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Graffiti (plural; singular graffiti or graffito, the latter rarely used except in archeology) is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from simple written words to elaborate wall paintings, and has existed since ancient times, with examples dating back to ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, and the Roman Empire (see also mural).

Graffiti is a controversial subject. In most countries, marking or painting property without permission is considered by property owners and civic authorities as defacement and vandalism, which is a punishable crime, citing the use of graffiti by street gangs to mark territory or to serve as an indicator of gang-related activities. Graffiti has become visualized as a growing urban "problem" for many cities in industrialized nations, spreading from the New York City subway system and Philadelphia in the early 1970s to the rest of the United States and Europe and other world regions

"Graffiti" (usually both singular and plural) and the rare singular form "graffito" are from the Italian word graffiato ("scratched"). The term "graffiti" is used in art history for works of art produced by scratching a design into a surface. A related term is "sgraffito", which involves scratching through one layer of pigment to reveal another beneath it. This technique was primarily used by potters who would glaze their wares and then scratch a design into them. In ancient times graffiti were carved on walls with a sharp object, although sometimes chalk or coal were used. The word originates from Greek γράφειν—graphein—meaning "to write".

The term graffiti originally referred to the inscriptions, figure drawings, and such, found on the walls of ancient sepulchres or ruins, as in the Catacombs of Rome or at Pompeii. Historically, these writings were not considered vanadlism, which today is considered part of the definition of graffiti.

The only known source of the Safaitic language, an ancient form of Arabic, is from graffiti: inscriptions scratched on to the surface of rocks and boulders in the predominantly basalt desert of southern Syria, eastern Jordan and northern Saudi Arabia. Safaitic dates from the first century BC to the fourth century AD.

Some of the oldest cave paintings in the world are 40,000 year old ones found in Australia. The oldest written graffiti was found in ancient Rome around 2500 years ago. Most graffiti from the time was boasts about sexual experiences Graffiti in Ancient Rome was a form of communication, and was not considered vandalism.

Ancient tourists visiting the 5th-century citadel at Sigiriya in Sri Lanka write their names and commentary over the "mirror wall", adding up to over 1800 individual graffiti produced there between the 6th and 18th centuries. Most of the graffiti refer to the frescoes of semi-nude females found there. One reads:

Wet with cool dew drops

fragrant with perfume from the flowers

came the gentle breeze

jasmine and water lily

dance in the spring sunshine

side-long glances

of the golden-hued ladies

stab into my thoughts

heaven itself cannot take my mind

as it has been captivated by one lass

among the five hundred I have seen here.

Among the ancient political graffiti examples were Arab satirist poems. Yazid al-Himyari, an Umayyad Arab and Persian poet, was most known for writing his political poetry on the walls between Sajistan and Basra, manifesting a strong hatred towards the Umayyad regime and its walis, and people used to read and circulate them very widely.

Graffiti, known as Tacherons, were frequently scratched on Romanesque Scandinavian church walls. When Renaissance artists such as Pinturicchio, Raphael, Michelangelo, Ghirlandaio, or Filippino Lippi descended into the ruins of Nero's Domus Aurea, they carved or painted their names and returned to initiate the grottesche style of decoration.

There are also examples of graffiti occurring in American history, such as Independence Rock, a national landmark along the Oregon Trail.

Later, French soldiers carved their names on monuments during the Napoleonic campaign of Egypt in the 1790s. Lord Byron's survives on one of the columns of the Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion in Attica, Greece.

The oldest known example of graffiti "monikers" found on traincars created by hobos and railworkers since the late 1800s. The Bozo Texino monikers were documented by filmmaker Bill Daniel in his 2005 film, Who is Bozo Texino?.

In World War II, an inscription on a wall at the fortress of Verdun was seen as an illustration of the US response twice in a generation to the wrongs of the Old World:

During World War II and for decades after, the phrase "Kilroy was here" with an accompanying illustration was widespread throughout the world, due to its use by American troops and ultimately filtering into American popular culture. Shortly after the death of Charlie Parker (nicknamed "Yardbird" or "Bird"), graffiti began appearing around New York with the words "Bird Lives".

Modern graffiti art has its origins with young people in 1960s and 70s in New York City and Philadelphia. Tags were the first form of stylised contemporary graffiti. Eventually, throw-ups and pieces evolved with the desire to create larger art. Writers used spray paint and other kind of materials to leave tags or to create images on the sides subway trains. and eventually moved into the city after the NYC metro began to buy new trains and paint over graffiti.

While the art had many advocates and appreciators—including the cultural critic Norman Mailer—others, including New York City mayor Ed Koch, considered it to be defacement of public property, and saw it as a form of public blight. The ‘taggers’ called what they did ‘writing’—though an important 1974 essay by Mailer referred to it using the term ‘graffiti.’

Contemporary graffiti style has been heavily influenced by hip hop culture and the myriad international styles derived from Philadelphia and New York City Subway graffiti; however, there are many other traditions of notable graffiti in the twentieth century. Graffiti have long appeared on building walls, in latrines, railroad boxcars, subways, and bridges.

An early graffito outside of New York or Philadelphia was the inscription in London reading "Clapton is God" in reference to the guitarist Eric Clapton. Creating the cult of the guitar hero, the phrase was spray-painted by an admirer on a wall in an Islington, north London in the autumn of 1967. The graffito was captured in a photograph, in which a dog is urinating on the wall.

Films like Style Wars in the 80s depicting famous writers such as Skeme, Dondi, MinOne, and ZEPHYR reinforced graffiti's role within New York's emerging hip-hop culture. Although many officers of the New York City Police Department found this film to be controversial, Style Wars is still recognized as the most prolific film representation of what was going on within the young hip hop culture of the early 1980s. Fab 5 Freddy and Futura 2000 took hip hop graffiti to Paris and London as part of the New York City Rap Tour in 1983

Commercialization and entrance into mainstream pop culture

Main article: Commercial graffiti

With the popularity and legitimization of graffiti has come a level of commercialization. In 2001, computer giant IBM launched an advertising campaign in Chicago and San Francisco which involved people spray painting on sidewalks a peace symbol, a heart, and a penguin (Linux mascot), to represent "Peace, Love, and Linux." IBM paid Chicago and San Francisco collectively US$120,000 for punitive damages and clean-up costs.

In 2005, a similar ad campaign was launched by Sony and executed by its advertising agency in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Miami, to market its handheld PSP gaming system. In this campaign, taking notice of the legal problems of the IBM campaign, Sony paid building owners for the rights to paint on their buildings "a collection of dizzy-eyed urban kids playing with the PSP as if it were a skateboard, a paddle, or a rocking horse".

Tristan Manco wrote that Brazil "boasts a unique and particularly rich, graffiti scene ... [earning] it an international reputation as the place to go for artistic inspiration". Graffiti "flourishes in every conceivable space in Brazil's cities". Artistic parallels "are often drawn between the energy of São Paulo today and 1970s New York". The "sprawling metropolis", of São Paulo has "become the new shrine to graffiti"; Manco alludes to "poverty and unemployment ... [and] the epic struggles and conditions of the country's marginalised peoples", and to "Brazil's chronic poverty", as the main engines that "have fuelled a vibrant graffiti culture". In world terms, Brazil has "one of the most uneven distributions of income. Laws and taxes change frequently". Such factors, Manco argues, contribute to a very fluid society, riven with those economic divisions and social tensions that underpin and feed the "folkloric vandalism and an urban sport for the disenfranchised", that is South American graffiti art.

Prominent Brazilian writers include Os Gêmeos, Boleta, Nunca, Nina, Speto, Tikka, and T.Freak. Their artistic success and involvement in commercial design ventures has highlighted divisions within the Brazilian graffiti community between adherents of the cruder transgressive form of pichação and the more conventionally artistic values of the practitioners of grafite.

Graffiti in the Middle East has emerged slowly, with taggers operating in Egypt, Lebanon, the Gulf countries like Bahrain or the United Arab Emirates, Israel, and in Iran. The major Iranian newspaper Hamshahri has published two articles on illegal writers in the city with photographic coverage of Iranian artist A1one's works on Tehran walls. Tokyo-based design magazine, PingMag, has interviewed A1one and featured photographs of his work. The Israeli West Bank barrier has become a site for graffiti, reminiscent in this sense of the Berlin Wall. Many writers in Israel come from other places around the globe, such as JUIF from Los Angeles and DEVIONE from London. The religious reference "נ נח נחמ נחמן מאומן" ("Na Nach Nachma Nachman Meuman") is commonly seen in graffiti around Israel.

Graffiti has played an important role within the street art scene in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), especially following the events of the Arab Spring of 2011 or the Sudanese Revolution of 2018/19. Graffiti is a tool of expression in the context of conflict in the region, allowing people to raise their voices politically and socially. Famous street artist Banksy has had an important effect in the street art scene in the MENA area, especially in Palestine where some of his works are located in the West Bank barrier and Bethlehem.

There are also a large number of graffiti influences in Southeast Asian countries that mostly come from modern Western culture, such as Malaysia, where graffiti have long been a common sight in Malaysia's capital city, Kuala Lumpur. Since 2010, the country has begun hosting a street festival to encourage all generations and people from all walks of life to enjoy and encourage Malaysian street culture.

The modern-day graffitists can be found with an arsenal of various materials that allow for a successful production of a piece. This includes such techniques as scribing. However, spray paint in aerosol cans is the number one medium for graffiti. From this commodity comes different styles, technique, and abilities to form master works of graffiti. Spray paint can be found at hardware and art stores and comes in virtually every color.

Stencil graffiti is created by cutting out shapes and designs in a stiff material (such as cardboard or subject folders) to form an overall design or image. The stencil is then placed on the "canvas" gently and with quick, easy strokes of the aerosol can, the image begins to appear on the intended surface.

Some of the first examples were created in 1981 by artists Blek le Rat in Paris, in 1982 by Jef Aerosol in Tours (France); by 1985 stencils had appeared in other cities including New York City, Sydney, and Melbourne, where they were documented by American photographer Charles Gatewood and Australian photographer Rennie Ellis

Tagging is the practice of someone spray-painting "their name, initial or logo onto a public surface" in a handstyle unique to the writer. Tags were the first form of modern graffiti.

Modern graffiti art often incorporates additional arts and technologies. For example, Graffiti Research Lab has encouraged the use of projected images and magnetic light-emitting diodes (throwies) as new media for graffitists. yarnbombing is another recent form of graffiti. Yarnbombers occasionally target previous graffiti for modification, which had been avoided among the majority of graffitists.

Theories on the use of graffiti by avant-garde artists have a history dating back at least to the Asger Jorn, who in 1962 painting declared in a graffiti-like gesture "the avant-garde won't give up"

Many contemporary analysts and even art critics have begun to see artistic value in some graffiti and to recognize it as a form of public art. According to many art researchers, particularly in the Netherlands and in Los Angeles, that type of public art is, in fact an effective tool of social emancipation or, in the achievement of a political goal

In times of conflict, such murals have offered a means of communication and self-expression for members of these socially, ethnically, or racially divided communities, and have proven themselves as effective tools in establishing dialog and thus, of addressing cleavages in the long run. The Berlin Wall was also extensively covered by graffiti reflecting social pressures relating to the oppressive Soviet rule over the GDR.

Many artists involved with graffiti are also concerned with the similar activity of stenciling. Essentially, this entails stenciling a print of one or more colors using spray-paint. Recognized while exhibiting and publishing several of her coloured stencils and paintings portraying the Sri Lankan Civil War and urban Britain in the early 2000s, graffitists Mathangi Arulpragasam, aka M.I.A., has also become known for integrating her imagery of political violence into her music videos for singles "Galang" and "Bucky Done Gun", and her cover art. Stickers of her artwork also often appear around places such as London in Brick Lane, stuck to lamp posts and street signs, she having become a muse for other graffitists and painters worldwide in cities including Seville.

Graffitist believes that art should be on display for everyone in the public eye or in plain sight, not hidden away in a museum or a gallery. Art should color the streets, not the inside of some building. Graffiti is a form of art that cannot be owned or bought. It does not last forever, it is temporary, yet one of a kind. It is a form of self promotion for the artist that can be displayed anywhere form sidewalks, roofs, subways, building wall, etc. Art to them is for everyone and should be showed to everyone for free.

Graffiti is a way of communicating and a way of expressing what one feels in the moment. It is both art and a functional thing that can warn people of something or inform people of something. However, graffiti is to some people a form of art, but to some a form of vandalism. And many graffitists choose to protect their identities and remain anonymous or to hinder prosecution.

With the commercialization of graffiti (and hip hop in general), in most cases, even with legally painted "graffiti" art, graffitists tend to choose anonymity. This may be attributed to various reasons or a combination of reasons. Graffiti still remains the one of four hip hop elements that is not considered "performance art" despite the image of the "singing and dancing star" that sells hip hop culture to the mainstream. Being a graphic form of art, it might also be said that many graffitists still fall in the category of the introverted archetypal artist.

Banksy is one of the world's most notorious and popular street artists who continues to remain faceless in today's society. He is known for his political, anti-war stencil art mainly in Bristol, England, but his work may be seen anywhere from Los Angeles to Palestine. In the UK, Banksy is the most recognizable icon for this cultural artistic movement and keeps his identity a secret to avoid arrest. Much of Banksy's artwork may be seen around the streets of London and surrounding suburbs, although he has painted pictures throughout the world, including the Middle East, where he has painted on Israel's controversial West Bank barrier with satirical images of life on the other side. One depicted a hole in the wall with an idyllic beach, while another shows a mountain landscape on the other side. A number of exhibitions also have taken place since 2000, and recent works of art have fetched vast sums of money. Banksy's art is a prime example of the classic controversy: vandalism vs. art. Art supporters endorse his work distributed in urban areas as pieces of art and some councils, such as Bristol and Islington, have officially protected them, while officials of other areas have deemed his work to be vandalism and have removed it.

Pixnit is another artist who chooses to keep her identity from the general public. Her work focuses on beauty and design aspects of graffiti as opposed to Banksy's anti-government shock value. Her paintings are often of flower designs above shops and stores in her local urban area of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Some store owners endorse her work and encourage others to do similar work as well. "One of the pieces was left up above Steve's Kitchen, because it looks pretty awesome"- Erin Scott, the manager of New England Comics in Allston, Massachusetts.

Graffiti artists may become offended if photographs of their art are published in a commercial context without their permission. In March 2020, the Finnish graffiti artist Psyke expressed his displeasure at the newspaper Ilta-Sanomat publishing a photograph of a Peugeot 208 in an article about new cars, with his graffiti prominently shown on the background. The artist claims he does not want his art being used in commercial context, not even if he were to receive compensation.

Territorial graffiti marks urban neighborhoods with tags and logos to differentiate certain groups from others. These images are meant to show outsiders a stern look at whose turf is whose. The subject matter of gang-related graffiti consists of cryptic symbols and initials strictly fashioned with unique calligraphies. Gang members use graffiti to designate membership throughout the gang, to differentiate rivals and associates and, most commonly, to mark borders which are both territorial and ideological.

Graffiti has been used as a means of advertising both legally and illegally. Bronx-based TATS CRU has made a name for themselves doing legal advertising campaigns for companies such as Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Toyota, and MTV. In the UK, Covent Garden's Boxfresh used stencil images of a Zapatista revolutionary in the hopes that cross referencing would promote their store.

Smirnoff hired artists to use reverse graffiti (the use of high pressure hoses to clean dirty surfaces to leave a clean image in the surrounding dirt) to increase awareness of their product.

Graffiti often has a reputation as part of a subculture that rebels against authority, although the considerations of the practitioners often diverge and can relate to a wide range of attitudes. It can express a political practice and can form just one tool in an array of resistance techniques. One early example includes the anarcho-punk band Crass, who conducted a campaign of stenciling anti-war, anarchist, feminist, and anti-consumerist messages throughout the London Underground system during the late 1970s and early 1980s. In Amsterdam graffiti was a major part of the punk scene. The city was covered with names such as "De Zoot", "Vendex", and "Dr Rat". To document the graffiti a punk magazine was started that was called Gallery Anus. So when hip hop came to Europe in the early 1980s there was already a vibrant graffiti culture.

The student protests and general strike of May 1968 saw Paris bedecked in revolutionary, anarchistic, and situationist slogans such as L'ennui est contre-révolutionnaire ("Boredom is counterrevolutionary") and Lisez moins, vivez plus ("Read less, live more"). While not exhaustive, the graffiti gave a sense of the 'millenarian' and rebellious spirit, tempered with a good deal of verbal wit, of the strikers.

I think graffiti writing is a way of defining what our generation is like. Excuse the French, we're not a bunch of p---- artists. Traditionally artists have been considered soft and mellow people, a little bit kooky. Maybe we're a little bit more like pirates that way. We defend our territory, whatever space we steal to paint on, we defend it fiercely.

The developments of graffiti art which took place in art galleries and colleges as well as "on the street" or "underground", contributed to the resurfacing in the 1990s of a far more overtly politicized art form in the subvertising, culture jamming, or tactical media movements. These movements or styles tend to classify the artists by their relationship to their social and economic contexts, since, in most countries, graffiti art remains illegal in many forms except when using non-permanent paint. Since the 1990s with the rise of Street Art, a growing number of artists are switching to non-permanent paints and non-traditional forms of painting.

Contemporary practitioners, accordingly, have varied and often conflicting practices. Some individuals, such as Alexander Brener, have used the medium to politicize other art forms, and have used the prison sentences enforced on them as a means of further protest. The practices of anonymous groups and individuals also vary widely, and practitioners by no means always agree with each other's practices. For example, the anti-capitalist art group the Space Hijackers did a piece in 2004 about the contradiction between the capitalistic elements of Banksy and his use of political imagery.

Berlin human rights activist Irmela Mensah-Schramm has received global media attention and numerous awards for her 35-year campaign of effacing neo-Nazi and other right-wing extremist graffiti throughout Germany, often by altering hate speech in humorous ways.

In Serbian capital, Belgrade, the graffiti depicting a uniformed former general of Serb army and war criminal, convicted at ICTY for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including genocide and ethnic cleansing in Bosnian War, Ratko Mladić, appeared in a military salute alongside the words "General, thank to your mother". Aleks Eror, Berlin-based journalist, explains how "veneration of historical and wartime figures" through street art is not a new phenomenon in the region of former Yugoslavia, and that "in most cases is firmly focused on the future, rather than retelling the past". Eror is not only analyst pointing to danger of such an expressions for the region's future. In a long expose on the subject of Bosnian genocide denial, at Balkan Diskurs magazine and multimedia platform website, Kristina Gadže and Taylor Whitsell referred to these experiences as a young generations' "cultural heritage", in which young are being exposed to celebration and affirmation of war-criminals as part of their "formal education" and "inheritance".

There are numerous examples of genocide denial through celebration and affirmation of war criminals throughout the region of Western Balkans inhabited by Serbs using this form of artistic expression. Several more of these graffiti are found in Serbian capital, and many more across Serbia and Bosnian and Herzegovinian administrative entity, Republika Srpska, which is the ethnic Serbian majority enclave. Critics point that Serbia as a state, is willing to defend the mural of convicted war criminal, and have no intention to react on cases of genocide denial, noting that Interior Minister of Serbia, Aleksandar Vulin decision to ban any gathering with an intent to remove the mural, with the deployment of riot police, sends the message of "tacit endorsement". Consequently, on 9 November 2021, Serbian heavy police in riot gear, with graffiti creators and their supporters, blocked the access to the mural to prevent human rights groups and other activists to paint over it and mark the International Day Against Fascism and Antisemitism in that way, and even arrested two civic activist for throwing eggs at the graffiti.

Graffiti may also be used as an offensive expression. This form of graffiti may be difficult to identify, as it is mostly removed by the local authority (as councils which have adopted strategies of criminalization also strive to remove graffiti quickly). Therefore, existing racist graffiti is mostly more subtle and at first sight, not easily recognized as "racist". It can then be understood only if one knows the relevant "local code" (social, historical, political, temporal, and spatial), which is seen as heteroglot and thus a 'unique set of conditions' in a cultural context.

A spatial code for example, could be that there is a certain youth group in an area that is engaging heavily in racist activities. So, for residents (knowing the local code), a graffiti containing only the name or abbreviation of this gang already is a racist expression, reminding the offended people of their gang activities. Also a graffiti is in most cases, the herald of more serious criminal activity to come. A person who does not know these gang activities would not be able to recognize the meaning of this graffiti. Also if a tag of this youth group or gang is placed on a building occupied by asylum seekers, for example, its racist character is even stronger.

By making the graffiti less explicit (as adapted to social and legal constraints), these drawings are less likely to be removed, but do not lose their threatening and offensive character.

Elsewhere, activists in Russia have used painted caricatures of local officials with their mouths as potholes, to show their anger about the poor state of the roads. In Manchester, England, a graffitists painted obscene images around potholes, which often resulted in them being repaired within 48 hours.

In the early 1980s, the first art galleries to show graffitists to the public were Fashion Moda in the Bronx, Now Gallery and Fun Gallery, both in the East Village, Manhattan.

A 2006 exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum displayed graffiti as an art form that began in New York's outer boroughs and reached great heights in the early 1980s with the work of Crash, Lee, Daze, Keith Haring, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. It displayed 22 works by New York graffitists, including Crash, Daze, and Lady Pink. In an article about the exhibition in the magazine Time Out, curator Charlotta Kotik said that she hoped the exhibition would cause viewers to rethink their assumptions about graffiti.

From the 1970s onwards, Burhan Doğançay photographed urban walls all over the world; these he then archived for use as sources of inspiration for his painterly works. The project today known as "Walls of the World" grew beyond even his own expectations and comprises about 30,000 individual images. It spans a period of 40 years across five continents and 114 countries. In 1982, photographs from this project comprised a one-man exhibition titled "Les murs murmurent, ils crient, ils chantent ..." (The walls whisper, shout and sing ...) at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.

In Australia, art historians have judged some local graffiti of sufficient creative merit to rank them firmly within the arts. Oxford University Press's art history text Australian Painting 1788–2000 concludes with a long discussion of graffiti's key place within contemporary visual culture, including the work of several Australian practitioners.

Between March and April 2009, 150 artists exhibited 300 pieces of graffiti at the Grand Palais in Paris.

Spray paint has many negative environmental effects. The paint contains toxic chemicals, and the can uses volatile hydrocarbon gases to spray the paint onto a surface.

Volatile organic compound (VOC) leads to ground level ozone formation and most of graffiti related emissions are VOCs. A 2010 paper estimates 4,862 tons of VOCs were released in the United States in activities related to graffiti.

In China, Mao Zedong in the 1920s used revolutionary slogans and paintings in public places to galvanize the country's communist movement.

Based on different national conditions, many people believe that China's attitude towards Graffiti is fierce, but in fact, according to Lance Crayon in his film Spray Paint Beijing: Graffiti in the Capital of China, Graffiti is generally accepted in Beijing, with artists not seeing much police interference. Political and religiously sensitive graffiti, however, is not allowed.

In Hong Kong, Tsang Tsou Choi was known as the King of Kowloon for his calligraphy graffiti over many years, in which he claimed ownership of the area. Now some of his work is preserved officially.

In Taiwan, the government has made some concessions to graffitists. Since 2005 they have been allowed to freely display their work along some sections of riverside retaining walls in designated "Graffiti Zones". From 2007, Taipei's department of cultural affairs also began permitting graffiti on fences around major public construction sites. Department head Yong-ping Lee (李永萍) stated, "We will promote graffiti starting with the public sector, and then later in the private sector too. It's our goal to beautify the city with graffiti". The government later helped organize a graffiti contest in Ximending, a popular shopping district. graffitists caught working outside of these designated areas still face fines up to NT$6,000 under a department of environmental protection regulation. However, Taiwanese authorities can be relatively lenient, one veteran police officer stating anonymously, "Unless someone complains about vandalism, we won't get involved. We don't go after it proactively."

In 1993, after several expensive cars in Singapore were spray-painted, the police arrested a student from the Singapore American School, Michael P. Fay, questioned him, and subsequently charged him with vandalism. Fay pleaded guilty to vandalizing a car in addition to stealing road signs. Under the 1966 Vandalism Act of Singapore, originally passed to curb the spread of communist graffiti in Singapore, the court sentenced him to four months in jail, a fine of S$3,500 (US$2,233), and a caning. The New York Times ran several editorials and op-eds that condemned the punishment and called on the American public to flood the Singaporean embassy with protests. Although the Singapore government received many calls for clemency, Fay's caning took place in Singapore on 5 May 1994. Fay had originally received a sentence of six strokes of the cane, but the presiding president of Singapore, Ong Teng Cheong, agreed to reduce his caning sentence to four lashes.

In South Korea, Park Jung-soo was fined two million South Korean won by the Seoul Central District Court for spray-painting a rat on posters of the G-20 Summit a few days before the event in November 2011. Park alleged that the initial in "G-20" sounds like the Korean word for "rat", but Korean government prosecutors alleged that Park was making a derogatory statement about the president of South Korea, Lee Myung-bak, the host of the summit. This case led to public outcry and debate on the lack of government tolerance and in support of freedom of expression. The court ruled that the painting, "an ominous creature like a rat" amounts to "an organized criminal activity" and upheld the fine while denying the prosecution's request for imprisonment for Park.

In Europe, community cleaning squads have responded to graffiti, in some cases with reckless abandon, as when in 1992 in France a local Scout group, attempting to remove modern graffiti, damaged two prehistoric paintings of bison in the Cave of Mayrière supérieure near the French village of Bruniquel in Tarn-et-Garonne, earning them the 1992 Ig Nobel Prize in archeology.

In September 2006, the European Parliament directed the European Commission to create urban environment policies to prevent and eliminate dirt, litter, graffiti, animal excrement, and excessive noise from domestic and vehicular music systems in European cities, along with other concerns over urban life.

In Budapest, Hungary, both a city-backed movement called I Love Budapest and a special police division tackle the problem, including the provision of approved areas.

The Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 became Britain's latest anti-graffiti legislation. In August 2004, the Keep Britain Tidy campaign issued a press release calling for zero tolerance of graffiti and supporting proposals such as issuing "on the spot" fines to graffiti offenders and banning the sale of aerosol paint to anyone under the age of 16. The press release also condemned the use of graffiti images in advertising and in music videos, arguing that real-world experience of graffiti stood far removed from its often-portrayed "cool" or "edgy'" image.

To back the campaign, 123 Members of Parliament (MPs) (including then Prime Minister Tony Blair), signed a charter which stated: "Graffiti is not art, it's crime. On behalf of my constituents, I will do all I can to rid our community of this problem."

In the UK, city councils have the power to take action against the owner of any property that has been defaced under the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 (as amended by the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005) or, in certain cases, the Highways Act. This is often used against owners of property that are complacent in allowing protective boards to be defaced so long as the property is not damaged.

In July 2008, a conspiracy charge was used to convict graffitists for the first time. After a three-month police surveillance operation, nine members of the DPM crew were convicted of conspiracy to commit criminal damage costing at least £1 million. Five of them received prison sentences, ranging from eighteen months to two years. The unprecedented scale of the investigation and the severity of the sentences rekindled public debate over whether graffiti should be considered art or crime.

Some councils, like those of Stroud and Loerrach, provide approved areas in the town where graffitists can showcase their talents, including underpasses, car parks, and walls that might otherwise prove a target for the "spray and run".

Graffiti Tunnel, University of Sydney at Camperdown (2009)

In an effort to reduce vandalism, many cities in Australia have designated walls or areas exclusively for use by graffitists. One early example is the "Graffiti Tunnel" located at the Camperdown Campus of the University of Sydney, which is available for use by any student at the university to tag, advertise, poster, and paint. Advocates of this idea suggest that this discourages petty vandalism yet encourages artists to take their time and produce great art, without worry of being caught or arrested for vandalism or trespassing.[108][109] Others disagree with this approach, arguing that the presence of legal graffiti walls does not demonstrably reduce illegal graffiti elsewhere. Some local government areas throughout Australia have introduced "anti-graffiti squads", who clean graffiti in the area, and such crews as BCW (Buffers Can't Win) have taken steps to keep one step ahead of local graffiti cleaners.

Many state governments have banned the sale or possession of spray paint to those under the age of 18 (age of majority). However, a number of local governments in Victoria have taken steps to recognize the cultural heritage value of some examples of graffiti, such as prominent political graffiti. Tough new graffiti laws have been introduced in Australia with fines of up to A$26,000 and two years in prison.

Melbourne is a prominent graffiti city of Australia with many of its lanes being tourist attractions, such as Hosier Lane in particular, a popular destination for photographers, wedding photography, and backdrops for corporate print advertising. The Lonely Planet travel guide cites Melbourne's street as a major attraction. All forms of graffiti, including sticker art, poster, stencil art, and wheatpasting, can be found in many places throughout the city. Prominent street art precincts include; Fitzroy, Collingwood, Northcote, Brunswick, St. Kilda, and the CBD, where stencil and sticker art is prominent. As one moves farther away from the city, mostly along suburban train lines, graffiti tags become more prominent. Many international artists such as Banksy have left their work in Melbourne and in early 2008 a perspex screen was installed to prevent a Banksy stencil art piece from being destroyed, it has survived since 2003 through the respect of local street artists avoiding posting over it, although it has recently had paint tipped over it.

In February 2008 Helen Clark, the New Zealand prime minister at that time, announced a government crackdown on tagging and other forms of graffiti vandalism, describing it as a destructive crime representing an invasion of public and private property. New legislation subsequently adopted included a ban on the sale of paint spray cans to persons under 18 and increases in maximum fines for the offence from NZ$200 to NZ$2,000 or extended community service. The issue of tagging become a widely debated one following an incident in Auckland during January 2008 in which a middle-aged property owner stabbed one of two teenage taggers to death and was subsequently convicted of manslaughter.

Graffiti databases have increased in the past decade because they allow vandalism incidents to be fully documented against an offender and help the police and prosecution charge and prosecute offenders for multiple counts of vandalism. They also provide law enforcement the ability to rapidly search for an offender's moniker or tag in a simple, effective, and comprehensive way. These systems can also help track costs of damage to a city to help allocate an anti-graffiti budget. The theory is that when an offender is caught putting up graffiti, they are not just charged with one count of vandalism; they can be held accountable for all the other damage for which they are responsible. This has two main benefits for law enforcement. One, it sends a signal to the offenders that their vandalism is being tracked. Two, a city can seek restitution from offenders for all the damage that they have committed, not merely a single incident. These systems give law enforcement personnel real-time, street-level intelligence that allows them not only to focus on the worst graffiti offenders and their damage, but also to monitor potential gang violence that is associated with the graffiti.

Many restrictions of civil gang injunctions are designed to help address and protect the physical environment and limit graffiti. Provisions of gang injunctions include things such as restricting the possession of marker pens, spray paint cans, or other sharp objects capable of defacing private or public property; spray painting, or marking with marker pens, scratching, applying stickers, or otherwise applying graffiti on any public or private property, including, but not limited to the street, alley, residences, block walls, and fences, vehicles or any other real or personal property. Some injunctions contain wording that restricts damaging or vandalizing both public and private property, including but not limited to any vehicle, light fixture, door, fence, wall, gate, window, building, street sign, utility box, telephone box, tree, or power pole.

To help address many of these issues, many local jurisdictions have set up graffiti abatement hotlines, where citizens can call in and report vandalism and have it removed. San Diego's hotline receives more than 5,000 calls per year, in addition to reporting the graffiti, callers can learn more about prevention. One of the complaints about these hotlines is the response time; there is often a lag time between a property owner calling about the graffiti and its removal. The length of delay should be a consideration for any jurisdiction planning on operating a hotline. Local jurisdictions must convince the callers that their complaint of vandalism will be a priority and cleaned off right away. If the jurisdiction does not have the resources to respond to complaints in a timely manner, the value of the hotline diminishes. Crews must be able to respond to individual service calls made to the graffiti hotline as well as focus on cleanup near schools, parks, and major intersections and transit routes to have the biggest impact. Some cities offer a reward for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of suspects for tagging or graffiti related vandalism. The amount of the reward is based on the information provided, and the action taken.

When police obtain search warrants in connection with a vandalism investigation, they are often seeking judicial approval to look for items such as cans of spray paint and nozzles from other kinds of aerosol sprays; etching tools, or other sharp or pointed objects, which could be used to etch or scratch glass and other hard surfaces; permanent marking pens, markers, or paint sticks; evidence of membership or affiliation with any gang or tagging crew; paraphernalia including any reference to "(tagger's name)"; any drawings, writing, objects, or graffiti depicting taggers' names, initials, logos, monikers, slogans, or any mention of tagging crew membership; and any newspaper clippings relating to graffiti crime.

flores rendadas - quinta flower by Léa Diva Bello Velloso

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Usei as linhas multicoloridas da Lucia e tentei copiar as flores rendadas da verachita www.flickr.com/photos/verachita/5102079626/. Uma ótima quinta florida para vocês!!!

Fall Nails by flores272

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Used bunddle monster plate BM-S207 , nail polish sinful colors 1148 and finger paint surreal sunset. toy is Lil woodzeez racoon papa

use city lots by Christa Lohman

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Car Insurance Protection by Pictures of Money

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Uses: Car insurance.

Free Creative Commons Finance Images... I created these images in my studio and have made them all available for personal or commercial use. Hope you like them and find them useful.

To see more of our CC by 2.0 finance images click here... see profile for attribution.

Inspiration: best car insurance, protection, full coverage insurance, car protection, comprehensive insurance, paint protection, etc.

Free To Use by Susan Criser

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For your Art only, not for Sale in a Collage Sheet or CD

Urbex Manoir Trois Ponts by Brian

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This used to be a very succesful restaurant slash party centre. The chef of the house worked as a chef for the Royal Family before he started his own business.

This job has been handed over from father to son, but in the end of the 20th century the family decided to sell the place to a French buyer. Unfortunately this did not do the company any good. Within no time the place went bankrupt and no new buyers could be found to take over the place...

Please visit www.preciousdecay.com for more pictures or like my Facebook page on www.facebook.com/Preciousdecay

Free To Use by Susan Criser

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For your Art only, not for Sale on a CD

Use The Force by ellyrussellphotography

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@jprcosplay as a Jedi Knight. Light painting techniques were used for this shot - no photoshop here.

Ilford single use camera by Still Cameras

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With black & white film HP5 , and built-in flash . Expiration date 1998 .

Free To Use by Susan Criser

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For your Art only ,not for Sale on a CD

USED by worldwotcha

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These are the little clay pots used by the buddhist worshippers to burn sacred oil at certain ceremonies. This shot was taken at the Gangaramaya Temple in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

Use ur initiative.. by Dan Benedict Banaag

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Scrapbooking books and mags by moline

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Used some of my fav papers to brighten up all these old paper magazine holders. the fish is a Christmas ornament but I had to keep it for the pink ribbons...

Wien, 2. Bezirk, am Handelskai (commercial quay, quai commercial, muelle comercial, banchina commerciale), the bridge Reichsbrücke by Josef Lex (El buen soldado Švejk)

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Reichsbrücke

Coordinates: 48 ° 13 '42 " N, 16 ° 24' 36" E | |

(Pictures you can see by clicking on the link at the end of page!)

Empire Bridge, seen from the north bank of

Use motor vehicles in the basement underground,

Cyclists, pedestrians

Road train Lassallestraße - Wagramerstraße (B8 )

Location Vienna, between Leopoldstadt (2nd District)

and Danube City (22 nd District)

Prestressed concrete bridge construction, double deck bridge

Total length 865 meters

Width 26.10 meters

Release 8 November 1980

Altitude 157 m above sea level. A.

Card reichsbrücke.png

Location of the Empire Bridge in Vienna

The Empire Bridge is one of Vienna's most famous bridges. It crosses the Danube, the Danube Island and the New Danube and connects the second District of Vienna, Leopoldstadt, with the 22nd District, Danube city. The building extends from Mexico place at Handelskai (2nd district) in a northeasterly direction to the Danube City and the Vienna International Centre (District 22).

The current kingdom bridge (Reichsbrücke) was opened in 1980, it is the third crossing of the Danube in the same axis, which bears the name kingdom bridge. The first Empire Bridge (also: Crown Prince Rudolf bridge when Project: National Highway Bridge), an iron bridge on current five pillars existed from 1876 until 1937. The second Empire Bridge, a chain bridge with two 30-meter high pylons on two river piers, was opened in 1937, it was next to St. Stephen's Cathedral and the Giant Ferris one of the landmarks of the city of Vienna. After the Second World War it was the only intact Danube river crossing downstream of Linz in Austria and became the busiest stretch of road in Austria. On Sunday, the first August 1976 the bridge collapsed in the early morning hours on full width of the Danube into the water. In the accident, which was not foreseeable by the then state of the art, one person was killed. The meaning and emotional charge, which had received the bridge by its colorful past in the Viennese population, increased further by the collapse.

Prehistory

The Danube before regulation (centric is the location of the Reichsbrücke marked)

Some years after the devastating flood of 1830 was considering Emperor Ferdinand I to regulate the Danube and at the same time to build several bridges over the resulting stream bed. The plan was, among other things, a chain bridge approximately at the site of today's Empire bridge, whose construction costs were estimated at two to three million florins. However, these plans came as well as future intentions, build stable bridges over the unregulated Danube, before the Vienna Danube regulation not for execution, the projects went not beyond the planning stage. All bridges over the Danube, whether for road or since 1838 for the Northern Railway, then had rather provisional character. Jochbrücken Those were trestle bridges made of wood, which were regularly swept away by floods or Eisstößen (bumps of ice chunks) and then re-built.

On 12 September 1868 eventually ordered Emperor Franz Joseph I, the nephew and successor of Ferdinand, the regulation of the Danube. At the same time, eventually, should be built "stable bridges". One of them should represent a direct extension of the hunter line (Jägerzeile) (today: Prater Road and the Schwimmschulstraße (now Lassallestraße). With the choice of this location a central urban axis should be continued, which ranged from the Gloriette in Schonbrunn over St. Stephen's Cathedral and the Prater Stern to the Danube. On the other side of the Danube, the bridge should join to the Vienna, Kagraner and Leopold Auer Reichsstrasse (since 1910 Wagramerstraße), which became a major transit route in the northeastern areas of the monarchy. The name of the bridge was accordingly to "Empire Road bridge" set.

First Reichsbrücke - 1876-1937

Crown Prince Rudolf bridge

Since 6 November 1919 : Reichsbrücke

Crown Prince Rudolf bridge since 6 November 1919: Reichsbrücke

Official name of Crown Prince Rudolf Bridge (1876-1919), since then Reichsbrücke

Use vehicles, trams (from 26 June 1898 on the current bridge single track) and pedestrian

crossing of Handelskai, Danube and floodplain

Construction iron lattice structures (river bridge), 341.20 meters

Total length 1019.75 meter (incl. bridge over Handelskai and floodplain)

Width 11.40 meters

Release 21 August 1876

Closure 11 October 1937

Toll 32 cruisers and 64 Heller per vehicle (up to 1904)

The by Franz Joseph commissioned bridge, which the main part of the 2nd district after the regulation of the Danube with the on the left bank lying part of the city Kaisermuehlen, the now Old Danube and the to 1890/1892 independent community of Kagran connected, was navigable from August 1876 to October, 1937. It has been renamed several times: During the construction period it had the preliminary name of Empire Road bridge, after its opening, it was Crown Prince Rudolf bridge. The term "Empire Bridge" but soon won through in general usage, as was said, for example, the stop of the Donauuferbahn (Railway) at the bridge officially Kommunalbad-Reichsbrücke. After the fall of the monarchy on 6 November 1919 it was officially renamed Empire bridge.

With a total length of nearly 1,020 feet, it was at that time the longest bridge connection over the Danube. It was 11.40 meters wide, the road took 7.60 meters and 3.80 meters, the two sidewalks. The original plan had provided a total width of eight fathoms (15.20 meters), the Parliament decided shortly before the start of the construction to reduce the width because of cost reasons.

The bridge consisted of three parts. The so-called Hubertusdamm, protected the March field against flood, and the flood area created in the Danube regulation (inundation) on the north, the left bank of the river was spanned by a stone, 432 meters long inundation bridge, which consisted of 16 sheets of 23 and 39 m width. Handelskai on the southern right bank of the river spanned the so-called Kaibrücke of stone with a length of 90.4 meters and four arches, each 18.96 m width. The actual current bridge was 341.20 meters long and consisted of four individual iron grating structures that rested on five 3.80 meter thick pillars, three of which were in the water. The distance of each pillar was 79.90 meters.

Construction

The current bridge seen from the north, from the left bank (St Stephen's Cathedral in the background); recording before the summer of 1898, there's no tram track

Construction began in August, 1872. Although at that time the stream bed of the Danube had already been largely completed, but not yet flooded. The Empire bridge was then, as the northern railway bridge Stadlauer Bridge and the Emperor Franz Joseph Bridge (later Floridsdorfer bridge), built in dry construction.

The building was designed by the Road and Hydraulic Engineering Department of Imperial Ministry of Interior, whose boss, Undersecretary Mathias Waniek Ritter von Domyslow, was entrusted with the construction management. Total construction cost of 3.7 million guilders. The metal construction had a total weight of 2,193 tons and was manufactured by Schneider & Co in Burgundy of Belgian welding iron.

The two piers on the banks were about five feet below the river bed, which is about eleven meters founded under the riverbed on so-called "blue Viennese Tegel" (a stiff to semi-solid floor similar to the clay which as sedimentary rock is typical for the Vienna basin). The pillars of the two foreland bridges (Kaibrücke and inundation bridge ) were established in shallow coarse gravel.

Of the four Danube bridges built at that time only the kingdom bridge (Reichsbrücke) was not opened to traffic when the new bed of the Danube on 14 April 1875 was flooded. Until 16 months later, on 21 August 1876, the birthday of the Crown Prince Rudolf, opened the Imperial Governor of Lower Austria , Baron Conrad of Sigmund Eybesfeld, representing the emperor, the bridge and gave her in honor of Crown Prince - contrary to the original plan - the name "Crown Prince Rudolf bridge". The opening ceremony was attended by a delegation from Japan, Minister of War Feldzeugmeister Graf Maximilian von Artur Bylandt-Rheidt and mayor of Vienna Cajetan Felder. The governor read a royal resolution, in which Franz Joseph announced the full imperial satisfaction with Oberbauleiter Waniek and several Engineers and Building Officers were awarded the Imperial Knights Cross. As highlight of the celebration the keystone of the last pillar of the ramp was set - under it were built into a cassette several documents, photos of the bridge, coins and medals.

Bridge operation

The Kaibrücke over the Handelskai on the south, the right bank of the Danube, recording c.1907

The bridge ramp and the four brick arches over the Handels on the south, the right bank of the Danube, it ( right) the bridge over the stream, recording from 1876

After the suicide of Crown Prince Rudolf in 1889, the bridge was popularly called "suicide bridge ". It was in the first years of its operation still not a very popular crossing of the Danube. Industry and trade settled slowly to the other side of the Danube. There were also no significant trade routes from north to March Field. Via the Old Danube, which it would have to be crossed, leading to around 1900 only a rickety wooden bridge.

In the first 28 years of its operation, the crossing of the Empire Bridge was charged. 32 cruisers and 64 Heller had to be paid per vehicle, which has been regularly criticized by newspapers in Vienna. Only after the villages north of the Old Danube in the year 1904/1905 than 21st district were incorporated, the crossing was provided free of charge and increased the popularity of the bridge. From 26 June 1898, the bridge was frequented by the tram. The occasion was the 50-year Jubilee of Emperor Franz Joseph. The route went (over the current bridge (Strombrücke) just single track ) for the moment to shooting range (Schießstätte) at Arbeiterstrandbadstraße and was on 22 December 1898 extended until Kagraner place. Operator was the Vienna-Kagraner train (WKB), which initially used for six railcars acquired from Hamburg. In 1904, the traffic operation of Vienna-Street Railways WKB.

The end of the bridge

1910 were counted in Vienna over two million inhabitants. On the left, northern bank of the Danube, more and more settlements and commercial enterprises emerged. This increased both the importance and the traffic on the Empire Bridge. Neither the load nor the total roadway width of less than eight meters were sufficient for this additional burden. 1930 damage was discovered at the bridge, which would have necessitated the refurbishment in the near future. In recent years, their stock weight restrictions has been to protect the bridge. Vienna's city government first planned a conversion of the old kingdom bridge. In 1933, under the federal government of Dollfuss a new building was disposed.

During the three years of construction work had the old bridge remain usable - ie the existing 340 meters long by 4,900-ton Strombrücke was there moved by 26 meters downstream in September 1934, and connected with the banks. The move operation lasted only six hours, the traffic interruption to the reusability lasted three days. The suspended bridge was then three years in operation. Immediately after the opening of its successor bridge it was dismantled.

Second Empire Bridge - 1937-1976

Second Reichsbrücke

The second Empire Bridge, circa 1975

Official name Reichsbrücke, from 11 April 1946 to 18 July 1956 the Red Army Bridge

Use private transport (2 lanes next to the tracks, 2 on the tracks), tram (2 tracks in the middle position), pedestrians (sidewalks 2)

Construction through the air: "Spurious" self-anchored chain bridge with reversed horizontal thrust); broadening of the inundation bridge used since 1876

Total length 1225 meters

Width 26.90 meters (including sidewalks)

Longest span 241.2 meters in the central opening, 60.05 and 61.05 meters in the side openings

Construction September 1934

Release 10 October 1937

Closure 1 August 1976 (collapse)

The second realm bridge had a total length of 1255 meters. The current bridge had a length of 373 meters and a maximum span length of 241.2 meters, the construction of the third largest chain bridge in Europe. It had two pylons made of steel with a height of 30 meters above road top, standing on two piers and with the bridge superstructure burd two steel chains carrying.

The bridge was staged as a symbol of the wealth and size of Vienna. So it was yet in the late 1930s next to St. Stephen's Cathedral and the Giant Ferris emblem for the third city of Vienna declared and served as an internationally used symbol on all promotional literature and invitations to the Vienna Exhibition in 1938.

Competition

First, the Commerce Department announced a precompetitive, although that could win the architects Emil Hoppe and Otto Schonthal, the result of which, however, did not correspond with the Ministry and the City of Vienna. The final competition for the construction of the Empire Bridge was finally announced in Spring 1933 and awarded in November. As architectural advisor to the eight-member jury acted the architect Clemens Holzmeister. The jurors selected from 64 submitted, one of which even provided for a tunnel under the river Danube. The winning project was a chain bridge by architects Siegfried Theiss and Hans Jaksch. This design provided only two pillars standing in the water. Three quarters of the full width of the river should be free spans. The bridge would connect directly to the still-to-use, only to be widened inundation bridge of the first Empire bridge over floodplain and Hubertusdamm.

Construction

Construction began on 26 February 1934, two weeks after the civil war-like battles in February. The cost of 24 million shillings were imposed to one third of the city of Vienna, two-thirds came from the federal budget. There were only Austrian companies involved in the construction. The two pillars were erected in caisson construction.

Soon the first difficulties appeared. The ground, especially in the Danube River, on which the bridge piers and anchor blocks for the chains should be founded, proved to be less viable than the planners had anticipated. It was originally planned to have to shoulder a large part of the weight of the Strombrücke, primarily of the area lying between the pillars middle part of the bridge, of two chains that run on both sides of the two pylons and should be anchored right in the river on heavy, solid anchor blocks of concrete. However, it was feared that this abutment on the Danube soft soil by the large tensile forces of 78.5 million N (8,000 t) per chain would start sliding and could not be adequately anchored in the Danube ground.

Professor Paul Fillunger of the Technical University of Vienna became the largest public critic of the building. He was of the opinion that not only the foundation of the anchor blocks, but also the pillars of the Danube in the soft ground was irresponsible because the bridge would not have the necessary stability. Contrasting opinion was his colleague of professors, soil mechanics Karl von Terzaghi. In his view, the nature of the Danube soil was suitable for the pier foundation. The disagreement was part of a personal feud, which was publicly held. Together with his wife Fillunger took in 1937 due to a disciplinary procedure that ran against him at the Technical University of Vienna his life. The construction of the bridge was rescheduled after the proposals Terzaghis: the chains were not fastened to anchor blocks on the Danube ground, but directly to the two main girders of the steel supporting structure, ie on the bridge itself anchored.

In June 1936, the building was overshadowed by a shipwreck: the people steamer "Vienna" DDSG was driven to a pillar. The ship broke up and sank immediately. Six people were killed.

The final link in the chain was composed of 98 members on 16 November 1936 inserted. Thereafter the lowering of the support stand began to displace the chain in tension. The production of the concrete deck slab of the bridge deck and the installation of sidewalks followed in the spring of 1937, in the summer, the bridge was painted dark green.

From 1 to 3 October 1937 the stress test of the building took place in the stretched chains and the pylons were slightly rotated. Were then driven as a load test 84 trucks and 28 loaded with stones streetcars on the bridge and left to stand there for a few hours. All measurements were running satisfactorily, so that on 4 October the first tram of line number 16 was able to drive over the kingdom bridge. A day later, the bridge was unofficially released for streetcar traffic. To traffic it remained locked up to its opening.

Austro-Fascist propaganda

A labor-and cost-intensive project such as the construction of the bridge was fully in line with the spirit of the Austro-fascist regime: the end of 1933, unemployment stood at 38.5 percent. The construction of the second Empire bridge can therefore be seen as a job creation project, similar to the construction of the Grossglockner High Alpine Road or the Vienna High Road.

On 10 October 1937, the Empire Bridge was officially opened. The corporate state government held a solemn state ceremony with President Wilhelm Miklas, Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg, Cardinal Theodor Innitzer, the Vienna Vice Mayor Fritz Lahr and Trade Minister Taucher who called the new Reich bridge as a "symbol of creating life force of the new Austria". Present were alongside architects, project managers and designers also a delegation of the opus "New Life" of the Fatherland Front, all workers involved in the construction of the construction companies and 10,000 school children. Soldiers of the armed forces lined the shore.

The Viennese city researcher Peter Payer writes about the pompous production:

"Conspicuously, propagated the carefully staged celebration the new model of society of the Austro-fascist government: the ending of the class struggle and overcoming social barriers through meaningful work and cooperation of all professional groups. [ ...] The completion of the bridge was portrayed as unprecedented cultural achievement, as a joint work of all involved". - Peter Payer.

The event was broadcast live on the radio, the newspapers reported widely about it. At the event, postcards, envelopes, and a commemorative stamp was issued and even a "Reichsbrücke song "composed, in which was said:

"A thousand hammers, wheels, files,

thousand hands had to rush

the great work that was!

Salvation of the work that connects,

Hail to the work, healing our land!"

- Empire Bridge Song

The Empire Bridge in the Second World War

During the Second World War the German army used two support pillars of reinforced concrete under the Empire Bridge into the Danube, so that the building would not completely fall into the water when it was hit, but could be repaired. In addition, at each of the two pylons were erected platforms for anti-aircraft guns.

In early April, 1945, in the last days of the war, Soviet armies were moving from the south and west heading to the city center. The fleeing units of the SS blew up in their retreat to the north gradually almost all Vienna Danube bridges.

For the Nordwestbahnbrücke, the Floridsdorfer bridge and the Nordbahnbrücke the "defenders" of Vienna had by Hitler's headquarters on the 8th April 1945 sought the permission for demolition, the Stadlauer Ostbahnbrücke was also blown up without explicit permission. With the Reichsbrücke, however, Hitler had personally for days the blasting ruled out, still yet at 11 April 1945, just on 13 April afternoon allowed, at a time when the southern bridgehead was already occupied by the Red Army, was the northern bridgehead without coverage in their field of fire and the German troops who had retreated to the left bank of the Danube, north west withdrew, for not beeing closed in by the Red Army. There was therefore no chance to blow. The Red Army occupied the evening of the 13th April also the northern bridgehead.

On 11 April, at the height of the battle of Vienna, the Russian troops with armored boats already had been advanced on the Danube to the Reichsbrücke (officially called by the Russians "Object 56") and had obscured the area. They went on the right bank of the Danube, about 500 meters northwest of the bridge, on land and moved slowly to the building.

Decades later, it was unclear why exactly the Empire bridge was not blown up. The Red Army, the Austrian resistance movement O5 as well as members of the armed forces later claimed they just would have prevented the explosion. One version said that, at the Battle of 11 April some soldiers of the Red Army should have gotten to the beachhead, where they destroyed the explosive lines. Another version was that Red Army soldiers were led by a knowledgeable local Vienna sewer worker sneaked through the sewer system of Vienna to the bridge to prevent the demolition. Clarity created in 2012 the analysis of historical sources with the résumé. Ultimately, it was Hitler himself which had prevented demolition of the bridge until the last moment. The Reichsbrücke was now the only intact bridge crossing over the Danube between Linz and the state border. She was thus given a status symbol, it was a sign of the resilience of Austria.

The city council renamed the Empire Bridge on the anniversary of the liberation of Vienna on 11 April 1946 in honor of the liberators "Bridge of the Red Army Bridge". Was also on this occasion by the city government to the left of the bridge driveway in the 2nd district an obelisk (reddish colored lightweight concrete on wood construction) erected with the Soviet Star on the top of which was in German and Russian to read:

"THE HERO WILL

LANDING GUARD SQUAD

AND SAILORS

IN GRATITUDE

THE EXEMPT

VIENNA "

- Obelisk, then plaque on the bridge

The obelisk was removed after 1955. The inscription was then attached on a bronze plaque that was mounted directly to the bridge. The bridge was at 18 July 1956 re-named Reichsbrücke.

Reichsbrücke in the postwar period

To the rebuilding of Floridsdorfer bridge 1946 the Reichsbrücke was the only way to reach Vienna coming from the northeast on the road. Although it was not blown up, it still suffered numerous losses, primarily by shellfire. In 1946, took place the first rehabilitation of war damage of the bridge, from May 1947 work on a larger scale was made. Thereby five hanging rods have been mended and repaired the vault of the inundation bridge. The smoke control ceiling above the Donauuferbahn has been replaced. At seven chain links had to be renewed a total of 26 blades. For this temporary piers were used on barges, which again ate on the river bed. The work was finished in 1952. On the Reichsbrücke originally was wooden heel patch installed, this was 1958-1960 replaced by granite stone pavement, which resulted in an additional load of 4688 kN for each pylon bearing. The enormous, newly ascended individual traffic led more often hinder the tram traffic on the bridge, therefore the tracks in the sixties by blocking lines have been declared not approved for individual traffic of the roadway. Now, congestion of vehicular traffic was the result.

Empire bridge collapse in 1976

The southern, right after the collapse of the banks, recording August 1976

Bridge debris on the north, left bank, recording August 1976

On Sunday, the first August 1976 Reichsbrücke 4:53 to 4:55 clock crashed to almost full length of the main bridge into the water. The first radio announcement was made at 5:00 clock. An eyewitness described the collapse as". The whole bridge has suddenly lifted a foot and then dropped loud crashing on the entire length".

On the Kaibrücke as well as on the Überschwemmungsbrücke (inundation bridge) the carrier collapsed in several places, but both bridges were standing. The Strombrücke itself broke into three parts, the middle part falling into the water as a whole and and the two outer parts obliquely hanging into the water. The south-facing pylon fell downstream and damaged heavily the stern of a passenger ship, the north side pylon collapsed in the other direction on the flood plain.

At the time of the collapse, five people were in four vehicles on the bridge: a bus driver in an urban articulated, two employees of the ÖAMTC in a roadside assistance vehicle, the driver of a Volkswagen Beetle, which had requested the breakdown service because of a defective tire following an accident as well as the driver of a minibus, who was employed as a driver at the ORF. The bus driver crashed his vehicle into the Danube and was rescued unharmed within hours. The ÖAMTC employees and the VW drivers were on that part of the Kaibrücke, which indeed broke and fell, but not completely destroyed, so that they could save themselves by foot. The ORF driver was trapped in his pickup truck and found his dead the day after the collapse.

Within an hour was a quarter of all vehicles of the in Vienna available Fire Brigade on the site of the collapse, it was the alarm given stage IV. Also, police, ambulance and army were represented by large contingents. The on the bridge located water pipes that supplied drinking water to the north of Vienna, put the Handelskai under water. Explosions were also feared because the gas lines running across the bridge were broken. There was on the scene for days strict non-smoking. First, many people were north of the Danube without gas, electricity, water and telephone. Already on the second August was, however, restored the supply.

de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichsbr%C3%BCcke

Free To Use by Susan Criser

20 4

For your Art Only, not for Sale on a CD

Who's that doggie in the window? by Amber Aiken

14 21

Used some natural light from our picture window for this portrait of Mr. B.

Sky Believe In Better ;0) by Paul Whittaker

5 4

Using natural light from the window

Using my new canon EF 24-105L F/4 IS USM Lens well pleased with it

Use your Talents by JoDee Luna

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Use your Talents reminds us to pursue our passions imperfectly. This piece visualizes Henry Van Dyke's poem with colorful birds perched on a branch woven through a woman's hair.

Used to be a tree by Andrew Lucchesi

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iPhone 4S + qbro + Chip Photo + Decim8 Veth filter + Filterstorm + Old Photo Pro + ScratchCam