1.
Helsinki
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Helsinki is the capital and largest city of Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland. Helsinki has a population of 629,512, a population of 1,231,595. Helsinki is located some 80 kilometres north of Tallinn, Estonia,400 km east of Stockholm, Sweden, Helsinki has close historical connections with these three cities. The Helsinki metropolitan area includes the core of Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa, Kauniainen. It is the worlds northernmost metro area of one million people. The Helsinki metropolitan area is the fourth largest metropolitan area in the Nordic countries, Helsinki is Finlands major political, educational, financial, cultural, and research center as well as one of northern Europes major cities. Approximately 75% of foreign companies operating in Finland have settled in the Helsinki region, the nearby municipality of Vantaa is the location of Helsinki Airport, with frequent service to various destinations in Europe and Asia. In 2009, Helsinki was chosen to be the World Design Capital for 2012 by the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design, the city was the venue for the 1952 Summer Olympics and the 52nd Eurovision Song Contest 2007. In 2011, the Monocle magazine ranked Helsinki the most liveable city in the world in its Liveable Cities Index 2011, in the Economist Intelligence Units August 2015 Liveability survey, assessing the best and worst cities to live in globally, Helsinki placed among the worlds top ten cities. Helsinki is used to refer to the city in most languages, the Swedish name Helsingfors is the original official name of the city. The Finnish name probably comes from Helsinga and similar names used for the river that is known as the Vantaa River. Helsingfors comes from the name of the parish, Helsinge and the rapids, which flowed through the original village. As part of the Grand Duchy of Finland in the Russian Empire, one suggestion for the origin of the name Helsinge is that it originated with medieval Swedish settlers who came from Hälsingland in Sweden. Others have proposed that the name derives from the Swedish word helsing, other Scandinavian cities located at similar geographic locations were given similar names at the time, for example Helsingør and Helsingborg. The name Helsinki has been used in Finnish official documents and in Finnish language newspapers since 1819, the decrees issued in Helsinki were dated with Helsinki as the place of issue. This is how the form Helsinki came to be used in written Finnish, in Helsinki slang the city is called Stadi. Hesa, is not used by natives to the city, helsset is the Northern Sami name of Helsinki
2.
Finland
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Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a sovereign state in Northern Europe. A peninsula with the Gulf of Finland to the south and the Gulf of Bothnia to the west, the country has borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north. Estonia is south of the country across the Gulf of Finland, Finland is a Nordic country situated in the geographical region of Fennoscandia, which also includes Scandinavia. Finlands population is 5.5 million, and the majority of the population is concentrated in the southern region,88. 7% of the population is Finnish people who speak Finnish, a Uralic language unrelated to the Scandinavian languages, the second major group are the Finland-Swedes. In terms of area, it is the eighth largest country in Europe, Finland is a parliamentary republic with a central government based in the capital Helsinki, local governments in 311 municipalities, and an autonomous region, the Åland Islands. Over 1.4 million people live in the Greater Helsinki metropolitan area, from the late 12th century, Finland was an integral part of Sweden, a legacy reflected in the prevalence of the Swedish language and its official status. In the spirit of the notion of Adolf Ivar Arwidsson, we are not Swedes, we do not want to become Russians, let us therefore be Finns, nevertheless, in 1809, Finland was incorporated into the Russian Empire as the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland. In 1906, Finland became the nation in the world to give the right to vote to all adult citizens. Following the 1917 Russian Revolution, Finland declared itself independent, in 1918, the fledgling state was divided by civil war, with the Bolshevik-leaning Reds supported by the equally new Soviet Russia, fighting the Whites, supported by the German Empire. After a brief attempt to establish a kingdom, the became a republic. During World War II, the Soviet Union sought repeatedly to occupy Finland, with Finland losing parts of Karelia, Salla and Kuusamo, Petsamo and some islands, Finland joined the United Nations in 1955 and established an official policy of neutrality. The Finno-Soviet Treaty of 1948 gave the Soviet Union some leverage in Finnish domestic politics during the Cold War era, Finland was a relative latecomer to industrialization, remaining a largely agrarian country until the 1950s. It rapidly developed an advanced economy while building an extensive Nordic-style welfare state, resulting in widespread prosperity, however, Finnish GDP growth has been negative in 2012–2014, with a preceding nadir of −8% in 2009. Finland is a top performer in numerous metrics of national performance, including education, economic competitiveness, civil liberties, quality of life, a large majority of Finns are members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, though freedom of religion is guaranteed under the Finnish Constitution. The first known appearance of the name Finland is thought to be on three rune-stones. Two were found in the Swedish province of Uppland and have the inscription finlonti, the third was found in Gotland, in the Baltic Sea. It has the inscription finlandi and dates from the 13th century, the name can be assumed to be related to the tribe name Finns, which is mentioned first known time AD98. The name Suomi has uncertain origins, but a candidate for a source is the Proto-Baltic word *źemē, in addition to the close relatives of Finnish, this name is also used in the Baltic languages Latvian and Lithuanian
3.
Art museum
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An art museum or art gallery is a building or space for the exhibition of art, usually visual art. Museums can be public or private, but what distinguishes a museum is the ownership of a collection, the term is used for both public galleries, which are non-profit or publicly owned museums that display selected collections of art. On the other hand, private galleries refers to the commercial enterprises for the sale of art, however, both types of gallery may host traveling exhibits or temporary exhibitions including art borrowed from elsewhere. In broad terms, in North American usage, the word gallery alone often implies a private gallery, the term contemporary art gallery refers usually to a privately owned for-profit commercial gallery. These galleries are found clustered together in large urban centers. Smaller cities are home to at least one gallery, but they may also be found in towns or villages. Contemporary art galleries are open to the general public without charge, however. They usually profit by taking a portion of art sales, from 25% to 50% is typical, there are also many non-profit or collective galleries. Some galleries in cities like Tokyo charge the artists a flat rate per day, curators often create group shows that say something about a certain theme, trend in art, or group of associated artists. Galleries sometimes choose to represent artists exclusively, giving them the opportunity to show regularly, a gallerys definition can also include the artist cooperative or artist-run space, which often operates as a space with a more democratic mission and selection process. A vanity gallery is an art gallery that charges fees from artists in order to show their work, the shows are not legitimately curated and will frequently or usually include as many artists as possible. Most art professionals are able to identify them on an artists resume, University art museums and galleries constitute collections of art that are developed, owned, and maintained by all kinds of schools, community colleges, colleges, and universities. This phenomenon exists in both the West and East, making it a global practice, although largely overlooked, there are over 700 university art museums in America alone. This number, in comparison to other kinds of art museums, throughout history, large and expensive works of art have generally been commissioned by religious institutions and monarchs and been displayed in temples, churches, and palaces. Although these collections of art were private, they were made available for viewing for a portion of the public. In classical times, religious institutions began to function as a form of art gallery. Wealthy Roman collectors of engraved gems and other precious objects often donated their collections to temples and it is unclear how easy it was in practice for the public to view these items. At the Palace of Versailles, entrance was restricted to wearing the proper apparel – the appropriate accessories could be hired from shops outside
4.
Museum
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Most large museums are located in major cities throughout the world and more local ones exist in smaller cities, towns and even the countryside. Museums have varying aims, ranging from serving researchers and specialists to serving the general public, the goal of serving researchers is increasingly shifting to serving the general public. There are many types of museums, including art museums, natural history museums, science museums, war museums, the city with the largest number of museums is Mexico City with over 128 museums. According to The World Museum Community, there are more than 55,000 museums in 202 countries, the English museum comes from the Latin word, and is pluralized as museums. The first museum/library is considered to be the one of Plato in Athens, however, Pausanias gives another place called Museum, namely a small hill in Classical Athens opposite to the Akropolis. The hill was called Mouseion after Mousaious, a man who used to sing on the hill, the purpose of modern museums is to collect, preserve, interpret, and display items of artistic, cultural, or scientific significance for the education of the public. The purpose can also depend on ones point of view, to a family looking for entertainment on a Sunday afternoon, a trip to a local history museum or large city art museum could be a fun, and enlightening way to spend the day. To city leaders, a healthy museum community can be seen as a gauge of the health of a city. To a museum professional, a museum might be seen as a way to educate the public about the museums mission, Museums are, above all, storehouses of knowledge. In 1829, James Smithsons bequest, that would fund the Smithsonian Institution, stated he wanted to establish an institution for the increase, Museums of natural history in the late 19th century exemplified the Victorian desire for consumption and for order. Gathering all examples of classification of a field of knowledge for research. As American colleges grew in the 19th century, they developed their own natural history collections for the use of their students, while many large museums, such as the Smithsonian Institution, are still respected as research centers, research is no longer a main purpose of most museums. While there is a debate about the purposes of interpretation of a museums collection, there has been a consistent mission to protect. Much care, expertise, and expense is invested in efforts to retard decomposition in aging documents, artifacts, artworks. All museums display objects that are important to a culture, as historian Steven Conn writes, To see the thing itself, with ones own eyes and in a public place, surrounded by other people having some version of the same experience can be enchanting. Museum purposes vary from institution to institution, some favor education over conservation, or vice versa. For example, in the 1970s, the Canada Science and Technology Museum favored education over preservation of their objects and they displayed objects as well as their functions. One exhibit featured a printing press that a staff member used for visitors to create museum memorabilia
5.
Steven Holl
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Steven Holl is a New York-based American architect and watercolorist. Holl was born on December 9,1947 and grew up in Bremerton and Manchester, Holl graduated from the University of Washington and pursued architecture studies in Rome in 1970. In 1976, he attended school at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London. For ten years after moving to New York, Holl lived above his office in an apartment without hot water, Steven Holl leads his 40-person office with partners Chris McVoy and Noah Yaffe. Holl has taught at Columbia University since 1981, the shift came about partly due to his interest in the writings of philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty and architect-theorist Juhani Pallasmaa. In 1998 Holl was awarded the prestigious Alvar Aalto Medal, in 2000, Holl was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In July 2001, Time named Holl America’s Best Architect, for buildings that satisfy the spirit as well as the eye, brunner Prize in Architecture from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the 2008 BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the Arts category. In 2007, Steven Holl Architects received the AIA Institute Honor Award, the Higgins Hall Insertion at Pratt Institute and the New Residence at the Swiss Embassy both received the AIA New York Chapter Architecture Honor Award in 2007. In 2010, Herning Museum of Contemporary Art, was awarded the RIBA International Award, the Horizontal Skyscraper-Vanke Center received the 2011 AIA Institute National Honor Award, as well as the AIA NY Honor Award. In 2011, he was named a Senior Fellow of the Design Futures Council, and Holl was named the 2012 AIA Gold Medal winner. In 2014, Holl was awarded the Praemium Imperiale Prize for Architecture, in 2016, Holl was named the 2016 laureate for The Daylight and Building Component Award for Daylight in Architecture. Holl is a professor at Columbia University, where he has taught since 1981. He frequently teaches on the relationship between music and architecture, Holl won first prize in the Amerika-Gedenkbibliothek International Library Design Competition in 1988, an expansion and renovation of the American Memorial Library in Berlin. In February,1989 Holls work was exhibited in a show at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. MoMA later purchased works by Holl for the museums permanent collection. In the 1992 competition for a new contemporary arts museum in Helsinki, Finland, Holls entry, entitled Chiasma, the museum opened to the public in 1998, having permanently adopted the name Kiasma, the Finnish translation of chiasma. New green campus quadrangles were formed to the north, west, and south, the plan of the chapel won a design award in the American Institute of Architects of New York. Holl designed the Chapel to symbolize seven bottles of light in a stone box, each volume represents a different part of Jesuit Catholic worship, and has differently colored glass so that various parts of the building are marked out by colored light
6.
Ateneum
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Ateneum is an art museum in Helsinki, Finland and one of the museums of the Finnish National Gallery. It is located in the centre of Helsinki on the side of Rautatientori square close to Helsinki Central railway station. It has the biggest collections of art in Finland. Previously the Ateneum building also housed the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts and University of Art, the Ateneum building is owned by Senate Properties, the government real estate provider. The collections of Ateneum include extensively Finnish art all the way from 18th-century rococo portraiture to the art movements of the 20th century. The collections also include some 650 international works of art, one of them is Vincent van Goghs Street in Auvers-sur-Oise, when the painting was deposited in 1903 Ateneum became the first museum in the world to own a Vincent van Gogh. The Ateneum building was designed by Theodor Höijer and completed in 1887, the facade of Ateneum is decorated with statues and reliefs which contain a lot of symbols. Above the main entrance, in the floor, are busts of three famous classical artists, architect Bramante, painter Raphael and sculptor Phidias. Above the busts, in the floor, four caryatids support the pediment. These symbolize the four art forms, architecture, painting, sculpting. The facade culminates in a collage of sculptures in which the Goddess of Art blesses the products of the different art forms, all the statues were by Carl Sjöstrand. In between the second floor windows are several reliefs by Ville Vallgren representing Finnish and international artists, below the pediments collage is a phrase in Latin, Concordia res parvae crescunt. It is usually understood to refer to the battle of the Finnish art circles in order to establish the museum. Finnish National Gallery Kiasma Sinebrychoff Art Museum Ateneum Art Museum website Ateneum Art Museum on Google Cultural Institute
7.
Architectural design competition
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An architectural design competition is a type of competition in which an organization that intends on constructing a new building invites architects to submit design proposals. The winning design is chosen by an independent panel of design professionals. This procedure is used to generate new ideas for building design, to stimulate public debate, generate publicity for the project. Winning first prize in a competition is not a guarantee that the project will be constructed, the commissioning body often has the right to veto the winning design, and both requirements and finances may change, thwarting the original intention. Architecture competitions have a more than 2, 500-year-old history, the Acropolis in Athens was a result of an architectural competition in 448 B. C. as were several cathedrals in the Middle Ages. During the Renaissance, many initiated by the church have been decided through design competition. Examples are the Spanish Stairs in Rome or in 1419, a competition was held to design the dome of the Florence Cathedral, open competitions were held in the late 18th century in several countries including the United States, Great Britain, Ireland, France and Sweden. In 19th century England and Ireland there have been over 2,500 competitions in five decades, the Institute of British Architects drafted a first set of rules in 1839, and a set of formal regulations in 1872. The German Regulations were introduced in 1867, in the same period in the Netherlands an association for the advancement of architecture started organising conceptual competitions with the aim of stimulating architects creativity. Project competitions or ideas competitions, depending on the intention of building the project or generating new ideas, single-stage or two-stage competitions, dependending on the scale and complexity of the competition. Anonymous or cooperative procedures, anonymity supports greater objectivity during the evaluation, in cooperative procedures, the authors are invited to make in-person presentations to the jury in order to explain their design strategies and allow individual discussion. In France and Germany design competitions are compulsory for all public buildings exceeding a certain cost, most significant among architectural competitions are the ones which are internationally open, attract a large number of design submissions, and the winning design is built. Student competition Student competitions AB Student design competition Andersson E. Bloxham Zettersten, G. und Rönn, M. Architectural Competitions - Histories, stockholm, The Royal Institute of Technology and Rio Kulturkooperativ,2013
8.
Nordic countries
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The Nordic countries or Nordics are a geographical and cultural region in Northern Europe and the North Atlantic, where they are most commonly known as Norden. They consist of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden, the population of the Nordic countries are mainly Scandinavian or Finnish, with Greenlandic Inuit and the Sami people as minorities. Of todays native languages, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic, the non-Germanic languages spoken are Finnish, Greenlandic and several Sami languages. The main religion is Lutheran Christianity, the Nordic countries have much in common in their way of life, history, their use of Scandinavian languages and social structure. Politically, Nordic countries do not form an entity. Especially in English, Scandinavia is sometimes used as a synonym for the Nordic countries, Scandinavian Peninsula on the other hand covers mainland Norway and Sweden as well as the northernmost part of Finland. At 3,425,804 square kilometers, the area of the Nordic countries would form the 7th-largest country in the world. Uninhabitable icecaps and glaciers comprise about half of area, mostly in Greenland. In January 2013, the region had a population of around 26 million people, the Nordic countries cluster near the top in numerous metrics of national performance, including education, economic competitiveness, civil liberties, quality of life, and human development. Although the area is linguistically heterogeneous, with three unrelated groups, the common linguistic heritage is one of the factors making up the Nordic identity. The North Germanic languages Danish, Norwegian and Swedish are considered mutually intelligible and these languages are taught in school throughout the Nordic countries. Swedish, for example, is a subject in Finnish schools. Danish is mandatory in Faroese and Greenlandic schools, as these states are a part of the Danish Realm. Iceland also teaches Danish, since Iceland too was a part of the Danish Realm until 1918, there is a high degree of income redistribution and little social unrest. The Nordic countries consists of historical territories of the Scandinavian countries, areas that share a common history and it is meant unambiguously to refer to this larger group, since the term Scandinavia is narrower and sometimes ambiguous. The Nordic countries are considered to unambiguously refer to Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. The term is derived indirectly from the local term Norden, used in the Scandinavian languages, unlike the Nordic countries, the term Norden is in the singular. The demonym is nordbo, literally meaning northern dweller, especially outside of the Nordic region the term Scandinavia is often used incorrectly as a synonym for the Nordic countries
9.
Baltic states
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The Baltic states cooperate on a regional level in several intergovernmental organizations. While the native populations of Latvia and Lithuania are known as Baltic people, another Baltic identity, Baltic German, began to develop during the Middle Ages after the Livonian Crusade. After the collapse of Livonia, parts of Latvia and Estonia came under influence of the Commonwealth and this lasted until the 18th century, when the lands of all three modern countries were gradually absorbed into the Russian Empire. The Baltic states gained independence after World War I, but were occupied by the Soviet Union during World War II, all three countries are members of the European Union, NATO and the Eurozone. They are classified as high-income economies by the World Bank and maintain high Human Development Index, Estonia and Latvia are also members of the OECD, while Lithuania is a prospective candidate. The term Baltic stems from the name of the Baltic Sea – a hydronym dating back to the 11th century, although there are several theories about its origin, most ultimately trace it to Indo-European root *bhel meaning white, fair. This meaning is retained in modern Baltic languages, where baltas, however the modern names of the region and the sea, that originate from this root, were not used in either of the two languages prior to the 19th century. In English Ost is East, and in fact, the Baltic Sea mostly lies to the east of Germany, Denmark, Norway, in the 13th century pagan Baltic and Finnic peoples in the region became a target of the Northern Crusades. In the aftermath of the Livonian crusade, a crusader state officially named Terra Mariana and it was divided into four autonomous bishoprics and lands of the Livonian Brothers of the Sword. After the Brothers of the Sword suffered defeat at the Battle of Saule, Northern Estonia initially became a Danish dominion, but it was purchased by the Teutonic Order in the mid-14th century. The Lithuanians were also targeted by the crusaders, however they were able to resist and it allied with the Kingdom of Poland. After the Union of Krewo in 1385 created a union between the two countries, they became ever more closely integrated and finally merged into the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1569. After victory in the Polish–Lithuanian–Teutonic War, the Polish–Lithuanian union became a political power in the region. In 1558 Livonia was attacked by the Tsardom of Russia and the Livonian war broke out, the rulers of different regions within Livonia sought to ally with foreign powers, which resulted in Polish–Lithuanian, Swedish and Danish involvement. In the aftermath of conflicts of the 17th century, much of the Duchy of Livonia. These newly acquired Swedish territories, as well as Ingria and Kexholm, at the beginning of the 18th century the Swedish Empire was attacked by a coalition of several European powers in the Great Northern War. Among these powers was Russia, seeking to restore its access to the Baltic Sea, during the course of the war it conquered all of the Swedish provinces on the Eastern Baltic coast. This acquisition was legalized by the Treaty of Nystad in which the Baltic Dominions were ceded to Russia, under Russian rule these territories came to be known as Ostsee Governorates
10.
Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim
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Baron Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim was a Finnish military leader and statesman. Mannerheim made a career in the Imperial Russian Army, rising to the rank of lieutenant general and he also had a prominent place in the ceremonies for Tsar Nicholas IIs coronation and later had several private meetings with the Russian Tsar. After the Bolshevik revolution, Finland declared its independence but was embroiled in civil war between the pro-Bolshevik Reds and the Whites, who were the troops of the Senate of Finland. Mannerheim was appointed the chief of the Whites. In 1944, when the prospect of Germanys defeat in World War II became clear, Mannerheim was elected President of Finland and oversaw peace negotiations with the Soviet Union and he resigned the presidency in 1946 and died in 1951. In a Finnish survey 53 years after his death, Mannerheim was voted the greatest Finn of all time, the Mannerheim family descends from a German businessman, Heinrich Marhein, who emigrated to the Swedish Empire. His son Augustin Marhein changed his surname to Mannerheim and was raised to the nobility by King Charles XI in 1693, Augustin Mannerheims son, Johan Augustin Mannerheim, was raised to the status of Baron in 1768. The Mannerheim family came to Finland, then a part of Sweden. Mannerheims great-grandfather, Count Carl Erik Mannerheim served as the first Prime Minister of Finland, in 1825, he was promoted to the rank of Count. Mannerheims grandfather, Count Carl Gustaf Mannerheim, was an entomologist, Mannerheims father, Carl Robert, Count Mannerheim, was a playwright who held liberal and radical political ideas, but he was also an industrialist whose success varied. Mannerheims mother, Hedvig Charlotta Helena von Julin, was the daughter of a wealthy industrialist, as the third child of the family, Mannerheim inherited the title of Baron. His father went bankrupt in 1880, he was forced to sell the home and his other landed estates to his sister. Mannerheims father left his wife, Countess Hélène, and moved to Paris with his mistress and he returned to Helsinki and founded the Systema company in 1887, and was its manager until his death. Countess Hélène, shaken by the bankruptcy and her husbands desertion, Hélène died the following year from a heart attack. Her death left the children to be brought up by relatives, making Mannerheims maternal uncle, Albert von Julin, because of the worsened family finances and Mannerheims serious discipline problems in school, Julin decided to send him to the school of the Hamina Cadet School in 1882. The Cadet Corps was a military school educating boys of aristocratic families for careers in the Military of the Grand Duchy of Finland. Besides his mother tongue, Swedish, Mannerheim learned to speak Finnish, Russian, French, German, Mannerheim heartily disliked the school and the narrow social circles in Hamina. He rebelled by going on leave without permission in 1886, for which he was expelled from the Finnish Cadet Corps, Mannerheim next attended the Helsinki Private Lyceum, and passed his university entrance examinations in June 1887
11.
Nicolaes Pieterszoon Berchem
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He was a member of the second generation of Dutch Italianate landscape painters. These were artists who travelled to Italy, or aspired to, in order to soak up the romanticism of the country, bringing home sketchbooks full of drawings of classical ruins and pastoral imagery. His paintings, of which he produced a number, were in great demand. His landscapes, painted in the Italian style of idealized rural scenes, with hills, mountains, cliffs and trees in a golden dawn are sought after. Berchem also painted inspired and attractive human and animal figures in works of artists, like Allaert van Everdingen, Jan Hackaert, Gerrit Dou, Meindert Hobbema. Born in Haarlem, he received instruction from his father Pieter Claesz, according to Houbraken, Carel de Moor told him that Berchem got his name from two words Berg hem for Save him. An expression used by his fellows in Van Goyens workshop whenever his father chased him there with the intent to beat him, today his name is assumed to come from his fathers hometown of Berchem, Antwerp. According to the RKD he traveled to Italy with Jan Baptist Weenix, works by him are signed both as CBerghem and Berchem. In 1645 he became a member of the Dutch reformed church, around 1650 he travelled to Westphalia with Jacob van Ruisdael, where a dated piece showing Burg Bentheim is recorded. Maybe Berchem went to Italy after this trip and before he moved to Amsterdam - he is not clearly documented in the Netherlands between 1650 and 1656, around 1660 he worked for the engraver Jan de Visscher designing an atlas. In 1661-1670 he is registered in Amsterdam and in 1670 he moved back to Haarlem, but was living back in Amsterdam by 1677 and he was the uncle of Govert van der Leeuw and his brother Pieter
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