The German Red Cross, or the DRK, is the national Red Cross Society in Germany. With 4 million members, it is the third largest Red Cross society in the world; the German Red Cross offers a wide range of services outside Germany. GRC provides care for the elderly, care for children and youth. GRC provides 75% of the blood supply in Germany as well as 60% of the emergency medical services in Germany, as well as first aid training. GRC headquarters provides international humanitarian aid in over 50 countries in the world; the majority of active voluntary Red Cross members are part of the five voluntary societies of the German Red Cross. Bereitschaften Bergwacht Wasserwacht Sozialarbeit Jugendrotkreuz Instituted in 1864 by Dr. Aaron Silverman of the Charité hospital of Berlin, the German Red Cross was a voluntary civil assistance organization, acknowledged by the Geneva Convention in 1929. General Curt W. von Pfuel was the Chairman of the Central Committee of the German National Red Cross during the Great War.

One of the terms of the Treaty of Versailles prevented the DRK from having any involvement in military matters. As a result, during the Weimar Republic under the leadership of Joachim von Winterfeldt-Mencken, the DRK became a national organization focusing on social welfare. In April 1933 the Nazi Reich Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick made it clear to Winterfeldt-Mencken that this policy would no longer apply. Shortly after this the DRK was informed that the head of the SA Medical Corps, Dr. Paul Hocheisen had been given responsibility for voluntary nursing organizations. On 11 June 1933 Frick was invited to speak at the Red Cross Day, he declared: "The Red Cross is something like the conscience of the nation.... Together with the nation, the Red Cross is ready to commit all its strength for the high goals of our leader, Adolf Hitler"; the DRK was quick to respond to the changed circumstances, indeed Winterfeldt-Mencken had always been opposed to the system of parliamentary democracy. The Workers' Samaritan League, a left-wing humanitarian organization, had always been an unwelcome competitor to the DRK.

Hocheisen quickly arranged that it should be taken over by the DRK. The DRK moved to rid itself of left-wing members, in June 1933 it decided that the Nazi "Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service" should be applied and dismissed its Jewish employees; however the DRK was still a member of the Red Cross movement, Germany remained a signatory to the Geneva Convention, so it was not possible for them to apply the same level of "Gleichschaltung" to the DRK as it was to other organizations. The attitude of the ICRC towards the DRK's exclusion of the Jews was expressed in a letter written by Max Huber in 1939. According to him, the primary obligation of neutral treatment as foreseen in the Geneva Convention was to the victims of war, not to the helpers, he argued that as it was impossible to prescribe rules which were in conflict with the laws of a country, it was better to take a flexible approach than to risk the break-up of the universal Red Cross movement. Despite Winterfeldt-Mencken's professions of loyalty to the regime, they were not reciprocated and a replacement was sought.

President Hindenburg was able to influence the decision, selected Charles Edward, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Queen Victoria's grandson, rather than Hocheisen. Charles Edward had moved from England to Germany at the age of 15, had subsequently served as a general in the German army in the First World War, had long supported right-wing movements in general, Hitler in particular, he was honorary president of the National Socialist Motor Corps. Charles Edward became President of the DRK in December 1933. Not unsurprisingly, they did not work well together. There followed a Nazi-Darwinist power struggle, in which Hocheisen was able to assert his authority – only to be ousted by the top SS doctor Ernst-Robert Grawitz at the start of 1937. At the end of 1938 the German Red Cross came under the control of the Ministry of the Interior's Social Welfare Organization, becoming de facto a Nazi entity, led by Grawitz in the role of'acting president', with Oswald Pohl as chairman of the board of administration.

By this stage there was no doubt about, in charge, though Charles Edward remained in his post until 1945. As he was related to European royalty and spoke good English, he was a useful figurehead for the DRK, but Grawitz was different – he would turn up to International Red Cross meetings in his SS uniform. Grawitz took a radical approach to his task, he introduced a hierarchical chain of command into the DRK, arranged for a new large and imposing "representative"- presidential building to be constructed in Potsdam-Babelsberg, complete with a balcony from which speeches could be made. His ideal concept for the DRK was that of a "healthy structure which would fit itself organically into the laws of life in the National Socialist Third Reich". In the years after the Nazi takeover, as well as adopting Nazi salutes and symbols, the DRK introduced Nazi ideology into their education. Rescue teams were trained in military conduct, basic concepts of Natio

The National Gallery of Australia is the national art museum of Australia as well as one of the largest art museums in Australia, holding more than 166,000 works of art. Located in Canberra in the Australian Capital Territory, it was established in 1967 by the Australian government as a national public art museum. Prominent Australian artist Tom Roberts had lobbied various Australian prime ministers, starting with the first, Edmund Barton. Prime Minister Andrew Fisher accepted the idea in 1910, the following year Parliament established a bipartisan committee of six political leaders—the Historic Memorials Committee; the Committee decided that the government should collect portraits of Australian governors-general, parliamentary leaders and the principal "fathers" of federation to be painted by Australian artists. This led to the establishment of what became known as the Commonwealth Art Advisory Board, responsible for art acquisitions until 1973; the Parliamentary Library Committee collected paintings for the Australian collections of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Library, including landscapes, notably the acquisition of Tom Roberts' Allegro con brio, Bourke St West in 1918.

Prior to the opening of the Gallery these paintings were displayed around Parliament House, in Commonwealth offices, including diplomatic missions overseas, State Galleries. From 1912, the building of a permanent building to house the collection in Canberra was the major priority of the Commonwealth Art Advisory Board. However, this period included two World Wars and a Depression and governments always considered they had more pressing priorities, including building the initial infrastructure of Canberra and Old Parliament House in the 1920s and the rapid expansion of Canberra and the building of government offices, Lake Burley Griffin and the National Library of Australia in the 1950s and early 1960s. In 1965 the Commonwealth Art Advisory Board was able to persuade Prime Minister Robert Menzies to take the steps necessary to establish the gallery. On 1 November 1967, Prime Minister Harold Holt formally announced that the Government would construct the building; the design of the building was complicated by the difficulty in finalising its location, affected by the layout of the Parliamentary Triangle.

The main problem was the final site of the new Parliament House. In Canberra's original Griffin 1912 plan, Parliament House was to be built on Camp Hill, between Capital Hill and the Provisional Parliament House and a Capitol was to be built on top of Capital Hill, he envisaged the Capitol to be "either a general administration structure for popular receptions and ceremony or for housing archives and commemorating Australian Achievements". In the early 1960s, the National Capital Development Commission proposed, in accordance with the 1958 and 1964 Holford plans for the Parliamentary Triangle, that the site for the new Parliament House be moved to the shore of Lake Burley Griffin, with a vast National Place, to be built on its south side, to be surrounded by a large mass of buildings; the Gallery would be built on Capital Hill, along with other national cultural institutions. In 1968, Colin Madigan of Edwards Madigan Torzillo and Partners won the competition for the design though no design could be finalised, as the final site was now in doubt.

Prime Minister John Gorton stated that, "The Competition had as its aim not a final design for the building but rather the selection of a vigorous and imaginative architect who would be commissioned to submit the actual design of the Gallery."Gorton proposed to Parliament in 1968 that it endorse Holford's lakeside site for the new Parliament House, but it refused and sites at Camp Hill and Capital Hill were investigated. As a result, the Government decided. In 1971, the Government selected a 17-hectare site on the eastern side of the proposed National Place, between King Edward Terrace and for the Gallery. Though it was now unlikely that the lakeside Parliament House would proceed, a raised National Place surrounded by national institutions and government offices was still planned. Madigan's brief included the Gallery, a building for the High Court of Australia and the precinct around them, linking to the raised National Place at the centre of the Land Axis of the Parliamentary Triangle, which led to the National Library on the western side.

Madigan's final design was based on a brief prepared by the National Capital Development Commission with input from James Johnson Sweeney and James Mollison. Sweeney was director of the Guggenheim Museum between 1952–1960 and director of The Museum of Fine Arts and had been appointed as a consultant to advise on issues concerning the display and storage of art. Mollison said in 1989 that "the size and form of the building had been determined between Colin Madigan and J. J. Sweeney, the National Capital Development Commission. I was not able to alter the appearance of the interior or exterior in any way... It's a difficult building in which to make art look more important than the space in which you put the art"; the construction of the building commenced in 1973, with the unveiling of a plaque by Prime Minister Gough Whitlam. Construction was managed by P. D. C. Constructions under the supervision of the National Capital Development Commission and it was opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 1982, during the premiership of Whitlam's successor, Malcolm Fraser.

The building cost $82 million. In 1975, the NCDC abandoned the plan for the National Place, leaving the precinct five metres above the natural ground level, without the proposed connections to national institutions

El Ateneo Grand Splendid is a bookshop in Buenos Aires, Argentina. In 2008, The Guardian placed it as the second most beautiful bookshop in the world. In 2019, it was named the "world's most beautiful bookstore" by the National Geographic. Situated on Santa Fe Avenue in Barrio Norte, the building was designed by architects Peró and Torres Armengol for impresario Max Glücksmann, opened as a theatre called Teatro Gran Splendid in May 1919; the ecleticist building features ceiling frescoes painted by the Italian artist Nazareno Orlandi and caryatids sculpted by Troiano Troiani, whose work graces the cornice along the Palacio de la Legislatura de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires. The theatre had a seating capacity of 1,050, staged a variety of performances, including appearances by the tango artists Carlos Gardel, Francisco Canaro, Roberto Firpo and Ignacio Corsini. Glücksmann started his own radio station in 1924, which broadcast from the building where his recording company, Nacional Odeón, made some of the early recordings of the great tango singers of the day.

In the late twenties the theatre was converted into a cinema, in 1929 showed the first sound films presented in Argentina. The ornate former theatre was leased by Grupo Ilhsa in February 2000. Ilhsa, through Tematika, owns El Ateneo and Yenny booksellers, as well as the El Ateneo publishing house; the building was subsequently renovated and converted into a book and music shop under the direction of architect Fernando Manzone. Following refurbishment works, the 2,000 m2 El Ateneo Grand Splendid became the group's flagship store, in 2007 sold over 700,000 books. Chairs are provided throughout the building, including the still-intact theatre boxes, where customers can dip into books before purchase, there is now a café on the back of what was once the stage; the ceiling, the ornate carvings, the crimson stage curtains, the auditorium lighting and many architectural details remain. Despite the changes, the building still retains the feeling of the grand theatre; the Guardian, a prominent British periodical, named El Ateneo Grand Splendid second in its 2008 list of the world's ten best bookshops.

In 2019, it was named the "world's most beautiful bookstore" by the National Geographic