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Abraham Lincoln (1920) is a colossal seated figure of the 16th president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865), sculpted by Daniel Chester French (1850–1931) and carved by the Piccirilli Brothers. Located in the Lincoln Memorial (constructed 1914–1922), on the National Mall, Washington, D.C., United States, the statue was unveiled in 1922. The work follows in the Beaux Arts and American Renaissance style traditions.
The 170-ton statue is composed of 28 blocks of white Georgia marble (Georgia Marble Company)[1][vague] and rises 30 feet (9.1 m) from the floor, including the 19-foot (5.8 m) seated figure (with armchair and footrest) upon an 11-foot (3.4 m) high pedestal. The figure of Lincoln gazes directly ahead and slightly down with an expression of gravity and solemnity. His frock coat is unbuttoned, and a large United States flag is draped over the chair back and sides. French paid particular attention to Lincoln's expressive hands, which rest on the enormous arms of a semi-circular ceremonial chair, whose fronts bear fasces, emblems of authority from Roman antiquity. French used casts of his own fingers to achieve the correct placement.
Daniel Chester French was selected in 1914 by the Lincoln Memorial Committee to create a Lincoln statue as part of the memorial to be designed by architect Henry Bacon (1866–1924). French was already famous for his 1874 The Minute Man statue in Concord, Massachusetts, and other works such as his 1884 John Harvard statue. He was also the personal choice of Bacon, who had already been collaborating with him for nearly 25 years. French resigned his chairmanship of the Fine Arts Commission in Washington, D.C. — a group closely affiliated with the memorial's design and creation — and commenced work in December.
French had already created (1909–1912) a major memorial statue of Lincoln—this one standing—for the Nebraska State Capitol (Abraham Lincoln, 1912) in Lincoln, Nebraska. His previous studies of Lincoln—which included biographies, photographs, and a life mask of Lincoln by Leonard Volk done in 1860—had prepared him for the challenging task of the larger statue. He and Bacon decided that a large seated figure would be most appropriate for the national memorial. French started with a small clay study and subsequently created several plaster models, making subtle changes in the figure's pose or setting. He placed Lincoln not in an ordinary 19th-century seat but in a classical chair, including fasces, a Roman symbol of authority, to convey that the subject was an eminence for all the ages.
Three plaster models of the Lincoln statue are at French's Chesterwood Studio, a National Trust Historic Site in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, including a plaster sketch (1915) and a six-foot plaster model (1916). The second of French's plasters, created at Chesterwood in the summer of 1916 (inscribed October 31), became the basis of the final work, which was initially envisioned as a 12-foot (3.7 m) bronze. In deciding the size of the final statue, French and Bacon took photographic enlargements of the model to the memorial under construction. Eventually, French's longtime collaborators, the firm of Piccirilli Brothers, were commissioned to do the carving of a much larger sculpture in marble from a quarry near Tate, Georgia.
French's design took a year to transfer to the massive marble blocks. French provided finishing strokes in the carvers' studio in The Bronx, New York City and after the statue was assembled in the memorial on the National Mall in 1920. Lighting the statue was a particular problem. In creating the work, French had understood that a large skylight would provide direct, natural illumination from overhead, but this was not included in the final plans. The horizontal light from the east flattened Lincoln's facial features—making him appear to stare blankly rather than wear a dignified expression—and highlighted his shins. French considered this a disaster. In the end, an arrangement of electric lights was devised to correct this situation. The work was unveiled at the memorial's formal dedication on May 30, 1922.
It is often said that the Lincoln figure is signing his own initials in the American manual alphabet: A with his left hand, "L" with his right. The National Park Service is at best ambivalent toward the story, saying, "It takes some imagination to see signs in Lincoln's hands." French had a deaf son and had depicted Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet signing in the manual alphabet.
Daniel Chester French (April 20, 1850 – October 7, 1931) was an American sculptor of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He is best known for his 1874 sculpture The Minute Man in Concord, Massachusetts, and his 1920 monumental statue of Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.
French was the son of Anne Richardson (1811–1856), daughter of William Merchant Richardson (1774–1838), chief justice of New Hampshire; and of Henry Flagg French (1813–1885). His siblings were Henriette Van Mater French Hollis (1839–1911), Sarah Flagg French Bartlett (1846–1883), and William M.R. French (1843–1914). He was the uncle of Senator Henry F. Hollis.
French was born in Exeter, New Hampshire, to Henry Flagg French (1813–1885), a lawyer, judge, Assistant US Treasury Secretary, and author of a book that described the French drain,[1] and his wife Anne Richardson. In 1867, French moved with his family to Concord, Massachusetts, where he was a neighbor and friend of Ralph Waldo Emerson, and the Alcott family. His decision to pursue sculpting was influenced by Louisa May Alcott's sister Abigail May Alcott.
French in his studio with the model for Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet and Alice Cogswell, c. 1889, Department of Image Collections, National Gallery of Art Library, Washington, DC
French's early education included training in anatomy with William Rimmer and in drawing with William Morris Hunt. French spent a year studying at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and also several years in Florence, Italy, studying in the studio of Thomas Ball. French first earned acclaim for The Minute Man, commissioned by the town of Concord, Massachusetts, which was unveiled April 19, 1875, on the centenary of the Battle of Lexington and Concord. He soon established his own studio, first in Washington, DC, moving later to Boston and then to New York City. French's reputation grew with his Statue of the Republic for the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, in Chicago. Other memorable works by French include: the First Division Monument and the Butt-Millet Memorial Fountain in Washington; John Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts; bronze doors for the Boston Public Library; and Four Continents at the US Custom House, New York (now the Alexander Hamilton US Custom House). In addition to the Lincoln Memorial, French collaborated with architect Henry Bacon on numerous memorials around the country and on the Dupont Circle fountain in Washington, DC.
In 1893, French was a founding member of the National Sculpture Society, and he was appointed a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1913. During this time, he served as an instructor at the Art Students League of New York, teaching sculpture there in 1890 and 1898. French also became a member of the National Academy of Design (1901), the American Academy of Arts and Letters (which awarded him the Gold Medal for Sculpture in 1917), the Architectural League, and the Accademia di San Luca, of Rome. He was a trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, and a co-founder of the American Academy in Rome. He was a Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor and was awarded a medal of honor from the Paris Exposition of 1900; he also was granted honorary degrees from Dartmouth, Yale, Harvard, and Columbia universities. He was a founding member of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, serving from 1910 to 1915, including as chairman from 1912 to 1915.
In 1917, French and a colleague, Henry Augustus Lukeman, designed the Pulitzer Prize gold medal presented to laureates. French designed the side of the prize with Benjamin Franklin on it, while Lukeman created the iconic design of the printing press and the wording on the award: "For disinterested and meritorious public service rendered by an American newspaper during the year….". In collaboration with Edward Clark Potter he modeled the George Washington statue, commissioned by a group that called itself "The Association of American Women for the Erection of a Statue of Washington in Paris" and unveiled in the Place d'Iena in Paris, France, in 1900; the General Grant statue in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, commissioned by the Association for Public Art (formerly the Fairmount Park Art Association); and the equestrian statue of Joseph Hooker in Boston.
French was one of many sculptors who frequently employed Audrey Munson as a model; another frequent sitter was Hettie Anderson. Together with Walter Leighton Clark and others, he was also one of the founders of the Berkshire Playhouse, which later became the Berkshire Theatre Festival. French's daughter, Margaret, also occasionally modeled for him, including for some of his rare portrait paintings, and became famous in her own right as a sculptor under the name Margaret French Cresson. In 1917, Harvard's citation in conferring an honorary Master of Arts referred to his statue of Emerson when it called him "a sculptor, whose skillful hand, unlike that of the friend whom he portrayed, has not been stopped but spared to adorn our land by the creation of his art". French also taught; among his pupils was the sculptor Edith Howland.
French died in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, in 1931 at age 81. He is buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Concord.
Chesterwood, French's summer home and studio – designed by his architect friend and frequent collaborator Henry Bacon – is now a historic site owned and operated by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
In 1940, French was selected as one of five artists to be honored in the 35-stamp "Famous Americans" series.
Chester French was an American indie band named for the artist.
"Daniel Chester French: American Sculptor" (2022) is a documentary film by Eduardo Montes-Bradley produced in association with Chesterwood and the National Trust for Historic Preservation.HD, 60 minutes.
Works
Notable public monuments
The Minute Man at the Old North Bridge in Concord, Massachusetts, (1874)
Bust of Major General William Francis Bartlett at Memorial Hall, Harvard University, (1881)
John Harvard, Harvard Yard in Cambridge, Massachusetts, (1884)
Lewis Cass, National Statuary Hall, Washington DC, (1889)
Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet and Alice Cogswell (1889), Gallaudet University, Washington, DC
Thomas Starr King monument San Francisco, California, (1891)
Statue of The Republic, the colossal centerpiece of the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893. His 24-foot gilt-bronze reduced version made in 1918 survives in Chicago.
John Boyle O'Reilly Memorial, intersection of Boylston Street and the Fenway in Boston, Massachusetts, (1897)
Rufus Choate memorial, Old Suffolk County Court House, Boston, Massachusetts, (1898)
Richard Morris Hunt Memorial, on the perimeter wall of Central Park, at 5th Avenue at 70th Street, opposite the Frick Collection, in New York City, (1900)
Commodore George H. Perkins Monument at the New Hampshire State House, Concord, New Hampshire (1902)
Alma Mater (1903), on the campus of Columbia University in New York City
Statue of Wendell Phillips, Public Garden in Boston, Massachusetts
The Four Continents – Asia, America, Europe, and Africa, a group of four statues outside the National Museum of the American Indian at the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House, Manhattan, NYC (1907)
George Robert White Memorial, Public Garden in Boston, Massachusetts
Statue of Samuel Spencer, first president of Southern Railway, located in front of Goode Building (Norfolk Southern offices) on Peachtree Street in Midtown Atlanta, Georgia, (1910)
August Meyer Memorial, 10th and The Paseo, Kansas City, Missouri (1909)
James Oglethorpe Monument, Chippewa Square, Savannah, Georgia (1910)
Standing Lincoln at the Nebraska State Capitol, Lincoln, Nebraska, (1912)
Brooklyn and Manhattan, seated figures from the Manhattan Bridge, Brooklyn Museum in Brooklyn, New York, (1915)
Minuteman, Henry Bacon designer, Jno. Williams, Inc. (NY) founder, Danville, Illinois. (1915)
The Spirit of Life, memorial to Spencer Trask, in Saratoga Springs, New York, at Congress Park, 1915
Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial (1914–22), executed by the Piccirilli Brothers.
The Weaver, outside the Peace Dale Library in South Kingstown, Rhode Island (1919).
Marquis de Lafayette Memorial, on the perimeter of Prospect Park (Brooklyn), at 9th Street and Prospect Park West, Brooklyn, New York, (1917)
Samuel Francis du Pont Memorial Fountain, Dupont Circle, Washington DC (1921)
Alfred Tredway White Memorial, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Henry Bacon architect (1921)
Russell Alger Memorial Fountain, Grand Circus Park, Detroit, Michigan (1921).
Marquis de Lafayette Statue, Lafayette College campus, Easton, Pennsylvania (1921).
Gale Park War Memorial & Park, Exeter, New Hampshire (1922)
Bust of Washington Irving and reliefs of Boabdil and Rip Van Winkle for the Washington Irving Memorial, Irvington, New York, (1927)
Beneficence, Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. (1930)
William Henry Seward Memorial in Florida, New York (1930)
Death and the Wounded Soldier aka Death and Youth, The Chapel of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, St. Paul's School, Concord, New Hampshire
James Woods, "Uncle Jimmy" Green, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS. (1924)
Gen. William Franklin Draper, Draper Memorial Park, Milford, Massachusetts. (1912)
Abraham Lincoln was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman, who served as the 16th president of the United States, from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the United States through the American Civil War, defending the nation as a constitutional union, defeating the insurgent Confederacy, playing a major role in the abolition of slavery, expanding the power of the federal government, and modernizing the U.S. economy.
Lincoln was born into poverty in a log cabin in Kentucky and was raised on the frontier, mainly in Indiana. He was self-educated and became a lawyer, Whig Party leader, Illinois state legislator, and U.S. representative from Illinois. In 1849, he returned to his successful law practice in Springfield, Illinois. In 1854, he was angered by the Kansas–Nebraska Act, which opened the territories to slavery, causing him to re-enter politics. He soon became a leader of the new Republican Party. He reached a national audience in the 1858 Senate campaign debates against Stephen A. Douglas. Lincoln ran for president in 1860, sweeping the North to gain victory. Pro-slavery elements in the South viewed his election as a threat to slavery, and Southern states began seceding from the nation. During this time, the newly formed Confederate States of America began seizing federal military bases in the South. A little over one month after Lincoln assumed the presidency, Confederate forces attacked Fort Sumter, a U.S. fort in South Carolina. Following the bombardment, Lincoln mobilized forces to suppress the rebellion and restore the union.
Lincoln, a moderate Republican, had to navigate a contentious array of factions with friends and opponents from both the Democratic and Republican parties. His allies, the War Democrats and the Radical Republicans, demanded harsh treatment of the Southern Confederates. He managed the factions by exploiting their mutual enmity, carefully distributing political patronage, and by appealing to the American people. Anti-war Democrats (called "Copperheads") despised Lincoln, and some irreconcilable pro-Confederate elements went so far as to plot his assassination. His Gettysburg Address came to be seen as one of the greatest and most influential statements of American national purpose. Lincoln closely supervised the strategy and tactics in the war effort, including the selection of generals, and implemented a naval blockade of the South's trade. He suspended habeas corpus in Maryland and elsewhere, and averted British intervention by defusing the Trent Affair. In 1863, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared the slaves in the states "in rebellion" to be free. It also directed the Army and Navy to "recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons", and to receive them "into the armed service of the United States." Lincoln pressured border states to outlaw slavery, and he promoted the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which abolished slavery, except as punishment for a crime.
Lincoln managed his own successful re-election campaign. He sought to heal the war-torn nation through reconciliation. On April 14, 1865, just five days after the Confederate surrender at Appomattox, he was attending a play at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., with his wife, Mary, when he was fatally shot by Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth. Lincoln is remembered as a martyr and a national hero for his wartime leadership and for his efforts to preserve the Union and abolish slavery. Lincoln is often ranked in both popular and scholarly polls as the greatest president in American history.
The Lincoln Memorial is a U.S. national memorial that honors the 16th president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln. An example of neoclassicism, it is in the form of a classical temple and is located at the western end of the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Henry Bacon is the memorial's architect and Daniel Chester French designed the large interior statue of a seated Abraham Lincoln (1920), which was carved in marble by the Piccirilli brothers. Jules Guerin painted the interior murals, and the epitaph above the statue was written by Royal Cortissoz. Dedicated on May 30, 1922, it is one of several memorials built to honor an American president. It has been a major tourist attraction since its opening, and over the years, has occasionally been used as a symbolic center focused on race relations and civil rights.
Doric style columns line the temple exterior, and the inscriptions inside include two well-known speeches by Lincoln, the Gettysburg Address and his second inaugural address. The memorial has been the site of many famous speeches, including Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech delivered on August 28, 1963, during the rally at the end of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
Like other monuments on the National Mall – including the nearby Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Korean War Veterans Memorial, and World War II Memorial – the national memorial is administered by the National Park Service under its National Mall and Memorial Parks group. It has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since October 15, 1966, and was ranked seventh on the American Institute of Architects' 2007 list of America's Favorite Architecture. The memorial is open to the public 24 hours a day, and more than seven million people visit it annually.
The first public memorial to United States President Abraham Lincoln in Washington, D.C., was a statue by Lot Flannery erected in front of the District of Columbia City Hall in 1868, three years after Lincoln's assassination. Demands for a fitting national memorial had been voiced since the time of Lincoln's death. In 1867, Congress passed the first of many bills incorporating a commission to erect a monument for the sixteenth president. An American sculptor, Clark Mills, was chosen to design the monument. His plans reflected the nationalistic spirit of the time and called for a 70-foot (21 m) structure adorned with six equestrian and 31 pedestrian statues of colossal proportions, crowned by a 12-foot (3.7 m) statue of Abraham Lincoln. Subscriptions for the project were insufficient.
The matter lay dormant until the start of the 20th century, when, under the leadership of Senator Shelby M. Cullom of Illinois, six separate bills were introduced in Congress for the incorporation of a new memorial commission. The first five bills, proposed in the years 1901, 1902, and 1908, met with defeat because of opposition from Speaker Joe Cannon. The sixth bill (Senate Bill 9449), introduced on December 13, 1910, passed. The Lincoln Memorial Commission had its first meeting the following year and United States President William H. Taft was chosen as the commission's president. Progress continued steadily, and by 1913 Congress had approved the commission's choice of design and location.
There were questions regarding the commission's plan. Many thought architect Henry Bacon's Greek temple design was far too ostentatious for a man of Lincoln's humble character. Instead, they proposed a simple log cabin shrine. The site too did not go unopposed. The recently reclaimed land in West Potomac Park was seen by many as either too swampy or too inaccessible. Other sites, such as Union Station, were put forth. The Commission stood firm in its recommendation, feeling that the Potomac Park location, situated on the Washington Monument–Capitol axis, overlooking the Potomac River and surrounded by open land, was ideal. Furthermore, the Potomac Park site had already been designated in the McMillan Plan of 1901 to be the location of a future monument comparable to that of the Washington Monument.
With Congressional approval and a $300,000 allocation, the project got underway. On February 12, 1914, contractor M. F. Comer of Toledo, Ohio; resident member of the memorial's commission, former Senator Joseph C. S. Blackburn of Kentucky; and the memorial's designer, Henry Bacon conducted a groundbreaking ceremony by turning over a few spadefuls of earth. The following month is when actual construction began. Work progressed steadily according to schedule. Some changes were made to the plan. The statue of Lincoln, originally designed to be 10 feet (3.0 m) tall, was enlarged to 19 feet (5.8 m) to prevent it from being overwhelmed by the huge chamber. As late as 1920, the decision was made to substitute an open portal for the bronze and glass grille which was to have guarded the entrance. Despite these changes, the Memorial was finished on schedule. Commission president William H. Taft – who was then Chief Justice of the United States – dedicated the Memorial on May 30, 1922, and presented it to United States President Warren G. Harding, who accepted it on behalf of the American people. Lincoln's only surviving son, 78-year-old Robert Todd Lincoln, was in attendance. Prominent African Americans were invited to the event and discovered upon arrival they were assigned a segregated section guarded by U.S. Marines.
The Memorial was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 15, 1966.
The exterior of the Memorial echoes a classic Greek temple and features Yule marble quarried from Colorado. The structure measures 189.7 by 118.5 feet (57.8 by 36.1 m) and is 99 feet (30 m) tall. It is surrounded by a peristyle of 36 fluted Doric columns, one for each of the 36 states in the Union at the time of Lincoln's death, and two columns in-antis at the entrance behind the colonnade. The columns stand 44 feet (13 m) tall with a base diameter of 7.5 feet (2.3 m). Each column is built from 12 drums including the capital. The columns, like the exterior walls and facades, are inclined slightly toward the building's interior. This is to compensate for perspective distortions which would otherwise make the memorial appear to bulge out at the top when compared with the bottom, a common feature of Ancient Greek architecture.
Above the colonnade, inscribed on the frieze, are the names of the 36 states in the Union at the time of Lincoln's death and the dates in which they entered the Union. Their names are separated by double wreath medallions in bas-relief. The cornice is composed of a carved scroll regularly interspersed with projecting lions' heads and ornamented with palmetto cresting along the upper edge. Above this on the attic frieze are inscribed the names of the 48 states present at the time of the Memorial's dedication. A bit higher is a garland joined by ribbons and palm leaves, supported by the wings of eagles. All ornamentation on the friezes and cornices was done by Ernest C. Bairstow.
The Memorial is anchored in a concrete foundation, 44 to 66 feet (13 to 20 m) in depth, constructed by M. F. Comer and Company and the National Foundation and Engineering Company, and is encompassed by a 187-by-257-foot (57 by 78 m) rectangular granite retaining wall measuring 14 feet (4.3 m) in height.
Leading up to the shrine on the east side are the main steps. Beginning at the edge of the Reflecting Pool, the steps rise to the Lincoln Memorial Circle roadway surrounding the edifice, then to the main portal, intermittently spaced with a series of platforms. Flanking the steps as they approach the entrance are two buttresses each crowned with an 11-foot (3.4 m) tall tripod carved from pink Tennessee marble by the Piccirilli Brothers. There are a total of 87 steps (58 steps from the chamber to the plaza and 29 steps from the plaza to the Reflecting Pool).
The Memorial's interior is divided into three chambers by two rows of four Ionic columns, each 50 feet (15 m) tall and 5.5 feet (1.7 m) across at their base. The central chamber, housing the statue of Lincoln, is 60 feet (18 m) wide, 74 feet (23 m) deep, and 60 feet (18 m) high. The north and south chambers display carved inscriptions of Lincoln's second inaugural address and his Gettysburg Address.[Note 2] Bordering these inscriptions are pilasters ornamented with fasces, eagles, and wreaths. The inscriptions and adjoining ornamentation are by Evelyn Beatrice Longman.
The Memorial is replete with symbolic elements. The 36 columns represent the states of the Union at the time of Lincoln's death; the 48 stone festoons above the columns represent the 48 states in 1922. Inside, each inscription is surmounted by a 60-by-12-foot (18.3 by 3.7 m) mural by Jules Guerin portraying principles seen as evident in Lincoln's life: Freedom, Liberty, Morality, Justice, and the Law on the south wall; Unity, Fraternity, and Charity on the north. Cypress trees, representing Eternity, are in the murals' backgrounds. The murals' paint incorporated kerosene and wax to protect the exposed artwork from fluctuations in temperature and moisture.
The ceiling consists of bronze girders ornamented with laurel and oak leaves. Between these are panels of Alabama marble, saturated with paraffin to increase translucency. But feeling that the statue required even more light, Bacon and French designed metal slats for the ceiling to conceal floodlights, which could be modulated to supplement the natural light; this modification was installed in 1929. The one major alteration since was the addition of an elevator for the disabled in the 1970s.
Below the memorial is an undercroft. Due to water seeping through the calcium carbonate within the marble, over time stalactites and stalagmites have formed within it. During construction, graffiti was scrawled on it by workers, and is considered historical by the National Park Service. During the 1970s and 1980s, there were regular tours of the undercroft. The tours stopped abruptly in 1989 after a visitor noticed asbestos and notified the Service. For the memorial's centennial in 2022, the undercroft is planned to be open to visitors following a rehabilitation project funded by David Rubenstein.
IN THIS TEMPLE
AS IN THE HEARTS OF THE PEOPLE
FOR WHOM HE SAVED THE UNION
THE MEMORY OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN
IS ENSHRINED FOREVER
—Epitaph by Royal Cortissoz
Abraham Lincoln, by Daniel Chester French
Lying between the north and south chambers of the open-air Memorial is the central hall, which contains the large solitary figure of Abraham Lincoln sitting in contemplation. Its sculptor, Daniel Chester French, supervised the six Piccirilli brothers (Ferruccio, Attilio, Furio, Masaniello, Orazio, and Getulio) in its construction, and it took four years to complete.
The Lincoln Memorial Statue, with inscription in background
The 175-short-ton (159 t) statue, carved from Georgia white marble, was shipped in 28 pieces. Originally intended to be only 10 feet (3.0 m) tall, the sculpture was enlarged to 19 feet (5.8 m) from head to foot considering it would look small within the extensive interior space. If Lincoln were depicted standing, he would be 28 feet (8.5 m) tall.
The widest span of the statue corresponds to its height, and it rests upon an oblong pedestal of Tennessee marble 10 feet (3.0 m) high, 16 feet (4.9 m) wide, and 17 feet (5.2 m) deep. Directly beneath this lies a platform of Tennessee marble about 34.5 feet (10.5 m) long, 28 feet (8.5 m) wide, and 6.5 inches (0.17 m) high. Lincoln's arms rest on representations of Roman fasces, a subtle touch that associates the statue with the Augustan (and imperial) theme (obelisk and funerary monuments) of the Washington Mall. The statue is discretely bordered by two pilasters, one on each side. Between these pilasters, and above Lincoln's head, is engraved an epitaph of Lincoln by Royal Cortissoz.
An urban legend holds that the face of General Robert E. Lee is carved onto the back of Lincoln's head, and looks back across the Potomac toward his former home, Arlington House (now within the bounds of Arlington National Cemetery). Another popular legend is that Lincoln's hands are shown using sign language to represent his initials, his left hand signing an A and his right signing an L. The National Park Service denies both legends.
However, historian Gerald Prokopowicz writes that, while it is not clear that sculptor Daniel Chester French intended Lincoln's hands to be formed into sign language versions of his initials, it is possible that French did intend it. French was familiar with American Sign Language, and he would have had a reason to do so, to pay tribute to Lincoln for having signed the federal legislation giving Gallaudet University, a university for the deaf, the authority to grant college degrees. The National Geographic Society's publication "Pinpointing the Past in Washington, D.C." states that Daniel Chester French had a son who was deaf and that the sculptor was familiar with sign language. Historian James A. Percoco has observed that, although there are no extant documents showing that French had Lincoln's hands carved to represent the letters "A" and "L" in American Sign Language, "I think you can conclude that it's reasonable to have that kind of summation about the hands."
The Memorial has become a symbolically sacred venue, especially for the Civil Rights Movement. In 1939, the Daughters of the American Revolution refused to allow the African-American contralto Marian Anderson to perform before an integrated audience at the organization's Constitution Hall. At the suggestion of Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harold L. Ickes, the Secretary of the Interior, arranged for a performance on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on Easter Sunday of that year, to a live audience of 75,000 and a nationwide radio audience. On June 29, 1947, Harry Truman became the first president to address the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The speech took place at the Lincoln Memorial during the NAACP convention and was carried nationally on radio. In that speech, Truman laid out the need to end discrimination, which would be advanced by the first comprehensive, presidentially proposed civil rights legislation.
On August 28, 1963, the memorial grounds were the site of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which proved to be a high point of the American Civil Rights Movement. It is estimated that approximately 250,000 people came to the event, where they heard Martin Luther King Jr., deliver his historic "I Have a Dream" speech before the memorial honoring the president who had issued the Emancipation Proclamation 100 years earlier. King's speech, with its language of patriotism and its evocation of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, was meant to match the symbolism of the Lincoln Memorial as a monument to national unity. Labor leader Walter Reuther, an organizer of the march, persuaded the other organizers to move the march to the Lincoln Memorial from the Capitol Building. Reuther believed the location would be less threatening to Congress and that the occasion would be especially appropriate underneath the gaze of Abraham Lincoln's statue. The D.C. police also appreciated the location because it was surrounded on three sides by water, so that any incident could be easily contained.
Twenty years later, on August 28, 1983, crowds gathered again to mark the 20th Anniversary Mobilization for Jobs, Peace and Freedom, to reflect on progress in gaining civil rights for African Americans and to commit to correcting continuing injustices. King's speech is such a part of the Lincoln Memorial story, that the spot on which King stood, on the landing eighteen steps below Lincoln's statue, was engraved in 2003 in recognition of the 40th anniversary of the event.
At the memorial on May 9, 1970, President Richard Nixon had a middle-of-the-night impromptu, brief meeting with protesters who, just days after the Kent State shootings, were preparing to march against the Vietnam War.
As one of the most prominent American monuments, the Lincoln Memorial is often featured in books, films, videogames, and television shows that take place in Washington; by 2003 it had appeared in over 60 films, and in 2009, Mark S. Reinhart compiled some short sketches of dozens of uses of the Memorial in film and television.
Some examples of films include Frank Capra's 1939 film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, where in a key scene the statue and the Memorial's inscription provide inspiration to freshman Senator Jefferson Smith, played by James Stewart. The Park Service did not want Capra to film at the Memorial, so he sent a large crew elsewhere as a distraction while a smaller crew filmed Stewart and Jean Arthur inside the Memorial.
Many of the appearances of the Lincoln Memorial are actually digital visual effects, due to restrictive filming rules. As of 2017, according to the National Park Service, "Filming/photography is prohibited above the white marble steps and the interior chamber of the Lincoln Memorial."
Mitchell Newton-Matza said in 2016 that "Reflecting its cherished place in the hearts of Americans, the Lincoln Memorial has often been featured prominently in popular culture, especially motion pictures." According to Tracey Gold Bennett, "The majesty of the Lincoln Memorial is a big draw for film location scouts, producers, and directors because this landmark has appeared in a considerable number of films."
Jay Sacher writes:
From high to low, the memorial is cultural shorthand for both American ideals and 1960s radicalism. From Forrest Gump's Zelig-like insertion into anti-war rallies on the steps of the memorial, to the villainous Decepticon robots discarding the Lincoln statue and claiming it as a throne. ... The memorial's place in the culture is assured even as it is parodied.
From 1959 (the 150th anniversary of Lincoln's birth) to 2008, the memorial, with statue visible through the columns, was depicted on the reverse of the United States one-cent coin, which since 1909 has depicted a bust of Lincoln on its front.
The memorial has appeared on the back of the U.S. five-dollar bill since 1929. The front of the bill bears Lincoln's portrait.
The National Mall is a landscaped park near the downtown area of Washington, D.C., the capital city of the United States. It contains and borders a number of museums of the Smithsonian Institution, art galleries, cultural institutions, and various memorials, sculptures, and statues. It is administered by the National Park Service (NPS) of the United States Department of the Interior as part of the National Mall and Memorial Parks unit of the National Park System. The park receives approximately 24 million visitors each year.
The core area of the National Mall extends between the United States Capitol grounds to the east and the Washington Monument to the west and is lined to the north and south by several museums and a federal office building. The term National Mall may also include areas that are also officially part of neighboring West Potomac Park to the south and west and Constitution Gardens to the north, extending to the Lincoln Memorial on the west and Jefferson Memorial to the south.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly called Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with Maryland to its north and east. Washington, D.C., was named for George Washington, a Founding Father and first president of the United States. The district is named for Columbia, the female personification of the nation.
Washington, D.C., anchors the southern end of the Northeast megalopolis, one of the nation's largest and most influential cultural, political, and economic regions. As the seat of the U.S. federal government and several international organizations, the city is an important world political capital. The city had 20.7 million domestic visitors and 1.2 million international visitors, ranking seventh among U.S. cities as of 2022.
The U.S. Constitution in 1789 called for the creation of a federal district under the exclusive jurisdiction of the U.S. Congress. As such, Washington, D.C., is not part of any state, and is not one itself. The Residence Act, adopted on July 16, 1790, approved the creation of the capital district along the Potomac River. The city was founded in 1791, and the 6th Congress held the first session in the unfinished Capitol Building in 1800 after the capital moved from Philadelphia. In 1801, the District of Columbia, formerly part of Maryland and Virginia and including the existing settlements of Georgetown and Alexandria, was officially recognized as the federal district; initially, the city was a separate settlement within the larger federal district. In 1846, Congress returned the land originally ceded by Virginia, including the city of Alexandria. In 1871, it created a single municipality for the remaining portion of the district, although its locally elected government only lasted three years and elective city-government did not return for over a century. There have been several unsuccessful efforts to make the district into a state since the 1880s; a statehood bill passed the House of Representatives in 2021 but was not adopted by the U.S. Senate. Designed in 1791 by Pierre Charles L'Enfant, the city is divided into quadrants, which are centered around the Capitol Building and include 131 neighborhoods. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 689,545, making it the 23rd-most populous city in the U.S., third-most populous city in the Southeast after Jacksonville and Charlotte, and third-most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic after New York City and Philadelphia. Commuters from the city's Maryland and Virginia suburbs raise the city's daytime population to more than one million during the workweek. The Washington metropolitan area, which includes parts of Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia, is the country's seventh-largest metropolitan area, with a 2023 population of 6.3 million residents.
The city hosts the U.S. federal government and the buildings that house government headquarters, including the White House, the Capitol, the Supreme Court Building, and multiple federal departments and agencies. The city is home to many national monuments and museums, located most prominently on or around the National Mall, including the Jefferson Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Washington Monument. It hosts 177 foreign embassies and serves as the headquarters for the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the Organization of American States, and other international organizations. Many of the nation's largest industry associations, non-profit organizations, and think tanks are based in the city, including AARP, American Red Cross, Atlantic Council, Brookings Institution, National Geographic Society, The Heritage Foundation, Wilson Center, and others.
A locally elected mayor and 13-member council have governed the district since 1973, though Congress retains the power to overturn local laws. Washington, D.C., residents are, on the federal level, politically disenfranchised since the city's residents do not have voting representation in Congress; the city's residents elect a single at-large congressional delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives who has no voting authority. The city's voters choose three presidential electors in accordance with the Twenty-third Amendment.
The District of Columbia was created in 1801 as the federal district of the United States, with territory previously held by the states of Maryland and Virginia ceded to the federal government of the United States for the purpose of creating its federal district, which would encompass the new national capital of the United States, the City of Washington. The district came into existence, with its own judges and marshals, through the District of Columbia Organic Act of 1801; previously it was the Territory of Columbia. According to specific language in the U.S. Constitution, it was 100 square miles (259 km2).
The district encompassed three small cities: Alexandria, formerly in Virginia, Georgetown, formerly Maryland, and the deliberately planned central core, the City of Washington. Both the White House and the United States Capitol were already completed and in use by 1800 as called for by the 1791 L'Enfant Plan for the City of Washington, although the city was not formally chartered until 1802. Beyond those cities, the remainder of the district was farmland organized by the 1801 Act into two counties, Washington County, D.C., on the Maryland side, and Alexandria County, D.C., on the Virginia side, encompassing today's Arlington County, Virginia, and the independent city of Alexandria.
The district was governed directly by the U.S. Congress from the beginning. Alexandria City and County were ceded back from the federal government to the commonwealth of Virginia in 1846, in a process known as retrocession, anticipating the 1850 ban on slave trading (but not slavery) in the district.
Washington and Georgetown retained their separate charters for seventy years, until the District of Columbia Organic Act of 1871. That act cancelled the charters of the towns and brought the entire area within the district borders under one district government, ending any distinction between "the District of Columbia" and "Washington", making the two terms effectively synonymous.
Main article: History of Washington, D.C. § Establishment
Congress determined, in the Residence Act of 1790, that the nation's capital be on the Potomac, between the Anacostia River and today's Williamsport, Maryland, and in a federal district up to 10 miles square. The exact location was to be determined by President George Washington, familiar with the area from his nearby home and properties at Mt. Vernon, Virginia.
Its trans-state location reflected a compromise between the Southern and Northern states. Virginia lobbied for the selection, an idea opposed by New York and Pennsylvania, both of which had previously housed the nation's capital. Maryland, whose State House was older than that of Virginia, and like Virginia a slave state, was chosen as a compromise. At Washington's request the City of Alexandria was included in the district, though with the provision that no federal buildings could be built there. The new capital district was at about the center of the country.
About 2/3 of the original district was in Maryland and 1/3 in Virginia, and the wide Potomac in the middle. The future district was surveyed in 1791–92; 24 of its surviving stone markers are in Maryland, 12 in Virginia. (See Boundary Markers of the original District of Columbia.) Washington decided that the capital's location would be located between the mouth of the Anacostia River and Georgetown, which sits at the Potomac's head of navigation.
As specified by Article One of the United States Constitution, in fact as one of the enumerated powers of section 8, Congress assumed direct administrative control of the federal district upon its creation by the District of Columbia Organic Act of 1801. There was no district governor or executive body. The U.S. House created a permanent Committee on the District of Columbia in January 1808, and the U.S. Senate established its counterpart in December 1816. These committees remained active until 1946. Thus the U.S. Congress managed the detailed day-to-day governmental needs of the district through acts of Congress—an act authorizing the purchase of fire engines and construction of a firehouse, for instance, or an act to commission three new city streets and closing two others in Georgetown.
The five component parts of the district operated their own governments at the lower level. The three cities within the district (Georgetown, the City of Washington, and Alexandria) operated their own municipal governments, each with a continuous history of mayors. Robert Brent, the first mayor of the City of Washington, was appointed directly by Thomas Jefferson in 1802 after the city's organization that year.
The remaining rural territory within the district belonged either to Alexandria County D.C., (district land west of the Potomac outside the City of Alexandria, formerly in Virginia) or to Washington County, D.C., (the unincorporated east side, formerly in Maryland, plus islands and riverbed). Both counties operated with boards of commissioners for county-level government functions. Both counties were governed by levy courts made of presidentially appointed Justices of the Peace. Prior to 1812, the levy courts had a number of members defined by the president, but after that Washington County had 7 members. In 1848, the Washington County levy court was expanded to 11 members, and in 1863 that was reduced by two to nine members.
The language of the establishing act of 1801 omitted any provision for district residents to vote for local, state-equivalent, or federal representatives.
This omission was not related to any constitutional restriction or, apparently, any rationale at all. Legal scholars in 2004 called the omission of voting rights a simple "historical accident", pointing out that the preceding Residence Act of July 16, 1790, exercising the same constitutional authority over the same territory around the Potomac, had protected the votes of the district's citizens in federal and state elections. Those citizens had indeed continued to cast ballots, from 1790 through 1800, for their U.S. House representatives and for their Maryland and Virginia state legislators. James Madison had written in the Federalist No. 43 that the citizens of the federal district should "of course" have their will represented, "derived from their own suffrages." The necessary language simply did not appear in the 1801 legislation.
The prospect of disenfranchisement caused immediate concern. One voice from a public meeting in January 1801, before the bill's passage, compared their situation to those who fought against British taxation without representation in the Revolutionary War—20 years prior. Despite these complaints the bill went into effect as written. Given exclusive and absolute political control, Congress did not act to restore any of these rights until the 1960s. The district still has no voting representation in Congress, and the decisions of its long-sought local government established in 1973 are still subject to close congressional review, annulment, and budget control.
Residents of Alexandria saw no economic advantage from being in the District. No federal buildings could be built on the south side of the Potomac, nor did they have representation in Congress. Some resistance was expressed immediately. One leading figure in the fight to retrocede through the 1820s was Thomson Francis Mason, who was elected mayor of Alexandria, D.C., four times between 1827 and 1830. Also Alexandria was a center of the profitable slave trade – the largest slave-trading company in the country, Franklin and Armfield, was located there – and Alexandria residents were afraid that if the District banned the slave trade, as seemed likely, this industry would leave the city.
To prevent this, Arlington held a referendum, through which voters petitioned Congress and the state of Virginia to return the portion of the District of Columbia south of the Potomac River (Alexandria County) to Virginia. On July 9, 1846, Congress retroceded Alexandria County to Virginia, after which the district's slave traders relocated to Alexandria. The district's slave trade was outlawed in the Compromise of 1850. The penalty for bringing a slave into the district for sale, was freedom for the slave. Southern senators and congressmen resisted banning slavery altogether in the District, to avoid setting a precedent. The practice remained legal in the district until after secession, with the District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act signed by Lincoln on April 16, 1862, which established the annual observance of Emancipation Day.
The District of Columbia Organic Act of 1871 created a single new district corporation governing the entire federal territory, called the District of Columbia, thus dissolving the three major political subdivisions of the district (Port of Georgetown, the City of Washington, and Washington County) and their governments. By this time the county also contained other small settlements and nascent suburbs of Washington outside its bounded limits, such as Anacostia, which had been incorporated in 1854 as Uniontown; Fort Totten, dating at least to the Civil War; and Barry Farm, a large tract bought by the Freedmen's Bureau and granted to formerly enslaved and free-born African Americans in 1867.
The newly restructured district government provided for a governor appointed by the president for a 4-year term, with an 11-member council also appointed by the president, a locally elected 22-member assembly, and a five-man Board of Public Works charged with modernizing the city. The first vice-chair of that Board of Public Works was real-estate developer Alexander Robey Shepherd, the architect and proponent of the consolidating legislation. From September 1873 to June 1874, Shepherd would serve as the second, and final, governor of the District.
The Seal of the District of Columbia features the date 1871, recognizing the year the district's government was incorporated.
Category B listed historic tenements constructed c. 1815.
"Edinburgh (/ˈɛdɪnbərə/; Scots: Edinburgh; Scottish Gaelic: Dùn Èideann [ˈt̪uːn ˈeːtʲən̪ˠ]) is the capital of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian on the Firth of Forth's southern shore.
Recognised as the capital of Scotland since at least the 15th century, Edinburgh is the seat of the Scottish Government, the Scottish Parliament and the supreme courts of Scotland. The city's Palace of Holyroodhouse is the official residence of the monarch in Scotland. The city has long been a centre of education, particularly in the fields of medicine, Scots law, literature, philosophy, the sciences and engineering. It is the second largest financial centre in the United Kingdom (after London) and the city's historical and cultural attractions have made it the United Kingdom's second most visited tourist destination attracting 4.9 million visits including 2.4 million from overseas in 2018.
Edinburgh is Scotland's second most populous city and the seventh most populous in the United Kingdom. The official population estimates are 488,050 (2016) for the Locality of Edinburgh (Edinburgh pre 1975 regionalisation plus Currie and Balerno), 518,500 (2018) for the City of Edinburgh, and 1,339,380 (2014) for the city region. Edinburgh lies at the heart of the Edinburgh and South East Scotland city region comprising East Lothian, Edinburgh, Fife, Midlothian, Scottish Borders and West Lothian.
The city is the annual venue of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. It is home to national institutions such as the National Museum of Scotland, the National Library of Scotland and the Scottish National Gallery. The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1582 and now one of four in the city, is placed 20th in the QS World University Rankings for 2020. The city is also known for the Edinburgh International Festival and the Fringe, the latter being the world's largest annual international arts festival. Historic sites in Edinburgh include Edinburgh Castle, the Palace of Holyroodhouse, the churches of St. Giles, Greyfriars and the Canongate, and the extensive Georgian New Town built in the 18th/19th centuries. Edinburgh's Old Town and New Town together are listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site, which has been managed by Edinburgh World Heritage since 1999." - info from Wikipedia.
Summer 2019 I did a solo cycling tour across Europe through 12 countries over the course of 3 months. I began my adventure in Edinburgh, Scotland and finished in Florence, Italy cycling 8,816 km. During my trip I took 47,000 photos.
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The Eiffel Tower is a wrought-iron lattice tower on the Champ de Mars in Paris, France. It is named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower.
Locally nicknamed "La dame de fer" (French for "Iron Lady"), it was constructed from 1887 to 1889 as the centerpiece of the 1889 World's Fair and was initially criticised by some of France's leading artists and intellectuals for its design, but it has become a global cultural icon of France and one of the most recognisable structures in the world. The Eiffel Tower is the most visited monument with an entrance fee in the world; 6.91 million people ascended it in 2015. It was designated a monument historique in 1964, and was named part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site ("Paris, Banks of the Seine") in 1991.
The tower is 330 metres (1,083 ft) tall, about the same height as an 81-storey building, and the tallest structure in Paris. Its base is square, measuring 125 metres (410 ft) on each side. During its construction, the Eiffel Tower surpassed the Washington Monument to become the tallest man-made structure in the world, a title it held for 41 years until the Chrysler Building in New York City was finished in 1930. It was the first structure in the world to surpass both the 200-metre and 300-metre mark in height. Due to the addition of a broadcasting aerial at the top of the tower in 1957, it is now taller than the Chrysler Building by 5.2 metres (17 ft). Excluding transmitters, the Eiffel Tower is the second tallest free-standing structure in France after the Millau Viaduct.
The tower has three levels for visitors, with restaurants on the first and second levels. The top level's upper platform is 276 m (906 ft) above the ground – the highest observation deck accessible to the public in the European Union. Tickets can be purchased to ascend by stairs or lift to the first and second levels. The climb from ground level to the first level is over 300 steps, as is the climb from the first level to the second, making the entire ascent a 600 step climb. Although there is a staircase to the top level, it is usually accessible only by lift.
The design of the Eiffel Tower is attributed to Maurice Koechlin and Émile Nouguier, two senior engineers working for the Compagnie des Établissements Eiffel. It was envisioned after discussion about a suitable centerpiece for the proposed 1889 Exposition Universelle, a world's fair to celebrate the centennial of the French Revolution. Eiffel openly acknowledged that inspiration for a tower came from the Latting Observatory built in New York City in 1853. In May 1884, working at home, Koechlin made a sketch of their idea, described by him as "a great pylon, consisting of four lattice girders standing apart at the base and coming together at the top, joined together by metal trusses at regular intervals". Eiffel initially showed little enthusiasm, but he did approve further study, and the two engineers then asked Stephen Sauvestre, the head of the company's architectural department, to contribute to the design. Sauvestre added decorative arches to the base of the tower, a glass pavilion to the first level, and other embellishments.
The new version gained Eiffel's support: he bought the rights to the patent on the design which Koechlin, Nougier, and Sauvestre had taken out, and the design was put on display at the Exhibition of Decorative Arts in the autumn of 1884 under the company name. On 30 March 1885, Eiffel presented his plans to the Société des Ingénieurs Civils; after discussing the technical problems and emphasising the practical uses of the tower, he finished his talk by saying the tower would symbolise
[n]ot only the art of the modern engineer, but also the century of Industry and Science in which we are living, and for which the way was prepared by the great scientific movement of the eighteenth century and by the Revolution of 1789, to which this monument will be built as an expression of France's gratitude.
Little progress was made until 1886, when Jules Grévy was re-elected as president of France and Édouard Lockroy was appointed as minister for trade. A budget for the exposition was passed and, on 1 May, Lockroy announced an alteration to the terms of the open competition being held for a centrepiece to the exposition, which effectively made the selection of Eiffel's design a foregone conclusion, as entries had to include a study for a 300 m (980 ft) four-sided metal tower on the Champ de Mars. (A 300-metre tower was then considered a herculean engineering effort). On 12 May, a commission was set up to examine Eiffel's scheme and its rivals, which, a month later, decided that all the proposals except Eiffel's were either impractical or lacking in details.
After some debate about the exact location of the tower, a contract was signed on 8 January 1887. Eiffel signed it acting in his own capacity rather than as the representative of his company, the contract granting him 1.5 million francs toward the construction costs: less than a quarter of the estimated 6.5 million francs. Eiffel was to receive all income from the commercial exploitation of the tower during the exhibition and for the next 20 years. He later established a separate company to manage the tower, putting up half the necessary capital himself.
The Crédit Industriel et Commercial (C.I.C.) helped finance the construction of the Eiffel Tower. According to a New York Times investigation into France's colonial legacy in Haiti, at the time of the tower's construction, the bank was acquiring funds from predatory loans related to the Haiti indemnity controversy – a debt forced upon Haiti by France to pay for slaves lost following the Haitian Revolution – and transferring Haiti's wealth into France. The Times reported that the C.I.C. benefited from a loan that required the Haitian Government to pay the bank and its partner nearly half of all taxes the Haitian government collected on exports, writing that by "effectively choking off the nation’s primary source of income", the C.I.C. "left a crippling legacy of financial extraction and dashed hopes — even by the standards of a nation with a long history of both."
Work on the foundations started on 28 January 1887. Those for the east and south legs were straightforward, with each leg resting on four 2 m (6.6 ft) concrete slabs, one for each of the principal girders of each leg. The west and north legs, being closer to the river Seine, were more complicated: each slab needed two piles installed by using compressed-air caissons 15 m (49 ft) long and 6 m (20 ft) in diameter driven to a depth of 22 m (72 ft) to support the concrete slabs, which were 6 m (20 ft) thick. Each of these slabs supported a block of limestone with an inclined top to bear a supporting shoe for the ironwork.
Each shoe was anchored to the stonework by a pair of bolts 10 cm (4 in) in diameter and 7.5 m (25 ft) long. The foundations were completed on 30 June, and the erection of the ironwork began. The visible work on-site was complemented by the enormous amount of exacting preparatory work that took place behind the scenes: the drawing office produced 1,700 general drawings and 3,629 detailed drawings of the 18,038 different parts needed. The task of drawing the components was complicated by the complex angles involved in the design and the degree of precision required: the position of rivet holes was specified to within 1 mm (0.04 in) and angles worked out to one second of arc. The finished components, some already riveted together into sub-assemblies, arrived on horse-drawn carts from a factory in the nearby Parisian suburb of Levallois-Perret and were first bolted together, with the bolts being replaced with rivets as construction progressed. No drilling or shaping was done on site: if any part did not fit, it was sent back to the factory for alteration. In all, 18,038 pieces were joined together using 2.5 million rivets.
At first, the legs were constructed as cantilevers, but about halfway to the first level construction was paused to create a substantial timber scaffold. This renewed concerns about the structural integrity of the tower, and sensational headlines such as "Eiffel Suicide!" and "Gustave Eiffel Has Gone Mad: He Has Been Confined in an Asylum" appeared in the tabloid press. At this stage, a small "creeper" crane designed to move up the tower was installed in each leg. They made use of the guides for the lifts which were to be fitted in the four legs. The critical stage of joining the legs at the first level was completed by the end of March 1888. Although the metalwork had been prepared with the utmost attention to detail, provision had been made to carry out small adjustments to precisely align the legs; hydraulic jacks were fitted to the shoes at the base of each leg, capable of exerting a force of 800 tonnes, and the legs were intentionally constructed at a slightly steeper angle than necessary, being supported by sandboxes on the scaffold. Although construction involved 300 on-site employees, due to Eiffel's safety precautions and the use of movable gangways, guardrails and screens, only one person died.
The main structural work was completed at the end of March 1889 and, on 31 March, Eiffel celebrated by leading a group of government officials, accompanied by representatives of the press, to the top of the tower. Because the lifts were not yet in operation, the ascent was made by foot, and took over an hour, with Eiffel stopping frequently to explain various features. Most of the party chose to stop at the lower levels, but a few, including the structural engineer, Émile Nouguier, the head of construction, Jean Compagnon, the President of the City Council, and reporters from Le Figaro and Le Monde Illustré, completed the ascent. At 2:35 pm, Eiffel hoisted a large Tricolour to the accompaniment of a 25-gun salute fired at the first level.
There was still work to be done, particularly on the lifts and facilities, and the tower was not opened to the public until nine days after the opening of the exposition on 6 May; even then, the lifts had not been completed. The tower was an instant success with the public, and nearly 30,000 visitors made the 1,710-step climb to the top before the lifts entered service on 26 May. Tickets cost 2 francs for the first level, 3 for the second, and 5 for the top, with half-price admission on Sundays, and by the end of the exhibition there had been 1,896,987 visitors.
After dark, the tower was lit by hundreds of gas lamps, and a beacon sent out three beams of red, white and blue light. Two searchlights mounted on a circular rail were used to illuminate various buildings of the exposition. The daily opening and closing of the exposition were announced by a cannon at the top.
On the second level, the French newspaper Le Figaro had an office and a printing press, where a special souvenir edition, Le Figaro de la Tour, was made. There was also a pâtisserie.
At the top, there was a post office where visitors could send letters and postcards as a memento of their visit. Graffitists were also catered for: sheets of paper were mounted on the walls each day for visitors to record their impressions of the tower. Gustave Eiffel described some of the responses as vraiment curieuse ("truly curious").
Famous visitors to the tower included the Prince of Wales, Sarah Bernhardt, "Buffalo Bill" Cody (his Wild West show was an attraction at the exposition) and Thomas Edison. Eiffel invited Edison to his private apartment at the top of the tower, where Edison presented him with one of his phonographs, a new invention and one of the many highlights of the exposition. Edison signed the guestbook with this message:
To M Eiffel the Engineer the brave builder of so gigantic and original specimen of modern Engineering from one who has the greatest respect and admiration for all Engineers including the Great Engineer the Bon Dieu, Thomas Edison.
Eiffel had a permit for the tower to stand for 20 years. It was to be dismantled in 1909, when its ownership would revert to the City of Paris. The City had planned to tear it down (part of the original contest rules for designing a tower was that it should be easy to dismantle) but as the tower proved to be valuable for radio telegraphy, it was allowed to remain after the expiry of the permit, and from 1910 it also became part of the International Time Service.
Eiffel made use of his apartment at the top of the tower to carry out meteorological observations, and also used the tower to perform experiments on the action of air resistance on falling bodies.
Subsequent events
Eiffel had a permit for the tower to stand for 20 years. It was to be dismantled in 1909, when its ownership would revert to the City of Paris. The city had planned to tear it down (part of the original contest rules for designing a tower was that it should be easy to dismantle) but as the tower proved to be valuable for many innovations in the early 20th century, particularly radio telegraphy, it was allowed to remain after the expiry of the permit, and from 1910 it also became part of the International Time Service.
For the 1900 Exposition Universelle, the lifts in the east and west legs were replaced by lifts running as far as the second level constructed by the French firm Fives-Lille. These had a compensating mechanism to keep the floor level as the angle of ascent changed at the first level, and were driven by a similar hydraulic mechanism as the Otis lifts, although this was situated at the base of the tower. Hydraulic pressure was provided by pressurised accumulators located near this mechanism. At the same time the lift in the north pillar was removed and replaced by a staircase to the first level. The layout of both first and second levels was modified, with the space available for visitors on the second level. The original lift in the south pillar was removed 13 years later.
On 19 October 1901, Alberto Santos-Dumont, flying his No.6 airship, won a 100,000-franc prize offered by Henri Deutsch de la Meurthe for the first person to make a flight from St. Cloud to the Eiffel Tower and back in less than half an hour.
In 1910, Father Theodor Wulf measured radiant energy at the top and bottom of the tower. He found more at the top than expected, incidentally discovering what are known today as cosmic rays. Two years later, on 4 February 1912, Austrian tailor Franz Reichelt died after jumping from the first level of the tower (a height of 57 m) to demonstrate his parachute design. In 1914, at the outbreak of World War I, a radio transmitter located in the tower jammed German radio communications, seriously hindering their advance on Paris and contributing to the Allied victory at the First Battle of the Marne. From 1925 to 1934, illuminated signs for Citroën adorned three of the tower's sides, making it the tallest advertising space in the world at the time. In April 1935, the tower was used to make experimental low-resolution television transmissions, using a shortwave transmitter of 200 watts power. On 17 November, an improved 180-line transmitter was installed.
On two separate but related occasions in 1925, the con artist Victor Lustig "sold" the tower for scrap metal. A year later, in February 1926, pilot Leon Collet was killed trying to fly under the tower. His aircraft became entangled in an aerial belonging to a wireless station. A bust of Gustave Eiffel by Antoine Bourdelle was unveiled at the base of the north leg on 2 May 1929. In 1930, the tower lost the title of the world's tallest structure when the Chrysler Building in New York City was completed. In 1938, the decorative arcade around the first level was removed.
Upon the German occupation of Paris in 1940, the lift cables were cut by the French. The tower was closed to the public during the occupation and the lifts were not repaired until 1946. In 1940, German soldiers had to climb the tower to hoist a swastika-centered Reichskriegsflagge, but the flag was so large it blew away just a few hours later, and was replaced by a smaller one. When visiting Paris, Hitler chose to stay on the ground. When the Allies were nearing Paris in August 1944, Hitler ordered General Dietrich von Choltitz, the military governor of Paris, to demolish the tower along with the rest of the city. Von Choltitz disobeyed the order. On 25 August, before the Germans had been driven out of Paris, the German flag was replaced with a Tricolour by two men from the French Naval Museum, who narrowly beat three men led by Lucien Sarniguet, who had lowered the Tricolour on 13 June 1940 when Paris fell to the Germans.
A fire started in the television transmitter on 3 January 1956, damaging the top of the tower. Repairs took a year, and in 1957, the present radio aerial was added to the top. In 1964, the Eiffel Tower was officially declared to be a historical monument by the Minister of Cultural Affairs, André Malraux. A year later, an additional lift system was installed in the north pillar.
According to interviews, in 1967, Montreal Mayor Jean Drapeau negotiated a secret agreement with Charles de Gaulle for the tower to be dismantled and temporarily relocated to Montreal to serve as a landmark and tourist attraction during Expo 67. The plan was allegedly vetoed by the company operating the tower out of fear that the French government could refuse permission for the tower to be restored in its original location.
In 1982, the original lifts between the second and third levels were replaced after 97 years in service. These had been closed to the public between November and March because the water in the hydraulic drive tended to freeze. The new cars operate in pairs, with one counterbalancing the other, and perform the journey in one stage, reducing the journey time from eight minutes to less than two minutes. At the same time, two new emergency staircases were installed, replacing the original spiral staircases. In 1983, the south pillar was fitted with an electrically driven Otis lift to serve the Jules Verne restaurant.[citation needed] The Fives-Lille lifts in the east and west legs, fitted in 1899, were extensively refurbished in 1986. The cars were replaced, and a computer system was installed to completely automate the lifts. The motive power was moved from the water hydraulic system to a new electrically driven oil-filled hydraulic system, and the original water hydraulics were retained solely as a counterbalance system. A service lift was added to the south pillar for moving small loads and maintenance personnel three years later.
Robert Moriarty flew a Beechcraft Bonanza under the tower on 31 March 1984. In 1987, A. J. Hackett made one of his first bungee jumps from the top of the Eiffel Tower, using a special cord he had helped develop. Hackett was arrested by the police. On 27 October 1991, Thierry Devaux, along with mountain guide Hervé Calvayrac, performed a series of acrobatic figures while bungee jumping from the second floor of the tower. Facing the Champ de Mars, Devaux used an electric winch between figures to go back up to the second floor. When firemen arrived, he stopped after the sixth jump.
For its "Countdown to the Year 2000" celebration on 31 December 1999, flashing lights and high-powered searchlights were installed on the tower. During the last three minutes of the year, the lights were turned on starting from the base of the tower and continuing to the top to welcome 2000 with a huge fireworks show. An exhibition above a cafeteria on the first floor commemorates this event. The searchlights on top of the tower made it a beacon in Paris's night sky, and 20,000 flashing bulbs gave the tower a sparkly appearance for five minutes every hour on the hour.
The lights sparkled blue for several nights to herald the new millennium on 31 December 2000. The sparkly lighting continued for 18 months until July 2001. The sparkling lights were turned on again on 21 June 2003, and the display was planned to last for 10 years before they needed replacing.
The tower received its 200,000,000th guest on 28 November 2002.The tower has operated at its maximum capacity of about 7 million visitors per year since 2003. In 2004, the Eiffel Tower began hosting a seasonal ice rink on the first level. A glass floor was installed on the first level during the 2014 refurbishment.
Design
The puddle iron (wrought iron) of the Eiffel Tower weighs 7,300 tonnes, and the addition of lifts, shops and antennae have brought the total weight to approximately 10,100 tonnes. As a demonstration of the economy of design, if the 7,300 tonnes of metal in the structure were melted down, it would fill the square base, 125 metres (410 ft) on each side, to a depth of only 6.25 cm (2.46 in) assuming the density of the metal to be 7.8 tonnes per cubic metre. Additionally, a cubic box surrounding the tower (324 m × 125 m × 125 m) would contain 6,200 tonnes of air, weighing almost as much as the iron itself. Depending on the ambient temperature, the top of the tower may shift away from the sun by up to 18 cm (7 in) due to thermal expansion of the metal on the side facing the sun.
Wind and weather considerations
When it was built, many were shocked by the tower's daring form. Eiffel was accused of trying to create something artistic with no regard to the principles of engineering. However, Eiffel and his team – experienced bridge builders – understood the importance of wind forces, and knew that if they were going to build the tallest structure in the world, they had to be sure it could withstand them. In an interview with the newspaper Le Temps published on 14 February 1887, Eiffel said:
Is it not true that the very conditions which give strength also conform to the hidden rules of harmony? ... Now to what phenomenon did I have to give primary concern in designing the Tower? It was wind resistance. Well then! I hold that the curvature of the monument's four outer edges, which is as mathematical calculation dictated it should be ... will give a great impression of strength and beauty, for it will reveal to the eyes of the observer the boldness of the design as a whole.
He used graphical methods to determine the strength of the tower and empirical evidence to account for the effects of wind, rather than a mathematical formula. Close examination of the tower reveals a basically exponential shape.[69] All parts of the tower were overdesigned to ensure maximum resistance to wind forces. The top half was even assumed to have no gaps in the latticework. In the years since it was completed, engineers have put forward various mathematical hypotheses in an attempt to explain the success of the design. The most recent, devised in 2004 after letters sent by Eiffel to the French Society of Civil Engineers in 1885 were translated into English, is described as a non-linear integral equation based on counteracting the wind pressure on any point of the tower with the tension between the construction elements at that point.
The Eiffel Tower sways by up to 9 cm (3.5 in) in the wind.
Ground floor
The four columns of the tower each house access stairs and elevators to the first two floors, while at the south column only the elevator to the second floor restaurant is publicly accessible.
1st floor
The first floor is publicly accessible by elevator or stairs. When originally built, the first level contained three restaurants – one French, one Russian and one Flemish — and an "Anglo-American Bar". After the exposition closed, the Flemish restaurant was converted to a 250-seat theatre. Today there is the Le 58 Tour Eiffel restaurant and other facilities.
2nd floor
The second floor is publicly accessible by elevator or stairs and has a restaurant called Le Jules Verne, a gourmet restaurant with its own lift going up from the south column to the second level. This restaurant has one star in the Michelin Red Guide. It was run by the multi-Michelin star chef Alain Ducasse from 2007 to 2017. As of May 2019, it is managed by three-star chef Frédéric Anton. It owes its name to the famous science-fiction writer Jules Verne.
3rd floor
Originally there were laboratories for various experiments, and a small apartment reserved for Gustave Eiffel to entertain guests, which is now open to the public, complete with period decorations and lifelike mannequins of Eiffel and some of his notable guests.
From 1937 until 1981, there was a restaurant near the top of the tower. It was removed due to structural considerations; engineers had determined it was too heavy and was causing the tower to sag. This restaurant was sold to an American restaurateur and transported to New York and then New Orleans. It was rebuilt on the edge of New Orleans' Garden District as a restaurant and later event hall. Today there is a champagne bar.
Lifts
The arrangement of the lifts has been changed several times during the tower's history. Given the elasticity of the cables and the time taken to align the cars with the landings, each lift, in normal service, takes an average of 8 minutes and 50 seconds to do the round trip, spending an average of 1 minute and 15 seconds at each level. The average journey time between levels is 1 minute. The original hydraulic mechanism is on public display in a small museum at the base of the east and west legs. Because the mechanism requires frequent lubrication and maintenance, public access is often restricted. The rope mechanism of the north tower can be seen as visitors exit the lift.
Equipping the tower with adequate and safe passenger lifts was a major concern of the government commission overseeing the Exposition. Although some visitors could be expected to climb to the first level, or even the second, lifts clearly had to be the main means of ascent.
Constructing lifts to reach the first level was relatively straightforward: the legs were wide enough at the bottom and so nearly straight that they could contain a straight track, and a contract was given to the French company Roux, Combaluzier & Lepape for two lifts to be fitted in the east and west legs. Roux, Combaluzier & Lepape used a pair of endless chains with rigid, articulated links to which the car was attached. Lead weights on some links of the upper or return sections of the chains counterbalanced most of the car's weight. The car was pushed up from below, not pulled up from above: to prevent the chain buckling, it was enclosed in a conduit. At the bottom of the run, the chains passed around 3.9 m (12 ft 10 in) diameter sprockets. Smaller sprockets at the top guided the chains.
The Otis lifts originally fitted in the north and south legs
Installing lifts to the second level was more of a challenge because a straight track was impossible. No French company wanted to undertake the work. The European branch of Otis Brothers & Company submitted a proposal but this was rejected: the fair's charter ruled out the use of any foreign material in the construction of the tower. The deadline for bids was extended but still no French companies put themselves forward, and eventually the contract was given to Otis in July 1887. Otis were confident they would eventually be given the contract and had already started creating designs.
The car was divided into two superimposed compartments, each holding 25 passengers, with the lift operator occupying an exterior platform on the first level. Motive power was provided by an inclined hydraulic ram 12.67 m (41 ft 7 in) long and 96.5 cm (38.0 in) in diameter in the tower leg with a stroke of 10.83 m (35 ft 6 in): this moved a carriage carrying six sheaves. Five fixed sheaves were mounted higher up the leg, producing an arrangement similar to a block and tackle but acting in reverse, multiplying the stroke of the piston rather than the force generated. The hydraulic pressure in the driving cylinder was produced by a large open reservoir on the second level. After being exhausted from the cylinder, the water was pumped back up to the reservoir by two pumps in the machinery room at the base of the south leg. This reservoir also provided power to the lifts to the first level.
The original lifts for the journey between the second and third levels were supplied by Léon Edoux. A pair of 81 m (266 ft) hydraulic rams were mounted on the second level, reaching nearly halfway up to the third level. One lift car was mounted on top of these rams: cables ran from the top of this car up to sheaves on the third level and back down to a second car. Each car travelled only half the distance between the second and third levels and passengers were required to change lifts halfway by means of a short gangway. The 10-ton cars each held 65 passengers.
Engraved names
Gustave Eiffel engraved on the tower the names of 72 French scientists, engineers and mathematicians in recognition of their contributions to the building of the tower. Eiffel chose this "invocation of science" because of his concern over the artists' protest. At the beginning of the 20th century, the engravings were painted over, but they were restored in 1986–87 by the Société Nouvelle d'exploitation de la Tour Eiffel, a company operating the tower.
Aesthetics
The tower is painted in three shades: lighter at the top, getting progressively darker towards the bottom to complement the Parisian sky. It was originally reddish brown; this changed in 1968 to a bronze colour known as "Eiffel Tower Brown". In what is expected to be a temporary change, the tower is being painted gold in commemoration of the upcoming 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.
The only non-structural elements are the four decorative grill-work arches, added in Sauvestre's sketches, which served to make the tower look more substantial and to make a more impressive entrance to the exposition.
A pop-culture movie cliché is that the view from a Parisian window always includes the tower. In reality, since zoning restrictions limit the height of most buildings in Paris to seven storeys, only a small number of tall buildings have a clear view of the tower.
Maintenance
Maintenance of the tower includes applying 60 tons of paint every seven years to prevent it from rusting. The tower has been completely repainted at least 19 times since it was built. Lead paint was still being used as recently as 2001 when the practice was stopped out of concern for the environment.
Communications
The tower has been used for making radio transmissions since the beginning of the 20th century. Until the 1950s, sets of aerial wires ran from the cupola to anchors on the Avenue de Suffren and Champ de Mars. These were connected to longwave transmitters in small bunkers. In 1909, a permanent underground radio centre was built near the south pillar, which still exists today. On 20 November 1913, the Paris Observatory, using the Eiffel Tower as an aerial, exchanged wireless signals with the United States Naval Observatory, which used an aerial in Arlington County, Virginia. The object of the transmissions was to measure the difference in longitude between Paris and Washington, D.C. Today, radio and digital television signals are transmitted from the Eiffel Tower.
Digital television
A television antenna was first installed on the tower in 1957, increasing its height by 18.7 m (61 ft). Work carried out in 2000 added a further 5.3 m (17 ft), giving the current height of 324 m (1,063 ft).[59] Analogue television signals from the Eiffel Tower ceased on 8 March 2011.
Taller structures
The Eiffel Tower was the world's tallest structure when completed in 1889, a distinction it retained until 1929 when the Chrysler Building in New York City was topped out. The tower also lost its standing as the world's tallest tower to the Tokyo Tower in 1958 but retains its status as the tallest freestanding (non-guyed) structure in France.
Transport
The nearest Paris Métro station is Bir-Hakeim and the nearest RER station is Champ de Mars-Tour Eiffel. The tower itself is located at the intersection of the quai Branly and the Pont d'Iéna.
Popularity
Number of visitors per year between 1889 and 2004
More than 300 million people have visited the tower since it was completed in 1889. In 2015, there were 6.91 million visitors. The tower is the most-visited paid monument in the world. An average of 25,000 people ascend the tower every day (which can result in long queues).
Illumination copyright
The tower and its image have been in the public domain since 1993, 70 years after Eiffel's death. In June 1990 a French court ruled that a special lighting display on the tower in 1989 to mark the tower's 100th anniversary was an "original visual creation" protected by copyright. The Court of Cassation, France's judicial court of last resort, upheld the ruling in March 1992. The Société d'Exploitation de la Tour Eiffel (SETE) now considers any illumination of the tower to be a separate work of art that falls under copyright. As a result, the SNTE alleges that it is illegal to publish contemporary photographs of the lit tower at night without permission in France and some other countries for commercial use. For this reason, it is often rare to find images or videos of the lit tower at night on stock image sites, and media outlets rarely broadcast images or videos of it.
The imposition of copyright has been controversial. The Director of Documentation for what was then called the Société Nouvelle d'exploitation de la Tour Eiffel (SNTE), Stéphane Dieu, commented in 2005: "It is really just a way to manage commercial use of the image, so that it isn't used in ways [of which] we don't approve". SNTE made over €1 million from copyright fees in 2002. However, it could also be used to restrict the publication of tourist photographs of the tower at night, as well as hindering non-profit and semi-commercial publication of images of the illuminated tower.
The copyright claim itself has never been tested in courts to date, according to a 2014 article in the Art Law Journal, and there has never been an attempt to track down millions of people who have posted and shared their images of the illuminated tower on the Internet worldwide. It added, however, that permissive situation may arise on commercial use of such images, like in a magazine, on a film poster, or on product packaging.
French doctrine and jurisprudence allows pictures incorporating a copyrighted work as long as their presence is incidental or accessory to the subject being represented, a reasoning akin to the de minimis rule. Therefore, SETE may be unable to claim copyright on photographs of Paris which happen to include the lit tower.
Replicas
As one of the most famous landmarks in the world, the Eiffel Tower has been the inspiration for the creation of many replicas and similar towers. An early example is Blackpool Tower in England. The mayor of Blackpool, Sir John Bickerstaffe, was so impressed on seeing the Eiffel Tower at the 1889 exposition that he commissioned a similar tower to be built in his town. It opened in 1894 and is 158.1 m (519 ft) tall. Tokyo Tower in Japan, built as a communications tower in 1958, was also inspired by the Eiffel Tower.[111]
There are various scale models of the tower in the United States, including a half-scale version at the Paris Las Vegas, Nevada, one in Paris, Texas built in 1993, and two 1:3 scale models at Kings Island, located in Mason, Ohio, and Kings Dominion, Virginia, amusement parks opened in 1972 and 1975 respectively. Two 1:3 scale models can be found in China, one in Durango, Mexico that was donated by the local French community, and several across Europe.
In 2011, the TV show Pricing the Priceless on the National Geographic Channel speculated that a full-size replica of the tower would cost approximately US$480 million to build. This would be more than ten times the cost of the original (nearly 8 million in 1890 Francs; ~US$40 million in 2018 dollars).
para un juego de no-representaciones... no-representativo... im-presentable!
# # #
for a game of non-representations ... non-representative ... un-presentable!
The yaranga (Chukchi traditional tent, teepee-type), is constructed from reindeer hides, seal skins and lined with brown bear fur. Arctic fox furs hang in the doorway. The portable yaranga is moved further inland as shelter when collecting other sources of food for the winter months.
Stokesay Castle, Craven Arms, Shropshire, UK
Stokesay Castle was constructed at the end of the 13th century by Laurence of Ludlow, who at the time was one of the richest men in England. It remains a treasure by-passed by time, one of the best places to visit in England to experience what medieval life was like. Stokesay Castle is a remarkable survival, a fortified manor house which has hardly altered since the late 13th century. The house was built by Lawrence Ludlow, a leading wool merchant of his day, who created a comfortable residence combining an aesthetically pleasing design with some defensive capabilities. In doing so, he took advantage of the newly established peace on the Welsh border following Edward I's defeat of the Welsh prince Llywelyn the Last. This enabled him to build a large hall, comfortable solar, or private apartment, with windows on the outside world, without fear of attack.
By good fortune Stokesay escaped destruction during the Civil War despite being involved in a skirmish. In the 19th century the castle was sympathetically restored and preserved, thanks to the enlightened efforts of several early conservationists. In the 1980s English Heritage carried out an extensive programme of repair.
Despite its name, Stokesay was not called a castle before the 16th century and is really a fortified manor house, more domestic in character than military. As with many early manor houses, the church and castle are now isolated, the village of which they were once the focal point having either moved or disappeared. The first records of Stokesay date from the period immediately following the Norman Conquest. William the Conqueror installed Roger Montgomery as earl of Shrewsbury, and he in turn granted Stokesay to one of his retainers, Roger de Lacy.
Construction d'un bâtiment commercial à Fléville-devant-Nancy.
Pays : France 🇫🇷
Région : Grand Est (Lorraine)
Département : Meurthe-et-Moselle (54)
Ville : Fléville-devant-Nancy (54710)
Adresse : rue Jacqueline Auriol
Fonction : Commerce
Construction : 2021
► Architecte : cabinet PGARchitecture SAS
► PC n° 54 197 19 N0005 délivré le 04/03/2020
► PC modificatif n° 54 197 19 N0005 M01 délivré le 09/07/2020
Hauteur : 10.00 m
Surface de plancher : 611.50 m²
Surface du terrain : 2 578 m²
Low level sunlight streaks across the Spokane Falls as the sun starts to set. This shot was taken during dinner from the deck of Anthony's Restaurant at Spokane Falls.
Spokane Falls is the name of the series of waterfalls and dams on the Spokane River in downtown Spokane, Washington.
The falls consists of an Upper Falls and a Lower Falls. The Upper Falls is the site of the Upper Falls Dam, a diversion dam constructed in 1920 that directs the water into the Upper Falls intake on the south channel of the Spokane River. The Upper Falls Power Plant incorporates a Francis turbine capable of generating 10 MW. (Wikipedia)
Workers are building the extension of the 7 subway line to 34th Street and Eleventh Avenue. This photo shows the progress as of June 14, 2011. Current terminus of the 7 line from the TBM receiving chamber. Photo by Metropolitan Transportation Authority / Patrick Cashin.
Panorama, constructed from 5 portrait style images stitched together in Microsft ICE.
Taken on the 04/09/2014 at 18:28:04Hrs using a Nikon D300s camera with an AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G VR lens
Once part of the Port of London in the area now known as the Docklands, and now part of a popular housing and leisure complex.
Leyland constructer Q131 SES tow truck build date unknown in the livery of Dundee corporation seen at the Horsham bus rally Hop oast park and ride
Grade II* listed historic church believed to have mostly been constructed in the 1100's with many later alterations and additions.
"Lesbury is a small rural village in Northumberland in the north of England. It is built on the main coastal road 3.5 miles (5.6 km) southeast of Alnwick, on the north bank of the River Aln. Alnmouth railway station is about half a mile away.
The village has a long history. The Anglican Church of St Mary was mentioned in records dating back to 1147, and records from the end of the 13th century state that there were thirteen residents eligible to pay tax. Robert de Emeldon, later Lord Treasurer of Ireland, was parish priest of Lesbury in the 1320s.
In the 18th century, a schoolroom and master's house were built, paid for by Algernon Percy, 4th Duke of Northumberland. By 1897, the village had a large corn mill, as well as a reading room with 500 volumes in the library.
The name 'Lesbury' is derived from Laece Burg (the town of the leech or physician).
The church, originally Norman, was restored by Anthony Salvin in 1846. It has a square 13th-century tower with a pyramidal roof and a lofty arch on round columns. The 13th-century chancel has a 15th-century roof with oak beams decorated at intervals with little carvings of foliage. The heavy eight-sided font, boldly carved with the Percy locket and crescent, is of about the same age.
In the south wall of the nave are three lancet windows in memory of Sir Henry Hall Scott, founder of the Imperial Yeomanry of South Africa, and his son, Captain George Hall Scott, who fell at the Battle of the Somme. They are the work of the A.K. Nicholson studios. The central lights show Joan of Arc and St George standing above graphic representations of the siege of Orleans and the capture of the village of Montauban by the British and French in 1916.
The glass in the west window is in memory of George Bray, vicar from 1908 to 1934. An earlier vicar was Percival Stockdale, a writer of some reputation, who died here in 1811 and was buried at Cornhill on Tweed. Lesbury's most notable parson was Patrick Mackilwyan, who has a place in Thomas Fuller's Worthies of England. He started off by insisting on having his tithes in kind, but settled down with his parishioners and won their regard by visiting the sick in their tents on the moor during the Plague of 1665, although he was then 97. He died there at 101, declaring that "Of friends and books, good and few are best."
The village has a long history. The Anglican Church of St Mary was mentioned in records dating back to 1147, and records from the end of the 13th century state that there were thirteen residents eligible to pay tax. Robert de Emeldon, later Lord Treasurer of Ireland, was parish priest of Lesbury in the 1320s.
In the 18th century, a schoolroom and master's house were built, paid for by Algernon Percy, 4th Duke of Northumberland. By 1897, the village had a large corn mill, as well as a reading room with 500 volumes in the library.
The name 'Lesbury' is derived from Laece Burg (the town of the leech or physician).
The church, originally Norman, was restored by Anthony Salvin in 1846. It has a square 13th-century tower with a pyramidal roof and a lofty arch on round columns. The 13th-century chancel has a 15th-century roof with oak beams decorated at intervals with little carvings of foliage. The heavy eight-sided font, boldly carved with the Percy locket and crescent, is of about the same age.
In the south wall of the nave are three lancet windows in memory of Sir Henry Hall Scott, founder of the Imperial Yeomanry of South Africa, and his son, Captain George Hall Scott, who fell at the Battle of the Somme. They are the work of the A.K. Nicholson studios. The central lights show Joan of Arc and St George standing above graphic representations of the siege of Orleans and the capture of the village of Montauban by the British and French in 1916." - info from Wikipedia.
Summer 2019 I did a solo cycling tour across Europe through 12 countries over the course of 3 months. I began my adventure in Edinburgh, Scotland and finished in Florence, Italy cycling 8,816 km. During my trip I took 47,000 photos.
Now on Instagram.
Become a patron to my photography on Patreon.
Construction de l'ensemble immobilier Jardin Florentin comprenant 2 immeubles pour 31 logements.
Pays : France 🇫🇷
Région : Grand Est (Lorraine)
Département : Meurthe-et-Moselle (54)
Ville : Nancy (54000)
Quartier : Nancy Est
Adresse : 18, rue du Maréchal Victor duc de Bellune
Fonction : Logements
Construction : 2019 → 2020
• Architecte : Alexandre Chemetoff & Associés
• Gros œuvre : WIG France
PC n° 54 395 18 R0047 délivré le 18 septembre 2018
PC modificatif n° 54 395 18 R0047 M02 délivré le 23 août 2019
Niveaux : R+3
Hauteur : 14.98 m
Surface de plancher : 4 591 m²
Superficie du terrain : 4 790 m²
The country road continues to the next layout section and had to be constructed in a way that would allow me to dismantle the layout sections for moving without destroying the finished scenery. First I build the country road using two sets of 4% Inclines stacked so my 8% grade could climb 2 inches in 2 feet. In scale terms, my road climbs a scale 26 1/2 feet in 320 scale feet in order to climb over my Westbound staging yard throat and obscure the unrealistic (but necessary for operation) staging loops hidden under the Eastbound staging yard. In real life extensive underground trackage is not built out in the middle of the Great Plains of New Mexico. The Highway Overpass Trick is often used my modelers to hide such installations.
After the road was built and partly paved, I added Styrofoam boards to form a left, right, and rear perimeter to contain the paper wads that will support the plaster cloth that forms the hilltop. As you can see, the original Asphalt color of pavement is way too black as applied and had to be modified.
Le donjon reste principal du chateau de septmonts au milieu de quelques remparts qui se trouve dans un charmant village de construction particuliere et d'une certaine époque cela vaut le détours pour une visite
If you only visit one place in Burgos make it the Cathedral. It is the best example along the Camino of medieval genres and art styles. If you take your Pilgrim’s Passport you can avail of the 50% discount entrance fee for pilgrims.
It is surprising that the Gothic style of Burgos Cathedral is coherent, as it was constructed over a period of three hundred years. The cathedral was founded by Fernando III on 20th July 1221 and was not consecrated until 1260. However the first mass was celebrated in 1230, mainly due to the fund raising and building management of Bishop Mauricio. The bishop died in 1238 before even the ceilings were closed, but the style of the building was his vision which lived on.
West Facade: the three portals in the facade are late 17th century, and have been described as mutilation of the building, this though did not affect the story and impression the facade communicated. The eight kings in the middle arcade reminded people of the link between royalty and divine power. However directly above the kings arcade is the statue of the Virgin, by Juan de Colonia, illustrating how even the monarchy were inferior to the church. The central door was for royalty when they entered in a procession. The four statues level with the top of the door are of Bishop Asterio, Bishop Asterio, Alfonso VI, and Fernando III.
South Facade: this is the main tourist entrance. The statue between the door is Bishop Mauricio, above are the 12 Apostles, with Christ in Majesty presiding over all, surrounded by scribes passing on the word of God.
The north portal again has Christ in Majesty, this time being beseeched by the Virgin and St John interceding for humanity. This theme continues with images of divine judgement, the weighing of souls, and sinners being punished.
The interior of the cathedral is massive and the layout map paid for by your entrance fee will be helpful. The cruciform floor plan, the shape of a crucifix, is 106 meters long. The three naves are separated by massive columns and are surrounded by fifteen chapels, the cloisters, and the Bishop’s Palace. You could easily spend a day exploring the inside of the cathedral. The main altar retable, dates from 1562, is Renaissance and narrates the life of the Virgin. The tomb of El Cid and his wife are in the transept after being re-interred in 1921 for a second time. The choir is 16th century with Renaissance lateral stalls. At the end of the stalls is the bishop’s throne, and in the centre of the choir is the 13th century tomb of Bishop Mauricio.
Christ Church
Construction: 1857-1859 / Frank Wills.
Style: néo-gothique.
Vue latérale (transept Est).
L'église Christ Church de Montréal a été construite sur le modèle de l'église paroissiale Snettisham de Norfolk, en Angleterre. Construite sur un ancien marécage elle ouvrit ses portes en 1859 au coeur de ce qui était à l'époque un nouveau quartier très huppé, le "Golden Square Mile", en français le "Mille Carré Doré". Sa tour originale, en pierre, mesurait trente-neuf mètres de haut. Comme elle s'est avérée trop lourde pour la fondation, on a dû l'enlever en 1927 pour la remplacer par un clocher en aluminium.
Source: "Montréal THEN AND NOW d'hier et d'aujourd'hui", Alan Hustak & Johanne Norchet / Thunder Bay Press 2008.
Nota: il s'agit en fait de la deuxième Christ Churh. La première fut construite en 1805 sur rue Notre-Dame coin Saint-Laurent dans le Vieux-Montréal. Elle fut entièrement détruite lors d'un violent incendie en 1856.
Fashion Revue portraits - each contestant was given time for as many poses as they wished to make during practice-time at the Fashion Revue contest, January 2020, at the Western National Roundup in Denver, Colorado. This portion was not judged in the contest.
Alexander Harmer
Mission Basilica San Diego de Alcalá
Did the Native Americans have the opton not to participate in this labor?
Background:
Mission Era Drawings of A.B Dodge and Alexander Harmer
This gallery presents fifteen original drawings commemorating seminal mission events. These were rendered in the early 1900s.
In the years before photographic images became widely available, books and magazines (like Gleason's Pictorials) relied on drawings and paintings to capture the likeness of important people and to depict events. Lithographs, images made on a form of printing press, were common. Even with the advent of photography in the 19th century, artistic renderings remained the primary means of communicating the look and feel of places that had long disappeared or events that could only be recorded or recreated by a drawing or painting.
When Fr. Zephyrin Engelhardt, the Franciscan scholar and historian, published his seminal work The Missions and Missionaries of California, he included drawings done by A.B. Dodge and Alexander Harmer, two accomplished California artists known for their realistic rendering. Their sketches cover a broad range of mission era events, from the founding of the first mission in San Diego in 1769 to the raising of the United States Flag in Monterey in 1846. There are scenes of everyday life; settlers returning from church, for example, and an Indian on a caretta.
Both artists researched and drew Mission churches that had disappeared in the last half of the 19th century. While the artists' styles were noticeably different (Harmer's drawing are darker and have more detail) both men had a keen eye and exceptional talent. Harmer sometimes put his name on a drawing, at other times he put a logo at the bottom.
The California Missions Resource Center maintains a collection of the colorized versions of these 42 historic drawings.
www.missionscalifornia.com/content/mission-era-drawings-a...
Construction d'un parc de stationnement de 377 places et restructuration du pont des Fusillés dans la ZAC Nancy Grand Coeur.
Pays : France 🇫🇷
Région : Grand Est (Lorraine)
Département : Meurthe-et-Moselle (54)
Ville : Nancy (54000)
Quartier : Nancy Centre
Adresse : boulevard Joffre
Fonction : Parking
Construction : 2016 → 2019
• Architecte : Cabinet Beal et Blanckaert
• Gros œuvre : Eiffage Construction Lorraine
Permis d'aménager n° 54 395 15 00001 délivré le 21 décembre 2015
Superficie du terrain : 6 092 m²
Superficie de l'ouvrage à démolir : 1 666 m²
Cill Chroisd (Christ's Church or "Kilchrist") is a ruined former parish church of Strathaird, on the Isle of Skye, Scotland. It was constructed around the 16th century, replacing an earlier Medieval church on the same location, and was used until 1840 when the Parish church was relocated to Broadford. The ruins of the church lie at the top of a small mound, surrounded by the graveyard. The location is thought to have a heritage of Christian worship dating back to the 7th century, when St Maelrubha preached from nearby Cnoc na-Aifhreann ("hill of the mass"). Records from 1913 show that there were a pair of unusual gravemarkers in the graveyard - one dedicated to Chief Lachlan Mor and carrying "obscure hieroglyphics", the other possibly dating from the pre-Christian era. However, both have since vanished.
It doesn't look like there's been much progress, but trust me, there have been a TON of small improvements to the structure, particularly with the inner framing.
Also, obviously the stand is now a thing. It will eventually be tiled entirely in light bley. The rear frame is currently at the wrong height; the top of it lines up with the top of the front section. I have plans for the interior structure, and how the detachable panels will be constructed to access the interior.
Panorama of Middle Falls in downtown Almonte, Lanark County, Ontario, Canada. Three private power generating stations turn this section of the Mississippi River into clean energy. Panorama was constructed from 10 horizontal photos by the free version of Autostitch.
#construction #heavyduty #business #mgiconstruction #build #heavyequipment #constructinghistory #mgicorp
Construction de l'immeuble Totem comprenant des bureaux et 44 places de stationnement.
Pays : France 🇫🇷
Région : Grand Est (Lorraine)
Département : Meurthe-et-Moselle (54)
Ville : Nancy (54000)
Quartier : Nancy Est
Adresse : rue Jacques Villermaux
Fonction : Bureaux
Construction : 2019 → 2020
• Architecte : Breda Architecte
• Gros œuvre : GTM-HALLÉ
PC n° 54 395 17 R0121 délivré le 29 mars 2018
Niveaux : R+3
Hauteur : 12.78 m
Surface de plancher : 2 593.10 m²
Superficie du terrain : 2 942 m²
Construction de l'immeuble de bureaux L'Austrasian.
Pays : France 🇫🇷
Région : Grand Est (Lorraine)
Département : Meurthe-et-Moselle (54)
Ville : Nancy (54000)
Quartier : Nancy Est
Adresse : boulevard d'Austrasie
Fonction : Bureaux
Construction : 2016 → 2018
• Architecte : Ligne Bleue
• Gros œuvre : Albizzati
PC n° 54 395 12 0008 P00 délivré le 10 juillet 2012
Niveaux : R+3
Hauteur : 14.36 m
Surface de plancher : 5 826 m²
Surface du terrain : 3 997 m²
Grade I listed historic town hall constructed 1754 to 1760.
"Berwick-upon-Tweed (/ˌbɛrɪk-/; Scots: Sooth Berwick, Scottish Gaelic: Bearaig a Deas) is a town in the county of Northumberland. It is the northernmost town in England, at the mouth of the River Tweed on the east coast, 2 1⁄2 miles (4 kilometres) south of the Scottish border (the hamlet of Marshall Meadows is the actual northernmost settlement). Berwick is approximately 56 mi (90 km) east-south east of Edinburgh, 65 mi (105 km) north of Newcastle upon Tyne and 345 mi (555 km) north of London.
The 2011 United Kingdom census recorded Berwick's population as 12,043. A civil parish and town council were created in 2008 comprising the communities of Berwick, Spittal and Tweedmouth.
Berwick was founded as an Anglo-Saxon settlement during the time of the Kingdom of Northumbria, which was annexed by England in the 10th century. The area was for more than 400 years central to historic border wars between the Kingdoms of England and Scotland, and several times possession of Berwick changed hands between the two kingdoms. The last time it changed hands was when Richard of Gloucester retook it for England in 1482. To this day many Berwickers feel a close affinity to Scotland.
Berwick remains a traditional market town and also has some notable architectural features, in particular its medieval town walls, its Georgian Town Hall, its Elizabethan ramparts, and Britain's earliest barracks buildings, which Nicholas Hawksmoor built (1717–21) for the Board of Ordnance." - info from Wikipedia.
Summer 2019 I did a solo cycling tour across Europe through 12 countries over the course of 3 months. I began my adventure in Edinburgh, Scotland and finished in Florence, Italy cycling 8,816 km. During my trip I took 47,000 photos.
Now on Instagram.
Become a patron to my photography on Patreon.
Symbol des Strukturwandels im östlichen Ruhrgebiet: Der Phönixsee, entstanden 2010 auf dem Gelände des ehemaligen Stahlwerks Phönix-Ost.
A new landmark and symbol for industrial change: Phönixsee, a lake which has been constructed on the grounds of a former steel factory in Dortmund-Hörde, Germany.
L'intérieur de la Cathédrale gothique de Nantes
La construction de la Cathédrale Saint-Pierre et Saint-Paul débuta en 1434, fut achevé en 1891 et restaurée en 1972, après un incendie. La façade de l'édifice est assez austère, alors que les trois portails présentent des voussures finement sculptées.
A l'intérieur le tuffeau local remplace le granit des cathédrales bretonnes. La voute gothique de 37,50 m de hauteur est plus élevée que celle de Notre Dame de Paris. Dans le croisillon droit se trouve le célèbre tombeau de François II et de Marguerite de Foix (réalisé par Michel Colombe entre 1502 et 1507, à la demande d'Anne de Bretagne leur fille). C'est l'oeuvre maitresse de la cathédrale et une des grande productions de la Renaissance.
Construction d'un parc de stationnement de 377 places et restructuration du pont des Fusillés dans la ZAC Nancy Grand Coeur.
Pays : France 🇫🇷
Région : Grand Est (Lorraine)
Département : Meurthe-et-Moselle (54)
Ville : Nancy (54000)
Quartier : Nancy Centre
Adresse : boulevard Joffre
Fonction : Parking
Construction : 2016 → 2019
• Architecte : Cabinet Beal et Blanckaert
• Gros œuvre : Eiffage Construction Lorraine
Permis d'aménager n° 54 395 15 00001 délivré le 21 décembre 2015
Superficie du terrain : 6 092 m²
Superficie de l'ouvrage à démolir : 1 666 m²
VASA MUSEUM
The Vasa Museum (Swedish: Vasamuseet) is a maritime museum in Stockholm, Sweden. Located on the island of Djurgården, the museum displays the only almost fully intact 17th century ship that has ever been salvaged, the 64-gun warship Vasa that sank on her maiden voyage in 1628. The Vasa Museum opened in 1990 and, according to the official web site, is the most visited museum in Scandinavia. Together with other museums such as Stockholm Maritime Museum, the museum belongs to the Swedish National Maritime Museums (SNMM).
From the end of 1961 to 1988, Vasa was housed in a temporary structure called Wasavarvet ("The Vasa Shipyard") where she was treated with polyethylene glycol. Visitors could only view the ship from two levels and the maximum distance was only 5 m (17 ft). In 1981, the Swedish government decided that a permanent Vasa museum was to be constructed and an architects' competition for the design of the museum building was organized. A total of 384 architects sent in models of their ideas for the most suitable building to house the Vasa and the final winners were Marianne Dahlbäck and Göran Månsson with Ask ("box"). The construction of the new building began on and around the dry dock of the old naval yard with an inauguration ceremony hosted by Prince Bertil on 2 November 1987. Vasa was towed into the flooded dry dock under the new building in December 1988 and during the summer of 1989, when visitors were allowed onto the construction site, 228 000 people visited the half-finished museum. The museum was officially opened on 15 June 1990. So far Vasa has been seen by over 25 million people. In 2008 the museum had a total of 1,143,404 visitors.
The main hall contains the ship itself and various exhibits related to the archaeological findings of the ships and early 17th century Sweden. Vasa has been fitted with the lower sections of all three masts, a new bowsprit, winter rigging, and has had certain parts that were missing or heavily damaged replaced. The replacement parts have not been treated or painted and are therefore clearly visible against the original material that has been darkened after three centuries under water.
The new museum is dominated by a large copper roof with stylized masts that represent the actual height of Vasa when she was fully rigged. Parts of the building are covered in wooden panels painted in dark red, blue, tar black, ochre yellow and dark green. The interior is similarly decorated, with large sections of bare, unpainted concrete, including the entire ceiling. Inside the museum the ship can be seen from six levels, from her keel to the very top of the stern castle. Around the ship are numerous exhibits and models portraying the construction, sinking, location and recovery of the ship. There are also exhibits that expand on the history of Sweden in the 17th century, providing background information for why the ship was built. A movie theatre shows a film in alternating languages on the recovery of the Vasa.
The museum is in the process of publishing an 8-volume archaeological report to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the salvage. Vasa I: The Archaeology of a Swedish Warship of 1628 was published at the end of 2006. Subsequent volumes will be published annually.
The museum also features four other museum ships moored in the harbour outside: the ice breaker Sankt Erik (launched 1915), the lightvessel Finngrundet (1903), the torpedo boat Spica (1966) and the rescue boat Bernhard Ingelsson (1944).
From WIKIPEDIA: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasa_Museum
#dailyconstruction #heavyequipment #igdaily #instadaily #picoftheday #machinery #beautiful #happy #instagood #igers #tdotpics #instalike #construction #life #mood #webstagram #instafollow #vscocam #look #instacool #blog #equipmentphotos #excavation #earthworks #heavyequipmentlife #mgicorp
Remodelling project, read more about it here: sketchaway.wordpress.com/2015/11/02/destructionconstructi...
Construction d'un ensemble immobilier composé de 18 maisons individuelles et d'un bâtiment de 6 logements collectifs.
Pays : France 🇫🇷
Région : Grand Est (Lorraine)
Département : Meurthe-et-Moselle (54)
Ville : Tomblaine (54510)
Quartier : Paix Marenchêne
Adresse : 24, rue de Hasbergen / rue Camilles Desmoulins
Fonction : Logements
Construction : 2020 → 2021
• Architecte : Reichen & Robert & Associés
• Gros œuvre : Costantini
PC n° 54 526 19 N 0010 délivré le 3 juillet 2019
Niveaux : R+2
Hauteur maximale : 11.60 m
Surface de plancher totale : 2 445 m²
Superficie du terrain : 5 991 m²