1.
Bloomsbury
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Bloomsbury is an area of the London Borough of Camden, between Euston Road and Holborn. It was developed by the Russell family in the 17th and 18th centuries into a residential area. It is notable for its garden squares, literary connections, and numerous cultural, educational, Bloomsbury Square was laid out in 1660 by Thomas Wriothesley, 4th Earl of Southampton. Much of the district was planned and built by James Burton and it is also home to the University of Law and New College of the Humanities. London Contemporary Dance School and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and are located in the area. Bloomsbury is in the constituency of Holborn and St Pancras. The western half of the district comprises Bloomsbury ward, which three councillors to Camden Borough Council. The earliest record of what would become Bloomsbury is in the 1086 Domesday Book, but it is not until 1201 that the name Bloomsbury is first noted, when William de Blemond, a Norman landowner, acquired the land. The name Bloomsbury is a development from Blemondisberi – the bury, or manor, at the end of the 14th century, Edward III acquired Blemonds manor, and passed it on to the Carthusian monks of the London Charterhouse, who kept the area mostly rural. In the 16th century with the Dissolution of the Monasteries, Henry VIII took the back into the possession of the Crown and granted it to Thomas Wriothesley. In the early 1660s, the Earl of Southampton constructed what eventually became Bloomsbury Square, the Yorkshire Grey public house on the corner of Grays Inn Road and Theobalds Road dates from 1676. The area was laid out mainly in the 18th century, largely by landowners such as Wriothesley Russell, 3rd Duke of Bedford, who built Bloomsbury Market, William de Blemond in the 13th century, a Norman, was the first landowner. Edward III acquired Blemonds manor, and passed it on to the Carthusian monks who governed it until Henry VIII granted it to the Earl of Southampton, the Russell family became landowners in the 18th century. The area lay within the parishes of St Giles in the Fields and St Georges, Bloomsbury and it is now controlled by the London Borough of Camden and part of the district is contained within the Bloomsbury ward. The district is situated in the constituency of Holborn and St Pancras. Bloomsbury merges gradually with Holborn in the south, with St Pancras and Kings Cross in the north-east, the road runs from Euston and Somers Town in the north to Holborn in the south. East of Southampton Row/Woburn Place are the Grade II listed Brunswick Centre, a residential and shopping centre, the area west of Southampton Row/Woburn Place is notable for its concentration of academic establishments, museums, and formal squares. Bloomsbury contains some of Londons finest parks and buildings, and is known for its formal squares
2.
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
3.
United Kingdom
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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom or Britain, is a sovereign country in western Europe. Lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland, the United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland, with an area of 242,500 square kilometres, the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world and the 11th-largest in Europe. It is also the 21st-most populous country, with an estimated 65.1 million inhabitants, together, this makes it the fourth-most densely populated country in the European Union. The United Kingdom is a monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. The monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned since 6 February 1952, other major urban areas in the United Kingdom include the regions of Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester. The United Kingdom consists of four countries—England, Scotland, Wales, the last three have devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in their capitals, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, respectively. The relationships among the countries of the UK have changed over time, Wales was annexed by the Kingdom of England under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. A treaty between England and Scotland resulted in 1707 in a unified Kingdom of Great Britain, which merged in 1801 with the Kingdom of Ireland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present formulation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, there are fourteen British Overseas Territories. These are the remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, British influence can be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former colonies. The United Kingdom is a country and has the worlds fifth-largest economy by nominal GDP. The UK is considered to have an economy and is categorised as very high in the Human Development Index. It was the worlds first industrialised country and the worlds foremost power during the 19th, the UK remains a great power with considerable economic, cultural, military, scientific and political influence internationally. It is a nuclear weapons state and its military expenditure ranks fourth or fifth in the world. The UK has been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946 and it has been a leading member state of the EU and its predecessor, the European Economic Community, since 1973. However, on 23 June 2016, a referendum on the UKs membership of the EU resulted in a decision to leave. The Acts of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have devolved self-government
4.
Dome
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A dome is an architectural element that resembles the hollow upper half of a sphere. The precise definition has been a matter of controversy, there are also a wide variety of forms and specialized terms to describe them. A dome can rest upon a rotunda or drum, and can be supported by columns or piers that transition to the dome through squinches or pendentives, a lantern may cover an oculus and may itself have another dome. Domes have a long architectural lineage that extends back into prehistory and they have been constructed from mud, snow, stone, wood, brick, concrete, metal, glass, and plastic over the centuries. The symbolism associated with domes includes mortuary, celestial, and governmental traditions that have developed over time. Domes have been found from early Mesopotamia, which may explain the forms spread and they are found in Persian, Hellenistic, Roman, and Chinese architecture in the Ancient world, as well as among a number of contemporary indigenous building traditions. They were popular in Byzantine and medieval Islamic architecture, and there are examples from Western Europe in the Middle Ages. The Renaissance style spread from Italy in the Early modern period, advancements in mathematics, materials, and production techniques since that time resulted in new dome types. The domes of the world can be found over religious buildings, legislative chambers, sports stadiums. The English word dome ultimately derives from the Latin domus —which, up through the Renaissance, labeled a revered house, such as a Domus Dei, or House of God, the French word dosme came to acquire the meaning of a cupola vault, specifically, by 1660. A dome is a rounded vault made of either curved segments or a shell of revolution, sometimes called false domes, corbel domes achieve their shape by extending each horizontal layer of stones inward slightly farther than the lower one until they meet at the top. A false dome may also refer to a wooden dome, true domes are said to be those whose structure is in a state of compression, with constituent elements of wedge-shaped voussoirs, the joints of which align with a central point. The validity of this is unclear, as domes built underground with corbelled stone layers are also in compression from the surrounding earth, as with arches, the springing of a dome is the level from which the dome rises. The top of a dome is the crown, the inner side of a dome is called the intrados and the outer side is called the extrados. The haunch is the part of an arch that lies halfway between the base and the top. The word cupola is another word for dome, and is used for a small dome upon a roof or turret. Cupola has also used to describe the inner side of a dome. Drums, also called tholobates, are cylindrical or polygonal walls with or without windows that support a dome, a tambour or lantern is the equivalent structure over a domes oculus, supporting a cupola
5.
Queen Elizabeth II Great Court
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It was opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 2000. It is the largest covered square in Europe, controversially, some of the stone in the court is from France, rather than being Portland Stone from southern England as agreed in the original contract with the masons. Within the Great Court, there are shops and a café, the court acts as a central linking point for the museum, somewhat like I. M. Peis Louvre Pyramid in Paris. The central courtyard of the British Museum was occupied by the British Library until 1997 when it moved to St Pancras, at that time the entire courtyard was filled with bookshelves, three stories high. To get from one side of the museum to the visitors had to go round. Once the Library had moved out, the bookstacks were cleared, a new ground level was created, a storey higher than the original courtyard, with the space below used to accommodate the Clore Education Centre and the African galleries. The South Portico was largely rebuilt, with two new lifts incorporated for disabled access to the levels of the museum. A new gridshell glass roof was provided over the courtyard to create a covered space at the centre of the museum. The British Library Reading Room at the centre of the courtyard was retained and refurbished for use as the Museum library and information centre. North of the Reading Room there is a block with a shop at ground level, a gallery for temporary exhibitions above. The Clore Education Centre is housed in the level of the Great Court. He supported the Museums global role, diagrid Thin-shell structure List of thin shell structures Great Court, British Museum including 360° panorama Sounds and video of the Great Court
6.
Library
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A library is a collection of sources of information and similar resources, made accessible to a defined community for reference or borrowing. It provides physical or digital access to material, and may be a building or room, or a virtual space. Libraries range in size from a few shelves of books to several million items, in Latin and Greek, the idea of a bookcase is represented by Bibliotheca and Bibliothēkē, derivatives of these mean library in many modern languages, e. g. French bibliothèque. The first libraries consisted of archives of the earliest form of clay tablets in cuneiform script discovered in Sumer. Private or personal libraries made up of books appeared in classical Greece in the 5th century BC. In the 6th century, at the close of the Classical period. A library is organized for use and maintained by a body, an institution. In addition to providing materials, libraries also provide the services of librarians who are experts at finding and organizing information, Libraries often provide quiet areas for studying, and they also often offer common areas to facilitate group study and collaboration. Libraries often provide facilities for access to their electronic resources. Modern libraries are increasingly being redefined as places to get unrestricted access to information in many formats, the first libraries consisted of archives of the earliest form of writing—the clay tablets in cuneiform script discovered in temple rooms in Sumer, some dating back to 2600 BC. These archives, which consisted of the records of commercial transactions or inventories, mark the end of prehistory. Things were much the same in the government and temple records on papyrus of Ancient Egypt, the earliest discovered private archives were kept at Ugarit, besides correspondence and inventories, texts of myths may have been standardized practice-texts for teaching new scribes. There is also evidence of libraries at Nippur about 1900 BC, philosopher Laozi was keeper of books in the earliest library in China, which belonged to the Imperial Zhou dynasty. Also, evidence of catalogues found in some destroyed ancient libraries illustrates the presence of librarians, the Library of Alexandria, in Egypt, was the largest and most significant great library of the ancient world. It flourished under the patronage of the Ptolemaic dynasty and functioned as a center of scholarship from its construction in the 3rd century BC until the Roman conquest of Egypt in 30 BC. The library was conceived and opened either during the reign of Ptolemy I Soter or during the reign of his son Ptolemy II, an early organization system was in effect at Alexandria. The Library of Celsus in Ephesus, Anatolia, now part of Selçuk, Turkey was built in honor of the Roman Senator Tiberius Julius Celsus Polemaeanus by Celsus’ son, the library was built to store 12,000 scrolls and to serve as a monumental tomb for Celsus. Private or personal libraries made up of books appeared in classical Greece in the 5th century BC
7.
British Library
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The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and the second largest library in the world by number of items catalogued. It holds well over 150 million items from many countries, as a legal deposit library, the British Library receives copies of all books produced in the United Kingdom and Ireland, including a significant proportion of overseas titles distributed in the UK. The Library is a public body sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media. The Librarys collections include around 14 million books, along with holdings of manuscripts. In addition to receiving a copy of every publication produced in the UK and Ireland, the Library adds some three million items every year occupying 9.6 kilometres of new shelf space. Prior to 1973, the Library was part of the British Museum, the Euston Road building is classified as a Grade I listed building, of exceptional interest for its architecture and history. The British Library was created on 1 July 1973 as a result of the British Library Act 1972. Prior to this, the library was part of the British Museum. In 1983, the Library absorbed the National Sound Archive, which holds many sound and video recordings, with over a million discs, the core of the Librarys historical collections is based on a series of donations and acquisitions from the 18th century, known as the foundation collections. From 1997 to 2009 the main collection was housed in this new building. Construction work on the Newspaper Storage Building was completed in 2013, the collection has now been split between the St Pancras and Boston Spa sites. The British Library Document Supply Service and the Librarys Document Supply Collection is based on the site in Boston Spa. Collections housed in Yorkshire, comprising low-use material and the newspaper and Document Supply collections, the Library previously had a book storage depot in Woolwich, south-east London, which is no longer in use. The new library was designed specially for the purpose by the architect Colin St John Wilson, facing Euston Road is a large piazza that includes pieces of public art, such as large sculptures by Eduardo Paolozzi and Antony Gormley. It is the largest public building constructed in the United Kingdom in the 20th century, in December 2009 a new storage building at Boston Spa was opened by Rosie Winterton. The building was Grade I listed on 1 August 2015, in England, Legal Deposit can be traced back to at least 1610. The other five libraries are, the Bodleian Library at Oxford, the University Library at Cambridge, the Trinity College Library at Dublin, in 2003 the Ipswich MP Chris Mole introduced a Private Members Bill which became the Legal Deposit Libraries Act 2003. The Act extends United Kingdom legal deposit requirements to electronic documents, such as CD-ROMs, the Library also holds the Asia, Pacific and Africa Collections which include the India Office Records and materials in the languages of Asia and of north and north-east Africa
8.
William Hosking
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William Hosking was an English writer, lecturer, and architect who had an important influence on the growth and development of London in Victorian times. Hosking was born at Buckfastleigh in Devon, the son of a woolen manufacturer, in 1809 he emigrated with his parents to New South Wales, where his father, whose business interests in Devon had been doing poorly, had accepted a government office. It was here that Hoskings architectural career began for he was apprenticed to a surveyor and this profession continued to interest him when, in 1819, he returned to England to seek further training, becoming articled to a Wesleyan minister-turned-architect, the Rev. William Jenkins. In the early 1820s Hosking completed his articles and travelled in southern Europe, including Italy, primarily to study art, such scholarship led to his being elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1830. At about this date he was commissioned by the Encyclopædia Britannica, to contribute the chapters headed Architecture and Building. Indeed historical accuracy came to characterise Hoskings approach to architecture, as he sought to mix historical elements in appropriate ways and this eye for historical detail was combined with a concern for equally detailed practical improvements in construction techniques. His success in designing this construction was much commented upon and assisted his election, in 1835, which led to his being recognised as having competence in both civil engineering and architectural spheres. The aim of the promoters of Abney Park Cemetery was to open the first wholly non-denominational garden cemetery in Europe, to complement Hoskings buildings, an appropriate landscape setting was designed and planted by George Loddiges. Hoskings clients, led by the Abney Park Cemeterys founder and indefatigable company secretary George Collison II, the promoters hoped that the burial fees would provide the revenue to meet this romantic objective. Although The Rosary cemetery in Norwich had begun to pioneer elements of a non-denominational approach, similarly, other cemeteries to date had only been able to apply the term non-denominational in a partial sense, lacking non-denominational entrance lodges or chapels. Consequently, at the date of Hoskings brief, there was no European architectural style for the buildings of a wholly non-denominational cemetery on which he could draw for inspiration, thus Hoskings brief was both novel and ambitious. There was no similar model to base his designs on, other than what was in a state of progress in the New World. This was to become the earliest example in European architecture of a building being designed. It was also the earliest example in Europe of a cemetery frontage constructed in the style—railings at a cemetery frontage. Previously the style had only used in cemetery design for memorial monuments, for one temporary frontage scheme. Regrettably it did not gain the support it needed, and Hoskings Abney Park entrance ensemble remained the only example of large-scale use of the Egyptian style in cemetery design. This, the Abney Park Chapel was to be the first non-denominational cemetery chapel in Europe, while not detracting from the magnificence and originality of the grand entrance design, Hoskings chapel had, likewise, to make its mark as a unique design. As with the entrance, Hosking met the challenge both with originality and a surprisingly wide knowledge of architecture
9.
Pantheon, Rome
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The Pantheon is a former Roman temple, now a church, in Rome, Italy, on the site of an earlier temple commissioned by Marcus Agrippa during the reign of Augustus. The present building was completed by the emperor Hadrian and probably dedicated about 126 AD and he retained Agrippas original inscription, which has confused its date of construction as the original Pantheon burnt down so it is not certain when the present one was built. The building is circular with a portico of large granite Corinthian columns under a pediment, a rectangular vestibule links the porch to the rotunda, which is under a coffered concrete dome, with a central opening to the sky. Almost two thousand years after it was built, the Pantheons dome is still the worlds largest unreinforced concrete dome, the height to the oculus and the diameter of the interior circle are the same,43.3 metres. Mary and the Martyrs but informally known as Santa Maria Rotonda, the square in front of the Pantheon is called Piazza della Rotonda. The Pantheon is a property, ruled by Italys Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism through the Polo Museale del Lazio. The Pantheons large circular domed cella, with a temple portico front, is unique in Roman architecture. Nevertheless, it became a standard exemplar when classical styles were revived, Pantheon is derived from the Ancient Greek Pantheion meaning of, relating to, or common to all the gods. His uncertainty strongly suggests that Pantheon was merely a nickname, not the name of the building. In fact, the concept of a dedicated to all the gods is questionable. The only definite pantheon recorded earlier than Agrippas was at Antioch in Syria and it seems highly significant that Dio does not quote the simplest explanation for the name—that the Pantheon was dedicated to all the gods. Godfrey and Hemsoll maintain that the word Pantheon need not denote a group of gods, or, indeed, even all the gods. Certainly the word pantheus or pantheos, could be applicable to individual deities…, bearing in mind also that the Greek word θεῖος need not mean of a god but could mean superhuman, or even excellent. It seems likely that the Pantheon and the Basilica of Neptune were Agrippas sacra privata and this less solemn designation would help explain how the building could have so easily lost its original name and purpose in such a relatively short period of time. However, archaeological excavations have shown that the Pantheon of Agrippa had been destroyed except for the façade. Lise Hetland argues that the present construction began in 114, under Trajan and her argument is particularly interesting in light of Heilmeyers argument that, based on stylistic evidence, Apollodorus of Damascus, Trajans architect, was the obvious architect. The form of Agrippas Pantheon is debated and this description was widely accepted until the late 20th century. The only passages referring to the decoration of the Agrippan Pantheon written by an eyewitness are in Plinys Natural History, from him we know that the capitals, too, of the pillars, which were placed by M
