1.
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
2.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
3.
Modernism
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Among the factors that shaped modernism were the development of modern industrial societies and the rapid growth of cities, followed then by reactions of horror to World War I. Modernism also rejected the certainty of Enlightenment thinking, and many modernists rejected religious belief, the poet Ezra Pounds 1934 injunction to Make it new. Was the touchstone of the approach towards what it saw as the now obsolete culture of the past. In this spirit, its innovations, like the novel, atonal and twelve-tone music, divisionist painting and abstract art. Modernism explicitly rejected the ideology of realism and makes use of the works of the past by the employment of reprise, incorporation, rewriting, recapitulation, revision, others focus on modernism as an aesthetic introspection. While J. M. W. Art critic Clement Greenberg describes the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood as proto-Modernists, There the proto-Modernists were, of all people, the Pre-Raphaelites actually foreshadowed Manet, with whom Modernist painting most definitely begins. They acted on a dissatisfaction with painting as practiced in their time, rationalism has also had opponents in the philosophers Søren Kierkegaard and later Friedrich Nietzsche, both of whom had significant influence on existentialism. A major 19th-century engineering achievement was The Crystal Palace, the huge cast-iron, Glass and iron were used in a similar monumental style in the construction of major railway terminals in London, such as Paddington Station and Kings Cross Station. These technological advances led to the building of structures like the Brooklyn Bridge. The latter broke all previous limitations on how tall man-made objects could be and these engineering marvels radically altered the 19th-century urban environment and the daily lives of people. Arguments arose that the values of the artist and those of society were not merely different, but that Society was antithetical to Progress, the philosopher Schopenhauer called into question the previous optimism, and his ideas had an important influence on later thinkers, including Nietzsche. Darwins theory of evolution by natural selection undermined religious certainty and the idea of human uniqueness, in particular, the notion that human beings were driven by the same impulses as lower animals proved to be difficult to reconcile with the idea of an ennobling spirituality. Karl Marx argued that there were fundamental contradictions within the capitalist system, historians, and writers in different disciplines, have suggested various dates as starting points for modernism. Everdell also thinks modernism in painting began in 1885–86 with Seurats Divisionism, the poet Baudelaires Les Fleurs du mal, and Flauberts novel Madame Bovary were both published in 1857. In the arts and letters, two important approaches developed separately in France, the first was Impressionism, a school of painting that initially focused on work done, not in studios, but outdoors. Impressionist paintings demonstrated that human beings do not see objects, the school gathered adherents despite internal divisions among its leading practitioners, and became increasingly influential. A significant event of 1863 was the Salon des Refusés, created by Emperor Napoleon III to display all of the paintings rejected by the Paris Salon. While most were in standard styles, but by artists, the work of Manet attracted tremendous attention
4.
Switzerland
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Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a federal republic in Europe. It consists of 26 cantons, and the city of Bern is the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in western-Central Europe, and is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland is a country geographically divided between the Alps, the Swiss Plateau and the Jura, spanning an area of 41,285 km2. The establishment of the Old Swiss Confederacy dates to the medieval period, resulting from a series of military successes against Austria. Swiss independence from the Holy Roman Empire was formally recognized in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. The country has a history of armed neutrality going back to the Reformation, it has not been in a state of war internationally since 1815, nevertheless, it pursues an active foreign policy and is frequently involved in peace-building processes around the world. In addition to being the birthplace of the Red Cross, Switzerland is home to international organisations. On the European level, it is a member of the European Free Trade Association. However, it participates in the Schengen Area and the European Single Market through bilateral treaties, spanning the intersection of Germanic and Romance Europe, Switzerland comprises four main linguistic and cultural regions, German, French, Italian and Romansh. Due to its diversity, Switzerland is known by a variety of native names, Schweiz, Suisse, Svizzera. On coins and stamps, Latin is used instead of the four living languages, Switzerland is one of the most developed countries in the world, with the highest nominal wealth per adult and the eighth-highest per capita gross domestic product according to the IMF. Zürich and Geneva have each been ranked among the top cities in the world in terms of quality of life, with the former ranked second globally, according to Mercer. The English name Switzerland is a compound containing Switzer, a term for the Swiss. The English adjective Swiss is a loan from French Suisse, also in use since the 16th century. The name Switzer is from the Alemannic Schwiizer, in origin an inhabitant of Schwyz and its associated territory, the Swiss began to adopt the name for themselves after the Swabian War of 1499, used alongside the term for Confederates, Eidgenossen, used since the 14th century. The data code for Switzerland, CH, is derived from Latin Confoederatio Helvetica. The toponym Schwyz itself was first attested in 972, as Old High German Suittes, ultimately related to swedan ‘to burn’
5.
Le Corbusier
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Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, known as Le Corbusier, was a Swiss-French architect, designer, painter, urban planner, writer, and one of the pioneers of what is now called modern architecture. He was born in Switzerland and became a French citizen in 1930 and his career spanned five decades, he constructed buildings in Europe, Japan, India, and North and South America. Le Corbusier prepared the plan for the city of Chandigarh in India. On July 17,2016, seventeen projects by Le Corbusier in seven countries were inscribed in the list of UNESCO World Heritage sites as an Outstanding Contribution to the Modern Movement and it was an industrial town, devoted to the manufacture of watches. His father was an artisan who enameled boxes and watches, while his mother gave piano lessons and his elder brother Albert was an amateur violinist. He attended a kindergarten that used Fröbelian methods, like his contemporaries Frank Lloyd Wright and Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier did not have formal academic training as an architect. He was attracted to the arts and at the age of fifteen he entered the municipal art school in La-Chaux-de-Fonds which taught the applied arts connected with watchmaking. Three years later he attended the course of decoration, founded by the painter Charles LEplattenier. Le Corbusier wrote later that LEplattenier had made him a man of the woods and his father took him frequently into the mountains around the town. He wrote later, we were constantly on mountaintops, we grew accustomed to a vast horizon and his architecture teacher in the Art School was the architect René Chapallaz, who had a large influence on Le Corbusiers earliest house designs. However, he reported later that it was the art teacher LEplattenier who made him choose architecture, I had a horror of architecture and architects, he wrote. I was sixteen, I accepted the verdict and I obeyed. Le Corbusier began teaching himself by going to the library to read about architecture and philosophy, by visiting museums, by sketching buildings, located on the forested hillside near Chaux-de-fonds. It was a chalet with a steep roof in the local alpine style. The success of this led to his construction of two similar houses, the Villas Jacquemet and Stotzer, in the same area. In Florence, he visited the Florence Charterhouse in Galluzzo, which made an impression on him. I would have liked to live in one of what they called their cells and it was the solution for a unique kind of workers housing, or rather for a terrestrial paradise. In 1911, he traveled again for five months, this time he journeyed to the Balkans and visited Serbia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Greece, as well as Pompeii and Rome. Filling nearly 80 sketchbooks with renderings of what he saw—including many sketches of the Parthenon and he spoke of what he saw during this trip in many of his books, and it was the subject of his last book, Le Voyage dOrient
6.
Steven Spielberg
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Steven Allan Spielberg, KBE, OMRI is an American director, producer, and screenwriter. He is considered one of the pioneers of the New Hollywood era. He is also one of the co-founders of DreamWorks Studios, in a career spanning more than four decades, Spielbergs films have spanned many themes and genres. His other films include Jurassic Park, A. I, artificial Intelligence, and War of the Worlds. Spielberg won the Academy Award for Best Director for Schindlers List and Saving Private Ryan, three of Spielbergs films—Jaws, E. T. the Extra-Terrestrial, and Jurassic Park—achieved box office records, originated and came to epitomize the blockbuster film. The unadjusted gross of all Spielberg-directed films exceeds $9 billion worldwide and his personal net worth is estimated to be more than $3 billion. Spielberg was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, to an Orthodox Jewish family and his mother, Leah Posner, was a restaurateur and concert pianist, and his father, Arnold Spielberg, was an electrical engineer involved in the development of computers. His paternal grandparents were immigrants from Ukraine who settled in Cincinnati in the first decade of the 1900s, in 1950, his family moved to Haddon Township, New Jersey when his father took a job with RCA. Three years later, the moved to Phoenix, Arizona. Spielberg attended Hebrew school from 1953 to 1957, in classes taught by Rabbi Albert L. Lewis, as a child, Spielberg faced difficulty reconciling being an Orthodox Jew with the perception of him by other children he played with. It isnt something I enjoy admitting, he said, but when I was seven, eight, nine years old, God forgive me. I was embarrassed by the perception of my parents Jewish practices. I was never really ashamed to be Jewish, but I was uneasy at times, Spielberg also said he suffered from acts of anti-Semitic prejudice and bullying, In high school, I got smacked and kicked around. His first home movie was of a wreck involving his toy Lionel trains. Throughout his early teens, and after entering school, Spielberg continued to make amateur 8 mm adventure films. In 1958, he became a Boy Scout and fulfilled a requirement for the merit badge by making a nine-minute 8 mm film entitled The Last Gunfight. Years later, Spielberg recalled to an interviewer, My dads still-camera was broken. He said yes, and I got an idea to do a Western, I made it and got my merit badge
7.
Henry Art Gallery
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The Henry Art Gallery is the art museum of the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington, USA. Located on the west edge of the campus along 15th Avenue N. E. in the University District, it was founded in February,1927. The original building was designed by Bebb and Gould and it was expanded in 1997 to 40,000 square feet, at which time the 154-seat auditorium was added. The addition/expansion was designed by Gwathmey Siegel & Associates Architects, the museum was named for Horace C. Henry, the businessman who donated money for its founding. In contrast to Charles and Emma Frye of Seattles Frye Art Museum, Henry made no effort to control the future of the museum he financed, indeed, the Henrys exhibition program is largely devoted to contemporary art and the history of photography. Recent exhibitions include Ann Hamilton, the common S E N S E, Katinka Bock, A and I, Maya Lin, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Doug Aitken, Axel Lieber, and James Turrell, and group exhibitions such as W. O. W. - The Work of the Work, 2004–05, which explored contemporary arts appeal to non-visual senses, the Henrys collection includes over 25,000 objects. The collection includes strong holdings in photography, both historical and contemporary, due to the gift and purchase of the Joseph and Elaine Monsen collection. In 1982, the Henry inherited a collection from the University of Washingtons former Costume. The Henry also holds a James Turrell skyspace, Light Reign, like the Seattle baseball stadium, the skyspace has a retractable roof. These resources allow students and the public to explore collections for personal or professional research. Objects in the collection can be accessed on-site, by only, through the Reed Collection Study Center or academic classes, adult study groups
8.
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
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It is the permanent home of a continuously expanding collection of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, early Modern and contemporary art and also features special exhibitions throughout the year. The museum was established by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in 1939 as the Museum of Non-Objective Painting, under the guidance of its first director and it adopted its current name after the death of its founder, Solomon R. Guggenheim, in 1952. In 1959, the museum moved from rented space to its current building, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, the cylindrical building, wider at the top than the bottom, was conceived as a temple of the spirit. Its unique ramp gallery extends up from ground level in a long, the building underwent extensive expansion and renovations in 1992 and from 2005 to 2008. The museums collection has grown organically, over eight decades, and is founded several important private collections. The collection is shared with the museums sister museums in Bilbao, Spain, in 2013, nearly 1.2 million people visited the museum, and it hosted the most popular exhibition in New York City. Solomon R. Guggenheim, a member of a mining family, had been collecting works of the old masters since the 1890s. In 1926, he met artist Hilla von Rebay, who introduced him to European avant-garde art, in abstract art that she felt had a spiritual. Guggenheim completely changed his strategy, turning to the work of Wassily Kandinsky. He began to display his collection to the public at his apartment in the Plaza Hotel in New York City, as the collection grew, he established the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, in 1937, to foster the appreciation of modern art. The foundations first venue for the display of art, the Museum of Non-Objective Painting, opened in 1939 under the direction of Rebay, in midtown Manhattan. By the early 1940s, the foundation had accumulated such a collection of avant-garde paintings that the need for a permanent museum building had become apparent. In 1943, Rebay and Guggenheim wrote a letter to Frank Lloyd Wright asking him to design a structure to house, Wright accepted the opportunity to experiment with his organic style in an urban setting. It took him 15 years,700 sketches, and six sets of working drawings to create the museum, in 1948, the collection was greatly expanded through the purchase of art dealer Karl Nierendorfs estate of some 730 objects, notably German expressionist paintings. By that time, the collection included a broad spectrum of expressionist and surrealist works, including paintings by Paul Klee, Oskar Kokoschka. Nevertheless, she left a portion of her collection to the foundation in her will, including works by Kandinsky, Klee, Alexander Calder, Albert Gleizes, Mondrian. The museum was renamed the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in 1952, Rebay conceived of the space as a temple of the spirit that would facilitate a new way of looking at the modern pieces in the collection. She wrote to Wright that each of these great masterpieces should be organized into space, would test the possibilities to do so
9.
Crocker Art Museum
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The Crocker Art Museum, formerly the E. B. Crocker Art Gallery is the longest continuously-operating art museum in the West, located in Sacramento, California, the Museum hosts one of the state’s premier collections of Californian art. As a prominent California family, the Crockers supported many social, Judge Crocker served on the State Supreme Court. His brother was Charles Crocker, one of the “Big Four” railroad barons, in 1885, his widow, Margaret, fulfilled their shared vision of creating a public art museum when she presented the E. B. Crocker Art Gallery and collection to the City of Sacramento and the California Museum Association, in 2000, the Crocker began a master planning process with Gwathmey Siegel & Associates and in 2002 commissioned the firm to design a major expansion of the Museum. The expanded Crocker Art Museum opened on October 10,2010, the Californian art collection includes works dating from statehood to the present day. The core collection of early Californian art was assembled by Judge E. B. the collection also includes American art from the late-19th century to the present. American impressionists and modernists are a strength, with works by Childe Hassam, Robert Henri. Other 20th-century painters represented include Granville Redmond, Edwin Deakin, Maynard Dixon, Richard Diebenkorn, Mel Ramos, Jim Piskoti, Jess, Sacramento painter Amanda Austin is also represented in the collection. The collection of approximately 1,500 master drawings include examples from the major European schools, Collection strengths include European drawings from the 17th and 18th centuries. Major drawings by such as Albrecht Dürer, Fra Bartolommeo, François Boucher. American photography and modern and contemporary California prints are also strengths of the works on paper collection, the collection of European art was shaped by the Crocker family’s purchase of paintings during their grand tour of Europe between 1869 and 1871. This core collection focuses on Central European painting of the 19th century, Dutch and Flemish 16th- and 17th-century painting, since midcentury, the Museum has followed the development of notable Californian, American, and international ceramists such as Hamada Shoji and Lucie Rie. The history of ceramics is also explored through a collection of 18th-century Meissen porcelain tableware, the collection of Asian art is noted for its holdings of Chinese tomb furnishings and trade ceramics, and Japanese armor and tea ware. The collection is notable for Korean ceramics, which began with a gift by Judge E. B. The collection of African and Oceanic art features a variety of objects created for daily life, the art of the Asmat of New Guinea is strikingly evidenced in the towering memorials to ancestors, called bis poles. A biennial exhibition has been held by the museum in cooperation with the Kingsley Art Club since 1927, artists whose works have appeared include Robert Arneson, Elmer Bischoff, David Gilhooly, Ralph Goings, Roland Petersen, Mel Ramos, Fritz Scholder, and Wayne Thiebaud. Crocker purchased the property and existing buildings on the corner of Third and he then commissioned Seth Babson, a local architect, to redesign and renovate the home into a grander, Italianate mansion
10.
The New York Times
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The New York Times is an American daily newspaper, founded and continuously published in New York City since September 18,1851, by The New York Times Company. The New York Times has won 119 Pulitzer Prizes, more than any other newspaper, the papers print version in 2013 had the second-largest circulation, behind The Wall Street Journal, and the largest circulation among the metropolitan newspapers in the US. The New York Times is ranked 18th in the world by circulation, following industry trends, its weekday circulation had fallen in 2009 to fewer than one million. Nicknamed The Gray Lady, The New York Times has long been regarded within the industry as a newspaper of record. The New York Times international version, formerly the International Herald Tribune, is now called the New York Times International Edition, the papers motto, All the News Thats Fit to Print, appears in the upper left-hand corner of the front page. On Sunday, The New York Times is supplemented by the Sunday Review, The New York Times Book Review, The New York Times Magazine and T, some other early investors of the company were Edwin B. Morgan and Edward B. We do not believe that everything in Society is either right or exactly wrong, —what is good we desire to preserve and improve, —what is evil, to exterminate. In 1852, the started a western division, The Times of California that arrived whenever a mail boat got to California. However, when local California newspapers came into prominence, the effort failed, the newspaper shortened its name to The New-York Times in 1857. It dropped the hyphen in the city name in the 1890s, One of the earliest public controversies it was involved with was the Mortara Affair, the subject of twenty editorials it published alone. At Newspaper Row, across from City Hall, Henry Raymond, owner and editor of The New York Times, averted the rioters with Gatling guns, in 1869, Raymond died, and George Jones took over as publisher. Tweed offered The New York Times five million dollars to not publish the story, in the 1880s, The New York Times transitioned gradually from editorially supporting Republican Party candidates to becoming more politically independent and analytical. In 1884, the paper supported Democrat Grover Cleveland in his first presidential campaign, while this move cost The New York Times readership among its more progressive and Republican readers, the paper eventually regained most of its lost ground within a few years. However, the newspaper was financially crippled by the Panic of 1893, the paper slowly acquired a reputation for even-handedness and accurate modern reporting, especially by the 1890s under the guidance of Ochs. Under Ochs guidance, continuing and expanding upon the Henry Raymond tradition, The New York Times achieved international scope, circulation, in 1910, the first air delivery of The New York Times to Philadelphia began. The New York Times first trans-Atlantic delivery by air to London occurred in 1919 by dirigible, airplane Edition was sent by plane to Chicago so it could be in the hands of Republican convention delegates by evening. In the 1940s, the extended its breadth and reach. The crossword began appearing regularly in 1942, and the section in 1946
11.
Ronald Lauder
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Ronald Steven Lauder is an American businessman, art collector, philanthropist, and political activist. He is an heir to the Estée Lauder Companies, and the president of the World Jewish Congress, Lauder was born in New York City, the son of Estée Lauder and Joseph Lauder, founders of Estée Lauder Companies. He is the brother of Leonard Lauder, chairman of the board of the Estée Lauder Companies. He attended the Bronx High School of Science and holds a degree in International Business from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He studied at the University of Paris, and received a Certificate in International Business from the University of Brussels and he is married to Jo Carole Lauder. They have two children, Aerin and Jane, Lauder started to work for the Estée Lauder Company in 1964. In 1984, he became a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for European, in 1986, Ronald Reagan named him as the United States Ambassador to Austria, a position he held until 1987. As ambassador, he fired diplomatic officer Felix Bloch, who became known in connection with the Robert Hanssen espionage case. As a Republican, he made a bid to become the mayor of New York City in 1989, michael Massing, writing of this nomination race, notes that politically Lauder seemed out of step with most American Jews. He ran to the right of Rudolph Giuliani, and, on Israeli issues, he was a vocal supporter of the Likud party, with long-standing ties to Benjamin Netanyahu. Lauder manages investments in real estate and media, including Central European Media Enterprises, in 2010, Lauder founded RWL Water, LLC. His daughter Jane is married to Kevin Warsh, a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. Lauder led a movement to introduce term limits in the New York City Council, in 1996, voters turned down a council proposal to extend term limits. Lauder spent $4 million on the two referendums and he has been involved in environmental conservation efforts in eastern Long Island and has served on the board of directors of the conservation organization Group for the East End since 2002. On November 16,2001, Lauder opened the Neue Galerie in New York, the Neue Galerie is dedicated to art from Germany and Austria from the early 20th century. It holds one of the best collections of works by Egon Schiele in the world, Lauder called the painting Our Mona Lisa. He reportedly saw Klimts portrait as a youth in Vienna and had admired it since, Lauder also has the worlds largest private collection of medieval and Renaissance armor. Lauder has been instrumental in a number of cases in recovering lost art from the Nazi period
12.
Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame
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The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame is an American history museum and hall of fame, located at 1000 Hall of Fame Avenue in Springfield, Massachusetts. It serves as the sports most complete library, in addition to promoting and preserving the history of basketball, dedicated to Canadian physician and inventor of the sport James Naismith, it was opened and inducted its first class in 1959. As of the induction of the Class of 2016 on September 9,2016, the Naismith Hall of Fame was established in 1959 by Lee Williams, a former athletic director at Colby College. In the 1960s, the Basketball Hall of Fame struggled to raise money for the construction of its first facility. The Basketball Hall of Fames Board named four inductees in its first year, in addition to honoring those who contributed to basketball, the Hall of Fame sought to make contributions of its own. In 1979, the Hall of Fame sponsored the Tip-Off Classic and this Tip-Off Classic has been the start to the college basketball season ever since, and although it does not always take place in Springfield, Massachusetts, generally it returns every few years. In the 17 years that the original Basketball Hall of Fame operated at Springfield College, the popularity of the Basketball Hall of Fame necessitated that a new facility be constructed, and in 1985, an $11 million facility was built beside the scenic Connecticut River in Springfield. As the new hall opened, it also recognized women for the first time, with such as Senda Berenson Abbott. In 2002, the Basketball Hall of Fame moved again—albeit merely 100 yards south along Springfields riverfront—into a $47 million facility designed by renowned architects Gwathmey Siegel & Associates, the buildings architecture features a metallic silver, basketball-shaped sphere flanked by two similarly symmetrical rhombuses. The dome is illuminated at night and features 80,000 square foot, including numerous restaurants, the second Basketball Hall of Fame was not torn down but rather converted into an LA Fitness health clubs. The current Basketball Hall of Fame features Center Court, a basketball court on which visitors can play. Inside the building there are a gallery, many interactive exhibits, several theaters. A large theater for ceremonies seats up to 300, the honorees inducted in 2002 included the Harlem Globetrotters and Magic Johnson, a five-time NBA champion, three-time NBA finals MVP and Olympic gold medalist. As of 2011, the current Basketball Hall of Fame has greatly exceeded attendance expectations, despite the new facilitys success, a logistical problem remains for the Basketball Hall of Fame and the City of Springfield. Urban planners at universities such as UMass Amherst have called for the I-91 to be moved, in 2010, the Urban Land Institute announced a plan to make the walk between Springfields Metro Center and the Hall of Fame easier. Since 2011, the induction process employs a total of seven committees to both screen and elect candidates, since 2011, the Veterans and International Committees also vote to directly induct one candidate for each induction class. Contributor Direct Election Committee Note that other committees may choose to elect contributors, for example, the 2014 class included two contributors. However, each screening committee is limited as to the number of candidates it can put forth to the Honors Committee—10 from the North American Committee, any individual receiving at least 18 affirmative votes from the Honors Committee is approved for induction into the Hall of Fame
