Floating Clouds (artwork)
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Floating Clouds (artwork)
''Floating Clouds'' (sometimes called ''Flying Saucers'' by the artist) is a work of art by American sculptor Alexander Calder, located in the Aula Magna of the University City of Caracas in Venezuela. The 1953 work comprises many 'cloud' panels that are renowned both artistically and acoustically. The piece is seen as "one of Calder's most truly monumental works" and the prime example of the urban-artistic theory of campus architect Carlos Raúl Villanueva. Originally intended as only an art piece, the panels were moved inside the Aula Magna to resolve the poor acoustics caused by the hall's design; the hall has since been said to have some of the best acoustics in the world. The ''Floating Clouds'' are named specifically in the UNESCO listing of the campus as a World Heritage Site, and are greatly renowned in Venezuela. Background The Venezuelan architect and designer Carlos Raúl Villanueva began designing the University City of Caracas campus in the 1940s, beginning cons ...
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Alexander Calder
Alexander Calder (; July 22, 1898 – November 11, 1976) was an American sculptor known both for his innovative mobiles (kinetic sculptures powered by motors or air currents) that embrace chance in their aesthetic, his static "stabiles", and his monumental public sculptures. Calder preferred not to analyze his work, saying, "Theories may be all very well for the artist himself, but they shouldn't be broadcast to other people." Early life Alexander "Sandy" Calder was born in 1898 in Lawnton, Pennsylvania. His birthdate remains a source of confusion. According to Calder's mother, Nanette (née Lederer), Calder was born on August 22, yet his birth certificate at Philadelphia City Hall, based on a hand-written ledger, stated July 22. When Calder's family learned of the birth certificate, they asserted with certainty that city officials had made a mistake. Calder's grandfather, sculptor Alexander Milne Calder, was born in Scotland, had immigrated to Philadelphia in 1868, and is best ...
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List Of Artworks In University City Of Caracas
The University City of Caracas is a World Heritage Site in Caracas, Venezuela. It is a functional university campus for the Central University of Venezuela, as well as home to 108 notable works of art and famous examples of creative architecture. Many works of art are Modernism, modernist and mosaic. The campus was designed by architect Carlos Raúl Villanueva, who oversaw much of the construction and design work, with the artwork overseen by Mateo Manaure. Villanueva primarily enlisted artists who were either European or had European influences – Villanueva himself had been inspired for the campus design in Paris – including members of Los Disidentes, a group of Venezuelan artists who left for Europe to break from the Mexican mural tradition. Some artists did not initially want to work on the project, as they were opposed to the History of Venezuela (1948–1958), military dictatorship in place in Venezuela at the time, but French artist Fernand Léger encouraged them to part ...
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1953 Sculptures
Events January * January 6 – The Asian Socialist Conference opens in Rangoon, Burma. * January 12 – Estonian émigrés found a government-in-exile in Oslo. * January 14 ** Marshal Josip Broz Tito is chosen President of Yugoslavia. ** The CIA-sponsored Robertson Panel first meets to discuss the UFO phenomenon. * January 15 – Georg Dertinger, foreign minister of East Germany, is arrested for spying. * January 19 – 71.1% of all television sets in the United States are tuned into '' I Love Lucy'', to watch Lucy give birth to Little Ricky, which is more people than those who tune into Dwight Eisenhower's inauguration the next day. This record has yet to be broken. * January 20 – Dwight D. Eisenhower is sworn in as the 34th President of the United States. * January 24 ** Mau Mau Uprising: Rebels in Kenya kill the Ruck family (father, mother, and six-year-old son). ** Leader of East Germany Walter Ulbricht announces that agriculture will be collectiv ...
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List Of Alexander Calder Public Works
This is a list of artworks by Alexander Calder that are available to the public. United States California * ''The Hawk for Peace'', 1968, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, University of California, Berkeley * ''Bucephalus'', 1963, Saroyan Theatre, Fresno * ''Three Quintains'', 1964, Los Angeles County Museum of Art * Four Arches', 1973, 333 S. Hope Street, Bunker Hill, Los Angeles * ''Spinal Column'', 1968, San Diego Museum of Art * ''Le Faucon (The Falcon)'', 1963, Stanford University, Palo Alto * ''Button Flower'', 1959, University of California, Los Angeles * ''Big Crinkly'', 1969, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art * ''Jerusalem Stabile'', 1967, On loan to the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens, San Marino * '' Spiny Top, Curly Bottom'', 1963, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles * '' The Jousters'', 1963, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles Connecticut * ''Stegosaurus'', 1973, Alfred E. Burr Mall, Hartford * ''Gallows and Lollipops'', 196 ...
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Leo Beranek
Leo Leroy Beranek (September 15, 1914 – October 10, 2016) was an American acoustics expert, former MIT professor, and a founder and former president of Bolt, Beranek and Newman (now BBN Technologies). He authored ''Acoustics'', considered a classic textbook in this field, and its updated and extended version published in 2012 under the title ''Acoustics: Sound Fields and Transducers''. He was also an expert in the design and evaluation of concert halls and opera houses, and authored the classic textbook ''Music, Acoustics, and Architecture'', revised and extended in 2004 under the title ''Concert Halls and Opera Houses: Music, Acoustics, and Architecture''. Early life and education Beranek was born in 1914 in Solon, Iowa. His father Edward Fred Beranek was a farmer whose ancestors came from Bohemia (in what is now the Czech Republic) and his mother Beatrice Stahle, previously a schoolteacher, had become a farmwife. Edward's paternal grandparents Josef Beránek and Anna Ši ...
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Logo Centenario (2450070248)
A logo (abbreviation of logotype; ) is a graphic mark, emblem, or symbol used to aid and promote public identification and recognition. It may be of an abstract or figurative design or include the text of the name it represents as in a wordmark. In the days of hot metal typesetting, a logotype was one word cast as a single piece of type (e.g. "The" in ATF Garamond), as opposed to a ligature, which is two or more letters joined, but not forming a word. By extension, the term was also used for a uniquely set and arranged typeface or colophon. At the level of mass communication and in common usage, a company's logo is today often synonymous with its trademark or brand.Wheeler, Alina. ''Designing Brand Identity'' © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (page 4) Etymology Douglas Harper's Online Etymology Dictionary states that the term 'logo' used in 1937 "probably a shortening of logogram". History Numerous inventions and techniques have contributed to the contemporary logo, includ ...
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Latin American Art
Latin American art is the combined artistic expression of South America, Central America, the Caribbean, and Mexico, as well as Latin Americans living in other regions. The art has roots in the many different indigenous cultures that inhabited the Americas before European colonization in the 16th century. The indigenous cultures each developed sophisticated artistic disciplines, which were highly influenced by religious and spiritual concerns. Their work is collectively known and referred to as Pre-Columbian art. The blending of Amerindian, European and African cultures has resulted in a unique Mestizo tradition. Colonial period During the colonial period, a mixture of indigenous traditions and European influences (mainly due to the Christian teachings of Franciscan, Augustinian and Dominican friars) produced a very particular Christian art known as Indochristian art. In addition to indigenous art, the development of Latin American visual art was significantly influenced by S ...
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Fiberglass
Fiberglass (American English) or fibreglass (Commonwealth English) is a common type of fiber-reinforced plastic using glass fiber. The fibers may be randomly arranged, flattened into a sheet called a chopped strand mat, or woven into glass cloth. The plastic matrix may be a thermoset polymer matrix—most often based on thermosetting polymers such as epoxy, polyester resin, or vinyl ester resin—or a thermoplastic. Cheaper and more flexible than carbon fiber, it is stronger than many metals by weight, non- magnetic, non-conductive, transparent to electromagnetic radiation, can be molded into complex shapes, and is chemically inert under many circumstances. Applications include aircraft, boats, automobiles, bath tubs and enclosures, swimming pools, hot tubs, septic tanks, water tanks, roofing, pipes, cladding, orthopedic casts, surfboards, and external door skins. Other common names for fiberglass are glass-reinforced plastic (GRP), glass-fiber reinforced plastic (GFRP) or GF ...
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Architectural Acoustics
Architectural acoustics (also known as building acoustics) is the science and engineering of achieving a good sound within a building and is a branch of acoustical engineering. The first application of modern scientific methods to architectural acoustics was carried out by the American physicist Wallace Sabine in the Fogg Museum lecture room. He applied his newfound knowledge to the design of Symphony Hall, Boston. Architectural acoustics can be about achieving good speech intelligibility in a theatre, restaurant or railway station, enhancing the quality of music in a concert hall or recording studio, or suppressing noise to make offices and homes more productive and pleasant places to work and live in. Architectural acoustic design is usually done by acoustic consultants. Building skin envelope This science analyzes noise transmission from building exterior envelope to interior and vice versa. The main noise paths are roofs, eaves, walls, windows, door and penetrations. S ...
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False Ceiling
A dropped ceiling is a secondary ceiling, hung below the main (structural) ceiling. It may also be referred to as a drop ceiling, T-bar ceiling, false ceiling, suspended ceiling, grid ceiling, drop in ceiling, drop out ceiling, or ceiling tiles and is a staple of modern construction and architecture in both residential and commercial applications. History Dropped ceilings and ceiling tiles were used in Japan for aesthetic reasons as early as the Muromachi Period (1337 to 1573).Interview with Matthew Welch, Curator of Japanese and Korean Art, Minneapolis Institute of Arts
retrieved January 12, 2014
These could be made with simple planks, or

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Conch
Conch () is a common name of a number of different medium-to-large-sized sea snails. Conch shells typically have a high spire and a noticeable siphonal canal (in other words, the shell comes to a noticeable point at both ends). In North America, a conch is often identified as a queen conch, indigenous to the waters of the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean. Queen conches are valued for seafood and are also used as fish bait. The group of conches that are sometimes referred to as "true conches" are marine gastropod molluscs in the family Strombidae, specifically in the genus ''Strombus'' and other closely related genera. For example, ''Lobatus gigas'', the queen conch, and ''Laevistrombus canarium'', the dog conch, are true conches. Many other species are also often called "conch", but are not at all closely related to the family Strombidae, including ''Melongena'' species (family Melongenidae) and the horse conch ''Triplofusus papillosus'' (family Fasciolariidae). Species comm ...
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BBN Technologies
Raytheon BBN (originally Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc.) is an American research and development company, based next to Fresh Pond in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. In 1966, the Franklin Institute awarded the firm the Frank P. Brown Medal, in 1999 BBN received the IEEE Corporate Innovation Recognition, and on 1 February 2013, BBN was awarded the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, the highest honors that the U.S. government bestows upon scientists, engineers and inventors, by President Barack Obama. It became a wholly owned subsidiary of Raytheon in 2009. History BBN has its roots in an initial partnership formed on 15 October 1948 between Leo Beranek and Richard Bolt, professors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Bolt had won a commission to be an acoustic consultant for the new United Nations permanent headquarters to be built in New York City. Realizing the magnitude of the project at hand, Bolt had pulled in his MIT colleague Beranek for h ...
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