In total over a thousand sets have been printed, though later ones are of lower quality, and most print room collections have at least some of the set. The name by which the series is known today is not Goya's own. His handwritten title on an album of proofs given to a friend reads: Fatal consequences of Spain's bloody war with Bonaparte, and other emphatic caprices. Aside from the titles or captions given to each print, these are Goya's only known words on the series. With these works, he breaks from a number of painterly traditions. He rejects the bombastic heroics of most previous Spanish war art to show the effect of conflict on individuals. In addition he abandons colour in favour of a more direct truth he found in shadow and shade. The series was produced using a variety of intaglio printmaking techniques, mainly etching for the line work and aquatint for the tonal areas, but also engraving and drypoint. |
| 26 | The Entombment is a glue-size painting on linen attributed to the Early Netherlandish painter Dirk Bouts. It shows a scene from the biblical entombment of Christ, and was probably completed between 1440 and 1455 as a wing panel for a large hinged polyptych altarpiece. The now-lost altarpiece is thought to have contained a central crucifixion scene flanked by four wing panel works half its height – two on either side – depicting scenes from the life of Christ. The smaller panels would have been paired in a format similar to Bouts' 1464–67 Altar of the Holy Sacrament. The larger work was probably commissioned for export to Italy, possibly to a Venetian patron whose identity is lost. The Entombment was first recorded in a mid-19th century Milan inventory and has been in the National Gallery, London since its purchase on the gallery's behalf by Charles Eastlake in 1861. The Entombment is renowned for its austere but affecting portrayal of sorrow and grief. It shows four female and three male mourners grieving over the body of Christ. They are, from left to right, Nicodemus, Mary Salome, Mary of Clopas, Mary, the mother of Jesus, John the Evangelist, Mary Magdalene and Joseph of Arimathea. The attendants' faces display a range of emotions, though each figure's expression is unique. All are described with restraint in muted colours, mainly whites, greens and blues. It is one of the few surviving 15th-century paintings created using glue-size, an extremely fragile medium lacking durability. The Entombment is in relatively poor condition compared to panel paintings of similar age. Its colours are now far darker than when it was painted; they would originally have appeared as pale and dry. The painting is covered by accumulated layers of grey dirt and cannot be cleaned without damaging the surface and removing large amounts of pigment as its glue-size medium is water-soluble. Bouts did not inscribe any of his paintings, which makes attribution and dating difficult. |
| 27 | Egyptian temples were built for the official worship of the gods and commemoration of pharaohs in Ancient Egypt and in regions under Egyptian control. Temples were seen as houses for the gods or kings to whom they were dedicated. Within them, the Egyptians performed a variety of rituals, the central functions of Egyptian religion: giving offerings to the gods, reenacting their mythological interactions through festivals, and warding off the forces of chaos. These rituals were seen as necessary for the gods to continue to uphold maat, the divine order of the universe. Housing and caring for the gods were the obligations of pharaohs, who therefore dedicated prodigious resources to temple construction and maintenance. Out of necessity, pharaohs delegated most of their ritual duties to a host of priests, but most of the populace was still excluded from direct participation in ceremonies and forbidden to enter a temple's most sacred areas. Nevertheless, a temple was an important religious site for all classes of Egyptians, who went there to pray, give offerings, and seek oracular guidance from the god dwelling within. The most important part of the temple was the sanctuary, which typically contained a cult image, a statue of its god. The rooms outside the sanctuary grew larger and more elaborate over time, so that temples evolved from small shrines in the late Predynastic Period (late fourth millennium BC) to massive stone edifices in the New Kingdom and later. These edifices are among the largest and most enduring examples of Egyptian architecture, with their elements arranged and decorated according to complex patterns of religious symbolism. Their typical design consisted of a series of enclosed halls, open courts, and massive entrance pylons aligned along the path used for festival processions. Beyond the temple proper was an outer wall enclosing a wide variety of secondary buildings. A large temple also owned sizable tracts of land and employed thousands of laymen to supply its needs. Temples were therefore key economic as well as religious centers. |
| 28 | Lying between Lake Michigan to the east and the Loop to the west, Grant Park has been Chicago's front yard since the mid-19th century. Its northwest corner, north of Monroe Street and the Art Institute, east of Michigan Avenue, south of Randolph Street, and west of Columbus Drive, had been Illinois Central rail yards and parking lots until 1997, when it was made available for development by the city as Millennium Park. As of 2009, Millennium Park trailed only Navy Pier as a Chicago tourist attraction. In 1836, a year before Chicago was incorporated, the Board of Canal Commissioners held public auctions for the city's first lots. Citizens with the foresight to keep the lakefront as public open space convinced the commissioners to designate the land east of Michigan Avenue between Randolph Street and Park Row (11th Street) "Public Ground—A Common to Remain Forever Open, Clear and Free of Any Buildings, or Other Obstruction, whatever." Grant Park has been "forever open, clear and free" since, protected by legislation that has been affirmed by four previous Illinois Supreme Court rulings. In 1839, United States Secretary of War Joel Roberts Poinsett decommissioned the Fort Dearborn reserve and declared the land between Randolph Street and Madison Street east of Michigan Avenue "Public Ground forever to remain vacant of buildings". Aaron Montgomery Ward, who is known both as the inventor of mail order and the protector of Grant Park, twice sued the city of Chicago to force it to remove buildings and structures from Grant Park, and to keep it from building new ones. In 1890, arguing that Michigan Avenue property owners held easements on the park land, Ward commenced legal actions to keep the park free of new buildings. In 1900, the Illinois Supreme Court concluded that all landfill east of Michigan Avenue was subject to dedications and easements. In 1909, when he sought to prevent the construction of the Field Museum of Natural History in the center of the park, the courts affirmed his arguments and the museum was built elsewhere |
| 29 | An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump is a 1768 oil-on-canvas painting by Joseph Wright of Derby, one of a number of candlelit scenes that Wright painted during the 1760s. The painting departed from convention of the time by depicting a scientific subject in the reverential manner formerly reserved for scenes of historical or religious significance. Wright was intimately involved in depicting the Industrial Revolution and the scientific advances of the Enlightenment, but while his paintings were recognized as something out of the ordinary by his contemporaries, his provincial status and choice of subjects meant the style was never widely imitated. The picture has been owned by the National Gallery, London since 1863 and is still regarded as a masterpiece of British art. The painting depicts a natural philosopher, a forerunner of the modern scientist, recreating one of Robert Boyle's air pump experiments, in which a bird is deprived of air, before a varied group of onlookers. The group exhibits a variety of reactions, but for most of the audience scientific curiosity overcomes concern for the bird. The central figure looks out of the picture as if inviting the viewer's participation in the outcome. In 1659, Robert Boyle commissioned the construction of an air pump, then described as a "pneumatic engine", which is known today as a vacuum pump. The air pump was invented by Otto von Guericke in 1650, though its cost deterred most contemporary scientists from constructing the apparatus. Boyle, the son of the Earl of Cork, had no such concerns—after its construction, he donated the initial 1659 model to the Royal Society and had a further two redesigned machines built for his personal use. Aside from Boyle's three pumps, there were probably no more than four others in existence during the 1660s: Christian Huygens had one in The Hague, Henry Power may have had one at Halifax, and there may have been pumps at Christ's College, Cambridge and the Montmor Academy in Paris. |
| 30 | Fort Ticonderoga, formerly Fort Carillon, is a large 18th-century fort built by the Canadians and the French at a narrows near the south end of Lake Champlain in upstate New York in the United States. It was constructed by Canadien Michel Chartier de Lotbiniere, Marquis de Lotbiniere between 1754 and 1757 during the Seven Years' War, often referred to as the French and Indian War in the USA. It was of strategic importance during the 18th-century colonial conflicts between Great Britain and France, and again played a role during the American Revolutionary War. The site controlled a river portage alongside the mouth of the rapids-infested La Chute River in the 3.5 miles (5.6 km) between Lake Champlain and Lake George and was strategically placed in conflicts over trade routes between the British-controlled Hudson River Valley and the French-controlled Saint Lawrence River Valley. The terrain amplified the importance of the site. Both lakes were long and narrow, oriented north–south, as were the many ridge lines of the Appalachian Mountains extending as far south as Georgia, creating the near-impassable mountainous terrains to the east and west of the Great Appalachian Valley that the site commanded. The name "Ticonderoga" comes from the Iroquois word tekontaroken, meaning "it is at the junction of two waterways". During the 1758 Battle of Carillon, 4,000 French defenders were able to repel an attack by 16,000 British troops near the fort. In 1759, the British returned and drove a token French garrison from the fort merely by occupying high ground that threatened the fort. During the American Revolutionary War, the fort again saw action in May 1775 when the Green Mountain Boys and other state militia under the command of Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold captured it in a surprise attack. Cannons captured were transported to Boston where their deployment forced the British to abandon the city in March 1776. |
| 31 | Fountain of Time, or simply Time, is a sculpture by Lorado Taft, measuring 126 feet 10 inches (38.66 m) in length, situated at the western edge of the Midway Plaisance within Washington Park in Chicago, Illinois, in the United States. This location is in the Washington Park community area on Chicago's South Side. Inspired by Henry Austin Dobson's poem, "Paradox of Time", and with its 100 figures passing before Father Time, the work was created as a monument to the first 100 years of peace between the United States and Great Britain, resulting from the Treaty of Ghent in 1814. Although the fountain's water began running in 1920, the sculpture was not dedicated to the city until 1922. The sculpture is a contributing structure to the Washington Park United States Registered Historic District, which is a National Register of Historic Places listing. Part of a larger beautification plan for the Midway Plaisance, Time was constructed from a new type of molded, steel-reinforced concrete that was claimed to be more durable and cheaper than alternatives. It was said to be the first of any kind of finished work of art made of concrete. Before the completion of Millennium Park in 2004, it was considered the most important installation in the Chicago Park District. Time is one of several Chicago works of art funded by Benjamin Ferguson's trust fund. Time has undergone several restorations because of deterioration and decline caused by natural and urban elements. During the late 1990s and the first few years of the 21st century it underwent repairs that corrected many of the problems caused by these earlier restorations. Although extensive renovation of the sculpture was completed as recently as 2005, the supporters of Time continue to seek resources for additional lighting, and the National Trust for Historic Preservation has nominated it for further funding. In 1907, Taft had won the first commission from the Ferguson Fund to create the Fountain of the Great Lakes at the Art Institute of Chicago. Immediately afterwards, inspired by Daniel Burnham's "Make no little plans" quote, he begin lobbying for a grand Midway beautification plan. |
| 32 | The Four Stages of Cruelty is a series of four printed engravings published by English artist William Hogarth in 1751. Each print depicts a different stage in the life of the fictional Tom Nero. Beginning with the torture of a dog as a child in the First stage of cruelty, Nero progresses to beating his horse as a man in the Second stage of cruelty, and then to robbery, seduction, and murder in Cruelty in perfection. Finally, in The reward of cruelty, he receives what Hogarth warns is the inevitable fate of those who start down the path Nero has followed: his body is taken from the gallows after his execution as a murderer and is mutilated by surgeons in the anatomical theatre. The prints were intended as a form of moral instruction; Hogarth was dismayed by the routine acts of cruelty he witnessed on the streets of London. Issued on cheap paper, the prints were destined for the lower classes. The series shows a roughness of execution and a brutality that is untempered by the humorous touches common in Hogarth's other works, but which he felt was necessary to impress his message on the intended audience. Nevertheless, the pictures still carry the wealth of detail and subtle references that are characteristic of Hogarth. In common with other prints by Hogarth, such as Beer Street and Gin Lane, The Four Stages of Cruelty was issued as a warning against immoral behaviour, showing the easy path from childish thug to convicted criminal. His aim was to correct "that barbarous treatment of animals, the very sight of which renders the streets of our metropolis so distressing to every feeling mind". Hogarth loved animals, picturing himself with his pug in a self-portrait, and marking the graves of his dogs and birds at his home in Chiswick. Hogarth deliberately portrayed the subjects of the engravings with little subtlety since he meant the prints to be understood by "men of the lowest rank" when seen on the walls of workshops or taverns. |
| 33 | Four Times of the Day is a series of four paintings by English artist William Hogarth. Completed in 1736, they were reproduced as a series of four engravings published in 1738. They are humorous depictions of life in the streets of London, the vagaries of fashion, and the interactions between the rich and poor. Unlike many of Hogarth's other series, such as A Harlot's Progress, A Rake's Progress, Industry and Idleness, and The Four Stages of Cruelty, it does not depict the story of an individual, but instead focuses on the society of the city. Hogarth intended the series to be humorous rather than instructional; the pictures do not offer a judgment on whether the rich or poor are more deserving of the viewer's sympathies: while the upper and middle classes tend to provide the focus for each scene, there are fewer of the moral comparisons seen in some of his other works. The four pictures depict scenes of daily life in various locations in London as the day progresses. Morning shows a prudish spinster making her way to church in Covent Garden past the revellers of the previous night; Noon shows two cultures on opposite sides of the street in St Giles; Evening depicts a dyer's family returning hot and bothered from a trip to Sadler's Wells; and Night shows a drunken freemason staggering home from a night of celebration. Four Times of the Day was the first set of prints that Hogarth published after his two great successes, A Harlot's Progress (1732) and A Rake's Progress (1735). It was among the first of his prints to be published after the Engraving Copyright Act 1734 (which Hogarth had helped push through Parliament); A Rake's Progress had taken early advantage of the protection afforded by the new law. Unlike Harlot and Rake, the four prints in Times of the Day do not form a consecutive narrative, and none of the characters appears in more than one scene. Hogarth conceived of the series as "representing in a humorous manner, morning, noon, evening and night". |
| 34 | The Freedom Monument (Latvian: Brivibas piemineklis) is a memorial located in Riga, Latvia honoring soldiers killed during the Latvian War of Independence (1918–1920). It is considered an important symbol of the freedom, independence, and sovereignty of Latvia. Unveiled in 1935, the 42-metre (138 ft) high monument of granite, travertine, and copper often serves as the focal point of public gatherings and official ceremonies in Riga. The sculptures and bas-reliefs of the monument, arranged in thirteen groups, depict Latvian culture and history. The core of the monument is composed of tetragonal shapes on top of each other, decreasing in size towards the top, completed by a 19-metre (62 ft) high travertine column bearing the copper figure of Liberty lifting three gilded stars. The concept for the monument first emerged in the early 1920s when the Latvian Prime Minister, Zigfrids Anna Meierovics, ordered rules to be drawn up for a contest for designs of a "memorial column". After several contests the monument was finally built at the beginning of the 1930s according to the scheme "Shine like a star!" submitted by Latvian sculptor Karlis Zale. Construction works were financed by private donations. Following Soviet occupation of Latvia in 1940 Latvia was annexed by the Soviet Union and the Freedom Monument was considered for demolition, but no such move was carried out. Soviet sculptor Vera Mukhina (who was born in Riga) is sometimes credited for rescuing the monument, because she considered it to be of the high artistic value. Soviet propaganda attempted to alter the symbolic meaning of the monument to better fit with Communist ideology, but it remained a symbol of national independence to the general public. Indeed, on June 14, 1987 about 5,000 people gathered at the monument to commemorate the victims of the Soviet regime and to lay flowers. This rally renewed the national independence movement, which culminated three years later in the re-establishment of Latvian sovereignty after the fall of the Soviet regime. |
| 35 | Funerary art is any work of art forming, or placed in, a repository for the remains of the dead. Tomb is a general term for the repository, while grave goods are objects—other than the primary human remains—which have been placed inside. Such objects may include the personal possessions of the deceased, objects specially created for the burial, or miniature versions of things believed to be needed in an afterlife. Knowledge of many non-literate cultures is drawn largely from these sources. Funerary art may serve many cultural functions. It can play a role in burial rites, serve as an article for use by the dead in the afterlife, and celebrate the life and accomplishments of the dead, whether as part of kinship-centred practices of ancestor veneration or as a publicly directed dynastic display. It can also function as a reminder of the mortality of humankind, as an expression of cultural values and roles, and help to propitiate the spirits of the dead, maintaining their benevolence and preventing their unwelcome intrusion into the affairs of the living. The deposit of objects with an apparent aesthetic intention may go back to the Neanderthals over 50,000 years ago, and is found in almost all subsequent cultures—Hindu culture, which has little, is a notable exception. Many of the best-known artistic creations of past cultures—from the Egyptian pyramids and the Tutankhamun treasure to the Terracotta Army surrounding the tomb of the Qin Emperor, the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, the Sutton Hoo ship burial and the Taj Mahal—are tombs or objects found in and around them. In most instances, specialized funeral art was produced for the powerful and wealthy, although the burials of ordinary people might include simple monuments and grave goods, usually from their possessions. An important factor in the development of traditions of funerary art is the division between what was intended to be visible to visitors or the public after completion of the funeral ceremonies. |
| 36 | The Funerary Monument (or Equestrian Monument) to Sir John Hawkwood is a fresco by Paolo Uccello, commemorating English condottiero John Hawkwood, commissioned in 1436 for Florence's Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore. The fresco is an important example of art commemorating a soldier-for-hire in the Italian peninsula and is a seminal work in the development of perspective. The politics of the commissioning and recommissioning of the fresco have been analyzed and debated by historians. The fresco is often cited as a form of "Florentine propaganda" for its appropriation of a foreign soldier of fortune as a Florentine hero and for its implied promise to other condottieri of the potential rewards of serving Florence. The fresco has also been interpreted as a product of internal political competition between the Albizzi and Medici factions in Renaissance Florence, due to the latter's modification of the work's symbolism and iconography during its recommissioning. The fresco is the oldest extant and authenticated work of Uccello, from a relatively well-known aspect of his career compared to the periods before and after its creation. The fresco has been restored (once by Lorenzo di Credi, who added the frame) and is now detached from the wall; it has been repositioned twice in modern times. Hawkwood had a long military career and a complicated relationship with Florence. He fought for England during the Hundred Years War and then with the "Great Company" which harassed the Avignon Papacy. After gaining command of the "White Company" from Albert Sterz in the 1360s, Hawkwood led the company across the Alps in 1363 in the employ of John II, Marquess of Montferrat, to take part in his war against Milan. Hawkwood and the "White Company" remained in Italy, accepting money from many city-states, both to wage war and to refrain from it. Hawkwood married Donnina, the illegitimate daughter of Bernabo Visconti, in 1377. In that same year he defected to Florence. Hawkwood's 1377 massacre at Cesena during the twilight of his papal employment in the War of the Eight Saints continues to tarnish his legacy. |
| 37 | The Garden of Earthly Delights is the modern title given to a triptych painted by the Early Netherlandish master Hieronymus Bosch. It has been housed in the Museo del Prado in Madrid since 1939. Dating from between 1490 and 1510, when Bosch was about 40 or 50 years old, it is his best-known and most ambitious, complete work. It reveals the artist at the height of his powers; in no other painting does he achieve such complexity of meaning or such vivid imagery. The triptych is painted in oil on oak and is formed from a square middle panel flanked by two other oak rectangular wings that close over the center as shutters. The outer wings, when folded, show a grisaille painting of the earth during the biblical myth of Creation. The three scenes of the inner triptych are probably (but not necessarily) intended to be read chronologically from left to right. The left panel depicts God presenting Eve to Adam, the central panel is a broad panorama of sexually engaged nude figures, fantastical animals, oversized fruit and hybrid stone formations. The right panel is a hellscape and portrays the torments of damnation. Art historians and critics frequently interpret the painting as a didactic warning on the perils of life's temptations. However, the intricacy of its symbolism, particularly that of the central panel, has led to a wide range of scholarly interpretations over the centuries. Twentieth-century art historians are divided as to whether the triptych's central panel is a moral warning or a panorama of paradise lost. American writer Peter S. Beagle describes it as an "erotic derangement that turns us all into voyeurs, a place filled with the intoxicating air of perfect liberty". During his lifetime, Bosch painted three large triptychs that can be read from left to right and in which each panel was essential to the meaning of the whole. Each of these three works presents distinct yet linked themes addressing history and faith. Triptychs from this period were generally intended to be read sequentially, the left and right panels often portraying Eden and the Last Judgment respectively, while the subtext was contained in the center piece. |
| 38 | The Greece runestones (Swedish: Greklandsstenarna) are about 30 runestones containing information related to voyages made by Norsemen to the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire. They were made during the Viking Age until about 1100 and were engraved in the Old Norse language with Scandinavian runes. All the stones have been found in modern-day Sweden, the majority in Uppland (18 runestones) and Sodermanland (7 runestones). Most were inscribed in memory of members of the Varangian Guard who never returned home, but a few inscriptions mention men who returned with wealth, and a boulder in Ed was engraved on the orders of a former officer of the Guard. On these runestones the word Grikkland ("Greece") appears in three inscriptions, the word Grikk(j)ar ("Greeks") appears in 25 inscriptions, two stones refer to men as grikkfari ("traveller to Greece") and one stone refers to Grikkhafnir ("Greek harbours"). Among other runestones which refer to expeditions abroad, the only group which are comparable in number are those that mention expeditions to England, the so-called "England runestones". The stones vary in size from the small whetstone from Timans which measures 8.5 cm (3.3 in) x 4.5 cm (1.8 in) x 3.3 cm (1.3 in) to the boulder in Ed which is 18 m (59 ft) in circumference. Most of them are adorned with various runestone styles that were in use during the 11th century, and especially styles that were part of the Ringerike style (eight or nine stones) and the Urnes style (eight stones). Since the first discoveries by Johannes Bureus in the late 16th century, these runestones have been frequently identified by scholars, with many stones discovered during a national search for historic monuments in the late 17th century. Several stones were documented by Richard Dybeck in the 19th century. The last stone to be found was in Nolinge, near Stockholm, in 1952. Scandinavians had served as mercenaries in the Roman army many centuries before the Viking Age, but during the time when the stones were made, there were more contacts between Scandinavia and Byzantium than at any other time. |
| 39 | The Joan W. and Irving B. Harris Theater for Music and Dance is a 1,525-seat theater for the performing arts located along the northern edge of Millennium Park on Randolph Street in the Loop community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, US. The theater, which is largely underground due to Grant Park-related height restrictions, was named for its primary benefactors, Joan and Irving Harris. It serves as the park's indoor performing venue, a complement to Jay Pritzker Pavilion, which hosts the park's outdoor performances. Constructed in 2002–03, it provides a venue for small- and medium-sized music and dance groups, which had previously been without a permanent home and were underserved by the city's performing venue options. Among the regularly featured local groups are Joffrey Ballet, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago and Chicago Opera Theater. It provides subsidized rental, technical expertise, and marketing support for the companies using it, and turned a profit in its fourth fiscal year. The Harris Theater has hosted notable national and international performers, such as the New York City Ballet's first visit to Chicago in over 25 years (in 2006). The theater began offering subscription series of traveling performers in its 2008–09 fifth anniversary season. Performances through this series have included the San Francisco Ballet, Mikhail Baryshnikov, and Stephen Sondheim. The theater has been credited as contributing to the performing arts renaissance in Chicago, and has been favorably reviewed for its acoustics, sightlines, proscenium and for providing a home base for numerous performing organizations. Although it is seen as a high caliber venue for its music audiences, the theater is regarded as less than ideal for jazz groups because it is more expensive and larger than most places where jazz is performed. The design has been criticized for traffic flow problems, with an elevator bottleneck. However, the theater's prominent location and its underground design to preserve Millennium Park have been praised. |
| 40 | The Heian Palace was the original imperial palace of Heian-kyo (present-day Kyoto), the capital of Japan, from 794 to 1227. In Japan, this palace is called Daidairi. The palace, which served as the imperial residence and the administrative centre of Japan for most of the Heian Period (from 794 to 1185), was located at the north-central location of the city in accordance with the Chinese models used for the design of the capital. The palace consisted of a large rectangular walled enclosure, which contained several ceremonial and administrative buildings including the government ministries. Inside this enclosure was the separately walled residential compound of the emperor or the Inner Palace. In addition to the emperor's living quarters, the Inner Palace contained the residences of the imperial consorts, as well as certain official and ceremonial buildings more closely linked to the person of the emperor. The original role of the palace was to manifest the centralised government model adopted by Japan from China in the 7th century—the Daijo-kan and its subsidiary Eight Ministries. The palace was designed to provide an appropriate setting for the emperor's residence, the conduct of great affairs of state, and the accompanying ceremonies. While the residential function of the palace continued until the 12th century, the facilities built for grand state ceremonies began to fall into disuse by the 9th century. This was due to both the abandonment of several statutory ceremonies and procedures and the transfer of several remaining ceremonies into the smaller-scale setting of the Inner Palace. From the mid-Heian period, the palace suffered several fires and other disasters. During reconstructions, emperors and some of the office functions resided outside of the palace. This, along with the general loss of political power of the court, acted to further diminish the importance of the palace as the administrative centre. Finally in 1227 the palace burned down and was never rebuilt. The site was built over so that almost no trace of it remains. |
| 41 | Holkham Hall is an eighteenth-century country house located adjacent to the village of Holkham, on the north coast of the English county of Norfolk. The hall was constructed in the Palladian style for Thomas Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester (fifth creation) by the architect William Kent, aided by the architect and aristocrat Lord Burlington. Holkham Hall is one of England's finest examples of the Palladian revival style of architecture, and severity of its design is closer to Palladio's ideals than many of the other numerous Palladian style houses of the period. The Holkham estate, formerly known as Neals, had been purchased in 1609 by Sir Edward Coke, the founder of his family fortune. It is the ancestral home of the Coke family, the Earls of Leicester of Holkham. The interior of the Hall is opulently, but by the standards of the day, simply decorated and furnished. Ornament is used with such restraint that it was possible to decorate both private and state rooms in the same style, without oppressing the former. The main entrance is through the "Marble" Hall, which leads to the piano nobile, or the first floor, and state rooms. The most impressive of these rooms is the saloon, which has walls lined with red velvet. Each of the major state rooms is symmetrical; for some, false doors are necessary to achieve this effect. Holkham was built by first Earl of Leicester, Thomas Coke, who was born in 1697. A cultivated and wealthy man, Coke made the Grand Tour in his youth and was away from England for six years between 1712 and 1718. It is likely he met both Burlington—the aristocratic architect at the forefront of the Palladian revival movement in England—and William Kent in Italy in 1715, and that in the home of Palladianism the idea of the mansion at Holkham was conceived. Coke returned to England, not only with a newly acquired library, but also an art and sculpture collection with which to furnish his planned new mansion. However, after his return, he lived a feckless life, preoccupying himself with drinking, gambling and hunting, and being a leading supporter of cockfighting. |
| 42 | The Holy Thorn Reliquary was probably created in the 1390s in Paris for John, Duke of Berry, to house a relic of the Crown of Thorns. The reliquary was bequeathed to the British Museum in 1898 by Ferdinand de Rothschild as part of the Waddesdon Bequest. It is one of a small number of major goldsmiths' works or joyaux that survive from the extravagant world of the courts of the Valois royal family around 1400. It is made of gold, lavishly decorated with jewels and pearls, and uses the technique of enamelling en ronde bosse, or "in the round", to create a total of 28 three-dimensional figures, mostly in white enamel, which had been recently developed when the reliquary was made. Except at its base the reliquary is slim, with two faces; the front view shows the end of the world and the Last Judgement, with the Trinity and saints above and the resurrection of the dead below, and the relic of a single long thorn believed to come from the crown of thorns worn by Jesus when he was crucified. The rear view has less extravagant decoration, mostly in plain gold in low relief, and has doors that opened to display a flat object, now missing, which was presumably another relic. The reliquary was in the Habsburg collections from at least the 16th century until the 1860s, when it was replaced by a forgery during a restoration by an art dealer, Salomon Weininger. The fraud remained undetected until well after the original reliquary came to the British Museum. The reliquary was featured in the BBC's A History of the World in 100 Objects, in which Neil MacGregor described it as "without question one of the supreme achievements of medieval European metalwork", and is a highlight of the exhibition Treasures of Heaven: Saints, Relics, and Devotion in Medieval Europe at the British Museum from June 23 to October 2011. King Louis IX of France bought what he believed to be the authentic Crown of Thorns in Constantinople in 1239, and individual thorns were distributed as gifts by subsequent French kings. |
| 43 | House with Chimaeras or Gorodetsky House is an Art Nouveau building located in the historic Lypky neighborhood of Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. Situated across the street from the President of Ukraine's office at No. 10, Bankova Street, the building has been used as a presidential residence for official and diplomatic ceremonies since 2005. The street in front of the building is closed off to all automobile traffic, and is now a patrolled pedestrian zone due to its near proximity to the Presidential Administration building. Architect Vladislav Gorodetsky originally constructed the House with Chimaeras for use as his own upmarket apartment building during the period of 1901–1902. However, as the years went by, Gorodetsky eventually had to sell the building due to financial troubles, after which it changed ownership numerous times before finally being occupied by an official Communist Party policlinic until the early 2000s. When the building was vacated, its interior and exterior decor were fully reconstructed and restored according to Gorodetsky's original plans. The building derives its popular name from the ornate decorations depicting exotic animals and hunting scenes, which were sculpted by Italian architect Emilio Sala since Gorodetsky was an avid hunter. The name does not refer to the chimaera of mythology, but to an architectural style known as chimaera decoration in which animal figures are applied as decorative elements to a building. Gorodetsky's unique architectural style earned him praise as the Antoni Gaudi of Kiev. The House with Chimaeras was designed by the architect Vladislav Gorodetsky in 1901–1902. After finishing the Imperial Academy of Arts in Saint Petersburg in 1890, he moved to Kiev, where he lived for almost 30 years. At the time of the building's construction, Gorodetsky had already established himself as a prominent Kiev architect, having designed many city buildings, from the St. Nicholas Roman Catholic Cathedral to the Karaim Kenesa and what today is the National Art Museum of Ukraine. |
| 44 | The Hoxne Hoard is the largest hoard of late Roman silver and gold discovered in Britain, and the largest collection of gold and silver coins of the fourth and fifth century found anywhere within the Roman Empire. Found by a metal detectorist in the village of Hoxne in Suffolk, England, on 16 November 1992, the hoard consists of 14,865 Roman gold, silver and bronze coins from the late fourth and early fifth centuries, and approximately 200 items of silver tableware and gold jewellery. The objects are now in the British Museum in London, where the most important pieces and a selection of the rest are on permanent display. The hoard was buried as an oak box or small chest filled with items in precious metal, sorted mostly by type with some in smaller wooden boxes and others in bags or wrapped in fabric. Remnants of the chest, and of fittings such as hinges and locks, were recovered in the excavation. The coins of the hoard date it after AD 407, which coincides with the end of Britain as a Roman province. The owners and reasons for burial of the hoard are unknown, but it was carefully packed and the contents appear consistent with what a single very wealthy family might have owned. Given the lack of large silver serving vessels and of some of the most common types of jewellery, it is likely that the hoard represents only a part of the wealth of its owner. The Hoxne Hoard contains several rare and important objects, including a gold body-chain and silver-gilt pepper-pots (piperatoria). The Hoxne Hoard is also of particular archaeological significance because it was excavated by professional archaeologists with the items largely undisturbed and intact. The find has helped to improve the relationship between metal detectorists and archaeologists, and influenced a change in English law regarding finds of treasure. The hoard was discovered in a field of a farm, about 2.4 kilometres (1.5 mi) southwest of the village of Hoxne in Suffolk, on 16 November 1992. |
| 45 | Hoysala architecture is the building style developed under the rule of the Hoysala Empire between the 11th and 14th centuries, in the region known today as Karnataka, a state of India. Hoysala influence was at its peak in the 13th century, when it dominated the Southern Deccan Plateau region. Large and small temples built during this era remain as examples of the Hoysala architectural style, including the Chennakesava Temple at Belur, the Hoysaleswara Temple at Halebidu, and the Kesava Temple at Somanathapura. Other examples of fine Hoysala craftsmanship are the temples at Belavadi, Amruthapura, Hosaholalu, Arasikere and Nuggehalli. Study of the Hoysala architectural style has revealed a negligible Indo-Aryan influence while the impact of Southern Indian style is more distinct. The vigorous temple building activity of the Hoysala Empire was due to the social, cultural and political events of the period. The stylistic transformation of the Karnata temple building tradition reflected religious trends popularized by the Vaishnava and Virashaiva philosophers as well as the growing military prowess of the Hoysala kings who desired to surpass their Western Chalukya overlords in artistic achievement. Temples built prior to Hoysala independence in the mid-12th century reflect significant Western Chalukya influences, while later temples retain some features salient to Chalukyan art but have additional inventive decoration and ornamentation, features unique to Hoysala artisans. About one hundred temples have survived in present-day Karnataka state, mostly in the Malnad (hill) districts, the native home of the Hoysala kings. As popular tourist destinations in Karnataka, Hoysala temples offer an opportunity for pilgrims and students of architecture to examine medieval Hindu architecture in the Karnata Dravida tradition. This tradition began in the 7th century under the patronage of the Chalukya dynasty of Badami, developed further under the Western Chalukyas of Basavakalyan in the 11th century and finally transformed into an independent style by the 12th century during the reign of the Hoysalas. |
| 46 | The IG Farben Building or the Poelzig Building was built from 1928 to 1930 as the corporate headquarters of the IG Farben conglomerate in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. It is also known as the Poelzig Ensemble or Poelzig Complex, and previously as the IG Farben Complex, and the General Creighton W. Abrams Building. The building's original design was the subject of a competition which was eventually won by the architect Hans Poelzig. The building was the headquarters for research projects relating to the development of Nazi wartime synthetic oil and rubber, and the production administration of magnesium, lubricating oil, explosives, methanol, and Zyklon B, the lethal gas used in concentration camps. After WWII, the IG Farben Building served as the headquarters for the Supreme Allied Command and from 1949 to 1952 the High Commissioner for Germany (HICOG). It became the principal location for implementing the Marshall Plan, which largely financed the post-war reconstruction of Europe. The state apparatus of the Federal German Government was devised there. The IG Farben Building served as the headquarters for the US Army's V Corps and the Northern Area Command (NACOM) until 1995. The US Army renamed the building the General Creighton W. Abrams Building in 1975. The US Army returned control of the IG Farben Building to the German government in 1995. It was purchased on behalf of the University of Frankfurt by the state of Hesse, which committed 25 million to the restoration. In recognition of the original architect, the University renamed the main building the Poelzig Building (Poelzig-Bau) and its ancillary buildings and surroundings the Poelzig Complex (Poelzig Ensemble). The restoration work started in March 1998, and the formal reopening as the Poelzig-Bau was celebrated on October 26, 2001. During the ceremony a plaque was unveiled at the building's entrance to commemorate the slave labour victims of the IG Farben factory at Auschwitz III and all those murdered by Zyklon B gas. |
| 47 | Jay Pritzker Pavilion, also known as Pritzker Pavilion or Pritzker Music Pavilion, is a bandshell in Millennium Park in the Loop community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. It is located on the south side of Randolph Street and east of the Chicago Landmark Historic Michigan Boulevard District. The pavilion was named after Jay Pritzker, whose family is known for owning Hyatt Hotels. The building was designed by architect Frank Gehry, who accepted the design commission in April 1999; the pavilion was constructed between June 1999 and July 2004, opening officially on July 16, 2004. Pritzker Pavilion serves as the centerpiece for Millennium Park and is the new home of the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra and Chorus and the Grant Park Music Festival, the nation's only remaining free outdoor classical music series. It also hosts a wide range of music series and annual performing arts events. Performers ranging from mainstream rock bands to classical musicians and opera singers have appeared at the pavilion, which even hosts physical fitness activities such as yoga. All rehearsals at the pavilion are open to the public; trained guides are available for the music festival rehearsals, which are well-attended. Millennium Park is part of the larger Grant Park. The pavilion, which has a capacity of 11,000, is Grant Park's small event outdoor performing arts venue, and complements Petrillo Music Shell, the park's older and larger bandshell. Pritzker Pavilion is built partially atop the Harris Theater for Music and Dance, the park's indoor performing arts venue, with which it shares a loading dock and backstage facilities. Initially the pavilion's lawn seats were free for all concerts, but this changed when Tori Amos performed the first rock concert there on August 31, 2005. The construction of the pavilion created a legal controversy, given that there are historic limitations on the height of buildings in Grant Park. To avoid these legal restrictions, the city classifies the bandshell as a work of art rather than a building. |
| 48 | The Joseph Priestley House was the American home of 18th-century British theologian, Dissenting clergyman, natural philosopher (and discoverer of oxygen), educator, and political theorist Joseph Priestley from 1798 until his death. Located in Northumberland, Pennsylvania, the house, which was designed by Priestley's wife Mary, is Georgian with Federalist accents. The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission operated it as a museum dedicated to Joseph Priestley from 1970 to August 2009, when it closed due to low visitation and budget cuts. The house reopened in October 2009, still owned by the PHMC but operated by the Friends of Joseph Priestley House. Fleeing religious persecution and political turmoil in Britain, the Priestleys emigrated to the United States in 1794 seeking a peaceful life. Hoping to avoid the political troubles that had plagued them in Britain and the problems of urban life they saw in the United States, the Priestleys built a house in rural Pennsylvania. Nevertheless, political disputes and family troubles dogged Priestley during the last ten years of his life. After the Priestleys died, their home remained in private hands until the turn of the 20th century, when George Gilbert Pond, a professor from what is now Pennsylvania State University, bought it and attempted to found the first Priestley museum. He died before he could complete the project and it was not until the 1960s that the house was first carefully restored by the PHMC and designated a National Historic Landmark. A second renovation was undertaken in the 1990s to return the home to the way it looked during Priestley's time. The home has been a frequent place of celebration for the American Chemical Society; they commemorated the centennial and bicentennial of the discovery of oxygen gas by Priestley as well as the 250th anniversary of Priestley's birth. Following the Seven Years' War and the forced migration of Native American tribes westward, German, Scots-Irish, and other European immigrants settled in the central Susquehanna Valley, including in the area that would become Northumberland, Pennsylvania. |
| 49 | Las Meninas (Spanish for The Maids of Honour) is a 1656 painting by Diego Velazquez, the leading artist of the Spanish Golden Age, in the Museo del Prado in Madrid. The work's complex and enigmatic composition raises questions about reality and illusion, and creates an uncertain relationship between the viewer and the figures depicted. Because of these complexities, Las Meninas has been one of the most widely analysed works in Western painting. The painting shows a large room in the Madrid palace of King Philip IV of Spain, and presents several figures, most identifiable from the Spanish court, captured, according to some commentators, in a particular moment as if in a snapshot. Some look out of the canvas towards the viewer, while others interact among themselves. The young Infanta Margarita is surrounded by her entourage of maids of honour, chaperone, bodyguard, two dwarfs and a dog. Just behind them, Velazquez portrays himself working at a large canvas. Velazquez looks outwards, beyond the pictorial space to where a viewer of the painting would stand. In the background there is a mirror that reflects the upper bodies of the king and queen. They appear to be placed outside the picture space in a position similar to that of the viewer, although some scholars have speculated that their image is a reflection from the painting Velazquez is shown working on. Las Meninas has long been recognised as one of the most important paintings in Western art history. The Baroque painter Luca Giordano said that it represents the "theology of painting", while in the 19th century Sir Thomas Lawrence called the work "the philosophy of art". More recently, it has been described as "Velazquez's supreme achievement, a highly self-conscious, calculated demonstration of what painting could achieve, and perhaps the most searching comment ever made on the possibilities of the easel painting". In 17th-century Spain, painters rarely enjoyed high social status. Painting was regarded as a craft, not an art such as poetry or music. |
| 50 | The Magdalen Reading is one of three surviving fragments of a large mid-15th century oil-on-oak altarpiece by the Early Netherlandish painter Rogier van der Weyden. Completed some time between 1435 and 1438, it has been in the National Gallery, London since 1860. It shows a woman with the pale skin, high cheek bones and oval eyelids typical of the idealised portraits of noble women of the period. The woman is identifiable as the Magdalen from the jar of ointment placed in the foreground, which is her traditional attribute in Christian art. She is presented as completely absorbed in her reading, a model of the contemplative life, repentant and absolved of past sins. In Catholic tradition the Magdalen was conflated with both Mary of Bethany who annointed the feet of Jesus with oil and the unnamed "sinner" of Luke 7:36–50. Iconography of the Magdalen commonly shows her with a book, in a moment of reflection, in tears, or with eyes averted. Van der Weyden pays close attention to detail in many passages, in particular the folds and cloth of the woman's dress, the rock crystal of the rosary beads held by the figure standing over her, and the lushness of the exterior. The background of the painting had been overpainted with a thick layer of brown paint. A cleaning between 1955 and 1956 revealed the figure standing behind the Magdalen and the kneeling figure with bare foot protruding in front of her, with a landscape visible through a window. The two partially seen figures are both cut off at the edges of the London panel. The figure above her has been identified as belonging to a fragment in the Museu Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon, which shows the head of Saint Joseph, while another Lisbon fragment, showing what is believed to be Saint Catherine of Alexandria, is thought to be from the same larger work. The original altarpiece was a sacra conversazione, known only through a drawing, Virgin and Child with Saints, in Stockholm's Nationalmuseum, which followed a partial copy of the painting that probably dated from the late 1500s. |
| 51 | Maiden Castle is an Iron Age hill fort 2.5 kilometres south west of Dorchester, in the English county of Dorset. Hill forts were fortified hill-top settlements constructed across Britain during the Iron Age. The name Maiden Castle may be a modern construction meaning that the hill fort looks impregnable, or it could derive from the British Celtic mai-dun, meaning a "great hill." The earliest archaeological evidence of human activity on the site consists of a Neolithic causewayed enclosure and bank barrow. In about 1800 BC, during the Bronze Age, the site was used for growing crops before being abandoned. Maiden Castle itself was built in about 600 BC; the early phase was a simple and unremarkable site, similar to many other hill forts in Britain and covering 6.4 hectares (16 acres). Around 450 BC it underwent major expansion, during which the enclosed area was nearly tripled in size to 19 ha (47 acres), making it the largest hill fort in Britain and by some definitions the largest in Europe. At the same time, Maiden Castle's defences were made more complex with the addition of further ramparts and ditches. Around 100 BC habitation at the hill fort went into decline and became focused at the eastern end of the site. It was occupied until at least the Roman period, by which time it was in the territory of the Durotriges, a Celtic tribe. After the Roman conquest of Britain in the 1st century AD, Maiden Castle appears to have been abandoned, although the Romans may have had a military presence on the site. In the late 4th century AD, a temple and ancillary buildings were constructed. In the 6th century AD the hill top was entirely abandoned and was used only for agriculture during the medieval period. Maiden Castle has provided inspiration for composer John Ireland and authors Thomas Hardy and John Cowper Powys. The study of hill forts was popularised in the 19th century by archaeologist Augustus Pitt Rivers. In the 1930s, archaeologist Mortimer Wheeler undertook the first archaeological excavations at Maiden Castle, raising its profile among the public. |
| 52 | The Mary Rose was a carrack-type warship of the English Tudor navy of King Henry VIII. After serving for 33 years in several wars against France, Scotland, and Brittany and after being substantially rebuilt in 1536, she saw her last action on 19 July 1545. While leading the attack on the galleys of a French invasion fleet, she sank in the Solent, the straits north of the Isle of Wight. The wreck of the Mary Rose was rediscovered in 1971 and salvaged in 1982 by the Mary Rose Trust in one of the most complex and expensive projects in the history of maritime archaeology. The surviving section of the ship and thousands of recovered artefacts are of immeasurable value as a Tudor-era time capsule. The excavation and salvage of the Mary Rose was a milestone in the field of maritime archaeology, comparable in complexity and cost only to the raising of the Swedish 17th-century warship Vasa in 1961. The finds include weapons, sailing equipment, naval supplies and a wide array of objects used by the crew. Many of the artefacts are unique to the Mary Rose and have provided insights into topics ranging from naval warfare to the history of musical instruments. Since the mid-1980s, while undergoing conservation, the remains of the hull have been on display at the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard. An extensive collection of well-preserved artefacts is on display at the nearby Mary Rose Museum. The Mary Rose had no known career as a merchant vessel. She was one of the largest ships in the English navy throughout more than three decades of intermittent war and was one of the earliest examples of a purpose-built sailing warship. She was armed with new types of heavy guns that could fire through the recently invented gun-ports. After being substantially rebuilt in 1536, she was also one of the earliest ships that could fire a broadside, although the line of battle tactics that employed it had not yet been developed. Several theories have sought to explain the demise of the Mary Rose, based on historical records, knowledge of 16th-century shipbuilding and modern experiments. |
| 53 | Maya stelae (singular stela) are monuments that were fashioned by the Maya civilization of ancient Mesoamerica. They consist of tall sculpted stone shafts and are often associated with low circular stones referred to as altars, although their actual function is uncertain. Many stelae were sculpted in low relief, although plain monuments are found throughout the Maya region. The sculpting of these monuments spread throughout the Maya area during the Classic Period, and these pairings of sculpted stelae and circular altars are considered a hallmark of Classic Maya civilization. The earliest dated stela to have been found in situ in the Maya lowlands was recovered from the great city of Tikal in Guatemala. During the Classic Period almost every Maya kingdom in the southern lowlands raised stelae in its ceremonial centre. Stelae became closely associated with the concept of divine kingship and declined at the same time as this institution. The production of stelae by the Maya had its origin around 400 BC and continued through to the end of the Classic Period, around 900, although some monuments were reused in the Postclassic. The major city of Calakmul in Mexico raised the greatest number of stelae known from any Maya city, at least 166, although they are very poorly preserved. Hundreds of stelae have been recorded in the Maya region, displaying a wide stylistic variation. Many are upright slabs of limestone sculpted on one or more faces, with available surfaces sculpted with figures carved in relief and with hieroglyphic text. Stelae in a few sites display a much more three dimensional appearance where locally available stone permits, such as at Copan and Tonina. Plain stelae do not appear to have been painted nor overlaid with stucco decoration, but most Maya stelae were probably brightly painted in red, yellow, black, blue and other colours. Stelae were essentially stone banners raised to glorify the king and record his deeds, although the earliest examples depict mythological scenes. |
| 54 | McCormick Tribune Plaza & Ice Rink or McCormick Tribune Plaza is a multi-purpose venue within Millennium Park in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois, in the United States. On December 20, 2001, it became the first attraction in Millennium Park to open. The $3.2 million plaza was funded by a donation from the McCormick Tribune Foundation. It has served as an ice skating rink, a dining facility and briefly as an open-air exhibition space. The plaza operates as McCormick Tribune Ice Rink, a free public outdoor ice skating rink that is generally open four months a year, from mid-November until mid-March, when it hosts over 100,000 skaters annually. It is known as one of Chicago's better outdoor people-watching locations during the winter months. It is operated by the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs rather than the Chicago Park District, which operates most major public ice skating rinks in Chicago. For the rest of the year, it serves as Plaza at Park Grill or Park Grill Plaza, Chicago's largest outdoor dining facility. The 150-seat park grill hosts various culinary events as well as music during its months of outdoor operation, and it is affiliated with the 300-seat indoor Park Grill restaurant located beneath AT&T Plaza and Cloud Gate. The outdoor restaurant offers scenic views of the park. Lying between Lake Michigan to the east and the Loop to the west, Grant Park has been Chicago's front yard since the mid-19th century. Its northwest corner, north of Monroe Street and the Art Institute, east of Michigan Avenue, south of Randolph Street, and west of Columbus Drive, had been Illinois Central rail yards and parking lots until 1997, when it was made available for development by the city as Millennium Park. As of 2007, Millennium Park, which is located in the northwest corner of Grant Park, trails only Navy Pier as a Chicago tourist attraction. The earliest plans for Millennium Park were unveiled by Chicago's mayor, Richard M. Daley, in March 1998 and included "a reflecting pool that would double as a skating rink in winter". |
| 55 | The Michigan State Capitol is the building housing the legislative and executive branches of the government of the U.S. state of Michigan. It is located in the state capital of Lansing in Ingham County. The present structure, at the intersection of Capitol and Michigan Avenues, is a National Historic Landmark that currently houses the chambers and offices of the Michigan Legislature as well as the ceremonial offices of the Governor of Michigan and Lieutenant Governor. Historically, this is the third building to house the Michigan government. The first state capitol was located in Detroit, the original capital of Michigan, and was relocated to Lansing in 1847, due to the need to develop the western portions of the state and for easy defense from British troops stationed in Windsor, Ontario. The present capitol building, preceded by a temporary wood frame structure, was dedicated in January 1879, and is designed in a Neoclassical style, more specifically the Italianate style. The capitol was rededicated in 1992 after a three-year restoration project. On July 13, 1787, the Second Continental Congress passed the Northwest Ordinance, creating the Northwest Territory which included Michigan. In 1805, the U.S. Congress created the Michigan Territory. Michigan first applied for statehood as early as 1832, though it was rebuffed due to a dispute with Ohio over the Toledo Strip, a 468-square mile area that included the important port city of Toledo. By 1835, Michigan had formed a state government without receiving authorization from Congress to do so. The boundaries of the state included the contested area. The dispute culminated in what has become known as the Toledo War, as Michigan and Ohio militia took up arms in the area. As a condition for entering the Union, Michigan was forced to accept the western three quarters of the Upper Peninsula in exchange for ceding its claim to the Toledo Strip. After a state convention first rejected this condition, a second convention, assembled under some duress in December 1836, reluctantly accepted the terms and Michigan became the 26th state on January 26, 1837, with Detroit as its first capital. |
| 56 | Millennium Park is a public park located in the Loop community area of Chicago in Illinois, USA and originally intended to celebrate the millennium. It is a prominent civic center near the city's Lake Michigan shoreline that covers a 24.5-acre section of northwestern Grant Park. The area was previously occupied by parkland, Illinois Central rail yards, and parking lots. The park, which is bounded by Michigan Avenue, Randolph Street, Columbus Drive and East Monroe Drive, features a variety of public art. As of 2009, Millennium Park trailed only Navy Pier as a Chicago tourist attraction. Planning of the park began in October 1997. Construction began in October 1998, and Millennium Park was opened in a ceremony on July 16, 2004, four years behind schedule. The three-day opening celebrations were attended by some 300,000 people and included an inaugural concert by the Grant Park Orchestra and Chorus. The park has received awards for its accessibility and green design. Millennium Park has free admission, and features the Jay Pritzker Pavilion, Cloud Gate, the Crown Fountain, the Lurie Garden, and various other attractions. The park is connected by the BP Pedestrian Bridge and the Nichols Bridgeway to other parts of Grant Park. Because the park sits atop a parking garage and the commuter rail Millennium Station, it is considered the world's largest rooftop garden. Some observers consider Millennium Park to be the city's most important project since the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893. It far exceeded its originally proposed budget of 150 million. The final cost of 475 million was borne by Chicago taxpayers and private donors. The city paid 270 million; private donors paid the rest, and assumed roughly half of the financial responsibility for the cost overruns. The construction delays and cost overruns were attributed to poor planning, many design changes, and cronyism. Many critics have praised the completed park. From 1852 until 1997, the Illinois Central Railroad owned a right of way between downtown Chicago and Lake Michigan, in the area that became Grant Park and used it for railroad tracks. |
| 57 | The Monadnock Building, is a skyscraper located at 53 West Jackson Boulevard in the south Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois. The north half of the building was designed by the firm of Burnham & Root and built in 1891. The tallest commercial load-bearing masonry building ever constructed, it employed the first portal system of wind bracing in America. Its decorative staircases represent the first use of aluminum in building construction. The south half, constructed in 1893, was designed by by Holabird & Roche and is similar in color and profile to the original, but the design is more traditionally ornate. When completed, it was the largest office building in the world. The success of the building was the catalyst for an important new business center at the southern end of the Loop. The building was remodelled in 1938 in one of the first major skyscraper renovations ever undertaken—a bid, in part, to revolutionize how building maintenance was done and halt the demolition of Chicago's aging skyscrapers. It was sold in 1979 to owners who restored the building to its original condition, in one of the most comprehensive skyscraper restorations attempted as of 1992. The project was recognized as one of the top restoration projects in the country by the National Trust for Historic Preservation in 1987. The building is divided into offices from 250 square feet to 6,000 square feet in size, and primarily serves independent professional firms. It was listed for sale in 2007. The north half is an unornamented vertical mass of purple-brown brick, flaring gently out at the base and top, with vertically continuous bay windows projecting out. The south half is vertically divided by brickwork at the base and rises to a large copper cornice at the roof. Projecting window bays in both halves allow large exposures of glass, giving the building an open appearance despite its mass. The Monadnock is part of the Printing House Row District, which also includes the Fisher Building, the Manhattan Building, and the Old Colony Building. |
| 58 | The Museum of Bad Art (MOBA) is a privately owned museum whose stated aim is "to celebrate the labor of artists whose work would be displayed and appreciated in no other forum". It has two branches, one in Dedham, Massachusetts, and the other in nearby Somerville. Its permanent collection includes 500 pieces of "art too bad to be ignored", 25 to 35 of which are on public display at any one time. MOBA was founded in 1994, after antique dealer Scott Wilson showed a painting he had recovered from the trash to some friends, who suggested starting a collection. Within a year, receptions held in Wilson's friends' home were so well-attended that the collection required its own viewing space. The museum moved to the basement of a theater in Dedham. Explaining the reasoning behind the museum's establishment, co-founder Jerry Reilly said in 1995: "While every city in the world has at least one museum dedicated to the best of art, MOBA is the only museum dedicated to collecting and exhibiting the worst." To be included in MOBA's collection, works must be original and have serious intent, but they must also have significant flaws without being boring; curators are not interested in displaying deliberate kitsch. MOBA has been mentioned in dozens of off-the-beaten-path guides to Boston, featured in international newspapers and magazines, and has inspired several other collections throughout the world that set out to rival its own visual atrocities. Deborah Solomon of The New York Times Magazine noted that the attention the Museum of Bad Art receives is part of a wider trend of museums displaying "the best bad art". The museum has been criticized for being anti-art, but the founders deny this, responding that its collection is a tribute to the sincerity of the artists who persevered with their art despite something going horribly wrong in the process. According to co-founder Marie Jackson, "We are here to celebrate an artist's right to fail, gloriously." |
| 59 | Norton Priory is a historic site in Norton, Runcorn, Cheshire, England, comprising the remains of an abbey complex dating from the 12th to 16th centuries, and an 18th-century country house; it is now a museum. The remains are a scheduled ancient monument and have been designated by English Heritage as a Grade I listed building. They are considered to be the most important monastic remains in Cheshire. The priory was established as an Augustinian foundation in the 12th century, and was raised to the status of an abbey in 1391. The abbey was closed in 1536, as part of the dissolution of the monasteries. Nine years later the surviving structures, together with the manor of Norton, were purchased by Sir Richard Brooke, who built a Tudor house on the site, incorporating part of the abbey. This was replaced in the 18th century by a Georgian house. The Brooke family left the house in 1921, and it was partially demolished in 1928. In 1966 the site was given in trust for the use of the general public. Excavation of the site began in 1971, and became the largest to be carried out by modern methods on any European monastic site. It revealed the foundations and lower parts of the walls of the monastery buildings and the abbey church. Important finds included: a Norman doorway; a finely carved arcade; a floor of mosaic tiles, the largest floor area of this type to be found in any modern excavation; the remains of the kiln where the tiles were fired; a bell pit used for casting the bell; and a large medieval statue of Saint Christopher. The site was opened to the public in the 1970s. It includes a museum, the excavated ruins, and the surrounding garden and woodland. In 1984 the separate walled garden was redesigned and opened to the public. Norton Priory is now a visitor attraction, and the museum trust organises a programme of events, exhibitions, educational courses, and outreach projects. In 1115 a community of Augustinian canons was founded in the burh of Runcorn by William fitz Nigel, the second Baron of Halton and Constable of Chester, on the south bank of the River Mersey where it narrows to form the Runcorn Gap. |
| 60 | The Oregon State Capitol is the building housing the state legislature and the offices of the governor, secretary of state, and treasurer of the U.S. state of Oregon. It is located in the state capital, Salem. The current building, constructed from 1936 to 1938, and expanded in 1977, is the third to house the Oregon state government in Salem. Two former capitol buildings were destroyed by fire, one in 1855 and the other in 1935. New York architects Trowbridge & Livingston conceived the current structure's Art Deco design, in association with Francis Keally. Much of the interior and exterior is made of marble. The Oregon State Capitol was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988. The Public Works Administration, part of the U.S. government, partially financed construction, which was completed during the Great Depression, in 1938. The building was erected at a cost of 2.5 million for the central portion of the building, which includes a dome of 166 feet (51 m). The wings, which doubled the floor space of the building to about 233,750 square feet (21,716 m2), were added later for 12.5 million. The grounds outside the capitol building contain artwork, fountains, and flora, including the state tree (Douglas-fir) and state flower (Oregon-grape). Before the creation of the Oregon Territory in 1848, the Oregon Country provisional government, through legislation on June 27, 1844 and December 19, 1845, selected Oregon City as the capital. Thus Oregon's first capitol was in Oregon City. One of the private buildings used by this government was constructed by John L. Morrison in 1850; it served as a capitol until the government moved to Salem. The designation of Oregon City as the seat of power was by proclamation of Governor Joseph Lane. In 1850, the legislature passed an act designating Salem the capital. However, Governor John P. Gaines refused to relocate and remained in Oregon City along with the Oregon Supreme Court (except justice Orville C. Pratt) until an act of Congress on May 14, 1852 settled the matter in Salem's favor. |
| 61 | The Palazzo Pitti, in English sometimes called the Pitti Palace, is a vast mainly Renaissance palace in Florence, Italy. It is situated on the south side of the River Arno, a short distance from the Ponte Vecchio. The core of the present palazzo dates from 1458 and was originally the town residence of Luca Pitti, an ambitious Florentine banker. The palace was bought by the Medici family in 1549 and became the chief residence of the ruling families of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. It grew as a great treasure house as later generations amassed paintings, plates, jewelry and luxurious possessions. In the late 18th century, the palazzo was used as a power base by Napoleon, and later served for a brief period as the principal royal palace of the newly united Italy. The palace and its contents were donated to the Italian people by King Victor Emmanuel III in 1919, and its doors were opened to the public as one of Florence's largest art galleries. Today, it houses several minor collections in addition to those of the Medici family, and is fully open to the public. The construction of this severe and forbidding building was commissioned in 1458 by the Florentine banker Luca Pitti, a principal supporter and friend of Cosimo de' Medici. The early history of the Palazzo Pitti is a mixture of fact and myth. Pitti is alleged to have instructed that the windows be larger than the entrance of the Palazzo Medici. The 16th-century art historian Giorgio Vasari proposed that Brunelleschi was the palazzo's architect, and that his pupil Luca Fancelli was merely his assistant in the task but today it is Fancelli that is generally credited. Besides obvious differences from the elder architect's style, Brunelleschi died 12 years before construction of the palazzo began. The design and fenestration suggest that the unknown architect was more experienced in utilitarian domestic architecture than in the humanist rules defined by Alberti in his book De Re Aedificatoria. |
| 62 | Palladian architecture is a European style of architecture derived from the designs of the Venetian architect Andrea Palladio (1508–1580). The term "Palladian" normally refers to buildings in a style inspired by Palladio's own work; that which is recognised as Palladian architecture today is an evolution of Palladio's original concepts. Palladio's work was strongly based on the symmetry, perspective and values of the formal classical temple architecture of the Ancient Greeks and Romans. From the 17th century Palladio's interpretation of this classical architecture was adapted as the style known as Palladianism. It continued to develop until the end of the 18th century. Palladianism became popular briefly in Britain during the mid-17th century. In the early 18th century it returned to fashion, not only in England but also, directly influenced from Britain, in Prussia. Count Francesco Algarotti may have written to Burlington from Berlin that he was recommending to Frederick the Great the adoption in Prussia of the architectural style Burlington had introduced in England but Knobelsdorff's opera house on the Unter den Linden, based on Campbell's Wanstead House, had been constructed from 1741. Later in the century, when the style was falling from favour in Europe, it had a surge in popularity throughout the British colonies in North America, highlighted by examples such as Drayton Hall in South Carolina, the Redwood Library in Newport, Rhode Island, the Morris-Jumel Mansion in New York City and Thomas Jefferson's Monticello and Poplar Forest in Virginia. The style continued to be popular in Europe throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, where it was frequently employed in the design of public and municipal buildings. From the latter half of the 19th century it was rivalled by the Gothic revival, whose champions, such as Augustus Pugin, remembering the origins of Palladianism in ancient temples, deemed it too pagan for Protestant and Anglo-Catholic worship. However, as an architectural style it has continued to be popular and to evolve; |
| 63 | The Pennsylvania State Capitol is the seat of government for the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and is in downtown Harrisburg. It was designed in 1902 in a Beaux-Arts style with Renaissance themes throughout. The capitol houses the chambers for the Pennsylvania General Assembly, made up of the House of Representatives and the Senate, and the Harrisburg chambers for the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, as well as the offices of the Governor and the Lieutenant Governor. It is also the main building of the Pennsylvania State Capitol Complex. The seat of government for the state was originally in Philadelphia, then was relocated to Lancaster in 1799 and finally to Harrisburg in 1812. The current capitol, known as the Huston Capitol, is the third state capitol building to be built in Harrisburg. The first, the Hills Capitol, was destroyed in 1897 by a fire and the second, the Cobb Capitol, was left unfinished when funding was discontinued in 1899. Joseph Miller Huston designed the current capitol, dedicated in 1906. After its completion, the capitol project was the subject of a graft scandal. The construction and subsequent furnishing cost three times more than the General Assembly had appropriated for the project. Huston and four others were convicted of graft in relation to costs of the total project. The capitol is often referred to as a "palace of art" because of its many sculptures, murals and stained-glass windows, most of which use Pennsylvania themes or were made by Pennsylvanians. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977 and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2006. Starting in 1982, the restoration of the capitol has been ongoing. William Penn formed the first government of the then-Province of Pennsylvania on October 28, 1682, in Chester, Pennsylvania. The government did not have a regular meeting place and often met in Quaker meeting houses or at private residences in Philadelphia. Pennsylvania's first state house, now known as Independence Hall, was built in Philadelphia starting in 1732 and was completed in 1753. |
| 64 | Peveril Castle (also Castleton Castle or Peak Castle) is a medieval building overlooking the village of Castleton in the English county of Derbyshire. Its site provides views across the Hope Valley and Cave Dale. The castle is named after its founder, William Peveril, who held lands in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire on behalf of the king. It was built some time between the Norman Conquest in 1066 and its first recorded mention in 1086, in the Domesday Survey. Nearby Castleton benefited from the presence of the castle, which acted as the administrative centre of an independent lordship called Peak. The town became the economic centre of the lordship. William Peveril the Younger inherited his father's estates; however, they were confiscated by King Henry II in 1155. While in royal possession, Henry visited the castle in 1157, 1158, and 1164, the first time hosting King Malcolm IV of Scotland. During the Revolt of 1173–1174, the castle's garrison was increased from a porter and two watchmen to a force led by 20 knights shared with the castles of Bolsover and Nottingham. The Earls of Derby had a claim to the Peveril family's estates through marriage, and in 1199 William de Ferrers, the fourth earl, paid 2000 marks for the Peak lordship although the castle remained in royal control. The closest Peveril Castle came to seeing battle was in 1216 when King John gave the castle to William de Ferrers, but the castellan refused to relinquish control. Although they were both John's supporters, the king authorised the earl to use force to evict the castellan; eventually he capitulated although there is no evidence that the castle was assaulted. In 1223 the castle returned to the Crown. In the 13th century there were periods of building work at the castle, and by 1300 Peveril's final form had been established. Towards the end of the 14th century, the lordship was granted to John of Gaunt. Having little use for the castle, he ordered some of its material to be stripped out for reuse, marking the beginning of its decline. |
| 65 | Portrait of a Lady (or Portrait of a Woman) is a small oil-on-oak panel painting executed around 1460 by the Netherlandish painter Rogier van der Weyden. The composition is built from the geometric shapes that form the lines of the woman's veil, neckline, face and arms, and by the fall of the light that illuminates her face and headdress. The vivid contrasts of darkness and light enhance the almost unnatural beauty and Gothic elegance of the model. Van der Weyden was preoccupied by commissioned portraiture towards the end of his life and was highly regarded by later generations of painters for his penetrating evocations of character. In this work, the woman's humility and reserved demeanour are conveyed through her fragile physique, lowered eyes and tightly grasped fingers. She is slender and depicted according to the Gothic ideal of elongated features, indicated by her narrow shoulders, tightly pinned hair, long forehead and the elaborate frame set by the headdress. It is the only known portrait of a woman signed by van der Weyden, yet the sitter's name is not recorded and he did not title the work. Although van der Weyden did not adhere to the conventions of idealisation, he generally sought to flatter his sitters. He depicted his models in highly fashionable clothing, often with rounded—almost sculpted—facial features, some of which deviated from natural representation. He adapted his own aesthetic, and his portraits of women often bear a striking resemblance to each other. The painting has been held by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. since donated in 1937. It has been described as "famous among all portraits of women of all schools". The woman, who is probably in her late teens or early twenties, is shown half-length and in three-quarters profile, set against a two-dimensional interior background of deep blue-green. The background is flat and lacks the attention to detail common in van der Weyden's devotional works. |
| 66 | The Prince's Palace of Monaco is the official residence of the Prince of Monaco. Built in 1191 as a Genoese fortress, during its long and often dramatic history it has been bombarded and besieged by many foreign powers. Since the end of the 13th century, it has been the stronghold and home of the Grimaldi family who first captured it in 1297. The Grimaldi ruled the area first as feudal lords, and from the 17th century as sovereign princes, but their power was often derived from fragile agreements with their larger and stronger neighbours. Thus while other European sovereigns were building luxurious, modern Renaissance and Baroque palaces, politics and common sense demanded that the palace of the Monegasque rulers be fortified. This unique requirement, at such a late stage in history, has made the palace at Monaco one of the most unusual in Europe. Ironically, when its fortifications were finally relaxed during the late 18th century, it was seized by the French and stripped of its treasures, and fell into decline, while the Grimaldi were exiled for over 20 years. The Grimaldi's occupation of their palace is also unusual because, unlike other European ruling families, the absence of alternative palaces and land shortages have resulted in their use of the same residence for more than seven centuries. Thus, their fortunes and politics are directly reflected in the evolution of the palace. Whereas the Romanovs, Bourbons, and Habsburgs could, and frequently did, build completely new palaces, the most the Grimaldi could achieve when enjoying good fortune, or desirous of change, was to build a new tower or wing, or, as they did more frequently, rebuild an existing part of the palace. Thus, the Prince's Palace reflects the history not only of Monaco, but of the family which in 1997 celebrated 700 years of rule from the same palace. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, the palace and its owners became symbols of the slightly risque glamour and decadence that were associated with Monte Carlo and the French Riviera. |
| 67 | The Queluz National Palace is a Portuguese 18th-century palace located at Queluz, a freguesia of the modern-day Sintra Municipality, in the Lisbon District. One of the last great Rococo buildings to be designed in Europe, the palace was conceived as a summer retreat for Dom Pedro of Braganza, later to become husband and then king consort to his own niece, Queen Maria I. It served as a discreet place of incarceration for Queen Maria as her descent into madness continued in the years following Dom Pedro's death in 1786. Following the destruction by fire of the Ajuda Palace in 1794, Queluz Palace became the official residence of the Portuguese prince regent, John VI, and his family and remained so until the Royal Family fled to Brazil in 1807 following the French invasion of Portugal. Work on the palace began in 1747 under the architect Mateus Vicente de Oliveira. Despite being far smaller, the palace is often referred to as the Portuguese Versailles. From 1826, the palace slowly fell from favour with the Portuguese sovereigns. In 1908, it became the property of the state. Following a serious fire in 1934, which gutted the interior, the palace was extensively restored, and today is open to the public as a major tourist attraction. One wing of the palace, the Pavilion of Dona Maria, built between 1785 and 1792 by the architect Manuel Caetano de Sousa, is now a guest house allocated to foreign heads of state visiting Portugal. Queluz's architecture is representative of the final extravagant period of Portuguese culture that followed the discovery of Brazilian gold in 1690. From the beginning of the 18th century many foreign artists and architects were employed in Portugal to satisfy the needs of the newly enriched aristocracy; they brought with them classical ideas of architecture which derived from the Renaissance. In its design, Queluz is a revolt against the earlier, heavier, Italian-influenced Baroque which preceded the Rococo style throughout Europe. |
| 68 | The Rokeby Venus is a painting by Diego Velazquez (1599–1660), the leading artist of the Spanish Golden Age. Completed between 1647 and 1651, and probably painted during the artist's visit to Italy, the work depicts the goddess Venus in a sensual pose, lying on a bed and looking into a mirror held by the Roman god of physical love, her son Cupid. The painting is in the National Gallery, London. Numerous works, from the ancient to the baroque, have been cited as sources of inspiration for Velazquez. The nude Venuses of the Italian painters, such as Giorgione's Sleeping Venus (c. 1510) and Titian's Venus of Urbino (1538), were the main precedents. In this work, Velazquez combined two established poses for Venus: recumbent on a couch or a bed, and gazing at a mirror. She is often described as looking at herself on the mirror, although this is physically impossible since viewers can see her face reflected in their direction. This phenomenon is known as the Venus effect. In a number of ways the painting represents a pictorial departure, through its central use of a mirror, and because it shows the body of Venus turned away from the observer of the painting. The Rokeby Venus is the only surviving female nude by Velazquez. Nudes were extremely rare in seventeenth-century Spanish art, which was policed actively by members of the Spanish Inquisition. Despite this, nudes by foreign artists were keenly collected by the court circle, and this painting was hung in the houses of Spanish courtiers until 1813, when it was brought to England to hang in Rokeby Park, Yorkshire. In 1906, the painting was purchased by National Art Collections Fund for the National Gallery, London. Although it was attacked and badly damaged in 1914 by the suffragette Mary Richardson, it soon was fully restored and returned to display. Venus gazes into a mirror held by Cupid, who is without his usual bow and arrows. When the work was first inventoried, it was described as "a nude woman", probably owing to its controversial nature. Venus looks outward at the viewer of the painting through her reflected image in the mirror. |
| 69 | Rochester Castle stands on the east bank of the River Medway in Rochester, Kent, England. The 12th-century keep or stone tower, which is the castle's most prominent feature, is one of the best preserved in England or France. Located along the River Medway and Watling Street, Rochester was a strategically important royal castle. During the medieval period it helped protect England's south-east coast from invasion. The first castle at Rochester was founded in the aftermath of the Norman Conquest. It was given to Bishop Odo by his half-brother, William the Conqueror. During the Rebellion of 1088 over the succession to the English throne, Odo supported Robert Curthose, the Conqueror's eldest son, against William Rufus. It was during this conflict that the castle first saw military action; the city and castle were besieged after Odo made Rochester a headquarters for the rebellion. After the garrison capitulated, this first castle was abandoned. Between 1087 and 1089 the king asked Gundulf, Bishop of Rochester, to build a new stone castle at Rochester. He established the current extent of the castle. Though much altered through the centuries, some parts of Gundulf's work survive. In 1127 King Henry I granted the castle to the Bishops of Canterbury in perpetuity. William de Corbeil built the massive keep that still dominates the castle today. Throughout the 12th century the castle remained in the custody of the archbishops. During the First Barons' War (1215–1217) in King John's reign, baronial forces captured the castle from Archbishop Stephen Langton and held it against the king. The siege that followed was one of the largest in England up to that point. After resisting for just over seven weeks, the garrison surrendered. Although the castle had been greatly damaged, with breaches in the outer walls and one corner of the keep collapsed, it was hunger that eventually forced their hand. The castle did not stay under John's control for long and in 1216 it was captured by the French Prince Louis who was the new leader of the baronial faction. |
| 70 | The restoration of the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel was one of the most significant art restorations of the 20th century. The Sistine Chapel was built by Pope Sixtus IV within the Vatican immediately to the north of St. Peter's Basilica and completed in about 1481. Its walls were decorated by a number of Renaissance painters who were among the most highly-regarded artists of late 15th century Italy, including Ghirlandaio, Perugino, and Botticelli. The Chapel was further enhanced under Pope Julius II by the painting of the ceiling by Michelangelo between 1508 and 1512 and by the painting of the Last Judgment, commissioned by Pope Clement VII and completed in 1541, again by Michelangelo. The tapestries on the lowest tier, today best known from the Raphael Cartoons (painted designs) of 1515–16, completed the ensemble. Together the paintings make up the greatest pictorial scheme of the Renaissance. Individually, some of Michelangelo's paintings on the ceiling are among the most notable works of western art ever created. The frescoes of the Sistine Chapel and in particular the ceiling and accompanying lunettes by Michelangelo have been subject to a number of restorations, the most recent taking place between 1980 and 1994. This most recent restoration had a profound effect on art lovers and historians, as colours and details that had not been seen for centuries were revealed. It has been claimed that as a result "Every book on Michelangelo will have to be rewritten". Others, such as the art historian James Beck of ArtWatch International, have been extremely critical of the restoration, saying that the restorers have not realised the true intentions of the artist. This is the subject of continuing debate.The frescoes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel had a number of interventions prior to the restoration process which was started in 1980. Initial problems with the ceiling appear to have been caused by water penetrating through the floor above. In about 1547 Paolo Giovio wrote that the ceiling was being damaged by saltpetre and cracks. |
| 71 | The Raft of the Medusa is an oil painting of 1818–1819 by the French Romantic painter and lithographer Theodore Gericault (1791–1824). Completed when the artist was 27, the work has become an icon of French Romanticism. At 491 cm x 716 cm, it is an over-life-size painting that depicts a moment from the aftermath of the wreck of the French naval frigate Meduse, which ran aground off the coast of today's Mauritania on July 5, 1816. At least 147 people were set adrift on a hurriedly constructed raft; all but 15 died in the 13 days before their rescue, and those who survived endured starvation, dehydration, cannibalism and madness. The event became an international scandal, in part because its cause was widely attributed to the incompetence of the French captain perceived to be acting under the authority of the recently restored French monarchy. In reality, King Louis XVIII had no say in the captain's appointment, since, then as now, monarchs were not directly involved in appointments made to vessels like a naval frigate. The vicomte de Chaumareys' appointment as captain of the Meduse would have been a routine naval appointment, made within the Ministry of the Navy. In choosing the tragedy as subject matter for his first major work—an uncommissioned depiction of an event from recent history—Gericault consciously selected a well-known incident that would generate great public interest and help launch his career. The event fascinated the young artist, and before he began work on the final painting, he undertook extensive research and produced many preparatory sketches. He interviewed two of the survivors, and constructed a detailed scale model of the raft. His efforts took him to morgues and hospitals where he could view, first-hand, the colour and texture of the flesh of the dying and dead. As the artist had anticipated, the painting proved highly controversial at its first appearance in the 1819 Paris Salon, attracting passionate praise and condemnation in equal measure. However, it established his international reputation, and today is widely seen as seminal in the early history of the Romantic movement in French painting. |
| 72 | Quirigua is an ancient Maya archaeological site in the department of Izabal in south-eastern Guatemala. It is a medium-sized site covering approximately 3 square kilometres (1.2 sq mi) along the lower Motagua River, with the ceremonial center about 1 km (0.6 mi) from the north bank. During the Maya Classic Period, Quirigua was situated at the juncture of several important trade routes. The site was occupied by 200, construction on the acropolis had begun by about 550, and an explosion of grander construction started in the 8th century. All construction had halted by about 850, except for a brief period of reoccupation in the Early Postclassic. Quirigua shares its architectural and sculptural styles with the nearby Classic Period city of Copan, with whose history it is closely entwined. Quirigua's rapid expansion in the 8th century was tied to king K'ak' Tiliw Chan Yopaat's military victory over Copan in 738. When the greatest king of Copan, Uaxaclajuun Ub'aah K'awiil or "18-Rabbit", was defeated, he was captured and then sacrificed in the Great Plaza at Quirigua. Before this, Quirigua had been a vassal state of Copan, but it maintained its independence afterwards. The ceremonial architecture at Quirigua is quite modest, but the site's importance lies in its wealth of sculpture, including the tallest stone monuments ever erected in the New World. The archaeological site of Quirigua is named after the nearby village of the same name, and is located a little over 200 km (120 mi) northeast of Guatemala City; it lies in the municipality of Los Amates in the department of Izabal and has an elevation of 75 m (246 ft) above mean sea level. Positioned on the north bank of the lower reaches of the Motagua River, Quirigua is situated at the point where the valley broadens into a flood plain, which has exposed the site to periodic flooding over the centuries. Although the river passed close to the site during the period of the city's occupation, it has since changed course and now flows 1 km (0.6 mi) south of the ceremonial centre. Quirigua is 48 km (30 mi) north of Copan, and is located 15.7 km (9.8 mi) north-west of the international border with Honduras. |
| 73 | The Round Church, also known as the Golden Church or the Church of St John, is a large partially preserved early medieval Eastern Orthodox church. It lies in Preslav, the former capital of the First Bulgarian Empire, today a town in northeastern Bulgaria. The church dates to the early 10th century, the time of Tsar Simeon I's rule and was unearthed and first archaeologically examined in 1927–1928. Considered to be one of the most impressive examples of medieval Bulgarian architecture, the Round Church takes its name from the distinctive shape of one of its three sections, the cella (naos), which is a rotunda that serves as a place of liturgy. The church's design also includes a wide atrium and a rectangular entrance area, or narthex, marked by two circular turrets. The church has been likened to examples of religious architecture from the late Roman (Early Christian) period, the Caucasus, and the Carolingian Pre-Romanesque of Charlemagne because of its characteristic plan, which is significantly different from contemporaneous Bulgarian or Byzantine buildings. The church's alternative name, the Golden Church, stems from its possible and popular identification with a "new golden church" in Preslav referenced in a medieval literary source. The Round Church's rich interior decoration, which makes ample use of mosaics, ceramics and marble details, distinguishes it from other churches in Preslav. Its interior features hundreds of drawings depicting ships, fauna, and Christian figures. Medieval inscriptions on the walls range from names of saints in Byzantine Greek to separate letters and short texts in the Glagolitic and Cyrillic alphabets. Founded in 681 as a pagan state, Bulgaria was formally Christianised by Byzantine clergy in the 860s, under Prince Boris. The right to convert Bulgaria to Christianity was the subject of a political dispute between Byzantium and the Papacy. With the conversion to Christianity, Boris hoped to solve internal ethnic issues and improve the foreign relations of his state, which was not treated equally by the Christian rulers of Europe. |
| 74 | The Rosetta Stone is an ancient Egyptian granodiorite inscribed with a decree issued at Memphis in 196 BCE on behalf of King Ptolemy V. The decree appears in three scripts: the upper text is Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, the middle portion Demotic script, and the lowest Ancient Greek. Because it presents essentially the same text in all three scripts (with some minor differences between them), it provided the key to the modern understanding of Egyptian hieroglyphs. Originally displayed within a temple, the stele was probably moved during the early Christian or medieval period and eventually used as building material in the construction of Fort Julien near the town of Rashid (Rosetta) in the Nile Delta. It was rediscovered there in 1799 by a soldier, Pierre-Francois Bouchard, of the French expedition to Egypt. As the first ancient bilingual text recovered in modern times, the Rosetta Stone aroused widespread public interest with its potential to decipher the hitherto untranslated Ancient Egyptian language. Lithographic copies and plaster casts began circulating amongst European museums and scholars. Meanwhile, British troops defeated the French in Egypt in 1801, and the original stone came into British possession under the Capitulation of Alexandria. Transported to London, it has been on public display at the British Museum since 1802. It is the most-visited object in the British Museum. Ever since its rediscovery, the stone has been the focus of nationalist rivalries, including its transfer from French to British possession during the Napoleonic Wars, a long-running dispute over the relative value of Young's and Champollion's contributions to the decipherment, and since 2003, demands for the stone's return to Egypt. Study of the decree was already under way as the first full translation of the Greek text appeared in 1803. It was 20 years, however, before the decipherment of the Egyptian texts was announced by Jean-Francois Champollion in Paris in 1822; it took longer still before scholars were able to read other Ancient Egyptian inscriptions and literature confidently. |
| 75 | The Rova of Antananarivo is a royal palace complex in Madagascar that served as the home of the sovereigns of the Kingdom of Imerina in the 17th and 18th centuries, as well as the rulers of the Kingdom of Madagascar in the 19th century. Located in the central highland city of Antananarivo, the Rova occupies the highest point on Analamanga, formerly the highest of Antananarivo's many hills. Merina king Andrianjaka, who ruled Imerina from around 1610 until 1630, is believed to have captured Analamanga from a Vazimba king around 1610 or 1625 and erected the site's first fortified royal structure. Successive Merina kings continued to rule from the site until the fall of the monarchy in 1896, frequently restoring, modifying or adding royal structures within the compound to suit their needs. Over time, the number of buildings within the site varied. Andrianjaka founded the Rova with three buildings and a dedicated tomb site in the early 17th century. The number of structures rose to approximately twenty during the late 18th-century reign of King Andrianampoinimerina. By the late 20th century, the Rova's structures had been reduced to eleven, representing various architectural styles and historical periods. The largest and most prominent of these was Manjakamiadana, also known as the "Queen's Palace" after Queen Ranavalona I, for whom the original wooden palace was built between 1839–1841 by Frenchman Jean Laborde. In 1867 the palace was encased in stone for Queen Ranavalona II by Scotsman James Cameron, an artisan missionary of the London Missionary Society. The neighbouring Tranovola, a smaller wooden palace constructed in 1819 by Creole trader Louis Gros for King Radama I, was the first multi-storey building with verandas in the Rova. The model offered by Tranovola transformed architecture in the area over the course of the 19th century, inspiring a widespread shift toward two-storey houses with verandas. The Rova grounds also contained a cross-shaped wooden house built as the private residence of Queen Rasoherina, a stone Protestant chapel, nine royal tombs, and a number of named wooden houses built in the traditional style reserved for the andriana in Imerina. |
| 76 | The Royal Gold Cup or Saint Agnes Cup is a solid gold covered cup lavishly decorated with enamel and pearls. It was made for the French royal family at the end of the 14th century, and later belonged to several English monarchs before spending nearly 300 years in Spain. It has been in the British Museum since 1892, and is generally agreed to be the outstanding surviving example of late medieval French plate. It has been described as "the one surviving royal magnificence of the International Gothic age"; and according to Thomas Hoving, former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, "of all the princely jewels and gold that have come down to us, this is the most spectacular—and that includes the great royal treasures." The cup is made of solid gold, stands 23.6 cm high with a diameter of 17.8 cm at its widest point, and weighs 1.935 kg. It has a cover that lifts off, but the triangular stand on which it once stood is now lost. The stem of the cup has twice been extended by the addition of cylindrical bands, so that it was originally much shorter, giving the overall shape "a typically robust and stocky elegance." The original decorated knop or finial on the cover has been lost, and a moulding decorated with 36 pearls has been removed from the outer edge of the cover; a strip of gold with jagged edges can be seen where it was attached. Presumably it matched the one still in place round the foot of the cup. The gold surfaces are decorated with scenes in basse-taille enamel with translucent colours that reflect light from the gold beneath; many areas of gold both underneath the enamel and in the background have engraved and pointille decoration worked in the gold. In particular the decoration features large areas of translucent red, which have survived in excellent condition. This colour, known as rouge clair, was the most difficult to achieve technically, and highly prized for this and the brilliance of the colour when it was done successfully. Scenes from the life of Saint Agnes run round the top of the cover and the sloping underside of the main body. |
| 77 | Santa Maria de Ovila is a former Cistercian monastery built in Spain in the 13th century on the Tagus River near Trillo, Guadalajara, about 90 miles (140 km) northeast of Madrid. During prosperous times over the next four centuries, construction projects expanded and improved the small monastery. Its fortunes declined significantly in the 1700s, and in 1835 it was confiscated by the Spanish government and sold to private owners who used its buildings to shelter farm animals. American publisher William Randolph Hearst bought parts of the monastery in 1931 with the intention of using its stones in the construction of a grand and fanciful castle at Wyntoon, California, but after some 10,000 stones were removed and shipped, they were abandoned in San Francisco for decades. These stones are now in various locations around California: the old church portal has been reassembled at the University of San Francisco, and the chapter house is being reassembled by Trappist monks at the Abbey of New Clairvaux in Vina, California. Other stones are serving as simple decorative elements in Golden Gate Park's botanical garden. To support the chapter house project, a line of Belgian-style beers is being produced by Sierra Nevada Brewing Company under the Ovila Abbey brand. In Spain, the new government of the Second Republic declared the monastery a National Monument in June 1931, but not in time to prevent the mass removal of stones. Today, the remnant buildings and walls stand on private farmland The monastery of Santa Maria de Ovila was founded in 1175 by a grant of land from King Alfonso VIII of Castile to the Cistercian monks of Valbuena Abbey in Valbuena de Duero, Valladolid Province, Castile-Leon, Spain. In this endeavor, the king was following a general strategy of establishing Catholic institutions on land he had recently won in battle from the Moors of Iberia. The Cistercian "white monks" (wearing undyed habits) first chose a site in Murel (now called Carrascosa de Tajo) on the Tagus, but after a few years relocated a few miles nearer to Trillo, Guadalajara, where a flat hilltop by the river commanded a modest view. |
| 78 | Sanssouci is the name of the former summer palace of Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, in Potsdam, near Berlin. It is often counted among the German rivals of Versailles. While Sanssouci is in the more intimate Rococo style and is far smaller than its French Baroque counterpart, it too is notable for the numerous temples and follies in the park. The palace was designed by Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff between 1745 and 1747 to fulfill King Frederick's need for a private residence where he could relax away from the pomp and ceremony of the Berlin court. The palace's name emphasises this; it is a French phrase, which translates as "without concerns", meaning "without worries" or "carefree", symbolising that the palace was a place for relaxation rather than a seat of power. The palace is little more than a large single-storey villa—more like the Chateau de Marly than Versailles. Containing just ten principal rooms, it was built on the brow of a terraced hill at the centre of the park. The influence of King Frederick's personal taste in the design and decoration of the palace was so great that its style is characterised as "Frederician Rococo", and his feelings for the palace were so strong that he conceived it as "a place that would die with him". Because of a disagreement about the site of the palace in the park, Knobelsdorff was fired in 1746. Jan Bouman, a Dutch architect, finished the project. During the 19th century, the palace became a residence of Frederick William IV. He employed the architect Ludwig Persius to restore and enlarge the palace, while Ferdinand von Arnim was charged with improving the grounds and thus the view from the palace. The town of Potsdam, with its palaces, was a favourite place of residence for the German imperial family until the fall of the Hohenzollern dynasty in 1918. After World War II, the palace became a tourist attraction in East Germany. It was fully maintained with due respect to its historical importance, and was open to the public. Following German reunification in 1990, the final wish of Frederick came to pass: his body was finally returned to his beloved palace and buried in a new tomb overlooking the gardens he had created. |
| 79 | The Scottish Parliament Building is the home of the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood, within the UNESCO World Heritage Site in central Edinburgh. Construction of the building commenced in June 1999 and the Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs) held their first debate in the new building on 7 September 2004. The formal opening by Queen Elizabeth took place on 9 October 2004. Enric Miralles, the Spanish architect who designed the building, died before its completion. From 1999 until the opening of the new building in 2004, committee rooms and the debating chamber of the Scottish Parliament were housed in the General Assembly Hall of the Church of Scotland located on The Mound in Edinburgh. The access to this facility was via a new glazed porch, discreetly placed in the SW corner of Mylne's Court off the Lawnmarket in the midst of some of the University of Edinburgh's Hall of Residences. All traces of this porch were eradicated, and the west wall where it stood returned to a blank wall, immediately after the new parliament opened. Office and administrative accommodation in support of the Parliament were provided in buildings leased from the City of Edinburgh Council. The new Scottish Parliament Building brought together these different elements into one purpose-built parliamentary complex, housing 129 MSPs and more than 1,000 staff and civil servants. From the outset, the building and its construction have been controversial. The choices of location, architect, design, use of non-indigenous materials (granite from China instead of Scotland), and construction company were all criticised by politicians, the media and the Scottish public. A major public inquiry into the handling of the construction, chaired by the former Lord Advocate, Peter Fraser, was established in 2003. The inquiry concluded in September 2004 and criticised the management of the whole project from the realisation of cost increases down to the way in which major design changes were implemented. |
| 80 | The Shrine of Remembrance, located in Kings Domain on St Kilda Road, Melbourne, Australia was built as a memorial to the men and women of Victoria who served in World War I and is now a memorial to all Australians who have served in war. It is a site of annual observances of ANZAC Day (25 April) and Remembrance Day (11 November) and is one of the largest war memorials in Australia. Designed by architects Phillip Hudson and James Wardrop who were both World War I veterans, the Shrine is in a classical style, being based on the Tomb of Mausolus at Halicarnassus and the Parthenon in Athens. Built from Tynong granite, the Shrine originally consisted only of the central sanctuary surrounded by the ambulatory. The sanctuary contains the marble Stone of Remembrance, upon which is engraved the words "Greater love hath no man". Once a year, on 11 November at 11 a.m. (Remembrance Day), a ray of sunlight shines through an aperture in the roof to light up the word "Love" in the inscription. Beneath the sanctuary lies the crypt, which contains a bronze statue of a soldier father and son, and panels listing every unit of the Australian Imperial Force. In 2002-2003 a Visitor Centre was built within the foundations of the Shrine. The visitor centre incorporates an education centre (including three classrooms and meeting room), an audio-visual centre, gallery space, a retail shop and an administration office, as well the Hall of Columns (in which the Changi Flag is on display) Gallery of Medals, entry courtyard and Remembrance Garden. The walls of both the entry courtyard and Remembrance Garden have been built to complement the Ray of Light ceremony that takes place on 11 November of every year. The Shrine went through a prolonged process of development which began in 1918 with the initial proposal to build a Victorian memorial. Two committees were formed, the second of which ran a competition for the memorial's design. The winner was announced in 1922. Despite these criticisms and a mixed public reaction, the building was welcomed by architectural academics and critics. |
| 81 | Sicilian Baroque is the distinctive form of Baroque architecture that took hold on the island of Sicily, off the southern coast of Italy, in the 17th and 18th centuries. The style is recognizable not only by its typical Baroque curves and flourishes, but also by its grinning masks and putti and a particular flamboyance that has given Sicily a unique architectural identity. The Sicilian Baroque style came to fruition during a major surge of rebuilding following the massive earthquake in 1693. Previously, the Baroque style had been used on the island in a naive and parochial manner, having evolved from hybrid native architecture rather than being derived from the great Baroque architects of Rome. After the earthquake, local architects, many of them trained in Rome, were given plentiful opportunities to recreate the more sophisticated Baroque architecture that had become popular in mainland Italy; the work of these local architects — and the new genre of architectural engravings that they pioneered — inspired more local architects to follow their lead. Around 1730, Sicilian architects had developed a confidence in their use of the Baroque style. Their particular interpretation led to further evolution to a personalised and highly localised art form on the island. From the 1780s onwards, the style was gradually replaced by the newly-fashionable neoclassicism. The highly decorative Sicilian Baroque period lasted barely fifty years, and perfectly reflected the social order of the island at a time when, nominally ruled by Spain, it was in fact governed by a wealthy and often extravagant aristocracy into whose hands ownership of the primarily agricultural economy was highly concentrated. Its Baroque architecture gives the island an architectural character that has lasted into the 21st century. Baroque architecture is a European phenomenon originating in 17th-century Italy; it is flamboyant and theatrical, and richly ornamented by sculpture and an effect known as chiaroscuro, the strategic use of light and shade on a building created by mass and shadow. |
| 82 | The St Cuthbert Gospel, also known as the Stonyhurst Gospel or the St Cuthbert Gospel of St John, is a 7th-century pocket gospel book, written in Latin. Its finely decorated leather binding is the earliest known Western bookbinding to survive, and both the 94 vellum folios and the binding are in outstanding condition for a book of this age. With a page size of only 138 by 92 millimetres the St Cuthbert Gospel is one of the smallest surviving Anglo-Saxon manuscripts. The essentially undecorated text is the Gospel of John in Latin, written in a script that has been regarded as a model of elegant simplicity. The book takes its name from Saint Cuthbert of Lindisfarne, North East England, in whose tomb it was placed, probably a few years after his death in 687. Although it was long regarded as Cuthbert's personal copy of the Gospel, to which there are early references, and so a relic of the saint, the book is now thought to date from shortly after Cuthbert's death. It was probably a gift from Monkwearmouth-Jarrow Abbey, where it was written, intended to be placed in St Cuthbert's coffin when his remains were placed behind the altar at Lindisfarne in 698. It presumably remained in the coffin through its long travels after 875, forced by Viking invasions, ending at Durham Cathedral. The book was found inside the coffin and removed in 1104 when the burial was once again moved within the cathedral. It was kept there with other relics, and important visitors were able to wear the book in a leather bag around their necks. It is thought that after the Dissolution of the Monasteries in England by Henry VIII between 1536 and 1541, the book passed to collectors. It was eventually given to Stonyhurst College, the Jesuit school in Lancashire. From 1979 it was on long-term loan from the British province of the Jesuit order to the British Library, catalogued as Loan 74. On 14 July 2011 the British Library launched a fundraising campaign to buy the book for 9 million, and on 17 April 2012 announced that the purchase had been completed and the book was now British Library Additional MS 89000. The library plans to display the Gospel for equal amounts of time in London and Durham. |
| 83 | St. Michael's Golden-Domed Monastery is a functioning monastery in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. The monastery is located on the right bank of the Dnieper River on the edge of a bluff northeast of the Saint Sophia Cathedral. The site is located in the historic administrative Uppertown and overlooks the city's historical commercial and merchant quarter, the Podil neighbourhood. Originally built in the Middle Ages by Sviatopolk II Iziaslavych, the monastery comprises the Cathedral itself, the Refectory of St. John the Divine, built in 1713, the Economic Gates, constructed in 1760 and the monastery's bell tower, which was added circa 1716–1719. The exterior of the structure was rebuilt in the Ukrainian Baroque style in the 18th century while the interior remained in its original Byzantine style. The original cathedral was demolished by the Soviet authorities in the 1930s, but was reconstructed and opened in 1999 following Ukrainian independence. Some scholars do not believe that Prince Iziaslav Yaroslavych, whose Christian name was Demetrius, first built the Saint Demetrius's Monastery and Church in the Uppertown of Kiev near Saint Sophia Cathedral in the 1050s. Half a century later, his son, Sviatopolk II Iziaslavych, is recorded as commissioning a monastery church (1108–1113) dedicated to his own patron saint, Michael the Archangel. One reason for building the church may have been Svyatopolk's recent victory over the nomadic Polovtsians, as Michael the Archangel was considered a patron of warriors and victories. The monastery was regarded as a family cloister of Svyatopolk's family; it was there that members of Svyatopolk's family were buried. (This is in contrast to the Vydubychi Monastery patronized by his rival, Vladimir Monomakh). The cathedral domes were probably the first in Kievan Rus to be gilded, a practice that became regular with the passage of time and acquired for the monastery the nickname of "golden-domed" or "golden-roofed", depending on the translation. |
| 84 | St Nicholas is the Anglican parish church of Blakeney, Norfolk in the deanery of Holt and the Diocese of Norwich. The church was founded in the 13th century, but the greater part of the church dates from the 15th century when Blakeney was a seaport of some importance. Of the original structure only the chancel has survived rebuilding, perhaps owing to its link to a nearby Carmelite friary. An unusual architectural feature is a second tower, used as a beacon, at the east end (the church stands just inland from, and about 30 metres above, the small port). Other significant features are the vaulted chancel with a stepped seven-light lancet window, and the hammerbeam roof of the nave. St Nicholas is a nationally important building, with a Grade I listing for its exceptional architectural interest. Much of the original church furniture was lost in the Reformation, but a late-Victorian restoration recreated something of the original appearance, as well as repairing and refacing the building. The Victorian woodwork was created to match the few older pieces that remained, or to follow a similar style; thus, the new wooden pulpit follows the themes of the medieval font. Of the stained glass smashed in the Reformation only fragments have been recovered, and these have been incorporated in a window in the north aisle of the church. Nine Arts and Crafts windows by James Powell and Sons are featured on the east and south sides of the church, and the north porch has two modern windows of predominantly blue colour. St Nicholas contains some notable memorials, including several plaques for the Blakeney lifeboats and their crews, and much pre-Reformation graffiti, particularly depictions of ships. The location of the latter suggests that they were votive in nature, although the saint concerned is now unknown. St Nicholas is the parish church of Blakeney, Norfolk, a small English town with a history dating back to at least early Neolithic times. It was one of a number of small ports opening onto the sheltered inlet of Blakeney Haven, and exported a range of products including fish, grain, and timber. |
| 85 | Stanford Memorial Church (also referred to informally as MemChu) is located at the center of the Stanford University campus in Stanford, California, United States. It was built during the American Renaissance by Jane Stanford as a memorial to her husband Leland. Designed by architect Charles A. Coolidge, a protege of Henry Hobson Richardson, the church has been called "the University's architectural crown jewel". Designs for the church were submitted to Jane Stanford and the university trustees in 1898, and it was dedicated in 1903. The building is Romanesque in form and Byzantine in its details, inspired by churches in the region of Venice and, especially, Ravenna. Its stained glass windows and extensive mosaics are based on religious paintings the Stanfords admired in Europe. The church has four pipe organs, which allow musicians to produce many styles of organ music. Stanford Memorial Church has withstood two major earthquakes, in 1906 and 1989, and was extensively renovated after each. Stanford Memorial Church was the earliest and has been "among the most prominent" non-denominational churches on the West Coast of the United States. Since its dedication in 1903, the church's goal has been to serve the spiritual needs of the university in a non-sectarian way. The church's first chaplain, David Charles Gardner, began a tradition of leadership which has guided the development of Stanford University's spiritual, ethical, and academic relation to religion. The church's chaplains were instrumental in the founding of Stanford's religious studies department, moving Stanford from a "completely secular university" at the middle of the century to "the renaissance of faith and learning at Stanford" in the late 1960s, when the study of religion at the university focused on social and ethical issues like race and the Vietnam War. Stanford Memorial Church is located at the end of the mile-long axis of Stanford University, visible from a distance; the main vista begins at the main entrance, continues to Palm Drive, traverses "the Oval" (a large oval lawn), enters the Main Quad (the core of the university), and finally crosses Memorial Court and the Inner Quad courtyard. |
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