1.
1963 in architecture
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The year 1963 in architecture involved some significant events. March 7 - MetLife Building in Manhattan, New York, United States, june 22 - Arrábida Bridge, Douro river, Portugal, designed by Edgar Cardoso. October 15 - Berliner Philharmonie concert hall, designed by Hans Scharoun, november - Phoenix Mutual Life Insurance Building in Hartford, Connecticut, designed by Max Abramovitz. St. John the Baptist Church, Ermine, Lincoln, England, großer Sendesaal of Hanover Broadcast Station in West Germany, designed by Dieter Oesterlen. Bankside Power Station in London, designed by Giles Gilbert Scott, vickers Tower on Millbank in London, designed by Ronald Ward and Partners. Darwin Building, Royal College of Art, South Kensington, London, designed by H. T. and Elizabeth Cadbury-Brown, Sir Hugh Casson, engineering Building at the University of Leicester, England, designed by James Stirling and James Gowan. Alpha House, Coventry, England, built, a 17-storey residential tower block, core buildings of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, designed by Denys Lasdun. Hotel Ivoire, Abidjan, Ivory Coast, designed by Moshe Mayer, Kobe Port Tower in Kobe, Japan. Bunshaft Residence in East Hampton, New York, designed by architect Gordon Bunshaft for himself and his wife, work begins on the Ostankino Tower, designed by Nikolai Nikitin. Pennsylvania Station by McKim, Mead and White is demolished, work begins on the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England, designed by Denys Lasdun. Team 4 architectural practice established by Richard Rogers, Norman Foster, the avant-garde architectural collective Archigram stages the Living Cities exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal – Ludwig Mies van der Rohe AIA Gold Medal - Alvar Aalto, RAIA Gold Medal - Arthur Stephenson. Royal Gold Medal - William Holford, grand Prix de Rome, architecture - Jean-Louis Girodet. John Summerson - The Classical Language of Architecture, J. P. Oud, Dutch architect April 23 - Adrian Gilbert Scott, English church architect, grandson of Sir George Gilbert Scott
2.
John Hancock Center
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The John Hancock Center is a 100-story,1, 128-foot supertall skyscraper at 875 North Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Illinois, United States. It was constructed under the supervision of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, with chief designer Bruce Graham, when the building topped out on May 6,1968, it was the second tallest building in the world and the tallest outside of New York City. When measured to the top of its masts, it stands at 1,500 feet. The building was named for John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company, from the 95th floor restaurant, diners can look out at Chicago and Lake Michigan. The Observatory, which competes with the Willis Towers Skydeck, has a 360° view of the city, up to four states, the Observatory has Chicagos only open-air SkyWalk and also features a free multimedia tour in six languages. The 44th-floor sky lobby features Americas highest indoor swimming pool, construction of the tower was interrupted in 1967 due to a flaw in an innovative engineering method used to pour concrete in stages that was discovered when the building was 20 stories high. The engineers were getting the same settlements for the 20 stories that had been built as what they had expected for the entire 99 stories. This forced the owner to stop development until the problem could be resolved. This situation is similar to the one faced during the construction of 111 West Wacker, wolmans bankruptcy resulted in John Hancock taking over the project, which retained the original design, architect, engineer, and main contractor. The buildings first resident was Ray Heckla, the building engineer. Heckla moved his family in April 1969, before the building was completed, wearing a wetsuit and using a climbing device that enabled him to ascend the I-beams on the buildings side, Goodwin battled repeated attempts by the Chicago Fire Department to knock him off. Fire Commissioner William Blair ordered Chicago firemen to stop Goodwin by directing a fully engaged fire hose at him, fearing for Goodwins life, Mayor Jane Byrne intervened and allowed him to continue to the top. The John Hancock Center was featured in the 1988 movie Poltergeist III, on December 18,1997, comedian Chris Farley was found dead in his apartment on the 60th floor of the John Hancock Center. On March 9,2002, part of a scaffold fell 43 stories after being torn loose by wind gusts around 60 mph crushing several cars, killing three people in two of them. The remaining part of the stage swung back-and-forth in the gusts repeatedly slamming against the building, damaging cladding panels, breaking windows, shorenstein had bought the building in 1998 for $220 million. Golub defaulted on its debt and the building was acquired in 2012 by Deutsche Bank AG who subsequently carved up the building, the observation deck was sold to Paris-based Montparnasse 56 Group for $35 million and $45 in July 2012. That same month, Prudential Real Estate Investors acquired the retail, in November 2012, Boston-based American Tower Corp affiliate paid $70 million for the antennas. In June 2013, a venture of Chicago-based real estate investment firm Hearn Co, the Chicago firm did not disclose a price, but sources said it was about $145 million
3.
Bruce Graham
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Bruce John Graham was a Colombian-American architect. Among his most notable buildings are the Inland Steel Building, the Willis Tower, and he worked with Fazlur Khan on all three constructions. He was also responsible for planning the Broadgate and Canary Wharf developments in London, architectural historian Franz Schulze called him the Burnham of his generation. He was a 1993 Pew Fellow, born on December 1,1925 in La Cumbre, Valle del Cauca, Colombia, Graham was the son of a Canadian-born father who was an international banker, and a Peruvian mother. He attended Colegio San Jose de Rio Piedras in Puerto Rico and he studied at the University of Dayton, Ohio, and at the Case School of Applied Sciences in Cleveland, Ohio. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1948 with a degree in architecture, when he first came to Chicago, he worked for Holabird and Root and joined the Chicago office Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, the largest architectural firm in the United States in 1951. During his 40-year tenure at SOM, Bruce Graham designed notable buildings all over the world from his home in Chicago, to Guatemala, Hong Kong, London, Cairo, and many other cities. With Fazlur Khan he designed the Willis Tower, tallest building in the world for nearly 36 years and he was extremely involved with the University of Pennsylvania, especially the School of Fine Arts. He believed that teachers of architecture should be involved in its practice. He was committed to the study of theory and started the SOM Foundation. He also taught a studio at Harvard. Graham was a collector of art. He befriended Alexander Calder, Joan Miró, Chryssa and Chillida and he invited these artists to create public works of art for the city of Chicago. He believed that to create great work an architect should be informed by philosophy, history, music, Graham was highly influenced by Fazlur Khans design philosophy of Structural art. Khan said, A building’s natural strength should be expressed, Khan did not believe a building should be covered with granite slabs, or aluminum sheets. John Hancock Centers distinctive diagonally braced tube is an example, the building uses structural design for esthetic expression. Graham later expressed this in Hotel Arts in Barcelona and many other buildings, to Khan, for architectural design to reach its highest levels it had to be grounded in structural realities. Bruce Graham firmly believed in this, Graham left a major influence on London, where he was responsible for designing the master plans for the massive Broadgate and Canary Wharf developments
4.
Oscar Niemeyer
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Oscar Ribeiro de Almeida Niemeyer Soares Filho —known as Oscar Niemeyer —was a Brazilian architect considered to be one of the key figures in the development of modern architecture. His exploration of the possibilities of reinforced concrete was highly influential in the late 20th. Both lauded and criticized for being a sculptor of monuments, Niemeyer was hailed as a great artist and he said his architecture was strongly influenced by Le Corbusier, but in an interview, assured that this didnt prevent architecture from going in a different direction. Niemeyer was most famous for his use of forms and curves and wrote in his memoirs, I am not attracted to straight angles or to the straight line, hard and inflexible. I am attracted to free-flowing, sensual curves, the curves that I find in the mountains of my country, in the sinuousness of its rivers, in the waves of the ocean, and on the body of the beloved woman. Curves make up the entire Universe, the curved Universe of Einstein, in the 1930s, he interned with Lúcio Costa, with the pair collaborating on the design for the Palácio Gustavo Capanema in Rio de Janeiro. Niemeyers first major project was a series of buildings for Pampulha and his work, especially on the Church of Saint Francis of Assisi, received critical acclaim and drew international attention. Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, Niemeyer became one of Brazils most prolific architects and this work led to his appointment as inaugural head of architecture at the University of Brasília, as well as honorary membership of the American Institute of Architects. Due to his largely leftist ideology, and involvement with the Brazilian Communist Party, Niemeyer left the country after the 1964 military coup and he returned to Brazil in 1985, and was awarded the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1988. A socialist and atheist from an age, Niemeyer had spent time in both Cuba and the Soviet Union during his exile, and on his return served as the PCBs president from 1992 to 1996. Niemeyer continued working at the end of the 20th and early 21st century, notably designing the Niterói Contemporary Art Museum, over a career of 78 years he designed approximately 600 projects. Niemeyer died in Rio de Janeiro on December 5,2012, at the age of 104, Niemeyer was born in the city of Rio de Janeiro on December 15,1907. The great grandfather of Oscar Niemeyer was a Portuguese immigrant who and he spent his youth as a typical young Carioca of the time, bohemian and relatively unconcerned with his future. In 1928, at age 21, Niemeyer left school and married Annita Baldo and he pursued his passion at the National School of Fine Arts in Rio de Janeiro and graduated with a BA in architecture in 1934. After graduating, he worked in his fathers typography house, even though he was not financially stable, he insisted on working in the architecture studio of Lucio Costa, Gregori Warchavchik and Carlos Leão, even though they could not pay him. Niemeyer joined them as a draftsman, an art that he mastered, the contact with Costa would be extremely important to Niemeyers maturation. Costa, after a flirtation with the Neocolonial movement, realized that the advances of the international style in Europe were the way forward for architecture. In 1936, at 29, Lucio Costa was appointed by Education Minister Gustavo Capanema to design the new headquarters of the Ministry of Education, Costa himself, although open to change, was unsure of how to proceed
5.
Aswan Dam
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The Aswan Dam, or more specifically since the 1960s, the Aswan High Dam, is an embankment dam built across the Nile in Aswan, Egypt between 1960 and 1970. Its significance largely eclipsed the previous Aswan Low Dam initially completed in 1902 downstream, like the earlier implementation, the High Dam has had a significant effect on the economy and culture of Egypt. Since this natural flooding varied however, high-water years could destroy the crop, while low-water years could create widespread drought. Both these events had continued to occur periodically, with the greatly increased reservoir storage provided by the High Aswan Dam, the floods could be controlled and the water could be stored for later release over multiple years. His field work convinced him of the impracticality of this scheme, the British began construction of the first dam across the Nile in 1898. Construction lasted until 1902, and the dam was opened on 10 December 1902, the project was designed by Sir William Willcocks and involved several eminent engineers, including Sir Benjamin Baker and Sir John Aird, whose firm, John Aird & Co. was the main contractor. In 1912, the Greek-Egyptian engineer Adrian Daninos began to develop the plan of the new Aswan Dam, although the Low Dam was almost overtopped in 1946, the Egyptian government of King Farouk showed no interest in Daninoss plans. Instead the Nile Valley Plan by the British hydrologist Harold Edwin Hurst to store water in Sudan and Ethiopia, the Egyptian position changed completely with the overthrow of the monarchy, led by the Free Officers Movement including Gamal Abdel Nasser. The Free Officers were convinced that the Nile Waters had to be stored in Egypt for political reasons, and within two months, the plan of Daninos was accepted. Initially, both the U. S. A. and the USSR were interested in helping the development of the dam, but this movement happened in the midst of the Cold War, as well as of growing intra-Arab rivalries. At that time the U. S. feared that communism would spread to the Middle East, america and Britain offered to help finance construction of the High Dam, with a loan of $270 million, in return for Nassers leadership in resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict. While opposed both to communism, capitalism, and imperialism, Nasser presented himself as a tactical neutralist, in addition to his development plans, he looked to quickly modernize his military, and he turned first to the U. S. Nasser did not accept these conditions, but then he looked to the USSR for support, on 27 September 1955, Nasser announced an arms deal, with Czechoslovakia acting as a middleman for the Soviet support. Instead of attacking Nasser for turning to the Soviets, Dulles sought to improve relations with him and this explains the later offer of December 1955, in which the U. S. and Britain pledged $56 and $14 million respectively towards the construction of the dam. Though the Czech arms deal actually increased the American willingness to invest at Aswan, what angered Dulles much more was Nassers diplomatic recognition of China, which was in direct conflict with Dulless policy of containment. There are several reasons why the U. S. decided to withdraw its offer of funding. Dulles believed that the USSR would not fulfill its commitment to help the Egyptians and he was also irritated by Nassers neutrality and attempts to play both sides of the Cold War. At the time, other western allies in the Middle East, including Turkey and Iraq, were irritated and jealous that Egypt, in June 1956, the Soviets offered Nasser $1.12 billion at 2% interest for the construction of the dam
6.
Egypt
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Egypt, officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia by a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. Egypt is a Mediterranean country bordered by the Gaza Strip and Israel to the northeast, the Gulf of Aqaba to the east, the Red Sea to the east and south, Sudan to the south, and Libya to the west. Across the Gulf of Aqaba lies Jordan, and across from the Sinai Peninsula lies Saudi Arabia, although Jordan and it is the worlds only contiguous Afrasian nation. Egypt has among the longest histories of any country, emerging as one of the worlds first nation states in the tenth millennium BC. Considered a cradle of civilisation, Ancient Egypt experienced some of the earliest developments of writing, agriculture, urbanisation, organised religion and central government. One of the earliest centres of Christianity, Egypt was Islamised in the century and remains a predominantly Muslim country. With over 92 million inhabitants, Egypt is the most populous country in North Africa and the Arab world, the third-most populous in Africa, and the fifteenth-most populous in the world. The great majority of its people live near the banks of the Nile River, an area of about 40,000 square kilometres, the large regions of the Sahara desert, which constitute most of Egypts territory, are sparsely inhabited. About half of Egypts residents live in areas, with most spread across the densely populated centres of greater Cairo, Alexandria. Modern Egypt is considered to be a regional and middle power, with significant cultural, political, and military influence in North Africa, the Middle East and the Muslim world. Egypts economy is one of the largest and most diversified in the Middle East, Egypt is a member of the United Nations, Non-Aligned Movement, Arab League, African Union, and Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. Miṣr is the Classical Quranic Arabic and modern name of Egypt. The name is of Semitic origin, directly cognate with other Semitic words for Egypt such as the Hebrew מִצְרַיִם, the oldest attestation of this name for Egypt is the Akkadian
7.
Osaka
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Osaka is a designated city in the Kansai region of Japan. Historically a merchant city, Osaka has also known as the nations kitchen. Some of the earliest signs of habitation in the Osaka area at the Morinomiya ruins comprise shell mounds, sea oysters. It is believed that what is today the Uehonmachi area consisted of a land with an inland sea in the east. During the Yayoi period, permanent habitation on the plains grew as rice farming became popular, by the Kofun period, Osaka developed into a hub port connecting the region to the western part of Japan. The large numbers of increasingly larger tomb mounds found in the plains of Osaka are seen as evidence of political-power concentration, in 645, Emperor Kōtoku built his Naniwa Nagara-Toyosaki Palace in what is now Osaka, making it the capital of Japan. The city now known as Osaka was at this time referred to as Naniwa, although the capital was moved to Asuka in 655, Naniwa remained a vital connection, by land and sea, between Yamato, Korea, and China. Naniwa was declared the capital again in 744 by order of Emperor Shōmu, and remained so until 745, in 1496, Jōdo Shinshū Buddhists established their headquarters in the heavily fortified Ishiyama Hongan-ji, located directly on the site of the old Naniwa Imperial Palace. Oda Nobunaga began a siege campaign on the temple in 1570 which ultimately resulted in the surrender of the monks. Toyotomi Hideyoshi constructed Osaka Castle in its place in 1583, Osaka was long considered Japans primary economic center, with a large percentage of the population belonging to the merchant class. Over the course of the Edo period, Osaka grew into one of Japans major cities and returned to its ancient role as a lively and its popular culture was closely related to ukiyo-e depictions of life in Edo. By 1780 Osaka had cultivated a vibrant arts culture, as typified by its famous Kabuki, in 1837 Ōshio Heihachirō, a low-ranking samurai, led a peasant insurrection in response to the citys unwillingness to support the many poor and suffering families in the area. Approximately one-quarter of the city was razed before shogunal officials put down the rebellion, Osaka was opened to foreign trade by the government of the Bakufu at the same time as Hyōgo on 1 January 1868, just before the advent of the Boshin War and the Meiji Restoration. Osaka residents were stereotyped in Edo literature from at least the 18th century, jippenisha Ikku in 1802 depicted Osakans as stingy almost beyond belief. Edo writers aspired to samurai culture, and saw themselves as poor but generous, chaste, Edo writers by contrast saw zeeroku as obsequious apprentices, stingy, greedy, gluttonous, and lewd. The modern municipality was established in 1889 by government ordinance, with an area of 15 square kilometres, overlapping todays Chūō. Later, the city went through three major expansions to reach its current size of 223 square kilometres, Osaka was the industrial center most clearly defined in the development of capitalism in Japan. It became known as the Manchester of the Orient, the rapid industrialization attracted many Korean immigrants, who set up a life apart for themselves
8.
New York City
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The City of New York, often called New York City or simply New York, is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2015 population of 8,550,405 distributed over an area of about 302.6 square miles. Located at the tip of the state of New York. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy and has described as the cultural and financial capital of the world. Situated on one of the worlds largest natural harbors, New York City consists of five boroughs, the five boroughs – Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, The Bronx, and Staten Island – were consolidated into a single city in 1898. In 2013, the MSA produced a gross metropolitan product of nearly US$1.39 trillion, in 2012, the CSA generated a GMP of over US$1.55 trillion. NYCs MSA and CSA GDP are higher than all but 11 and 12 countries, New York City traces its origin to its 1624 founding in Lower Manhattan as a trading post by colonists of the Dutch Republic and was named New Amsterdam in 1626. The city and its surroundings came under English control in 1664 and were renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, New York served as the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790. It has been the countrys largest city since 1790, the Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to the Americas by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is a symbol of the United States and its democracy. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance. Several sources have ranked New York the most photographed city in the world, the names of many of the citys bridges, tapered skyscrapers, and parks are known around the world. Manhattans real estate market is among the most expensive in the world, Manhattans Chinatown incorporates the highest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere, with multiple signature Chinatowns developing across the city. Providing continuous 24/7 service, the New York City Subway is one of the most extensive metro systems worldwide, with 472 stations in operation. Over 120 colleges and universities are located in New York City, including Columbia University, New York University, and Rockefeller University, during the Wisconsinan glaciation, the New York City region was situated at the edge of a large ice sheet over 1,000 feet in depth. The ice sheet scraped away large amounts of soil, leaving the bedrock that serves as the foundation for much of New York City today. Later on, movement of the ice sheet would contribute to the separation of what are now Long Island and Staten Island. The first documented visit by a European was in 1524 by Giovanni da Verrazzano, a Florentine explorer in the service of the French crown and he claimed the area for France and named it Nouvelle Angoulême. Heavy ice kept him from further exploration, and he returned to Spain in August and he proceeded to sail up what the Dutch would name the North River, named first by Hudson as the Mauritius after Maurice, Prince of Orange
9.
Minoru Yamasaki
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Minoru Yamasaki was an American architect, best known for designing the original World Trade Center in New York City and several other large-scale projects. Yamasaki was one of the most prominent architects of the 20th century and he and fellow architect Edward Durell Stone are generally considered to be the two master practitioners of New Formalism. Yamasaki was born in Seattle, Washington, a second-generation Japanese American, son of John Tsunejiro Yamasaki and he grew up in the slums of that city and was bullied for his ethnicity. The family moved to Auburn, Washington and he graduated from Garfield Senior High School in Seattle and he enrolled in the University of Washington program in architecture in 1929, and graduated with a Bachelor of Architecture in 1934. During his college years, he was encouraged by faculty member Lionel Pries. He earned money to pay for his tuition by working at an Alaskan salmon cannery, in 1945, Yamasaki moved to Detroit, where he was hired by Smith, Hinchman & Grylls. The firm helped Yamasaki avoid internment as a Japanese-American during World War II, Yamasaki left the firm in 1949, and started his own partnership. One of the first projects he designed at his own firm was Ruhls Bakery at 7 Mile Road, in 1964, Yamasaki received a D. F. A. from Bates College. His firm, Yamasaki & Associates, closed on December 31,2009 and his first internationally recognized design, the Pacific Science Center with its iconic arches, was constructed by the City of Seattle for the 1962 Seattle Worlds Fair. His first significant project was the Pruitt–Igoe housing project in St. Louis, despite his love of Japanese traditional design, this was a stark, modernist concrete structure. The housing project experienced so many problems that it was demolished in 1972 and its destruction is considered by some to be the beginning of postmodern architecture. In 1955, he designed the sleek terminal at Lambert–St. Louis International Airport which led to his 1959 commission to design the Dhahran International Airport in Saudi Arabia. During this period, he created a number of buildings which led to his innovative design of the 1,360 ft towers of the World Trade Center in 1964. The first of the towers was finished in 1970, many of his buildings feature superficial details inspired by the pointed arches of Gothic architecture, and make use of extremely narrow vertical windows. This narrow-windowed style arose from his own fear of heights. One particular design challenge of the World Trade Centers design related to the efficacy of the elevator system, Yamasaki integrated the fastest elevators at the time, running at 1,700 feet per minute. Instead of placing a traditional elevator shaft in the core of each tower
10.
Pittsburgh
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Pittsburgh is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in the United States, and is the county seat of Allegheny County. The city proper has a population of 304,391. The metropolitan population of 2,353,045 is the largest in both the Ohio Valley and Appalachia, the second-largest in Pennsylvania, and the 26th-largest in the U. S. The city features 30 skyscrapers, two inclines, a fortification and the Point State Park at the confluence of the rivers. Aside from steel, Pittsburgh has led in manufacturing of aluminum, glass, shipbuilding, petroleum, foods, sports, transportation, computing, autos, and electronics. For part of the 20th century, Pittsburgh was behind only New York and Chicago in corporate headquarters employment, Americas 1980s deindustrialization laid off area blue-collar workers and thousands of downtown white-collar workers when the longtime Pittsburgh-based world headquarters moved out. The area has served also as the federal agency headquarters for cyber defense, software engineering, robotics, energy research. The area is home to 68 colleges and universities, including research and development leaders Carnegie Mellon University, the region is a hub for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, sustainable energy, and energy extraction. Pittsburgh was named in 1758 by General John Forbes, in honor of British statesman William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham. The current pronunciation, which is unusual in English speaking countries, is almost certainly a result of a printing error in some copies of the City Charter of March 18,1816. The error was repeated commonly enough throughout the rest of the 19th century that the pronunciation was lost. After a public campaign the original spelling was restored by the United States Board on Geographic Names in 1911. The area of the Ohio headwaters was long inhabited by the Shawnee, the first known European to enter the region was the French explorer/trader Robert de La Salle from Quebec during his 1669 expedition down the Ohio River. European pioneers, primarily Dutch, followed in the early 18th century, Michael Bezallion was the first to describe the forks of the Ohio in a 1717 manuscript, and later that year European fur traders established area posts and settlements. In 1749, French soldiers from Quebec launched an expedition to the forks to unite Canada with French Louisiana via the rivers, during 1753–54, the British hastily built Fort Prince George before a larger French force drove them off. The French built Fort Duquesne based on LaSalles 1669 claims, the French and Indian War, the North American front of the Seven Years War, began with the future Pittsburgh as its center. British General Edward Braddock was dispatched with Major George Washington as his aide to take Fort Duquesne, the British and colonial force were defeated at Braddocks Field. General John Forbes finally took the forks in 1758, Forbes began construction on Fort Pitt, named after William Pitt the Elder while the settlement was named Pittsborough
11.
London
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London /ˈlʌndən/ is the capital and most populous city of England and the United Kingdom. Standing on the River Thames in the south east of the island of Great Britain and it was founded by the Romans, who named it Londinium. Londons ancient core, the City of London, largely retains its 1. 12-square-mile medieval boundaries. London is a global city in the arts, commerce, education, entertainment, fashion, finance, healthcare, media, professional services, research and development, tourism. It is crowned as the worlds largest financial centre and has the fifth- or sixth-largest metropolitan area GDP in the world, London is a world cultural capital. It is the worlds most-visited city as measured by international arrivals and has the worlds largest city airport system measured by passenger traffic, London is the worlds leading investment destination, hosting more international retailers and ultra high-net-worth individuals than any other city. Londons universities form the largest concentration of education institutes in Europe. In 2012, London became the first city to have hosted the modern Summer Olympic Games three times, London has a diverse range of people and cultures, and more than 300 languages are spoken in the region. Its estimated mid-2015 municipal population was 8,673,713, the largest of any city in the European Union, Londons urban area is the second most populous in the EU, after Paris, with 9,787,426 inhabitants at the 2011 census. The citys metropolitan area is the most populous in the EU with 13,879,757 inhabitants, the city-region therefore has a similar land area and population to that of the New York metropolitan area. London was the worlds most populous city from around 1831 to 1925, Other famous landmarks include Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, Piccadilly Circus, St Pauls Cathedral, Tower Bridge, Trafalgar Square, and The Shard. The London Underground is the oldest underground railway network in the world, the etymology of London is uncertain. It is an ancient name, found in sources from the 2nd century and it is recorded c.121 as Londinium, which points to Romano-British origin, and hand-written Roman tablets recovered in the city originating from AD 65/70-80 include the word Londinio. The earliest attempted explanation, now disregarded, is attributed to Geoffrey of Monmouth in Historia Regum Britanniae and this had it that the name originated from a supposed King Lud, who had allegedly taken over the city and named it Kaerlud. From 1898, it was accepted that the name was of Celtic origin and meant place belonging to a man called *Londinos. The ultimate difficulty lies in reconciling the Latin form Londinium with the modern Welsh Llundain, which should demand a form *lōndinion, from earlier *loundiniom. The possibility cannot be ruled out that the Welsh name was borrowed back in from English at a later date, and thus cannot be used as a basis from which to reconstruct the original name. Until 1889, the name London officially applied only to the City of London, two recent discoveries indicate probable very early settlements near the Thames in the London area
