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The new pitch at "De Kuip"
| Pitch Renovation 2011 | Large & on Black | Association football pitch |
Located in the historic port city of Enkhuizen, the "Zuiderzeemuseum" is a Dutch cultural institution dedicated to preserving the history, craft, and daily life of the region surrounding the former Zuiderzee (Southern Sea). Before the completion of the Afsluitdijk enclosure dam in 1932 turned the salty bay into the freshwater IJsselmeer, the communities along these shores shared a distinct maritime identity built on fishing, trade, and constant negotiation with the sea. The museum captures this lost way of life, offering a vivid window into the maritime history of the Netherlands.
The museum's main highlight is its sprawling Outdoor Museum (Buitenmuseum), a recreated 19th-century village spanning over five hectares. More than 140 authentic historic structures - including fishermen’s cottages, a church, a fish-smoking house, a windmill, and traditional workshops - were carefully disassembled from communities around the former sea and rebuilt on-site. As visitors stroll down cobblestone lanes and along canal paths, costumed interpreters bring the village to life by demonstrating age-old trades such as rope making, coopering, sailmaking, and fish curing.
Complementing the outdoor village is the Indoor Museum (Binnenmuseum), housed in a complex of 17th-century East India Company warehouses along the Enkhuizen harbor. This side of the museum hosts thematic exhibitions that explore the art, fashion, and social history of the region, connecting historical heritage with modern Dutch design. A central attraction here is the Ships' Hall, which displays an extensive collection of restored wooden boats and traditional sailing vessels that once navigated the Zuiderzee's shallow waters.
Visiting the museum is designed as an immersive journey from the start, often beginning with a scenic ferry ride across the IJsselmeer from the main entrance to the museum docks. By blending hands-on heritage demonstrations, living history, and interactive displays for all ages, the Zuiderzeemuseum stands as one of the Netherlands' premier open-air cultural destinations, keeping the memory and traditions of the Zuiderzee alive.
Gov. Neil Abercrombie and the Hawaii Department of Transportation (HDOT) celebrated the substantial completion of the H-1 Freeway Rehabilitation Project at a dedication ceremony at Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, overlooking the freeway. The project reconstructed and resurfaced one of the most heavily traveled corridors in the state and added an extra travel lane in both directions in less than 11 months. New LED street lighting, added drainage, and glare screens were also installed to improve highway safety.
A clear view of the path of I-485 in northeast Charlotte. Looking west toward Ridge Road, this section will complete the Outer Loop.
I didn't actually get an end shot, but the fish grew tails, and the brown blob turned into sunflower
Completion Summer 2008.
(I've not seen any work on this site in the 4 weeks I've been working nearby)
Gov. Neil Abercrombie and the Hawaii Department of Transportation (HDOT) celebrated the substantial completion of the H-1 Freeway Rehabilitation Project at a dedication ceremony at Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, overlooking the freeway. The project reconstructed and resurfaced one of the most heavily traveled corridors in the state and added an extra travel lane in both directions in less than 11 months. New LED street lighting, added drainage, and glare screens were also installed to improve highway safety.
Arrival of Guest-of-Honour, Deputy Prime Minister Mr Teo Chee Hean and Minister for National Development Mr Mah Bow Tan.
Piscivorous herons, eagles, gulls, terns and osprey commonly steal fish from each other. This so-called kleptoparasitism is also well documented in waterfowl.
I've seen American Wigeon snatch food from the bills Redheads at the completion of a dive. Today we observed a very similar interaction between a surface-feeding duck and a diving duck.
Long-tailed Ducks were enthusiastically foraging on Quagga Mussel beds. When one of these divers surfaced with a clump of the bivalves in its bill, one of several Mallards would take up pursuit. Sometimes the Long-tailed Duck would drop its prey, which would be seized by the Mallard a moment later - in this video, a pair of Mallards homes in on a Long-tailed Duck who loses some of her food. The male mallard dives briefly to capture the food.
Fun to watch.
5pm today I completed on the purchase of an 1862 building, converted from a coach-house and stable. Dappled light provided by (tiny) chandelier in kitchen
37 students cross the stage in the Celebration of Completion as they receive their degrees' from Baldwin Wallace University in the John Patrick Theatre at the Kleist Center for Art & Drama. Winter graduation ceremony.
Governor Charlie Baker joins Quincy Mayor Thomas Koch and retired U.S. Air Force Brigadier General Ronald Rand to celebrate the completion of the Generals’ Bridge’s construction with a ceremonial ribbon-cutting on Jan. 13, 2022. [Joshua Qualls/Governor’s Press Office]
History:
On August 26, 1861, while working for Josiah D. Whitney on the first California Geological Survey, William H. Brewer invited local San Jose preacher (and Brewer's personal friend) Laurentine Hamilton to join his company on a trek to a nearby summit. Nearing completion of their journey, Hamilton, in good humor, bounded for the summit ahead of the rest of the men and claimed his stake. In fact, Brewer suggested the mountain be named after Hamilton only after Whitney declined to have the mountain named after him (a different mountain was later named Mount Whitney).
The Spanish name for Mt. Hamilton was the Sierra de Santa Isabel and the highest point was originally known as Mount Isabel instead of Mount Hamilton. William Henry Brewer and his fellow geologist, Charles F. Hoffmann, did not know it already had a name, and christened it Mt. Hamilton, although they did place Isabel Valley on their map to the east. When in 1895, the USGS realized that the peak two miles southeast of Mt. Hamilton was as tall (4,193 ft or 1,278 m), they named it Mt. Isabel.
Climate:
Numerous times each winter, the snow level drops low enough for Mount Hamilton (left) to receive as much as a foot of snow for a day or two.
These mountains are high enough to receive snowfall in the winter, perhaps up to a dozen times. Occasionally, when a cold, wet storm comes in from the Gulf of Alaska or Canada, Mt. Hamilton and the surrounding peaks get serious snowfall. In February 2001, 30 inches (76 cm) of snow fell, and in March 2006, the peak was left with over a foot (30 cm) of snow in one night.
The National Weather Service has had a cooperative weather station on the summit of Mount Hamilton almost since the time that the Lick Observatory opened. It has provided a glimpse of the extreme weather conditions that occur on the Diablo Range, especially in the winter months.
Mt. Hamilton had a foot of snow on the ground on April 1, 1967
January is usually the coldest month on Mount Hamilton with an average high of 49.4 °F (9.7 °C) and an average low of 37.5 °F (3.1 °C). The warmest month is usually July with an average high of 78.2 °F (25.7 °C) and an average low of 63.1 °F (17.3 °C). Due to frequent thermal inversions during the summer, it is often warmer on Mount Hamilton than in San Jose. The record high temperature of 103 °F (39 °C) was on August 5, 1978. The record low temperature of 7 °F (−14 °C) was on December 21, 1990. The average days with highs of 90 °F (32 °C) or higher is 4.3 days. The average days with lows of 32 °F (0 °C) or lower is 50.6 days.
Annual precipitation averages 23.73 inches (603 mm). Measurable rainfall occurs on an average of 71.9 days each year. The most rainfall in a month was 12.13 inches (308 mm) in February 1998; no rainfall has been common during the summer months. The maximum rainfall in 24 hours was 6.87 inches (174 mm) on December 23, 1955.
Annual snowfall averages 10 inches (25 cm). The maximum snowfall in a year was 59.0 inches (150 cm) in 1955. The maximum snowfall in a month was 33.6 inches (85 cm) in January 1950. The 24-hour maximum snowfall of 14.0 inches (36 cm) occurred on February 18, 1990. The deepest daily snow depth was 18 inches (46 cm) in March 1976. Measurable snow has been recorded in every month from November through June
A Young Man Seated at a
Table (possibly Govaert Flinck) - c. 1660
Rembrandt van Rijn
Dutch, 1606 - 1669
After learning the fundamentals of drawing and painting in his native Leiden, Rembrandt van Rijn went to Amsterdam in 1624 to study for six months with Pieter Lastman (1583–1633), a famous history painter. Upon completion of his training Rembrandt returned to Leiden. Around 1632 he moved to Amsterdam, quickly establishing himself as the town’s leading artist, specializing in history paintings and portraiture. He received many commissions and attracted a number of students who came to learn his method of painting.
This painting of a stylish young man is one of Rembrandt's most sympathetic late portraits. The sitter's handsome features and gentle expression, framed by the long locks of his hair, suggest warmth and sensitivity. At the same time, the understated simplicity of his dress — from the plain white collar, left open at the neck, to his black costume and hat — reinforces the sense of self-assurance so evident in the pose. The name of the sitter is not known, and the signature and date are extremely difficult to decipher. Stylistically, a date of about 1660 seems correct for this work.
This portrait may represent the artist Govaert Flinck (1615–1660), as it resembles an engraved portrait of Flinck made by an unknown artist. At the time of his sudden death in February 1660, Flinck was at the height of his fame. Following his studies with Rembrandt in the mid-1630s, he became a successful portrait and history painter in a style that was admired by important civic and private patrons in both Amsterdam and his native Germany. Flinck was wealthy and well connected, and had a remarkable art collection. The emotional warmth of this portrait suggests that the contacts between the sitter and Rembrandt were personal as well as professional.
Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn, born in Leiden on July 15, 1606, was the son of a miller, Harmen Gerritsz van Rijn, and his wife, Neeltgen van Zuytbrouck. The youngest son of at least ten children, Rembrandt was not expected to carry on his father’s business. Since the family was prosperous enough, they sent him to the Leiden Latin School, where he remained for seven years. In 1620 he enrolled briefly at the University of Leiden, perhaps to study theology. Orlers, Rembrandt’s first biographer, related that because “by nature he was moved toward the art of painting and drawing,” Rembrandt left the university to study the fundamentals of painting with the Leiden artist Jacob Isaacsz van Swanenburgh (1571–1638). After three years with this master, Rembrandt left in 1624 for Amsterdam, where he studied for six months under Pieter Lastman (1583–1633), the most important history painter of the day.
After returning to Leiden, Rembrandt quickly developed a reputation as a history painter and portraitist. By 1628 his work, together with that of his Leiden colleague Lievens, Jan, was enthusiastically praised by Constantijn Huygens (1596–1687), the secretary to the Prince of Orange. Huygens particularly admired Rembrandt’s uncanny ability to convey feeling through gesture and expression and through dramatic contrasts of light and dark. That same year, Rembrandt, at the age of twenty-two, took on his first pupils, Dou, Gerrit and Isaac Jouderville (1612–1645/1648). Documents indicate that Jouderville paid Rembrandt one hundred guilders a year to study with him.
By 1631 Rembrandt had become financially involved with the Amsterdam art dealer Hendrik van Uylenburgh (c. 1587–1661). The nature of Van Uylenburgh’s enterprise, which was called “an academy” in its day, is not entirely understood, but it appears that he orchestrated an active art studio that specialized in portrait commissions. In any event, in about 1632 Rembrandt moved to Amsterdam, where he lived with Van Uylenburgh and ran his “academy” until 1635. Rembrandt achieved tremendous success in his lifetime. He received many commissions and attracted a number of students who came to learn his method of painting. Artists who had previously been trained elsewhere, including Jacob Backer (1608–1651), Flinck, Govaert, and Bol, Ferdinand, worked during these years at Van Uylenburgh’s studio under Rembrandt’s guidance.
In 1633 Rembrandt became engaged to Van Uylenburgh’s niece Saskia, daughter of a wealthy and prominent Frisian family. They married the following year. In 1639, at the height of his success, Rembrandt purchased a large house on the Sint-Anthonisbreestraat in Amsterdam for a considerable amount of money. To acquire the house, however, he had to borrow heavily, creating a debt that would eventually figure in his financial problems of the mid- 1650s. Rembrandt and Saskia had four children, but only Titus, born in 1641, survived infancy. After a long illness Saskia died in 1642, the very year Rembrandt painted The Night Watch (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam).
During the 1640s life became more unsettled for Rembrandt. Geertje Dirckx soon entered the household as a nurse for Titus and became a companion to Rembrandt. In 1649 he dismissed her and entered into a relationship with Hendrickje Stoffels that would last until her death in 1663. While Hendrickje seems to have been a warm and caring companion for Rembrandt, the early 1650s were fraught with personal turmoil. Rembrandt and Geertje Dirckx became embroiled in a number of contentious lawsuits that suggest he treated his former companion quite badly. Rembrandt and Hendrickje never married because of a stipulation in Saskia’s will that he was bound to transfer half of his and Saskia’s joint assets to Titus should he remarry.[1] After Saskia’s death, the net value of their assets was determined to be more than forty thousand guilders. Presumably in the early 1650s Rembrandt did not have twenty thousand guilders to give to Titus. Being unmarried caused Hendrickje public humiliation when she became pregnant in 1654. She was called before a council of the Dutch Reformed Church and censored for having “lived with Rembrandt like a whore.” The couple’s daughter, Cornelia, was baptized on October 30, 1654.
Perhaps as a result of the public outrage over his domestic situation or his treatment of Geertje Dirckx, Rembrandt lost favor with many of his patrons and became burdened by financial difficulties during these years. In 1656 he was forced to declare bankruptcy, which led to the auctioning off of his estate, including his large art collection, in 1657 and 1658. He then moved to an artist’s quarter in the Jordaan district of Amsterdam, eventually renting a relatively small house on the Rozengracht where he lived for the rest of his life. Hendrickje and Titus subsequently formed a business partnership to protect Rembrandt from further demands of creditors.
Although Rembrandt still received a number of important portrait commissions during the late 1650s and early 1660s, stylistic trends had veered away from his deeply personal manner of painting. He became more and more isolated from the mainstreams of Dutch art. No students are documented as having worked with him during the latter half of the 1650s, and only one student, Aert de Gelder (1645–1727), is known to have come to study with him in the 1660s.
Rembrandt’s financial situation remained poor during the 1660s. He owed a substantial amount of money, in particular to the art dealer and collector Lodewijk van Ludick, a debt he hoped to repay with the money he would receive from his large painting for one of the lunettes in the Amsterdam Town Hall, The Conspiracy of Claudius Civilis (Nationalmuseum, Stockholm). Rembrandt’s composition, however, was rejected by city authorities in 1662. To raise funds he was then forced to sell Saskia’s grave in the Oude Kerk. He never regained financial solvency and ended up living on the savings of his daughter, Cornelia.
Although Rembrandt remained famous as an artist, there seems to have been little to lighten the burdens of his life during his last years. In 1663 the plague ravaged Amsterdam and claimed the life of Hendrickje. Four years later Titus married Magdalena van Loo, but in 1668 he also died, the victim of another epidemic. When Rembrandt died on October 4, 1669, he was buried in a rented grave, which has long since disappeared, in the Westerkerk, Amsterdam.
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For earlier visit in 2024 see:
www.flickr.com/photos/ugardener/albums/72177720320689747/
The National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC is a world-class art museum that displays one of the largest collections of masterpieces in the world including paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, sculpture, and decorative arts from the 13th century to the present. The National Gallery of Art collection includes an extensive survey of works of American, British, Italian, Flemish, Spanish, Dutch, French and German art. With its prime location on the National Mall, surrounded by the Smithsonian Institution, visitors often think that the museum is a part of the Smithsonian. It is a separate entity and is supported by a combination of private and public funds. Admission is free. The museum offers a wide range of educational programs, lectures, guided tours, films, and concerts.
The original neoclassical building, the West Building includes European (13th-early 20th century) and American (18th-early 20th century) paintings, sculptures, decorative arts, and temporary exhibitions. The National Gallery of Art was opened to the public in 1941 with funds provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The original collection of masterpieces was provided by Mellon, who was the U. S. Secretary of the Treasury and ambassador to Britain in the 1930s. Mellon collected European masterpieces and many of the Gallery’s original works were once owned by Catherine II of Russia and purchased in the early 1930s by Mellon from the Hermitage Museum in Leningrad.
The core collection includes major works of art donated by Paul Mellon, Ailsa Mellon Bruce, Lessing J. Rosenwald, Samuel Henry Kress, Rush Harrison Kress, Peter Arrell Browne Widener, Joseph E. Widener, and Chester Dale. The Gallery's collection of paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, sculpture, medals, and decorative arts traces the development of Western art from the Middle Ages to the present, including the only painting by Leonardo da Vinci in the Americas and the largest mobile created by Alexander Calder.
The NGA's collection galleries and Sculpture Garden display European and American paintings, sculpture, works on paper, photographs, and decorative arts. Paintings in the permanent collection date from the Middle Ages to the present. The Italian Renaissance collection includes two panels from Duccio's Maesta, the tondo of the Adoration of the Magi by Fra Angelico and Filippo Lippi, a Botticelli work on the same subject, Giorgione's Allendale Nativity, Giovanni Bellini's The Feast of the Gods, Ginevra de' Benci (the only painting by Leonardo da Vinci in the Americas) and groups of works by Titian and Raphael.
The collections include paintings by many European masters, including a version of Saint Martin and the Beggar, by El Greco, and works by Matthias Grünewald, Cranach the Elder, Rogier van der Weyden, Albrecht Dürer, Frans Hals, Rembrandt, Johannes Vermeer, Francisco Goya, Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, and Eugène Delacroix, among others. The collection of sculpture and decorative arts includes such works as the Chalice of Abbot Suger of St-Denis and a collection of work by Auguste Rodin and Edgar Degas. Other highlights of the permanent collection include the second of the two original sets of Thomas Cole's series of paintings titled The Voyage of Life, (the first set is at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute in Utica, New York) and the original version of Watson and the Shark by John Singleton Copley (two other versions are in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Detroit Institute of Arts).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Gallery_of_Art
Andrew W. Mellon, who pledged both the resources to construct the National Gallery of Art as well as his high-quality art collection, is rightly known as the founder of the gallery. But his bequest numbered less than two hundred paintings and sculptures—not nearly enough to fill the gallery’s massive rooms. This, however, was a feature, not a failure of Mellon’s vision; he anticipated that the gallery eventually would be filled not only by his own collection, but also by additional donations from other private collectors. By design, then, it was both Andrew Mellon and those who followed his lead—among them, eight men and women known as the Founding Benefactors—to whom the gallery owes its premier reputation as a national art museum. At the gallery’s opening in 1941, President Roosevelt stated, “the dedication of this Gallery to a living past, and to a greater and more richly living future, is the measure of the earnestness of our intention that the freedom of the human spirit shall go on.”
www.doaks.org/resources/cultural-philanthropy/national-ga...
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LUC was appointed by Peabody in 2012 to help deliver thirty-three new affordable homes on a site close to Whitechapel Road in London. The site was previously used as a Jewish maternity hospital in the early 20th Century, founded by Alice Model, an important Jewish philanthropist. The existing buildings were in a dilapidated state, remaining unoccupied since 2005.
The completed development incorporates affordable rented and shared ownership properties only, for residents of Tower Hamlets who are in housing need. The homes vary in size from one-bedroom flats to three-bedroom courtyard houses, and four-bedroom maisonettes entered directly from the street.
The form of the development emerged through a careful urban analysis, and was sensitively designed to site within the local context, considering natural light and views across the City of London. Peabody were keen to commemorate the local history of the site, and this is reflected through the use banded lettering inscribed into the masonry walls at street level describing the history of the Jewish Maternity Hospital.
LUC was responsible for the design of the hard and soft landscape, including a central planted courtyard, seating areas, a small play area for young families, and a communal rooftop garden.
For more information, visit: www.landuse.co.uk
Built in 1905-1907, the Beaux Arts-style Cleveland Trust Company Building was designed by George B. Post as one of his last commissions prior to his death in 1913, stands at the corner of Euclid Avenue and East 9th Street in Downtown Cleveland. At the time of its completion, the building was the third-largest Bank Building in the United States, and was the largest bank building in Cleveland, and the first building built in the city for sole occupancy by a bank. The building was constructed for the Cleveland Trust Company, founded in 1894, which merged with the Western Reserve Trust Company in 1903, and subsequently outgrew its original offices. The bank continued to grow throughout the early-to-mid-20th Century, merging with various other banks around Cleveland, and being one of the first banks in Northeast Ohio to have branch locations. The historic Cleveland Trust Building is clad in white granite with a rusticated base featuring large arched bays with keystones and bronze doors and window frames, with corinthian porticoes at the central bays of the west and north facades along the two street frontages, which are topped by pediments featuring decorative friezes, with ornate sculptural reliefs, a small two-column portico at the building’s chamfered corner facing the intersection of the two streets, windows on the second and third floors featuring recessed metal spandrel panels, a cornice with modillions and dentils, a balustrade on the parapet, and a drum and dome atop the roof over the interior rotunda. The nearly excessive ornateness and quantity of the decorative sculptural reliefs, ornament, and friezes on the exterior facade, when compounded with George B. Post’s Beaux Arts background and design philosophy, places the building into the Beaux Arts style of architecture, despite having many similarities to the Renaissance Revival and Classical Revival styles, which have been attributed to the building by architects and architectural historians in the past. Inside, the building features a four-story rotunda below a large stained glass dome, crafted by the famous Nicola D'Ascenzo, with several murals, known collectively as "The Development of Civilization in America,” which ring the top of the third floor balcony. The murals, dome, columns, arches, cornice, and stone floor of the four-story banking hall remain intact, gracing one of the most impressive rotundas in the state of Ohio, and one of the most impressive rotundas of any building designed by Post, comparable to the scale and details to another late Post design, the Wisconsin State Capitol, with the Cleveland Trust Company Building being one of his best-preserved commissions. The rest of the interior was altered in the 1970s, but has been partially restored, including original staircases, elevator screens, and balcony railings, though other areas of the interior, including ceilings and offices in areas outside the rotunda, were heavily altered during the renovation, and were not restored during the most recent round of renovations.
In 1908-1910, the 13-story Swetland Building was built to the east along Euclid Avenue, and was designed by Searles, Hirsh & Gavin in the Classical Revival and Chicago School style. Complimenting its earlier neighbor, the taller structure is simpler in appearance, with a buff brick and terra cotta facade, three-over-three and one-over-one double-hung windows, a similar cornice featuring modillions and dentils, a terra cotta-clad base with Chicago windows and large street-level openings, and light wells on the east and west facades. In 1919, a tower was proposed to be built atop the structure, but was never constructed, which helped to preserve the building's original appearance and configuration until the 1970s, and prevented the loss of the grand stained glass dome and rotunda, which would have been heavily altered or removed to accommodate the structure for the additional floors. In 1968-1971, the Marcel Breuer-designed 29-story Brutalist building, known as the Cleveland Trust Tower, was constructed immediately to the south of the original building along East 9th Street. When it was completed, it towered over the original structure, dwarfing it with its massive scale, and featured a facade clad in dark concrete panels, with a grid of concrete-framed punched window openings on the upper floors, and relatively simple, unadorned facades at the top and bottom of the structure, with wide and tall openings on the ground floor. During the next two years, the original building was renovated and heavily altered on the interior in response to the addition of the new office tower, leaving only its most significant features intact. A second wing of the tower was planned at one point to mirror the constructed tower, but wrapping the east side of the original Cleveland Trust building, which would have led to the demolition of the Swetland Building. However, these plans were never carried out, in large part due to the economic and demographic decline of Northeast Ohio that began during the 1970s.
The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. The building remained in use by the Cleveland Trust Company until 1991, when the Cleveland Trust Company merged with Society National Bank. This was followed by an acquisition by Key Bank in 1993, which no longer needed the structure for banking purposes, and the final offices moved out in 1996, with all operations moved to the Key Tower. The building was largely empty and closed to the public until 2005, when it was purchased by Cuyahoga County, which intended to convert the complex into a new government center, a plan which was never realized. The county government then sold the complex in 2012, and the developer has transformed the Cleveland Trust Company Building into a Heinen's Supermarket, a local chain, with offices on the upper floors. The adjacent Swetland Building also became home to part of the supermarket, with market-rate apartments on the upper floors, while the Breuer-designed Cleveland Trust Tower was converted into a hotel and apartments. Now a thriving center of activity, the complex, now known as The 9 Cleveland, is one of the many bright spots of the revitalized and vibrant Downtown Cleveland.
Built in 1930 and expanded in 1938 and 1959, this Art Deco-style 11-story office building was designed by Arthur Peabody to house various government offices for the State of Wisconsin. The building’s north wing was constructed first, with the central wing being completed in 1938-1939, utilizing funds from the New Deal-era Public Works Administration (PWA), and the south wing in 1956-1959. Despite the long time span from the building’s origins to its completion, very few of the decorative details were changed and remained remarkably consistent despite the rise of the modernist movement and the Art Deco style falling out of favor by the time the south wing was completed, which in most circumstances led to buildings with portions that did not match the original vision. The building was apparently despised by Frank Lloyd Wright, whom called it a “monstrosity to anyone who thinks” and went on to call the City of Madison a “provincial capitol” that was “neither scholarly or gentlemanly.” Nevertheless, the building is a popular and generally well-liked building by the citizens of Madison. The building is the tallest office building in Downtown Madison, owing to its location close to Lake Monona, which includes a two-story podium that has a parking area on the roof, and the building sits right at the 187-foot height limit imposed throughout Downtown Madison to not block views of the State Capitol dome.
The building is faced with gray granite blocks and is E-shaped, with a tall 11-story tower in the center flanked by two wings of six and seven stories that are at equal height, with the adjacent street sloping downwards along the width of the building’s facade. The stone blocks are mostly unadorned, but the building’s east and west wings feature intricately carved reliefs on the spandrel between the first and second floors, in the spandrel between the fourth and fifth floor, in a ribbon on the sixth floor between window openings, and on the parapet, with additional decorative reliefs over the entrance doors and decorative pilasters with acroterions at the top that run between the paired windows on the second, third, and fourth floors. The eleven-story central wing features a band of decorative carved reliefs at the spandrel between the second and third floors, at the spandrel between the sixth and seventh floors, at the spandrel between the eighth and ninth floors, between window openings on the tenth floor, and around the top of the parapet on the tower and on the penthouse, with decorative Egyptian-inspired columns flanking the front entrance, and pilasters between paired windows on the third through eighth floors that terminate at acroterions on the ninth floor. The tower tapers at the eleventh floor to a narrower parapet, with the windows arranged in pairs at recessed portions of the facade that align with the smaller parapet above rather than the larger structure below. The building’s entrance doors are made of bronze with bronze Art Deco-style sconces on the east and west wings and an art deco chandelier at the main entrance at the base of the tower. The main entrance in the tower features a large transom with decorative bronze trim and a carved decorative stone trim surround, decorative lamppost fixtures flanking the window bays on either side of the doorway, featuring shields with the state motto, “Forward,” emblazoned on them, and is somewhat repeated on the west wing, though simplified, with the original entrance in the east wing being the smallest of the three entrances, with only a pair of doors in an unadorned recessed opening The windows on the “shaft” portion of the building’s design composition often feature recessed black-painted spandrel panels, with the windows at the top and bottom not including this feature. The decorative trim work continues around the side of the building and onto the rear facade facing Lake Monona, but is absent from the two light wells that flank the central tower, where portions of the facade are instead faced with buff brick, though still featuring the same fenestration pattern. The two wings also feature recessed penthouses faced in buff brick, with the east wing’s penthouse being added with the 1938-1939 construction of the tower wing and being smaller than the penthouse atop the later west wing.
The interior of the building is mostly modernized and relatively unremarkable office space that has been modified in multiple renovations. However, the main lobby features beautiful and colorful terrazzo floors, multi-colored marble wall cladding, bronze railings, fixtures, doors, and trim, decorative trim on the ceiling, including shell and floral motifs, and geometric chevron motifs. The space has been extensively described in publications and articles, but it appears that no images of it exist or are available, which sadly makes this treasure something that the public is unable to enjoy or appreciate. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982, and today houses the offices for multiple departments of the State of Wisconsin. The building has undergone renovations and restorations in the past four decades, which have retained its beautiful exterior and most notable interior spaces, while allowing it to meet the needs of the state’s office workers.
Built in 1905-1907, the Beaux Arts-style Cleveland Trust Company Building was designed by George B. Post as one of his last commissions prior to his death in 1913, stands at the corner of Euclid Avenue and East 9th Street in Downtown Cleveland. At the time of its completion, the building was the third-largest Bank Building in the United States, and was the largest bank building in Cleveland, and the first building built in the city for sole occupancy by a bank. The building was constructed for the Cleveland Trust Company, founded in 1894, which merged with the Western Reserve Trust Company in 1903, and subsequently outgrew its original offices. The bank continued to grow throughout the early-to-mid-20th Century, merging with various other banks around Cleveland, and being one of the first banks in Northeast Ohio to have branch locations. The historic Cleveland Trust Building is clad in white granite with a rusticated base featuring large arched bays with keystones and bronze doors and window frames, with corinthian porticoes at the central bays of the west and north facades along the two street frontages, which are topped by pediments featuring decorative friezes, with ornate sculptural reliefs, a small two-column portico at the building’s chamfered corner facing the intersection of the two streets, windows on the second and third floors featuring recessed metal spandrel panels, a cornice with modillions and dentils, a balustrade on the parapet, and a drum and dome atop the roof over the interior rotunda. The nearly excessive ornateness and quantity of the decorative sculptural reliefs, ornament, and friezes on the exterior facade, when compounded with George B. Post’s Beaux Arts background and design philosophy, places the building into the Beaux Arts style of architecture, despite having many similarities to the Renaissance Revival and Classical Revival styles, which have been attributed to the building by architects and architectural historians in the past. Inside, the building features a four-story rotunda below a large stained glass dome, crafted by the famous Nicola D'Ascenzo, with several murals, known collectively as "The Development of Civilization in America,” which ring the top of the third floor balcony. The murals, dome, columns, arches, cornice, and stone floor of the four-story banking hall remain intact, gracing one of the most impressive rotundas in the state of Ohio, and one of the most impressive rotundas of any building designed by Post, comparable to the scale and details to another late Post design, the Wisconsin State Capitol, with the Cleveland Trust Company Building being one of his best-preserved commissions. The rest of the interior was altered in the 1970s, but has been partially restored, including original staircases, elevator screens, and balcony railings, though other areas of the interior, including ceilings and offices in areas outside the rotunda, were heavily altered during the renovation, and were not restored during the most recent round of renovations.
In 1908-1910, the 13-story Swetland Building was built to the east along Euclid Avenue, and was designed by Searles, Hirsh & Gavin in the Classical Revival and Chicago School style. Complimenting its earlier neighbor, the taller structure is simpler in appearance, with a buff brick and terra cotta facade, three-over-three and one-over-one double-hung windows, a similar cornice featuring modillions and dentils, a terra cotta-clad base with Chicago windows and large street-level openings, and light wells on the east and west facades. In 1919, a tower was proposed to be built atop the structure, but was never constructed, which helped to preserve the building's original appearance and configuration until the 1970s, and prevented the loss of the grand stained glass dome and rotunda, which would have been heavily altered or removed to accommodate the structure for the additional floors. In 1968-1971, the Marcel Breuer-designed 29-story Brutalist building, known as the Cleveland Trust Tower, was constructed immediately to the south of the original building along East 9th Street. When it was completed, it towered over the original structure, dwarfing it with its massive scale, and featured a facade clad in dark concrete panels, with a grid of concrete-framed punched window openings on the upper floors, and relatively simple, unadorned facades at the top and bottom of the structure, with wide and tall openings on the ground floor. During the next two years, the original building was renovated and heavily altered on the interior in response to the addition of the new office tower, leaving only its most significant features intact. A second wing of the tower was planned at one point to mirror the constructed tower, but wrapping the east side of the original Cleveland Trust building, which would have led to the demolition of the Swetland Building. However, these plans were never carried out, in large part due to the economic and demographic decline of Northeast Ohio that began during the 1970s.
The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. The building remained in use by the Cleveland Trust Company until 1991, when the Cleveland Trust Company merged with Society National Bank. This was followed by an acquisition by Key Bank in 1993, which no longer needed the structure for banking purposes, and the final offices moved out in 1996, with all operations moved to the Key Tower. The building was largely empty and closed to the public until 2005, when it was purchased by Cuyahoga County, which intended to convert the complex into a new government center, a plan which was never realized. The county government then sold the complex in 2012, and the developer has transformed the Cleveland Trust Company Building into a Heinen's Supermarket, a local chain, with offices on the upper floors. The adjacent Swetland Building also became home to part of the supermarket, with market-rate apartments on the upper floors, while the Breuer-designed Cleveland Trust Tower was converted into a hotel and apartments. Now a thriving center of activity, the complex, now known as The 9 Cleveland, is one of the many bright spots of the revitalized and vibrant Downtown Cleveland.
Hand Pumps for Community Water Supply
Location: Moradani Village, Mir Pur Sakro District Thatta Sindh.
Project Duration: July 2015- September 2015
Cost of pumps financed by: Mr. Afroz Hussaini
Implementing Partners: Lodhie Foundation & Shaan Technologies Private Limited
Total Pumps Installed: 10
Beneficiaries: 465 Household with an estimated population of 3600 Peoples.
Pakistan is one of the most water stressed countries in the world where total actual renewable water resources have been decreasing day by day. Presently water resources in Pakistan decreased from 5000 cubic meters per capita in 1951 to 1100 cubic meters in last year.
Currently, over 35 percent of Pakistan’s population does not have access to safe drinking water. The quality of drinking water supply is poor, with bacterial contamination, arsenic, fluoride and nitrate being the factors of major concern. Province of Sindh is one of the highly water scarce province of Pakistan. Deterioration in water quality and contamination of lakes, rivers and groundwater aquifers has resulted in increased waterborne diseases and other health impacts.
Coastal belt of Sindh is one of the highly effected areas where decreased inflow in Indus river delta is resulting in salt water intrusion from sea. This reduced water inflow destabilized eco system as well as made drinking water availability a major problem for the people especially women.
Mirpur Sakro is one of the water scarce area near coastal belt of Sindh. It is 90 kilometers away from Karachi. Since last 2 years Lodhie Foundation is providing relief to the community through installing hand pumps is this area. Lodhie Foundation is very grateful to Syed Afroze Hussaini for his generous support for the installation of 10 hand pumps in Village Mora Dani and surrounding areas located in Mirpur Sakro district Thatta Sindh.
Pumps Installation was started in Mid of August 2015 and finished in 3rd week of September 2015. Before the installation of pumps near their houses, women are used to travel 1 to 5 Kilometers to fetch a pot water for their families and cattle.
At the completion time of Hand pump installation nearly 465 households of village MoraDani and surrounding areas were enjoying clean water near their houses. Earlier they were dependent on open reservoirs, canals or open wells for drinking water. Women have to walk quiet a distance to fetch water and multiple rounds are performed to collect sufficient amount of water for their daily usage. Before the installation of hand pumps women have to walk 1 to 5 km, to fetch water which need 1 to 3 hours. Now the
condition has been improved drastically as, water is available near their homes which is a blessing for families and their cattle. Pump water is used for domestic purpose and drinking.
Availability of spare parts for repair and maintenance is not easy in remote areas. To overcome this problem each pump is supplied with necessary spares to keep it maintain without any delay.