Friday, October 30, 2009

Wilson Eyre(October 30, 1858 - Oct. 23, 1944)


Wilson Eyre, Jr. (October 30, 1858 - Oct. 23, 1944) was an influential American architect and writer who practiced in the Philadelphia area. The son of Americans living abroad, he was born in Florence, Italy, and educated in Europe, Newport, Rhode Island, and Canada. He studied architecture briefly at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, joined the Philadelphia offices of James Peacock Sims in 1877, and took over the firm on Sims’s death in 1882. In 1911, he entered into partnership with John Gilbert McIlvaine, and opened a second office in New York City. The firm of Eyre & McIlvaine continued until 1939.

Architect and author


Eyre is known for his deliberately informal and welcoming country houses, and for being an innovator in the Shingle Style. For his most important early houses, "Anglecot" (1883) and "Farwood" (1884-85), he used a similar plan: a line of asymmetrical public rooms stretching along a single axis, extending even outside to a piazza. Like many Shingle Style architects, he employed the open "living hall" as an organizing element in his plans. All of the main first floor rooms connected to the living hall, often through large openings. In addition, he used staircases to extend the space of the hall to the second floor. According to architectural-historian Vincent Scully: "This sense of extended horizontal plane and intensified "positive" scale evident in Eyre's work becomes later a basic component in the work of [Frank Lloyd] Wright..."Eyre collaborated with artists such as Alexander Stirling Calder and Louis Comfort Tiffany.

Following his early success, Eyre became a leader in the international country life movement, traveling to England and corresponding with British and German architects. He was one of the first U.S. architects to be featured in the Arts & Crafts magazine International Studio, and he was published by Hermann Muthesius, the chronicler of the so-called "English" house of the turn of the century. Among foreign designers, Eyre was arguably the best known domestic architect in the U.S. prior to Frank Lloyd Wright's rise to prominence. His post-1890 country houses, such as "Allgates" (1910, expanded by Eyre & McIlvaine 1917) are among the most accomplished American essays in the restrained stucco cottage idiom popularized by C.F. Voysey and Ernest Newton in England. He was one of the founders and editors of House & Garden magazine.[2] He designed many distinctive gardens with his residences, and wrote extensively of the need for interaction between rooms and outdoor spaces.

Eyre was also renowned for his distinctive artistic drawings, often in watercolor. His extant drawings are now housed in the Architectural Archives of the University of Pennsylvania. He was elected a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects in 1893. In 1917, he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Philadelphia Chapter of the American Institute of Architects. He taught at the University of Pennsylvania, and was one of the founders of the T Square Club of Philadelphia in 1883.

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Jimmy Carter (1924)

Achievements
Carter served as US President from 1977 to 1981. His foreign policy had some success—he mediated the Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt and signed an arms treaty with the USSR—but his domestic policy was less effective, and oil-related inflation and unemployment hurt his bid for re-election. Since leaving office, Carter has been active in human-rights causes and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. In 2007, Carter earned a Grammy Award for best album in what category? More... Discuss

James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. (born October 1, 1924) served as the 39th President of the United States from 1977 to 1981 and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office. Prior to becoming president, Carter served two terms in the Georgia Senate followed by the governorship of the state of Georgia, from 1971 to 1975[1], and was a peanut farmer and naval officer.

As president, Carter created two new cabinet-level departments: the Department of Energy and the Department of Education. He established a national energy policy that included conservation, price control, and new technology. In foreign affairs, Carter pursued the Camp David Accords, the Panama Canal Treaties and the second round of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT II). Carter sought to put a stronger emphasis on human rights; he negotiated a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt in 1979. His return of the Panama Canal Zone to Panama was seen as a major concession of US influence in Latin America, and Carter came under heavy criticism for it. His term came during a period of persistent stagflation in a number of countries, including the United States, which significantly damaged his popularity. The final year of his presidential tenure was marked by several major crises, including the 1979 takeover of the American embassy in Iran and holding of hostages by Iranian students, an unsuccessful rescue attempt of the hostages, serious fuel shortages, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. By 1980, Carter's disapproval ratings were significantly higher than his approval, and he was challenged by Ted Kennedy for the Democratic Party nomination in the 1980 election. Carter defeated Kennedy for the nomination, but lost the election to Republican Ronald Reagan.

After leaving office, Carter and his wife Rosalynn founded The Carter Center in 1982 [2], a nongovernmental, not-for-profit organization that works to advance human rights. He has traveled extensively to conduct peace negotiations, observe elections, and advance disease prevention and eradication in developing nations. Carter is a key figure in the Habitat for Humanity project,[3] and also remains particularly vocal on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As of 2009[update], Carter is the second-oldest living former president, three months and 19 days younger than George H. W. Bush.

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