1.
1889 in art
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February 2 – Sixth annual exhibition of Les XX opens in Brussels, including the first important display of Paul Gauguins work. May 6 – October 31 – Exposition Universelle in Paris, with the Eiffel Tower as its entrance arch, may 8 – Van Gogh moves from Arles to the Saint-Paul asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. July 15 – The Scottish National Portrait Gallery opens in Edinburgh in premises designed by Rowand Anderson, july 23 – Marie Triepcke marries fellow-artist Peder Severin Krøyer in Augsburg. August 17 – The 9 by 5 Impression Exhibition opens in Melbourne, edvard Munch stages his first one-man exhibition and wins a state scholarship to study in Paris. The Skulpturensammlung moves into the Albertinum in Dresden, the Imperial Museum of Nara is established in Japan
2.
Eiffel Tower
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The Eiffel Tower is a wrought iron lattice tower on the Champ de Mars in Paris, France. It is named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed, the Eiffel Tower is the most-visited paid monument in the world,6.91 million people ascended it in 2015. The tower is 324 metres tall, about the height as an 81-storey building. Its base is square, measuring 125 metres on each side, due to the addition of a broadcasting aerial at the top of the tower in 1957, it is now taller than the Chrysler Building by 5.2 metres. Excluding transmitters, the Eiffel Tower is the second-tallest structure in France after the Millau Viaduct, the tower has three levels for visitors, with restaurants on the first and second levels. The top levels upper platform is 276 m above the ground – the highest observation deck accessible to the public in the European Union, tickets can be purchased to ascend by stairs or lift to the first and second levels. The climb from ground level to the first level is over 300 steps, although there is a staircase to the top level, it is usually only accessible by lift. Eiffel openly acknowledged that inspiration for a tower came from the Latting Observatory built in New York City in 1853, sauvestre added decorative arches to the base of the tower, a glass pavilion to the first level, and other embellishments. Little progress was made until 1886, when Jules Grévy was re-elected as president of France and Édouard Lockroy was appointed as minister for trade. On 12 May, a commission was set up to examine Eiffels scheme and its rivals, which, after some debate about the exact location of the tower, a contract was signed on 8 January 1887. Eiffel was to all income from the commercial exploitation of the tower during the exhibition. He later established a company to manage the tower, putting up half the necessary capital himself. The proposed tower had been a subject of controversy, drawing criticism from those who did not believe it was feasible and these objections were an expression of a long-standing debate in France about the relationship between architecture and engineering. And for twenty years … we shall see stretching like a blot of ink the hateful shadow of the column of bolted sheet metal. Gustave Eiffel responded to criticisms by comparing his tower to the Egyptian pyramids. Will it not also be grandiose in its way, and why would something admirable in Egypt become hideous and ridiculous in Paris. Indeed, Garnier was a member of the Tower Commission that had examined the various proposals, some of the protesters changed their minds when the tower was built, others remained unconvinced. Guy de Maupassant supposedly ate lunch in the restaurant every day because it was the one place in Paris where the tower was not visible
3.
Exposition Universelle (1889)
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The Exposition Universelle of 1889 was a worlds fair held in Paris, France, from 6 May to 31 October 1889. It was held during the year of the 100th anniversary of the storming of the Bastille, an event considered symbolic of the beginning of the French Revolution. The 1889 Exposition covered an area of 0.96 km2, including the Champ de Mars, the Trocadéro, the quai dOrsay, a part of the Seine. Transport around the Exposition was partly provided by a 3 kilometre 600 millimetre gauge railway by Decauville and it was claimed that the railway carried 6,342,446 visitors in just six months of operation. Some of the used on this line later saw service on the Chemins de Fer du Calvados. The main symbol of the Fair was the Eiffel Tower, which served as the arch to the Fair. The 1889 fair was held on the Champ de Mars in Paris, which had been the site of the earlier Paris Universal Exhibition of 1867, since the lifts had not been completed when the Exposition opened, the first visitors had to walk up to the second floor platform. Workers had worked through the night the day before the exhibition opened to complete the construction needed to safely allow patrons to set foot upon the structure. No one other than construction personnel were allowed higher than the second floor platform, an equally significant building constructed for the fair was the Galerie des machines, designed by architect Ferdinand Dutert and engineer Victor Contamin. It was reused at the exposition of 1900 and then destroyed in 1910, at 111 meters, the Galerie spanned the longest interior space in the world at the time, using a system of hinged arches made of steel or iron. Although often described as being constructed of steel, it was made of iron. There is a description, with illustrations, of the Expositions two famous buildings in the British journal Engineering. A follow-up report appears a late issue with this summation, the exhibition will be famous for four distinctive features, the 28 June issue of Engineering also mentions a remarkable Great Model of the Earth created by Theodore Villard and Charles Cotard. There were unseasonal thunderstorms in Paris during that summer of 1889, causing distress to the canopies and decoration of the exposition. The Exhibition included a building by the Paris architect Pierre-Henri Picq and this was an elaborate iron and glass structure decorated with ceramic tiles in a Byzantine-Egyptian-Romanesque style. After the Exposition the building was shipped to Fort de France and reassembled there, known as the Schoelcher Library, initially it contained the 10,000 books that Victor Schoelcher had donated to the island. Today it houses over 250,000 books and an ethnographic museum, a Negro village where 400 people were displayed constituted the major attraction. At the Exposition, the French composer Claude Debussy first heard Javanese gamelan music and this influenced some of his later compositions
4.
Paris
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Paris is the capital and most populous city of France. It has an area of 105 square kilometres and a population of 2,229,621 in 2013 within its administrative limits, the agglomeration has grown well beyond the citys administrative limits. By the 17th century, Paris was one of Europes major centres of finance, commerce, fashion, science, and the arts, and it retains that position still today. The aire urbaine de Paris, a measure of area, spans most of the Île-de-France region and has a population of 12,405,426. It is therefore the second largest metropolitan area in the European Union after London, the Metropole of Grand Paris was created in 2016, combining the commune and its nearest suburbs into a single area for economic and environmental co-operation. Grand Paris covers 814 square kilometres and has a population of 7 million persons, the Paris Region had a GDP of €624 billion in 2012, accounting for 30.0 percent of the GDP of France and ranking it as one of the wealthiest regions in Europe. The city is also a rail, highway, and air-transport hub served by two international airports, Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Orly. Opened in 1900, the subway system, the Paris Métro. It is the second busiest metro system in Europe after Moscow Metro, notably, Paris Gare du Nord is the busiest railway station in the world outside of Japan, with 262 millions passengers in 2015. In 2015, Paris received 22.2 million visitors, making it one of the top tourist destinations. The association football club Paris Saint-Germain and the rugby union club Stade Français are based in Paris, the 80, 000-seat Stade de France, built for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, is located just north of Paris in the neighbouring commune of Saint-Denis. Paris hosts the annual French Open Grand Slam tennis tournament on the red clay of Roland Garros, Paris hosted the 1900 and 1924 Summer Olympics and is bidding to host the 2024 Summer Olympics. The name Paris is derived from its inhabitants, the Celtic Parisii tribe. Thus, though written the same, the name is not related to the Paris of Greek mythology. In the 1860s, the boulevards and streets of Paris were illuminated by 56,000 gas lamps, since the late 19th century, Paris has also been known as Panam in French slang. Inhabitants are known in English as Parisians and in French as Parisiens and they are also pejoratively called Parigots. The Parisii, a sub-tribe of the Celtic Senones, inhabited the Paris area from around the middle of the 3rd century BC. One of the areas major north-south trade routes crossed the Seine on the île de la Cité, this place of land and water trade routes gradually became a town
5.
Gustave Eiffel
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Alexandre Gustave Eiffel was a French civil engineer and architect. A graduate of École Centrale Paris, he made his name with various bridges for the French railway network and he is best known for the world-famous Eiffel Tower, built for the 1889 Universal Exposition in Paris, and his contribution to building the Statue of Liberty in New York. After his retirement from engineering, Eiffel focused on research into meteorology and aerodynamics, Gustave Eiffel was born in France, in the Côte-dOr, the first child of Catherine-Mélanie and Alexandre Bönickhausen. He was a descendant of Jean-René Bönickhausen, who had emigrated from the German town of Marmagen, the family adopted the name Eiffel as a reference to the Eifel mountains in the region from which they had come. Although the family used the name Eiffel, Gustaves name was registered at birth as Bönickhausen. The business was successful enough for Catherine Eiffel to sell it in 1843, both men spent a lot of time with the young Eiffel, teaching him about everything from chemistry and mining to theology and philosophy. During his second year he chose to specialize in chemistry, however, shortly afterwards Nepveus company went bankrupt, but Nepveu found Eiffel a job designing a 22 m sheet iron bridge for the Saint Germaine railway. These were constructed with the aid of compressed air caissons and hydraulic rams, Eiffel was initially given the responsibility of assembling the metalwork and eventually took over the management of the entire project from Nepveu, who resigned in March 1860. Following the completion of the project on schedule Eiffel was appointed as the engineer of the Compagnie Belge. Further promotion within the company followed, but the business began to decline, at the same time he was employed by Jean-Baptiste Kranz to assist him in the design of the exhibition hall for the Exposition Universelle which was to be held in 1867. Eiffels principal job was to draw up the arch girders of the Galerie des Machines, at the end of 1866 Eiffel managed to borrow enough money to set up his own workshops at 48 Rue Fouquet in Levallois-Perret. On 6 October 1868 he entered partnership with Théophile Seyrig, like Eiffel a graduate of the École Centrale. In 1875, Eiffel et Cie were given two important contracts, one for a new terminus for the line from Vienna to Budapest, the station in Budapest was an innovative design. The bridge over the Douro came about as the result of a competition held by the Royal Portuguese Railroad Company and this was greater than the longest arch span which had been built at the time. Eiffels proposal was for a bridge deck was supported by five iron piers. The price quoted by Eiffel was FF, the members included Jean-Baptiste Krantz, Henri Dion and Léon Molinos, both of whom had known Eiffel for a long time, their report was favorable, and Eiffel got the job. On-site work began in January 1876 and was complete by the end of October 1877, the Exposition Universelle in 1878 firmly established his reputation as one of the leading engineers of the time. As well as exhibiting models and drawings of work undertaken by the company, one of these, a pavilion for the Paris Gas Company, was Eiffels first collaboration with Stephen Sauvestre, who was later to become the head of the companys architectural office
6.
Providence, Rhode Island
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Providence is the capital of and most populous city in the U. S. state of Rhode Island, founded in 1636, and one of the oldest cities in the United States. It is located in Providence County and is the third most populous city in New England, after Boston, Providence has a city population of 179,154, it is also part of the Providence metropolitan area which extends into southern Massachusetts. The Providence metropolitan area has an population of 1,604,291. This can be considered, in turn, to be part of the Greater Boston commuting area, Providence was founded by Roger Williams, a religious exile from the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He named the area in honor of Gods merciful Providence, which he believed was responsible for revealing such a haven for him, the city is situated at the mouth of the Providence River at the head of Narragansett Bay. Providence was one of the first cities in the country to industrialize and became noted for its tool, jewelry. The city was nicknamed the Beehive of Industry, it began rebranding itself as the Creative Capital in 2009 to emphasize its educational resources. The area that is now Providence was first settled in June 1636 by Roger Williams and was one of the original Thirteen Colonies of the United States, Williams and his company felt compelled to withdraw from Massachusetts Bay Colony. Providence quickly became a refuge for persecuted religious dissenters, as Williams himself had been exiled from Massachusetts, Providence residents were among the first Patriots to spill blood in the leadup to the American Revolution during the Gaspée Affair of 1772. Rhode Island was the first of the thirteen colonies to renounce its allegiance to the British Crown on May 4,1776. It was also the last of the thirteen colonies to ratify the United States Constitution on May 29,1790, following the war, Providence was the countrys ninth-largest city with 7,614 people. The economy shifted from maritime endeavors to manufacturing, in particular machinery, tools, silverware, jewelry, by the start of the 20th century, Providence boasted some of the largest manufacturing plants in the country, including Brown & Sharpe, Nicholson File, and Gorham Silverware. Providence residents ratified a city charter in 1831 as the population passed 17,000. From its incorporation as a city in 1832 until 1878, the seat of city government was located in the Market House, located in Market Square, the city offices quickly outgrew this building, and the City Council resolved to create a permanent municipal building in 1845. The city offices moved into the City Hall in 1878, during the Civil War, local politics split over slavery as many had ties to Southern cotton. Despite ambivalence concerning the war, the number of military volunteers routinely exceeded quota, by the early 1900s, Providence was one of the wealthiest cities in the United States. Immigrant labor powered one of the nations largest industrial manufacturing centers, Providence was a major manufacturer of industrial products from steam engines to precision tools to silverware, screws, and textiles. From 1975 until 1982, $606 million of local and national Community Development funds were invested throughout the city.4 million ft² Providence Place Mall, despite new investment, poverty remains an entrenched problem as it does in most post-industrial New England cities
7.
Patrick Keely
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Patrick Charles Keely was an Irish-American architect based in Brooklyn, New York, and Providence, Rhode Island. He designed every 19th-century Catholic cathedral in New England, several other church and institutional architects began their careers in his firm. Keely was born in Thurles, County Tipperary, then a part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, on August 9,1816, Keely emigrated to the United States, landing at Castle Gardens in Manhattan in 1842, and settling in Brooklyn. He arrived at a time when Catholicism in the United States was expanding from its footholds in Baltimore, New York City. Initially, he worked as a carpenter and builder since there were few trained architects practicing and most structures were erected with the assistance of the client. Common practice held that the builder, whether trained as mason or carpenter, crafted his own plans, for a number of years Keely worked at his trade without attracting attention. During this time, he met the Rev. Sylvester Malone, in 1846 Malone was sent to form a parish near the Brooklyn waterfront in the Williamsburg neighborhood. Together with Keely, he worked out a plan for a Gothic church possessing pointed arches, pinnacles, working as a carpenter, Keely produced designs from which was built the Church of Sts. Peter and Paul was considered an epoch in Catholic building in America, in Brooklyn alone there was a great wave of Catholic settlers for whom churches were urgently needed and Keely was the only one thought of to do the work. Among his work were several cathedrals in the Northeast and many of the substantial parish churches later elevated to cathedral status during the twentieth century. He designed a few churches for Protestant congregations…, Keely died in 1896 after a long illness, while still directing the completion of several churches with his son-in-law, Thomas Houghton. He was buried in Holy Cross Cemetery, Brooklyn, under an inauspicious polished granite block embossed KEELY, patrick Charles Keely, Architect, A Record of His Life and Work
8.
Vienna
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Vienna is the capital and largest city of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austrias primary city, with a population of about 1.8 million, and its cultural, economic and it is the 7th-largest city by population within city limits in the European Union. Today, it has the second largest number of German speakers after Berlin, Vienna is host to many major international organizations, including the United Nations and OPEC. The city is located in the part of Austria and is close to the borders of the Czech Republic, Slovakia. These regions work together in a European Centrope border region, along with nearby Bratislava, Vienna forms a metropolitan region with 3 million inhabitants. In 2001, the city centre was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, apart from being regarded as the City of Music because of its musical legacy, Vienna is also said to be The City of Dreams because it was home to the worlds first psycho-analyst – Sigmund Freud. The citys roots lie in early Celtic and Roman settlements that transformed into a Medieval and Baroque city and it is well known for having played an essential role as a leading European music centre, from the great age of Viennese Classicism through the early part of the 20th century. The historic centre of Vienna is rich in architectural ensembles, including Baroque castles and gardens, Vienna is known for its high quality of life. In a 2005 study of 127 world cities, the Economist Intelligence Unit ranked the city first for the worlds most liveable cities, between 2011 and 2015, Vienna was ranked second, behind Melbourne, Australia. Monocles 2015 Quality of Life Survey ranked Vienna second on a list of the top 25 cities in the world to make a base within, the UN-Habitat has classified Vienna as being the most prosperous city in the world in 2012/2013. Vienna regularly hosts urban planning conferences and is used as a case study by urban planners. Between 2005 and 2010, Vienna was the worlds number-one destination for international congresses and it attracts over 3.7 million tourists a year. The English name Vienna is borrowed from the homonymous Italian version of the name or the French Vienne. The etymology of the name is still subject to scholarly dispute. Some claim that the name comes from Vedunia, meaning forest stream, which produced the Old High German Uuenia. A variant of this Celtic name could be preserved in the Czech and Slovak names of the city, the name of the city in Hungarian, Serbo-Croatian and Ottoman Turkish has a different, probably Slavonic origin, and originally referred to an Avar fort in the area. Slovene-speakers call the city Dunaj, which in other Central European Slavic languages means the Danube River, evidence has been found of continuous habitation since 500 BC, when the site of Vienna on the Danube River was settled by the Celts. In 15 BC, the Romans fortified the city they called Vindobona to guard the empire against Germanic tribes to the north
9.
Hofburg
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The Hofburg is the former imperial palace in the centre of Vienna, Austria. It was the principal winter residence, as Schönbrunn Palace was the summer residence. Since 1279 the Hofburg area has been the seat of government. The Hofburg has been expanded over the centuries to various residences, the imperial chapel, the imperial library, the treasury, the Burgtheater, the Spanish Riding School. The palace faces the Heldenplatz ordered under the reign of Emperor Francis Joseph I, as part of what was planned to become the Kaiserforum, the name translates as Royal Castle, which denotes its origins when it was initially constructed during the Medieval Age. Initially constructed as the seat of the Dukes of Austria in the 13th century, from 1438 to 1583 and from 1612 to 1806, it was the seat of the Habsburg kings and emperors of the Holy Roman Empire, thereafter the seat of the Emperor of Austria until 1918. It has continued its role as the seat of the head of state and is used by the Austrian Federal President. It is also the permanent conference seat of the Organization for Security, presently the Burghauptmannschaft is under the jurisdiction of the Federal Ministry of Economy. In September 1958 parts of the Hofburg were opened to the public as a convention centre, in the first ten years the Burghauptmannschaft operated the convention centre, since 1969 a private company has been managing the international congress and events center. Every year the centre hosts about 300 to 350 events with around 300,000 to 320,000 guests. Among the events are conventions and meetings as well as banquets, trade fairs, concerts, the oldest sections originate from the 13th century and were primarily constructed by the last of the Babenbergers or by Ottakar II of Bohemia. Previously the castle of the Austrian rulers had been located on the square called Am Hof, the castle had a square-shaped outline with four turrets, surrounded by a moat and a drawbridge that led to the inside. These oldest sections of the castle form the Swiss Court. There situated are a chapel, from the 15th century, and the treasury, which holds, among other objects, the imperial insignia of the Holy Roman Empire. The Court Music Chapel is located in the Court Chapel and this is where the Vienna Boys Choir traditionally sing for Sunday mass. The appearance of the Swiss Court was given during the reign of Emperor Ferdinand I during the Renaissance, the entry Swiss Gate displays the many titles of Emperor Ferdinand I and the insignia of the Order of the Golden Fleece painted on the ceiling. An adjoining section of the Swiss Wing houses the Radetzky Apartments, next to the Knights Hall is the Guard Room, where the duty officer of the Household Guards kept watch over the emperor. The lower section of this wing once accommodated the imperial kitchen, although not physically connected to the rest of the complex, the imperial mews of the Hofburg were originally built as a residence for the then crown prince Maximilian II
10.
Amsterdam Centraal station
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Amsterdam Centraal is the largest railway station of Amsterdam, Netherlands, and a major national railway hub. Used by 162,000 passengers a day, it is the second-busiest railway station in the country after Utrecht Centraal, national and international railway services at Amsterdam Centraal are provided by NS, the principal rail operator in the Netherlands. Amsterdam Centraal is the terminus of Amsterdam Metro Routes 51,53. It is also served by a number of GVB tram and ferry routes as well as local and regional bus routes operated by GVB, Connexxion, Amsterdam Centraal was designed by Dutch architect Pierre Cuypers and first opened in 1889. It features a Gothic/Renaissance Revival station building and a cast iron platform roof spanning approximately 40 metres, Amsterdam Centraal was designed by Pierre Cuypers, who is also known for his design of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. While Cuypers was the architect, it is believed that he focused mostly on the decoration of the station building. The station was built by contractor Philipp Holzmann, the new central station replaced Amsterdam Willemspoort Station, which had closed in 1878, as well as the temporary Westerdok Station used from 1878 to 1889. In the first proposal, the station would be situated between the Leidseplein and the Amstel river, Cuypers design of the station building in many ways strongly resembled his other architectural masterpiece, the Rijksmuseum, of which the construction had begun in 1876. It features a palace-like, Gothic/Renaissance Revival facade, with two turrets and many details and stone reliefs referring to the capital citys industrial and commercial importance. Cuypers station reflects the nationalistic mood in the late nineteenth-century Netherlands, with its many decorative elements glorifying the nations economic. As with the Rijksmuseum, the overall architecture reminded many contemporaries of medieval cathedrals. Finally, the plan made its way through the Amsterdam municipal council by a narrow majority, the station is built on three interconnected artificial islands in the IJ lake. These islands were created with sand taken from the dunes near Velsen, the islands together are known as Stationseiland. Like many other structures in Amsterdam, the station was built on wooden piles, the construction of the station was delayed because of the instability of the soil, which set back the completion of the work by several years. The station building was completed in 1884, but the commission to Cuypers did not include the roofwork of the platforms, therefore, the station did not yet feature its distinctive station roof. This roof, consisting of 50 curved trusses and a span of almost 45 meters, was designed by L. J. Eijmer, the roof was manufactured by Andrew Handyside and Company of Derby, England. Cuypers did design the decorations for the trusses and the gable ends, on 15 October 1889, the station was officially opened, drawing large numbers of crowds. The visitors were charged 0.25 guilders to see the station, the waterways would soon be replaced by tramways and cars as the primary modes of transport in the city
