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Sven Bylander
Sven Bylander (1877–1943) was a Swedish engineer who created steel reinforced buildings, designing some of the first steel-framed buildings in London. His frames included the Ritz Hotel and Selfridges Department Store, which were two of his most memorable works. His standardization methods were instrumental in development of the LCC (General Powers) Act 1909. Biography Sven Bylander was born in 1877 in Sweden. He learned about steel in a shipyard and incorporated that knowledge into buildings beginning in Germany and the US. He arrived in London in 1902 and was employed by the Waring White Building Company. Prior to Bylander, British building codes and methods of using steel and concrete were haphazard and described by colleagues as consisting of "builders, in using steelwork in building simply piled one piece on top of another, stuck a few bolts in and called it constructional steelwork". The methods he brought to Britain and the influence of Harry Gordon Selfridge and the Con ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Ritz Hotel, London
The Ritz London is a Grade II listed 5-star hotel in Piccadilly, London, England. A symbol of high society and luxury, the hotel is one of the world's most prestigious and best known. The Ritz has become so associated with luxury and elegance that the word "ritzy" has entered the English language to denote something that is ostentatiously stylish, fancy, or fashionable. The hotel was opened by Swiss hotelier César Ritz in 1906, eight years after he established the Hôtel Ritz Paris. It began to gain popularity towards the end of World War I, with politicians, socialites, writers and actors in particular. David Lloyd George held a number of secret meetings at the Ritz in the latter half of the war, and it was at the Ritz that he made the decision to intervene on behalf of Greece against Turkey. Noël Coward was a notable diner at the Ritz in the 1920s and 1930s. Owned by the Bracewell Smith family until 1976, David and Frederick Barclay purchased the hotel for £80 million in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Selfridges, Oxford Street
Selfridges is a Grade II* listed retail premises on Oxford Street in London. It was designed by Daniel Burnham for Harry Gordon Selfridge, and opened in 1909. Still the headquarters of Selfridge & Co. department stores, with of selling space, the store is the second largest retail premises in the UK (after Harrods). It was named the world's best department store in 2010, and again in 2012. Background In 1906, Harry Gordon Selfridge travelled to England on holiday with his wife, Rose. Selfridge had made his fortune as a department store executive in Chicago. Unimpressed with the quality of existing British retailers, he noticed that the large stores in London had not adopted the latest selling ideas that were being used in the United States. Selfridge decided to invest £400,000 in building his own department store in what was then the unfashionable western end of Oxford Street, by slowly buying up a series of Georgian architecture buildings which were on the desired block defi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal Automobile Club
The Royal Automobile Club is a British private social and athletic club. It has two clubhouses: one in London at 89 Pall Mall, and the other in the countryside at Woodcote Park, near Epsom in Surrey. Both provide accommodation and a range of dining and sporting facilities. The Royal Automobile Club has a wide range of members. It is best-known for establishing the roadside assistance service RAC Limited, though this is no longer owned by the club. History It was founded on 10 August 1897, with the name Automobile Club of Great Britain (which was later changed to Automobile Club of Great Britain and Ireland). The headquarters was originally in a block of flats at 4 Whitehall Court, before moving to 119 Piccadilly in 1902. In 1902, the organisation, together with the recently formed Association of Motor Manufactures and Traders, campaigned vigorously for the relaxation of speed limits, claiming that the 14 mph speed limit imposed by the Locomotives on Highways Act ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ravenscourt Park Hospital
The Royal Masonic Hospital was a hospital in the Ravenscourt Park area of Hammersmith, west London, built and opened in 1933. The Grade II* listed building became the Ravenscourt Park Hospital in 2002, but this closed in 2006. As of May 2015 the hospital was expected to reopen in 2017 as the 150-bed London International Hospital, a centre for medical tourism. However, London International Hospital Limited commenced winding up proceedings on 30 March 2017, and was dissolved on 28 March 2018, owing £15 million to the Imperial College Healthcare Trust. History The Freemasons' War Hospital, was opened by London Freemasons with support from lodges in Gloucestershire (Royal York Lodge, Stroud) and around England during the First World War in Fulham Road, London, in the premises of the former Chelsea Hospital for Women, and treated over 4,000 servicemen by the end of the war. In 1920 it opened as the Freemason's Hospital and Nursing Home, but outgrew its premises. The new hospital ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harry Gordon Selfridge
Harry Gordon Selfridge, Sr. (11 January 1858 – 8 May 1947) was an American retail magnate who founded the London-based department store Selfridges. His 20-year leadership of Selfridges led to his becoming one of the most respected and wealthy retail magnates in the United Kingdom. He was known as the 'Earl of Oxford Street'. Born in Ripon, Wisconsin, and raised in Jackson, Michigan, Selfridge delivered newspapers and left school at 14 when he found work at a bank in Jackson. Selfridge eventually obtained a stock boy position at Marshall Field's department store in Chicago, where over the next 25 years, he rose to become a partner. In 1890, he married the wealthy Rose Buckingham who was from a prominent Chicago family. In 1906, following a trip to London, Selfridge invested £400,000 to build a new department store in what was then the unfashionable western end of Oxford Street. Selfridges, Oxford Street, opened to the public on 15 March 1909, and Selfridge remained chairman ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Institution Of Structural Engineers
The Institution of Structural Engineers is a professional body for structural engineering based in the United Kingdom. The Institution has over 30,000 members operating in over 100 countries. The Institution provides professional accreditation for structural engineers and publishes a monthly magazine, The Structural Engineer'. The Institution also has a research journal titled ''Structures,'' published by Elsevier, Inc. The Institution is an internationally recognised source of expertise and information concerning all issues that involve structural engineering and public safety within the built environment. The Institution uphold standards, shares knowledge, promotes structural engineering and provides a voice for the structural engineering profession. History The Institution gained its Royal Charter in March 1934. It was established at the Ritz Hotel, London on 21 July 1908 as the Concrete Institute, as the result of a need to define standards and rules for the proper use ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Mewès
Charles-Frédéric Mewès (30 January 1858 - 9 August 1914) was a French architect and designer. Biography Born in Strasbourg, Alsace in 1858, Charles Frédéric Mewès grew up a Parisian after his family fled the Prussian invasion and annexation of Alsace in 1870. ''RIBA Journal'' described him as "essentially a big man, both mentally and physically. He was a magnetic personality with a compelling influence tempered by a humorous and tolerant outlook on life". He trained under Jean-Louis Pascal at the École des Beaux-Arts and throughout his career, eschewed Art Nouveau and the Modern style for an elegant, meticulous recall of eighteenth-century France: the logical, spatial symmetry of Louis XVI style recurs continuously. Mewès's hotels, steamer interiors, clubs, and private residences suited the Edwardians' opulent taste. He designed the Hôtel Ritz in Paris (1898), the Ritz Hotel in London (1905-1906), and the Hotel Ritz in Madrid (1908-1910); he was also the designer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Daniel Burnham
Daniel Hudson Burnham (September 4, 1846 – June 1, 1912) was an American architect and urban designer. A proponent of the '' Beaux-Arts'' movement, he may have been, "the most successful power broker the American architectural profession has ever produced." A successful Chicago architect, he was selected as Director of Works for the 1892–93 World's Columbian Exposition, colloquially referred to as "The White City". He had prominent roles in the creation of master plans for the development of a number of cities, including the Plan of Chicago, and plans for Manila, Baguio and downtown Washington, D.C. He also designed several famous buildings, including a number of notable skyscrapers in Chicago, the Flatiron Building of triangular shape in New York City, Union Station in Washington D.C., London's Selfridges department store, and San Francisco's Merchants Exchange. Although best known for his skyscrapers, city planning, and for the White City, almost one third of Burnham's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metropolitan Buildings Office
The Metropolitan Buildings Office was formed in 1845 to regulate the construction and use of buildings in the metropolitan area of London, England. Surveyors were empowered to enforce building regulations which sought to improve the standard of houses and business premises, and to regulate activities that might threaten public health. In 1855 the assets, powers and responsibilities of the office passed to the Metropolitan Board of Works. Formation The office was established by the Metropolitan Buildings Act 1844 (7 & 8 Vict., c.84 with the following purposes: * Improvement of drainage * Securing sufficient width of streets to ensure adequate ventilation * Regulation of explosive works * Regulation of "deleterious" works * To appoint officers to superintend the Act Places under the Act The limits in which the Act were to operate were defined as: * On the north side of the River Thames the area within the external boundaries of the parishes of Fulham, Hammersmith, Kensington, Pa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bryant And May
Bryant & May was a British company created in the mid-19th century specifically to make matches. Their original Bryant & May Factory was located in Bow, London. They later opened other match factories in the United Kingdom and Australia, such as the Bryant & May Factory, Melbourne, and owned match factories in other parts of the world. Formed in 1843 by two Quakers, William Bryant and Francis May, Bryant & May survived as an independent company for over seventy years, but went through a series of mergers with other match companies and later with consumer products companies. The registered trade name Bryant & May still exists and it is owned by Swedish Match, as are many of the other registered trade names of the other, formerly independent, companies within the Bryant & May group. Formation The match-making company Bryant & May was formed in 1843 by two Quakers, William Bryant and Francis May, to trade in general merchandise. In 1850 the company entered into a relationship ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1877 Births
Events January–March * January 1 – Queen Victoria is proclaimed ''Empress of India'' by the ''Royal Titles Act 1876'', introduced by Benjamin Disraeli, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom . * January 8 – Great Sioux War of 1876 – Battle of Wolf Mountain: Crazy Horse and his warriors fight their last battle with the United States Cavalry in Montana. * January 20 – The Conference of Constantinople ends, with Ottoman Turkey rejecting proposals of internal reform and Balkan provisions. * January 29 – The Satsuma Rebellion, a revolt of disaffected samurai in Japan, breaks out against the new imperial government; it lasts until September, when it is crushed by a professionally led army of draftees. * February 17 – Major General Charles George Gordon of the British Army is appointed Governor-General of the Sudan. * March – ''The Nineteenth Century (periodical), The Nineteenth Century'' magazine is founded in London. * Marc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1943 Deaths
Events Below, the events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix. January * January 1 – WWII: The Soviet Union announces that 22 German divisions have been encircled at Stalingrad, with 175,000 killed and 137,650 captured. * January 4 – WWII: Greek-Polish athlete and saboteur Jerzy Iwanow-Szajnowicz is executed by the Germans at Kaisariani. * January 11 ** The United States and United Kingdom revise previously unequal treaty relationships with the Republic of China (1912–1949), Republic of China. ** Italian-American anarchist Carlo Tresca is assassinated in New York City. * January 13 – Anti-Nazi protests in Sofia result in 200 arrests and 36 executions. * January 14 – January 24, 24 – WWII: Casablanca Conference: Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States; Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom; and Generals Charles de Gaulle and Henri Giraud of the Free French forces meet secretly at the Anfa Hotel in Casablanca, Morocco, to plan the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
